The Buzz With Google

The Buzz With Google Gets Fizzled

I don't really give a shit about internet fads. Yes, I have facebook. I used to post these blogs on a myspace account and I do have a twitter that I no longer ever even use unironically. But to be perfectly honest, I think all these services are a little silly and that's why I've ignored Google Buzz until today when every NPR show has mentioned at least once the MASSIVELY stupid privacy problems inherent with Google Buzz.

For those of you who are just tuning in, here's what Google did;

-Google rolls out a Facebook ripoff social networking service
-Google decides to piggyback this network on Gmail
-Google decides to automatically enroll every single Gmail user into buzz without giving them an opt-in option
-Google populates each person's Buzz network with the people from their address book and email interactions
-Google makes all networks public by default

The end product is that Google has made all the contents of people's address books public. You've been communicating with potential new employers without telling your current boss? They're all in your public network. You have been in touch with your ex without telling your current significant other? Whoops! You're a psychiatrist who makes appointments via email? Hello public list of clients! You see where I'm going with this.



Seriously, what the fucking shit, Google. How is it remotely possible that people approved these steps? Yeah, sure. It'll probably get fixed soon. And I'm sure the problem really is mute consider nobody uses buzz anyway. So the problem really didn't exist in the first place but how could you fuck up this badly?

I have people I haven't talked to in like forever. Years at least. And they're showing up in my Google Buzz with confused messages like "Who are all you people?". I thought one night stands or random hook ups weren't suppose to ever catch up on you. Whoops!



It's pretty basic. I honestly don't want everyone who I ever had an e-mail exchange with to be in my circle of friends. Nor do I care about those one time e-mail correspondence. You don't know how many E-bay people suddenly popped up that I have no connection with other than that one transaction.

I had a tense interaction with this one asshole via e-mail a couple of years ago over some annoying business. I hate this guy, he ripped me off massively. And now Google is alerting me to whether or not he's online and updating me with his latest shouts. You know, just in case I want to chat..



Google has seriously been losing more of its luster every time it expands. Soon it will be like all the other companies. Remember when AOL was in just about every home? Ha. Those were the days. I guess the real problem isn't people using Buzz, the problem is people NOT using Buzz. Not managing their privacy settings, and employers or other sneaky peeps using Buzz to spy on people. Oh god, my boss knows I've been talking to hookers! What ever will I do?

Then again, the fix was to all this was to make the "make my network private" button easier to find while still leaving it as opt-out. But seriously, both WAVE and BUZZ are just ajax pissing contest against an imaginary opponent. Who are you really trying to one up, Google? And can I talk about the name? Google Buzz?!?! Who are the ad wizards who came up with that?!



But besides the name being stupid, what's the worse that can happen with this clear security screw up? It's not like someone can get hurt or is at real risk right? Oh wait...

Nevertheless, I am extremely concerned about hundreds of activists in authoritarian countries who would never want to reveal a list of their interlocutors to the outside world. Why so much secrecy? Simply because many of their contacts are other activists and often even various "democracy promoters" from Western governments and foundations. Many of those contacts would now inadvertently be made public.

If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I would immediately dispatch my Internet geek squads to check on Google Buzz accounts for political activists and see if they have any connections that were previously unknown to the government. They can then spend months on end drawing complex social circles on the shiny blackboards inside secret police headquarters.

But potential risk from disclosing such data extends far beyond just supplying authoritarian governments with better and more actionable intelligence. For example, most governments probably already suspect that some of their ardent opponents are connected to Western organizations but may lack the evidence to act on those suspicions. Now, thanks to Google's desire to make an extra buck off our data, they would finally have the ultimate proof they needed (if you think that this is unrealistic, consider this: the Iranian authorities have once used membership in an academic mailing list run out of Columbia as evidence of spying for the West).

Well crap. Guess this will lead to a lot more arrest. Whooops!



It's not like we're any safer. Their recent partnership with NSA does not make Google look any more trustworthy; Chris Soghoian, an expert on information security, made a hilarious point on Twitter: "How do I sign up for the Iranian government's new email service? At least they are not in bed with NSA."

Now that I think about it, Face Book sure doesn't look all that insecure in retrospect, now does it? How about the very basics like allowing your abuser basic information about yourself? Much like this lady who's google buzz tells her abusive ex husband her personal details.. Hopefully google buzz can grow its user base as fast as the bruises on that woman's face once her ex gets his hands back on her.

While Facebook may not support good blogging practices like Buzz does with its instant sort of message board style, it's a real convenient method to share a link. Besides that, I like the limit of control that I have over who I am socially connected to online and who can see my personal information. Even if only a portion of the social network I have right now decided to use Buzz in its current form right now, it would become instantly unreadable.



We already have reader for sharing shit on the net, a million platforms for legitimate blogging, and facebook for self-selected social networks of girls you'll never fuck. Buzz doesn't add a thing and is very impractical as it is.

Most of all, if Google Buzz is so cool, why does it have such a stupid fucking name? It sounds like a rushed, derivative product that sounds like its supposed to be hip. What's the Buzz around town? Google Buzz. Tell yo Grandma, Homie!

Twittering Across The Internet

Twittering Across The Internet

I may not be as "hip" with the web 2.0 crowd but I do consider myself one that is able to judge how much something is worth. So when I'm told that Twitter turned down a 250 million offer I was left dumbstruck

Twitter, which just recently turned down a half billion dollar acquisition offer from Facebook (albeit to be paid mostly with Facebook stock), is dipping back into the venture capital market, we've heard from a source with knowledge of the deal. They've signed a term sheet with at least one venture fund to raise a new round at a $250 million valuation. We are still gathering information on how much they're raising and from whom.

I mean, do you know what twitter is? Seriously. All "Social Media" and "web 2.0" aside, it's just a facebook or Myspace status update without all the features. Why do people think anyone else cares what they are doing every minute. Does anyone actually read blogs or twitter or whatever other then the people who wrote them. I'm pretty sure the click count for this very blog is small. But at least this provides content... well, something resembling content at the very least.



Is their ad revenue seriously enough to make them worth $250,000,000? Actually, nope. Not at all. At the current time there's no ads. Twitter apparently hasn't even got a plan for making money. They haven't even figured out how to monetize it, how the fuck can they turn down a quarter billion dollars?

If I ever invented *anything* that resulted in me being offered $100m plus $400m worth of any stock, I would sell before you could say twitter. I really, really don't understand why people would turn down these huge offers when stuff like this can disappear as fast as it popped up. Take Napster for example. It just about had monopoly back in the day, now almost no one uses it for anything.

Even if the $400,000,000 worth was in Facebook stock. They should have took it and ran. Even if it's just facebook.... stock? hee hee. To be honest, i do kinda need to diversity my portfolio with xanga and myspace stock.



It seems like a great way to capitalize on the Stickam / Myspace "Social networking = popularity" generation the internet seems to have spawned. Nowadays everything's about "me", what better than a site dedicated to what a person is doing at any time for those types of people?

I know what you're thinking, "Its what all the kids are doing. Why don't you stop hating GRANDPA." Well you know what. I just got a phone with large number buttons on it, cause I must be old. Nah, I get it. You kids like giving your status on the minute by minute bases. This whole blog thing must be something crazy to you kids. More than 140 characters to express yourself? I must be crazy!

The big problem with Twitter and its ilk is that the user base is exactly the kind that will jump ship the moment it starts costing them real money to use, not to mention the tech-savvy crowd are exactly the sort of people who would waste no time at all in bringing out a free alternative - at which point the next chapter in the Twitter life story then becomes Napster redux.


This whale needs to be harpooned

It's also a money pit of servers that go down at the slightest provocation, and doesn't generate any revenue. $250 mil is rampant speculation that someday, somehow, they'll figure out how to monetize it. Which they haven't in almost 3 years. Maybe they should take the money and buy servers that don't shit the bed every 5 minutes posted one minute ago from twitteriffic

You're going to tell me that Google doesn't charge for their services and yet still "magically" makes money. But then I'll correct you when I tell you that Google rakes in massive piles of money licensing their search engine technology, various APIs, advertising, etc. Twitter is an equivalent to "multiplayer notepad".

Then there's pieces like this youtube twitter parody which explains why I could hate it..

OMG! WEB 2.0!!!!1111

Twitter is for social marketing, "social media" and "web 2.0" people love it. Where else can you follow Shaq? Or M.C. Hammer? Yes, twitter is also good if you want to e-stalk your favorite web-savvy celebrity (porn stars mostly). All it does is status updates, the same thing AIM away messages, and facebook/myspace statuses have been doing for years, but without all those pesky "features".

But get it straight, it’s Twittr not Twitter. I mean really, is it that hard to drop the last vowel and put the r right next to t - Posted from the bathroom

Hate Floats

Hate Floats

I've always been counter Internet culture. If a large number of people find something entertaining, interesting or funny, chances are I've mocked it, hated it or probably ridiculed it for no reason other than the fact that I'm an insecure twenty-somethings who didn't do too well in school, didn't fit in with the other kids, and has little prospects for a future that doesn't involve spending long nights spamming my resumes to various temp agencies desperately hoping something will stick. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

But hey, usually my hate for things on the Internet is focused on others and not on myself, unless I can convince myself that I was there at the start of the fad. Then it's awesome, like Pokey the Penguin.

Check out this awesome Flash game!

I've seen things, things you wouldn't believe. I was there at the start of All Your Base, the highs of It's a Trap, the lows of and lows of Goatse.cx. I witnessed lemon party long before it become some 30 rock joke. Who else besides Dave Chappelle flips out over catchphrases like I do? I'm so full of hate I hate being on the ground floor of the internet's greatest successes!

I've scoffed at other web sites that have chosen to not to act like massive dicks to everyone they come into contact with. What do they have to show for it besides millions of dollars? Not resentment and jealousy, two traits that have made America what it is today, that's for sure.

That's why, when I consider my long history of acting like an inhuman monster, it disturbs me when I realize that I'm starting to well... like things.

What happened to me? It seems like only yesterday I was bashing myspace, mirror pictures and blogs in general as anything other than a spawn of live journal and the emo invasion. I would never take advice from strangers on the internet as to where to eat like I do now on Yelp. No way would I be saying catch phrases like Zerg Rush or Haxor the Gibson. I'm getting sloppy in my old age.

It ends up that the phrase "you become what you hate" is true. It was only natural to happen. A sort of Stockholm syndrome that effects those with Asperger syndrome first and then eventually works it way to the normal folks on the internet. Surrounded by this online culture whenever I come on to check my spam filled mail box, it was only a matter of time before the hater became the hated.

It's time to band together and re-join the collective internet social hive mind. Here's what I forgot to hate.

Newgrounds

Why you love it now: In 2002 the founder of Newgrounds founded a video game development company called The Behemoth that would be tasked with porting some of its more popular Flash games to consoles. Yeah, really.

MAYBE IF YOU FUCKERS DIDN'T LOUNGE AROUND SO MUCH I COULD BE PLAYING MULTIPLAYER IN YOUR SHITTY GAME RIGHT NOW. Uh, I mean, that's what I would say if I had purchased your game. Heh...

The Behemoth enjoyed success with its first foray into the wonderful world of console ports, Alien Hominid, which was basically a rip off of Metal Slug. However, instead of playing Metal Slug people somehow felt compelled to buy it for the Gamecube and again on the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, most of Newground's audience was still in diapers when Metal Slug was released and might possibly still be.

With The Behemoth's latest release titled Castle Crashers, users are finding themselves digging deep in order to purchase some Microsoft fun bucks for the privilege of downloading what basically amounts to Turtles in Time but with some RPG elements tacked on. Sorry, but I didn't play Turtles as a kid and lament that I couldn't level up Donatello. Everything old is new again with RPG elements! Any jerkoff will buy your game as long as you can level up. Ding! Now that this is aired out, can we put an end to all this leveling up? I went outside and killed some grass hoppers and gained no life experience. It just doesn't work this way Video game companies.

Because The Behemoth is billed as an indie company it makes them somehow less evil than the likes of EA. Sorry, but I just can't support things like Q&A, online multiplayer working out of the box, and saved games not suddenly disappearing for no reason. I heard Larry Probst personally raped every single underpaid programmer at EA. It's enough to make an anonymous housewife stick up for her pussy husband on LiveJournal.

What you forgot to hate: Newgrounds is the clearinghouse for every crappy flash animation featuring Sonic fighting Goku or Mario and Mario shits his pants for some reason, made by guys who just finished downloading Adobe Flash CS3 Professional. That Newgrounds doesn't at least owe part of its fortune to The Pirate Bay would be hard to believe.

The clientele is every loser who wore a Slipknot shirt in junior high school and quotes Borat in college. Newground's success in the world of console games should only infuriate you more.

Penny Arcade

Why you love it now: Score another one for the "indie game developers can do no wrong" crowd, though I never imagined in a million years that a couple of guys would be able to finance a series of games off a damn web comic. If I weren't so full of irrational hatred I'd be pretty damn impressed.

Penny Arcade is making a game? Well that sounds kind of dum- YOU MEAN IT'S AN RPG?! Count me the hell in!

Expecting a backlash against the gruesome twosome's video game debut I was shocked to find that Penny Arcade's game was, gasp, well-received by the general masses.

And then I realized it has RPG elements. Well there you go.

What you forgot to hate: The fact that these guys achieved an incredible amount of success and your comic about dudes with 'tudes who play video games and are occasionally reprimanded by a stereotypical female character who is always complaining about her period and the hands are never in proportion to the rest of the characters' bodies never got off the ground.

Most of all, have you've seen these guys in person? Not at all like their comic self. Harvey Pekar may look like he's the poster boy for NPR and This American Life, but at least American Splendor is true to the characters. I bet I say something mean about the two I can get a feud going between them. Wouldn't that be exciting?

Can you imagine what the Internet would be like without petty feuds? It'd be a place to communicate with people who are different than you. It'd be a place to learn new things, enrich your life and the lives of others, and help make the world a better place. An Internet without drama and the web sites devoted to cataloging that drama? I can't imagine such an Internet.

Then there's the factor that they unleashed hell in the form of the now situational web comic typecast roles. You need two human characters. Just change out the hair and cloths so you can recycle the face. Toss in a random animal or object that can talk. With all that you have yourself your very own comedy web comic.

So when a couple of otherwise okay guys attempt to make a couple of bucks through a collaborative vision, hard work and determination, just say no. We don't tolerate that sort of bullshit around here.

Web 2.0

Why you love it now: I signed up on Twitter. The Horror...The Horror

What you forgot to hate: Just because you submit yourself to the glorious hive mind mentality of constantly maintaining communication doesn't mean you have to sign up to everything. Jesus.

Anyway, Twitter continues to become more popular than anything in the free world as days go by. The site allows users to send and receive text messages from friends and family about any old thing. It isn't exactly new technology but it's the ease at which messages can be sent and received.

Well what do you know, access to a seemingly endless supply of images of breasts does get boring.

From your profile you can type in a short message about what you're currently up to. Those who "follow" you receive the message on their phone. Conversely, you may receive a message like, "Just got out of the shower, soaking wet, looking to get fucked tonight -Mom".

With the ability to send and receive messages to and from your friends about every little thing you are doing, it only leads me to one question, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT WHEN YOU MEET UP WITH THOSE PEOPLE?

"Oh hey! I was just at the store and you won't believe who I saw!"

"You told me on Twitter."

"Oh."

"Hmmm."

"Okay, see you on Twitter then."

One of the benefits of leaving the house to go do something is being able to come back and tell someone everything you did. Usually that person doesn't care, so why would they want to sign up to receive real-time status reports about you? And yet they do.

It appears that communication is an activity that's best avoided unless it can be done in bite-sized nuggets and as inane as possible. Twitter makes it easy to transmit any superfluous thought you may have such as "Do you think John Ritter is boring God in heaven right now?", otherwise these thoughts would just stay in your head. And who would want that?

Social Networking Sites in General

Why you love it now: You're reading this on one now.

What you forgot to hate: Because you're reading this on one now.

It goes to show you that any yahoo with a computer, a keyboard, and some sort of six degrees of separation from someone hot can try to meet you. 10 years from now people will question how anyone met new friends before the internet. The scary aspect of all this is that it now outnumbers porn as the most clicked on item on the internet.

Think about it people. PORN! My grandpa spoke about the great depression. How without any booze and any money, the only thing that kept him going for those 13 years was that he could get a peek at some ladies legs at the peep show for 3 cents. Sure, he had to boil a boot for food, but on the flip side he wasn't bombarded with friend request followed by "THANKS FOR THE ADD!!" whenever he went to see some bare shins.

Sign off..... after you've read this, of course.

The majority of the time spent on these sites is in an effort to get laid. So perhaps it passing up porn isn't that much of an issue since in the end of things, the web is being used to get your rocks off.

Even worse is that it's not limited to your Goth teenagers anymore. Pets can actually jump in on the social networking on sites like Catster /Dogster. It's important that your pets have a social life. Then maybe they'll stop bugging me to take them for a walk or scratch their butt as they can get one of their pet friends to do that for them.

Are you back with me now? I thought I lost you there for a while. Now that I write all this out and get it in the open, perhaps I'll sufficiently retrained in the art of hating everything I hate (well, the four examples I could think of anyway), the healing process can begin.

I recommend making slanderous claims about web comic authors you don't think are funny, not accepting friend request from spam, bands or anyone else for that matter on myspace. I've always hated those people! How dare they try to be my friend!

Oh, joy! It's like I never stopped hating these things.