July 2007 Archive

D'oh! dot com

July 31, 2007 2:36 PM

You know how some people have those bumper stickers that say "I stop for (blank)?" The blank being anything from school buses to democrats? I feel like I should have a similar type of sticker to stick on my head. This sticker would advertise:

I stop for Simpsons stuff

What kind of stuff? Mugs? Commercials? Crop circles? Sure! I don't discriminate, no matter what it is. If it's Simpsons, I'm paying attention.

So, as I was fast-forwarding through my DVR list, I came upon my favorite comically jaundiced family in a commercial, and hit the stop button. What was it? A commercial for a movie?

No!

It was a new partnership between Burger King and The Simpsons Movie called

SIMPSONIZE ME!!

I almost lost it right there. What was Simpsonize Me? What sort of new, groundbreaking viral thing had these two geniuses launched? I ran to my computer (something website television commercials NEVER get me to do) and typed in the URL.

Getting to the website, I found my dream come true:

• Upload your picture,
• press a button,
• answer a few questions and
• the Simpsonizer would turn you into a Simpson!

I was in Simpson dork heaven! The yellow gods had smiled down on me, descended to earth, and given me the greatest gift this side of Prometheus' fire and some dude's sliced bread.

Of course this excitement had to die. And die it did. The Simpsonizer is a joke! I uploaded my photo and was told that "Simpsonizing takes time" and like hooey it did - I was waiting there for 582 seconds, wondering what on earth the Simpsonizer was doing.

I walked away for a snack, and came back to find still 300 seconds left. Fast forward to the final payoff - the near 600 seconds were over! It was time to see...

John Waters with gray hair?

To my dismay, the Simpsonizer was a piece of junk. All of those precious seconds had created a Simpson that looked nothing like the photo I uploaded. My Internet user anger inflamed, I immediately took to Google to see if anyone else was as downtrodden as I.

And I found plenty including:

"anyone want to link to a before/after photo? I haven't been able to get it to work?"

"It has coding errors all over the place"

"I'm trying to decide which is more annoying-- the fact that SIMPSONIZE ME NEVER WORKS, or the fact that it makes you sit for several minutes before it tells you that it's not going to work. Haven't they heard of beta testing before unleashing crap like this on the public? ... Simpsonize Me is definitely the WORST .. MARKETING GIMMICK .. EVER."

Ah - so it's not just me. While comforting to find my ire shared by other Simpsons nerds, I'm afraid I must give Burger King one of Stephen Colbert's famed "Wag of the Finger" for releasing an untested, uncapable piece of total trash before it was ready to go.

The problem is that they promised so high, and failed to deliver even the basest of rewarding user experiences. Perhaps that is a lesson to add to the viral textbook - don't write checks your viral can't keep!

Oh, as a final note, when I went to the Simpsonizer to grab a screenshot for this Blog of the ridiculous waiting time, I was instead presented with an even worse prompt: The Simpsonizer is down, because it can't handle it's incoming traffic.

So good for you, BK. You've gotten millions of hits to your site. That would be considered a viral success... except every one of those million visitors is leaving the experience embittered and jaded.

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Does Second Life suck, or not?

July 26, 2007 6:00 PM

I felt like the king of the Internet today when I sent out a link to this Wired article that bashes Second Life, that 8-million-user-strong online world, as an errant fraud and a waste of corporate dollars.

But, no sooner had I sent it, that our Director of Client Services sent back an email with this Newsweek International article that says Second Life is a complete success! Worthy of all the praise it gets!

Well, this is the world, I suppose. Some people say one thing, others say something else. For example, Newsweek mentions that Second Life currently has 8 million residents. Man is that huge!

But then here comes Wired saying:

"

• Many people make more than one avatar.
• The number of avatars created by distinct individuals was closer to 4 million.
• Of those, only about 1 million had logged on in the previous 30 days (the standard measure of Internet traffic), and barely a third of that total had bothered to drop by in the previous week.
• Most of those who did were from Europe or Asia, leaving a little more than 100,000 Americans per week to be targeted by US marketers. "

Ouch! But then Newsweek talks about paraplegics being able to dance, and students being able to experience the life of a schizophrenic... Suddenly Second Life is a service and a blessing.

What do I know? Well, I have my own opinion to go by. And that's a simple one: I found Second Life to be boring beyond belief. Maybe it's my life-long love of video games, but the concept of a vast and never-ending world with no direct goals (aside from Maxis' The Sims) is a terribly depressing thing.

And, much like Wired pointed out, Second Life always seemed so empty. Seriously, read their article, you almost have to bat away the tumbleweeds as they bounce off the description of the empty Coke pavillion. I came to Second Life, wandered around for an hour, found nothing to do, flew for 20 minutes, found a casino, gambled away all my Linden dollars, and then inexplicably got myself stuck in a wall. When I finally liberated myself from my floral patterned jail, I left the casino, passed a few porn theaters, and finally aborted the game. I cancelled my cheap membership, and never returned to that mystical plain.

But, then again, that was just MY experience. The Newsweek article talks about test driving cars, visiting your aunt who lives in India in Second Life's "India", having sex with mermaids in the ocean, and making millions of dollars selling bits of pixels. I experienced none of these things, but some people must, right?

So - is Second Life awesome, or total crap? Maybe I'm not on either of those sides. It's great for those who find it great, and it's crap for those on the other side of the fence. You won't be seeing me on Second Life, but you wouldn't know that unless you were a member, too.

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Music to my ears: The changing face of the digital music marketplace

July 24, 2007 | Written by Kyle Parkinson

I like music. A lot. I regularly hole myself up in my room for hours scouring music blogs and sites, downloading the latest tracks and checking Metacritic for the latest review summaries. Without getting too deep into my own purchasing habits, I'll say that the album leak has become absolutely commonplace in the digital music world.

I'm not sure many people know exactly how each album leaks, and a vast majority of them don't care. Pre-release music is pre-release music, and for a lot of people, the price is right. A leak, oftentimes months in advance of the release date, is simply expected among some music lovers. As soon as one sees a tracklist posted on their favorite music site, the hunt is on.

The government tries to crack down, but the music hunters will very, very rarely become the hunted, so it's on the record labels to adapt to what has now become a way of life in the business. Physical album sales have absolutely tanked and continue to do so at an increasing pace, so the majors are forced to focus their attention on digital sales, and of course one name comes to mind when we turn to digital music sales: Apple's iTunes.

Despite holding more than 80 percent of the online music sales business, even iTunes is scrambling. The tide began to turn earlier in the year when Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote an open letter suggesting a movement away from digital-rights management (DRM) protection, which limits buyers in their ability to share their downloads. Jobs stayed true to his word when he later introduced iTunes Plus, which for an extra 30 cents per song, gives buyers the option to purchase DRM-free songs. Whether it likes it or not, the industry is beginning to relinquish control over the digital music frontier.

You can see it on all levels, too. Recently, indie pop band Stars rushed the digital release of their album to try to garner at least some sales revenue as the tracks hit the Internet (quick research will show you that it's still very easily available for free, if someone were to chose that route). Major-label mainstays are changing their ways too. Smashing Pumpkins recently released four versions of their Zeitgeist album, each with different bonus tracks to motivate fans to purchase the album. The tracks are readily available for free on various blogs.

The Internet is even making it as easy as possible to find your favorite pre-release songs. Sites like Hype Machine and Elbows aggregate the free mp3s posted daily on the myriad music blogs, letting visitors quickly run searches for the songs of their choice.

So what's a band to do these digital days? Sure, they do it for the art, but money is money, and making a living is necessary. Fighting illegal music sharing has proven futile at best, and the business knows it at this point. It's time for bands and labels to start thinking pro-actively, rather than re-actively. We've already seen some smart bands (Spoon, for example) embrace the leak and thrive as a result: their album debuted at #10 because their mindset was that "a leak is only going to hurt you if your record sucks," as quoted from a Merge Records publicist in a recent SPIN magazine article. Now the real show will be watching how the industry as a whole changes its stubborn ways to make the most of a landscape that has already indelibly changed its tune, and for music fans, that tune has never sounded sweeter.

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Expecto Piracy-num!

July 19, 2007 1:16 PM

We are one day shy of the cataclysmic release of the FINAL Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Many of my friends (why they are friends, I can't tell you) are planning on camping out all night by the local Barnes and Noble to get their copies of the final book, only to then venture to a local diner to sit, eat, and drink coffee, until they finish the book.

Of course, energy and expectations are high. So high, in fact, that Scholastic, the publisher, has spent over $20 million in order to keep the book out of the hands of others. So, this clearly worked, right?

Wrong. Yesterday, Boing Boing reported that there is already a pirated copy online. it took a superfan only 24 hours to create a crude PDF file of the entire book, made up of literal photos of each page. You can download it as a BitTorrent.

Then, this morning, The Guardian reported that Scholastic is preparing lawsuits against online retailers who have already shipped advanced copies.

And, if that's not enough eTrouble for Potter, both the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun went ahead and broke embargo, publishing their reviews of the book before they had agreed to.

What can they do? Not much. Crazy Potter fans who can't wait will read the photographed pages. Other crazed Potter fans will steer clear of ALL newsstands, so as not to chance glimpsing the illegal review. And all of them, regardless, will go and buy forty copies of the book on Friday night.

Lighten up, Scholastic, you're dealing with Time's people of the year, here!

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Who Doesn't Like Chicken McNuggets??

July 18, 2007 10:58 AM

After all the viral successes of Burger King (yanno, Subservient Chicken,Hucking Chicken(which was once a viral site, as well), and "Sith Sense" where Darth Vader took time out of his busy, evil day to play "20 questions" with you), it's about time that McDonalds got in on the action.

Now, I rarely watch commercials, but, because my DVR stops fast forwarding at the end of a recording, I caught a McDonalds commercial featuring two boys outside of Wrigley Field - one beatboxing, the other rapping.

Their rap? "I'm into nuggets, y'all". They call these things brainworms, because they burrow deep into your cranium, and snack on your brain for days at a time until your friends and co-workers find you babbling and giggling to yourself (I'm into nuggets, y'all) out by the dumpsters.

At the bottom of the commercial, I saw "Actual User Generated Media". Wow, I thought, sarcastically. So good for McDonalds, they went ahead and did some YouTube contest, encouraging people to make a McNuggets commercial. Big whoop.

Well, turns out I'm wrong, and McDonalds deserves my apologies. I read on Brains on Fire that this viral video was actually created of its own accord, by two improv comedians in Chicago, while they were waiting in the wings of the Second City stage.

McDonalds got wind of this hilarious video, and did the smartest thing in the world - they bought it and made it a commercial! Now, many people are coming down on the comedians, calling them shills and sellouts. No, you fools, I disagree. This is virginal viral, at its best. A video created for the sake of creating it - and then bought because, well, it's extraordinarily addictive.

I may not eat chicken mcnuggets, but you better bet I'm rapping and beatboxing all around the office today.

Viral Success! Good job, McDonalds!

Now, go ahead and gently slip the brainworm into your ear canal, you know you wanna.

Check out "I'm Into Nuggets, Y'all"

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Hip, User Generated Products

July 13, 2007 | Written by Libby Gery

I am thinking about starting an online company for selling products. Hip user generated products.

You're the user: Who better to decide what kind of product YOU want to buy? There are absolutely no limitations, so be creative!

First, think of an idea. Next, send in your products to us. Then we take over: we'll create a page just for YOU on our site featuring YOUR products. Share with your friends who are also building products and put your most innovative friends in your BEST 4 FRIENDS box on your page.

We'll worry about selling your products and, if you are a top seller, reward you with web-cash you can use toward purchasing other friends' products on our site. Hey -- this is not some virtual world with virtual transactions! These are real products that YOU build, YOU buy from our site and that actually arrive at YOUR doorstep via US Mail.

We don't want to tell you what you want to buy from us. We let you decide.

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Who are you REALLY!?

July 12, 2007 4:28 PM

The Internet is a fabulous place, when you really think about it. One of its greatest assets is, it would seem, complete anonymity. We are presented with the ability to pretend to be whoever we want to be. A pirate? A spaceman? A bored Cal State cheerleader? All we need is an email address, an AIM name, and a Blog (present Blog site discluded - send your friends!).

And I'm not just talking about those weirdos constantly being shackled on To Catch a Predator. It seems that even the leading businessmen of America are enjoying a bit of "make believe" on the Internet. Today I am pointing my finger at John P. Mackey, the co-founder of Whole Foods Market.

According to today's New York Times, Mackey has been writing on Yahoo Finance's bulletin board under the pseudonym "Rahodeb" for the past SEVEN YEARS. Seven years! That requires such dedication! Even bored 13-year-olds wouldn't devote that much of their lives to pretending to be college undergrads in hopes of getting in on an online poker website.

But sure enough, "Rahodeb" has been "championing his company's stock and occasionally blasting a rival, Wild Oats Markets" for as long as my full employment here, and my full college tenure, according to this article.

Now is there anything wrong with this? Not technically. Well, it seems a little crazy. And it's a bit spooky, too. But he hasn't broken any laws. No company secrets were revealed. And, apparently, people on the boards have known there was something amiss.

But - The wonders of the Internet! We can be anybody! You can pretend to be a Fortune 500 CEO, and he can pretend to be you!

Talk about Trading Spaces...

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A Usability Disaster

July 11, 2007 | Written by Libby Gery

Last night a friend left my apartment to bike home to his nearby neighborhood in Brooklyn. Earlier in the day we had been discussing the movie Airplane - his favorite movie, one of the few DVDs he owns, and one which I've somehow avoided seeing despite its daily appearance on Comedy Central in the 90s (my childhood). As he was leaving, a very clear and what I thought practical idea came to mind: "Great! I'll stay right here and finally be able to watch Airplane as soon as he gets home -- home where he keeps his Airplane DVD."

In this instance, my mind made a bad connection: His physical closeness to the DVD would somehow facilitate my ability to watch it. I was not thinking in digital paramaters (no .mov files were involved in this thought) but, rather, I just rationalized something like: "I can see that film because he'll be able to instantly send it to me."

I do this all the time as of late. I walk to the deli, thirsty for some sort of soda, and find a few long rows of mixed up bottles. My urge is to command them sorted! Deli: show me...just the diet ones. Now, keep Diet but also limit to just brand name sodas. What I really want is to Google search for "Diet Gingerale." Or better, Google map it within the store.

At the start of this posting I linked 'Airplane' to it's IMDB page (which you probably thought was a wierd move) but I did it because I was told that blogs are supposed to link to other sites online - keep things interactive, integrated into the rest of what's happening on the web. What I also wanted to do, but couldn't, was link your body into the deli where I was analyzing soda the other day.

I bet we all do this. We forget that the physical world doesn't function as does the digital world and, after realizing our mistake, get totally disappointed with the disgusting usibility standards of this physical world! And how slow! How slow it all is!

Its true that every day the two worlds come closer and closer to unification. But in the meantime, there's going to be a lot of impatient people like me wishing physical objects could be attached to Gmail messages and that Pizza and Diet Gingerale could just be printed out during lunchtime.

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Don't make me think

July 6, 2007 | Written by Marcy Jarreau

I don't like to think, or read. I mean I think and read all the time, but when I am online I don't want to have to think about using a website or read any instructions.

I want things to seem intuitive on the web. I want each website to function like other websites, and maybe not exactly the same way but similar.

It's like credit card terminals. Just about any chain store has them. But they are different everywhere. I inevitably have to do a reswipe 1 out of 4 times I make a purchase. I just want one standard way to charge things. I want "Cash Back?" to come at the same place every time. Stop making a fool of me Baldacci's!

We are always looking to find an innovative, forward thinking, ahead of the curb new trend for "web 2.0" but I think I would just prefer my user experience to be easy and quick. K.I.S.S. --Keep It Simple Stupid.

Sometimes I want some bells and whistles but I also want to know how to navigate through them easily too...with minimal effort on my part. Make that happen for me, please.

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