New WhiteHouse.gov: Spiffier Than Joe Biden’s Teeth!
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 21, 2009 by admin in Politics
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009It’s kind of refreshing in a way to look for old Bush press information and encounter the image at left. The Obama administration didn’t waste a second hitting the “Delete” button and getting new content on the White house web site yesterday. I’m excited by the prominence of the message that “WhiteHouse.gov will be a [...]
It’s kind of refreshing in a way to look for old Bush press information and encounter the image at left. The Obama administration didn’t waste a second hitting the “Delete” button and getting new content on the White house web site yesterday. I’m excited by the prominence of the message that “WhiteHouse.gov will be a central part of President Obama’s pledge to make his the most transparent and accountable administration in American history“, and the fact that the administration’s Director of New Media Macon Phillips had a blog post up the first day is encouraging. However, contrary to this Wired.com article’s perception of all the technical genius going on, my inauguration day experience with technology was a little frustrating. I don’t have regular TV, so often watch things like this on line. When I visited the CNN live feed, even though it queued me up before I got an active stream, I thought it was pretty cool that I could see my friends “live blogging” (even though I seemed to be the only person I know who LOVED Aretha’s hat) since I had recently been logged into FaceBook. That is, until the second time I commented on the stream, when the video died. Rather than wait in line again at CNN, I fired up my Joost account, only to find it couldn’t connect. I eventually went to the Joost home page (Hulu was having seizures too) and got a solid stream. Until about 5 minutes into the speech, at which point it just sputtered out completely, so I switched on NPR (and people wonder why I’m such a late adopter with technology. Puh!) In any case, I couldn’t be more enthused about the changey hopey, and I’m glad there seems to be enough humor in this new administration that maybe we’ll have more things like joebidensteeth.com. Smile everybody! It’s a new era!
Antisocial Networking
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 13, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009Why You Should Show Some Love For FaceBook Apps
 It’s Actually Cooler To Be Against The Thing That It’s Cool To Be Against |
As an obsessive observer of social networking phenomena (it’s like a free anthropology class!) I was amused recently when a bunch of friends proudly “became fans” of Ignoring Application Requests on FaceBook, apparently overlooking the fact that without the revenue from these Apps, the site would inevitably have to place more ads for income. Hey kids, try IgnoreAll instead! Of course that’s just not as cool as saying you’re against something. So if you want to show you’re too cool for FaceBook like other Internet Famous People, why not delete ten friends and get a free Whopper™ with Whopper Sacrifice? If you’re hip to the idea that being too cool for social networking is one of the best ways to expand your friend list, there are lots of other sites out there. Like Isolatr. Let Isolatr’s patented technology help you “Find Where Other People Aren’t”. Or Nemester, “an online community that connects paranoids, egotists, villains, and monomaniacs through networks of competing agendas and incompatable ideologies for bitter conflicts, mutual loathing, or to find their one, true nemesis.” At HateBook.com, users can share things they hate, like old naked men in the gym: “I hate the old naked men in the gym locker rooms. Why must you walk around naked for 20 minutes, its called a towel you use it to cover and dry yourself, please stop air drying your old testicles while you watch sports center, and for love of god DO NOT stretch“. And for some reason no-one’s logged in since November 26th, 2007 over at NOSO, where they offer a unique opportunity to create NO Connections by scheduling NO Events with NO Friends.
Fear of Facebook
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on November 8, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, November 8th, 2008It’s not that I don’t love the virtual you, I just prefer the real one…
Someone please absolve me of my FaceGuilt. As an addictive person who works on a computer a lot (am I addicted?) and is very social and very networked (Malcolm Gladwell
Lifestreaming: Bored With Your Life? Live Someone Else’s
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 22, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Lifestreaming – New Web Services make “Being John Malkovich” possible.
Burnt out on social networking sites? Alright, all you MySpace/FaceBook addicted luddites. Get ready for the next big thing you’ll get tired of next year: Lifestreaming. [My apologies to any readers who prefer real life to spending a few hours a day updating their FaceBook page. Just stop reading right now.] Big Brother probably never expected people to actively, even EXCITEDLY share their whereabouts not only in the past but in real time, now. I couldn’t possibly put it better than Damien Mulley, a blogger and writer for Ireland’s Sunday Tribune, who describes lifestreaming as: “…a dream come true for those that gloriously show off every facet of their life and the millions of lurkers who are willing to tune into such dross…Lifestreaming, like the movie Being John Malkovich, will allow you to climb inside the head of someone and experience their day via a digital smorgasboard of public text messages, blog posts, GPS-tagged photos and…a live video stream of them as they move around their world…” Yikes. It’s a little less dramatic than this of course. A simpler use of “lifestreaming” or “lifecasting” sites was well-explored in the Internet Meme timeline on Read the rest of this entry »
FaceStat: “Hot or Not”, With Adjectives
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 25, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Friday, July 25th, 2008Let other vain people you don’t care about judge you by a photo that you upload, and get statistics that are about as useful as a Fox News viewer poll.
Are you a FaceBook user? Tired of making friends with friends you’re already friends with and asking them to plant imaginary plants for you? Maybe you should try FaceStat. It’s sort of like drive-by social networking. You only need an e-mail and a photo, and you’re off. The objective: judge others’ photos and let them judge yours. I made the mistake of using a real photo of myself, and offering honest judgements. Five hours later, all I had learned was that: 1.) I’m Definitely Straight AND Definitely Gay; 2.) I Need a Haircut; and 3.) People are just plain mean when they’re given the chance. I was pretty amused when a couple of women started insisting I looked like Tim Gunn, and that no, really – that’s okay. My “Word Cloud” by now consisted of “creepy”, “RISKY”, “wipped”, and “old”. That was it. All the results still weren’t in (the site said it would take about three hours, and it had been nearly six now) and already, people who’ve never met me were calling me creepy. Meh. Two can play this game. I went after male users first, because I’m intelligent enough to know (in spite of my low FaceStat intelligence rating) that men Read the rest of this entry »