At first I was skeptical that this article was without bias regarding Wordpress.com since it was Matt Mullenweg's own blog that referred me to the story. I was pleased to discover that the author, Jonathan Bailey, helped erased my skepticism in his well written article, Wordpress.com is Virtually Spam Free. The first two paragraphs should get you interested in reading more.
I'm convinced that digital identity and universal authentication systems will make it big on the IT radar scope for 2007. While a number of propriety systems have cropped up over the years, the open-source project OpenID has started to make headlines as it tackles the problems and solutions for digital identity.
OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.
The local newspaper for Sioux Falls, SD contains an article about an online service called Feed Rinse. The service "can rinse your feeds by keyword, author, tag, etc, or filter profanity and more." According to the article, the service is making national headlines on their Feed Rinse product. I've never used the service, so I can't really give it thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Some excerpts from the Argus Leader: