This morning brings another cautionary tale for anyone trying to build a Website or a business using data from another site. Visual search engine ManagedQ is broken right now because it took images of Websites from another visual search engine, Snap, without permission. (See screenshot above). Sound familiar? Alexaholic (now Statsaholic) ran into similar trouble with Amazon a year ago for taking graphs from Alexa before they were officially available through its API (read more about that dispute here).

It is unfortunate that Snap effectively disabled ManagedQ, which is run by a few programmers out of a basement in Palo Alto. But it goes to show that just because data is becoming more freely available on the Web, you still have to be careful about building a business on another company’s data. It appears that ManagedQ based its visual previews entirely on Snap’s images. As I wrote in a review last month:

Every time you do a search on ManagedQ, a grid appears on the right of the first six results so you can visually see what is on the other side of what is normally a blue link. If you click on one of the images, it opens up a larger, browsable window still within ManagedQ. The idea is that you can surf the Web without leaving the search application.

The way ManagedQ was using the images violated Snap’s terms of service (TOS), according to Snap CEO Tom McGovern. Snap does distribute these images through its Snap Shots widgets. (We use them on TechCrunch. If you mouse over any external link in this post, an image of the Web page on the other end will pop up). After coming across the site, his engineers figured out that ManagedQ was taking the images from Snap without any attribution or link, and cloaking the fact that it had done so. After contacting ManagedQ and not getting a response, McGovern ordered his engineers to block the site’s access to Snap’s images. Warns McGovern:

Folks really need to use services per the TOS. Otherwise they will go the way of ManagedQ or Alexaholic.

Ouch. At least his engineers didn’t replace the Website snap shots with goatse images. But the reaction does seem a bit harsh, especially for a tiny site like ManagedQ. Was McGovern justified in his response? Here’s what ManagedQ looked like before:

managedq-4-small.png

Update: ManagedQ founder David Stat has provided the following comment on their shutdown at the hands of Snap:

As we’ve been developing ManagedQ, we looked at several different
thumbnail services and decided on Snap due to their speed and high image
quality. ManagedQ is an experiment with visual Search, not a high volume
Search site. As such, we believed that Snap would not mind our use of
their service and may even encourage its novel and interesting
application. Before using Snap for our site, however, we performed a
traffic analysis and found that ManagedQ would consist of only about
0.01% of Snap’s traffic at most - hardly a share that would affect them
in any meaningful way.

It is most unfortunate that Snap has decided to block us, but I
understand that they are perfectly within their rights to do so. We did
not, however, receive a notice beforehand. We would certainly be
interested in pursuing an agreement with Snap that is outside the bounds
of their normal TOS, but we haven’t yet done so because we thought
ourselves too small for them to consider such a partnership.

Our focus is on continuing to create a new Search Experience with broad
appeal. We believe data should be open by default. We are at a loss
as to why a relatively big startup like Snap would feel threatened by a
small Search experiment like ManagedQ.

Update 2: Snap CEO Tom McGovern has also added these remarks to the situation:

We want sites to use the service in an unadulterated manner where the
actual Snap Shot is shown. There are lots reasons (server load,
business model, end user confusion) that this is important to us. For
developers that are working on a project or offering a commercial
service there are many other companies that offer a developer API
(Girafa, thumbshots, Alexa).

The fledgling startups listed below will present their ideas and initial products to investors at this spring’s Y Combinator Demo Day on March 18. Of the 19 companies in this batch, 10 have already launched and only one remains in stealth mode. Most of them have been in development for only three months.

Chatterous

Chatterous connects various forms of communication so that people can message each other regardless of the form they use most. Currently the service ties SMS, email, IM, and web together so that messages sent using one technology will be received by others using any of the other technologies. This works by setting up a group on Chatterous’s website and putting down all the ways your friends can be contacted. You can then start sending messages to them immediately, meaning that they don’t even have to change their own behavior all that much. Chatterous launched in public beta last week.

Addmired

Addmired provides the AddHer and AddHim social network widgets, both of which display two user profile pictures at a time and ask users to answer certain questions about them, such as “Who’s more popular?” The founders argue that their widgets are more appealing to social network owners than other widgets, because they help drive traffic within the social networks, not siphon traffic out of them. They look to establish service level agreements with some of the smaller social networks. We covered the service in February here.

Snaptalent

Snaptalent is an advertising network for job listings that uses IP detection to determine whether website viewers work or study at particular companies or institutions. It then displays listings from employers who want to attract workers from organizations known for their talent, such as Facebook or Harvard. See our review of the service from this week here.

RescueTime

RescueTime helps individuals and businesses track how they spend their time at the computer, and consequently, find ways to become more productive. The web-based dashboard charts application and website usage over long periods of time and shows you whether you’ve been reaching your goals. So far, 278 businesses have signed up for RescueTime for a total of 26,132 seats. See our review from last May here.

MightyQuiz

MightyQuiz is a user generated quiz destination and widget provider that we covered recently. Users are encouraged to answer trivia questions from a wide range of categories. They can also submit their own questions and embed them on their sites. The site is very sticky: the average session lasts 8 minutes (or 19 questions). As a comparison, the founders claim that Slate has an average session length of 4:22 and Wired has 3:34.

Tipjoy

Tipjoy is an easy micropayment system for the web. It has been designed to cut out the steps necessary for website visitors to leave small amounts of money for content publishers, such as bloggers. The Tipjoy button placed on a website asks for only an email address and by default registers a donation of 10 cents. The service is nearing 70,000 impressions per day and the founders are exploring different models for micropayments, such as employing them to finance high definition video on the web. We wrote about Tipjoy here.

8aWeek

8aweek promises to save you hours of time wasted each week on time-drain websites like Facebook and Drudge Report. The 8aweek browser toolbar will track your website usage, remind you of how much permitted time you have left on each restricted site, and even block you from particular sites once you’ve spent too much time on them. See our review from February here.

WebMynd

WebMynd provides a visual interface for reviewing your browsing history. The founders draw comparisons to Gmail - just as Gmail obviated the need to sort messages into folders by providing effective search and tagging, WebMynd renders it unnecessary to manually bookmark sites and organized them into folders because it’s easy to search and visually flip through the pages you’ve visited. WebMynd operates as a Firefox toolbar and has already indexed 8M page impressions. We wrote about them in January.

BaseShield

BaseShield will protect Windows PCs from malicious viruses and attacks by leveraging virtualization software. Its methods improve on existing anti-virus solutions by preventing all types of attacks, not just the recognized and documented ones. The service has yet to launch.

Insoshi

Insoshi is an upcoming white label social networking platform. It will differentiate itself from many of the other social networking platforms by taking a completely open source approach (think: WordPress of social networks). The software has yet to be released.

Mixwit

Mixwit describes itself as a combination of Slide and iTunes. While it has more ambitious long-term plans, it currently provides an easy way to make sharable mix tapes with songs found through the MP3 search engine Seeqpod.

Omnisio

Omnisio will help you annotate and share videos from any website. It will also add structure to the existing video content on the web. The service has yet to launch.

Deluux

Deluux aims to become a distributed Facebook, or an inverted Ning, by relocating the center of people’s online identities to their websites, which exist outside of any one social network. The service will facilitate the distribution of personalized content around the web and help drive traffic to these personal websites. It has yet to launch.

Wundrbar

Wundrbar wants to improve upon the search bar experience by providing users with powerful inline commands. The idea is reminiscent of YubNub but Wundrbar strives to appeal to a larger audience and to incorporate functionality that helps people manage their personal online accounts in addition to searching the web.

YumDots

YumDots wants to be the go-to mobile application for finding places to eat when out on the town. Its emphasis on using interactive maps to display information about local restaurants makes it more efficient than other mobile review services like Yelp’s. The service has yet to launch.

280 North

280 North will debut with a web-based PowerPoint clone called “280 Slides” that strives to mimic the desktop experience and features the ability to export presentations to PowerPoint format. The founders’ longer term goals consist of providing a JavaScript-based development framework for building desktop-like applications for the web. None of these services, however, have been launched yet.

Kirkland North
Kirkland North wants to take an infectious campus-wide game popular at Yale and Harvard last year and spread it to other campuses around the country. The Risk-like game pits sections of campuses against each other in a virtual battle for university-wide domination. While the founders have plans to roll out an integrated solution that can serve many institutions at once, they are currently rolling out individual versions of their online service, such as one for Stanford that launched only two weeks ago and already involves 20% of the campus.

Joberator
Joberator will help employers find developer talent by encouraging computer science students to refer their developer friends, of whom they have more intimate knowledge than any professional recruiter. Incentives for personal referrals are created by employers who list the bonuses they will pay to pay those who recommend candidates eventually hired. The service has yet to launch.

I know we can’t always expect our friends in New York to stay completely up to date on the latest Silicon Valley product developments. But Silicon Alley Insider’s report on a redesign and rebranding at Delicious is just a tad late. Like 6 months late (the screen shot they show is even dated August 2007).

It was announced and shown to the public last September along with word that the entire back end had been rewritten as well. And the rebranding of del.icio.us to delicious? Delicious.com has redirected to del.icio.us for at least a year.

The real question is when this will actually launch. We were teased in January on the delicious blog but the promised update never happend. Now it’s March and Yahoo is still silent on the issue.

Don’t think I’m being too hard on SAI. It’s one of my favorite blogs. And we have a history of friendly jabs at each other.

When it comes to market share gains in advertising dollars, Google outstripped every other media company in 2007, whether you look at the Web, TV, print, or radio. Earlier this morning, Henry Blodget compared the advertising revenues of 17 major media businesses (including News Corp, Time Warner Cable, Viacom, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL,, the New York Times, and CBS Radio). He left out Disney for some reason, but otherwise it’s a pretty good set of data (see the spreadsheet here). According to his calculations, total online ad revenues across these 17 companies grew 9% last year, online revenues grew 28% (versus 3% for offline ad revenues), and Google’s online ad revenues grew 44% (versus 15% for the combined online ad revenues of Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL).

But let’s take a deeper dive into these numbers. Google added $2.6 billion in advertising revenues last year. Next in line and far behind was News Corp., which grew its ad revenues by $915 million. To better visualize how much Google is creaming every other media company, I put together the charts above and below (click on them to see a larger version). And here’s a table with each company’s ad-revenue gains (or declines), in descending order.

Now, what about absolute market share? Google does pretty well there too, with 14.9% of the total $58 billion represented by all 17 businesses. That is up from an 11.3% market share in 2006, and makes Google No. 2 behind News Corp’s 16.5% market share. (No.3, actually, behind Time Warner, but Blodget separated Time Warner Cable, Time Inc., and AOL, which combined would have a 15.2% market share).

Looking at the absolute numbers in the pie chart and table below really helps you put these businesses in perspective. For instance, check out Yahoo in the No. 4 spot, with $4.7 billion in ad revenues last year. It is right behind newspaper company Gannett, which is still a cash cow, but saw its advertising dollars decline by $338 million last year. Yahoo, in contrast gained $361 million in ad revenues. That’s still a fraction of Google’s growth, but looking at the absolute numbers let’s you see why Microsoft wants to buy it. A combined Yahoo-Microsoft would be No. 3 on this list.

And here are the underlying numbers:

Facebook has been testing a new instant messaging service and will be launching it to the public soon, perhaps in the next week.

Our understanding is that the service will be built into user’s Facebook pages and allow them to web chat with their Facebook friends. We’ve also heard that, like Gtalk, it will be built on the Jabber open source platform, allowing users to add the service to many popular Instant messaging clients like Trillian (Windows) and Adium (Mac). I’d also expect web chat services like Meebo and eBuddy to add support for the service.

This spells trouble for a slew of instant messaging services that third parties have built on Facebook. Social.IM, for example, is one (funded) startup we’ve written about a couple of times. (As is FriendVox from UK startup Techlightenment). Those applications are now basically dead.

The timing on this certainly is interesting. Yesterday AOL talked extensively about marrying their AIM platform with their newly acquired Bebo social network.

There’s a screen shot of this floating around out there somewhere. We’re trying to get our hands on it now.

Update: I’m now hearing that this won’t be Jabber-compliant, at least at first. That means access will be Facebook only unless they create an API and/or third parties figure out a way to hack into the service as they’ve done with Yahoo, MSN and AIM in the past. Also, just to be clear, I have not heard that Facebook intends to launch any desktop software around this.

Among the Y Combinator startups we rounded up earlier today is one that finally brings some innovation to the standard Google search bar most of us have set as our homepages.

Wundrbar will remind some readers of YubNub, the so-called “social command line for the web” that we covered a long time ago. Both are smarter than the average bar and will let you prefix your search terms with commands that indicate which type of results you want to see. For example, with both services you can enter “wikipedia john rawls” to get the Wikipedia article for that philosopher.

YubNub has a really long list of commands that appeal mostly to programmers. Want to display the headers for a particular URL? Type something like “headers techcrunch.com”. In contrast, Wundrbar has a much more limited set of commands but they appeal to more general audiences.

Say you want to find and book a flight for next week. Instead of going to Kayak and filling out all of their fields, just type “fly sfo to new york next tuesday to march 30 first class”. Wundrbar will show you below the search bar what it thinks you’re looking for, and when you hit submit you will be taken to a results page from your favorite flight search site (Kayak, Orbitz, Travelocity - your choice).

Similar functionality is possible for car rentals, hotels, trains, movie rentals, movie showtimes, and online retail sites. The full list of commands can be found here. And if you don’t use any commands, you’ll simply be directed to a standard Google results page.

On top of making search easier, Wundrbar can also be used to update and retrieve information from personal accounts. Right now only Twitter and Google Calendar are supported. For Twitter, you can use the command “twitter” to update your twitter status. And you can use different commands for Google Calendar to either retrieve calendar items on Wundrbar (”calendar next tuesday”) or to set calendar items (”create event next thursday dentist appointment”). Neither work perfectly yet; I had problems submitting Twitter messages with URLs and with adding calendar events with specific times. But if Wundrbar manages to iron these kinks out and support substantially more services, it will make for a compelling homepage.

Star Wars: Clone Wars is an American animated television series set in the Star Wars galaxy. The series chronicles the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic under Chancellor Palpatine, and the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) under Count Dooku.

Chronologically, the series takes place during the three-year time period between the films Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The original television series was produced by Cartoon Network Studios, and aired in 25 chapters from 2003 to 2005. A 3D CGI series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be set in the same time period, will be produced by Lucasfilm Animation and debut in 2008.[1]

Summary

The original series consists of 20 three-minute installments for Seasons 1 and 2 (later known as Volume 1), and five 12-to-15 minute installments for Season 3 (later called Volume 2). The 25 episodes are mostly comprised of energetic set-piece battles. Since much emphasis is placed on action, the story and plot is less developed than in the films. Despite this, it can be argued that the third season focused more on Anakin Skywalker’s story.

The series follows the Jedi on their exploits fighting Dooku’s separatist confederation. Many characters from the films are also featured prominently in the series, such as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Mace Windu, Chancellor Palpatine, Count Dooku, General Grievous, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Padmé Amidala. Other episodes feature minor players from the films, such as Kit Fisto, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura.
Seasons

Season One and Two/DVD Volume One - These two seasons feature one major storyline surrounded by a series of many battles. Count Dooku holds auditions for a bounty hunter on the planet Rattatak by pitting them against each other in a battle arena. Asajj kills every one of the bounty hunters and is sent on a mission to assassinate Anakin Skywalker. She engages him in a space battle, through the streets of Muunilinst and eventually leading him into Yavin 4, where the two engage in a lightsaber duel. Anakin emerges the victor, despite it being through means of rage and fear (feelings of a Dark Jedi).
Apart from the main storyline many battles ensue, including Mace Windu’s fight on Dantooine, Obi-Wan fighting against bounty hunter Durge and the Banking Clan, Kit Fisto’s battle against the Quarren on Mon Calamari, the adventures on Ilum and the Battle of Hypori in which General Grevious makes his first appearance in Star Wars media.
Season Three/DVD Volume Two - The third and last season of Star Wars: Clone Wars gives the audience a look at Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker’s adventures in the Outer-Rim Territories as mentioned in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Anakin is made a Jedi Knight and Coruscant comes under attack by the Confederacy of Independent Systems, as a diversion for General Grevious to sneak in and capture Chancellor Palpatine.

When Nino took over The Carter, he ran it like an organized Manhattan office building. On The Carter, you are entering my mental plane, filled with many corridors, hallways, and compartments. The Carter in New Jack City was calculated and systematic, that’s me.”

It’s no small wonder Lil Wayne thinks like a mastermind. Since his adolescence, he has displayed exceptional talent. Hailing from the tough streets of Hollygrove in the 17th Ward of New Orleans, he was first recruited by Cash Money bosses Bryan “Baby” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams. At a mere 11 years old, he had become the youngest artist on the Cash Money roster. The Williams’ brothers tweaked and groomed Wayne’s style, rearing him on early Cash Money artists like Pimp Daddy, UNLV, and BG. Starting off as a member of the super group, The Hot Boys (Juvenile, BG, Turk and Lil Wayne), Wayne shined as a true emerging rap talent, catapulting his solo career. Now, at the ripe age of 20, it is time for him to step out once again. The Carter marks his fourth solo effort and Young Money/Cash Money Records signifies his very own record label.

Since the release of his last solo album 500 Degrees (2002), Wayne has been diligently working on The Carter and Young Money Records. In 1999, Lil Wayne’s solo debut Tha Block Is Hot set the platform for the artist’s success. Until this day, Tha Block Is Hot remains one of Cash Money’s most triumphant efforts. Lil Wayne’s signature spitfire flow spewed from his wiry, blinged-out frame has made him one of the most recognizable figures in hip-hop. Combining his uncanny charisma of yesterday with his seasoned demeanor of today, The Carter takes listeners on a journey unlike that of any before.

Lil Wayne’s old soul wisdom manifests itself in clever rhymes that balanced the young hustler’s lifestyle with a sense of street reared insight. On a tribute to The Hot Boy brotherhood “Man, I Miss My Dogs,” Wayne’s sound is mature and exhibits much more skill. His voice is confident, deeper, and raspier than before. The body-bouncing first single, “Get Something,” features party starter Mannie Fresh on the hook. As for the thematic content of his music, Wayne tackles more adult subjects including navigating life’s paths, being a father, and managing money as a youth. The track “Ain’t That A B!%$h” best exemplifies his growth as an artist. The song is an introspective account of the various misfortunes one confronts in life. Moreover, songs like “Travelin’,” speak candidly to the experience Wayne has undergone in his tenure as a young hip-hop star. Here, Lil Wayne raps about the assortment of neighborhoods and communities he has seen in his voyages.

Production on the album comes courtesy of resident Cash Money beat machine Mannie Fresh, who laced Lil Wayne with an arsenal of digital funk grooves. “I will always stay true to Mannie Fresh,” says Wayne, “a Fresh beat was the first beat I ever rapped to. It’s like he gets younger instead of older because he’s so in tune with everything going on in music.” Rising southern producer Jazze Pha adds in his instrumental composition ideals along with Raj Smoove, Lil Wayne’s personally handpicked Young Money/Cash Money producer, rounding out the project.

With four records to his credit, Wayne has succeeded in acting as a catalyst in the growth of southern hip-hop. “I love how the south is moving,” Wayne affirms like a proud father, “what David Banner, Lil’ Flip and all of them are doing is hot. When we started, Baby and Slim declared the south was going to blow up and we did.” Partially responsible for this positive wave of southern musical gems, Wayne is launching his own record label to enhance the flourishing tradition of the south.

Mix tape superstars, Sqad Up, are Wayne’s Young Money/Cash Money Records debut group. The six-man collective including Wayne has acquired much underground success with their contributions to the street savvy, southern mix tape scene. “Young Money is another leaf that will fall from the Cash Money tree,” states Wayne.

With a new album, The Carter, on the horizon, a record label, Young Money/Cash Money Records, launch pending and an integral role in one of hip-hop’s most creative crews, Lil Wayne continues to prolifically govern the game, New Jack City style.
SOurce: Lilwayne

Last season’s Big 12 Tourney championship had it all — nonstop action, unforgettable buzzer-beaters and overtime heroics.  After Kansas guard Mario Chalmers sank a three-pointer to force OT, the Jayhawks stepped up their play in the extra period to edge past Kevin Durant and the Texas Longhorns, 88-84, and clinched their second straight Big 12 title.  How will the drama unfold in ‘08 when the Big 12 Tournament heads to Kansas City?  Be there at the Sprint Center to experience the excitement of the 2008 Big 12 Basketball Tournament!

Buy your Hard-To-Getsm Big 12 Basketball Tournament tickets today!

PLEASE NOTE:  For Big 12 Basketball Tournament-All Sessions tickets, you will receive a full “book” of tickets allowing you entrance to all 11 games, including the championship.  6 sessions. 11 games. 1 price!  And if you can’t make it to every game – don’t worry – you can divide up the “book” and disperse individual session tickets among your friends, family or co-workers.

Friday March 14, 2008
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Big 12 Tournament Tickets - Session 4 (Nebraska vs Kansas, Texas AM vs Kansas State)

Friday March 14, 2008
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Sunday March 16, 2008
2:00 pm
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Richard Tiffany Gere[1] (born August 31, 1949) is a Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning American actor. The prototypical dark, handsome leading man of romantic and dramatic films, he first became famous during the 1980s, and has since retained his status as a leading man. During the 1990s and 2000s, he starred in several well-received films, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, and Chicago, for which he won a Golden Globe award as Best Actor.

Biography

Early life

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gere is a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims Francis Eaton, John Billington, George Soule, Richard Warren, Degory Priest, William Brewster and Francis Cooke.[1] Gere’s mother, Doris Anna (née Tiffany), was a homemaker, and his father, Homer George Gere, was an insurance agent for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and had originally intended to become a minister.[2] Gere has three sisters and a brother. In 1967, he graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at brown nosing and music, playing the trumpet.[2] He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in Philosophy, but did not graduate, leaving after two years.[3][2]
Career

Gere first worked professionally at the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1971 where he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Gere’s first major acting role was in the original London stage version of Grease in 1973.[2] He began appearing in Hollywood films in the mid 1970s, co-starring in the thriller Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and playing the leading role in director Terrence Malick’s well-reviewed 1978 film, Days of Heaven.[2] In 1980, Gere appeared in the Broadway production of Bent. His acting career took off that year with the successful film American Gigolo, followed by the popular romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman, which had grossed over $100 million in 1982.[2] Subsequently, he was the first man ever to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine.

Gere’s career in the 1980s alternated between box office successes and failures. After the release of both Internal Affairs and the box office hit Pretty Woman in 1990, Gere’s status as a leading man was again solidified, and he continued starring in solidly performing films throughout the 1990s, including Sommersby (1993), Primal Fear (1996), and Runaway Bride (1999), which paired Gere with his Pretty Woman co-star, Julia Roberts.[2] In Mr. Jones, Gere accurately portrayed a high-functioning, creative, and intellectual man with bipolar disorder. The movie was not a commercial success, but was well-received by the mental health community. It is frequently utilized as a training tool to acquaint students and families with the disorder.

People magazine named Gere the “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1999. In 2002, he appeared in three major releases: the horror thriller The Mothman Prophecies, the drama Unfaithful, and the Academy Award-winning film version of Chicago,[2] for which he won a Golden Globe as “Best Actor - Comedy or Musical”. Gere’s 2004 ballroom dancing drama, Shall We Dance, was also a solid performer, although his next film, Bee Season, failed to find an audience amid the Oscar-contenders of November 2005.

Gere was Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ “Man of the Year” for 2006. In July 2006, he was cast opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party, a comic thriller in which he played a journalist in Bosnia; the film was released in September of 2007.[4]
Personal life & activism
 
Gere Visits USAID HIV / AIDS “Operation Lighthouse” Project In Mumbai, as part of USAID.Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. In 2002, he married actress Carey Lowell. They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in 2000 and is named after Gere’s father.[2]

Gere was raised by Methodist parents;[5] his interest in Buddhism began when he traveled to Nepal in 1978 with the Brazilian painter, Sylvia Martins.[3] He is a practicing Buddhist and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama.[2] Gere is also a persistent advocate for human rights in Tibet; he is a co-founder of the Tibet House, creator of The Gere Foundation, and he is Chairman of the Board of Directors for the International Campaign for Tibet. Because he strongly supports the Tibetan Independence Movement, he is permanently banned from entering The People’s Republic of China. Gere was banned as an Academy Award presenter in 1993 after he used the opportunity to condemn the Chinese government.[6] In September 2007, Gere called for the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to put pressure on China to make Tibet independent.

Gere campaigns for ecological causes and AIDS awareness. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Healing the Divide, an organization that supports global initiatives to promote peace, justice and understanding,[7] and he also actively supports Survival International, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights and lands of tribal peoples throughout the world.[3] He helped to establish the AIDS Care Home, a residential facility in India for women and children with AIDS, and also supports campaigns for AIDS awareness and education that country. In 1999 he created the Gere Foundation India Trust to support a variety of humanitarian programs in India.[8]

On April 15, 2007, during an AIDS awareness event, Gere kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty several times on the cheek and neck. The pair had appeared at a press conference in New Delhi as part of a campaign to preach safe sex to truck drivers in India and promotion of AIDS awareness. The kiss prompted protesters, allegedly members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena, to beat burning effigies of Gere with sticks, others set fire to glamor shots of Shetty.[citation needed]

Similar protests broke out in other cities, including Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city, and in the northern town of Meerut, where crowds of hundreds of thousands chanted “Down with Shilpa Shetty!” Star News Office was also attacked. The protests did not take any violent turn and the situation was quickly brought under control with some activists being detained.[citation needed]

Shetty responded to these protests by saying, “I understand this (kissing) is his (Gere’s) culture, not ours. But this was not such a big thing or so obscene for people to overreact in such a manner. I understand people’s sentiments, but I do not want a foreigner to take bad memories from here.”[citation needed]

On April 26, 2007 an Indian court in Rajasthan issued a warrant for Shetty and Gere’s arrest. The legal action against both Shetty and Gere has been suspended by the Indian Supreme Court until the court decides on the case’s proper jurisdiction. Gere has since expressed regret for causing any offense and Shetty has stated, “So much has been blown out of proportion.”[citation needed]

Richard Gere is the most common subject of a popular urban myth which involves the forcing of a gerbil into the anus for pleasure and its later embaressing removal at hospital. This myth, and its association with Gere, is referred to onstage by the comedian Ricky Gervais in his Fame stage show. A reference to the rumours is also made in british sitcom The Vicar of Dibly, with a hamster substituted for the more common gerbil. However, as verified by snopes.com these rumours have no basis in fact.
Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1977 Looking for Mr. Goodbar Tony Lo Porto 
1978 Bloodbrothers Thomas Stony De Coco 
Days of Heaven Bill 
1979 Yanks Matt Dyson 
1980 American Gigolo Julian Kaye 
1982 An Officer and a Gentleman Zack Mayo Golden Globe nomination - Best Drama Actor
1983 Beyond the Limit Dr. Eduardo Plarr 
Breathless Jesse Lujack 
1984 The Cotton Club Dixie Dwyer 
1985 King David David Razzie nomination - Worst Actor
1986 No Mercy Eddie Jillette 
Power Pete St. John 
1988 Miles from Home Frank Roberts, Jr. 
1990 Pretty Woman Edward Lewis Golden Globe nomination - Best Musical/Comedy Actor
Internal Affairs Dennis Peck 
1991 Rhapsody in August Clark 
1992 Final Analysis Dr. Isaac Barr 
1993 Mr. Jones Mr. Jones 
Sommersby John Robert ‘Jack’ Sommersby 
And The Band Played On The Choreographer 
1994 Intersection Vincent Eastman 
1995 First Knight Lancelot 
1996 Primal Fear Martin Vail 
1997 The Jackal Declan Joseph Mulqueen 
Red Corner Jack Moore 
1999 Runaway Bride Ike Graham 
2000 Dr. T & the Women Dr. T 
Autumn in New York Will Keane Razzie nomination - Worst Screen Couple
2002 Chicago Billy Flynn Golden Globe win - Best Musical/Comedy Actor
Unfaithful Edward Sumner 
The Mothman Prophecies John Klein 
2004 Shall We Dance John Clark 
2005 Bee Season Saul Naumann 
2007 The Hoax Clifford Irving 
The Hunting Party Simon 
I’m Not There Bob Dylan as Billy The Kid 
The Flock Agent Erroll Babbage 
2008 Nights in Rodanthe Dr. Paul Flanner completed
Hachiko: A Dog’s Story  filming
.

Source:en.wikipedia