Over pasta and Tiramisu in Palo Alto last week I met up with Aayush Phambhra, founder of Chegg. Having both had the problem of overly priced University textbooks, we discussed the mission of Chegg - which I fully endorse.

Firstly, it’s a noble profession to help the world in education and with Google Books making it an open environment where any device can (not like Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle ) access books, I like what Chegg are doing.

At some point, mankind needed to invent a distribution system that would take in real time the knowledge contained in books to those who afford to buy a book or find a library who could lend them a book. Having a library to last forever is a noble cause and I hope others around the world help Chegg make books accessible to their people. Education is the key to a better world. Aayush, Chegg and Google Books are doing that. Keep up the good work.

Over coffee in San Francisco this week with Dax Hamman, Head of Display Media at iCrossing, we  discussed the EU cookie law change. Check out the overview here: http://www.daxthink.com/2009/11/eu-passes-cookie-law-opt-in-required.html.

So when I think of retailers such as BestBuy, Eddie Bauer and advertising networks such as Permuto, I can’t help but realize there are going to be a lot of compliance required - not least of all for management here in Silicon Valley to understand the regulatory changes. Perhaps the consumer age of the Internet is going to take on more of the restrictions that mass marketing channels such as direct mail and tele-marketing services now have to comply with.

I was in London in the previous weeks and visited the BBC on several occaisions. The full impact of the Internet dawned upon me as the plans were unveiled to launch the BBC.com to the world in Q1, 2010. It is a milestone that my firm, SearchForecast can work with the technical leaders at the BBC to help architect the structure of how that content can be maximized for search engines.