Today is the first anniversary of this blog. I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve ignored it, I’ve used and abused it. I thank you for the interaction, and the support. Now…I will be making some changes around here very shortly, and if you’ve been reading regularly or have subscribed, you may want to stop now.

After the surprising increase in traffic during my most recent Google Garbage™ experiment, I’ve decided for the time being to spend some of this blog’s precious PageRank on more such specious pursuits.

The fact is, posting a bunch of nonsense is good for business. I supposed the television networks figured this out decades ago, didn’t they?

Putting up posts on hot topics and/or “long-tail” niche keywords has made me a pretty nice little chunk of change over the past few months, here and elsewhere. Apparently this is how kids can make money these days. Since I don’t particularly have the time to do much else, that’s what I’ll be using this blog for, at least for the foreseeable future.

This is just to announce the change to the handful of readers who have stuck around through the garbage posts. If I have anything interesting to say or show, I’ll probably post it at my Tumblr blog.

Again, I suggest you unsubscribe and stop reading now, or you’ll find yourself reading about car radiator repair, rapid drug detox, natural snoring remedies, home surveillance cameras and Bowling Green State University.

Thanks all!

787 First Flight Video

787 First Flight Video:

CNBC broadcast the Boeing 787’s first flight video. Here’s the video with Phil LeBeau’s commentary:

What is this post? See here.

• Swine flu: Twitter’s power to misinform from foreignpolicy.com
   
• How False Rumors Can Cost Lives from canonical.org

And, because I can’t resist, a few (actual) recent Twitter updates. Names are unchanged, to expose the idiots. Is there really any difference from the cartoon above?

Realtime results for swine flu

2135 more results since you started searching. Refresh to see them.

• 
  NYKitten3483: i am so not taking my baby anywhere. this freaking swine flu! so not cool. a baby died from it. i am so not happy.
  less than 20 seconds ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  GinBlossoms_Guy: Packing a bowl at the job-site with my new friend Miguel. How do I bring up swine flu without sounding too racial?
  3 minutes ago from Twittelator · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  Trevor_Latulas: I was really sick this morning. Hope I don’t have Swine flu. That would sux
  3 minutes ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  stphmli: swine flu is a conspiracy.
  6 minutes ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  nickicortese: Someone in the US died of swine flu! Holy Shit!!!!
  6 minutes ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  isnotanarab: Bin laden homies made swine flu…check the facts
  6 minutes ago from AndTweet · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  TTownTommy: Hmm the new movies coming in May may play 2 empty seats with the swine flu outbreak
  8 minutes ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  theimaginarykid: is not shaking anybodys hand and I’m about to start rockin mask and gloves like Mike Jackson. just heard swine flu hit the chi.
  10 minutes ago from UberTwitter · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  butterrs: so my roommate is sick, hope its not swine flu.
  15 minutes ago from TinyTwitter · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  brittanylovato: an entire family in Cibolo with swine flu. I am officially terrified. IT’S GONNA GET ME!!!
  17 minutes ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

I know what you’re thinking: that wasn’t real, was it? Take a look at this one and see if you believe it yet:

Desktop Fireworks from Saqoosha on Vimeo.

I’ve tried it, and it’s real. All you need is a printer and a web cam.

It’s called Augmented Reality, and if this doesn’t achieve World Domination, I don’t know what will. The commercial applications are endless, and I think we can safely predict that soon you’ll be seeing this everywhere. Any technology that can be used by both the military and the porn industry has a very bright future indeed.

Here’s that implementation by GE from the first video, promoting green energy:

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality

How about a 3-D interactive greeting card? Well, here’s a start:

FLARToolKit Demo from Ryan Stewart on Vimeo.

Wait until Hallmark gets their hands on this.

The technology is called FLARToolKit, and it appears to have been invented by someone named Saqoosha (that was him in the last video) at Spark Project. It’s apparently just a brilliant use of existing technologies to make something very impressive. Actually from a technical standpoint, it appears remarkably simple:

http://saqoosha.net/en/flartoolkit/start-up-guide/

The commercial license was released on Monday, and I for one hope Saqoosha makes a fortune.

I know you want to try this now, so go here:

http://www.strafwerk.nu/ar/

Oh, and you can even do this without a printer – just draw a square on a piece of paper and go here to prove it:

http://saqoosha.net/lab/FLARToolKit/2/

So, as Stephen Colbert might ask: cool, very cool, or coolest thing ever?

Result: Like a “fun-sized” candy, life is made byte-sized, interaction relieved of character. Twitter is to conversation as porn is to making love.

OK, now it’s your turn.

[Inspired by Phil Baumann's Twitter Pitch in 140 Characters. Thanks Phil.]

Nice grammar.

Previously I’ve written of my hatred for Twitter, including 15 Reasons Twitter Must Die, 1500 More Reasons Twitter Must Die, Twitter Fails Again, Twitter Officially Goes Mainstream, and Why is Mashable Obsessed with Twitter?. Not belabor the point (well perhaps), I’m afraid we need to revisit the issue. So let’s call this a series.

If your cell phone service occasionally went dead for an hour, would you be ranting all over the internet about how great it was? 

If the post office sometimes just didn’t deliver the mail for a day…OK, bad example.

How about if your cable or satellite TV went down during a big game like the Superbowl – even if you were watching something else? And next, during the World Series of Poker? And then during fairly-popular episodes of Oprah? Would you be excitedly proclaiming your provider’s greatness in your blog and encouraging others to use it?

As of today, Twitter worship continues, and yet this glorified Fisher-Price toy remains as unreliable as ever. This morning, TechCrunch reports on another Twitter outage, this time due to a “database problem“.

OK, fine. We all have our database problems now and then. My problem isn’t with the people at Twitter, though their Jack and Jill Magazine attitude toward their own failures must even get on their fans’ nerves sometimes:

No, my problem is with the slobbering fanboys and fangirls who are basing their monumentally pointless lives around it.

An exaggeration, you say? Let’s look again at Mashable, whose Twitter fandom remains unabated. On Monday, they posted the horrible “HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive“  by Elliott Kosmicki, which recommends using Twitter to accomplish various important tasks. A few of his most ridiculous:

• Manage to do lists (“Next time you’re telling your followers what you ate for lunch, you can also make a note to call the cute waitress you met while you were there.” Yes, I’m sure she’ll be impressed when you tell her the story of how you twittered yourself a to-do note about her.)
• Set a timer (Be sure and use it for really important things, like “remember to feed the baby”. And what device are you using to access Twitter anyway? Does it not have a built-in clock?)
• Get your flight information (Are you really going to depend on Twitter to help you get to the airport on time? If so, you deserve to miss that plane.)
• Track your expenses (Sounds like a solid plan. I’m sure the security is top-notch.)
• Get news alerts (Because you can never have enough news alerts. Hey, have they found Caylee yet?)
• Track packages (“If you’re like me and spend too much time tracking your latest Amazon order…” No, thankfully, I am nothing like you.)

Elliott isn’t the only offender, of course. In fact he’s not even close to the worst. Take Darren Rowse of the execrable Problogger.net (How to make your blog stand out? “Pick a unique topic”). Darren smelled the money and started a Twitter-specific site, the atrociously-named Twitip.com. Are these people unaware of the meaning of the word “twit”, or is there some type of irony involved?

The titles of the posts tell an ugly tale of pointlessness: 

• How to Target and Attract High Quality Twitter Followers from Your Blogging Niche (because we don’t just want ordinary readers, we want “high-quality niche eyeballs”) 
• Would you say what you say on Twitter if it was a Real Life Face to Face Interaction? (What would you say if I suggested you had no social skills?) 
• Helping others leads to Twitter Success (which contains the odious terms “Twitterating” and “Twitternation”)
• Using your Blog to Promote Twitter, (“Twitterverse”, “Tweeple”)
• The Quest for 5000 – How many Followers are Enough
• And the question on all our minds, Does The Way You Twitter Cause You Stress?.

There are so many more examples of sites like this, but my brain hurts already. So in summation: if you find yourself acting anything like these people, please seek help. And please don’t tweet about it.

2009 is here, and the web is full of predictions for the year (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

However, many of these “leading thinkers” are frustratingly vague in their prognostications. “Facebook will continue to be popular” and “Twitter goes mainstream” do not qualify as bold predictions.

Unlike these “thought leaders”, I am willing to go out on a limb for you the reader, and come back with real specifics. Here then are the Agitationist’s predictions for the web world in 2009:

JANUARY

“Identity aggregation” is the prevailing theme of 2009. This gains momentum throughout January, as Facebook acquires OpenID, FriendConnect and FriendFeed, and folds them into Facebook Connect, which will now be used to log on to all social networks, bank accounts, and porn sites.

FEBRUARY

CPT (cost-per-tweet) becomes a primary advertising metric. Google buys Twitter for a record sum; Twitter admits this was its long-awaited “monetization plan“.

In February, someone claims to be a “Pro Twitterer“; there is no way to refute the claim.

MARCH

Microsoft products worldwide cease to function at 12:00am on March 1st 2009, as they fail to adjust to the non-leap year. A fix (code-named “Toaster”) is be scheduled to be released by July, but fails to materialize.

APRIL

After a fierce battle with Yahoo, Google acquires Facebook, and mashes up Facebook Connect with its own ID service OpenSocial (ironically using Yahoo Pipes). Google shuts down Orkut; no one is affected.

The triumphant Google launches a new social platform, connecting all your tweets, text messages, emails, bookmarks, contacts, comments, feeds, photos, calendars, status updates, and Wikipedia entries into one SocialID™.

Google then uses a proprietary algorithm to assign you a PeopleRank™, which determines your online authority, social status, earning potential and suitability for employment.

GFriends™ on your TrustList™ are able to follow your LifeFeed™ and GoogleMap™ your real-world location (or “meat-spot“), thanks to your SocialID™-enabled mobile device.

MAY

Controversy ensues when a whistle-blower claims the US government has covertly installed its own server room in the Googleplex to monitor private citizens’ LifeFeeds™. However, this is widely seen as a necessary protection against terrorism, and a class-action lawsuit is quickly dismissed.

Oversharing becomes expected social behavior, and the desire for privacy is seen as petty and prudish. Within three years, PeopleRank™ is planned to include fingerprints, SAT scores, credit reports, and criminal records.

“Identity theft” is replaced by the more serious crime of “Aggregated Identity Theft“, and companies compete to offer PeopleRank™ monitoring services for a monthly fee.

JUNE

A new phone is released that is so cool, it makes you think your phone sucks. You purchase this phone, but someone you know then gets a newer, cooler phone.

In late June, Oprah does a show on getting negative people out of your LifeFeed™.

JULY

With online identities consolidating rapidly, screen-name squatting becomes the domain-name squatting of 2009. Shaquille O’Neal buys the right to tweet under his own name for an undisclosed sum. After receiving a cease-and-desist letter, eBay shuts down an auction for the screen name “Beyoncé”. Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman attempts to auction off his own name; the reserve price is not met.

AUGUST

Google is contracted to provide airport screening services for the TSA. President Obama defends this move as part of his “Google for Government” initiative.

However, there is a dark spot for Google in August, when it discovers that AdSense is nothing more than a massive pay-per-link scheme. Google penalizes itself by reducing its own PageRank from 10 to 0.

SEPTEMBER

Throughout the summer there has been a growing backlash against Google’s hegemony, and rebellious users begin moving to Yahoo.

However, there is a scandal in September, as a Yahoo employee leaves a briefcase containing Yahoo’s exclamation point in an airport lounge. Yahoo rapidly loses consumer trust and market share, and its stock price dives under $2.00. Microsoft succeeds in a hostile takeover, breaks up Yahoo and sells it for parts.

The exclamation point is found, and donated to the new “Web 1.0 Museum”, which opens in September on the campus of Stanford University, in a building shaped like a giant bubble.

OCTOBER

YouTube covers 75% of its video frame with advertising, adds pop-up balloons containing sponsored messages, and randomly replaces video soundtracks with jingles for the new YouTube-brand energy drink. Somehow, competitors still fail to gain significant market share.

NOVEMBER

NewsCorp buys the “Girls Gone Wild” franchise and folds it into MySpace, completing the site’s transition into the teen soft-porn market. Market share plummets, but profits skyrocket.

There is controversy when it is revealed that MySpace’s “Tom” has been dead for several years, and his profile is being operated by a low-paid employee in Bangalore. “Tom” is de-friended by 2.5 million people in one day, a Guinness world record in this newly-created category.

DECEMBER

Predictions for the year are reviewed, and found to be either eerily accurate or totally off-base.

–FIN–

In a previous post titles “15 Reasons Twitter Must Die“, I accused Twitter users of oversharing the petty, mundane details of their sad, pointless lives. 

Incensed Twitterers jumped to its defense. Twitter was a useful tool, they said, and wasn’t just reducing conversation to idle noise. It could be used for sharing ideas, networking, and gauging the zeitgeist.

Thinking I might have been a bit hard on the Twittersphere, I thought I’d revisit the issue. Using the much-celebrated (though hardly revolutionary) search technology recently added to Twitter, I set out to see just how illuminating the average Tweet was.

The idea that Twitter seemed to frequently be a report on what the user was having for lunch seemed to particularly gall the Twitterers who wrote in. So let’s see how many tweets in the last 24 hours concerned the topic of “lunch”.

Off we go.

Well it appears we’ve found the limit of Twitter search: 1500 results. And in the time it took to write that sentence, 16 more results were added.

Keep in mind that as I write this, it is 8:00 am Central Time, which means that unless Greenland is taking an early break, it is not lunch hour in any populated area on Earth. 

Just a few sample results:

technobohemia: Playing WOW, but craving Chinese food…when will it be lunchtime?

half a minute ago

SamShepherd: went to M&S to get lunch and came back with sushi. I’ve never eaten sushi. don’t know what inspired that

1 minute ago

dihsjp: waiting for lunch

2 minutes ago

qwghlm: Right, feeling vaguely progressive and have tidied the living room. Now for lunch

2 minutes ago

Rebecca_Agra: lunch…

4 minutes ago

einerlei: back to library…finally, after having a nice lunch with a friend

4 minutes ago

Wehtam: Back home in sunny Manchester. Off to cash checks after lunch.

4 minutes ago

mauricio_kimura: Hungry and ready to go for lunch !!!

5 minutes ago

timwasted: having some lunch and watching bad tv – but at least its warm inside

6 minutes ago

Jedbeck: 2 hours til lunch with my girls

6 minutes ago

Knicki: is going to skin some potatos for lunch.

8 minutes ago

eburgosgarcia: back from lunch & hairdresser..

9 minutes ago

The disturbing tendency here is toward externalizing what should remain, in a reasonably civilized society, the inner monologue. This is partly the medium’s fault for restricting itself to 140 characters. Even Oscar Wilde would have a hard time coming up with 20 pithy quips a day under those conditions.

Now, to make this experiment somewhat scientific, we need a control phrase.  If “lunch” brings up a list of 1500 mundane tweets that no one needs to see, what word or phrase will reveal the intelligent, illuminating, useful tweets I keep hearing about?

This where you come in. Please make your suggestions in the comments, and if I don’t hear from you, have a great lunch.

“What are you doing?”

That’s the question Twitter asks. And it requests your answer in a 140-character text box.

Stay connected with your friends! Be part of a global community! Join the conversation!

No thanks.

Sorry, I know it’s last year’s news, but Twitter sucks. Here is a starter list of reasons why. Please feel free to add your own.

1. “What we’re doing” is usually petty, mundane and boring. No one cares what you have for lunch, even if you are Shaquille O’Neal. You are just not as important as you think you are. I say this with love.
2. Random replies and disjointed conversations that make no sense to anyone else, except when arranged in a thread by a plug-in, add-on or widget. It’s like instant messaging without features!
3. The inevitable plug-ins, add-ons and widgets to make Twitter useful. If it’s not useful in the first place, why use it?
4. If you can express it in 140 characters, it probably took less time to actually do it live than to “tweet” it. Whatever you said you were doing, you just stopped to tweet about it.
5. The word “tweet“.
6. Text messaging achieves the same purpose without sending your micro-details to everyone. Anywhere else that’s called “spamming”. Yes, I know they opted in as your “followers“, but they’ll be opting back out soon enough.
7. “Following” someone is not healthy, whether you’re a stalker, a cult member or a Twitter user.
8. Transparency is not always good. Public toilets should not have glass walls. The word of the year for 2008: “oversharing“.
9. The word of 2009: “micro-fame“. You heard it here first. It’s somewhere below reality show fame, and just above getting your mug shot on the Smoking Gun. I also predict this will lead to the unfortunate word of 2010: “micro-lame”.
10. Twitter is cutesy and bubbly and looks like a toy. Because it is a toy.
11. “But the San Diego fires/San Francisco mudslides/(insert big news) story was broken on Twitter!” Fine, but shouldn’t those people have called 911 and then maybe tried to help, instead of attempting to gain some micro-fame (see?) by “breaking” a story we all would have heard about 5 minutes later?
12. The inevitable “I was fired because I Twittered about my employer” lawsuit and “Twitter addiction” news stories.
13. The constant conversation about ”how to monetize Twitter“, and the inevitable $19.95 e-book to explain how it can make you rich with little or no effort.
14. The more popular it gets, the worse it gets. I’m no elitist (well, maybe), but have you looked at MySpace lately? QED.
15. Twitter is just another tool to replace the voices in your head, ignore your soul-crushing job, and numb you to the yawning chasm of emptiness that is your life.

And did I mention the word “tweet“?