When I reflect upon this decade which started with a dotcom bust followed by a terrorist attack that changed all of our lives, I wonder what is one thing that changed us the most this decade. So, I came up with this list of 5 candidates and my conclusion. I invite you to come up with your list and reasoning.
No. 5 – Rise of China and India – China with its low cost manufacturing impacted the whole world in various ways and changed not just the face of China but many other countries. Y2K started India on a path to providing software outsourcing and made India a force to reckon with in software business.
No. 4 – Ecommerce – With well publicized failures like webvan and pets.com, Ecommerce finally became mainstream with Amazon leading the pack and brick and mortar merchants like Walmart fighting that battle.
No. 3 – Social Networking – Friendster may have been an early leader of the social networking phenomena but Facebook now is the new king of this hill and that changed all of our lives in many ways. Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace remain distant challengers.
No. 2 – Terrorism – The decade started and ended with terrorist attacks in the US and terrorism continued its attack on other countries including UK and India.
No. 1 – Mobile Computing/Phone – If there is one thing that impacted us all worldwide the most and changed our lives this decade, mobile phone will take that honor this decade.
What do you think and Why? Share your opinions here.
Just in time for the end of the holiday season, the appropriately named Sleigh Bells will give you some jingle and just a wee bit of jangle to boot. Actually did I say a wee bit? Make that a lot of jangle…and screaming female vocals…And a floor stomping bass drum…AND one hell of a great vibe!
Infinity-Guitars
Their live show looks like it’s full of energy- so much bass it sounds like the microphone is being eaten away. Hopefully hitting these shores soon and a definite gig for earplugs!
I remember a monthly subscription to Everquest being under 10 dollars a month when I used to play in 1999. Fortunately, I won’t be taking you on a trip down Nostalgia Lane (I wouldn’t do that to you), but it is good example of a very successful MMO. Everquest is also a good example of a classic MMO that is keeping up with current gaming trends by offering players virtual goods for a price via micro transactions.
Everquest has always been a subscription based game. Even a decade and 16 expansions later, it still has a monthly subscription payment plan. In December 2008, Sony introduced Station Cash. With this special currency you can purchase items from the Station Shop. This trend was adapted from the most free-to-play games that rely on the sale of virtual goods entirely. Of course, there are some exceptions now with MMOs like Turbine’s Dungeons and Dragons Online being free-to-play with an option to upgrade to a full monthly subscription and offering a cash shop as well.
I think what we are seeing is that there are many different types of players out there who want diverse payment options to customize their gaming experience. Gamers want options and the more options the better. But not useless or meaningless options, gamers usually pick up on those pretty fast.
So what do gamers want from a game that offers virtual goods –or better, what are we willing to pay for?
I think we’re looking for the 3 C’s convenience, collections, and customization. I know there are more and many are being thought up daily. With the evolution of how we play multi-player and social games, the more we are able to share and come together to play games, the more items and things we will need to satisfy our emotions. We want to brag, look cool, and share our achievements. We want to socialize, using games as a medium, through which we can identify with others.
• Convenience items are items which make the game faster and more efficient. They are items such as: health potions, XP elixirs and J-boots (these are boots that help you run faster for you non-EQ nerds out there). No longer are the days that you need to grind hours and hours stockpiling these items, you can buy them now from a cash shop. While you can still grind hours and hours stockpiling them, you have an option. I’m not sure if you can buy J-boots with Station Cash or not, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea. A good way to sell an item like that would be to make the boots you can buy 50% faster run speed and the boots you have to work for maybe 75%. This always gives your players a reason to keep playing and keep striving for something better. It also allows the people who are short on time but not cash a way to catch up in the game without feeling left out.
• Collections items: My Little Ponies, sticker books, baseball cards, coins, stuffed animals, He-Man (with the awesome Battle Cat, I had that one). I’m sure as a kid you had at least one of these collections or something similar. There is something weird built into our hunter-gather nature makes a fully completed sticker book a necessity. Same thing goes for gamers. We want to unlock, collect, horde, and gather everything. We want the rarest of items and the shiniest of shiny objects. The last piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle is the best piece to put down -it’s a sense of completion. There are many things in games that can be considered collectibles including achievements to having every piece of a Santa suit. Turning these into virtual goods could be as simple as giving gamers the option to buy them after the item is no longer being offered for whatever reason.
• The last C, and probably my favorite, is customization. As virtual worlds grow, so do the amount of players packed into them (hopefully). We don’t want to look like everyone else. Gamers want cool pets, fun clothes, different colored hair, crazy mounts, and unique looking weapons. Male or female, there is something to be said about showing up to a party in the same suit or dress as everyone else. Gamers will pay to be different. Xbox Live just added avatar pets and robot toys that people can buy for $5. We’ll try to stomach being homogeneous for as long as we can, but before long we are hooked and we want to be a special snowflake.
Potions- increase your speed, health, or even experience gain!
The 4th C is Charity. It’s not listed in the 3 C’s, but it might become as common place as other virtual goods soon. How can a portion of money made from virtual goods actually go to a good cause? I want to talk about that more next time.
I want to wish everyone have a safe and wonderful holiday! Thanks for reading.
First, I want to thank those readers who have taken the time to come by this blog. They may not be very many, but I am still thankful to all of you. You, my readers, are the icing to this cake. A blog cannot possibly exist without at least a few faithful readers. You are the lifeblood of this blog.
As a token of my gratitude, I will let you have another inside look at my book. Tomorrow, I will let you have another taste. I wish I was giving you a full-fledged book trailer, but that’s unfortunately something I haven’t managed yet. A book trailer, if I make one, is still a few months to go. I will try to have one made. I hazard a guess that I might have one ready by late February.
So, make sure to come by tomorrow for another nice insider look into ‘Dulcet’. I believe you will like it. Meanwhile, you can connect with me at www.myspace.com/red-phoenix2009.
In part 1 of this article I discussed how you can identify your target niche, create your social networking site, and market the site to start building your own social networking online business. In this article I will discuss how you can manage, monetize, and incorporate you business from any browser anywhere in the world.
Manage Your Business
If you think of your social networking site as just a website to hangout and share pictures then you have a nice hobby, not an actual business. Like any business, you will have some management responsibilities that will need to be done.
Engage your members: You will need to add value to the site by posting newsletters, responding to forums, add interesting photos, highlighting active members. You will also need to deal with the abusers of the site by warning, blocking or deleting these members. You should host contest, provide reward programs, and find advocates on the site. The more you engage users, the more they will feel a part of something live and keep coming back.
Provide more value: In addition to engaging members you should find ways to provide more value to this audience. The audience is niche and you should have some knowledge of the needs of the industry or the audience in general. What kind of content or articles can you provide that they cannot find anywhere else? How can you provide opportunities for them to gain recognition or financial value from the site? How can you create opportunities for them to use the site to help make their business successful? How do you add value to their personal life? What’s in it for them?
Track site visitors with Analytics: The best way to do this is to get a few lines of code from Google Analytics (google.com/analytics) and add to your site. This will show you how many visitors you have daily, where they came from, which page they visited etc. You will be able to see which marketing activities yield the best results and focus more on the message or source of the article that is providing the most visits.
Manage your Reputation: Among other things, Reputation Management includes the ability to see what people are saying about you online. Google has a free service called Google Alerts (google.com/alerts). With this service you can see each time Google index content with a specific keyword. This is important because you can tell Google to notify you by email each time they index new content with your website name in it. So each time there is a blog, forum, article or other content posted online by anyone that includes your website name Google will send you an email so that you will be aware of it and can take any necessary action. Additionally, this is a way to see what your competitors or others in your industry are saying or doing.
Monetize your Site
There are different ways you can go about doing this. It really will depend on your site, the amount of members you have, and the focus of your site. However, here are some ways you can monetize your site.
Advertising: This is the most common ways. You can sell advertising to the specific industry you are targeting for your social network. Once you have created a membership base you will be able to sell ads to businesses who want to sell their products or services to that membership base.
Membership Fees: Sites with a clear and specific value may be able to monetize via membership fees. With this you will be able to charge a monthly or yearly fee for access to the site or for access to premium content or features of the site.
Online Store: You can sell relevant product to your site members. If your site targets university students you may be able to sell books, laptops or other products they may find useful. If your site targets parents, you may be able to sell children toys, clothes, or products.
Sell Services: You may also be able to sell services that are relevant to your audience. A site that targets small businesses and entrepreneurs may be able to sell accounting and legal services. You do not have to perform the services yourself. You may be able to partner with service providers and use the site as the means to finding customers in need of these services.
To learn more details about monetizing your website please read my other blog How to Make Money Online like Myspace and Facebook.
Incorporate your Business and Open a Bank Account
Once you are able to monetize the site you should create a business structure with a business bank account to collect and protect revenue, and to minimize personal and business liability.
By having a business entity and a bank account, you will be able to create merchant accounts and collect payments from credit cards, debit cards, Visa, Master Card, Amex etc. You will also be able to write off business expenses to reduce your tax liabilities and separate your personal assets from your business expenses – therefore reducing the chance of personal risks.
1 – To start your business online:
Get your Employer Id Number (EIN) from the IRS. This is done completely online and can be done in a few minutes. Your EIN will be needed to start your business bank account and online merchant account
To do this you will need to go to the ‘secretary of state division of corporations’ website for your state. On this site they will have an online form or pdf to allow you to register with your state. For instance, if your state if Florida, search for ‘Florida secretary of state division of corporations’
3 – Create your Bank Account online
Most banks today allow you to create an account online without ever having to go to the bank. I don’t remember the last time I have had to go to a bank for any reason except to sign a couple documents here and there. Go to your bank’s website and find the link to open your account online. You should be able to manage and monitor your financial transactions from your bank’s website.
4 – Create your Merchant Account
You will need a merchant account to collect funds online. Some social networking site includes the ability to collect payment via different payment sources. However, you will still need to create the merchant account yourself that is needed for you to collect the funds.
Vendors: Paypal.com, authorize.net, paysimple.com
Summary
Once you have created your social networking business you are now on the path to participate in one of the most active and high growth areas in business. There are no real overnight successes and you will need to work at this business as you would any other business venture. But you will now be able to start pursuing your dream of building your own online social networking business.
To learn more about creating and monetizing your own social networking site please visit www.rsitez.com.
About the author
Rohan Hall is the Founder/CEO of rSitez, Inc. (www.rsitez.com), a technology firm that helps entrepreneurs create unique revenue-based social networking sites. He is the author of Stop Working, a book that teaches entrepreneurs how to use technology, globalization, and networks to build a global business. He has developed technologies for a wide range of entrepreneurs and Fortune500 clients including HP, Corning, Oracle, Honda and various others.
Well…what can one say.I can only pray that she can live with her stupidity.
A mother posted updates on Twitter as rescue workers tried to save her dying son.
One of the tweets Shellie Ross posted on Twitter as medics fought to save her son
Shellie Ross sent out a message on Twitter asking her followers “please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool” as paramedics tried to revive her son Bryson after he was found floating face down in a swimming pool.
Five hours later, when her son was pronounced dead, she went back on to the Twitter site to update her 5,000 followers, posting “Remembering my million dollar baby”.
Moments later, she posted a photo of her son on the site, but her use of Twitter as her son lay dying has provoked outrage among the blogging community in the US.
Police in Florida said they were aware of the ‘tweets’ and would be looking into them as part of their investigation into the drowning.
“I didn’t tweet-by-tweet the accident.”
Shellie Ross defends her Twitter posts
Many were shocked that she chose to use the social networking site to reveal something so deeply personal.
“The first thing I thought when I saw the tweet was that it was very sad,” said online poster Madison McGraw.
“But then I thought, ‘Who would tweet that her son just drowned?’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Mrs Ross, who is married to a US airman and used the tweet name of “Military-Mom”, sent out a message at 5.22pm on Monday which read:”Fog is rolling in thick scared the birds back in the coop.”
She and her 11-year-old son had been cleaning out a chicken coup while Bryson played in the garden.
Twitter row mum Shellie Ross
A minute later police in Mirrett Island, Florida, said they received an emergency call from Mrs Ross’s 11-year-old son saying that his brother was floating unconscious in their pool.
Police spokesman Lt Bruce Barnett said Mrs Ross had asked her older son to turn off a hose inside the pool enclosure but the gate behind him did not close properly.
“When Ross finished cleaning she went inside and was looking for the two-year-old, who she thought was with her 11-year-old, and wasn’t able to find him and started to panic,” he said. “That’s when she found him floating.”
Lt Barnett said Mrs Ross said her son was in the water for “maybe five minutes” and performed CPR on her son before paramedics arrived.
Mrs Ross defended her use of Twitter. “Nobody has a right to question” why she tweeted, she said, adding: “I didn’t tweet-by-tweet the accident.”
The messages and photos were later removed from the website and Mrs Ross has now made her Twitter account private. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/America-Shellie-Ross-Tweets-On-Twitter-As-Paramedics-Battle-To-Save-Dying-Son-In-Florida/Article/200912315503667?DCMP=EMC-news_OBU
For a while, Courtney Love was writing a MySpace blog. But, then, she realized that was so 2005 and decided to upgrade her social networking set up. So, she wrote this post in July:
whoops there gores the nerighbourhood
so it is true and my space is eating it?
yeah i am having my mgmt send me to facebook when oa sked them they asked for my ssn its not MY ssn but still it as mighty rude so i helf a sign up saying 666 66 6666 with a timne clock on it on the pic and sent it flipping em off so i could be ne on facebook
whooo look what happens with unfiltered fucking comments, gross, did yoi even bother to read whsat i wrote your so stuck up your own asses, some of you
its hysterical thats exactly how theyt fuck my kid becuse tards like you make it seem like itrs easy, ” oh shes a bitch lets pretend we re respected lawyers in teh NYC SUPREME COURT”
x16 in one day, and lien her KID for 169 ,000 x 16.
if it was just me id have been gone long ago but im staying around for the sho mothefuckers say what youw ant until the mgmt gets ona nd filters its noce to know you retarcs are stillout there, wow,. im impressed, so are a bunch of asshole bankers,
notice thetrillions in infrastructure dying under YOUR feet, yeah well talk to Weitzmana nd Azoff about that talk to her greedy and STUPID king rat of a trust fund my employees have illegally and via perjury turned it aroudn so my kid will be fucked and in a bank owned by lawyers who have fucked her this isnt even about ME forget ME …
goign to twit and facebook, so au revoir have at it,
i cannot believe your still that little fraction of you so stuck up your own asses thatyoud let 74 year old men be less intrigueing than your courtneyloveis a bitch comments
i miss myhusband every day and its sick when peopel say that shit,
these wealth managers and cpaa and bankers and lawyers count on you lw iqd inliers thats for sure,
but noones trying to tell you i need or want my kids money, they do, so shut the fuck up
supreme court?
SUPREME COURT? im so apoplcetic as an AMERICAN right now that wietzman is so deluded that he can in his psychoiss go the nyc ny state supreme court and lien my CHILD<
let alone me.
so shut it til you get it,
btw that perfume was roja dove and it was a gift and its 3000 pounds a bottle , its sickening, but its fabulous.
——————————————————-
Is there a deeper meaning here? Yes, there is. Let me translate for you:
Wowzers! Things Change So Quickly These Days! It's Hard For A Girl To Keep Up!
I've always loved being on MySpace but I've come to realize it's sorta outdated. And I'm not the kind of girl to wear last year's fashions!
I asked some friends for help to set up a Facebook account – because everyone says it's so nifty! But, they wanted a lot of personal information I was not comfortable with sharing. A lady always has to have some secrets and you can't be too careful these days!
I have to say I'm kerfunkled by some of the comments on my blog lately. I think, perhaps, it's time to have screened comments. People can sometimes be big old meanies!
That said, I'm going to put up a strong front and not let it get me down. You know what they say: When you work with turkeys fly like an eagle!
On to other things. It's been a hard week. Some of my employees have had issues and I don't know what I'm going to do about that. And, there's been a little bit of legal trouble. And, I really miss my husband. Sometimes it's hard to be a grown up!
The worst part is that people seem to think I want Frances Bean's money. I really don't. I'm trying to protect her like any good mother would! Oh well, I have faith in America's legal system and I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding that will get sorted out down the line.
Anyway, soon I'll be on Twitter and Facebook! I hope I make some groovy new friends!
There is some good news. I got a present! It's a really beautiful bottle of perfume. I thought it was somewhat too expensive of a gift, but it smells so nice I couldn't say no! Thanks – you know who you are!
I have often referred to the word sex as the biggest three letter word in the entire English language. It is all around us, none of us can get here without it and the human family would not continue were it not for it. Yet so many of us act as though “it” doesn’t exist.
Schools have taken to giving out condoms; children are continuing to experiment with their sexuality in ever increasing and some very dangerous ways. Hip hop culture is now filled with overtly sexual messages being ingested by children and young adults who are victimized daily as a result of a culture that has lost its soul. And yet some parents remain unable to have frank discussions with our children about it.
Meanwhile in the so called mainstream, there is a fascination with celebrities, and the salacious details of their sexual escapades. What they did and who they did it with becomes headline grabbing news. In a world filled with hunger, poverty, war and strife, who Tiger Woods had sex with becomes the topic of every discussion.
It’s been said that women use sex to get love, while men will use love to get sex. Let’s look at this statement. Why would a young woman of today, in light of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and failed relationships, risk herself and future? The answer is love. The blogosphere is filled with sites that deal with love and sex and their relationship.
When we speak of love it is a word whose definitions seems to be constantly changing. Minister Farrakhan once said that most of what is called love in this world is in fact need, under an alias called love. In a community filled with single family homes, among a people chasing things, there is not enough real love. Our children venture out of homes looking for something their soul is yearning for, sadly as parents many of us did not receive what we are now unable to give. The Bible tells us that love is many things, has many forms, and comes in all shapes, sizes and colors. We are told that love is kind and love is patient, to name a few. Many songs have been sung, many poems written and even more said about this seemingly elusive love. We all know within our human hearts that what the world needs now more than ever is love, in all her definitions, languages, and forms.
For the purpose of this post, we examine the way love is used in relationships. Men who themselves have not known love or having misunderstood the love they knew, encounter women, who find themselves often looking for love in all the wrong places. It was mentioned to me that at a recent event, the incomparable Susan Taylor remarked “hurt people, hurt people.” While this statement appears simple, it is very profound.
How can we who have never known love, turn around and give love? No wonder most of our relationships are devoid of substance; our young people now meet on MySpace and Facebook, while texting and sexting are now acceptable forms of communication.
Meanwhile, nature’s forces within us draw us into close contact with each other, only long enough to satisfy nature’s call. From these encounters come offspring who are themselves now a part of a cycle. Young girls with no fathers, hoping for a love that seems to have eluded their mothers. These would be daddy’s little girls, but in the absence of a true father, comes a hurt young boy, trying to figure out how to become the man.
Gavaskar batted in an era when the dangerous West Indian pace quartet was at peak ferocity. He didn’t wear the protective helmets of today, he didn’t have modern day umpires ruling a no ball for more than one bouncer per over. His opening partners changed dozens of times throughout his career, but the captain always held up his end. He was the first man to cross the unthinkable milestone of 10,000 runs in test cricket and surpassed Sir Don’s record for test centuries. He did it all seemingly without breaking a sweat and smiling, always, all the way to the commentary booth where he now sits. Sachin Tendulkar, by his own admission, grew up idolizing Gavaskar, and would undoubtedly rate him higher than himself.
Bootleg tapes, CD-Rs and P2P. All frightening adversaries that threatened to take down the music industry at one point or another by taking the legs out from under CD sales. Record companies did everything to stop the pursuit of free music from banning tape recorders from shows during the 80s to which punk bands responded by handing out blank tapes. CD-Rs and P2P services are still around and record companies and the RIAA are throwing around million dollar lawsuits pretty much monthly against both the services and even against individuals using those services. But, regardless of what record companies tried to do, they all inevitably affected the industry in one way or another. CD sales are now down to only accounting for a 1/3 of musicians’ overall income with merchandise, touring and other forms of revenue making up the other 2/3s. As a result, bands have taken to the internet to release free content in order to attract consumers rather than relying on cracking the top 20 in Billboard sales.
Jesse von Doom works at CASH Music, a non-profit organization that offers artists the tools to release content ranging from single tracks to full albums to even concerts for free online. The site has worked with bands like Portugal. the Man and Earl Greyhound to release both live performances and an entire EP for free online in order to promote their music. In an email exchange, I asked him about what it’s like to distribute music for free.
Me: How do you go about getting the content on your site? Do bands approach you to distribute their content or do you ask them?
Jesse von Doom: How we get content: we work with artists we know, or artists who have been invited. The content is always theirs, and it’s always coupled with specific goals on their end.
Me: Your site is about offering free content to the consumer. How do you see offering things like free album streams and full live concerts helping artists?
JvD: How free content benefits artists: exposure and data collection. Free content has been around for years in the form of radio and MTV, neither of which pay performance royalties. Thankfully that’s changing, but it’s still vital that artists get their music out in some way that can make people excited and willing to purchase. Sometimes the benefit is simply giving a taste and hoping that people buy a full release. In other cases it has more to do with collecting data like email and location, enabling an artist to better market their live show. There are other benefits to free as well, such as building rapid popularity and cashing in on sync licensing (music for TV and film.)
Me: Do you feel like offering all this free content cheapens the idea of music or is just the next logical step how people digest music?
JvD: Free cheapening music: well music pre-dates capitalism and will be around long after the last penny has lost its luster. So no I don’t think the price cheapens the art. I do think that giving too much away can be detrimental for an artist if they don’t have a plan. It’s a very valid practice, but as an artist you have to know where your revenue is coming from and plan for that.
Me: Ultimately, what do you feel your site offers as an open-source website and where do you want your site to go in the future?
JvD: The future: Ultimately CASH is looking to become an established foundation benefitting artists and the music industry as a whole. There’s a bit of a social obligation to keep music alive because it’s more than simple commerce… it’s culture as well.
Perception
The idea of giving away free music on the internet goes beyond simply bands giving content away. In this new era of the internet where instant gratification is only a few clicks away, people expect that they are going to be given some form of content for free. Michael Porch, a 21-year-old junior, says “I expect there should be some way to hear their music for free before buying it.” With sites like Myspace and Facebook allowing consumers to sample bands’ music for free, people now no longer have to rely on their local record store or even radio station for recommendations.
Free Streaming/Downloads
Now sites like Grooveshark and Lala (Which was recently purchased by iTunes) allow users to stream any track they want for free for a limited time. Also, bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have released entire albums where people could choose their own price. The albums were a large breakthrough in the industry, creating a different standard for how people digest their music. Radiohead reported about 1.2 million downloads in the first week, with around $10 million dollars in revenue. “I think the option to pay is a pretty good deal,” said Porch, “I remember I downloaded the one Saul Williams album off his website and I remember at the time I didn’t have any money. I had no way of paying online so I downloaded it, but I know my other friend donated like $10 because he liked the album.”
Piracy
However, these are all remedies for a much larger problem. As mentioned before, piracy is a large problem in the music industry. In 2007, the Institute for Policy Innovation reported that $12.5 billion dollars are lost annually due to piracy. Joe Lamberti, a 20-year-old junior, estimated that about 50% of his music library is through actually purchasing an album. “It used to be way more, but CDs are definitely not something I invest money in. All in high school, I would buy CDs, but now I don’t have money, so I just download them. And I feel bad, because I feel like I’m kind of obligated to buy albums of bands I really like because I always have in the past,” he says.
Now sites like Grooveshark and Lala using ad-based revenue to give users the ability to stream music whenever they want in order to combat these long-running problems. Lala.com offers a service where users can spend only $0.10 in order to stream a song whenever they want. And now with Apple acquiring the site, cloud hosted streaming could move into the mainstream if Apple decides to us Lala’s service on iTunes.
Whether Radiohead’s solution orApple’s solution proves right, ultimately they are both solutions to a billion dollar problem.
2010’s Means INTERNET TV By Satellite And Cable Replacing TV!! Technologies: According To TIMEFRAMES, A Revolution Is Scheduled For Next Year In The Movie Industry And The Audiovisual In The United States And Worldwide!
It will be something new, something specially new, THE WEB TV with The DVD and For the First Time The INTERNET To be A part Of The Mass Media Market. The Web Was Until Now A Way to Communicate Emails and To Share Community Sites, Only with The Pleiades of Commercial Sites Including The best Search Engines And Bank Guichets.
There was not enough Synergies Between Sites And Life, Mass MEDIA And REALITY, Reality Meaning The INTERNET!
Megan FOX, A HOLLYWOOD Beauty Who Represents Perfectly For TIMEFRAMES The Upcoming Generation Of The Mass Products That Will Replace Our Televisions And Regular Theaters In The Next TEN Years.
The MASS MEDIA Refused Until Now The WEB (internet), Harassing To Some Extend This Culture And This Part of Our Communication In The United States And Worldwide, By Refusing To Open Their Doors To The Leaders Of This Community That Represents The Future Of Our Country.
Why? They didn’t Understand That We Cannot Build The XXIst Century If We Don’t accept Definitely The New Technologies, And First The INTERACTIVE TELEVISION That We Have To Comnmercialize In 2010 And Later, A Mix of TV And Web Features. It Can Be Done Now If Majors And Others Planify The NEW STEP Permanently.
The DVD Market And The Comeback Of The VHS Format Will Create The NEW STEP Of The HOME Entertainment In The United States. The Theaters Are A Place Of Debate After and Before The Screening Of The TIMEFRAMES Generation. The TIMEFRAMES Universe Of Corporate Development Is A PATRIOTIC One With A Feature Film Industry That Will Make:
- The United States Prevails In Afghanistan, Erasing The Terrorism And The Talibans Definitely, And
- The American Economy Wins Worldwide, Thanks To The Movie Industry, The TV Satellite And Cable Network And The New Technologies Of Communication With, First, The Interactive Television, Mixing Internet And Interactity On Large Flat Screens connected To The Cinema And The Video Programs That The Television Companies Will Diffuse As The Channels of The Future, Today, Everyday and Forever Beginning Soon, If THEY ACCEPT To stop to stop The Progress as They are Too much Conservative and In a Waiting Game. The Japanese & American Technology is Ready And The US Industry Too: We Can Make It!! It’s A Revolution, It happens everytime Our Civilization Is Ready to Build A Better World with More Success For Everybody. Before It was For the mass diffusion Of The Radio, Then The Television, Now The INTERNET TV, The WEB TELEVISION!!!
My Upcoming Wedding With Blake Lively, I Want It Free! It's Not A Commercial Project, It is A Private One, A Symbol Of The 2010's: NO MORE FAKE COUPLES In Hollywood, Thanks To TIMEFRAMES And The Nation! 2010 Will Be The Year Of LovE On EartH And I Will Call My Program Manager To Schedule It In 2010! Programmation Work: Next Week, Before Xmas And Just After It Will Be The Celebration Of The New Year In Los Angeles, California And In Las Vegas With My Entourage To Prepare The Rock'n Roll Of The Future!
My Upcoming Wedding With Blake Lively, I Want It Free! It’s Not A Commercial Project, It is A Private One, A Symbol Of The 2010’s: NO MORE FAKE COUPLES In Hollywood, Thanks To TIMEFRAMES And The Nation! 2010 Will Be The Year Of LovE On EartH And I Will Call My Program Manager To Schedule It In 2010! Programmation Work: Next Week, Before Xmas And Just After It Will Be The Celebration Of The New Year In Los Angeles, California And In Las Vegas With My Entourage To Prepare The Rock’n Roll Of The Future!
Mista Wish is an up and coming hip hop artist out of Chicago, Illinois. You can purchase his MP3 album “Married to the Game” by clicking here or you can go to the Arifaze Music Mutiny and get the MP3 album. This video features D-Dubb aka Mr. 773 titled “Walk Like A Mummy”.
Odd question and true answer.
The fair and balanced folks at FOX asked respondents in a poll a pretty interesting question. Post Tools
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Most of the questions in the FOX News poll released yesterday are pretty normal. Many gauge general approval and disapproval of Obama, key members of his staff, and the administration’s general policies. And then there’s a a few odd-ball questions such as, “Have you ever crashed a party?” (20 percent of Dems have, compared to 16% of Republicans and 17% of independents.)
But no question elicits more head-scratching than the seventeeth: “What do you think President Obama would like to do with the extra bank bailout money — save it for an emergency, spend it on government programs that might help him politically in 2010 and 2012, or return it to taxpayers?”
In all truth, I had to read this woozy a few times over to get what, exactly, they were trying to skew in respondents’ answers. But it’s now clear that FOX essentially gave people the following three options:
A) Will Obama save extra bank bailout money for an emergency?
B) Will Obama spend extra bank bailout money to help himself politically?
C) Will Obama return the extra bank bailout money to taxpayers?
It’s not so hard to see which one of the three options isn’t like the other. The screwy one — option B — is openly leading, suggesting Obama would spend the money on government programs only to grow his own electoral capital. In other words, the only reason he would spend the money on public programs is because he is corrupt.
More people in every category — Democrats, Republicans, independents — picked B.
An animal trainer has had his hand amputated and suffered serious head and chest injuries after being attacked by three tigers at a celebrity circus event.
How would you look on a dancing Santa? Let’s find out!
FIND OUT HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN PERSONALIZED VIDEO AT:
http://mediamusic.110mb.com/star
You’ll find:
- Many videos and photos to put Your Face in.
- Ability to share your video/photo with friends via email, MySpace, Facebook and more…
- Includes convenient search box, default browser search, and relevant search results in response to misspelled or incorrectly formatted browser address requests.
What is it about these super-cute, easy to play, addictive computer games that is bringing in more and more casual gamers every day? With Zynga’s Farmville reaching over 69 million players, it’s hard to ignore the incredible popularity of social games and applications. To put that number into perspective, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in December of 2008 had about 11.5 million players. Social gaming is becoming a huge part of the user experience on Facebook and Myspace. As a long-time gamer, it’s one of the main reason’s I log onto Facebook a few times (or more) a day.
Everybody’s doing it –and if not, you should probably send them an invite
When comparing more traditional, multiplayer games and social games, it’s easy to see where social gaming differentiates itself. One of the most influential differences would be that social games accessed through a social network can run on most computers that have a web browser. It’s bringing more traditional gamers together with their friends and family who may not have a lot of experience with other video games. Social games are making it possible for more people to play games.
Another major difference would be social networks like Facebook already have an enormous, established user base. This makes it extremely easy for you and your friends to get into a game fast and start having fun. Lastly, social games are free to try without investing a lot of time in a download or a demo version. As a social gamer with little time and so many choices on which games to play, accessibility is important.
Socially awkward? Don’t worry–finding a game you enjoy is easy!
It’s easy to become overwhelmed with making a decision on which social game to play. When you log into Facebook, you might notice your friends have posted events from games they’re playing. If you haven’t tried out any social games, a good place to start is by playing one that your friends are playing so you can ask for help and score some free items from them. In social games, they probably will gain items or points from having you join.
While some of the more popular games like Mafia Wars and Pet Society have more players than Fish Life, you’ll want to find and play a game that’s fun for you. I have not noticed a limit on how many social game applications you can add, so my suggestion would be to try out a handful of them and see what you like the best. I try a lot of different games out knowing that I’ll probably find a great game in there somewhere.
I use Facebook’s search tool to find social games. If I am looking for a game with pets, I type in pets and it brings up a list of games. Then I just add the application and start playing. I couldn’t think of a faster and more enjoyable way to get involved in social gaming.
I’d like to read your comments on why you like social games. Let me know which games you’re playing!
For months, many people have been saying that Google wouldn’t be able to compete with the rising pack of startups (and behemoths like Microsoft’s Bing) providing results that include tweets from Twitter, status updates from Facebook, and other real-time information.
Today, Google essentially quashed those claims. The search giant said it will be providing real-time search that draws not only on Twitter (with which it announced an earlier deal to get data feeds), Facebook and MySpace (with which it announced agreements today to index public updates) but also other Web sources. And it’s providing those results among the main search results, not just in a specialized section like Bing.
As many others have reported, Google’s demo at its big search event today was impressive. Items posted just seconds ago showed up on various searches, scrolling out on the screen in real time. (Apologies for not providing real-time liveblogging on the event at the Computer History Museum this morning; my netbook simply wouldn’t connect to the WiFi there.) Here’s a first look provided by Google:
Google’s real-time search isn’t perfect yet. As John Borthwick (backer of many real-time startups, including Twitter), noted in a tweet today, the user interface is messy. In fact, I believe Google VP Marissa Mayer said it’s likely the interface for real-time search will evolve.
Although real-time search is quite important, Danny Sullivan rightly notes that it’s probably not the key battleground in search for the next few years. That would be personalized search, which uses people’s location, previous searches, and other factors to provide search results tailored to each person’s inferred interests or intentions. Google thrust that into the forefront Friday by making personalized results the default.
Real-time results aren’ t only new feature Google announced today; in fact, others could prove more important as well. The company extended its voice search, which allows spoken phrases in English and Mandarin to produce search results, to Japanese. And it introduced an experimental service in its Google Labs called Google Goggles that lets you snap a photo of something and produce results based on matching with some 1 billion images in its index.
All this underscores a clear theme I heard when I wrote a recent story about Google’s continuing efforts to improve search. Google search leaders sounded supremely confident about their ability to stay ahead of rivals–so confident that it gave me pause and made me wonder if they were becoming overconfident. That’s still possible, but even if you might wish for more potent competitors, as many people do, it’s clear that Google is ceding little ground in its effort to stay on top in search.
Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow in charge of the core search ranking team, sought to cement that leadership when he said today, “Light can travel around the world in 1/10th of a second, and we won’t rest until the speed of light is the only barrier to getting good search results to you.” In other words, catch us if you can.
Besides an official website, it’s own blog, and a Twitter feed, Missoula Public Library has two main web presences and one secondary. The blog, Twitter feed, Missoula Public Library MySpace page, and Facebook fan page are all linked directly from the library’s official homepage and are easy to find. First, I’ll be covering MySpace.
The Missoula Public Library MySpace page is pretty classy-looking in muted purple, grey, and light green with mostly white text. Unfortunately, it also uses some dark green text, which is difficult to read against the rest of the color scheme. It describes the library as a 99-year-old single female (Zodiac sign Aries) librarian interested in making friends with all of Missoula’s readers and connects to the library catalog, library card sign-up, some recommended reading lists, and film showings. While it appears to update its internal MySpace blog only infrequently, it does have over 1100 friends listed, ranging from “Missoula” to local artists, writers to the American Library Association to everyday people. They give the physical address of the library as well as opening hours and photos of library events and changes.
While I am not a MySpace user, I believe that MPL’s site is simple enough that anyone who uses a computer regularly should be able to navigate it. Since they have opted to keep the layout uncluttered and fairly direct, there are not too many flashy distractions to make things confusing. There are three additions besides the main page – a blog, a photo album with pictures of librarians and library activities, and one outside application. That is a cute little widget that it has enabled called “Shelfari,” with some of the library’s newer acquisitions displayed on a virtual book shelf. The book cover images link to reviews and synopses of the books. The blog, as I mentioned before, is only rarely updated (about once or twice a month, usually), as the library’s Blogspot.com blog is used much more frequently. Unfortunately, the Blogspot blog does not appear to be linked to the MySpace page, though the links are listed together on the library homepage. To fill in that gap, their Twitter feed runs through the MySpace page to keep it active.
In addition to their main MySpace page, Missoula Public Library has a sort of partner profile for “Cheap Date Night,” one of their monthly film showings. Cheap Date Night, a 29-year-old male is a Gemini with over 100 friends. It’s the library’s popular movies showing, which happens on the third Friday of every month and offers free popcorn as well as free entrance to the movies. The site is minimal and of simple design, with a blog post for each month’s movie appearing shortly after the previous month’s show. While it does provide a way to follow the Cheap Date showings, I don’t know how much that is utilized.
TheInfoBabe offers an interesting opinion piece on why libraries should get and use web 2.0 tools and keep them up to date at Ridiculously Digitally Ubiquitous!
It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve felt the urge to write explicitly about etiquette. The last time was a humor piece for The Declaration (a UVA student pub.) about cell phones, which at the time were just becoming ubiquitous on campus. Probably the rant was motivated by jealousy – I didn’t get a cell till sometime in mid-2002 – but I still get pissed when people spend more time dealing with a machine than people in the room.
I resisted the cell phone craze, but have since experimented with most of the social-networking sites, at least since Myspace got big (personal account deleted). For the time being, I have narrowed it down to Facebook and Twitter, the yin and yang of social-networking.
These sites are constantly evolving, so it’s hard to pin down many rules of etiquette, but I feel the need to try. Polite people make things less awkward. With that in mind, what follows is a modernized lesson in basic correspondence etiquette, whether you need it or not. Thankfully, most of my friends don’t.
Use the formal form (Mrs., Mr., Ms. + surname) and formal conventions (space between address and body of message) when addressing someone for the first time in email, text, Facebook, whatever. This assumes you haven’t met in real life, in which case use discretion – addressing a doctor as Dr. might be smart, for example. After that, use their first name (assuming they give it to you) so as not to appear an overly formal person (unless you want to be perceived that way). If you exchange many messages with a person, you may address them or not.
When contacting someone for the first time, personalize your message (i.e., you’re adding a “friend” you’ve never met). Avoid too much flattery and ambiguous or sarcastic statements. I’m sometimes guilty of the latter.
Practice the golden rule when discerning what is appropriate to post, but realize people are different, and also practice forgiveness. Avoid going online under the influence, unless you are cooler and sexier that way.
The first time you untag a friend’s photo, delete his comment or post, or similar action, send a message of lighthearted apology, explaining this was done for reasons of image control, which is acceptable. Only apologize once (a hip friend turned me on to the fact I apologize too much). Feel free to unfriend people whose interactions constantly offend.
Use basic common sense.
I spend more time on Facebook, but one thing I like about Twitter is the concept of “following” someone (how one builds a network there). On Facebook this action is called “adding a friend.”
I know and respect an intelligent and very tech-savvy man who only adds friends on FB if they are a person he has met and would be pleasantly surprised to see at the grocery store.
I, on the opposite extreme, have added complete strangers, even when they have been mildly rude and not accompanied their friend request with a personalized message. I assume they are people whose names I forgot, fans, and/or online stalkers. I have blocked one person on Facebook and never heard from him again. He is dead to me in the cold, ethereal void of the internet, and I am well-armed and fearless here at my physical address, which I definitely do not post anywhere unsecure (i.e., Facebook). I don’t have my email address there, anymore. The internet is a strange mix of paranoia and openness. Maybe that’s just me.
Twitter is the polite alternative to Facebook because it eliminates the ambiguity surrounding different definitions of an online friend. It’s harder to offend people on Twitter by not accepting a friend request or saying the wrong thing on someone’s page. Following someone means you hope they will lead you with information and direction. This accurately describes most any online relationship. Neither is it a bad description of what I expect from those I know and love in all forms of life.
Compared with text messages and instant messaging, e-mail is an incredibly slow and inefficient method of communication
I was struck, the other day, by an uncharacteristic desire to socialise and decided to invite a few friends over for dinner. But three days after sending out an e-mail invitation, only half the prospective guests have replied. And while there might be a number of banal explanations for this — the poor souls in question may be away, they may not like me as much as I like them, they may have heard about that unfortunate dinner party in 2002 when I drank so much that I threw up between courses and was in bed before pudding could be served — I think there’s a profound explanation for the silence. E-mail is no longer a useful method of communication.
And one of the many surprising things about this development is that it has absolutely nothing to do with spam, the thing that, some years ago, many people thought would result in the death of e-mail.
Unsolicited messages are still, of course, an issue — according to one estimate, three quarters of all e-mails are spam — but filters do a brilliant job, achieving a success rate of 99.5 to 99.9 per cent — and of the thousands of e-mails I get each month, no more than two or three are ever offering “80 per cent off Codeine, Hydrocodone, Vicodin, Xanex or Valium” or “increased performance guaranteed” or “pills for a larger Pen1s!”.
The other surprising thing about the decreasing usefulness of e-mail is that it is actually being crippled, in part, by solicited messages. It has, in short, become a victim of its own success.
In surveys of business users, the biggest complaint about e-mail is that there is too much of it, with people too often using electronic messages as a way of demonstrating that they are working, and endless, enervating chains of messages with people offering mindless opinions on inconsequential corporate developments clogging inboxes across the country. But personal e-mail is becoming just as cumbersome.
The other day I was complaining to a friend and colleague about the ever-increasing volume of e-mails, saying that I replied to very urgent ones as I got them, made a mental note to reply to moderately urgent messages by the end of the day (but often forgot to do so) but in general managed to respond to messages only once a week or once a fortnight, during marathon, guilt-fuelled e-mailing sessions.
And he responded with the news that he’d given up on e-mail entirely. If you want a response from him, you have to get him by telephone, or text message, which brings us to yet another surprising thing about e-mail in 2009: it has become the new snail mail.
This may sound peculiar to people who are still mourning the demise of the letter, and the opportunities it provided for considered reflection, contemplation, fancy handwriting and the use of silver fountain pens and exclusively milled, watermarked, personalised writing paper from Smythson of Bond Street, but e-mail, compared with text messages, and instant messaging, is an incredibly slow and inefficient method of communication.
How inefficient and slow? Well consider these facts from a recent study: as few as one in five of e-mail messages are ever opened; whereas more than 95 percent of text messages are opened; the average time for a recipient to view an e-mail message is 6.4 hours; whereas the average time for the recipient to view a text message is 14 minutes.
And then, on top of this, there’s the effect of social networking. And it seems to me that there are three main ways in which sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are killing e-mail, the first being that they reduce the need for sending out many e-mails in the first place.
If you know from Facebook, or Twitter, or for that matter from someone’s status on gmail or Skype, that they are on holiday in Africa or on a book deadline or have relatives staying over, there’s no need to an e-mail a dinner invitation.
Second, sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace allow you to message lots of people at the same time much more efficiently than e-mail, reducing the need for targeted, specific, involved e-mails.
Planning things by Facebook is particularly easy: set up an event, invite everyone you want to by clicking on their names, and then they can respond by clicking on “attending”, “maybe attending” or “not attending”. No need for tiresome explanations.
Third, social networking sites encourage brevity of communication, and are much easier to use on the move than e-mail and are therefore more suited to the way we use the internet now: instead of logging in and out, checking messages periodically, we’re always connected via computers or mobile phones.
In addition, Twitter gets rid of the need for tiresome e-mail etiquette — there’s no need to worry about terms of address or signoffs and so on, because there’s no space — and makes e-mail feel as antiquated as sending out messages by carrier pigeon.
It is true, of course, that e-mail is still growing: according to a recent study, in the month of August this year, the number of e-mail users increased by 21 per cent. But social networking is growing faster: over the same period, the number of social network users grew by 31 per cent.
And if you think it is outlandish to suggest that e-mail use is peaking, ask yourself this question: when was the last time a teenager sent you an e-mail? You may have sent them one, but I bet you have to text or instant message them to instruct them to read it and to respond.
I was not at all surprised to read a report from Professor David Zeitly of the University of Kent at Canterbury, the social anthropologist, on the UK’s internet habits which found that e-mail is much more popular among older than younger segments of the UK population: apparently 86 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds use e-mail compared with 98 per cent of people aged 65 or over. Meanwhile, only 51 per cent of Britons in their teens or early twenties say e-mail is their first choice of communication.
Of course, these figures show that e-mail is a long way from dying out. But it is beginning to fade, and I suspect it will slowly go the way of the letter, becoming less and less popular and eventually ending up as the preferred method of communication for business users, the elderly, the helplessly middle-aged, the hopelessly nostalgic, estate agents, solicitors and credit card companies
The other side of US.
Story:
Call it a paradox of plenty. In the world’s wealthiest country, home to more obese people than anywhere else on earth, almost 50 million Americans struggled to feed themselves and their children in 2008. That’s one in six of the population. Millions went hungry, at least some of the time. Things are bound to get worse.
This the bleak picture drawn from an annual survey on “household food security” compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and released in mid-November. It showed the highest level of food insecurity since the government started the survey, in 1995, and provided a graphic illustration of the effect of sharply rising unemployment.
This year’s picture will be even bleaker – the unemployment rate more than doubled from the beginning of 2008 to now, at 10.2 percent the highest in a quarter century. It is still climbing, and for many the distance between losing a job and lack of food security is very short.
In keeping with the American predilection for euphemisms, the word “hunger” does not appear in the report which classes food security into several categories, from “marginal” and “low” to “very low.”
Marginal food security means, in the lexicon of the USDA, “anxiety over food shortages or shortage of food in the house.” The second category, low, means “reduced quality, variety or desirability of diet,” but not necessarily less food.
The most severe category, “very low,” used to be labeled “food insecurity with hunger” and is defined as “disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” That applied to around 17 million people, up from 12 million in 2007. Black and Hispanic families and single-parent households are the most affected.
It is not the kind of hunger — think African famines, skeletal babies with distended bellies — that brought world leaders to a U.N. food summit in Rome this month to boost aid from rich countries for agricultural development in the Third World. The U.S. is a land of plenty, so much so that a study by the University of Arizona a few years ago found that the average household wastes about 14 percent of their food purchases.
Food is so abundant that overeating is more of a problem, numerically and in terms of public health, than under-nutrition. The Food Research and Action Center, a Washington-based advocacy group, makes the point that “poverty can make people more vulnerable to hunger as well as obesity,” one of the reasons being that food high in calories is cheaper than healthy food. For many Americans, hunger and obesity are two sides of the same poverty coin.
(International health statistics put the United States at the top of the obesity league. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight and a third of these are obese.)
INEQUALITY OF THIRD WORLD PROPORTIONS
Vicki Escarra, head of Feeding America, a hunger relief charity that runs 200 food banks in the U.S., has likened the growing difficulties of those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder to conditions in the Third World. She is right in more ways than one.
The USDA report reflects inequality of Third World proportions. While the Great Recession has culled the ranks of American millionaires — by 22 percent according to a September study by the Boston Consulting Group — the gap between rich and poor is not shrinking.
Last year, according to a report by the census bureau, the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans made 11.4 times more than those living on the poverty line. The year before, the ratio was 11.2. At the far end of the economic scale, America’s six largest bank holdings have set aside $112 billion in salaries and bonuses during the first nine months of the year. By year’s end, bonuses might exceed the almost $164 billion paid in 2007, before the credit bubble banks had helped to inflate burst and millions of Americans lost their jobs and savings.
Banks and other financial institutions were rescued by a $700 billion infusion of taxpayer money and news of the bonuses coincided with reports that U.S. wages were at a 19-year low. Which helps explain growing anger among a public long famous for lacking the resentment of the rich that is common in other parts of the world.
After all, a bedrock belief in America held that this is the land of unlimited opportunities where every citizen has an equal chance to succeed and become rich. That requires an assumption that the system is fair. How many Americans still believe that? Last summer, a pair of political scientists, Benjamin Page and Lawrence Jacobs, published a study whose findings included that just 28 percent thought the present distribution of wealth is fair.
More evidence that the gap between myth and reality is shrinking comes from the American Human Development project, a research group which found that “social mobility is now less fluid in the United States than in other affluent nations…a poor child born in Germany, France, Canada or one of the Nordic countries has a better chance to join the middle class in adulthood than an American child born into similar circumstances.”
A better chance to avoid food insecurity, too. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/11/24/a-paradox-of-plenty-hunger-in-america/
MySpace has launched a UK version of MySpace Music in a bid to compete directly with streaming sites like Spotify and Last Fm.
The site, which helped launch the careers of Lily Allen and Kate Nash, claims it has “the most comprehensive catalogue” on the internet.
Teaming up with Apple iTunes it will enable DRM-free MP3 downloading.
It will offer free streaming access to entire back catalogues of artists on both major and independent labels.
MySpace Music, which has 13 million UK accounts, is known as a platform for up-and-coming bands.
Speaking to BBC 6 Music, Courtney Holt, president of MySpace Music, described the new look MySpace as a “social music discovery service”.
“We provide streaming audio, video, a comprehensive suite of artist tools, original content and programming all wrapped up together in one nice package,” he explained.
We believe this is going to be great for MySpace in the UK
Courtney Holt,
President of MySpace Music
Like Spotify, occasional adverts will appear on-screen, but unlike the other free service, the adverts will not interrupt the music which is being streamed.
Holt explained why it has taken some time for the innovations to take place: “Part of it was the need to evolve the tools and we’ve done a really good job at that, creating a great user experience.”
Kasabian played an intimate gig in London on 2 December to mark the launch of the site, which is run by a subsidiary of News Corporation after its owner was bought out in 2005 for more than £300 million.
Artists will be able to publish playlists to her fans and friends of what is influencing them. Celebrities Britney Spears, Lady GaGa, Katie Price and the Vatican have offered up their playlists.
Ms Holt has high hopes for MySpace Music in the UK, adding: “MySpace Music is the number one music site in America and since we have launched in Australia and New Zealand we have seen double the engagement than pre, so we believe this is going to be great for MySpace in the UK.”
Lets call him R. I met him the same way I did D, through schooling.
A classmate and I always giggled at him. He’s very socially awkward, moreso than most men are. He doesn’t quite know when to stop talking about things that people visibly don’t care about. For instance, the reason the samurais would win in a battle versus a ninja. (I said ninja…guess what he said?)…This discussion went on for the whole 3 hours we were sitting in class. Eventhrough a movie and then during the break, when I was attempting to go to the restroom, but didn’t want to just walk away in the middle of a conversation…because I’m “nice.”
Another issue with him is that we thought that because of his looks, he was starved for attention…Don’t get me wrong..he’s not bad looking at all…actually quite attractive, its his personality that makes him undesirable. Anyways, one day my classmate and I sit down and are waiting for class to begin when he comes up and sits next to me. He’s flirting and I’m not exactly turning his efforts down. Then he brazenly makes a move. I was actually dreading this part.
“so uh, give me your number and I can take you out tonight.”
Essentially I said “no”, but lets just put this conversation on hold and break down the reasons WHY I rejected his intense little heart.
1) Don’t tell me to do anything. especially if it involves me giving you personal information.
2) What makes you think I’m free tonight? Do you honestly think I’m so desperate for a date that would drop all my previous engagements to go out with you?
3) atleast he could have said something clever like, “What has 142 teeth and holds back the incredible hulk? My zipper…” jeesh!
So back to the story. When I told him , “ahhh no thanks.” he said, “oh thats fine anyways, whatever.” and got up…then sat next to my classmate and did the same…When she told him she was dating someone his response was:
“So?! What boyfriend don’t know won’t hurt him…”
Fastforward three months. I’m coming down with the flu and am congested as a motherfucker. After class one day he corners me and uses a group project to get my number….stupid, sick me thought, “meh, innocent enough I guess.” WRONG.
For the next two weeks all I recieve are random text messages from R. Eventually they begin to get later and later in the evening until 6 months later he’s calling at 3 am and texting me even later. So one day, out at the bar I decide to engage him. This would prove to be a BIG mistake on my part.
For the next three days he keeps incessantly texting me asking me where I want to put his…well…his “incredible hulk.” Then when I’ve had enough I tell him (via text message):
“O.M.G. YOU MUST THINK MY VAGINA IS THE SIZE OF A BLACK HOLE BIG ENOUGH TO SWALLOW THE SUN!”….THAT got him to ease up and back off….
up until a couple days ago. when he started messaging me via myspace. WTF. MYSPACE?! REALLY? can’t we atleast pretend we are adults and conversate thru Facebook, Twitter or Skype?!
I found out today that my close friend’s father, Bob Keane, died this past Saturday. I was in shock at the news and really felt that I should ask that everyone keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. Some of you might know him as the guy who discovered Ritchie Valence (“La Bamba”), I knew him as a great family friend who will be missed by those who knew him.
If you are not familiar with his music please visit his myspace page: www.myspace.com/bobkeane
Mista Wish is an up and coming hip hop artist out of Chicago, Illinois. You can purchase his MP3 album “Married to the Game” by clicking here or you can go to the Arifaze Music Mutiny and get the MP3 album. This video features D-Dubb aka Mr. 773 titled “Walk Like A Mummy”. 
We believe this is going to be great for MySpace in the UK 
Courtney Holt,