Sad State of News on the Internet

It really is a shame how most news organizations are adopting the “catchy or dramatic title” on their articles to pull in web traffic. Case in point:

Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations. Source: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

Last time I checked, intercepting video would not have been considered hacking, the definition from Wikipedia: re-configuring or re-programming of a system to function in ways not facilitated by the owner, administrator, or designer. I probably would’ve read the article had it been titled “Insurgents intercepting video from US Drones” or something more accurate, all this did was piss me off. It’s no wonder I use news aggregators instead of going straight to news sites themselves.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Annoying Websites, Current Events, Linking Strategies, Soapbox No Comments » December 2009

Dullard Calls Bloggers Wackos Who Don’t Get Any

When I first read Name and shame offensive bloggers by David Bullard of the Sunday Times, my first reaction was what a dickhead. Obviously this guy has strolled around Technorati, saw some of the crap that is pumped out and assumed, and we all know what happens when we assume, that all blogs are crap and he is lumping us all together. Here are some of my favorite quotes from his “article”.

Admittedly the majority of the bloggers get bored rather quickly and don’t bother to update their sites, but that’s still 70 million people (higher than the population of the UK) who desperately want to be columnists.

Most blog sites are the air guitars of journalism. They’re cobbled together by people who wouldn’t stand a hope in hell of getting a job in journalism, mainly because they have very little to say. It’s rather sad how many people think the tedious minutiae of their lives will be of any interest to anyone else.

I do, however, object to some anonymous, scrofulous nerd pumping meaningless drivel into cyberspace at all hours of the day and night simply because he can’t find a girl to sleep with him. These are the sort of wackos who gun down their fellow students at university. Source: Name and shame offensive bloggers

It’s funny that he thinks we all want to be columnists and work for a newspaper, it couldn’t be farther from the truth for me, why would I want to write a weekly column when I can post something whenever I want, as many times as I want. His regular readers had to wait until Sunday to read his crap, they can read my crap any time.

Now, that last quote was the big one for me, I don’t have to be by my computer to pump out crap into the internet if I don’t want to, hell, I could be getting some while one of my servers is pumping out crap, if that is what I want it to do. “These are the sort of wackos who gun down their fellow students at university”, that statement he needs to regret saying for awhile. Didn’t his spell checker cough when it ran across that sentence? When I saw his picture, my first thought was he was one of those dickheads who thinks he is better than everyone else, so, I read some of his other articles, well, I could only read a couple, as most seemed to try to convey the fact that he has money and does well in life, unless of course, this is part of some joke, or they are referenced somewhere else that makes more sense. I don’t know, but after I was done, respected journalist never entered my mind again.

I read some of the other blogs that were commenting, Vincent Maher says

The second point is that I think we need to demand an apology or a justification for what Bullard has said in his column, and what the Sunday Times has endorsed by publishing it - that we are the type of people who will gun down our fellows at university. If you feel the same way I do, join me in the comments section of this post or join the Facebook group. Source: David Bullard owes South African bloggers an apology

I agree, the paper should make him write an apology, but that’s not going to happen. Why? They either did it just to get some traffic from bloggers, or, they realize they screwed up and are trying to spin it like they were trying to get traffic. If you check out this page, David Bullard and the Blogosphere, you can see they are linking back to blogs that are talking about it, and they said it has generated a huge debate among readers. I don’t think debate is the correct term, as he just slammed bloggers and bloggers are now reacting to it. On that page they have five videos they made, they say they captured his response to the debate, the first one was just him reading some of the blogs and commenting a little, but it cuts him off as he was saying his article worked better than our blogs at getting attention, so that one sucks. The second one he said I got paid for writing mine, you all don’t, then he says I’m off to lunch. I stopped after 2, it was just to painful to download them and watch the little bit of commentary, I’m pretty sure I’m not missing anything.

I don’t know how much more wrong he could be in the second video, I bet that many bloggers, Michael Arrington, Vinny Langham, etc, could buy him and everything he owns over and over, but I really don’t know him, so I’ll just assume it, like he does. Vinny had a few comments on the article himself.

David Bullard : Wake up and smell the coffee - just because bloggers want independence from beaurocratic print houses and leveraging the reach of the Internet, this does not make their work of a lower quality than yours! Life is about choices, and we CHOOSE not to work for print and have editors telling us what and how to write - freedom of speech is grand!! Good luck to you though! Source: Offline Print Journalist calls Bloggers “Wackos who gun down their fellow students”

I probably shouldn’t link to his article, because I really don’t want to send them any more traffic, but I will to make it easy for everyone, but, really, I would just skip reading it, it is just one more dinosaur who will be going away soon.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Annoying Websites, Blogging No Comments » May 2007

Google Doing Electronic Billboards

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Google wants to control all advertising, and, according to some patent filings, it looks like they are definitely moving in that direction. According to an article from Clickz, a patent filing from Google on technology to let local stores tie their stock computers to a Google powered ad network, means they are definitely thinking beyond newspapers and radio advertising. This filing covers systems and methods to allocate advertising space in a “network of electronic display devices.” So, this could cover billboards, ATM machines, kiosks in malls, about any digital display, heck why not TV’s in some stores where companies could show ads for some of their stock currently in the store.

If patent filings are anything to go by, contextual advertising powered by Google will start appearing on digital billboards in a shopping mall near you.

The idea is to tie billboard advertising in local malls to actual products for sale nearby, much like the company’s flagship Google AdWords/AdSense network that handles contextual advertising on the Internet.
The patent filing, first reported by New Scientist magazine, describes a way for retailers to put categories of products up for purchase in the vicinity of a display device.

If the filing is a sign of things to come from Google, kiosk-type billboards, ATM machines and other digital displays in malls and hotel lobbies could start hawking products directly from a nearby retailer’s inventory.
Nowadays, advertising in these screens are limited to looped, poster-type advertisements of movie promotions and other nearby events but, in Google’s eye, the ads could be pulled directly from a merchant’s stock control system. Source: Google Patent Filing Hints at Digital Billboard Ad Network

We are currently being flooded with advertising everywhere, my current broadband Suddenlink, formerly Charter Communications, has started placing banner ads alongside the web mail interface. This really pisses me off, I am already paying for this service, I don’t want to be shown ads because they can, if it was free I wouldn’t mind it, but not when I pay for the service. If Google had already rolled out the ability for everyone to pull in all their email from POP accounts, I wouldn’t be using the web mail interface at all. I will be dropping that email address and I will tell them where to stick when they make me move to the Suddenlink address. I called a customer service rep and he said our marketing guys said we should, so they did and they can’t remove them, so they can shove them where the sun don’t currently shine.

The ATM ad make me mad to, charge me for withdrawals from non-network ATM’s, charge me fees for using their own ATM’s and now they want me to look at ads after I get my money out? What kind of crap is that, just gimme me card back and my receipt, and stop ruining my life. Chase can shove those ads as well, I haven’t called them yet to let them know I will be switching banks, but I will when it happens.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Advertising, Annoying Websites, Google No Comments » January 2007

Annoying Websites

There are certain websites we all visit once a week or every couple days because we are looking for information, news, scores, etc. I am going to list the ones I visit that get on my nerves, everytime I go there, and will add to this list occasionally, I’m sure, feel free to add yours in the comments below.

Nascar.com - I love Nascar, watching the race every week, arguing with people about who the best drivers are, etc, it’s all good. When you visit the Nascar homepage, they auto start this video clip, everytime you go there, and its annoying as hell. I hate it when a website, plays sounds when you visit there, no matter if its from videos, background music etc, it doesn’t matter, DON’T DO IT. I would visit it a lot more if they didn’t.

ESPN.com - I don’t visit this site very often, so I don’t know for sure yet if they do it everytime, but they auto start a video just like Nascar.com. STOP IT. The second page that I visited had one of those ads that are embedded in the page, and they slide accross to the middle and stop, but this one didn’t have an “x” to close it, I had to wait until it went away to be able to completely see the page.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Annoying Websites No Comments » October 2006