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Miya says...

Just got my wave~ this is a must-have for posterous-ers~

Note: If you have problem with inputing the password, change your browser to Firefox. Currently, Google Wave has a lot of bugs with webkit browser.

Using Google Wave? And have a Posterous account? Now you can write your posterous blog in Google Wave now!

The Google Wave Robot for Posterous is built using Posterous API and Google Wave Robot Python Library. I will explain here how to use it.

1.In Google Wave, add posterous-robot@appspot.com in your contact.

2.Start a new Wave, and add posterous-robot@appspot.com as a participant.

Click to view large
3.There will be a form in the wave. Click "Done" and fill out the form using your Posterous account. Click "Login to Posterous".

4.Now you can post through Google Wave Robot for Posterous. Start a new wave and add the robot like in step 2. Edit the root wavlet's title and body.

5.Click "Done" and your post will be sent. You will get a post.ly url for your new post. Congratulations!

Filed under: fun technology, google

guykawasaki says...

Spent an afternoon with EG Fratanaro getting a cool tour of Sector 9 today, and I learned about the art of making skateboards. If you’re a Sector 9 fan, be sure to follow @Sector9.

By Guy Kawasaki.


More Skateboarding news and blogs.


guykawasaki says...

Stay up to date on Google, SEM, and SEO.


Google Analytics got a lot more powerful. Its new features are explained here. Who cares about Google Wave—give me more GA! Here’s one video. Click through to see more.

By Guy Kawasaki. Read this to avoid repeat posts.


AnhJudge says...

Everyone wants to jump on the social media bandwagon these days. Yet it takes a lot of care to be sure your Facebook page gets viewed and your tweets get read. Here are three tips for making the most of social media:
  1. Speak to your customers' core interests. Don't rely on marketing gimmicks. If your customers are parents, talk to them about kids. If they are pet lovers, talk about pets. Know what your customers care about most and address those concerns.
  2. Put your audience in the driver's seat. Find ways to get your customers involved in decision-making. Ask them to submit new slogans or ad ideas.
  3. Use media to deliver value and services. Social media isn't just a marketing tool. The Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League uses Twitter to share descriptions and photos of dogs available for adoption. Which of your services could be delivered through a social network or online community? http://hbdm.harvardbusiness.org/

Filed under: social media

Design and brand with the best of 'em.


A logo is more than just graphic design, it's a visual representation of your brand, and can leave a poor lasting impression if executed improperly. So make yours a powerful asset to your brand by adhering to these twelve essential rules to designing a great logo.

Get rolling by recognizing typology matters - a lot. One font is better than two, and the one you pick needs to be legible at whatever size it might be scaled to. Another rule is to choose colours cleverly. Use a colour wheel as a guide, and pick colours that are near each other (ex. a warm palette would include reds, yellows and oranges). Don't choose colours so bright they blind the eyes. And make sure your logo looks good in black and white too - it will most likely be printed at least once in grayscale.

Follow these twelve rules of logo design, and you'll end up with a great face to your business.

By Catherine Faas.


Zee M Kane says...


Kathy says...

1. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

2. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

3. I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

4. Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. “Yes” is the answer.

5. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.

6. Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship.

7. We live in a society where pizza gets to your house before the police.

8. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

9. If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.

10. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

11. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

12. Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.

13. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

14. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

15. Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.

16. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

17. The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

18. Children: You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut-up.

19. My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.

20. Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

21. If sex is a pain in the ass, then you’re doing it wrong…

22. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station..

23. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of payments.

24. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

25. If God is watching us, the least we can do is be entertaining.

26. If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea… does that mean that one enjoys it?

27. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

28. I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks.

29. Some people are like Slinkies … not really good for anything, but you can’t help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

30. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

31. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

32. Did you know that dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish?

33. I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian

34. A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don’t need it.

35. A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

36. I saw a woman wearing a sweat shirt with “Guess” on it…so I said “Implants?”

37. Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

38. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

39. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says “If an emergency, notify:” I put “DOCTOR”. What’s my mother going to do?

40. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

41. The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

42. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

43. Good girls are bad girls that never get caught.

44. God must love stupid people. He made SO many.

45. The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

46. Laugh at your problems, everybody else does.

47. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

48. Crowded elevators smell different to midgets.

49. Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.

50. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

51. The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

52. The sole purpose of a child’s middle name, is so he can tell when he’s really in trouble.

53. Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.

54. He who smiles in a crisis has found someone to blame.

55. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

56. Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.

57. It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.

58. Some people say “If you can’t beat them, join them”. I say “If you can’t beat them, beat them”, because they will be expecting you to join them, so you will have the element of surprise.

59. Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

60. Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.

61. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.

62. We have enough gun control. What we need is idiot control.

63. I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

64. Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.

65. A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.

66. My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said okay, you’re ugly too.

67. Hospitality: making your guests feel like they’re at home, even if you wish they were.

68. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

69. I discovered I scream the same way whether I’m about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot.

70. I don’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.

71. I should’ve known it wasn’t going to work out between my ex-wife and me. After all, I’m a Libra and she’s a bitch.

72. I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, “I’m going to mop the floor with your face.” I said, “You’ll be sorry.” He said, “Oh, yeah? Why?” I said, “Well, you won’t be able to get into the corners very well.”

73. Worrying works! 90% of the things I worry about never happen.

74. When in doubt, mumble.

75. I always take life with a grain of salt, …plus a slice of lemon, …and a shot of tequila.

76. There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.

77. A little boy asked his father, “Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?” Father replied, “I don’t know son, I’m still paying.”

78. Just remember…if the world didn’t suck, we’d all fall off.

79. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.

80. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.

81. Women may not hit harder, but they hit lower.

82. A bargain is something you don’t need at a price you can’t resist.

83. Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.

84. With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.

85. Knowledge is power, and power corrupts. So study hard and be evil.

86. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

87. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

88. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

89. You are such a good friend that if we were on a sinking ship together and there was only one life jacket… I’d miss you heaps and think of you often.

90. I like work. It fascinates me. I sit and look at it for hours.

91. A TV can insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer.

92. Hallmark Card: “I’m so miserable without you, it’s almost like you’re still here.”

93. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you!

94. A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.

95. Some people hear voices.. Some see invisible people.. Others have no imagination whatsoever.

96. Virginity is like a soapbubble, one prick and it is gone.

97. If winning isn’t everything why do they keep score?

98. Whoever coined the phrase “Quiet as a mouse” has never stepped on one.

99. If you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, why do some people have more than one child.

100. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

101. Why is it that most nudists are people you don’t want to see naked?

102. I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.

103. When you go into court, you are putting your fate into the hands of people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

104. If you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you’ll have trouble putting on your pants.

105. What’s the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern fairytale? A northern fairytale begins “Once upon a time…” A southern fairytale begins “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this shit…”

106. Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?

107. You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named ‘Bush’, ‘Dick’, and ‘Colon’. Need I say more?

108. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.

109. Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

110. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

111. If Bill Gates had a penny for every time I had to reboot my computer…oh wait, he does.

112. The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.

113. I don’t have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.

114. George washington said “We would have a black president when pigs fly!”… well, swine flu.

115. Haikus are easy. But sometimes they don’t make sense. Refrigerator.

116. Children in the dark make accidents, but accidents in the dark make children.

117. Life’s a bitch, ’cause if it was a slut, it’d be easy.

118. I have never understood why women love cats. Cats are independent, they don’t listen, they don’t come in when you call, they like to stay out all night, and when they’re home they like to be left alone and sleep. In other words, every quality that women hate in a man, they love in a cat.

119. You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going.

120. Deja Vu – When you think you’re doing something you’ve done before, it’s because God thought it was so funny, he had to rewind it for his friends.

121. The difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer is in the taste.

122. Girls are like roads, more the curves, more the dangerous they are.

123. Money talks…but all mine ever says is good-bye.

124. It is hard to understand how a cemetery raised its burial cost and blamed it on the cost of living.

125. By the time a man realises that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he’s wrong.

126. By the time you learn the rules of life, you’re too old to play the game.

127. Does time fly when you’re having sex or was it really just one minute?

128. If you’re looking for sympathy, you’ll find it in the dictionary between “shit” and “syphilis”

129. Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

130. Keep the dream alive: Hit the snooze button.

131. I don’t have a beer gut, I have a protective covering for my rock hard abs.

132. Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

133. Why is it called tourist season if we can’t shoot them?

134. We have all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

135. Who was the first to see a cow and think “I wonder what will happen if I squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out?”

136. Panties not best thing on earth, but next to it.

137. Remember, if you smoke after sex you’re doing it too fast.

138. Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

139. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

140. The difference between in-laws and outlaws? Outlaws are wanted.

141. If you can stay calm while all around you is chaos, then you probably haven’t completely understood the situation.

142. You know, they got a luggage store in the airport? A place to buy a piece of luggage? How late do you have to be for a flight where you’re like, ‘Fuck it – just grab a pile of shit. We’ll get a bag at the airport’.

143. It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world everyday always just exactly fits the newspaper.

144. Hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance?

145. Without nipples, breasts would be pointless.

146. According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful.

147. I have all the money I’ll ever need – if I die by 4:00 p.m. today.

148. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

149. Two years ago I married a lovely young virgin, and if that doesn’t change soon, I’m gonna divorce her.

150. Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.

151. Isn’t it odd the way everyone automatically assumes that the goo in soap dispensers is always soap? I like to fill mine with mustard, just to teach people a lesson in trust.

152. Well aren’t you a waste of two billion years of evolution.

153. The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

154. When you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?

155. Archeologist: someone whose carreer lies in ruins.

156. Join The Army, visit exotic places, meet strange people, then kill them.

157. Women should not have children after 35. Really… 35 children are enough.

158. Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give their vacuum one more chance?

159. I don’t have an attitude; I have a personality you can’t handle.

160. I married Miss Right. I just didn’t know her first name was Always.

161. The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.

162. Impotence: Nature’s way of saying “No hard feelings”.

163. Do you realize that in about 40 years, we’ll have thousands of old ladies running around with tattoos?

164. There are three kinds of people: The ones who learn by reading. The ones who learn by observation. And the rest of them who have to touch the fire to learn it’s hot.

165. We are all time travelers moving at the speed of exactly 60 minutes per hour

166. America is a country which produces citizens who will cross the ocean to fight for democracy but won’t cross the street to vote.

167. To err is human, to blame it on somebody else shows management potential.

168. Alcohol is a perfect solvent: It dissolves marriages, families and careers.

169. Only in America… do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

170. Vegetarian: Native American definition for “lousy hunter”.

171. Materialism: buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people that don’t matter.

172. The Miss Universe pageant is fixed. All the winners are from Earth.

173. It matters not whether you win or lose: what matters is whether I win or lose.

174. If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

175. Don’t piss me off! I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.

176. Progress is made by lazy men looking for an easier way to do things.

177. See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.

178. I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, “Well, that’s not going to happen.”

179. Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface.

180. The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

181. 100,000 sperm and you were the fastest?

182. I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbour said ‘Are you going to help?’ I said ‘No, six should be enough.’

183. A friend is someone who will help you move. A GOOD friend is someone who will help you move a dead body.

184. Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak?

185. Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.

186. What if there were no hypothetical questions?

187. For every action, there is a corresponding over-reaction.

188. I’m a humble person, really. I’m actually much greater than I think I am.

189. Why is it called Alcoholics ANONYMOUS when the first thing you do is stand up and say, ‘My name is Peter and I am an alcoholic’

190. The best way to lie is to tell the truth, carefully edited truth.

191. Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools. So far, I think nature is winning.

192. I don’t have a solution, but I do admire the problem.

193. The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

194. People tend to make rules for others and exceptions for themselves.

195. There are two kinds of friends : those who are around when you need them, and those who are around when they need you.

196. Don’t steal. That’s the government’s job.

197. A celebrity is someone who works hard all his life to become known and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

198. They call it “pms” because “mad cow disease” was already taken.

199. IRS: We’ve got what it takes to take what you’ve got.

200. Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven’t fallen asleep yet.

201. Sometimes the best helping hand you can give is a good, firm push.

202. What is the most important thing to learn in chemistry?
Never lick the spoon.

203. Lite: the new way to spell “Light,” now with 20% fewer letters!

204. Unless you’re the lead dog, the view never changes.

205. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

206. No one is listening until you fart.

207. Only dead fish go with the flow.

208. Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable…like a coma.

209. Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster with more energy!

210. This isn’t an office. It’s hell with fluorescent lighting.

211. A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

212. Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring, and good-looking? Because those men already have boyfriends.

213. Life’s like a bird, it’s pretty cute until it shits on your head.

214. I’m multi-talented: I can talk and piss you off at the same time.

215. I was such an ugly kid. When I played in the sandbox the cat kept covering me up.

216. The easiest job in the world has to be coroner. Surgery on dead people. What’s the worst thing that could happen? If everything went wrong, maybe you’d get a pulse.

217. Foreign Aid: The transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

218. How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say the F word? Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell *BINGO*!

219. 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. There are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It’s either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho-Cha-Chu. But I think it’s Colin.

220. If corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from?

221. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?

222. True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.

223. The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.

224. If I’d shot you sooner, I’d be out of jail by now.

225. Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.

226. Everything is edible, some things are only edible once.

227. What has four legs and an arm? A happy pit bull.

228. If Wal-Mart is lowering prices every day, why isn’t anything in the store is free yet?

229. There are no winners in life…only survivors.

230. Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

240. Just about the time when you think you can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

241. Wise people think all they say, fools say all they think.

242. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

243. The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

244. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.

245. It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it.

246. We are all part of the ultimate statistic – ten out of ten die.

247. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: Fear of long words.

248. A committee is twelve men doing the work of one.

249. Ever notice that people who spend money on beer, cigarettes, and lottery tickets are always complaining about being broke and not feeling well?

250. If everything seems to be coming your way, you’re probably in the wrong lane.

251. I’m in shape. Round is a shape isn’t it

252. When we were together, you always said you’d die for me. Now that we’ve broke up, I think it’s time you kept your promise!

253. She said she was approaching forty, and I couldn’t help wondering from what direction.

254. If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife is yelling at the front door, who do you let in first? The dog, of course. He’ll shut up once you let him in.

255. During sex, my girlfriend always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel.

256. They keep saying the right person will come along, I think mine got hit by a truck.

257. I said “no” to drugs, but they just wouldn’t listen.

258. Alcoholism is the only disease that tries to convince you that you don’t have it.

259. I sometimes go to my own little world, but that’s okay, they know me there.

260. I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

261. My drinking team has a bowling problem.

262. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

263. Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?

264. It’s not how good your work is, it’s how well you explain it.

265. Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it.

266. I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I’m gonna put pins into all the locations that I’ve traveled to. But first, I’m gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won’t fall down.

267. If a leper gives you the finger, do you have to give it back?

268. Losing a husband can be hard: in my case it was almost impossible.

269. Efficiency is a highly developed form of laziness.

270. If a turtle doesn’t have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

271. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

272. Failure is not falling down, it is not getting up again.

273. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed

274. The best thing about living at the beach is that you only have assholes on three sides of you.

275. Silence doesn’t mean your sexual performance left her speechless.

276. The farther away the future is, the better it looks.

277. Why is it that in the US: If you take off all your clothes and walk down the street waving a machete and firing an Uzi, terrified citizens will phone the police and report: “There’s a naked person outside!”

278. Canadians are more polite when they are being rude than Americans are when they are being friendly.

279. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

280. I tried to hang myself with a bungee chord. I kept almost dying

281. Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He’s all right now.

282. I have to exercise early in the morning before my brain figures out what I’m doing.

283. Some of us learn from the mistakes of others; the rest of us have to be the others.

284. You are depriving some poor village of its idiot.

285. Discretion is being able to raise your eyebrow instead of your voice.

286. Every so often, I like to go to the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture.

287. At every party there are two kinds of people: those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.

288. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a flat tire.

289. Constipated people don’t give a crap.

290. Why is a bra singular and panties plural?

291. Be safety conscious. 80% of people are caused by accidents.

292. Without ME, it’s just AWESO.

293. If you do not say it, they can’t repeat it.

294. I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older. Then it dawned on me… they were cramming for their finals.

295. Be careful of your thoughts, they may become words at any moment.

296. If you don’t care where you are, then you ain’t lost.

297. Your gene pool could use a little chlorine.

298. You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

299. I pretend to work as long as they pretend to pay me.

300. You ever make fun of someone so much, you think you should thank them for all the good times you’ve had?

301. You have two choices in life: You can stay single and be miserable, or get married and wish you were dead.

302. I am not a vegetarian because I love animals. I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.

303. Roses are red violets are blue, I’m schizophrenic and so am I.

304. Ham and Eggs: A day’s work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.

305. If the number 2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still number 2?

306. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. Hate me because your boyfriend thinks so.

307. Everyone has the right to be stupid, but you are abusing the privilege!

308. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.

309. The human brain is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.

310. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

311. Strangers have the best candy.

312. Rap is to music as Etch-A-Sketch is to art.

313. Men are like mascara, they usually run at the first sign of emotion.

314. Trust but verify.

315. The difference between divorce and legal separation is that a legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money.

316. WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to think you can sing.

317. The last time I was inside a woman was when I went to the Statue of Liberty.

318. Why do women always ask questions that have no right answers?

319. I ran into my ex the other day, hit reverse, and ran into him again.

320. If a mute kid swears does his mother wash his hands with soap?

321. How do you get holy water? Boil the hell out of it.

322. I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

323. Why do you need a driver’s license to buy liquor when you can’t drink and drive?

324. Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel shamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, “It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.

325. Your kid may be an honors student, but you’re still an idiot.

326. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

327. Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

328. It was love at first sight. Then I took a second look !!

329. Everybody is somebody else’s weirdo.

330. I think, therefore I’m single.

331. It ain’t the jeans that make your butt look fat.

332. Should crematoriums give discounts for burn victims?

333. When you stop believing in Santa Claus is when you start getting clothes for Christmas!

334. I bet you I could stop gambling.

335. The only difference between the people I’ve dated and Charles Manson is that Manson has the decency to look like a nut case when you first meet him.

336. Sex on tv can’t hurt unless you fall off.

337. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent.

338. Who invented the brush they put next to the toilet? That thing hurts!

339. If a dog sniffs your ass, you’re probably a bitch.

340. Never agree to plastic surgery if the doctor’s office is full of portraits by Picasso.

341. Accept it. Your parents HAVE had sex before.

342. 668 – The neighbour of the beast.

343. I love oral sex…it’s the phone bill I hate.

344. Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.

345. Children in the back seats of cars cause accidents, but accidents in the back seats of cars cause children.

346. I’ve learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away.

347. The last time someone listened to a Bush, a bunch of people wandered in the desert for 40 years!

348. Squirrels – nature’s speed bumps.

349. When you go to the drugstore, why are the condoms not in with the other party supplies?

350. It’s bad luck to be superstitious.

351. There are two kinds of people who don’t say much: those who are quiet and those who talk a lot.

352. The reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is because they have a common “enemy”.

353. Friends are like condoms: They protect you when things get hard.

354. With a calendar, your days are numbered.

355. If it’s true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?

356. The sex was so good that even the neighbors had a cigarette.

357. It’s not the bullet that kills you, it’s the hole.

358. I ran three miles today. Finally I said, “Lady take your purse.”

359. If good things come in small packages, then more good things can come in large packages.

360. You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.

361. My wife ran off with my best friend last week. I miss him!

362. A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.

363. A cat, by any other name, is still a sneaky little furball that barfs on the furniture.

364. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone

365. Being in a nudist colony probably takes all the fun out of Halloween.

366. Married men live longer than single men, but they’re a lot more willing to die.

367. If life hands you lemons, break out the tequila!

368. Beauty is only skin deep…but ugly goes all the way to the bone!

369. A cheap shot is a terrible thing to waste.

370. A hard thing about a business is minding your own.

371. Most women don’t know where to look when they’re eating a banana.

372. If you go to sleep with a itching ass you will wake up with a stinking finger …

373. Does time fly when you’re having sex or was it really just one minute?

374. We are all time travelers moving at the speed of exactly 60 minutes per hour

375. If you’re going to ride my ass at least pull my hair and make me scream!

376. The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.

via

Thanks Aubrey


Zee M Kane says...



Social media has become an integral part of modern society.

There are general social networks with user bases larger than the population of most countries.

There are niche sites for virtually every special interest out there.

There are sites to share photos, videos, status updates, sites for meeting new people and sites to connect with old friends.

It seems there are social solutions to just about every need.

In this article, we’ll review the history and evolution of social media from its humble beginnings to the present day.

Precursors to Social Media

Usernets

Usenet systems were first conceived of in 1979 by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis. Usenets let users post articles or posts (referred to as “news”) to newsgroups.

Usenets have no centralized server or dedicated administrator, setting them apart from most BBSs and forums. Usenets are mostly responsible for the development of newsreader clients, which are the precursor to RSS feed readers so commonly used to follow blogs and news sites today.

Group sites such as Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups use many of the conventions established by the original usenet systems.


BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems)

The first BBSs came online in the late 70s. Originally these were primarily hosted on personal computers and users had to dial in through the host computer’s modem. Only one person at a time could gain access to the BBS.

While there were legitimate BBSs, most were at least somewhat involved in illicit, illegal, or other shady practices. Adult material, virus code, information and instructions for hacking and phreaking (phone hacking), and materials like The Anarchist’s Cookbook were commonly hosted on BBSs.

But BBSs were the first type of sites that allowed users to log on and interact with one another, albeit in a much slower fashion than we currently do.


Online Services

After BBSs came “online services” like CompuServe and Prodigy. These were the first real “corporate” attempts at accessing the Internet.

CompuServe was the first company to incorporate a chat program into their service. Prodigy was responsible for making online service more affordable (CompuServe had been prohibitively expensive for many, with charges of $6/hour plug long-distance fees that often made the service run $30/hour or more).

Genie was an early online service created by a General Electric subsidiary (GEIS) in 1985. It ran through 1999 and was one of the earliest services available. It was a text-based service, and considered the first viable commercial competition to CompuServe. The service was created to make use of idle time-sharing mainframes after normal U.S. business hours. GEnie offered games, shopping, mail, and forums (called RoundTables). There was even a print magazine associated with the service at one time.

AOL started as an online service too and made great strides at making the Internet more universally accessible in the U.S.


IRC, ICQ, and Instant Messaging

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was developed in 1988 and used for file sharing, link sharing and otherwise keeping in touch.

It was really the father of instant messaging as we know it today. IRC was mostly UNIX-based though, limiting access to most people.

ICQ was developed in the mid-90s and was the first instant messaging program for PCs. It was at least partly responsible for the adoption of avatars, abbreviations (LOL, BRB) and emoticons. Other IM clients soon followed.


Early Social Networks

Dating Sites

Dating sites are sometimes considered the first social networks. The first dating sites started cropping up almost as soon as people started going online. They allowed users to create profiles (usually with photos) and to contact other users.


Forums

Online forums also played a large part in the evolution of the social web. These were really descendents of the BBSs popular in the 70s and 80s, but usually came with a more user-friendly interface, making them easier for non-technical visitors to use. Various forum platforms, including vBulletin and phpBB, were developed, many of which are still used for forums. Forums remain a popular part of online culture, and many have made strides to add more social networking-type features (like profiles).

While many people consider dating sites or sites like Classmates.com to be the first social networks, they don’t really fit the definition.

Dating sites rarely allowed you to keep a friends list, neither did Classmates in its early years (and profiles were severely limited). The following sites were the first true social networks.


Six Degrees

Six Degrees was launched in 1997 and was the first modern social network. It allowed users to create a profile and to become friends with other users.

While the site is no longer functional, at one time it was actually quite popular and had around a million members at its peak.

In 2000 it was purchased for $125 million and in 2001 it was shut down.


AsianAvenue, MiGente, BlackPlanet

These sites cropped up in the years following SixDegrees’ launch, between 1997 and 2001.

They allowed users to create profiles and add friends (generally without needing approval to add people). Users could create professional, personal and dating profiles on these sites.

While they were some of the earliest social networks, there were few innovations among them.


LiveJournal

LiveJournal started in 1999 and took a different approach to social networking.

While Six Degrees allowed users to create a basically-static profile, LiveJournal was a social network built around constantly-updated blogs.

LiveJournal encouraged its users to follow one another and to create groups and otherwise interact. It was really the precursor to the live updates we see in social networks currently.


World of Warcraft / MMORPGS

MMORPGS (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games) have become social networks in their own right. The most famous of these is World of Warcraft, where players interact both in the game world and on related forums and community sites.

Social interaction within the games ranges from teams set up specifically for tactical reasons within the game to friendships to romances. MMORPGS became popular in the early 2000s, though there were other online role-playing and other games prior to that.


Major Advances in Social Networking

The early 2000s brought some huge developments in social networking and social media.

Friendster

Friendster was really the first modern, general social network. Founded in 2002, Friendster is still a very active social network, with over 90 million registered users and 60+ million unique visitors each month. Most of Friendster’s traffic comes from Asia (90% of it).

Friendster operated by allowing people to discover their friends and then friends-of-friends, and so on to expand their networks.

Its goal was to be a safer place to meet new people than in real-life, as well as being faster. Friendster was, in part, a new kind of dating site.

Instead of matching complete strangers based on shared interests, it operated on the assumption that people with shared friends and acquaintances would have a better chance than those who had no shared connection.

Friendster was most popular with three different groups: gay men, attendess of Burning Man and bloggers.


Hi5

Hi5 is another major social network, established in 2003 and currently boasting more than 60 million active members according to their own claims.

Profile privacy works a bit differently on Hi5, where a user’s network consists of not only their own contacts, but also second (friends of friends) and third (friends of friends of friends) degree contacts.

Users can set their profiles to be seen only by their network members or by Hi5 users in general. While Hi5 is not particalarly popular in the U.S., it has a large user base in parts of Asia, Latin America and Central Africa.


LinkedIn

LinkedIn was founded in 2003 and was one of the first mainstream social networks devoted to business.

Originally, LinkedIn allowed users to post a profile (basically a resume) and to interact through private messaging. They also work on the assumption that you should personally know the people you connect with on the site.

Gradually, other features have been added, including groups, question and answer forums, and advanced profile features, including real-time updates.


MySpace

MySpace was founded in 2003 and by 2006 had grown to be the most popular social network in the world.

MySpace differentiated itself from competitors by allowing users to completely customize the look of their profiles. Users could also post music from artists on MySpace and embed videos from other sites on their profiles.

Originally MySpace allowed communication through private messages, public comments posted to a user’s profile, and bulletins sent out to all of your friends. Blogs are also a big part of MySpace profiles, with each member automatically getting a blog.

In 2006 MySpace introduced MySpace IM, an instant messaging client that lets users chat with their friends.

Other recent additions to MySpace’s functionality include the addition of real-time status updates and a news feed showing friend activity.


Facebook

While Facebook started out as a Harvard-only social network back in 2004, it quickly expanded to other schools, then to high schools, businesses and eventually everyone (by 2006).

In 2008 Facebook became the most popular social networking site, surpassing MySpace, and continues to grow.

Facebook doesn’t allow the same kind of customization that MySpace does. Facebook does, however, allow users to post photos, videos and otherwise customize their profile content, if not the design.

Facebook has added a number of features over the past few years, including instant messaging/chat and apps (and their developer platform).

Users have a few different methods of communicating with one another. Private messaging is available as well as writing on another user’s wall. Wall posts are visible to that user’s friends, but usually not to the general public. Users can easily change their privacy settings to allow different users to see different parts of their profile, based on any existing relationships (the basic privacy settings are “only friends”, “friends of friends”, and “everyone”).

Users can post notes that are visible to all of their friends. Users can also comment on or, more recently, “like” the posts of their friends, and conversations often occur within the comment sections among multiple people.


Other Major Social Networks

Multiply, a “family-friendly” social network and media sharing site was established in 2004 and puts much more emphasis on security and privacy than many other networks. Multiply users have the option to set security levels on each item they post, making things public, network-only, or invite-only.

Orkut, launched in January 2004, is Google’s social network, and while it’s not particularly popular in the U.S., it’s very popular in Brazil and India, with more than 65 million users. Orkut lets users share media, status updates, and communicate through IM.

Kontain, which launched in 2008, works a bit differently than many social networks, putting the focus on usability and allowing users to follow each other through photos, videos, and music, rather than just simple status updates. They also actively recruit businesses to sign up, promotin their service as a way to connect with customers.


Niche Social Networks

As social networking grew, niche sites began cropping up for specific interest groups. There are now social networks for virtually every hobby, passion, interest, industry and group that you could imagine.

Ning

Ning is a platform for creating niche social networks. Networks are hosted by Ning but can take on their own personality and can even pay to have their own branding instead of the Ning brand.

New users can either create social networks for any niche they choose or join any of more than 1.5 million existing networks.

Ning was the first widely-used social networking platform. It’s biggest advantage in the market was that it made it incredibly simple for even non-technical users to set up their own social network.

While most other social networking platforms required coding and programming knowledge, Ning required neither of those.


Company-Sponsored Social Networks

A number of niche social networking sites have been developed by corporations in all sorts of industries.

Authonomy is one example; it’s a writers’ network hosted by the UK division of Harper Collins that has attracted thousands of hopeful writers from all over the globe, but plenty of other companies have created their own networks.

While some of these have active groups, many do not, and end up being shut down due to a lack of activity.


Media Sharing

Social media isn’t just limited to social networking sites. Sharing photos, videos, and other multimedia content is also a popular social media activity.


Photobucket

Photobucket was the first major photo sharing site, launched in 2003.

Photobucket allows users to share photos publically or in password-protected albums. They allow users 500MB of storage (lowered from 1GB in August of 2009).

Pro accounts get 10GB of storage (lowered from 100GB to 25GB in July of ‘08 and then to 10GB in August of ‘09). Photobucket also hosts video content.

In 2007, Photobucket was purchased by Fox Interactive Media (a News Corporation subsidiary). It was rumored to have sold for as much as $250 million, though terms of the sale were never disclosed.


Flickr

Flickr has become a social network in its own right in recent years. They claim to host more than 3.6 billion images as of June 2009.

Flickr also has groups, photo pools, and allows users to create profiles, add friends, and organize images and video into photo sets/albums.

One of Flickr’s major advantages is that they allow users to license their photos through Creative Commons, as well as retaining all copyrights.

Flickr has also recently launched a collection called “The Commons”, which features archived photos and images from a variety of museums and other institutions under a “no known restrictions” license (basically meaning the photos are believed to be in the public domain).


YouTube

YouTube was the first major video hosting and sharing site, launched in 2005.

Users can upload videos up to 10 minutes long and share them through YouTube or by embedding them on other websites (social networks, blogs, forums, etc.).

YouTube now allows users to upload HD videos and recently launched a service to provide TV shows and movies under license from their copyright holders.

YouTube’s major social features include ratings, comments, and the option to subscribe to the channels of a user’s favorite video creators.


Revver

Revver took a slightly different approach to video hosting and sharing.

While YouTube, Metacafe, and most other video sharing sites let you post videos for free and didn’t pay content creators for any advertising revenues their videos generated, Revver has been sharing revenue from the start.

Revver splits the revenue generated by a video 50/50 with that video’s creator. Some other video sharing and hosting sites are moving in the direction of revenue sharing, but Revver still remains the primary one that does it with all content on the site.


Social News and Bookmarking

Sharing photos and videos wasn’t isn’t the only kind of information sharing happening with social media.

The advent of social news and bookmarking sites in the mid-2000’s brought about a whole new way of see what’s going on in the world and discovering interesting content.

News became more widely available thanks to sites like Delicious, Digg, and Reddit, who allowed users to share any news or other content they found interesting with a much wider audience than they might have otherwise had.

Delicious

Delicious (aka, Del.icio.us) is a social bookmarking site founded in 2003. It allows its users to bookmark any content they find online, tag that content, and then share it with other users.

Users can search for bookmarks or browse for them via tags. Delicious also allows users to view the most popular content among other users, as well as up-and-coming content, not unlike most social news sites.


Digg

Digg was founded in 2004 by Kevin Rose, Ron Gorodetzky, Jay Adelson, and Owen Byrne.

Digg users can share links to anything online and other users can vote that content up (”dig”) or down (”bury”). Users can also comment on content posted by others and keep a friends list.

Digg has undergone a lot of controversy in its day, including criticism about the power the top 100 Digg users have over what becomes popular on the site.

The “Digg Effect”—when content makes it to the front page, thereby sending a huge influx of traffic to that site, often overloading its servers—is also well-known and often frustrating to those unprepared for the sudden popularity.


Reddit

Reddit is another social news site founded in 2005. Reddit operates in a similar fashion to Digg, allowing users to vote content up or down.

Users can view popular items, new items, and “controversial” items (presumably those items that have received a lot of both up and down votes). Reddit, like Digg, also allows users to comment on posted items.


Real Time Updates

Real-time updates have become the new norm in social media. With the advent of Twitter in 2006, status updates have become the new norm in social networking. Virtually all major social networks now allow real-time updates.

Twitter

Twitter was founded in 2006 and gained a lot of popularity during the 2007 SxSW (South by Southwest) conference.

Tweets trippled during the conference, from 20k per day to 60k. Twitter has developed a cult-like following and has a number of famous users (Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Soleil Moon Frye, MC Hammer, Oprah, Martha Stewart, and many, many more).

Twitter has also spawned a number of third-party sites and apps, turning it into more of a platform than a single service. There are Twitter clients for updating and managing followers; services that track Twitter trends; and services for posting photos and videos directly to Twitter.


Posterous

Posterous is the newest major microblogging application, started by Y Combinator in May 2009.

Users post content via email. Emails can include attached photos, MP3s and other file types that are also posted. No initial signup is needed, setting it apart from most other social media services.


Tumblr

Tumblr is sort of a cross between a lifestreaming application and a microblogging platform. Tumblr was founded in 2007 and had around 75,000 tumblebloggers switch to the service immediately.

The site lets users post photos, video, text, audio, links, conversations, and other content on blog-like sites. There are mobile applications available for posting to Tumblr, making it ideal for lifestreaming.

Tumblr is also very easy to use, making it well-suited to less technical users. It’s similar to Twitter and other microblogging platforms in the way that it lets you follow other Tumblr users and see their updates in a specialized dashboard feed. Users can also “heart” (favorite) other Tumblr users’ content and reblog posts from other users, keeping the original credit intact.


Other Services Adopt Real-Time Updates

As mentioned before, virtually every social networking site now allows for status updates. Facebook has incorporated status updates into their interface for years. MySpace adopted the practice more than a year ago. And most recently, LinkedIn has started to allow users to update their status.

Real-time updates allow users to stay connected to their friends and family on a constant basis and often improve relationships between people.

When you constantly know what’s going on with friends and family, it’s easier to discover shared interests, activities, and other information that might never have come out in real-life conversations. This can lead to stronger relationships offline.


The iPhone’s Role in Real-Time Updates

The iPhone can be largely credited for the rise in popularity of real-time updates. Prior to the iPhone’s launch, mobile browsers were clunky at best, and virtually unusable at worst.

But the iPhone made it easy and even fun to browse the web from a mobile device. Add apps for virtually every social network to the mix and it became possible for users to update anytime, from anywhere.

Other phones have followed suit and there are now mutliple devices available that let users easily update their status on the go (including posting photos and video updates).

The iPhone has taken such a huge role in social media that there are now social networks only available on the iPhone. iRovr is a social networking app specifically for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

It allows users to post photos, updates, links (including to YouTube videos), create polls, subscribe to RSS feeds and more. It was launched in 2007 and is still going strong two years later.


Lifestreaming and Lifecasting

Real-time updates have led to an increase in the number of people who are now lifecasting or lifestreaming virtually everything they do. While some opt to lifestream by aggregating their online activities in a single place (such as with FriendFeed).

Ustream.tv

Ustream was founded in the summer of 2006 and has become the streaming video host of choice for celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Soleil Moon Frye.

While most Ustream users only go live occasionally, there are channels that are live around the clock (mostly security cameras, animal cameras, traffic cameras, and other stationary feeds).

Ustream allows viewers to post comments and ask questions directly to the feed host during live broadcasts, and this interactivity often engages users to a greater extent than other video sites where videos are posted after they’ve been filmed instead of being streamed live.


Justin.tv

Justin.tv is a streaming video host founded in October 2006 that lets lifecasters and live show creators to broadcast to hundreds or thousands of Internet users.

iJustine is probably Justin.tv’s most public user, lifecasting practically her entire life on the site at one time (she appears to be lifecasting a bit less recently, though she’s still very active on the site).

There are more than 400,000 channels on Justin.tv, and they get more than 41 million unique visitors each month.


FriendFeed

FriendFeed, which launched in 2007 and was recently purchased by Facebook, allows you to integrate most of your online activities in one place (Twitter, RSS feeds, and Flickr, among others).

It’s also a social network in its own right, with the ability to create friends lists, post updates, and otherwise communicate.


Other Lifestreaming Sites

There are a number of other lifestreaming sites out there that people are using. Most can be integrated into your blog or website to show your visitors all of your activities around the web.

There are even some dedicated blog plugins for lifestreaming. WP Lifestream is one such plugin, specifically for WordPress. It lets you integrate your profiles from Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm and Wordie right out of the box, and you can add additional modules for integrating more feeds.

Profilactic.com is another lifestreaming application that lets you integrate feeds from 190 different websites, including Blippr, Delicious, Digg, deviantART, Dopplr, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, LiveJournal, MySpace, Pandora, Revver, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Tumblr, and more. Sweetcron is a similar app, though it’s opensource and you host it on your own servers.


Social Everything

It seems that nowadays there are social and user-generated sites for just about every activity you can imagine. There are social shopping sites. Social financial planning sites. Sites for getting book, movie, app, and other reviews. Sites to share your goals and meet like-minded people. Sites to plan your travels and share them with others. And sites to help you make decisions on just about anything.

Social media has become a huge part of the lives of millions of people worldwide. Whether it’s something as simple as looking up reviews of movies from real, live people (instead of professional movie reviewers) or getting advice on major life decisions, there are social sites out there to provide you with the information you seek.

Even on general-purpose social networks and social media sites like Twitter there are thousands of ways to get input on just about anything.

Instead of using Google the next time you have a question about something, try asking on Twitter. A lot of the time you get better information from the crowd there in less time than pouring over pages of search results.


Social Media Concerns and Criticism

As social media has grown in popularity and become mainstream, it has been faced with growing controversy and criticism.

The main criticisms seem to fall along a few lines: Social media can be used by stalkers; Social media can be used by child predators; and, Social media sites open up privacy and security concerns.

While there is only so much social media sites can do about the first two, there is a growing trend among many sites to bolster the privacy policies and make users feel more secure.

Social Media Used by Stalkers

Facebook and other social media sites have come under attack for making it easier for stalkers to track their victims or even to find new ones. This kind of accusation is not entirely unfounded.

Many social media users don’t take advantage of privacy settings and leave their entire profiles public. While this is often a good idea for professional profiles where you want to make connections with people you don’t necessarily know, personal profiles can benefit from hiding some information from public display.

Social networks make these privacy settings available to users to help prevent stalkers and predators from being able to see their updates.

But they can’t force users to use them, so in the end much of the responsibility falls to the individual users, not the networks themselves.


Social Media Used by Child Predators

MySpace is the most publically attacked social networks accused of being a haven for child molesters and pornographers, but the site, and other social networks, have made great strides in protecting the identities and information of minors using their sites.

Again, this is one of those situations where much of the problem came from users not making their profiles private.

MySpace took a major step to prevent predators from friending underage teens by requiring friend requesters to know the email address or another personal identifier in order to send a friend request to a minor.

They also require the profiles of teens under the age of 16 to be private, not allowing non-friend users to view them. Other sites have taken similar steps.


Privacy Concerns

Facebook recently came under attack for changes to its privacy policy that were worded ambiguously enough to effectively grant rights to Facebook to use any of your content, private or public, for their own purposes (such as advertising) even after you’d delected your profile.

While the company maintains that was never their intent and it was simply unfortunate wording, the backlash was severe enough that Facebook changed their privacy policy back to its previous version and then solicited user input for revisions. It was a harsh lesson in how concerned many users are about the information they provide online.

When you consider that many people post information about all aspects of their lives online, mostly on social media sites, it’s no wonder many are concerned about what companies can do with that information.

Social networks and other sites have to rapidly respond to user concerns over privacy and security. With the information in an average social media profile, it would not be inconceivable for a hacker to illegally gain enough information about a person to steal their identity or otherwise cause problems.

Security concerns have also cropped up as average people have found their profiles hacked and embarrassing information posted about them.

While this type of thing was once relatively confined to celebrities and well-known people (or people who had a personal vendetta against them), it has become more widespread and it’s not unheard of for regular people to be targeted (such as this woman on Facebook recently).


The Role of Social Media in Pop Culture

Social media has, in the past year or two, become a mainstream online activity. In 2007, social media activities overtook pornography as the most popular online activity in the U.S. (the two industries continue to battle it out, alternately gaining or losing ground on a monthly basis).

Celebrities now use Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks on a regular basis. And it’s not just their publicists—stars are updating their status themselves and interacting with fans on a daily basis.

It’s not uncommon to see Twitter-inspired t-shirts, and there has been at least one “fail-whale” tattoo (I’m sure there are more out there).

When Twitter and Facebook both suffered a DDOS attack in early August ‘09, there was a real sense of loss among many users until the sites were back up.

Social media has become an integral part of how people communicate, stay in touch, keep on top of new developments, and otherwise connect with the world around them.


The Evolution of Social Media

Social media has come a long way since the days of BBSs and IRC chats. And social media continues to evolve on a daily basis.

With major social networks and social media sites making changes and improvements on an almost daily basis, it’s sure to keep evolving in coming years.

The one thing we can be pretty sure of at this point is that social media is not just a phase, and likely won’t go away any time soon…at least until something better comes along.


Further Resources:



Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Where do you think social media is heading and how do you use it? How much influence does social media have in your life?

Filed under: social networking, web2.0

guykawasaki says...

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TheLadders.com interviewed 500 executive recruiters to determine the mistakes that senior-level applicants are making. 44.2% said the candidates were poorly prepared to the interview. 43.2% said their resumes were weak. 43.2% said that the candidates were too desperate. Read the gory details about these issues and other factors here.