th@talldude

The Genies Work For Twitter

Actively Inactive, Reluctant To Change

I'm on a bit of a downer today, after the Lakers dealt my Spurs a heartbreaking loss last night.  So that may be part of the reason this post is happening.  It's a bit of a rant, but it's also something that's plaguing me.  This is going to hit on a few different, yet intertwined areas, before you reach the end.

Being without a steady job, I have a lot of time to think.  Having a lot of time to think, gives me a lot of time to network and explore new ideas more thoroughly.  Much of this networking has led me to new goals, like revitalizing my hometown and the area around it.  Many of those ideas have led me into discussions with a variety of people, to do a variety of things.  With a little more time on my hands, I've begun doing a lot of volunteer things, as well as more odd jobs than I would typically do.  Being a geek, and being heavily into all things on the web, I've discussed doing several different projects with people, most of which would have resulted in a little bit of cash for me.  However, to do these projects, I need these people to be actively active, as opposed to actively inactive.  I hope that people in the Small Town, USA you're from aren't like this.

Viral All Over Again With Weezer

Weezer's back at it again!  The 'Red Album' is coming out the beginning of June, and we're getting a peek at it with their new song, 'Pork and Beans.'  Weezer did an outstanding job with this, incorporating many things us web geeks will recognize, with past viral hits on YouTube, and some geek speak sprinkled throughout.  Great stuff, ROCK ON!

Twitter Users Can Be 'el Stupido' At Times

I'm sure you're all well aware by now, I like Twitter.  A lot.  I follow a lot of people (634), and a lot of people follow me (525).  I'm what people might refer to as a 'power user.'  I don't sit back like some people do and just watch, I actively participate in the stream, replying to people with @s, sending and replying to DMs (direct message), following new people I find interesting, and throw out my own original thoughts and ideas, even if they may be a bit controversial at times.  I think after 5500 tweets, and following about 1.2 people for every follower I have, you can logically say I'm not a spammer, but a legit person, with legit frustrations.  When I follow you, I expect you to show at least a small bit of common sense.  Yes, this is part rant, part 'Twitter users, SHAPE UP!'

Truly Astounding, Apple Reaching New Levels In Music Videos

I'm not quite sure how it took 12 days for this to come to my attention, because it ASTOUNDS me.  This obviously took hours upon hours upon hours to set up.  And more hours upon hours to time it out just right.  Truly a superb job by all involved.  I fully expect this to be incorporated into a full on Apple commercial at some point in the future.  The song is called 'Again & Again,' performed by 'The Bird & The Bee.'

Rural America's Mobile Coverage Is Pathetic

The Wall Street Journal has a new article by Amy Schatz, Exclusive Phone Deals Assailed.  While it's nice to see somebody going on the offensive to help more people get the phones they want, the 'cool' phones, it is only scraping on the issue that plagues us outside of the city.

I make no secret about it, I am a geek.  I am very demanding of my gadgets, my internet connection, and my phone service.  When the iPhone came out, I was ecstatic, thinking that has so much of what I am looking for!  However I live in North Dakota, which at the time had no AT&T coverage.  There was some GSM roaming provided along the interstate, so I thought about getting one anyways, for the 3 days a month I'd be able to use it as a phone (yeah, I'm that geeky).  However, there was some wording in the iPhone agreement, that if you used X amount of data in a roaming area over X amount of time, they could cut off your service.  Your billing address also had to be in an AT&T service area.  So I was out of luck.

My Room is Clean! Now Comes The Hard Part.

Today, after many hours, and possibly days, of procrastination, I finally cleaned my room.  For those of you who don't know, I'm currently living back at home, and if you must know, it's because I got financially stupid for awhile, and am recovering from my mistakes.  Anyways, my brother is graduating this weekend, and Mom thinks everything NEEDS to be spotless whenever people are here.  I don't think spotless is really necessary, people do know we live here, but like a good boy, I cleaned up my room, on the off chance that a bunch of people decide to come downstairs.  Yes, you can make these pictures bigger, and yes, some of them are VERY blurry.  No tripod. :(

Is Doritos Giving Up?

I found this package of Doritos laying on the kitchen table today.  I had never seen a bag of Doritos that was black before, so naturally, always interested in new food, I had to find out what delicious new flavor this might be.  I would be disappointed though, as this bag of chips has no flavor described on it.  Doritos, known for great flavors like Cooler Ranch, and my personal favorite, Jablanero, declined to bother with this new kind.  As opposed to any kind of a name at all, any description to give us any sort of a clue, we merely get the caption on the bag, which states:

The Quest - Guessing The Flavor Is Just The Beginning

Yeah, that's right, "guessing" the flavor.  Apparently somebody in marketing got a new kind of chip to market, was having a bad day, or maybe just had a bad cold and couldn't taste anything, and just decided that I don't care, I give up.  I'll let the customer tell me what it is.  Doritos is not the first company to do this though.  A very popular candy bar has been baffling people for a long time.

Shyftr Treats Me Right, How To Build Loyalty

Discussion has been coming up again about how the web is changing, and those that change with it are seeing results.  After reading what is quite possibly the best thing I've read all year, I thought I would share my own example with you.

Today on RWW, Sarah Perez wrote the piece, Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web.  From the 'Marketing Has To Change' section, I quote:

Because Gen Y is media savvy and conscious of being marketed to, brands that succeed in the future will be those that open a dialog with their customers, admit their mistakes, and essentially become more transparent. Companies' web sites that want to attract Gen Y'ers will become more like today's Web 2.0 sites. Social networking will be just a feature. Blogs will be standard ways for companies to reach their customers. Customer service won't just be a phone call away, it will be available via non-traditional means, too. Today, savvy companies might be using Twitter, but that could change at any time if Gen Y moves on. Companies will have to keep up with Gen Y and not get too comfortable using any one format.

My favorite RSS reader, Shyftr, gets this.

50 Bloggers in 50 States

I'm finally posting this, which is long overdue.  When you bookmark something, it's important to go back to it again, but things came up, and I got distracted.  Better late than never I suppose!

Fellow Tweeter Patrick Curl is planning a road trip to all 50 states.  He is currently in fund raising mode, and is taking donations in the form of cash and hardware.  He wants to interview a blogger in all 50 states, which can be a great traffic boost for your blog.  The interview will be in the form of text/audio/video, and will be spread throughout the internet through whatever means he can.  I hope you all swing over to his American Bloggers page and give him some support.  This will surely be a fun trip to keep our eyes on, and we'll all be certain to learn something new, as well as find some great new blogs to read!

Take Pictures of Models With Taco Bell and Sports Illustrated

Taco Bell has created a gold mine for viral marketing.  Combine two of the typical American male's favorite things, food and a hot girl, and put them together online.  Voila!  An online photo shoot.  I am sure they are going to get tons of traffic off of this.

Is Small Town USA Ready For Expensive Gas?

I wasn't on Twitter long today, when TWalk posed this question.

I immediately thought of Small Town, USA (see recent post, Would You Live There?), and my own shopping habits.  There is no shortage of talk about our country's economic conditions.  Watch CNN, search Google, or read a newspaper, and somebody will be either proclaiming a recession, or that it's not so bad.  In the big city, while you use gas, everything is nearby, even though it may take you a bit to get through town.  Outside of the city, however, you often must travel long distances.  When agriculture is your economy, when everything in town, be it the hospital, school, or cafe, is made possible by the number of farmers in the area, every dollar counts.  When you must often drive long distances to get that ONE thing that your local town businesses don't provide, the fuel expenses quickly add up.

My TweetWheel

I finally got TweetWheel to load for me today.  I haven been hearing interesting things about it, but their server has always been so busy, and even today, I had to refresh several times before it got all the way through.  TweetWheel is very similar to the Facebook app, FriendWheel.  It collects the data about you and your friends and who you're following, then gives you a visual display to show you how you are all connected.  You can find my original TweetWheel here, but I also took a screenshot of it, so you can glance at it on the blog before reading my other posts (wink wink). It obviously doesn't have all of my Tweeps on it, there's far too many for TweetWheel's current capabilities, but it still gives a nice representation.  You can follow me on Twitter @thattalldude.

Small Town USA, Would You Live There?

I've had a lot of thinking time this week, as I had to spend a large amount of time away from the internet and my friends on Twitter.  As I pondered many topics, I kept circling back to a passion of mine, my hometown.

I understand completely why people move away, and leave North Dakota (my home state) completely for that matter.  But as much as it may benefit me to move away, and be around more people with the same mindset as me, technology wise, I would rather be the guy who turns things around, and gets people to move here.