Facebook Is Like A Fake, Stuffed Dog

Something struck me recently when reading Dave Churbuck’s blog. For those of you unfamiliar with Churbuck, he is VP Marketing at Lenovo and a pretty fab blogger in his own right. He has a way of cutting through much of the subtle, latent Web 2.0 BS and calling things out.

I happened upon Churbuck’s post around the time I was “connecting” on LinkedIn with past coworkers and trying to loogle them. It started out quite innocently with me trying to find one of my good friends on there who is a student at UCLA’s management school. I realized just how annoying it is to be prompted for the umpteenth time to upgrade my account with that tiny yellow bar of a button that kept flashing every time I tried and failed to click away from the page.

Why must I be menaced so? What had I done but been a happy user who made frequent visits to the site and spread good word about its attributes? When did LinkedIn start bugging me to upgrade my membership? Thinking back, I had started noticing this a while back, but it took a few months to settle in my mind to the point of distracting me from enjoying the site.

Unfortunately around the time this malaise set in, I was also on Facebook. My friend had sent me another of those SuperWall pictures which required me clicking on the image, but before I could get to that image I was navigated to yet another page which prompted me to send the very image to all of my friends before I was allowed to open the actual image. Thankfully it also selected all of my friends as recipients of this picture so it saved me the work of having to send a picture of a dog to 50 of my nearest and dearest.

On the flipside, when I tried to “pull one over” on the system by “unselecting” all, it prompted me to choose one lucky recipient of an Alaskan Husky picture which most likely barked, licked its nutz, and said “Happy Holidaze” when clicked on. Annoyed that I had just spent seven minutes of my life driving towards a reality far less appealing than the my mind’s conjurings, I started to philosophize a bit on Churbuck’s likening of “spam” to this tactic that Facebook API developers have taken to spreading the word of their creations. Initially I had taken to this feature, especially because I could choose which of my friends would care to partake in a game of Scrabble with me and go a few rounds. Same with Flixter. In a sense it also allowed me to be more social with people I wouldn’t have contact with on a daily basis and rediscover or discover connections I never would have found otherwise.

Newsweek maintains that Facebook is the console of the future (replacing Wii??) and it will connect people socially through computers as never before. Considering it’s the sixth most trafficked site in the world, it’s a possibility. But really short of wireless remotes combined with action-oriented kicking ass, competitive games w/amazing graphics, how can the existing Facebook APIs compete with what Sony, IBM, and Microsoft are putting out?

Debunking Post-Holiday Shopping Myths

After finally getting my Wii and spending the past few days manically hooked on Wii Tennis and upping my all-time score to “professional,” I’ve decided that I now need to focus my energies on something a bit more tangible and likely to give equal amounts of attainable bliss: Shopping.

But…For those of you who know me, I hate shopping. I hate spending money. I hate crowds and I hate holidays that feed off of consumer greed and guilt. Now that the holiday season is officially over (well, the songs are off the radio anyways), and people are rushing back to stores to return and exchange gifts, I’ve decided to let a few days blow over, have some of the carte madness disperse a bit, and slowly get back out there and take advantage of some of these sales. In order to be successfully proactive in my shopping, I’ve decided to start with the essentials so as to eliminate all the unnecessary headache I usually attach to malls and people. Hopefully by me revealing the most common myths, you too can be enlightened and on your way to an even jollier 2008.

1) Myth # 1: Holiday season is over post-Christmas.
I lied in the previous paragraph when I said the holiday season was in fact officially over. If big name dept. stores like Kohl’s and Macy’s can be burning the midnight oil and opening at 6 AM the day after Christmas, you know there has to be an audience for this. Yeah and that audience would be the very same people that actually spend the day after Thanksgiving at strip malls, revving up on Starbucks lattes at 4 AM just to kick them out of that Tryptophan-state and anointing holiday-like status to a day of shopping. Canucks aside, who does that?

2) Myth # 2: Exhibit Kindness & Goodwill to Thy Neighbor
Ok, so this rule might apply to your literal neighbor, but don’t start getting all figurative on this one. If you see a Wii in Target or Best Buy, grab that puppy. Don’t do that polite thing when it comes to the things you want or you’ll never get anything in return - besides a lot of bitching and moaning when you come home empty-handed or realize you should have fought a little harder to stay in line to return that damn vase you have no use for but didn’t want to start rough-housing it with the old lady with the walker. Does she really need that walker is what you should really be asking yourself…

3) Myth # 3: People don’t like to Shop Online
Bullocks! Did you know that in England and Scotland, online sales pre-empted retail sales? Did you care?

4) Myth # 4: Giftcards are the Natural Remedy for a Fledgling Economy
Retailers are banking on giftcards pulling them out of this season’s sales slump? Yeah, good luck with that..

5) Myth # 5: Wii is Purely a State of Mii
And the most sought after product of the greed-fueled, consumer driven holiday season?

The Nintendo Wii was the most sought-after product, with the Transformers Ultimate Bumblebee a close second, according to Yahoo Shopping.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I got some Wii ass to cook.

Kobe’s Magic

Though living in Boston, and enjoying the huge success of its sports teams, when it comes to Basketball, my heart lies in California. 3900 W. Manchester Blvd. Inglewood, California if to be more specific, the address to the good old Forum. I remember the day when I was just a little boy, in the only one TV channel land of far away, when a weird looking guy appeared on the screen and said he is going to show us Basketball from a different world. It was the early Eighties, and the new names that I heard on that day: Magic, Bird, Mchale, Jabar, Parish and Worthy, filled my head, and stayed there ever since. You had only two options back then, you were either a Celtics fan, or a Laker fan, and I went with Magic. More then 20 years have past since (shit I’m so old), in which Michael Jordan came and went, and then came back just to go and come back again, and while doing all of that changed the game of Basketball forever. The Lakers left the Forum moved to the Staples center in which they won a few more championships but lost many more games and went into a 5 year draft that made Coach Phil Jackson a relatively calm person to out of his way, and call Kobe Bryant “uncoachable“.
But this past week, I got a chance to watch the Lakers play, and I think that we can see the light. Kobe is better then ever, the team is looking very good. The game Vs. the Suns on Tuesday was a big test for them, and they passed in flashing colors. This year’s Boston Celtics is a better team then any other in the NBA, and I think they are favorites to win the title, but I also think the Los Angeles Lakers have a good chance to win the western conference.

The Best Ad For MySpace Is A Diss On Friendster?

Rarely do I venture on Friendster or MySpace these days, but I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit after reading this profile excerpt on a Friendster page:

“I need to put new pics up…. I just joined MYSPACE and i love it! Add me if you’re on it!!!”

To read more about how you too can use Friendster to promote MySpace, click here.

Heroes, Hunks, and Hair: The Next Generation Of American Gladiators Is Almost Here

How excited am I for the revived American Gladiators show coming to NBC this January? So excited I’m almost a little embarrassed. The resurrected series features a millennial makeover with new hosts, Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali, new contestants, and of course, younger, stealthier gladiators. The new gladiators (sans Laser…my favorite beefed-up, unstoppable powerhouse who rocked the competition for seven steady seasons) are more brawny than their predecessors, yet less flashy with their dull black and gray unitards. Whoever decided to can the patriotic and totally awesome red, white, and blue spandex costumes of the early 90s might have made the biggest mistake of their career. Despite this minor wardrobe setback, the show will feature most of the original challenges like Hang Tough, The Joust, Power Ball (my fav!), and the unapologetic final round, the Eliminator.

The best part of this sho