I love Facebook. If you’re on my friends list, you know I use the heck out of it. I post links to things I find interesting 5-10 times daily — indeed, things that are fully-awesome — all in the hope of building a list of wonderful things that may entertain and amuse a few of my friends as they stumble along their way.
But, I didn’t always love Facebook. There was a time, many moons ago, when the thought of sharing life stories and whatsits, reconnecting with pre-school crushes, dealing with “pokes” and likes was downright repulsive. I signed up for an account early and deleted it after only a few weeks.
I’ve been back in the Facebook fold for a few years now, and by all rights, I’m what you could call a “heavy user.” Today, I have over 600 friends and manage a half a dozen Facebook fan pages for various projects and clients, and manage dozens of interactions each day with old friends and new. And this morning, two of my closest friends looked me square in the eye and told me they were planning on closing their Facebook accounts.
* stunned silence * Read more
I think it’s fair to say that Amazon is a bellwether for things to come in the swirl of holiday purchases. This year’s announcement that the company fulfilled more ebook sales than paper book sales seems like an appropriately big deal, even if it’s guaranteed to give my mother-in-law palpitations.
Likely the biggest culprit at Amazon is the Kindle, and while we don’t know how many were actually sold this year, Amazon says it was the highest-selling product in the company’s history. It beat the iPod touch — historically top-seller around the holidays. This is all well and good, but remember that Amazon is the only place you can buy the Kindle; clearly not the case with the iPod, or any other top sellers at Amazon.
Still, according to this, if you’re not reading an ebook now, you will be soon. Prepare for the robot uprising, people.
So many cool things floating around the internet, I must have been hyped up on sneezing pandas when this most exquisite piece of work bubbled to the surface. It’s “Panic Attack!” by Uraguayan filmmaker, Fede Alvarez. Head over here to watch it for yourself.
The news that surrounds this short film is interesting all alone: Alvarez has been signed to Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures to develop and deliver similarly themed freaky flicks. All I can think is “Cloverfield” — which has A) already been made and B) was super-excellent. Too bad it’s already been made. Still, the deal reportedly starts in the 6-figures with points if his films get made. All this after Alvarez made his YouTube opus on a reported budget of $300 (yeah, likely not including person hours in that budget, but whatever).
All of that is great for Alvarez, whose talent is deserving of a career in the field of moving images, however he ends up there. But it’s not the point of this post. Read more
Google, sometimes you are water to a drowning man. With your fancy, model-breaking free services, your forever-beta attitude, your kicking font. So many services, so many configurations, so many thoughtful ways for a simple man like myself to divulge my personal information.
But this month, you have showered me with useful things. So man, in fact, that I have to shout it from the rooftops.
For Google Apps Users
I’ve been a raving lunatic for Google Apps since they launched. For those not familiar with the service, Google Apps allows you to take your domain name (like fifthandmain.com) and map all your familiar Google services to it. Use the nearly bulletproof Gmail service for your business’s email using your own domain, and have calendars, documents, internal websites, and more all hosted and shared across team members. There are three tiers of Google Apps: Education, Standard, and Premiere. At this time, only the premiere level of service has a fee associated with it — $50/user per year.
That’s all backstory nonsense, though. The big news is here. Read more
A quick post and a tip today, and a letter to my friend Tony, a Flash guy.
Dear Tony,
I think about you often when I work on the web. It starts out fondly, and quickly turns to rage when my browser crashes thanks to over-abundance of Flash advertising which destroys my favorite sites. I think of you, Tony, because, since you’re a Flash developer, this experience makes me hate you, just a little bit. That’s why I’m writing to let you know about ClickToFlash.
