This is terrific.

Here’s an AP article about Google censoring their search results in China.

Here’s what Google says on their Company Overview page: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Go ahead and Google “universally accessible,” and you’ll see that the phrase has more to do with disabilities than politics, though this is clearly a political issue as much as it’s a business issue and an ethical issue.

The AP story notes: “To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit Web content that the country’s government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisons on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.”

You can Google “China Google firewall” and similar word combos all day long for information about all this. This blog post, with several additional links, is as good a place as any to start.

Starting today, you can see a preview of Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher, Amazon.com’s new weekly program starting in June. Available now: a couple of minutes of highlights, a UPS commercial, and a pretty good nine-minute interview with Stephen King. Says Amazon:

“Every week throughout the summer, the show will feature live performances from renowned musicians and thought-provoking interviews with authors, directors, and actors. Beginning June 1, the show will be streamed every Thursday at Amazon.com at 8 p.m. Pacific / 11 p.m. Eastern.”

Whatever you think of him politically, Maher is a good interviewer. He’s able to get interesting guests, and get interesting stuff out of them. But repurposed TV doesn’t really feel like what the future of Internet video is all about, and this feels like a repurposed Real Time. Still, it’ll be interesting to see if it has any traction … and whether it sells any more books and DVDs.

By the way, I trust that by the time June rolls around, they’ll have fixed it so that amazon.com/fishbowl gets you there.

The day before yesterday, I noted that your Web site can be judged in a fraction of a second. Jeff Rosenbloom, co-founder and research and strategy director of something called Questus, is a bit more generous in this ClickZ article, noting, “We find that Web sites have three seconds to make an impression.” The point remains: You have very little time to make your first — and possibly last — impression.

And if that first impression is inviting enough, clean site design overall translates into higher conversion rates, according to a Questus survey. Site navigation was important to 37% of respondents, the checkout process mattered to 32%, and insufficient product descriptions mattered to 38%. Registering with a site, difficulty locating products; and a lack of trust also made big differences.

Takeaway for marketers: Design counts, but don’t let it get in the way of what your customers want to accomplish.

One of the great things about the Internet is its ability to deepen your cultural appreciation of … well, in this case, of Family Guy. Did you realize that when Stewie was singing “Rocket Man” he was parodying William Shatner? Have you seen the original Shatner clip? Want to?