Tongue-in-cheek anti-social network Seppukoo seeks to provide social media-haters with a way to display their disdain for the explosive social-technology phenomenon. The site offers users a way . . . more
This week's Gather articles (12/1-12/5):
Health care reform
Google Wave is the new web application from the search engine giant and rumors have been flying about it for some time now. Today Google sent out 100,000 invites to users to test out the new communications . . . more
If you visit Google today you'll notice a new logo (the "Google Doodle") for Google - one which shows a UFO hovering over crop circles . . . more
Blip.fm is sort of a combination of Last.fm and Twitter - each user has a stream of content consisting of single songs with short accompanying text, i.e. "Check out this new track from the Grim Vegetables!" You can build a playlist and listeners if people dig what you're playing. Simply enter a song or artist in the search box and "blip" the track. They don't have everything - I've been unable to find several songs so far - and sometimes tracks appear to be corrupt or incomplete, but otherwise it's a pretty cool service. Great for when a song pops into your head and you don't have it on iTunes and don't want to bother with downloading it. The public page updates with a constant stream of new tracks, so you can sample an incredible variety of music from the entire user base. You can also integrate your updates with other social networks like Twitter, Audioscrobbler, and more. Check it out.
Holla at me if you join.
Here's a sample from my feed:
Been getting into this Twitter thing - it's actually kind of cool and surprisingly useful in a lot of ways. Less "having a bagel and juice now" updates than I previously thought. A lot of links, news, Q&As, etc; interesting social media.
But this in particular struck me as just one example of how the webernets changes things: I'm currently following Rainn Wilson ("Dwight") of The Office and he recently tweeted about new cast member Idris Elba ("Stringer Bell") from The Wire (which is awesome enough in its own right). I'm following String, man. Check out his (@driis) tweet from yesterday:
taping 6 episodes of the Office .. This ish is hilariousStringer MF Bell - now on the World Wide Intertubes!
Take this Interactive Progressive Quiz over at the Center for American Progress.
There were a couple questions that were worded such that they made it difficult to answer definitively, but on the whole it was comprehensive. I hopped on the fence for the tricky ones but for the most part the Qs are good.
I scored a 306/400.
Via this latest over at 538. The cool thing is that the data shows that we, as a nation, are a bunch of variously harmonious and fractious lunatics. What a country!
I decided I couldn't let the geriatrics in Congress* one-up me on the social media front, so I finally signed up for Twitter. I will be "twittering" as mrhe25. You can follow the twittering here: www.twitter.com/mrhe25
This is sure to be a big waste of time for everyone involved!
*As Seth would say: Really? You, a member of the body running this country during a time of national crisis, are twittering during a joint session speech from the President. REALLY!?!
I meant to post about this way back in November. We were leaving a dinner party a friend had hosted outside of Porter Square when Amanda and I stumbled across a wooden gate-like structure outside of the house at the corner of Elm and Burnside. There was a container with cards welcoming folks to the "interactive garden." We followed flagstones along a twisting path into the center of the garden. There was a wooden shrine of sorts containing a big drum suspended from a chain. The drum was covered with colored cards, each containing a question on one side and an answer on the other. There were pencils and a stack of blank cards as well as simple instructions: write a question, put the card in the submission box, and come back in three days to receive your answer on the other side of your card, which would then be posted up on the drum for all to see - although all are anonymous. There were also candles to light. It was all very zen, and very odd, but kind of cool as well.
"Wheel Questions, Wheel Answers" is a public art project run by the gent who lives in the house, Johnny Monsarrat. Visit his site wheelquestions.org to learn more, or visit the garden yourself at:
123 Elm St.
Somerville, MA 02144
You can also check all the cards posted since July 2008 on the site. It's an extensive, impressive project. It reminded me a lot of PostSecret.
ilikebsides.com is a cool site that takes your compressed iTunes library file and suggests a 16-song "mix tape" based on a variety of factors. Kind of a new twist on the idea behind Pandora, Last.fm and the like.
PolitiFact.com - a site run by the St. Petersburg Times. The site fact-checks statements made by politicians, lobbyists, and various interest groups and rates their veracity on a scale from "True" to "Pants on fire!" Its more narrow goal is to track over 500 of Obama's campaign promises and rate them on a scale of "Promise kept" to "Broken." Watch this space.
Accountability? Done and done, Mr. President!
Blago in a minute, courtesy of 23/6.
Hat tip to Scottowebs Intertubes for bringing this site to my attention.
And peep Get Your War On.
I have to admit I liked the stevedore line. (And all the taints.)
I subscribe to VeryShortList.com, which sends daily emails on a number of topics: science, media, entertainment, with the anticipated addition of food (!) and books (!).
Today I got this link to the Nikon Small World Gallery, which has tons of images of microscopic organisms and the like. Cool stuff.
It's a shame - I thought it was a cool service with a lot of potential. I certainly got my fair share of traffic and was exposed to many blogs I would never have otherwise come across. Here's the email I received this morning from them:
After careful consideration, we have decided to shutdown the BlogRush service. If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it.
When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web. During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 Billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world; even up until the moment we closed down the service.
BlogRush didn't grow without its fair share of problems -- from security issues to abusive users trying to 'game' the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service's full potential.
Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs. This was our primary focus. Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else. BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue. We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later. Unfortunately, the service didn't work out like we had hoped. (It happens.)
I want to say "Thank You" to all of the great bloggers that at least gave BlogRush a test to see if it would work for them. We sincerely appreciate you giving the service a try.
We have received several offers & inquiries about acquiring BlogRush, but we are choosing not to go that route. While many might think this is crazy, we truly feel it's the 'right' thing to do for our users. Believe it or not, it's not always about the money. In fact, BlogRush will have lost a small fortune when it's all said and done, and it was by choice. There were many things we could have done to monetize the service but we wanted to make sure it was going to benefit our users first.
Last but not least I want to say that I hope the failure of this service doesn't in any way discourage other entrepreneurs from coming up with crazy ideas at 4AM (like I did with this one) and from "going for it" to just try and see if something will work. Without trying there can be no success. And as we all know, ideas are worthless without action. The Web wouldn't be what it is today without entrepreneurs trying all sorts of crazy ideas.
On behalf of the entire BlogRush team, we wish the best of luck to everyone with their own blogs, ideas, and crazy ventures.
Sincerely,
John Reese
http://twitter.com/johnreese
Thank God for the liberal elite!
From FiveThirtyEight.com. Hat tip to Porkins for turning me on to this uber-awesome site.
Whatever your political leanings are, have a good weekend - long if you're lucky, but it does the job either way.
A good article in the Times about what the $700 billion bailout might actually mean.
And a slightly more humorous take on the whole thing: BuyMyShitPile.com
I shall now state my undying love for Hulu.com. I've recently been watching It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. This show is the funniest thing you're not watching. Peep it.
I just caught the latest ep of Mad Men. Wow. How about that final scene with Don and Bets driving home? Jimmy had his best performance that night! This show's amazing, and deserves every Emmy it will receive.
Don Draper and I have a lot in common. In fact, our lifestyles are very similar. I'm pretty much Don Draper - without the money, the women, the womanizing, the trophy wife, the adultery, the carcinogens, the stolen identity, and about 3/4 of the booze.
But I do have my own office.
I abhor peeps. I think they are the marshmallow manifestation of pure evil. That's why this is my new favorite game (well, second, behind Throw Paper!)
Click here to make your own Fyrebug game
