I'm not sure if I can sum all of this up in Twitter or not (140 characters) and I suppose that statement is the best possible way for me to introduce my topic of discussion.
I've spent most of the day trying to wire up the perfect micro-blogging environment. The easiest, fastest, most intuitive networking of social devices, sewn together into a perfect polygamist marriage; but this road is wrought with frustration and despair.

It all started with my Twitter widget on this blog. I realized that I don't blog all that often, however, I tweet CONSTANTLY, and more-so, I Microblog constantly, so I began striving for some way to turn my Drupal site (where you currently are into a conduit for my Tumblr account (http://jonlitwack.tumblr.com). Somehow this path turned into a near 10 application jumble of interconnected API's and nano-syndication; after all... What's the point in all of these tools if they don't publish at the larger end of the social funnel? ie. The place where most of my friends are travelling.

I haven't figured it all out yet, and it doesn't seem that anybody else has, so I suppose there's some odd comfort in that, but here's the weirdest part of my day: I got home and was (for the first time since I had my cable disconnected) utterly depressed about the fact that I was no longer connected to the same syndicated content as the other 10 million dependents on the non-YouTube.

I realize now the stupidity of the previous thought, particularly in juxtaposition to the one before it, but think about it. I'm 26. I grew up watching GI Joe and Knight Rider. TV has been a part of my life since I was old enough to remember and now I've been conditioning myself to forget about it almost completely. I didn't grow up with the Internet. It wasn't around in proper browser format until I was 12, and the concept of an API or any form of data portability was another ten years away.

We're all learning how to leverage emerging technologies as they come out. Many of us are pioneers/early adopters, paving the way for the rest, enabling the critical mass to seed before the harvest sets in and we move on to the next "big thing". But it's always a struggle between convergence and divergence as we travel the sine wave of development and feel our efforts in market analysis slip through the cracks. It's what we love to do, so we keep doing it, but ultimately we make no decisions... At least not in the absolute sense. We merely surf out to the peak and make as large a wave as we can... Until Rupert Murdoch comes along and invests in the wrong Monsoon.

I think this image speaks for itself:

Yeah... I'm lame. It's been a while, but this is freaking hilarious, so enjoy it:
http://www.holytaco.com/details/?image-path=http://cdn.holytaco.com/www/...

Google has released their "Virtual World" dubbed Lively into beta. I took some time to play with it today and figure it out. Essentially it functions as a series of chat rooms with 3D engagement. Not unlike Second Life, Meebo or Habbo Hotel. You can chat with friends, make new ones, etc.
The key differentiator between Lively and the others is in its ability to live within a webpage. You can embed a room within a blog like so:

Lively currently won't work on non-Windows platforms, and like many other betas, it is lacking certain elements like a more robust list of furniture, clothes, etc. But there's good news. It's completely free... So far.

Jon

As part of my daily trolling through Digg, I found this article from the BBC News Health section titled "Mental risk of Facebook Teens". I want to tell you that it's an interesting read... But it's not. The article is quite simple in stating that the teen audience is becoming accustomed to a false reality where you can live your whole social life online and therefore believe that you can simply delete your profile if something goes horribly wrong, or you can simply delete people out of your life.
Granted there's SOME merit to what is written in the article, but let's be honest with ourselves as to the reality of social networking sites. You don't simply create an account and magically conjure up a friends list (unless you're a sociopath). Your friends list (at least on Facebook... I can't speak for MySpace as it disrupts my point) is initially generated via friends that you know in real life. You can see this whenever a new friend has joined up to Facebook, and their status update shows 20 friends that you probably also know.
Being new to a social networking site, you typically don't just randomly look for people. There are trust metrics and friendship linkages that allow for relationships to build without that creepiness factor. The obvious anomalies within this case are when you DO get the people that you've never met before "trying" to add you, to which the logical move is to hit my favourite button... "Ignore".
As far as the young'uns go, parents should be educating their children to simply "stop talking to strangers". It worked for us in the eighties... Should still hold true today.
As far as depression goes, you can try to blame social networking sites for a so-called existentialism quandary, but at the end of the day, these sites simply function as accelerated tools for teenagers to communicate.
When I was a teenager we had similar tools, however not as usable. It still meant that I could talk to friends for hours without leaving my house, and I think we all came out fairly well.
Believe it or not, we may not have had World of Warcraft to be addicted to, but we DID have Ultima Online, which was just as engaging and addictive. It just didn't have the same critical mass of audience, and you know what, my parents would kick my ass out of the computer chair if they felt I was spending too much time on it.
If there was a tool available when I was 16 that allowed me to get party invites, check out who was coming into town, and know who was dating whom on a per second basis, maybe my social life would have been richer, maybe I would have made more friends, who knows. I guess my point is that these sites are all tools. Stop looking for problems in video games, websites and a lack of extra-curricular activities. There are plenty of teenagers who still get outside, and if they're not, somebody should invite them. Yes, there's a whole world out there, but if anything, Facebook is probably advocating many of those outer-world activities. God knows it's responsible for figuring out what club I go to on the weekends.

That's my rant for the night,
Jon

Get the link here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7487723.stm

Read this story here: http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080614/1194785259060.html?.v=3

Then... Question the validity of the issue from a business perspective... I'll wait.

Ok. You're done reading?
No?

Damn it. Ok, I'll just tell you. There's supposedly rumour going around that we may have to pay service fees for internet not unlike the way we already do for hydro, water or more on point, cell phone usage (from a data consumption perspective).
Well... Maybe not for me... I live in Canada and I use Rogers... But we just copy everything the states does anyway, so it's all the same.

Anyway, I think there's a point there. We DO consumer bandwidth at different rates, and I HAVE suffered from lag in times when some kid down the street is running 34 servers (unwittingly through some out-dated P2P app). So why am I paying the same data rates as them?

I'd be a liar if I said I don't consume an ENORMOUS amount of bandwidth... You know... From all the legitimate downloading that I do of 10GB sized TV shows in HD, but I would be a hypocrite if I didn't state the obvious.

I'd love for my internet to be fairly unlimited for the low low price of $40/month, but let's be realistic. Who's going to pay for my gigabit ethernet infrastructure?
That's right... It's gonna be the parents of the pirates who are paying the bills anyway :)

Night y'all

I keep getting these e-newsletters from Stimulant. They're a subsidiary of Strategy Magazine... I think. To be honest I really didn't want to deep dive this content because well... it's fairly hit and miss (much like most of the crap that comes through my inbox). But with that said, something caught my eye when my blast came in today. I'll C/P it for ye:

"Time is running out. Honest!

THIS IS THE THIRD TO LAST ISSUE OF YOUR TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION? Just click here to activate your FREE subscription. Once the trial period ends, you'll no longer receive Stimulant and you'll miss out on all the cool creative swirling around in cyberspace. And you don't want that, do you?"

Call me picky... But this kinda reads to me as "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... SUBSCRIBE!!! If you don't, our investors will fire all of us."
When has desperation ever sold anything? Can you imagine if the next Kia commercial went something along the lines of that? It might sound like:

"For the love of god! Please buy our cars!!! Our lot is at a standstill and we have mortgages! Won't you at least think of our children???"

Point is, if your product was GOOD, I would go out of my way to subscribe to it. You don't need to tell me how many days I have left in a trial subscription. Tell me twice at the most. After that you just start to look pathetic, and I tend to keep distance from that. Besides which, if your product is free anyway, why do I have any more incentive to act now than let's say two weeks after my trial expires (when you're SUPPOSED to send me a reminder to renew). It's not like I'm losing money or sleep over it.

Pull your pants up and have some dignity man!

I haven't enjoyed Weezer's music since Pinkerton (and maybe a few songs off of the green album) but I must say, they've done a fantastic job with their latest music video. It incorporates roughly ten different youtube phenomenon's into one music video and, I must admit, fantastically well. Suffice it to say, I expect no less from a group that seems to be putting more effort into their publicity than their music these days, but regardless of personal opinion, this is just really really well executed.

Kudos to you River Cuomos, kudos.

Science Machine from Chad Pugh on Vimeo.

I'm about to venture into my second largest project of the year (I won't say with whom), and once again (as with the largest) I will be sitting in a room with four other agencies in efforts to align toward our mutual client's needs. In this particular case, to take a multi-million dollar brand to a national audience, as opposed to its current local audience/small international footprint. My shop will play the role of digital strategy/execution in alignment with PR, Branding and Direct Marketing.

It seems as though there's a trend as of late for larger clients to source out bits and pieces of larger practices in efforts to get a "best of breeds" solution. Sounds great in theory, right?

Well, yes, and I suppose it could be great in real life too. I mean, it's a small world, chances are we've worked with most of each other before, Toronto is a small city with only a handful of agencies that deal with Tier 1 clients. I've worked with a few of them, and essentially you meet the same people every few months, either at the same agency, or another one in the mix. Everyone comes and goes, but ultimately it's just a big talent shuffle. You know you'll end up back where you belong, one of the seven sisters, or a periphery shop (like where I am right now and call home). Ultimately, provided you're working with a popular shop, you'll probably work with somebody you've worked with before, or somebody you know through somebody else and therefore it's quite similar to working with another team in the same company. The trick is to look at it from a macrocosmic perspective.

Agency = Department
VP = Team Lead
etc.

I don't really have much more to say about it right now. I'll update once teams start to align.

Cheers,
Jon