Verbalism

Hedgerows - Family Gardeners - the Website

As everyone now knows, I love the web and over the years have become pretty good at understanding how to design websites both from a usability point of view, but also from the perspective of the coding and optimisation behind the scenes.

I'm very proud of my latest website design for a local family-run gardeners in East Sussex - Hedgerows.

Do let me know what you think.

Culture Clash?

culture, islam, west, politics, social media

Twitter, Cliques and Underpants

Quote of the day from Eric Rice:

Twitter is getting smacked hard: their competitors are building the Twitter that I’ve heard people want. And in the social media space we’re fickle. We’ll change a product (as long as our clique comes along too), like we change our underwear.

eric rice, twitter, social media, clique

Facebook Fallout

Jen's written some interesting posts recently on her concerns about Facebook and others have likened it to hotel California. 

It's an interesting discussion.  I wonder how long it will be before Facebook unlocks its doors?  As Dave Winer says:

Eventually, soon I think, we'll see an explosive unbundling of the services that make up social networks.

As for the 6 degrees of separation between Facebook and the CIA here's the comment I added to one of Jen's posts which kind of sums up some of my thoughts on these issues.

A couple of thoughts. I think Facebook will open up its content, in the same way it’s opened up its APIs. They’d be mad not to. It’ll drive even more people to join. I’d put money on it not continuing to be a walled garden. I think they’ll also be smart enough to allow you to export your content via RSS or OPML to anywhere else on the web. The more you give the more you get. I’m sure the Facebook people know this and will act.

One last thought on the CIA, DARPA and Facebook. The internet was invented by the US military/industrial/academic complex. That’s why we’re all numbers - IP numbers. That’s why our very presence on the internet is very scary, if you think about it too hard. Facebook may be selling attention meta data, as Google and the rest do (it’s the price for free stuff on the net). But the CIA has got our numbers. Time to start thinking like phishers, sploggers, spammers and scammers, if we really want to protect our identity.

Great Video on Creative Commons vs Copyright

If you're not familiar with Creative Commons, then here's a great little video from David Bausola.

 

 

 

Allowing people freely to use your work for commercial gain is hard for some people to get their heads around.  Why not try it and see what karma brings you?

bausola, creative commons, copyright, freedom, sharing

Ooops, I crashed Google!

Well, here's something you don't see every day.  The screenshot below is the first time since Google was launched that I've seen an error message.  Incredible!

 

google, crash, server error, search

Web 2.0 is People 1.0

It's the people, innit?  Our relationships, our passions and our lives.  It's taken two iterations for the web as a tool to begin to approach the sophistication of people 1.0, but it's getting there.

This wonderful video on YouTube makes the point beautifully ... but also hints at the possibility that the web may somehow be fashioning People 2.0.  Uplifting and thought-provoking too.

Many thanks to Adriana, via Jackie, for pointing to this.  Both these women have been incredibly kind to me over the last 18 months in introducing me to various people and places in the London blogging/web world. 

Thanks guys.

What do you know about Cybernetics?

Does anyone know anything about Cybernetics?  I've just been asked to submit a paper and speak at the 4th International Conference on Cybernetics and Information Technologies, Systems and Applications.  I think they'd like me to speak on complex adaptive systems.

Clearly a case of mistaken identity, although I did for a split second consider blagging it in order to get a free trip to Florida.

 

Tags: cybernetics, conference, identity

Spam, spam, beautiful spam

The quality of spam is definitely improving.  Of course, 99.9% of the time it gets caught in my spam filter to be zapped en masse.  Occasionally emails that I genuinely want get zapped too by mistake ... at least that's my excuse, if you've not received a reply from me.

Perhaps it was a subliminal desire for valium, but for some odd reason this evening I actually read one of the glut of spam emails that seems to have done nothing but increase over the last six months. 

And here it is.  Quite beautiful prose, ever so slightly meaningless, but no less intriguing for it.  Even the picture has a certain, je ne sais quoi about it.

It was waking up that was difficult. Some hours had slipped by.  Would have to do something. And that something would probably mean everything that you have done has been wrong. Attempting to deceive. It had always been sung in sensuous contralto by Madonette. Dont talk. Listen. I dont know what day it is. How much time is at a great pace into the microphone on your pinkie. They were found suspended in the chimney from the smelter. Along with something like you;ll find out soon enough. I had no choice. And I had down. He stood that way, unknowing, unseeing as a young man appeared.

Free Cialis to the first person to recognise the source of any of the above prose.  P.S. Verbalism has now officially attained splog status.

 

Tags: spam, splog, viagra, prose

Postcards From The Edge

Courtesy of Nicole.

 

 

Tags: inspiration