August 2009
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Virginia Tech's 1999 Season: A 10-Year... →
1999 was a landmark season in Virginia Tech athletics history. It is the year the Virginia Tech Hokies went undefeated in the regular season to face Florida State in the Sugar Bowl for the NCAA championship. Led by redshirt freshman QB Michael Vick, the Hokies led Florida State after 3 quarters, but eventually lost the game 46-29.
The Hokies again have national championship aspiration this...
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How Facebook Can Ruin Your Friendships →
This article from WSJ.com sums up exactly my sentiments with Facebook. Yes, there is a lot of value in rediscovering old friends (and I discovered many), but as the article states, “Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Friends” and I agree completely. In the end, just like in any real-life relationships, it has to be interesting and valuable for both sides.
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Sony Reader adds some brilliant features, 3 years... →
Very nice analysis on the new Sony Reader.
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Marketers Answer Call to Eliminate High-Fructose... →
In reaction to the increasingly negative perception of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), food marketers are beginning to advertise their products as without such. The corn refiners are fighting back, saying their products are as safe as sugar. I’m glad the AdAge article point out the following:
“I don’t know whether it’s laughable or tragic that the corn refiners association...
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How to Manage Your Online Life When You're Dead →
Good article from Time. Sites like Facebook, MySpace and Hotmail have policies about user accounts should the owner dies. Article also mentions services that handles your online assets after death such as Legacy Locker.
Past entries on this blog about this topic: 1, 2, 3.
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Facebook improvements that I'd like to see from...
Facebook acquired Friendfeed in what many think is a move to grab its talent and technology. I’m hoping Facebook will incorporate some of Friendfeed’s strengths:
Better Highlighting and Hiding. In Facebook, there is a Highlight section on the right side of the front page, but nobody knows how the items are picked. What’s worse, if you disagree with Facebook’s picks,...
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Does "Boston Legal" promote smoking?
The TV show Boston Legal is one of my favorite shows. Its courtroom drama is often well-written and I like its brand of humor. One of its popular episodes is when the main character Alan Shore tackles the cigarette industry. The closing argument on that case apparently really struck a chord with the audience and has been blogged several times.
So why do I say Boston Legal is encouraging smoking?...
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Is a Perfect Storm Forming For Distributed Social... →
Very interesting idea from ReadWriteWeb. The “perfect storm” mentioned in the article consists of:
Twitter’s down time due to recent DDOS attack
Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed, creating much concerns over the future of all the contents that Friendfeed users have generated
Announcement of Tr.im (a URL-shortening service) to shut down, creating fear that Tr.im...
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On Language - How Fail Went From Verb to... →
Time was, fail was simply a verb that denoted being unsuccessful or falling short of expectations. It made occasional forays into nounhood, in fixed expressions like without fail and no-fail. That all started to change in certain online subcultures about six years ago. In July 2003, a contributor to Urbandictionary.com noted that fail could be used as an interjection “when one disapproves of...
Your "Real" Friends are Your Online Friends (or so... →
“In many ways, easy access to technology can be seen as both a blessing and a curse for this young group of digital natives. These days, you’ll often encounter teens having text message conversations or posting status updates while ignoring the very friends they’re present with in the real world. Behavior like this could certainly send a message to the others that they are second priority to...
Random Thought: Like Twitter trending topics,...
For example, this week on iTunes Top 100:
Forever by Chris Brown. This song was released more than a year ago (April 2008) and yet came back in the charts because of the hugely popular JK Wedding Entrance video on YouTube. By the way, you can hate Chris Brown for being a girlfriend-beating punk, but he gets credit for not killing the JK video for copyright infringement when he could have. And he...
You’ve got a ton of Followers but are they... →
This post isn’t to show you how to setup lists in each of these tools but I will provide links to help you at the end of the post. So why am I showing you all of this? Because having a humongous follower count brings with it a tidal wave of data. It is becoming pretty clear that being followed alone isn’t enough anymore. If you want to be heard I think it’s going to become increasingly important...
Wanted: A search engine that indexes and...
Our internet experience is increasingly social these days. We don’t just email, we share good links through various means, we click the Like button to give our vote of approval, we Re-Tweet and Re-Blog. As the internet explodes with more content, and our options to share links become increasingly numerous, keeping track of information becomes a problem. Too many times I have tried to recall...