fernandorizo.typepad.com

links for 2010-02-10

• kung fu grippe : 43 Simple Ways To Simplify Your Life
  Classic Merlin Mann.
  (tags: humor zen)

links for 2010-02-04

• CheckFacebook
  Facebook geographic distribution statistics and aggregated news, mined from Facebook's advertising back-end.
  (tags: facebook statistics analytics demographics socialnetworks)
• Facebook COO: 175 Million People Log Into Facebook Every Day
  According to Facebook, half of their 350 million unique users log in every day.
  (tags: facebook statistics socialmedia socialnetworks sheryl_sandberg davos)

links for 2010-01-28

• After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site | The New York Observer
  Newsday says this is insignificant because they approach their Website as a value add for print subscribers, but newspapers like the New York Times that are planning paywalls of their own have surely taken notice.
  (tags: EndOfOldMedia newspapers media webculture paywalls news internet)

links for 2010-01-26

• Geekosystem.com
  A "geek culture" site published by former MSNBC journo Dan Abrams. The site itself was designed by Rex Sorgatz (of Fimoculous and Gawker comments fame). It earns points from me right away by linking to MetaFilter in its blog roll.
  (tags: geekculture webculture memes news 2010 entertainment technology)

spice up your crippling fear of aging by installing ICQ 7

ICQ came back today. At first I thought it was maybe this was part of a promotion for a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Blu-ray boxed set but no, it's actually ICQ. It couldn't have come on a better day for me because my back hurt a bit and when I woke up I had been wondering whether Toad the Wet Sprocket had ever put out a greatest hits record. Might as well completely re-immerse myself in the 1990s and dig my ICQ number out of an old webmail account. I always loved the concept of an ICQ number.Mirabalis, ICQ's developers once hoped that your 8-digit long ICQ number would be become as important as your home phone number. This edition appears to dispense with numbers and what not which thwarts the nostalgic impulse that took me to the download page in the first place but is probably just as well because I stopped memorizing my phone numbers two phones ago.

ICQ, I'm told, is still quite popular in Russia and Eastern Europe where the images on the official Website suggest it is the IM client of choice for girls to announce shoe purchases. This new iteration isn't just for IMs, it also updates Twitter and your Facebook status..

While installing, ICQ asked me to close Firefox, which I trustingly did, only to find upon re-starting my browser that ICQ had installed a toolbar and changed my default search engine to the ostensibly useful ICQ Search. ICQ is so committed to helping you relive the 90s that it installs browser toolbars without your permission. I can't recall the last time I uninstalled something so quickly. Then I had a look around my system to make sure there wasn't a goddamned Bonzi Buddy somewhere.

Leave the 90s back in the 90s.

[I wrote this last week but didn't post it then. I am a man of many mysteries.]

links for 2010-01-24

• Frank Serpico, Police Officer Played by Al Pacino, Looks Back - NYTimes.com
  Frank Serpico now lives alone in a one-room cabin two hours north of New York City. Interesting that the Times headline isn't "Police Officer Who Confronted Corruption", but rather "Police Officer Played by Al Pacino".
  (tags: frank_serpico police corruption ethics civilrights nyc newyorktimes via_MetaFilter)

links for 2010-01-13

• Why Hollywood fears Nikki Finke : The New Yorker
  This New Yorker article from October 2009 isn't just an interesting window into Hollywood politics, it's a fascinating illustration of how the Web moves stories and memes and how traditional media outlets interact with and adapt to that flow.
  (tags: webculture hypertextuality nikki_finke newyorker movies journalism hollywood)

links for 2010-01-05

• FUCK FLICKR
  A Graffiti Research Lab-affiliated alternative to Flickr that encourages boycotting Yahoo products.
  (tags: flickr graffiti copyrightlaw photos streetart hosting yahoo)

links for 2009-12-29

• FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Odds of Airborne Terror
  Nate Silver calculates the chances of a flight being attacked by a terrorist: one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.
  (tags: statistics terrorism tsa homeland_security politics airlines travel)

links for 2009-12-25

• SearchMenu - Search Faster in Firefox :: Add-ons for Firefox
  An extension (formerly known as Kallout) that adds expanded right-click contextual search options to Firefox.
  (tags: extensions firefox search browsers)
• Google Chrome Extensions: Del.icio.us Tools
  Currently the most reliable and full-featured Delicious extension for Chrome.
  (tags: extensions browsers googlechrome del.icio.us recursion)
• New Report: Young People Watching Less TV, More Internet Media - Podcasting News
  "According to a new report from Deloitte, millennials, the generation of 14- to 25-year-olds, watch just 10.5 hours of TV a week (older viewers watch twice as much!). They also spend less time watching DVDs than any other age group.

  But while they are spending less time with television and DVDs, they are actually spending more time with media than any other age group – watching videos on the Internet, listening to music and playing video games."

  
  
  (tags: via_ClayShirky EndOfOldMedia internet tv pr millenials statistics)