Is DRM Uncivilized?

Are You a Twitter Ninja?

The Distro of the Beast

If you've ever wanted a Linux distro of the evil variety or a distro for Iron Maiden fans, you might be interested in this version of Ubuntu:

"Let him who hath understanding reckon the distro of the beast,
for it is a Linux distro,
its distro is Ubuntu Satanic Edition." (Quote from Ubuntu Satanic Edition)

Thanks to Todd for pointing this out!

How Many Cartoonists Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb?

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, is awesome. Here is a link to his most recent blog entry detailing his failings as a “handy person”:

Beneath the cabinets in my kitchen is a row of fluorescent lights that illuminate the countertops. One of those lights has decided to go all Baghdad on me. It crackles and pops and blinks for the entire time it is on. You might be thinking this is no big problem. All I have to do is change the fluorescent bulb, right?

I have a confession.

I am not. . . mechanical.

Or to put it another way:

Q. How many cartoonists does it take to change a light bulb?

A. More than the number living in my house.

My problem is that the light bulb is encased in some sort of impenetrable container with no indication of how it opens ... (Quote from Scott Adams on Dilbert.Blog)

Enjoy!

Web 2.0 Poster

A web 2.0 poster with all of the "cool" company logos just in time for the holidays.

Here is a little more about it on TechCrunch.

Google: Friend or Foe?

The New York Times today poses the question, “Is Google a friend or foe?”

Clearly, by the only measurement that matters (Google Trends), Google is a friend, not a foe. To test this theory, I ran Google Trends on several related searches:

Google Friend (blue), Google Foe (red)

Google Good (blue), Google Evil (red)

Google Angel (blue), Google Devil (red)

Please do not take this post seriously – it is meant to be a bit silly.

Fluckr / bLaugh

I highly recommend reading bLaugh: The (Un)Official Comic of the Blogosphere.

Web 2.0 Exit Strategies

Marco Rosella has an interesting idea about how companies can promote their exit strategies at the upcoming Web 2.0 Conference ... (Note – this is meant to be humorous):

“The success of a new service, if really demonstrated itself different from all the others, however could decree the end: where there’s a lack of Venture Capitals and/or the ads are to cover the band costs, naturally proportional to the traffic, the only reason of survival remains the sell to a big company.

...

As we know by now, Web 2.0 web application’s interfaces have their peculiar style defined by reflections, fades, drop-shadows, strong colors, rounded corners and star badges, these standing out in the header of every homepage.

Badges are the key element of this kind of design, being the first to flash user eyes, and so extremely important for the right communication of a message with fundamental importance.

Below you’ll find some example badges, arranged in four incremental levels, each one related to a different business model.” (Quote from Central Scrutinizer)

This is a humorous way to portray the current environment; however, it highlights a serious issue facing web 2.0 companies. With so many new web 2.0 companies, it becomes difficult to stand out in the crowd. Not all of them are looking to rise above the crowd in order to exit the business, but even getting mindshare with users can be difficult. Those that succeed in growing a large user base tend to do so virally, YouTube / MySpace / del.icio.us / etc., which is difficult to predict. Web 2.0 companies will need to focus on finding ways to get attention. Maybe the acquire me badges are not such a bad idea :-)