Internet

I've recently started reading a blogger named Guy Kawasaki. Strangely, this is the case where the name of his blog, Let the Good Times Roll, is less memorable than his name, and his tagline, "Blogger: Someone with nothing to say writing for people with nothing to do is." is the more memorable than his name. I wonder what Darren would think of such an odd emphasis of taglines/author name/blog name. But as usual, my thoughts have taken this ship wildly off course, and I can only ask you dear readers to pray -- pray for us.

Some time ago, I mentioned the creation of Supr.c.ilio.us -- which is the only true social social tagging tagging website on the internet. Now, I'm a developer who works primarily in building web-based communities centered around advocacy or politics. My primary interest is not the internet, its people -- and how the internet can help people circumvent our governments in the pursuit of social justice, peace, and progress. That said, I'm not particularly interested in "tagging", "folksonomies" or the "web 2.0". I get into arguments with dear friends whenever these subjects arise, because my constant question is -- "yes, but why is someone going to want to tag that -- and even if they did tag it what does tagging it do for them or us?"

I felt I was alone in not caring about the web 2.0... then I found a new favorite blog: Super.c.ilio.us: The Blog. Here are just a few of my favorite gems I've read so far. Definition of flickr of

Good girl, google. Now focus! This is Pinion Software.

And this is the page of a lovely Austin, Texas based web designer. Now, go fetch a new snapshot of that lovely web designer's page.

Note to humans: don't try to hard to understand this entry -- google and I are just playing... sort of. Let's just say google loves sites hosted on smart campaigns -- and sometimes that can be a disadvantage. ;-)

Supr.c.ilio.us, though still in its alpha stage, is the first site that allows Social social tagging site tagging. Que Fantastico!

Google has just announced their beta service, Google Blog Search. If I were a tech journalist, I'd be watching the evolution of this service very closely. And its not because this service happens to have the a capital "B" buzzword in it.

Now the first thing I noticed about google Blog Search was how badly the orange they used clashed with their fugly logo (their logo has a drop shadow, for f#ck's sake!). After my initial wave of nausea receeded, however, I began to take a closer look. There are more than a few things that set this service apart from google's regular search.

Lance Arthur couldn't be more right. Google's logo is fugly[1]. I'm afraid Lance couldn't have put it better too:

It's ugly, it's got a drop shadow, for crying out loud, and it's multicolored like a circus tent. The first G looks weird, like someone was trying to draw a G but was using someone else's memory of what a G looks like, the letters are oddly kerned, and the whole thing looks like it should be painted on the side of an ice cream truck.

Some might think that Google's logo is an eye sore which we have to just accept -- much like the ads in Time square. And indeed, I shudder when I think of what might happen if Google rebranded. However, google probably could totally rebrand so long as they kept their name, and avoided becoming a new consignia.

According to my RSS reader, Technorati bashing is now very much in vogue. If I am not mistaken, the spearhead of the technorati's PR nightmare among web influentials is Jason Kottke.  This isn't to say Jason is in anyway being unfair to technorati, afterall, who could disagree with his sharp assessment of technorati's problems:

While their search of the live web (the site's primary goal) has been desperately in need of a serious overhaul, Technorati has branched out into all sorts of PR-getting endeavors, including soundbiting the DNC on CNN, tags (careful, don't burn yourself on the hot buzzword), and all sorts of XML-ish stuff for developers. Which is all great, but get the fricking search working first! As Jason Fried says, better to build half a product than a half-assed product. I know it's a terrifically hard problem, but Figure. It. Out.

How the New Sciences and Internet Are Framing A New Global Identity and Order

By John Clippinger and David Bollier (transcribed from full PDF)

Cultures, like people, can run out of ideas. They can exhaust themselves in the face of events and ideas they can no longer predict, explain or control. When they do, they revert to the repetitive assertion of the simplest and most soothing of their founding ideas. These attempts to ward off the unknown through the ritualized assertion of familiar core beliefs are what anthropologists call a "ghost dance." The name is taken from a Sioux Indian ritual dance designed to resurrect ancestors. Sioux warriors believed the dance made them impervious to the bullets of the U.S. Calvary in the 1870s. What may seem to be a bizarre ritual is in fact a well-documented practice of all cultures, traditional and modern. Many events in contemporary American life can be understood as a ghost dance of denial: ritualistic behavior that people hope will ward off unpleasant social and economic realities, ecological perils and new global interdependencies that are profoundly threatening to established cultural norms. The ghost dance desperately repeats unexamined, unquestioned "truths" despite contrary evidence.

The speed at which Wikipedia put together information on today's bombings in London is mindblowing.

Wikipedia: July 7th Bombing in London