July 2007 - Posts
A subgenre of the "taking it to the Internet in the name of justice" trend that I pointed out not too long ago is the framing of the struggle against the authority of the Bush administration. When Michael Moore was on Hardball the other day, someone in the audience asked if he thought Bush's low approval numbers (and correspondingly high disapproval numbers) was a sign that the country was ripe for revolt. Moore was amusedly dismissive and answered by emphasizing the importance of voting. I don't see any revolts in our future either but online activist are working to make the case that it's already begun. ... Plus... This just in on my Blackberry, the cutting edge of snacks, wiping your face off Facebook, and Lucy Skywalker.
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The age of the blogger has passed without much fanfare. You might think that blogs are still popular and prominent, but if you think back to long ago, before you were born (if you happen to be 4-years-old or less), blogs were the only thing anyone was talking about. And "bloggers" were referred to as if they were some new species. The cable folks would ask me to come on the air and talk about "what the bloggers are saying" about news stories, as if "the bloggers" were some special league of scholars. And the most popular bloggers were celebrities and kingmakers. Lesser bloggers would do anything they could to draw some link love from a big name blogger and watch the avalanche of traffic in his site statistics. Hundreds! Thousands of visitors from a single link from an A-lister!
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There's something funny about spending the weekend reading Harry Potter and then turning on the local weather report to hear the weather man use words like
"rare" and "unusual" to describe the out-of-nowhere heavy rains we're getting. The storm arrived with a gust of wind that knocked picture frames off window sills and slammed a door in our apartment. My wife sent me out of the bedroom to investigate the noise. I did so with wand drawn.
Designed deterioration - Some things -maybe even most things- get cooler with use. Their design is such that the worn or broken-in look can be a good thing. The article uses a cast iron skillet as an example. I thought of jeans or sneakers. But technology, this piece argues, doesn't look better as it wears. ...Plus... My Hagrid moment, the muscle zoo, and what do you mean you don't do nachos like that?
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From this morning's mailbag:
Hey where's clicked? Did you get booted off for the Harry Potter
story or the political videos?
Will's reply: Funny, I was just wondering the same thing.
...Plus... Infidelity in the age of Google, some rich bloggers, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. CONTINUED >>
**I'm moving this behind the "read more" click because while it still doesn't have spoilers, newspapers and others are beginning to break the embargo and I want to talk about what that means in terms of the fake that's out there, so for the protection of fans who happen to stumble across this blog and don't want to know anything, I'm putting up this extra obstacle.
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It feels a little ironic to post this in light of the brush fire I lit in the comments of the previous post but since the TV folks appear to be flogging the heck out of these videos I feel somewhat obliged to link out to the full versions.
The full Obama Girl/Giuliani Girl video is here:
Not only is it a clever tactic to take advantage of a slow news period and a chronically unsexy subject and turn it to their advantage, but they appear to know what they're doing online. I never signed up for anything on the BarelyPolitical.com site but they traced the traffic I sent to them last time and put me on their mailing list to announce this new video.
The latest in the genre is this odd lesbian appeal to Hillary.
But what else is worth noting is that contrary to their wiggling images, the protagonists involved in these projects are no push-overs.
Chris Matthews interviewed the the Hillary fan last night.
And in this one the makers of the Obama Girl video present a scathing rebuttal to Joy Behar essentially calling Obama Girl a hooker.
As you know, the links in Clicked are drawn largely from meme trackers and link aggregators. Today I learned of a new-to-me tracker called Wattpad, which I gather is devoted to content that's meant to be read on a mobile phone. Among the week's most popular links are a number of authentically lengthy Harry Potter fan-written fiction books, some of which credit HarryPotterFanFiction.com as the source. ...Plus... Your vote counts, a thing for faces, and McDonald's energy food
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All week I've been thinking about the impact of Nielsen/NetRatings dropping the page view measure for the "time spent" measure. My first thought was that this can only make the Web better for the average surfer. But surely this new measure is as open to abuse as the page view system, so I'm trying to figure what the downside will be. ...Plus... terror for terror's sake, I'll try it on a trike, and who you calling sicko?
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I don't think there's been another link sent to me more than the iPhone in a blender video. Rather than wait for today's entry, let's get it out there:official Will It Blend site is here.
In a similar vein to our following of the cop/skater story that sprang from a YouTube video posting, there's another story following the same path. In this case a little girl in a crowded mini-van rolls her head eyes in her eyes head while family members moosh her cheeks and otherwise play with her face. At one point someone jokes that she shouldn't have taken X, which some interpret to mean that the baby has been drugged and is rolling her eyes in a chemical haze.
The YouTube video, as well as the sister's MySpace page have been wiped from the Web but for those of us who prefer primary sources, there's a copy of the video here at Deleted You Tube (NOTE: The site has an ad with a be-thonged butt on it. ANOTHER NOTE: It's been pointed out that there are porn ads on it as well. I only see text ads on the side, so there must be some kind of ad rotation with a few clunkers.).
As fascinating as it is to see how the Web community took it upon themselves to contact authorities on the matter , I'm not sure I'm on board with this charge. It looks like kids playing to me - even if she is being a little rough with the cheek pinching.
The cable folks are running the story on the air today including some footage of the family being chased from a parking lot by the media. I have a feeling this won't end up being one of the Web's prouder moments.
Google is working on improving its social network. Yahoo is adding one called Mosh. I secretly hope these both do terribly because if I have to create another online profile I'm going to go nuts. ...Plus... The stupid iPhone lady, coffee recipe for these times of global warming, and man's fight against hair
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With this chat with Ted Kerasote about his dog Merle the video solution makes more sense because he was able to give me a bunch of photos to show against the audio.
You may have heard of this book already because it's already a bestseller. If you're a dog person at all you'll appreciate it. I admit, I don't always think smiling dogs are actually smiling, so I had a hard time with some of the anthropomorphization. But he also did a lot of research into the science and history of dogs, which I found very interesting. The interview has a mix of the two perspectives.
I've been trying to find a way to add a video component to the audio interviews I do. I used my interview with Jean Pfaelzer, author of Diven Out, as the first, most basic test. The video is just the cover of her book, but I think you'll see that listening through the video player is better than waiting for the audio file to load.
As for the interview itself, Pfaelzer's book was really interesting and it was hard to interview her without just saying, "Oh, tell about this part, now tell about this part." (You can tell by the way my questions run on too long.) I was expecting to just talk about the current immigration debate, but really, the history of discrimination against Chinese Americans is fascinating and something I knew nothing about.
I regularly receive mail from readers but often forget to include it in regular posts. Since this is a pretty quiet week, now's a good time to share some of the highlights from the past month, including a batch of Ralph's recommendations at the end to help you get through the week if 90% of your office decided to go on vacation this week leaving you bored and alone.
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A lot of people agree that e-mail is broken. Too much junk, too much wasted bandwidth. When RSS first appeared there was an idea that it would take the place of e-mail so you'd only get messages from people whose feeds you've added to your reader. Increasingly, IM and its variants like Twitter are looking like a good idea - still working from that list of trusted friends. ...Plus... Lots of car bashing, 'Thank you, come again,' and the real UK anti-terror hero.
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The iPhone hype has passed. Let's take a look at some of the coverage highlights. ...Plus... Dangerous microphones, dangerous microwaves, and what the heck is in Red Bull anyway?
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