More Info than Brains

and me without a basement full of missed connections.

July 30, 2007

You may have heard that the Internet died a little death. Technorati, Typepad, Craigslist, LiveJournal and other crap storage devices went down for a few hours due to a power failure in San Francisco and millions of bloggers were faced with the threat actual productivity.

Thankfully, for all that is useless, power and “information” distribution was restored in only a few hours, with craigslist bringing up the rear.

All I can hope, is that you, yes you, took that time to reflect upon just how exactly the same your life was during what will now be known as “The Moderately Mediocre Crash of Pretty Much Nothing of 2007.”

Leave a Comment » | awesome, craigslist, internet, livejournal, technorati | Permalink
Posted by c007km

I am the (masturbating) walrus (blog).

July 27, 2007

Awhile back I made an entry about the educational value of a masturbating walrus. While I was using it to address the sheer volume of niche-content available on the web, now a month later, it has proven another MItB maxim. Who knew we could learn so much about digital society from a lonely sea-mammal.

The search phrase “masturbating walrus,” and variants there-of, are by far the largest traffic source for this blog. Apparently, the Inter-public is even more interested in a walrus slapping it (with flippers), than an underage track-star in a sports bra (my 2nd highest search phrase).

The corporate, and indie-corporate, and sub-indie-dude-in-his-basement-who-makes-custom-Lando-Calrissian-cosutimes, world is convinced that that they’re going to be able to make money advertising, and selling things on the Internet. Really, they still think that.

It’s true, there are millions of people on the Internet every day, but they want to watch videos of masturbating walruses. They’re not going to buy your Zorb-Tees, the new Silver Chair CD, AXE body spray or Hot Pockets. They’re going to laugh at the wanking walrus, or wank it to the teenage track star, and move on.

Advertising is about demographics and conveying your message to the right customer. How can we possibly identify what the Masturbating Walrus Demographic is interested in purchasing?

2 Comments | advertising, masturbating, retarded, the problem, walrus | Permalink
Posted by c007km

Mysprocosm

July 25, 2007

That’s right, I made up another word.

Allow me to be bold and assume that some, perhaps even many, of you are on MySpace.com (I include the .com otherwise it is the most awkward site to reference). “You’re on Myspace,” … wha? The MySpace bulletin has become a perfect representation of what’s wrong with the Internet.

Since you only receive bulletins from your “friends,” which I put in quotations for those of you who accept cam-girl invites, technically you’ve already done your filtering of the information. If the system worked, you should be interested in every bulletin that appears on your page. Every post should directly apply to you.

Twelve minutes, six “I’ve made out in an elevator” surveys, two hacker-spams and twenty four “I’m your friend who’s also a professional photographer, no, really, see, check out the new pictures I posted in my Blog,” posts later you realize that the system is seriously flawed. Keep in mind, this is information coming exclusively from people who you’ve deemed “cared about.”

Somewhere in that heaping pile of boring, a girl you’ve lusted after since you were in short pants announces that she has adopted a new, morally casual, attitude and you missed it because too many of your “friends,” just now found about about Chuck Norris jokes.

This is how the Internet is fucking you, or not fucking you, as the case may be.

Leave a Comment » | internet, myspace, retarded, the problem | Permalink
Posted by c007km

The “I” generation

July 17, 2007

If we’re generation-I, instead of generation-Y, and you think it’s because of the “Internet” and not “Irony,” as I’ve theorized, then allow me to offer this solution:

Generation-I … just want to draw pictures

Our generation, from first grobbly sentence, was told to express ourselves. Our hairy-armpitted, LSD soaked, Eagles-listening, parents sent us to “creative” pre-schools. Our high school teachers rounded down to the dunce before handing us paintbrushes and guitars and sending us off to liberal arts schools where we were free to “find ourselves,” well into our thirties without stigma. God forbid should we actually graduate, and land in the face of actual work, the Internet was there to save us.

Without Generation-I … just want to draw pictures, the Internet may not be in the ubiquitous, shitquitous* state that it is today.

You see, drawing pictures, playing guitar or writing stories is a perfectly viable way to make a living, and I fully support them as careers. Most people pursuing them, however, are missing that “career” part of the deal. The plan laid out in Art Schools, Sociology Programs and Pre-Schools all over the country looks a little like; Step one, draw a picture; step three, profit! The hippies forgot to mention that in order to carve out a living with your art, it’s going to be a lot of work. It will probably be much more work than if you were to build cars, crunch numbers or rivet things.

So now we have millions of teens to mid-30s, sitting around doing something they feel is a waste of their creative energy, in front of a computer and connectivity. A few of these people are talented, and their day-job is a complete waste of their time – but I can’t find them because of all the people whose mothers think they’re the next Clay Aiken … like Clay Aiken.

*mine.

1 Comment | art schools, definitions, generation, internet, the problem | Permalink
Posted by c007km

This blog is about the iPhone

July 3, 2007

Three awesome things I didn’t know about the iPhone.

1. I just logged onto an open WiFi network with it.

2. The two finger zooming, pulling, moving of pictures and web, DOES work as fast and smoothly as the keynote presentation.

3. “Cunt” is in its dictionary. Yes, type the word “cint” and it will recommend the correction “cunt.” I’m not joking; try it, if you can’t try it, that means you don’t have one and you’re a lousy cint.

Leave a Comment » | boners, iphone | Permalink
Posted by c007km

This blog is not about the iPhone

June 29, 2007

I lied.

Peering out from behind the glass in every newspaper stand, on the front page of every newspaper was the iPhone. I don’t know whether to be more grateful to Apple for such a sweet piece of phone, or for making something powerful enough to bump Paris from the headlines.

I can’t remember the last time a product was such big news. Apple even has television personalities begging for it on the air.

Clearly someone knows exactly how to advertise a product in the new-media age: make a brilliant product.

2 Comments | apple, boners, iphone, media, steve jobs | Permalink
Posted by c007km

Seth Godin is cattle (digitally).

June 21, 2007

A friend handed me one of Seth’s books about a year back entitled Small is the new Big. With such a unique and not-at-all-trite-whatsoever title, I could only assume that it would be filled with clever, intuitive advice on business. I flipped through the passages, and sampled about 15 before I quickly realized that this man was selling people a book on how to wipe their asses – something I hope we’ve all figured out by now. For this I say more power to him, that takes quite a salesman!

Now, a year later, I can’t get away from his name. Every “consultant” on the planet wants to quote him all day as the Mohammed of the Internet. Yesterday I ran across a quote from his 1998 book, Permission Marketing, “I guarantee you that by the year 2000, Internet ad banners will be gone.” Strangely it was in a collection of “dumb business quotes,” and I’m sure at this point Seth would distance himself from having ever said it – blaming context I’m sure. I however, think this is the smartest thing he may have said.

Not that the banner ad is gone, obviously they’re running strong, but they’re inflated. They’re not working – they’ve never worked. They’re staying afloat on our belief that the Internet is the new business frontier. Well guess what kids, it ain’t so new anymore, and if it hasn’t worked yet … it’s not going to, and to be honest, it’s only going to work less as web-users are spread even more thin.

I have to give it to Seth for going out on a limb and putting a date on a prediction, I’m not going to go that far, but I will give a prediction. When it all shakes out, the Internet will be used for the following things:

Porno: Instant, private delivery of wonderful, wonderful smut.
Banking, Billing and Booking: Real-world effects, instantly deliverable.
Mailorder: stuff you used to order from catalogs, before the Internet.
Research: Wikipedia, Yellow Pages, Finding a pizza joint etc.
Dating and Socializing: with the goal of eventually meeting in real-life
Entertainment: Limited to a few focused sites similar to the way we watch TV now

You may be thinking, “that was easy, you just listed everything;” but that’s not quite true. All of those things have instant, real-world results. You’ll notice one giant, glaring thing missing that is what most people (including our friend Seth) tout as the great, equalizing and revolutionizing factor of the Internet … “the sharing of ideas.”

That sounds so nice and fluffy until you realize that most of us really don’t have all that great of ideas; so hearing about them all the time rather sucks. All of the things on that list will be sought out specifically by a user who already knows what it is they’re looking for; whether it be boy-girl-girl double anal, tickets to NYC for the weekend, or the average life span of the Alaskan Moose. People will seek specific information and then turn their computer off to use it in their real, physical lives.

Anything you can spend an entire day working on and come away having produced exactly bullshit is doomed for abandonment – eventually. In the meantime, get you some gold rush – I know I am.

3 Comments | business, cattle, ceweblerty, internet, schmuck, seth godin | Permalink
Posted by c007km

What are these guys missing?

June 18, 2007

Some dudes from the future made an interesting video:

They do make some interesting claims, each one certainly worth thinking about. I think that the biggest thing they’re missing is they’ve based their entire concept of the future on the entertainment and information industries, leaving out things like food, transportation, energy and of course, booze.

Until there is digital tequila, and perhaps more importantly, digital-chubby-girls-you-hooked-up-with-because-of-tequila, this future will never exist.

Leave a Comment » | internet, prometeus, youtube | Permalink
Posted by c007km

Veoh my goodness, we’re not that stupid

June 15, 2007

Veoh is claiming to be the “democratization” of the television industry, allowing everyone access to the once “members only club.” It’s a higher quality version of You-Tube, with a less memorable URL (I thought google and yahoo proved that was all that mattered ten years ago).

So what’s the catch?

Three clicks later I was looking at a member list for said club, that apparently no longer exists … on Veoh’s about page. Michael Eisner … that name is familiar. Oh, and the primary investor is Time-Warner; between them they own more billions worth of content than Cougars at a Red Wings game – so what are they up to?

My best guess is it’s the shotgun approach to an uncertain future. No one knows where this is all headed … so Time Warner is sending a train down every track, in hopes that they aren’t left looking like they just fell off the turnip truck (if you can identify that reference you win a prize).

In the end, like doing your hot sister to piss off your mom, then finding out that she’s not really your sister anyway … Time Warner may be saving themselves despite themselves. With each of the megacorps launching tens of attempts each, plus all the indie and schmindie sites going up, MItB is compounding to critical mass faster and faster; the backlash may just lead people away from their computers and back to the newsstand where the conglomerates are already well entrenched.

Leave a Comment » | time warner, veoh, video, website, youtube | Permalink
Posted by c007km

Totally add me to your reader

June 15, 2007

Google Reader is a step in the right direction, from the people who take a lot of steps in the right direction. Google has based its entire existence on helping us make sense of this mess, and we like it when they stick to that instead of attempting to monetize kids getting shot in the penis with bottle rockets.

Google reader is a very simple gadget; it’s an RSS compiler … like TiVo for your news sites, online music-mags and, of course, critical blogs. While Google Reader will certainly help you keep up on all the information that you already read, it is not going to help thin out the giant mound of information looming just outside your RSS gates.

As an added bonus, you can install an offline version so that when you have connectivity, google will update your feeds right there on you computer so that you can read them, offline, at your leisure. So go ahead, add MItB, Jasper, SuperD, irockiroll and the Times, but don’t forget to head out into that scary, wide, Internet now and then to see what is new.

Now let’s break it down: The Internet is cool because it’s big, and available all the time, in all its infinite glory – so Google takes a step in the right direction by making the Internet smaller and available less of the time.

This is the world you live in.

Leave a Comment » | cattle, google, information, internet, review | Permalink
Posted by c007km