Tonight see’s the start of the third series of the UK Apprentice. Every Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One, Sir Alan Sugar will be picking his newest Apprentice from 16 hopeful candidates.
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Category: General
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SEO Basics
Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is an umbrella term often used to cover a whole breadth of subjects including Search Engine Submission (SES), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Placement (SEP) and so on.
However, there is no “magic bullet” for SEO, as it’s is an ever changing animal, one where ideas, concepts and theories may change on a regular basis.
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Environmentalism = Responsibility.
Usually I don’t commentate much of politics, but after seeing Channel 4’s “The Great Climate Change Swindle” the other night, I felt that the programme was some how missing the point.
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Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?
With all the conspiracy theories abounding over the 9-11, Websurdity has compiled a list of conspiracy theories where he suggests that the “Death Star attack was an inside job“.
“We’ve all heard the “official conspiracy theory” of the Death Star attack. We all know about Luke Skywalker and his ragtag bunch of rebels, how they mounted a foolhardy attack on the most powerful, well-defended battle station ever built. And we’ve all seen the video over, and over, and over, of the one-in-a-million shot that resulted in a massive chain reaction that not just damaged, but completely obliterated that massive technological wonder.
Like many Americans, I was fed this story when I was growing up. But as I watched the video, I began to realize that all was not as it seemed. And the more I questioned the official story, the deeper into the rabbit hole I went.
Presented here are some of the results of my soul-searching regarding this painful event. Like many citizens, I have many questions that I would like answered: was the mighty Imperial government really too incompetent to prevent a handful of untrained nerf-herders from destroying one of their most prized assets? Or are they hiding something from us? Who was really behind the attack? Why did they want the Death Star destroyed?”
Websuridty raises uncomfortable Questions about the Death Star Attack, including:
- Why were a handful of rebel fighters able to penetrate the defences of a battle station that had the capability of destroying an entire planet and the defences to ward off several fleets of battle ships?
- Why did Grand Moff Tarkin refuse to deploy the station’s large fleet of TIE Fighters until it was too late? Was he acting on orders from somebody to not shoot down the rebel attack force? If so, who, and why?
- Why was the rebel pilot who supposedly destroyed the Death Star reported to be on the Death Star days, maybe hours, prior to its destruction? Why was he allowed to escape, and why were several individuals dressed in Stormtrooper uniforms seen helping him?
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Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job? -
Other ‘Future of…’ events
I missed out on the Future of Web Apps event that was in February, mainly because I only heard about it the day after it closed (so much for being on the cutting edge of what’s going on in the blogosphere), but I did find some other events:
- Future of online advertisng June 7th-8th, New York, USA
- Future of web design April 18th, London, UK (Sold out, but the CD can still be bought)
** UPDATE **
I should point out that the best place to find out about upcoming events, is the Yahoo! website, upcoming.org
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Holla Back: Mobile Vigilantes?
I’ve been reading the Holla Back New York City blog recently, a blog which a group of young activists (mostly women) started as a means to stop men (or women) making degrading comments, sex pests, or any form of sexual harassment, then post the results on a website.
They are fighting back with their own weapons: camera phones, blogs, online protests and forums, plus an action campaign timed for “street harassment season”.
The growing interest in the site, and the theme (described as ‘cyber vigilantism’ by critics) have raised questions about where we can draw the line between an innocent hello (or chat-up line) and actual ‘sexual harassment’.
In the eight months, about 100 camera phone pictures have been posted on the site along with text accounts, or ‘blogs’, of the harassment suffered under the banner: ‘If you can’t slap ’em, snap ’em!’.
“Holla Back” is a growing phenomenon that does raise the question of whether how far it will be taken? Will communication evolve or cease because you said “hello” and the next minute you’re on a blog being touted as some kind of sex pest? Who knows. It is certainly something to follow.
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The Apple Poetry Guy
A poster on YouTube has published a piece of poetry he performed at an Apple Talent Show, and subsequently got fired for.
The poetry is about his telephone conversations with an unnamed “Canadian FedEx Lady”, and towards the end of the movie the movie explained he was fired.
However, a lot of posters have come up with some interesting questions:
- Was he fired for the poetry, or because of something else?
- When was the video shot? Was it this year?
- Was he fired because of breach of some Apple customer service ettiqute?
- Did he ever actually work for Apple and was he ever really fired from Apple? – all we have is his word from the video and subsequent comments on the video.
- Is it a subtle marketing ploy by Apple?
Whilst these questions and others aren’t answered, the poetry isn’t too bad and showcases some of the qualms of working for a big corporation when you’re just a small cog of a very big machine.
Link:
Apple Poetry Guy gets ‘fired’ (Youtube) -
FOWA: Future of Web Apps Event
During Feb 20-Feb 22 in London an event called FOWA, or Future of Web Apps even is to be held. Unfortuently I’m a bit late in posting the event, in addition to the fact that the event is totally sold out — so much for being on the pulse and listening to the grapevine.
There is a list of great workshops, even covering PHP – which I found quite ironic because I thought the whole web 2.0 or now, web 3.0 (sighs) community poo-pooed PHP and was on the whole Ruby-on-Rails bandwagon.
I’m still trying to find out if its possible to download screencasts, or audio podcasts of the actual workshops, but it looks like that isn’t currently available yet.
Anyway, here’s the link;
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Unemployed Skeletor’s Video Blog
It appears Skeletor has started a video blog – one that’s already captured the imagination of other viralists (yes, I did make up that word, maybe I should copyright it – ah well), a video blog that documents his life post-He man. And boy he sure let himself go. Complete with “man boobs” and a fat belly, watch as Skeletor tries to fill in the void left by being unemployed.
Quote from blog:
“Each week, expect to hear from your ol’ pal skelly.He will talk to you about all sorts of stuff,like giving you updates on his documentary ‘The Unexciting Adventures of Unemployed Skeletor’”.There are well over 20 episodes of Unemployed Skeletor; with one episode where he’s at some function and sings “My Cherie” and dedicating it to Evil-Lynn.
Link:
- Unemployed Skeletor’s Video Blog (Episode #1)
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Viral marketing’s dark side
Tim Malbon of Daily Social has recently posted an excellent article on how viral marketing, especially via the medium of YouTube can backfire for brands and their marketing executives.
As Malbon reports, someone within the marketing department of the supermarket chain “Somerfield” decided (probably in a brain storm) to allow their employees to use Youtube as a sort of viral marketing platform, or, as Malbon puts it, “a social media experiment” – but it went wrong because for the last 8 months or so, the bored nightshift Somerfield employees have been uploading subversive content to the Youtube website – much to the embarrassment to the company.
Viral marketing is getting bigger all the time – politicians, marketing gurus and big firms are all trying to use the social aspect of Youtube to market their products, often using funny commercials – or presenting a human face to a lifeless corporate body. I think Youtube and it’s rivals are great for small time businesses trying to get their name out there, but trying to ad-hoc a marketing message via a platform where you know it will be abused is just asking for trouble.