yooRyoo.com

Marketers marketing to other marketers

“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.”
-    Lloyd Dobbler in “Say Anything”

Twitter has become Ads masked as tweets. Everyone is advertising how “bleeding edge” they are, trumpeting their services along with the antics of their cat, so as to appear “real” and not as the advertising/branding/marketing machine they really are.  But, at the same time they subscribe to Google alerts, Alltop and other news pushers, just so they can tweet about just-in-time news events so as to appear “relevant” and “in the know.”

Automation
Automation has entered Twitter, with twit-bots  from Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop,  et al. It leverages the machines instant monitoring of certain subjects, and tweets for you on the subjects you want to focus on.  The stream of tweets enters the twitter-sphere with the advantages of real-time twitter-stream, providing endless grist for the online mill.

Why use automation? Because it works. Just ask Google. They stomped Yahoo because Yahoo was a human-driven directory, and Terminator movies and Saberhagen’s Berserker books notwithstanding, in a war between smart machines and human catalogers, the machine wins.

You will be assimilated
Whiners will say: but that’s not human! That’s not the point of Twitter! Twitter is about the free exchange of ideas, and my cat, and Ashton Kutcher!

Wrong! You fail. Twitter is more about news scoops, advertising, marketing and one-on-one pay-per-minute webscams.  It’s about recruiting an army of twaves, and spamming everyone with your marginal ideas.

Discourse takes time and thought and more than 140 characters. Twitter is the virtual watercooler, the raison d’être of the World of Warcraft jetset, the 30 second attention span theatre of our decaying braintrust.  What Brave New World are we entering when everyone tries to outdo everyone else on outing the death of Michael Jackson, and as a result take down the internet?  Okay, okay, so TMZ scooped his death, now shut the f up.

But Twitter is about relationships – not!
How do you have a relationship with over a million followers? Twitter is a broadcast medium, kinda like a text talk radio.  Subscribers subscribe so you can tell them what to think. Dialogues happen, just like in talk radio, but by your choice.

Twitter seems more like high school cliques, with people grouping themselves by interests: the Jocks with the other jocks and cheerleaders, Freaks outside in the smoking area, and the Thespians divining a route through. They market to themselves, trying to build each other up, gain followers to send pronouncements to, with the final result being self-defeating.  The reality is: no one cares. We live in a selfish world with selfish interests. Everyone is talking to hear themselves talk. The end game is that Twitter will eat itself. It will be abandoned the instant it either A) charges money, or B) The next big marketing platform comes along.

The lemmings, they are a-leaping!
Join the twaves, get caught up in the mindless tweeting and re-tweeting, hoping it gets you somewhere, even when “somewhere” is at the bottom of a cliff. The death spiral welcomes you – at the speed of 140 characters a minute.

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The White House announced over the weekend that President-elect Barack Obama will have to remove all traces of himself from the internet, due to the Presidential Records Act. This includes not only giving up his Blackberry, but also removing all social networking profiles, public campaign websites, and any mention of him in blog postings and/or news reports.

“Due to the private nature and high security level associated with the Presidency, Obama will have to stop using email, updating his Facebook status and sending our ‘tweets’ to his more than 102,000 followers on Twitter,” a top aide stated over the weekend, “In fact, he’s going to have to go off-line completely - limiting his access to printed information only…and even that material would be more than a week old, to ensure it’s properly ‘vetted’.”

This news apparently caused much concern with the president-elect (in some circles dubbed “Obama 2.0“), who is apparently addicted to posting links, funny videos from the campaign trail and MP3s of his favorite bands on his MySpace account.

Major social media outlets have been asked to comply, including popular sites such as YouTube, Hulu.com and Friendfeed being asked to “purge” any video, audio or text stories that make any reference to the president-elect.

Obama’s latest YouTube “fireside chat” has already been blocked, and replaced with a Rick Astley video (however, yooRyoo has obtained a secret link to the video here):

A much bigger impact will be felt within the blogosphere itself - where already right-wing “anti-Obama” blog writers are complaining that they will have no more material to rant about.

“They can’t do this - it’s un-American,” said Matt Drudge late Sunday night, “I am just finishing up a piece about how Barack claims to wear boxer-briefs but really ‘goes commando‘…they can’t take away my livelihood!”

Even websites friendly to the new president are concerned: Slate.com and Politico.com have filed for “special exemption” status, promising to become exclusive online propaganda outlets for the new administration.

When asked for an official response from the president-elect, all emails bounced back with an “Undeliverable” error.

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San Francisco - One of the most highly anticipated social media/web 2.0 conferences of the year ended much earlier than expected today due to poor planning on the organizers. What was hailed as the “must attend event of the year,” the Social Web Extravaganza Business Expo (SWEBE) was forced to shut down three days early due to lack of access to a cell phone or wireless signal, and no usable power outlets.

“Look, we warned attendees well in advance,” said event organizer F.T. Bailey, “it’s even part of the byline of the event - ‘Prepared to be charged and connected’…look at the sign!” Mr. Bailey added, pointing to a banner in an empty auditorium.

Almost immediately, problems began to surface when excited seminar attendees were routed to the concrete basement of the hotel. Cell phone signals were immediately lost, causing audible groans to rise from the auditorium.

Then, things took a turn for the worst when it was discovered that absolutely no wireless signal was available throughout the entire building: “Our apologies,” stated a recorded message that repeated over the loudspeakers, “in an effort to curtail costs, internet connectivity is currently not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

To add insult to injury, it was soon discovered that only one power outlet was available throughout the entire conference area, and it wasn’t compatible with any known electronic plug. One attendee took this picture on his iPhone, just before the device lost battery power:

When reached for comments, agitated attendees were quick to weigh in on their concerns:

“No wifi, no cell phone coverage, no power…c’mon, it only took two hours before my Android phone shut off - this is unacceptable, and not worth the $250 price admission!”

“I couldn’t get on Twitter for more than 45 minutes…how are my peeps going to know how horrible the event was? I need to find an outlet quick, so I could Tweet this travesty!”

Event organizers, after making a variety of excuses, quickly ducked out a side-door, presumably to recharge, reconnect, and write “plausible deniability” posts on their blogs.

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Following on the heels of Hoffspace, the David Hasselhoff Social Network, Chuck Norris has released his own version of an online community called MyFistYourFacebook.com, an Unsocial Network. Much like lolcats, lolroadkill and lolfurniture, this site is mostly about posting photos with Chuck Norris one-liners:

MyFistYourFacebook.com also has the ability for members to create groups, much like Myspace and Facebook have now. Except on Chuck Norris’ site, these groups are geared less around building a community and more towards fighting one-upmanship, such as the “I could take you” group, or the related “I could take you, and yer mom too” group. Discussions range from schoolyard fight videos to discussions with lines like “This fight would take two hits: I hit you, and you hit the ground!”

MyFistYourFacebook.com has also integrated the “Tap-o-wicki” social network for young men who post about their latest (imaginary) conquests, with users in the discussion areas posting about, “Yeah, Marissa Miller and me, yeah, I tapped that,” and “I roundhouse kicked Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie left him for me. Yeah, I tapped that twice.”

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Just banged the office admin, and now the tales of your lack of “sexpertise” are making the rounds at work? Do you look away as you pass your ex in the long hallway on your way to the water cooler? Groups of your ex’s cadre sistahs dissing you behind double-takes and half-covered faces, with sounds of derisive laughter ringing over the cubicle walls?

Despite the maxim: “never date a co-worker” (otherwise known as “don’t shit where you eat”), office romances still happen. One study showed that the place where we meet over 90% of friends and acquaintances is - you guessed it - at our places of employment.The odds are we’re going to hook up.

Since they can’t change the statistic, the makers of Snatch! decided to “tap into” this corporate zeitgeist by creating a new mashup, combining aspects the social networking site LinkedIn with the dating aspects of Match.com.

Now, instead of dating coworkers, you can leverage your LinkedIn connections for more than just employment contacts, but for dating and casual one-night sex connections as well. Hurting for a raise as well as needing a booty call? Why not combine both? Now with Snatch! you can!

With Snatch! you can virtually “wink” at a person at a different company that you may have met at a conference without running into interference from your HR department. Chatting on Snatch! about wanting to “hit that” is free of the risk of IT forwarding your risque emails to your meddlesome HR rep (to add to your already overflowing personnel folder). Now you can tap work-booty with impunity, and the next morning still go to the office with you head held high, (not avoiding eye contact as you typically do).

There has been talk of abuse on the network, such as users trying to “sleep their way to 500+ connections,” if you will, and CEOs using Snatch! as a sort of new feudalism - offering employees to other employers as a way to tie companies closer together (or to steal corporate secrets). The makers of Snatch! respond that while statistics show there is abuse on any social networking site, they try to discourage it by installing levels of security, such as permission-based connection building (otherwise known as “Snatch!” approval).

A contingent from those ever-invading Fuckus Focus on your own damn the Family are offended by the language used on the controls of Snatch! - such as the “Tap That!” button designed to initiate chat sessions, or the “Suckit!” button label which asks for a recommendation. They position that these languages encourage unsavory activities.

The makers of Snatch! are nonplussed: “We’re just having fun helping people to have some fun. By developing this platform, we are just making official the kind of relationships that happen anyway, in happy-hour and FAC functions. All without the ‘career-limiting’ aspects of dating and work.”

(Editors note: Snatch! is not related, except in a very parallel-ironic-universe kind of way, with the pron site snatch.com…not like we would know about those kind of websites anyway…).

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Wikipoetri 2.0 is a web-based interface utilizing wiki technology to allow users to contribute or modify poetry content. Wiki’s are often used to create collaborative and community websites. In fact, Wikipedia is one of the best know wikis in the world. Although Wikipedia is often ridiculed for its inaccuracies and contributor’s bias, the founders of Wikipoetry 2.0 say that the reason is that Wiki’s have not found their correct media for wikis to be applied.

Now they’ve found it: Poetry.

From Wikipedia:

Poetry (from the Greek poiesis, a “making” or “creating”) is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning.

What this means is that you can write poetry about anything and it doesn’t really have to mean anything. Shoot, it’s perfect for wiki’s!

Having a site like Wikipoetri 2.0 is like a freshmen creative writing class back in my undergrad, “ gushes fan Fran Lieptowicz, a fan of Wikipoetri 2.0. “I mean, you add a line onto a previous line, or even edit and delete lines of poetry written before. It’s constantly evolving.”

Other writers disagree:

It’s constantly revolting,” says Rachel Summer, PhD in Poetics from the Naropa Institute of Disembodied Poetics, Boulder, Colorado: “Imagine a morass of constantly changing lines, no coherent assonance, alliteration or rhythm, and symbolism that starts and then goes nowhere. It’s ridiculous. More so, it is shameful.”

A snippet of one of the Wikipoems (version 07/08/2008 07:53pm) is called “Nostalgia”:

The lucid dreaming of driving
the headlights burn tunnels, stare hole like Superman into the night
the Venturi effect inhales the car
the night closes behind like a tight sphincter
Eat My Exhaustion

Ms. Sumner responds, “I mean, come ON, ‘stare hole like Superman into the night’? ‘the night closes behind like a tight sphincter?’ I mean, what the fuck is that?”

The anonymous founders of Wikipoetri, going by the literary poet names of Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Olsen say that Ms. Sumner is missing the point.

Wikipoetri 2.0 breaks the boundaries of traditional poetry, much in the same way that spoken word poetry broke the bounds of what was traditionally known as poetry. Like Spokenword poetry, where anyone could get up on stage and read their writings, Wikipoetri 2.0 enables poetry writers to collaborate and attempt to write a great community written poem”

Professor Sumner shudders, “It’s spray paint over the Louvre, the great tradition of Poetry. If shit can be poetry, then poetry is shit. I simply can’t abide it,” at this point Ms. Summer stuck her head in an oven and turned the gas up.

Video of the poet Wang Zen performing the
wikipoem Nostalgia, version 07/08/2008 07:53pm

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Idea submitted by Dave Moore

Do you have too many Facebook buddies and MySpace friends? Still clinging to the hope that people will sign up for Bebo? Don’t have time to keep up with the comments, wall posts and messages? Now you can spend time in SecondLife and not worry about keeping up with all your online friends.

From the makers of Furbies comes MyBot - a cute and cuddly stuffed toy with a USB2 connection that can easily integrate into all major social networking sites.

By using patented chat-room-webcam-girl technology (all rights reserved) that can be specially tuned to your needs via semantic search algorithms, MyBot will quickly compile an internal database of all your online personal preferences. Then, turn MyBot on, and it will automatically start accepting and/or rejecting friend requests, Twitter followers, respond to wall posts and comment in a tone determined by your current online mood or status (yes, it uses Toot!).

Plus, your My Bot device will occasionally make cute noises and purrs, just to remind you it’s still working!

For only $19.99 per month, a subscription to MyBot Pro extends to IM and email applications, with a simple API for gmail, MS Outlook, MSN, Jabber and others. Get your MyBot to answer all your emails for you. This service uses an intelligent search capability which learns from any previous email exchanges (similar to Xobni) to automatically generate responses in your personal conversational style to anyone on your MyBot list. Add your casual acquaintances, irritating work colleagues, your boss or even your mom - they’ll never suspect a thing!!!

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In a crazy move (on a triple-word play, no less), Hasbro games announced today the release of one of their newest online, Facebook game application - Crapulous!

Crapulous is an ASCII-based application available through the Facebook application interface, allowing users to clumsily play against a “computer-generated AI” player through command-line scripts.

“Loosely fashioned after such engaging games as Zork and that one the Matthew Broderick kid played in ‘Wargames,’ we’re convinced Crapulous will be as popular as ICQ,” commented Hasbro spokesperson, Crash Bandicoot.

Although early beta-tests revealed difficulty installing the command-line window interface on most computers, Crapulous has already gained a significant early install base, revealed Mr. Bandicoot. “We’re definitely excited by the usability testing on Windows NT machines, but only those with more than 256kb of RAM,” he added.

Nonplussed, the creators of Scrabulous have already released their replacement game, WordScraper, and have already tracked more than 8 billion installs.

Hasbro has already tentatively announced a complete roadmap of ASCII-based games for Facebook, through the remainder of 2008, including:

• BattleCrap - face off against another player, in this exciting, turn-by-turn script-based battle game
• CrappyLand - where kids and adults move simple emoticons through a flat, 2-dimensional land of fun
• Hungry Hungry Crappos - exciting turn-based action, where you compete to “eat” more “&” symbols than your computer based foes
• Oper-crap-tion - your skill at kernel commands is put to the test…fail, and you might hear the dulcit sound of an 8-bit alarm tone from your speakers

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Welcome to the Friday Fishwrap! Today’s featured video is a product that could have been featured on our site: Life 2.0, created by Zeke Shore.

“Is It Real” poll results: the MiPhone:

If you recall, last Sunday we introduce you to MiPhone:a new Apple iPhone 3G application (available through the iTunes app store) that is a micro-social network, allowing users to locate others nearby (using iPhone’s internal GPS services) that also have an iPhone. This social network was designed with one purpose in mind - to allow those elitist iPhoners to gather together and deride non-iPhone cell phone users.

We asked you - Is It Real? Here are the results:

• 50% said “no”
• 25% said “yes”
• 25% said “maybe”

The real answer - the MiPhone is not real! However, many people I talked to said it should be. Tune in this Sunday for the next installment of “Is It Real?”…have a great weekend!

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Friday Fishwrap: What we like on the web. This animation on Social Networking sites highlights what is fucking retarded silly about the whole Social Networking thang. It’s funny. Czechit:

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