Social Web
No UserpicTwittering as a Displacement Activity
Posted by Trapeze Artist

Twitter is not a substitute for really engaging with people and winning them over. Political Twittering is merely a displacement activity for doing something more meaningful.

Rachel Sylvester in The Times this morning quotes a psychologist (a real one, not Derek Draper) who hits the send button on the head;

Exhibit B: Twitter is reality TV without the pictures. There is a combination of neurosis and narcissism involved. The psychologist Oliver James has said: “Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.

Not sure if sense of identity is the right attribute, it is more a case of self-worth stemming from attention. That people care to know what the Twitterer is doing enhances their own sense of self worth. Draper feels validated and boasts (on Twitter of course) that he has more “followers” than his rivals. He has spent a lot of time canvassing thousands of Twitterers of other political commentators to build his following. Desperate. The desperation is shown by a key ratio, your followers to following ratio - your Twitter F2F ratio.

Exhibit C: Twitter F2F ratios

John Prescott 1,410 Followers, 29 Following - 48.62

Iain Dale 2,499 Followers, 152 Following - 16.44

Tom Watson 2,518 Followers, 909 Following - 2.77

Alastair Campbell 2,567 Followers, 2,088 Following - 1.23

Derek Draper 2,918 Followers, 2,836 Following - 1.02

Read more...

2 comments 2 comments ( 1138 views )

Advertising
UserpicFitness First Bus Stop Ad
Posted by Sasha

This bus top ad from N=5 Amsterdam, The Netherlands simply rocks! I guess that obese people are standing.

Fitness Ad


Social Web
No UserpicSocial Networks are E-mail 2.0
Posted by Trapeze Artist

Finally an acknowledgment in today's article from BBC of what social networks are good for besides user profile, promotions and networking:

Status updates on sites such as Facebook, Yammer, Twitter and Friendfeed are a new form of communication, the South by SouthWest Festival has heard.

"We are all in the process of creating e-mail 2.0," David Sacks, founder of business social network Yammer said.


One of the most brilliant examples of a "V Fame" or how somebody who is completely unknown can become a celebrity overnight for doing nothing, but doing it in public.

One year ago a young, unnamed and heavily-eyelinered young woman who hung around on Gaia Online made a video. She went by the name of Boxxy.

Official version of a story from The Guardian "How Boxxy Brought Web to It's Knees."

"At Christmas, the video - by then languishing in YouTube's vaults - got posted to i-am-bored, and from there hit 4Chan, and in particular the site's /b/ messageboard... the heartland for many memes (and definitely NSFW). Why? Nobody's sure. Was Boxxy herself behind it? Or was she simply a vehicle for fans who liked her camgirl approach, apparent ADD and weirdly excitable behaviour?

Over the subsequent days and weeks, Boxxy became a topic of contention on 4Chan - with the site splitting into two groups; those who professed to love Boxxy and all she stood for and those who hated Boxxy and her fans. Every thread threaten to spill over into Boxxy spam or a flamewar, and hundreds of 4channers went hacking Boxxy's YouTube account and other websites in search of her true identity. So far they don't seem to have succeeded.

Things really came to a head, though, when Boxxy haters - sick of seeing so much about her on 4Chan - decided to launch a denial of service attack on the website itself, bringing it down for some hours as a protest."

 


Apple
UserpicApple Release Safari 4 Beta
Posted by Moxietype

Apple Release Safari 4

See the new fetatures of the world's fastest web browser. Mac, PC, i-Phone, i-Pod Touch. Download Safari 4 Beta from Apple

 

 

 


Paul Boutin shares a number of low-tech hacks for high-tech problems.

Suppose your remote car door opener does not have the range to reach your car across the parking lot. Hold the metal key part of your key fob against your chin, then push the unlock button. The trick turns your head into an antenna, says Tim Pozar, a Silicon Valley radio engineer.

Mr. Pozar explains, "You are capacitively coupling the fob to your head. With all the fluids in your head it ends up being a nice conductor. Not a great one, but it works." Using your head can extend the key's wireless range by a few car lengths.


Offbeat
UserpicLa Jetée Movie (1962)
Posted by Moxietype

A short synopsis from imdb:

After World War III Paris is lying in tatters. The earth has been contaminated and survivors of the war have to live underground imprisoned by the victorious nation (it's never said explicitly which nation that is, but they are talking German). Scientists are looking for a way to secure the survival of mankind by exploring the possibilities of time traveling. In the process one of the prisoners, who has a strong connection to the past because of a recurring dream of his childhood, serves as their guinea pig. As the experiments go on the time traveler falls in love with a woman from the past and comes face to face with the childhood memory he's been obsessed with all his life.

Director: Chris Marker. Beautiful signing by the Choirs of the Cathedral of St Alexandre Newski. "Music from Russian Liturgy of the Good Saturday."

28 minutes


Social Web
UserpicWhat is Twitter
Posted by Moxietype

Twitter is nothing more than a group Short Message Service or SMS. It is built for the mobile as SMS is. User has a choice to tell the whole world that they are about to do laundry in 140 characters or less, or they can keep it in the family. No more, no less.

Twitter.


One of the most celebrated commercials of all time was Mama Magadini's Spicy Meatballs for Alka-Seltzer. Created by Doyle Dane  Bernbach Advertising Agency. In 1996, Leo Burnett  Company featured it in a compilation of the 100 Best Commercials  of All Time; and, it was ranked number four in Entertainment Weekly's  feature on the top 50 commercials (March 28, 1997 issue).


Advertising
UserpicSpicy Meat Ball versus Sexy Sausage
Posted by Moxietype

It reminded me one of the all time famous Alka Seltzer's «Spicy Meat Ball.» See more of PETA's Banned Spots and become a vegetarian today.


NBC found spots promoting vegetarianism as being too sexy, while at the same time they run ads promoting "fried chicken and burgers... -- even though these foods make Americans fat, sick, and boring in bed," said PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange in her statement about the decision.

In my view PETA intentinally crafed the spots to be rejected by NBC. The Web Site of PETA's Banned Spots for Super Bowl drives plenty of traffic.


Social Web
UserpicHow Boxxy Brought Web to It's Knees
Posted by Moxietype

Boxxy

It is January 16. On Youtube, the user 'boxxybabee', has 21,800 subscribers, 1.4 million video views and over 38,000 comments on her videos and channel, yet she only signed up 8 days ago, and has only 3 videos.

By the time you read this her account is: Dieses Konto wurde gesperrt. For some reason YouTube thinks that I am in Germany but the meaning stays the same: This Account is Closed.

Somebody who is entirely unknown can get picked up for basically doing nothing, but doing it in public.


Advertising
UserpicBlogging in Paradise
Posted by Moxietype

Hamilton Island
Photo from site key2australia-holidays.co.uk

Telegraph wrote an article today about a guerrilla marketing campaign to promote Tourism Queensland. For example, the clip of a female who tattoed a message professing her love for the Great Barrier Reef was created by the advertising agency.

In its latest campaign, Tourism Queensland invited people around the world to send in a 60-second video of themselves to apply for a six-month stint on idyllic Hamilton Island in Whitsundays. The job involves little more than lazing around on the beach and blogging about life in paradise. Thousands of sun-seekers have applied so far.

Tourism Queensland have since been forced to admit that "Tegan's" video was concocted by their advertising agency.

The site received 25 thousand hits in one hour and close to 300 thousand in one day and was taken down by traffic.


I though it was a thing of the past. If you use embedded flash files on your Site, you should read How Embedded Flaws in Flash Files Allow for Cross Site Scripting Attacks:

An attacker can carry out cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks on a vulnerable system through newly disclosed vulnerabilities in Shockwave Flash (SWF) files.

The flaws, which can be found by the thousand via search engine, are caused by an error in the way that input is validated when passed to embedded ActionScript and JavaScript in Flash files, according to the US-CERT, which warned about the issue in an advisory updated today.

Websites hosting vulnerable Flash files are exploitable by an XSS attack in the context of the domain hosting the vulnerable file, as well as attacks that spoof or modify online content, according to the cybersecurity division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.


Business
UserpicThe Recession in Perspective
Posted by Moxietype

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis compares output and employment changes between this and past recessions. It doesn't look as bad as thought, and yet:

The 10 previous postwar recessions have ranged in length from 6 months to 16 months, averaging about 10 1/2 months. The current recession has surely surpassed the postwar average, but its total length will only be known when the Business Cycle Dating Committee retrospectively determines the final month of the recession.


Porsche Type 64

Adolf Merckle, one of the world’s richest men, committed suicide last week by throwing himself under a train, reports Bloomberg:

[Merckle's company] VEM was caught in a so-called short squeeze after betting Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen’s stock would fall. Merckle lost at least 500 million euros on the bets on VW stock, people familiar said on Nov. 18. VEM lost “low three-digit million euros” on VW stock, the company said in November.

It took Porsche three years of careful maneuvering:

It was darkly brilliant, a wealth transfer ingeniously conceived like few we’ve ever seen. Betting the right way, Porsche roiled the financial markets and took the hedge funds for a fortune.

Read full story


Berlin Billboards

"Don't forget..." consists of Photoshop palettes pasted over billboards in a metro station in Berlin. Is it a street art project or clever advertising campaign? I studied advertisng in Berlin at HdK and will not be surprised if there is an advertising campaign behind it.


Firefox, Security
UserpicFirefox 3.0 SSL Certificate Error Pages
Posted by Moxietype

Firefox 3 limits usable encrypted (SSL) Web sites to those who are willing to pay money to one of their approved digital-certificate vendors. Self-signed certificates (SSC) get rejected. For example U.S. Army uses certificates are issued by the Department of Defense  and could not be trusted according to Firefox 3. Expired SSL certificates on Google and LinkedIn get affected as well.

The Mozilla.com Web site, where Firefox 3.0 can be freely downloaded, defends the new feature, saying SSL certificates not issued by a validated certificate authority -- so-called self-signed certificates (SSC) -- don't provide even basic validation; and expired certificates should not be viewed as "harmless" because they open avenues for hackers.

On the other hand expired SSL certificates are actually quite common.

According to Netcraft data, the number of SSL websites passed 600,000 in 2007. If we make a rough estimate and assume the same ratio as for the Fortune 1000 websites, that would mean that there are around 108,000 websites with expired SSL certificates. All these would get the “error page” in Firefox 3.

The lack of one industry standard when it comes to SSL and SSC creates both the security hazard and sub-prime usability issue. This is actually something that Mozilla itself seems aware of. Jonathan Nightingale, who works with usability and security at Mozilla, had this to say in his blog in regards to how Firefox 3 handles SSL certificates:

I don’t think the approach in Firefox 3 is perfect, I’m not sure any of us do. I have filed bugs, and talked about things I think we could do to continue to enhance our users’ security while at the same time reducing unnecessary annoyances.


What is the difference between:

www.moxietype.net
moxietype.net
moxietype.net/index.php
www.moxietype.net/index.php

User might expect all those pages lead to the same page. Search Engines though might store these locations separately. This might result in much lower page rank.

Solution

Decide if you want to keep www or not and make a Global Redirect at your server or write Global Redirect in htaccess file. I prefer non-www as it takes a few more strokes to type in.

Inform Google on Webmaster Dashboard Tools (under Settings) about which version they should keep in their Index. Join Google Webmaster Central if you haven't done so already.

Analyze all the pages in your Web Site and remove duplicate URLs from Google Index by using robots.txt. For example print or category in URL could lead to the same page. You might want to restrict print and category in URL from being indexed. Read about Improving on Robots Exclusion Protocol.


There is a set of simple questions to ask while planning a contribution-based project such as technological requirements, skills of the contributors and time dependancy.

Be aware of any specialized language that you are using in your instructions or in the description of the project. Words and phrases like “cache”, “ftp”, “social book-marking”, “beta”, “screengrab”, “firewall”, “tagging”, “tweet”, “proxy”, etc… may not be part of your audience’s vocabulary.