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November 27, 2007
Snubster on All Things Considered
Well All Things Considered can finally rest. They have reached the end of all things to consider seemingly. They have interviewed me about Snubster. It seems as though the interweb is going crazy again with the whole social networking thing and so Snubster has been popping up in the media again a bit.
For those of you who don't listen to NPR here's a link to the radio broadcast.
Posted by Bryant at 01:43 AM | Comments (1)
Thanks a lot genius!
Was reading an article today about how unfortunately Mac's that have the beta version of Boot Camp installed can get bricked if users upgrade Tiger to 10.4.11. Apple support technicians at apple stores are called "Geniuses" and they sit at the "Genius Bar." Unfortunately, the solution is to back up the disk and format and start all over again. While this is sort of a solution, it made me realize that in the unfortunate case where Apple doesn't have a solution to one of their problems, naming their support technicians "Geniuses" might in fact backfire.
While most of the time, when things to right, people will happily say "Oh thanks! you're a genius!" When things go wrong, it quickly becomes "You screwed up my computer with an update? Thanks a lot Genius!!"
Posted by Bryant at 01:36 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2007
Time to quit facebook again
I'm sick of facebook again. I think I might quit this time for good. The last time I was this disgusted was when the mini-feeds popped up. This I think facebook just dug its own grave with facebook apps.
First off let me say the biggest reason i'm annoyed with facebook everything about it is a farce.
1. claim: Facebook is a online community for friends
reality: Facebook is an anti-social unsafe online stalking tool.
We have children posting up all of their pictures, who their friends are, where they go to school, what their favorite things are, where they want to go on vacation, where they have been. All of these personal details are now posted online. Just ask Chris Hansen if he think kids should be using "social networks"
2. claim: Facebook is social networking
reality: users select and post pictures, post personal details, post notes for others to gawk at. Then people go online snooping on everyone they can get access to.
3. claim: Facebook apps are the new .com
reality: Yes they are the new .com, but in a bad way. Someone please tell me how these apps are making money? the only thing i see is that they are starting to add a lot of garbage to facebook and they are starting to make the site look like the wasteland that is myspace. Really? someone threw a fish at another person online?
4. claim: Facebook is hip and cool
reality: everyone from high school students, to their teachers, to their parents, to the evening news is talking about and using facebook. how hip is that?
So what's my biggest peeve? All these people wasting effort on facebook is just sad. We should really be developing better tools. We should be developing tools that are truly innovative and open.
If people want to share photos, use photo sharing tools, flikr? picasa?. If people want to post their comments, post on their blog, blogspot, movabletype?. If people want to play online games play online games, wii, warfish?
Although I don't know of a good way to link these together yet, maybe that's the direction we need to head. Or maybe it's better that they aren't.
Posted by Bryant at 01:11 AM | Comments (0)