Killer App Via MyHome2.0

This is one of my favorite DIY projects from Campfire’s MyHome2.0 Campaign for Verizon’s FiOS. The possible uses are endless, but what I like best is you can give friends and relatives a spot on your wall — your real wall, not your Facebook wall – to post photos. And you can dig into the family shoe box, scan your favorites and have them cycling through on another screen.

Check out the Memory Wall DIY here.

Technorati Tags: Digital Photos, Facebook, Memory Wall, MyHome2.0, social media, social networking

Julia Child: SPY!

I always knew there was something fishy about Julia Child. For years, I thought it was the oddly-intoned voice. However, according to the AP and ABC News, documents released this morning name Child as part of the first organized intelligence operation in US History. During WWII, Child was recruited by the OSS (a pre-cursor to the CIA) to stir up trouble against Hitler.

Lord knows what havoc Child wrought on the schnitzel.

Best Intern Interview Ever

Lisa, our office goddess has been interviewing people for an intern position. Josh came by a few days ago and then did a follow up with this video. Should we hire him?

49:00 goes down, and Westerberg responds, with another track.

Last week I wrote about Paul Westerberg’s unusual release of 49:00 online, and how it wasn’t just an innovation in distribution, ala Radiohead, or a promotional gambit, ala Coldplay, but a piece of music in a format that likely would not have been released if it wasn’t for the Internet. I also wrote about the favorable reactions and the number one ranking on Amazon’s MP3 Chart.

Well, a few days later, 49:00 mysteriously disappeared from both Amazon and TuneCore, with no explanation. Today, a new track appeared, 5:05, and lyrically it suggests that 49:00 was taken down due to a legal squabble over the cover song mash-up that ended the release.

5:05, which is available for either $0.99 or $5.05, you decide, is an energetic tune loaded with spiky barbs that recall the classic punk rock attitude of The Replacements. It’s rock n roll middle finger to an unnamed legal team and an musical message to his fans about what is going on with 49:00.

I think this is a far more interesting example of a musician using the internet to release music and engage fans than most of the bigger stories getting all the attention, but this one doesn’t have an economic angle so it will likely be ignored, unfortunately.

Malwebolence – The New York Times on Internet Trolls

The New York Times Magazine has a great story on Internet trolls — people who take pleasure in disrupting online communities — that’s worth your time:

In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”

Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.

Read the full story here.