This could also pass for
weekend comedy, but I'm stealing it for this week's view into the "tech world". Matthew Inman is the author of
The Oatmeal, a rather
random, yet
highly entertaining one-stop shop for
comics and
quizzes (21 seconds, btw). His latest post talks about the
8 websites we/society need to stop building, and I have to agree with him (particularly 1 and 4). I think it's about time the world stops creating stalkerbook clones to allow me to follow random acquaintances, but only if I register so that they can spam the living daylights out of me. Your thoughts?
PS If you think this post is really just a lazy, half-assed (yes, those are different) attempt at a Tech Thursday post, you'd be the opposite of
wrong. I'm exhausted. Sue me. (Please don't, though, cause it would just be a waste of all our time - I've got nothing of value).
PPS
This post from the NY Time Bits blog is an interesting look into just how dominant Microsoft is in the business software department: 94% market share and $19B in annual revenue - even with free products in abundance? Impressive.
27 seconds.
ReplyDeleteDamn you, you bear-beating assassin...
ReplyDelete47 seconds
ReplyDeleteI may or may not have embellished my abilities
42 seconds. Yeah, I said I would kill a butterfly if it threatened my food supply.
ReplyDeleteWhy ya gotta be attacking my bread and butter? I really think social web is the future. I believe that we'll probably increasingly navigate the web based on what our friends recommend... i.e. I just took that quiz because Scott told me it was funny.
BUT I also agree that we've pretty much hit saturation point with this current model. Stalkerbook clones will not survive, but I can pretty much guarantee that social networking is here to stay and we'll be seeing a lot of sites launch in an attempt to find that perfect way of monetizing whatever you're willing to share.
I agree more with Oatmeal than with GotGame. It's interesting because it all really comes down to what is actually useful to people's lives. So to the extent that social networking continues to be useful in logical ways (like Facebook being a platform for being connected to everyone and every website on your mobile device), then great. But I hate joining new sites that I know are dumb.
ReplyDeleteAlso I find Twitter entertaining but I hardly find it as useful as Facebook. Of course I also have a stupidphone so maybe that's a factor.
By the way Scott excellent job burying the more interesting story in your PPS. I find it really impressive that MS continues to dominate the business software world.
ReplyDeleteMicrosoft Office is just way more usable than the competitors right now. For instance you could never actually use Google Documents (free competitor) with nearly the same quickness as Office. Especially if you start going for deeper functions (macros, pivot tables) Microsoft is a better choice, from what I've experienced.
Agree 100% Royce. Usefulness is an important aspect here. We're still in the honeymoon stage for social media (ending soon!) where we're all googly-eyed over what it can do for us. The next year will bring the realization that we don't really want to put up with the snoring, ball-scratching slob we married, even if the sex is great.
ReplyDeleteThis is all to say that the slob better find some new tricks to keep us around.
PPS I also agree with you regarding Office superiority. However, the invent of cloud computing may make that moo, as the free/cheaper options out there can provide the same functionality (hard to due via web-based apps) at a much cheaper cost.
ReplyDeleteI'm not gonna lie, the only link I clicked on was the "sex is great" one
ReplyDeleteOk and the "moo" one
I agree with free cloud office software, but again only if it's got the same functionality and ease of use. The spreadsheet in Google Docs is way clunkier than Excel right now.
Although the cloud aspect of the alternatives, especially the ease of sharing, is the one big advantage over Office right now.
Heh - almost typed "NSFW" just to see if that made it to the top of our out-click list after one day...
ReplyDeleteRe: cloud software. I imagine Google building Google Spreadsheet 2.0 which is a clone (or clone-like) of Excel that people access on Google servers through the cloud. The program would be a full program accessed via the web, but not web-based. Therefore, the limitations of Google Spreadshees 1.0 would not be present, cause I agree - it's pretty clunky and annoying right now.
Clunky is the perfect word to describe it. At this point I only want to use Google Spreadsheet to store numbers between work and home or share numbers with others. As soon as I hit "=" I go back to Excel.
ReplyDelete