Friday Videos: Fried Gnocchi, Metrodome, Worst Web Meeting Evar

Fried Gnocchi

A cautionary tale. Don't fry your gnocchi. Really. Don't. Evar.


(via urlesque)


Metrodome Roof Collapse snOMG!

If you haven't seen it yet, here's your chance.




Worst Web Meeting Evar

A little creation of my own, collecting all the head-shaking moments as a web developer in one meeting from hell.

Twitter Headlines: Library of Congress, Retirement, Divorce, iPhone

I know this semi-regular Wednesday feature declares to report on Twitter Headlines, but the fact is that I don't care that Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan show up in my search every week. No. More. Attention. Go talk to Perez Hilton if you're that interested in their shenanigans or that it's news that there is a lack of shenanigans. Granted, if they showed up in the same article...

Tweeting for Posterity

This is a very interesting article about the collection and analysis of Tweets, noting that in April the Library of Congress announced that it will be obtaining the entire archive of Twitter which, as of now, is already 5 terabytes in <= 140-character slices. What an odd slice of human history / culture / eccentricity. I can't wait to see what the culture crunchers have to say in a couple decades.


Retirement!

While I'm reticent to post any vapid celebrity Twitter information, two huge legends of sports and media have decided to announce their retirement through Twitter: Lance Armstrong and Larry King.


Divorce Court

Looks like the lawyers are getting in on the social media scouring we're all starting to get accustomed to. In divorce cases, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and MySpace (jk - no one uses MySpace anymore) are being used as evidence of intent, flirting, and any other behavior that would be relevant in divorce proceedings. But in a world where prospective and current employers and higher education institutions treat a social media search as common as a background or credit check, can anyone say they're surprised by anything except that it took this long?


iPhone

It appears that 1) iPhone 4 has some problems and 2) there's a fake Steve Jobs Tweeting about a recall. In other news: I'm writing a blog post and the sun will rise tomorrow morning a little later than it did today.

MONDAY Videos: Hat Cat, YMCA Classic, Gandalf, Snowboard WIN

Missed the post on Friday, so what better way to start out the week than with those interesting videos?

Kitty + Hat + Cat = Hilarity!




YMCA: Christophers

This one's a few years old, but good all the same.




Gandalf Goes to the World Cup!




And a WIN!

I know we usually focus on FAILs, but this is just too cool.




Have a great week!

Friday Videos: McDonald's Old Style, Hockey Guys, Pool Jump FAIL

4-year Old McDonald's Burger

I watched Super Size Me and it did not do what this video did for me. I will NEVER touch McDonald's (or much other fast food) ever again. Evar.




Hockey, Guys!

I feel kinda bad for this guy, guys. Guys?



...of course that's not as bad as the legendary Boom Goes The Dynamite!




Pool Jump

And since you're actually here for a serious FAIL, here you go:



Have a great weekend!

Friday Videos: Tiger After Dentist, Old Spice, Trampoline + Pool FAIL

Tiger After Dentist

I was going to post the original Tiger Nike commercial here, but after finding out the audio was pulled from a 2004 DVD and (unsurprisingly) that his father wasn't really addressing the problem at hand, I was left only with the fact that Nike sees more profit than liability in the long-term investment in Tiger, to the point that they will exploit a recording of his own dead father. Boo.

So how about a parody instead? The audio is pulled from the monstrously viral David After Dentist, and is oddly relevant.




Odor Blocker from Old Spice

Have you seen the new commercials? Me neither. But they're Awesome. I guess it's not a coincidence they're directed by Tim & Eric from the Tim & Eric Awesome Show. Awesome. Here's the channel, and here's a few examples. Did I say Awesome?

Flex




Punch




Pool Trampoline FAIL

Because it all comes down to the FAIL. But wait, you say. How can a pool and a trampoline possibly combine into a fail scenario? Allow me to show you...

Friday Video: Google FTW, Media Crank, Raptors!

Google "Responds" to Buzz Feedback

(NSFW language bleeped)




CNN Jersey Prank




Raptor Devours Cheerleader




Have a great weekend!

Wednesday Twitter Headlines: Security, XLIV, Space, Teens

No! No celebrity news this week! Not one blip about Fall Out Boy or Lady Gaga. Not one!

Unsecured Twitter?

But this week Twitter did say: "I's been haxed!

"A red flag was first raised on Twitter's end when it noticed an abnormally high number of followers for certain accounts. This prompted the company to investigate and eventually reset the passwords for anyone following those suspicious accounts. Twitter noted that although torrent sites have been around a while, this is the first time it's seen an attack using this angle."

It was a custom-built, torrent site back door, password reset phishing scam. W00t! As always, Twitter kinda has it under control.


Beer! I Mean Super Bowl XLIV

And if you've been waiting with baited breath to see what's going on with tweeting and Super Bowl XLIV, your wait is over: Super Bowl XLIV Earns an Official Twitter Hashtag: #SB44. I'd give you a blockquote on this one but that's the whole story. Not that this is actually news. I went to a conference this past December where a half dozen of us tweeted the event. We had a hashtag too.

Note to media: A hashtag is not earned. You don't have to file with the IRS or anything. You just make it up, let people know, and start using it.


Um, Teens and, um, Twitter

And I also noticed an abnormally large number of stories covering the fact that teens still aren't showing Twitter the love that they show Facebook. Also, this is not news, just like it wasn't news last August when I talked about it.

Maybe I need to start a blog on Twitter headlines that aren't news.


Not Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

And this one's a little older than a week, but: Tweets From Spaaaaaaace!

NASA has set up an impressive wireless connection that provides astronauts on International Space Station with Internet access so they can surf the Web, e-mail their friends and family back home, and even send Twitter messages.

Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer started using the connection this morning by sending the first tweet originating from the space station.

Sweet. Question: Is a tweet that you're going to the bathroom more interesting if you're going in a suction-powered space toilet on the ISS?

Answer: Yeah!


So what did you learn from Twitter this week? I'm always happy to read your feeback!

Wednesday Twitter: Creepy, Driving Celebs on Pandora

Creepy Google Search turns out to be the same creepy Google search, just on social networks. Surprise, surprise!

Adam Lambert drama ensues with whining about his album cover. I didn't know the guy in Highlander was doing an album. Oh, that was Christopher Lambert? Nevermind.

Oh noes! It's Twitter. In traffic! Lots of whining on the Bay Bridge. Cheese vendors requested to add complimentary tastings to the whine.

Lost fans? William Atherton was trick-tweeted in the latest version of JJ's trickery. Dick? Anyone?

Finally, what we've all been waiting for, it's Pandora doing the Twitter (and FB) dance. Bring it.

Plenty of joy on Twitter this week. Love on it.

Wednesday Twitter: Jaclyn Not-Dead, Sports Again, Myspace?, and AP Ignorance

Not surprisingly, these bits of love I gather that bring Twitter into the headlines are generally gathered on Wednesday to be as timely as possible. The problem with that is that Twitter and news headlines are juxtaposed so ubiquitously that this post rarely spans more than two days of time.

In the future I promise to check a couple times a week to guarantee you're getting the cream of the Twitter crop when it comes to news once a week.

And starting today, the link to the article will simply be the subheader which will always double as the copy for the headline of the article. No reason to get all complicated.

Jaclyn Smith announces she is not dead on Twitter

Wow, that's funny that she had to... um, who?

Just kidding. Kind of.

Jaclyn was the victim of [Celebrity below serious fandom] was in [foreign country] and died when [an accident befell them]. Recently happened to Jeff Goldblum.

She put down the rumor with one tweet: "Jaclyn is safe and home with her family. She is not in Honduras. It is a lie."

Lesson? People, please verify things. You're like a nation of my aunt forwarding emails that Bill Gates is going to give you money with your RT buttons. Yes. That bad.


Redskins & Twitter

Fans booed Redskins' Coach Zorn. Rookie linebacker Robert Henson sends tweet "saying that the booing fans were dimwits. Henson also wrote: 'Who are you to say you know what’s best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at McDonalds.'"

Boo hoo. The Sports-coach-player-Twitter meme was tired weeks ago: Player tweets something, rules are undefined, drama ensues. They need to make a policy and assign fines and be done with it. So unless we have crime or espionage in that loop, this'll be my last sports related Twitter reporting.


MySpace Expands Twitter Syncing To Six New Countries

MySpace is allowing you to synch your Twitter 2 ways with your MySpace account. While I do still appreciate MySpace for my indie music fix, this innovation is tantamount to announcing that the VCR can make toast. "What MySpace won't tell me is how many total users have synchronized their accounts so far." I'm sure it is a closely-guarded and heart-wrenching number.

MySpace still has its place and still does a couple things quite well, but is, well, like talking about Jaclyn Smith at the Oscars.


Actual people physically gather to talk Twitter

This inept platitude of a headline may be witty in circles that know next to nothing about Twitter, but a solid case in point for news organizations having someone who knows what the heck is going on in social media. The blurb is talking about the Twitter conference in LA.

One of the things I have been evangelizing about over the past several months has been social media - including Twitter - being the bounce-off point of real, human interaction. We are currently living in a society and job market where a presence online is not enough. Social media is not enough. If you want the job, if you want the contact, if you want the contract, you show up and put yourself out there, and Tweetups are nothing new. Commerce is decentralizing and you need to be the expert in your field and the face and the brand and the salesperson. All in one.

Twitter and meeting is no longer new; it is necessary.

And the AP headline about the Twitter summit (which in and of itself appears to be more hip than practical) was, plainly, ignorant.

Wednesday Twitter: Leavitt Leaves It, AIM 2-Ways, and Anthem BCBS?

Leavitt Leaves It

I'm surprised every week at the flurry of news having to do with how sports and Twitter are intermingling (and often fighting). This week has South Florida's Jim Leavitt quitting Twitter:

Leavitt has decided to quit in part because he found out a few of his players were tweeting on the way to and even in the locker room before Saturday's game against Wofford. Carlton Mitchell was updating his Twitter feed during the rain delay before kickoff.

"It just seems like something they probably shouldn't do," Leavitt told the Times. "I'm not going to use Twitter anymore. ... If I'm going to ask my players not to probably do it during that time, I'm just going to stop. My twittering days are over. .. .That's it for me, and hopefully it is at certain times for other players. We'll see."

Again, we're dealing with the advance warning, the threat that someone might let someone slip. And as I've said before, restrictions like that are in place because not every Twitter user is the brightest bulb in the bunch. Honestly, I'm mildly surprised that there hasn't been a college or professional sports team that's made the news because of a firing based on dumping extra-secret information at a very wrong time.

While it may be unfortunate for fans and a little extreme in my view, Leavitt is at least walking the walk well before he talks the talk to his team.


AIM on the 2-Way, and I Don't Mean Cincinnati Chili and Noodles

I can't say that this is huge news, but as someone who has been a Trillian addict for years now, I'm a little detached from what each IM client has been doing individually. Here's the skinny: in July, AIM upgraded their service to include Twitter and Facebook feeds. The rub? You could only read the feed, not update through the interface. Why anyone would release a service at half o'clock is beyond me. But they did go ahead and implement that pesky extra stuff everyone was asking for a week or two ago. And now you can update Twitter and Facebook through AIM.

As I may have already mentioned: just get Trillian.


BCBS FAIL

To avoid confusion, please allow me to begin by stating that the annotative context of the article lies here:

Currently, Anthem is piloting a program in which it uses Twitter to identify members who may have questions or concerns about their health benefits. Twitter allows Anthem to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, real time conversation, and respond to each tweet about Anthem. Members can follow Anthem on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AnthemHealth.

Okay, that's a notable item. Additionally, they have a Facebook fan page to implement discussions and a YouTube channel to ...channel their expertise and advice.

The Twitter and Facebook pieces make me somewhat nervous when talking about health care. I'm guessing that ABCBS has some generally knowledgeable folks in charge of owning their conversation online (though you may question that after the next paragraph), but there are a bevvy of folks on both Twitter and Facebook that do not understand either how to use the services or how visible their personal use can be. And then one angry woman does an @AnthemHealth Tweet about why they won't pick up the cost of [enter embarrassing personal surgery here] and wonders why her tweet is on a dozen schadenfreude websites and people have stopped following her.

Oh, don't change that channel! We've got one more level!

Because this if from Reuters we can assume it is a published news release - verbatim - from Anthem ("SOURCE Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin"). And that's where the connotative nature of this article reveals itself.

Not just for teens anymore - social networking and media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are being used by adults to interact with their friends, families and to gain information.

I know. It's like listening to your mother karaoke "Baby Got Back." The most recent research on Twitter showed teens are much more a minority user than previously assumed. But even at that level of media ignorance, language assuming Twitter as EVAR a huge teen/tween phenomenon pushes past a n00b label to "You do not now - nor have you ever - understood what this is about. Please stop embarrassing yourself, leave, and self-educate."

Wait. More?

Anthem is also launching a brand channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/AnthemHealthConnects) to create a vital and viral community around health and wellness.

Oh, and your uncle dials up "I Will Survive." Just because you have a YouTube channel does not mean that you are doing anything viral. Yes, YouTube videos can go viral, but it is generally because it is something nasty, sick, painful, heroic, incredibly annoying, or unbelievable. I'm guessing Anthem's professional and informational outlook would prevent them from anything that had the potential of going viral.

My biggest hope about this article is that it was not written with the advice or input of the team that is heading up this social media expansion, and that the author just doesn't get it (not that that says much for their collaborative organization). If not, then Anthem might want to brace for a very serious Epic Fail.

Wednesday Twitter in the News: Paula, Military, NFL, and Tweeting from the Dead

Twitter's not just a social marketing tool - and just plain fun - but it's appearing more and more in the news. I'm committing to posting Wednesdays about what has been going on in the past week.

Paula Abdul's Official Tweet
Item! If you haven't heard already, Paula Abdul will officially not be joining the monarchy of American Idol this time around. And how did we hear such news? A tweet, of course! Word is that the producers lowballed her on the offer hoping she would opt to not renew her contract. Boo. Seacrest is voicing a desire NOT to do Idol without Paula and OMG, it's crazy.

With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return to #IDOL. I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all..Cont'd...

Before I start sounding like Perez Hilton, the main point when it comes to social media is that a major television reality show running cast change is being made official via Twitter. We really getting much of our information that way these days.


US Military Unsure About Social Media
So this week the Pentagon is reviewing the benefits and dangers of military use of social media sites, including Twitter. According to the article, there is no military-wide ban, though the Marines formalized their ban last week. Of course, this comes only a month after the ARMY placed an official order to stop blocking Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc.

Now, before you say "Meh, that government..." I have to say that the confusion, the flowing dichotomy of whether social media presents an opportunity or a threat, is one I've heard in person and online about corporations worldwide. If the company (or government) does not understand social media, they become fearful. And we can't have anything that we fear running around.

But they're concomitantly missing the opportunity piece of it: joining the conversation, owning the conversation, brand management, and overall social communication to build relationships. Lack of education about social media is one of the biggest obstacles I see on a daily basis, and it does not appear to be disappearing anytime soon.


NFL Working on Official Twitter Policy
Everyone's got a twitter account, and that includes NFL stars. Some are tweeting inappropriately, some claim they will tweet during the game, blah, blah.

Owners and coaches are a little worried about this. For the same reason the military is: part fear and misunderstanding and part real-world CYA. Though losing a football game and a life because of a tweet are very, very far removed from one another.

In order to bring down the hammer on stupid, inappropriate, or giveaway tweets, the NFL is seriously working on an official gameday policy. Stay tuned for more on this one - looks like it's going to be interesting battle of management and egos.


Tweets From the Dead
Starting today, John Quincy Adams will be tweeting his trip to Twitter...that took place 200 years ago. You can follow JQA here. As the article says:

Sure, Adams' tweets may seem a bit dull compared with what we're used to seeing on Twitter, but what they lack in emoticons and LOLs, they more than make up for with lots and lots of geographical coordinates.

I think one of the most exciting things about living today and being so involved in social media is to see not just the tools emerge but watch to see how those tools evolve and change and offer us new and interesting venues.

I love this, and it inspires me to start something new.

I'll have at least a rudimentary idea and announcement by Friday.

Stay tuned, comment, and connect (right column) in any way you can. Have a great day!