Friday, July 6, 2001

Now what weren't we saying?

Peter Harbeson suggests inveighs against the anthropomorphizing of corporations, which can't really speak, which is why they sound like money on 'ludes. Check out the Cluetrain List for more on the matter, such as Chris Locke in a buncha posts. Start here. Or here. Not that the other posters are bad (they're mighty good); but Chris is on a roll (and in his most persuasive role) here.

Hmm. How about Linux?

BuzzPhraser's alpha hacker, Charles Roth, writes in to observe that the word "Unix" is not in Microsoft's MS Word 2000 dictionary.

Speaking of buzz

Buzz Bruggeman of ActiveWords points to a Wall Street Journal piece about the new Death By Jargon game at Hoovers' new UK site. Warnings:

The WSJ link requires a subscriptionThe game starts with a Flash animation below which it says "If you cannot see the Flash movie above then please click here." I could see the movie, but a word balloon spoken by the game's cartoon host said "Please wait while I check to see if you have the software needed to play the game" (or something like that... it's gone now), then: "You need to download a new Flash player." (Isn't this computer brand new? Haven't we been able to see every damn Flash movie lately?)I clicked on the wrong button on the Flash download page and got one of those hyperannoying Bonzi Monkey promos. The button is very misleading: it's a banner that looks like an alert and says your computer might be able to download a lot faster (since I'm now on a 3mb line here at my new house, I'm tempted). Reality to Macromedia: You're a big time company. You make infrastructure. Lose the damm monkey ads.After I downloaded the Flash 5 Player installer (I already had Flash 5: I know that much)It seemed to install fine in Internet Explorer, but it crashes Netscape every time (Type 10 error, FWIW).

I don't have time to play the game. It looks like fun, but Dack's Web Economy Bullshit Generator is a shitload faster. And BuzzPhaser is holding up pretty well too.

Think of a blog as a tatoo you get to ink fresh every day

And smile when you call the Head Lemur a renegade.

Somebody must have answered the buzzer

Dig Deborah's latest.

Where there's a way, there's a blog

Just got this one, from a new pal in Nederland;

Hey there Doc,

As an enthousiastic reader of your weblog(s), Cluetrain, and creator of my own weblog (www.punkey.com but it's all in dutch, so don't bother :-)), I know you're gonna love this:

Ruthie, a weblogger, decided to pay for an ad-free blogspot.com weblog for somebody else. Why? Read this (from his log)

About a year ago, I read an article in the Seattle Times about a day in the life of a Bellevue drive-through espresso stand. (Yes, we have those.) A woman made it to the front of the line and paid for the next person's espresso: down the whole road the rest of the day, each person paid for the next person. Any one of them could have realized that he had a free espresso and left, and everybody else would have paid the same amount -- but they didn't. All day, paying for the next person. I've always remembered this story as more than just a human interest tale -- it obviously meant more, and it wasn't just the amount, or the generosity -- it was the spirit of community, being part of something neat (if trivial) -- an anonymous (of sorts) support of the people who shared something in common.

Great story innit? So right now, she paid 9 bucks to make 49 Forever (http://49-forever.blogspot.com/) ad-free.

Right after that, 49 Forever decided to do the same thing and make The Way of Wayno (http://www.wayno.blogspot.com/ ) free of obtrusive advertising :-)

So far the story goes. I hope Wayno continues the thread, so Blogspot will be totally ad free someday. Isn't it great what the Internet does to you?

Anyway, I hope you like the story, give it some attention (Evan already did I think), so weblogs will get more and more positive response from the internet community and someday we, as people and writers, WILL rule the net again! :-)

Keep up the good work, my regards to your Cluetrain buddies (it changed a helluvalot!) and maybe we'll speak again

Later
Frank aka Punkeybr>Log de Plume: http://www.punkey.com
[email protected]

Kinda like that Pay it Forward movie, no?