Under a Gibbous Moon

Gonna give something new a try. I’m not just going to except email and tweets but now you can call me up! Sure, it’ll go to voice mail but I’ll be able to hear you complain.

As a follow up to my previous post on blog spam, I recently received two spam comments that were perfect examples, that and they were conveniently right next to each other to make for a good screen shot.

Click on the image for a large version

The first one is quit obviously of the IHYSETCOT variety. Luckily for everyone, this person, well bot, is nice enough to to make the links so scary looking that only the terminally stupid or dangerously curious would click on them.

The second one is of the SEO variety. It is suitably generic and appeals to the blogger’s vanity (Drat! How did they discover my one weakness!) Underneath the name you’ll see the URL bronsteinreport.com. This is the web site that is attempting improve its search engine ranking by throwing out links wildly like a frat boy sows his oats.

Now I understand that this post was exceptionally dry and what you really came to see was the latest issue of Blog Spam Illustrated, so I won’t deny you:

Don’t say I never give you anything.

Yes, I shamelessly stole that title from a Smashing Pumpkins song.

Blog spam is something that anyone (and I mean anyone) who has had a blog for more than five or six seconds has had to deal with. Sure the amount ebbs and flows with the tides and your page ranking but it is still and omnipresent nuisance.

Blog spam is split into two categories, SEO spam and I-Hope-You’re-Stupid-Enough-To-Click-On-This spam. (continue reading…)

This is a fascinating article, I am fairly certain that very few people have been so completely wrong about so many things in such a short period of time. While, in the comments section, many, many, many people have piled upon the author for this work, I personally have thrown back my memory to that prehistoric time, 15 years ago…

The Internet circa 1995

It was around this time that I saw my first commercial for the Internet. It wasn’t for any specific company (that I can remember) nor did they seem to be selling anything. The scene was at a rather quiet house party. The lights were low and a couple were talking in one corner he hands her (or vice versa) a piece of paper on it with his/her email address on it (a what!?). The tag line of the commercial was that one day our email address would be more important than our phone number. (continue reading…)

After watching the Google Buzz controversy play out over the last week or so, I can honestly say that I am completely confused.

I signed up on Buzz the day it became available in my Gmail account, which was, I believe, the day after launch (and definitely before the shit storm started). When I did so it was quite explicit about what was going on and what it was going to do. It even listed who would be listed me following and gave me the opportunity to edit this list (which I did).

From reading much of the fury around the internet, it seems that my experience was totally unique. Apparently everyone else had Buzz just load up on its own and suddenly steal their identities and head for Vegas.

Now, admittedly, if you started up Buzz and clicked through the first couple of screens, you could be unpleasantly surprised.

I personally believe that much of the confusion comes from the fact that the Buzz icon was placed into the Gmail menu whether or not you have activated it, leading people to believe that was automatically activated.

This simply could have been handled by placing it in the text menu at the top of the screen where the various Google services appear even if you are not currently signed up for them.

Could this have been handled better by Google, certainly. Is the internet’s response to it radically overblown, yes.