Boycotting Democracy
The new Pope gets political.
Surprise … he’s on the wrong side of a fertility issue and has urged Italians to boycott an upcoming vote.
the notorious left nav...
. . . Tuesday May 31, 2005
I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat
So far, Woodward and Bernstein are sticking to their “until his death do we speak” gameplan, but a fomer FBI official named W. Mark Felt says he’s Deep Throat.
No word on whether he was also the the person who leaked photos of Brad and Angelina to Us Weekly.
Update: Woodward and Bernstein confirm it was Felt.
From Ben Bradlee: “The thing that stuns me is that the goddamn secret has lasted this long.”
Multiple Personalities
The megaportals are trying to figure out a way to replicate and surpass the social networking prowess of the massively trafficked MySpace.
The big portals intend to put MySpace in its place well before it can threaten them. Yahoo, which has 112 million registered users, is testing a social-networking site called Yahoo! 360 that it plans to launch this fall. Microsoft’s MSN launched a similar site, dubbed Spaces, in April—and signed up 10 million users in a matter of weeks.
“MySpace is fascinating,” says Microsoft’s Blake Irving, corporate vice-president for MSN communications and member platform. But he thinks MSN has tremendous advantages: It already has 88 million registered users, and it will offer them e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking all in one place. “I think people will want one digital profile that says: ‘This is my digital self,’” says Irving.
I’m (of course) not an MSN user, but I have been impressed by Yahoo’s ability to tie together their various social-ish offerings in the 360 world. But I don’t quite agree with this idea of a single digital self.
I think what we’ll see over the next year or so is that the everything to everyone social networks will slowly fade away (although their tools and tricks will live on) as users continue to migrate towards more narrow vertical networks.
Maybe I need some psychopharmaceuticals, but I see myself as having multiple digital personalities and I don’t feel at all compelled to bring them together. So while Friendster dies a slow death, social networks with a specific and narrow purpose will live on and thrive in the coming months.
Social networking with a purpose…
Social bookmarking sites like Delicious, visual bookmarking tools like Wists, microcommunities like 43 Things, narrow topic and behavior based networks like RoJo ... These are the sites to watch. Will they all succeed? Who knows? And who really knows what success means in this second boom. But these are the models to check out moving forward (and there will soon be two other stellar examples offered by people who live under my roof – and I’m not talking about my cat, Mister Winters, after all, that network has already been built).
Vertical social networking sound like a crazy trend? Someone get me the latest revenue numbers from EHarmony…
. . . Thursday May 26, 2005
Scandaless: Staying Negative
It’s important the folks don’t mistake winning a staring contest with actually having a vision.
Has the Democratic Party moved in the direction of coming up with a positive, clear and well messaged vision for America under Howard Dean’s new leadership?
You tell me. Here is the big feature on their website:
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan of Tom DeLay. But does pointing out that a scumbag is a scumbag really make a for a quality Party platform?
Am I just taking one item out of context and pretending it’s a trend? No (although, as a blogger, it’s well within my rights to do so).
At the time of this posting, the three latest posts on the DNC Blog go a little something like this:
CBS News finds that Bush is out of touch: According to a recent CBS News poll, 61% of the country now feels that President Bush does not share their priorities, while only 34% say he does.
Judge rules against DeLay group: A Texas judge has just ruled against Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s group Texans for a Republican Majority, saying that it spent illegal corporate money in 2002.
Unreasonable opposition: In their trademark hypocritical style, House Republicans are standing in the way of affordable health care for National Guard members and reservists during a war which has caused the Army to fall short on its recruiting goals.
OK, so I think I’m getting the message here. Is that, uh, the GOP is really bad?
But there’s more to the message right?
Right?
What we have been seeing over the past few months is a Republican Party, a bit drunk with hubris and power, that has made some errors and seen some splits develop among its membership.
The way to take advantage of that is to give a clear, positive, and hard hitting alternative.
If they are digging themselves into a hole, go ahead and give them a shovel. But don’t help them dig.
To a relatively inattentive passerby, that just looks like a bunch of fools in a really deep ditch.
The Onion Meets Its Match
Can the crack writing team at The Onion possibly keep pace in a world where the real news is coming strong with headlines like this one?
“Sith” Fans Maimed in Lightsaber Mishap…
. . . Wednesday May 25, 2005
Getting the Straight Flush
So it turns out that it’s not exactly clear whether or not any Qurans were flushed down the toilet at Gitmo.
Did Newsweek fall on the sword too soon?
Did the adminstration whip out the sword too early?
Has this whole controversy been pretty damn ridiculous from the start?
Isn’t it about time that the plumbers and toilet manufacturers piped in? After all, they were the ones who really got hurt in all of this, no?
Whoops, I hope that last comment doesn’t cause any rioting…
It’s just that I picture myself in a dark room with a hood over my head and a couple of electrodes attached to my testicles and I imagine myself saying, “You know what? Go ahead and flush the book…”
