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?

Ilana Donna + Dolly = Long-Term Potential?

Amaldo.com video blogger Ilana Donna thought she was ready for a live-in. So she found her rescue pup Dolly. They were ready to euthanize her. Instead, she got to stay with Ilana. What a treat! I think?

We’re just happy Ilana’s vlogging again…And that she meets a nice “companion” very soon.

Spank Me I’m Your Work Slave!

For some odd reason, even though I recall unsubscribing quite a few times, I’m still on the email list over at Savvy Miss-the website that claims it’s For Intellectually Curious, Fun-Loving Women.

Don’t get me wrong. Really I like to think I straddle the whole “fun-loving” and “intellectually curious” pretty well, though admittedly most often I find myself teetering in the “intellectually curious”/”analytical kvetch” category. The point in all this is that female categorizations or gender qualifications of any sort tend to lend themselves to stereotypes.

So today I look at my gmail inbox and see Quiz: Are You The Office Brat and the actual exercise is “Are You The Office Bitch” and I can’t help but find this subtle semantic substitute just a wee bit reproachful.

Inappropriate conduct explicitly aimed at female bloggers is populating all the social criticisms of today’s media and yet some site that claims it’s for me written by people like me is demanding that I classify myself in terms of stale archetypes: The Corporate Dominatrix, the Goddess (the spiritual you), the Governess (the schoolteacher and mentor), the Queen (the sovereign) or the Schoolgirl (the student and apprentice).

I’m still trying to figure out how many market research focus groups Savvy Miss commissioned to come up with these catch-all titles (kinda like how many Poles does it take to screw in a light bulb?), but I’m missing out on how all this doesn’t somehow undermine the plight of the female blogger. Thinking in terms of social schemas is easy and it’s convenient, but ultimately its cost can be greater than we’re willing to pay.

Besides, so what if I’m The Office Bitch. Does that mean that I don’t crave a good, hard spanking once in a while?

Ah. Silly Savvy Miss. Didn’t cha get the memo? Tricks are strictly FTB (for the boys).

Justin Case You Didn’t Have A Life, There’s Justin.TV

Ever watch “EdTV“? It was a movie starring Jenna Elfman (when she still acted back in the 90s), Matthew McConaughey (when people found him hot), and Liz Hurley (when people actually remembered who she was, before she was pissing off her gizillionaire husband’s parents).

Anyways, the film’s premise was that Matt/”Ed” gets followed around by a camera crew 24/7 and his life becomes one big “Truman Show” only he’s in on the fame so there’s no actual collusion going on like in the Jim Carrey version.

Ok, so skip ahead like ten years and jump into the reality TV/voyeur-inspired Web 2.0 bubble. A few dudes from NYC moved to San Fran (Web 2.0 capital of the world) and found a start-up with the same sort of theme: Let’s follow “Justin” around and record his life around the clock on video!

So these dudes don’t win any points for originality, but even Newsweek made mention of them in a recent issue so we know they pay mad money for a good publicist at the very least. Either that or they lucked out with investors and relied on alternative skillz to hook that up.

But why go by my cynical opinion of JustinTV?

Check it out for yourself. And be amazed and how very slow the clock moves while you’re watching some random guy (you’d probably vehemently dislike if you ever actually knew him) sit in front of his own computer screen chatting with his fans. At least Justin provides us with an agenda of his day to get us motivated and TGIF, Friday looks fun!

1:30 PST: Justin looks for real estate with his parents. (We know he must be doing quite well with this little start-up venture) And then there’s the Wired Rave Awards tonight. Justin is sure one lucky boy. Not to mention he gets to meet the whacked out Irene from Real World Seattle. Just the kinda mid-day mind trip from reality type of distraction we all envy the boy for.

Just shoot me. I’m so uncool. I’m still amazed that there are people my age that actually muster enough energy to go out past 9 on a Friday night.

Blog Web 2.0 Style/We Love Beta!

I’ve been wanting to get this blog to its proper Web 2.0 beta social community interactive state for a while now. After all, what’s the point in having so much fun content, if you can’t share it with others! So this weekend, I worked pretty hard (I’d say my “arse off” but that might be a stretch, cause my heinie is still in full view.) I not only wanted to find a new Wordpress theme, but one that was widget friendly and/or allowed for sidebar widgets so I could make my blog more user-friendly and interactive. Luckily Wordpress is pretty great at explaining every little thing when it comes to themes.

Primarily, this post is for giving praise where a lot of kudos is due since I had the help of a very special tech blogger friend who guided me step-by-step in the process: From finding an ftp client to learning how to transfer files (hey, it was all Greek to me!) to emailing me the right widgets to use for my applications, to fielding my ad nauseum questions on why files weren’t uploading properly in the right directories, to keeping patient and explaining things in detail but also in plain English so I could understand, I’m indebted to Kirk. Not surprisingly for such an awesome dude, Kirk just also happens to have a kick-ass blog I think everyone needs to check out. It’s super well-written and informative.

I also happen to think Kirk should charge for his consulting services with myself being the exception of course. Never discount the important of free publicity. And of course, thanks to my husband who is so awesome and lovable and loving, how could you not just want to gag as you’re reading that I wrote this?