Archive for the ‘Browsing’ Category

“Paul, I have to say your review doesn’t look so good this year.”

“What? Mr. Jenkins, you’ve never complained about my work before.”

“Your job performance is fine, Paul, that’s not the problem.”

“Our company won awards for my work this year!”

“No, Paul, it seems the problem lies in your people skills.”

“What?”

“It’s here in your file. There have been issues with how you deal with those around you, and we take that sort of thing seriously at this company.”

“Someone complained about me? Who complained about me?”

“I really can’t divulge—“

“Just tell me. Was it Lucille? Did she complain about me? Anyone could have dropped the mustard bucket on her at the picnic, it was just dumb luck I happened to be—“

“No, it wasn’t Lucille, I can tell you that much.”

“Then who?”

“Let’s just say there are people in your network who are unhappy with how you deal with them.”

“How I—I barely deal with anybody, I usually stay to myself. Heh, about the only time I see anyone I recognize is on my Facebook page…”

“Yes, well.”

“…You’re kidding me.”

“I did say in your network.”

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I am a total MySpace Friend whore. I accept this.

Getting Friends is simple on the insanely popular networking site MySpace.com. You find someone you want to be connected to and you click on their “Add Me” link, then you wait to see if your request has been deemed worthy. Suddenly their little avatar picture is in your Friends list, your picture is on theirs, you’re receiving each others’ bulletins, you’re connected! And another tiny community is formed.

Friending folks on MySpace — and yes, “friend” has become a verb, like "game," "blog," "google," and "shindig" — is how you keep in touch with them. You can see their current doings, hear the music they like, view their embarrassing pictures, admire (or cringe at) their choice of background designs, and compare your interests to see how cool yours are. Or, more likely, aren’t. And your Friend list displays the people that are now networked with you.

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I am a decent writer. Need a quick column? I’m there. Need a short story or essay or script or poem? I laugh and reach for my keyboard. Need to compose a polite but insistent e-mail to a retailer to complain about the shopping cart left lodged wheel-deep into your Civic? I’m on it. And yet, when faced with the most minor writing task imaginable, I freeze up.

Such as, for example, leaving feedback at eBay.

It’s a simple thing, really. You’ve made a transaction at this popular online auction site, you’re either happy or unhappy with the results, and all you have to do is check a box and leave a short comment about the ordeal. But I stare at the screen helplessly, torn over my choice. After all, future generations will look at my words before putting their faith in this person. The 80 characters or less that I write may make the difference between someone’s personal satisfaction and their financial ruin. And what if my seller just had an off day but doesn’t really deserve the crushing report I want to deliver? Do I want the responsibility of being the only “Negative” comment in an otherwise sterling life?

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cabridges That isn't just mundane minutiae of everyday life that nobody could possibly care about. It's Twitter!

cabridges Mulling over wardrobe choices, which means socks that match as long as I wear thigh-high boots. Success! Wait, one's a glove…

cabridges Twitter is the hottest new Internet social trend, which means it's been around since last summer and the media has finally noticed.

cabridges It's a microblog, or group IM. You post messages for anyone to see, and people can friend you or just subscribe to your ramblings.

cabridges Speeding when workers are present is evil, according to the signs on I-4. What if the workers are goofing off? Can I wing one?

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The world looms heavily over you, dark and forboding, thick with malicious intent, demonic possession, and parental sarcasm. Your time alone in your room is the only place you can truly express your tortured inner feelings and, by imprisoning them in notebooks with cartoon goth girls on the cover, tear them from your soul so they can regenerate in time for the next gloomy poem. Or you can post it all at MySpace, or LiveJournal, or Friendster, or take pictures of your newest hairstyle incident and put them on Flickr or Facebook.

But it's not enough. It's still not enough. Vast as the Internet is, it's still not deep enough to contain your rolling waves of existential angst. But wait! CondeNet, Inc has felt your pain, and is ready to help you help them with their brand new teenage networking site, Flip.com.

Or you can, you know, make scrapbooks and join clubs and stuff.

I haven't quite figured out yet what the difference is between this site and all the other Web 2.0 sites that feature public diaries and obsessive messaging, unless it's that Flip.com is even more blatant about shilling for fashion products, must-have-or-you'll-die accessories, and, of course, CondeNet's excellent line of "Your Inadequacy Means Our Advertising Revenue" magazines

But in this dark and desolate time, maybe that's enough. Maybe it's just enough.

I can't leave.

I'm stuck here, helplessly refreshing my browser over and over, waiting to see what… Hey, another Roomba! Do I need a Roomba? Nah, my house would kill the poor thing… Anyway, I'm hovering over my browser to see what comes up next. A Woot-Off is in progress, right now!

Woot.com is an odd little site that offers close-out bargains of a wide variety of items, a new one daily. You do not know how many they have for sale, only that once they sell out that's it. Prices often run at a fraction of ordinary retail, shipping is reasonable, and the product descriptions are always brutally honest and often hilarious.

Wait, it changed again! Is it… no, it's some kind of TV tuner game thing. Don't need one. Whew.

That's the normal site, anyway. Periodically a Woot-Off occurs, and the frenzy begins.

In a Woot-Off, items are thrown up there at breakneck speed and remain till they sell out, when they are replaced by the next item, and only during a Woot-Off can you see a progress bar letting you know (roughly) how many are left. This is what allows me to grab a hurried shower and, somehow, drive to work, moaning at every stoplight about the great deals I am surely missing.

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I'm sitting here in the dark, light from my monitor flickering across my face. Were I a drinking man, I would surely be hammered and morose; instead I'm starting to get queasy from all the Diet Pepsis. I've started to type dozens of times in the last two hours, each time getting several sentences in before angrily deleting it all in frustration.

I have a great idea. Original, startling, innovative. Guaranteed to get attention and maybe bring in some bucks. And I don't know where to talk about it.

I started to put it here where it would have the biggest audience, but froze when I realized that my MySpace page would have a broader reach. Then I backpaged and went to post it on my own Web site since anything major in my life should go there, even though I usually forget since the most major thing in my life is usually posting on a blog.

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What do you do when your business model violates laws in your home country, and the laws of most every country around?

Start a new country, of course.

The Pirates Bay, one of the top bit torrent sites where you can find links to download music, movies, TV shows, software, and more, is getting a little tired of being hounded by the Swedish government for their perfectly harmless habit of facilitating worldwide copyright infringement and has decided to go it alone by buying Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that was declared a "micronation" during some legal disputes in the 70's. Sealand is now for sale, and The Pirate Bay is sizing it up and measuring for drapes.

Interested in becoming a citizen of the first "information must be free" nation? Head to their Web site and donate. Keep in mind, however, that where companies can be sued, countries can be bombed. Just sayin'.

Dunno if you've looked around lately, but there seems to be a lot of good science fiction popping up on this Interweb thing. And, as I frantically search for more things to distract me from NaNoWriMo, I shall point at a few of my favorite time-sinks to distract you from my shameful word count.

Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show – Stories, articles, essays, and reviews, updated weekly. 'Taint free, there's a small monthly fee, but you get some of the best-written stuff out there right now including backstories about Card's characters from his Ender series, available as text or as downloadable MP3s. He reads his work well, and that happens with few writers.

Jim Baen's Universe – Stories and columns from Baen Books favorite writers, including Mike Resnick, Eric Flint, Gene Wolf, Wen Spencer, and more. This is a subscription service — you can read the first chunk of each story for free but it costs to get the rest — and different levels of subscriptions can also net you access to writers at cons, free e-books, autographed copies, and even Tuckerization (getting your name used as a character). Baen Books is probably the longest-running science fiction e-book promoter, with a huge library of completely DRM-free e-books available for free download, and this is their next step in making web publishing work.

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Want to see what happens when the creative arm of an entertainment company gets confused with the legal arm? Cease and desist hijinks!

Such as Universal's recent attack against one of its "Serenity" fans. When Universal was benefiting from the free publicity garnered by fan-made products (and tacitly encouraged by the official movie Web site) there was no problem. But now that companies have bought licenses to make official stuff, suddenly those same designs, a year later, are evil and must be thwarted.

And someone at Comedy Central finally noticed that YouTube was full of "South Park," "Daily Show," and "Colbert Report" clips and boldly took action. Good thing it happened after Colbert's Green Screen Challenge was over since Colbert brilliantly used YouTube and all those frustrated video artists out there to build up his audience. Maybe iTunes video sales are lagging?

There's no question that companies have the right and the duty to protect their copyrights. But those mixed signals are getting a little loud.