If you ever listen to the wonderful More or Less podcast, you'll have heard the term "Zombie Statistic." It relates to stats which are factually incorrect - yet keep being circulated. Despite being disproved, they rear their ugly heads again and again. You probably know a few - men think about sex every 7 seconds, London is France's 6th biggest city, Christians are the most persecuted religion, etc. In technology circles, we have Zombie Ideas. Products so awful that they are rejected by users …
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I'm turning into an old curmudgeon. Either that, or the new wave of social marketing has severely missed its intended target. Let me ask you a question, do you want to be friends with your utility company? Your phone provider? Your soft drinks manufacturer? I don't mean "follow-on-social-media" friends - I mean actual buddies. On the face of it, that's a ridiculous question. You can no more be friends with a conglomerate than you can trust a politician. When your local MP comes knocking…
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I was at a funeral the other day. A group of us were sharing memories of the deceased. Talking about her laugh, how mean she could be, how we never told her that we loved her. Suddenly, a stranger walked over to us in the graveyard and said, "Friends, have you tried the great taste of the Big Kahuna Burger? With its mouthwatering blend of herbs and spices, you're sure to have a Big Kahuna Day! High-five me if you agree!" Needless to say, we each gave him a high-five in the face and spent the …
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We're in a fairly mature phase of social networks now. Broadly speaking, most social networks separate out into a few main groups. Eyes - e.g. services like Flickr for pictures and YouTube for moving pictures. Ears - e.g. AudioBoo for voices and SoundCloud for songs. Feet - e.g. FourSquare for where I am now and RunKeeper for where I have been (running). Hands - e.g. Etsy and Github show what I am creating. Mind - e.g. Twitter and Facebook for what I'm feeling and thinking, and…
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I'm sat here, in my dressing gown. My fingers are greasy from eating crisps all morning. My back aches because I spent all night playing a stupid video game. The gin hangover isn't helping either. My week off work has been a wash out. I didn't write any code, I didn't cook anything other than pizza, and I'm beginning to smell of used dish water. I log on to Facebook - and this is what I see, all complete with photos of smiling people doing awesome things. Melody checked in at Bury Lane…
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