Dan Lyons (a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs) gave an interview to Wallstrip recently, and in the brief ten seconds that I was discussed my heart was filled with joy…. and then crushed.

Apparently Lindsay is “nicer” than I am. Nicer? NICER?

Hold on a second, I need to compose myself… it just… well, it just hurts. Yes, she doesn’t taunt him and call him “mad dog” or anything the way I have in the past, but it was all in good fun! I tease because I love. Is this because I beat up Bike Helmet Girl? Whatever, she had it coming.

*sigh*

Share this!

So Tom Merritt and I have started a little science fiction and fantasy-themed book club, called The Sword and Laser. Just a fun thing to do on the side, but it’s really picking up some good steam! We have about 90 members or so on our Ning page, and we’ve announced the first book, The Golden Compass (one of my favorites, and especially appropriate considering the upcoming movie).

Should be a lot of fun; yes, I realize how incredibly dorky it is. Thank you.

Share this!

Gah! I’m so annoyed right now. So, I noticed that I was getting a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon, which I’ve been a member of (and enjoyed) for years. Surprised, I checked the referrer and saw that it was coming from my post Console Rundown. Now, like many bloggers, I often see something I like and BLOG ABOUT IT. I show the thing, add in all the appropriate links that I’m aware of, and so it goes. As far as I’m aware, this is the proper etiquette.

However, since someone submitted MY page instead of the actual Escapist page that the original video lives on, suddenly I’m ripping them off and using StumbleUpon to get “hits to her site.” What? Seriously? Clearly, it’s my fault for blogging about something I found amusing.

It’s one thing to say “Hey, duplicate submission!” It’s another thing to accuse someone of ripping off a magazine that they totally respect and enjoy. Hell, if anything, I wanted to send whatever little traffic I could so more people could enjoy the videos! It’s crap like this that makes working online a frustrating experience sometimes.

Sorry, /vent

Share this!

YouTube is certainly a company that has plenty of resources at their disposal: so why do they feel the need to so closely emulate Pixelodeon with both their site design and video elements for their new Project: Direct video competition? Take a look at the examples below:

Steve Woolf has a great writeup about the whole thing over on his blog. As a curator for this past year’s Pixelodeon, it irks me to see a company like YouTube stick it to the people who have gone to great lengths to support and promote online video talent. As Steve says:

…I find it hard to believe that the YouTube designers were not aware of Pixelodeon, since we had a number of prominent YouTubers attend, and in fact we had an entire screening dedicated to YouTube (embedded above).

We created a strong brand, and YouTube appears to be “borrowing” concepts that can potentially create confusion between the two events. The chances are very remote that this is a coincidence.

I don’t know, it seems pretty jerky. This kind of thing does happens on the web pretty often from a design and concept standpoint, but not usually in a situation where two entities aren’t competing in any way. Pixelodeon promoted YouTubers; they shouldn’t get ripped off because of it.

Maybe they’re spending so much of Google’s money on legal fees that they couldn’t afford a good design team.

Share this!