Aaron Dodez

I haven’t watched the show in a long time, but was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 90s (shocker!). Still, this cracks me up…Riker sits down like a real man should. Or at least an exceedingly cocky one.

Or at least like one who is a tall actor who has to deal with shitty, short, fake chairs on set.

Via ToplessRobot

laughingsquid:

Sorted Books, Photographs of Poetry Created Using Book Titles

Really cool idea.

I’ve been reading a royal shit ton lately.

My wife and son have been going to bed early the past few months leaving me a few hours each night to unwind. Reading has always been my favorite past time to calm my mind in general but especially before slipping off into sleep. I was the teenager who was reading Stephen King’s “The Stand” till 4 in the morning every night. I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was 8. Ender’s Game might be my favorite book.

In a word: I am either a nerd or possess nerd-like qualities.

Per Wikipedia: “A nerd (adjective: nerdy) is a person, typically described as being overly intellectual, obsessive, or socially impaired. They may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, obscure, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical or relating to topics of fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities.”

Upon reviewing the above definition I’m going to roll with the latter: nerd-like qualities. I’m not socially impaired, and have kissed at least a handful of women but I do love obscure movies, music and books. Guilty. But a digression.

Lots of people say they are “readers.” I particularly like when someone at works says, “yeah, I just read the new Seth Godin book” or non-fiction book related to their exact profession. When they ask what I’m reading I usually reply with “I’m reading a book about superheroes fighting zombies” or similar. They frown and walk away.

And then I am again at peace.

I do sometimes read those book types - specifically Jeff Shaara books or books around spies and the CIA. But lately I just want to have fun with my reading, which are what books are to me - entertainment. A way to visit a world and immerse myself in it. And get away from the all the stupid shit in life. Which there seems to be an ever increasing amount of.

Anyways, as mentioned I’ve been on a roll with books for the nerdcore. If you are interested in reading fun, entertaining books here are the ones I’ve read in the past few months. I’m also pretty active on GoodReads as well if you want to be, you know, book friends or whatever the hell.

Book Recommendations:

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. (If you are a child of the 80s, and loved the video games and movies from that period of time, you will be hard pressed to not like this book. It takes place in a dystopian future (what? no way!) where most people are plugged into a virtual world 24 hours a day for school, their lives, everything. The real world sucks. The guy who create the world dies and creates a challenge - anyone who wins his quests will get his fortune. And we are off…)
• Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. (This is like Blade Runner but with gratuitous violence and sex. It’s cyber crime noir. And it is awesome. They are apparently making a movie out of it so read before Hollywood f’s it up. Impossible to describe but read the book description. The first in a series.)
• Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriots by Peter Clines (The remaining superheroes on Earth protect the last remaining survivors of a zombie apocalypse. The 2nd book is better but the first sets up the premise…which you either just laughed at or drool just dripped on your keyboard. And oh yes, superheroes can become zombies. Woot!)
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (Written in 1974 when the Vietnam war was still going on - this book is about a seemingly neverending war between the human race and an alien one that takes place over hundreds of years. This book and Starship Troopers are considered hard-scifi military classics. I liked Starship Troopers better but this one is still good. It’s easy to read and thought provoking.)

I’m currently half way through: Confessions of a D-List Supervillian…which may be the best book of them all. It’s about a snarky supervillian who never catches a break, until a turn events gives him an opportunity to finally be a good guy…

So there is my last 5. Happy Reading!

And, take it away MC Frontalot…

-AD

sportballsreplacedwithcats:

“Eaaaagle!”

This Tumblr combines sports with cats - it has the capability to destroy the world or at the very least your afternoon.

Not since a cartoon combined trains and dinosaurs have I seen such a disruptive combination…

“Dinosaur Train!”

lumpycurvy:

asilookatthemoon:

thepriest:

Wilder was initially hesitant, but finally accepted the role under one condition:

When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself… but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.

When Stuart asked why, Wilder replied, “because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

Pretty excellent movie and story - and he was right.

More fun pictures with friend’s kids. Townes via Mike Margolin.

Via Pramit Nairi on Instagram.

This photo and child rocks.

Heard a song from Waxahatchee today, and it reminded me of a band from the late 90s called “Frogpond.” Sadly, they never were popular and broke up quickly, but they live on through the magic of the internet and Spotify. Really cool girl band, not terribly great musicians but passionate. The entire “Safe Ride Home” cd is excellent.

It also got me thinking about how few things are more discouraging than a band that you love breaking up after one or two cds (See: Creeper Lagoon, Death from Above 1979).

Actually, that’s not true. What’s even more discouraging is a group of musicians making great underground hip hop, and who blew your mind in a club that held 100 people, promptly selling out and adding a white chick to the band and going on to be one of the most overexposed bands of all time….

<Shakes fists at Fergie>

-AD

tksween:

In my opinion, I think Scope took the lead with their Bacon flavored mouthwash: 

But I also really enjoyed their day after response: 

Clever Scope, clever. 

Really thought this was good as well, as was (but I’m biased) HondaHair.

-AD

edwardspoonhands:

THiS WALL OF TEXT IS ABOUT BUSINESS AND ONLINE VIDEO IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT STUFF KEEP SCROLLING I WILL POST MORE CAT GIFS SOON

For those of you who don’t know, John and I were recipients of part of YouTube’s “Original Channel” funding initiative. We used that money to start Crash Course…

Game of Thrones - 1995 Style (by hunterlsanders)

A little editing, music and graphic change and the next think you know the show looks like Xena or Brisco County Jr!

Via Bonkersworld. 

Self explanatory and thus truth.

The new Everything Everything album is amazing. The first song - Cough Cough - is a good summary of everything great and different about this band.

I attended the prestigious Bowling Green State University in beautiful and luxurious Bowling Green, Ohio after high school. (I continue to tell folks from different states it is considered the “Harvard of Ohio” but with varying levels of success.) It was yet another school in yet another state though at least it was in the state of my birth. And college in general tends to be a humbling, new experience for most everyone involved. So for once I felt like I at least started semi-parallel socially with my peers. 

After the end of my freshman year I returned triumphantly with a 2.6 GPA to my parent’s new home in Centerville, Ohio for the summer. My middling grade point average was in reality quite a feat considering I rarely made it to any classes that began before noon and in the case of Geography barely at all. Though I have never been a morning person past the age of 5, I for some reason speculated that college would be different for me. And of course that fantasy extended not only to the hour of my classes but also prowess for studying, of which I had little to none. 

Luckily, being on the football team in a football-crazed high school allowed me a certain, shall we say “flexibility” when it came to academics. That and I was able to wing most of the classes and get by on a decent memory and okay smarts, and also excellent peripheral vision allowing some light to moderate cheating. Sadly, all of these factors combined allowed me do no better than (ever so) slightly above average in high school. And it certainly didn’t earn me anything in the way of academic scholarships. Ultimately my fallback school was The Ohio State University and not The Yale or The Harvard.

So, naively, I enrolled in an 8:00am (!!) Geography class my first semester, freshman year which I proceeded to attend a total of three times: the first day, the midterm test and the final day. That I achieved a solid C in that class speaks to either my enormous capacity for cramming or greatly undermines my previous “Harvard of Ohio” declaration.

Anyways, smelling the very subtle hint of success wrapped in the overwhelming stench of mediocrity, my father procured for me a job at his plant in Dayton, Ohio, where he was head of sales and marketing for a windows and doors company. Would I work side-by-side with my father learning `the ends and outs of marketing tactics, sales calls and P&L statements? Would I be hobnobbing with executives while gaining valuable management and business experience that I could apply later in life? 

Nope. 

I would be working the third shift – 5pm to 2am - loading one hundred pound windows and doors on trucks for distribution.

<Sigh>

My father, though generally liked by myself during that time was in fact less liked by the actual rank and file working on the manufacturing floor of his company. At 19, I had already developed some fairly powerful anti-authority credentials or at the very least a large and seemingly permanent chip on my shoulder. So though the first couple weeks were both painful socially and physically, I eventually won over a few of my blue collar co-workers with my latent dour attitude towards society and ready ease of which I verbally (if not truthfully) threw the “management” of the company under the bus.

The keenest of all my senses has always been my ability to sniff out a way to survive. I would have made a great cockroach.

That being said, the three months at the factory actually progressed fairly uneventfully. And I, in many ways, assumed the life of your standard, run-of-the-mill factory worker. Meaning I mindlessly went about my business and bared little responsibility in the actual running of the proverbial mill. 

After my shift ended I returned home at around 3am each early morn. Not surprisingly, I didn’t want to immediately go to sleep for fear of quickly awakening to the drudgery of my existence. So first I would routinely sit in my parent’s living room and watch a magnitude of bad television that could only be found at 3am on a weeknight. The terrible local commercials that interrupted the muck were only slightly worse. I normally accompanied my viewing with frozen food. And maybe a beer I snuck from the fridge. 

When I did go to sleep I normally didn’t awake until noontime. I then proceeded to eat lunch and then go to the YMCA to lift weights and exercise. I did however have one true perk that summer, which was a membership to a local pool. So that is where I spent most afternoons after leaving the “Y”. And as any good post pubescent, young adult male knows – you work out BEFORE going to the pool - so your muscles can be “pumped up” when you take your shirt off. (I’m not ashamed to admit that I also may have knocked out a few pushups in the pool’s restroom from time to time). Sadly, even taking this tact, my pulsing physique was minimized if not completely offset by the fact I was reading science fiction and fantasy novels while lying by the pool. Unbeknownst to me this was a clear female repellant at the time (and for those of my age) and thus you won’t be shocked to learn that I ultimately had zero takers on the lady front that summer.

And truly, that was my routine almost every day of the entire summer.

Through it all I was very cognizant of the fact that my summer differed from that of most of my cohorts in college who would triumphantly be returning home for the summer embarking on their routine: mainly, hanging out with high school friends, going to parties, working part-time and screwing. It should be painfully clear by now that I wasn’t blessed with that option, since I had moved two weeks after I graduated from a high school in Pennsylvania to Ohio. And thus I didn’t really have a true hometown (much less hometown friends).

Understanding that background will help you visualize my excitement when a guy I worked with at my father’s plant named Seth - who was a couple years older than me but who I got along with quite well – invited me to spend the day on his boat. 

At that point, my last day working at the plant was to be the end of the following week.

And it would be literally the first and last time where I broke out of my normal routine that summer.

We met early on Saturday at a lake about an hour away. Since we both worked the late shift we both didn’t get much sleep the night before, but my excitement to actually be doing something (anything!) definitely kept me awake and wired. 

Seth’s “boat” was only a boat in the loosest terms. It was as much a boat as Pearl Light, the beer my friends and I used to buy in college for $5 a case was “beer”. In politics that boat would be comparable to a RINO or DINO – or in this case, a BINO: Boat in Name Only. The boat possessed the ability to float. And there was enough room for us both to sit comfortably upright. Most telling was that it had the general shape of a strange craft that, if put in a line up at the police station, would 6 out of 10 times be identified as boat shaped. But that is where the parallels ended. 

Of course, the “boat” worked fine for the “lake” in which we were floating. If by “lake” you meant “can fit a few dozen of Seth’s supposed “”boats””.

But I digress. Plus I’ve broken the quotation key. 

Though our pleasure craft was unimpressive, the time spent while on said floating device was most excellent. We talked, and fished and had a few beers that Seth had brought with him. I frankly forgot the conversation topics and discussion points almost immediately afterward, but even if partially from wont of companionship the entire experience was truly enjoyable. And easily cleared the very low bar of being the highlight of the summer.

At some point during the conversation we devised the plan of me following Seth to a local county fair allegedly located an hour away, which had kicked off that very day. So we hopped into Seth’s car and drove back to my parent’s house, with the intention of grabbing my car so we could both drive to the fair.

We returned to my house and briefly chatted with my parents. Truth be told they, when introduced to Seth, seemed to swell up with the pride at the thought that I had actually made a friend for the summer – and on top of that was going to go out (!) and do something (!) for once (if only once) that summer. I guess their own low expectations and bar setting reflected my nature at the time, where not being social - even if ultimately totally not my fault - had become a feature not a bug.

We’d both been out in the sun the whole day and hadn’t eaten much. But I paid that little mind and popped a few Tylenol before getting into my car and following Seth. The promise of fried Twinkies and some grilled sausage for dinner danced in my head. It’s also worth noting that the car I drove was not “my” car per se, but actually may parent’s newish Nissan Maxima. It had all the bells and whistles – functioning radio, one disc CD player, power windows – and was again a symbol of how glad my parents were that I was leaving the house for the night.

About 45 minutes into the drive I began to get tired. The lack of sleep the night before, the sun, Tylenol et all had relaxed me quite a bit to the point where I was fighting to stay awake. My eyes kept closing and I used all the tricks I could think of – turning up the music, glancing at the mirrors, picturing my mother naked – the entire arsenal.

At about an hour and fifteen minutes into the drive I began to really question Seth’s math and sense of time and space. He told me the County Fair was an hour away but I knew we had at least another 20 to 30 minutes to go. 

We were driving on a two lane road with houses on either side. 

My lids got heavier. 

I blared some Faith No More out of the fancy factory-installed CD player to keep me focused. While singing at the top of my lungs I tightly squeezed that gap between my thumb and index finger. Sharp pains shot through my hand giving me brief bursts of lucidity.

Mike Patton, the lead singer of Faith No More, serenaded me: “You’re everything, that’s why I cling, to you…”

“When I emerge, my thoughts converge, to you…”

“The world is so small compared to you…”

“And everything is wrong compared to you…”

“To You……..”

Suddenly I awoke with the sound of a mailbox smashing through my windshield. It whizzed by my head and landed in the back seat. 

I slammed on the breaks but as I was in the front yard of one of the houses lining the highway, my car slid as if on ice through the yard. I proceeded through one yard, and then another, and another. 

Straight ahead was a telephone pole. 

Helplessly I smashed through another mailbox, which though seemed to help slow my slide moderately, was not nearly enough.

I closed my eyes on purpose this time.

I hit the telephone pole at about 35 miles per hour. 

My head hit the steering wheel but not hard enough to knock me out. Somehow, I had avoided hitting the pole exactly head on. I certainly didn’t miss hitting it flush by very much as the telephone pole was essentially my passenger: it was now located vertically in the seat next to me.

The Maxima was totaled. But I was alive.

If I had been in my own car – a Honda Prelude – an older, flimsier and far smaller car I would by all probability not have survived. Or if I did most of me wouldn’t be serviceable. 

And if that mailbox had been inches to the left and hit me in the face instead of missing…

Lots of ifs. Life is a game of inches. And in this case for me it literally was.

But the Nissan Maxima was new and the seat belts held.

In shock, I opened the door and rolled out onto the grass. Looking to my left I noticed that I had veered from the right side of the road, through the oncoming traffic in the left lane (miraculously not hitting another car) of the two lane highway and then slid through the grass of four different houses on the opposite side of the highway. There were skid marks through the front lawns where I had slammed on my breaks for a few hundred feet.

I took a deep breath.

The front door opened to the small house whose yard and telephone pole I was now unceremoniously parked in. And older gentlemen in a white t-shirt and stone washed jeans strolled out my way in no particular hurry.

He first asked me if I was okay. I replied that I was.

He then said: “You know, the Demolition Derby is supposed to be at the County Fair up the road.” And smiled.

Someone at some point had called the police as a few minutes later a state police trooper pulled up. The officer made sure I was unhurt. When it seemed that – at least physically – that was the case he firmly asked me whether I was drunk.

“What?” I said. “No. I fell asleep.”

“But it’s only 9 o’clock at night, “ the officer said.

“I was out on a boat all day, and I work late nights…” and fumbled through a couple of excuses.

“Let’s run some tests just to make sure,” he said.

So, still most likely suffering from shock from hitting a telephone pole ten minutes earlier, I was asked to stand on one leg. And walk a straight line. And touch my nose. Even on the best of days my balance is subpar but it seemed that I had managed to do about as well as could be expected with the tests. 

I relaxed.

“Get into the front seat,” the officer said.

“Shit.”

At this point, my shock was snuggling up with book full of disbelief while drinking a warm glass of confusion.

As I sat down with a sigh in the front passenger seat about to protest, Seth knocked on the officer’s window. The officer asked him if he’d been drinking – to when Seth replied in the negative. The officer told him to go on home, and that I would be fine. I gave a frown and a shaky, half-hearted wave, and Seth quickly drove away in retreat.

“So, were you and your friend drinking?” the relentless officer began. “I can smell alcohol on you. Regardless of what you say I’m going to administer a breathalyzer test back at the station. And if you pass that, I’m going to give you a drug test. Because I know you are on some sort of chemical, and that you didn’t just fall asleep. So why don’t you do yourself a favor and be honest with me. Keep in mind that you are underage. If I find any alcohol in your system you are in a world of trouble.”

The truth that the not so friendly officer was seeking didn’t seem all that damning: that I had drank 3 light beers, on a boat, 9 hours earlier. And yes, I was underage but I was almost 20 years old. The rational part of my mind knew that there was absolutely no way that I was drunk, much less buzzed, much less smelling like alcohol. And that the cop was just trying to scare me into talking. 

The problem was that I was scared. And most likely in shock and if not that, definitely more than moderately disoriented. 

The cop stared at me intently…with his spooky cop eyes. 

So I did what was right. I was honest and told the officer about the boat. I believe the proverb goes: “Honesty is the best policy.”

<Click> went the hand cuffs as they snapped into place around my wrists, behind my back.

I was promptly and unceremoniously hand cuffed and placed in the back of the police car. Where I sobbed for most of the 20 minutes it took to drive back to the state highway patrol office. 

After the cop parked in front of the building, I was led into the waiting area, where I was surrounded by a number of shady looking fellow criminals. Apparently these were my current and future brethren. The officer sat me down on a bench in a holding cell next to a visibly as well as odorously intoxicated older gentlemen and then proceeded to call my parents. By the time he made the call it was nearing 11 o’clock at night. So when the officer called my parents and they answered the phone he actually woke them up.

He then gave them a maddeningly small as well as vague amount of detail: “Your son has been in an accident. Please come down to the police station.” The officer gave them the address but no further information.

Afterward, I breathed into the promised breathalyzer and waited.

Lo and behold, I ended up blowing a zero point zero zero. 

And I was never given that drug test.

About an hour later my father stormed into the police station. After learning that I was in fact, not dead or maimed but had instead totaled his brand newish car and was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving he fairly quickly and without humor filled out the paperwork and led me to the car. The officer got in one more jab on my way out the doors about me being “lucky” and to be more “careful next time.” I held my tongue but muttered under my breath something about vowing to avoid falling asleep at the wheel or crashing into telephone poles if I could absolutely avoid it.

My dad was exceedingly angry at me. That much was crystal clear. And though my mother played the good cop and chimed in with “We are just happy you are alive” it appeared my father was in fact, not just happy at much of anything at that point.

I crawled defeated into the back seat of our Ford conversion van and curled up into the fetal position. As we began to back out of the parking spot I cursed my luck. My life. My job. Myself.

And then my dad backed our van into a parked police car. 

Well, not “a” police car but “the” exact car of the officer who arrested me.

Oh, and one pertinent fact that I almost left out. 

My father was, like most nights, drinking before he went to sleep.

After screaming something to the effect of “Great, now I’m going to get a DUI, too” my father glared at me, and stomped back into the police station to speak to the officer. I made a short lived and not very enthusiastic protest to my mother about me not actually getting a DUI – but her face quieted me and made clear that there were in fact, no longer any good cops in the van. Only Zuul.

I remained curled up in the back seat in silence waiting for my nightmare to end. Which, considering my night, I figured would probably come in the form of a rogue asteroid crashing into our car from the outer reaches of the universe – the very same universe which obviously despised me.

Around ten minutes later my father emerged from the police station (sans hand cuffs) and we drove the hour back to our house.

It was, as they say, “a long drive”.

In the aftermath of that night, a lone irony emerged. My parent’s insurance covered most of the damage for the Nissan Maxima that I had totaled - it ultimately was damaged so badly that it couldn’t be repaired and my parents ended up getting a new car. And honestly once my folks saw the extent of the damage to the car they recognized how lucky it was that their son wasn’t badly hurt. Plus, the insurance even covered the yard damage I caused, the multiple mail boxes I rammed and even the telephone pole (!) that I smashed into.

But the damage to the police car my dad backed into ended up costing them thousands of dollars.

And that was how I spent the summer of 1993.

-AD

I am biased when it comes to LowerMyBills. I worked at LendingTree in the early 2000s and they were the Coke to our Pepsi (or maybe the Mr. Pibb to our Coke). They were known then as having zero cares about their brand while putting out crazy ads with corn cobs and pigs. They were as pure a Direct Response-focused machine as any other company I can think of. And they were really good at it. Not much has changed over there (other than people) in my mind. And I’m going to guess that this ad promoting their life insurance product gets a great conversion rate and ROI.

That said…really with this ad? Really? These kinds of ads set back digital marketing a half dozen years…

Really enjoy this song and new band. The title certainly does not apply to me now (as far as you know), but maybe, just maybe, it did at some point in my past.

Through a tweet yesterday I was turned on to the website “The Creative Confessional”. The central conceit of the website is that folks from the advertising (and marketing) industry post secrets anonymously as if in confessional, and users vote on whether to “Absolve” or “Condemn” them. 

By and large the site is hilarious. Not surprisingly, most of the top “Condemned” thoughts revolve around misogyny in some manner or form. I say not surprising because within the supposed jests both offensive and stomach-busting funny there clearly exists large truths about my chosen industry.

I equate this to my wife who has a tendency to say “Just Kidding” when she is clearly not. For example: “Jill is an annoying hag whose voice sounds like cats dying. Just kidding!”

There seems to be a dozens upon dozens of confessionals posted each day, many very “inside jokey” but others that apply to most industries. A couple of my favorites that I’ve seen include:

“When someone says “Above the Fold”, I want to take them out back and beat them senseless.”

“I immediately throw resumes in the trash if I see the word “visionary” or “ninja.”“

“I’m in a meeting about a meeting”

“I called in sick so I could finish the book I was reading.”

“I take home left over food from client meetings to feed my family.”

“I accept Facebook friend requests from coworkers, then block them from seeing any of my status updates.”

“I wish my accounts team would really manage the account.”

“I just finished a Flash website.” (FOR SHAME! THIS IS INEXCUSABLE!)

“If I hear the words “work” “your” and “magic” in the same sentence I’m going to kill myself”

And, the winner for me: “My job is to convince large corporations to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars producing ideas I thought of while pooping.”

And so on. Outside of my amusement around what people really think, I also have confirmed from this website that many of the people in the advertising industry are high at work most of the day. I’ve got to say, I couldn’t be less surprised.

Finally, since I’m a narcissistic asshole, I posted my own “confession” yesterday which I am now dutifully posting below, thereby outing myself to the marketing world:

Please forgive me.

-AD

There has been a lot of talk around Facebook’s new internal search product called “Graph Search” since it’s announcement last week. The tech press for the most part has been fawning over the announcement, calling it not only a game changer for the integration of search and social, but also a huge threat to Google’s search dominance. Since very few folks have actually USED the product and the beta seems to be reserved for Facebook employees, there really isn’t any way to know until the product becomes mainstream. Anyone who says they know for sure what its reaction among consumers will be is trolling for page views or is frankly, an idiot.

That said, I will put a stake in the ground and say that I have some major concerns about whether Graph Search will be successful.

The three primary potential issues are:

1. Changing consumer’s search behavior will be a monumental task. Folks don’t “use” Facebook the same way they do Google Search or Bing. By and large, consumers interact on Facebook and consume information (primarily viewing photos and other content through the News Feed) more for passive entertainment than active information seeking. Sure, people will probably use it to find photos they’ve been tagged in, or maybe even find friends who are local to invite to a party (if you are in the habit of inviting strangers to parties) but will there really be value in doing informational searches like you do with Google/Bing? Put another way: going from sharing funny photos with your friends that George Takei posts on his Facebook page to actively searching for recommendations for restaurants, job openings, or anything of value you can find elsewhere seems like a leap. This seems to make Graph Search a very niche, limited use product. Though, it does have real potential in the creeper/stalking arena. 

2. As with everything related to Facebook, there will be the heightened specter of privacy issues. Facebook believes that the new search feature will encourage users to expand the number of brands and interests that they like, while also forcing users to “button up” their current profile’s data with the most up to date information – much like they do on LinkedIn. However, it is easy to envision the opposite occurring: when consumers begin to show up in search results (and receive the resulting “pokes” and messages) users will actually pull back on what information they populate on Facebook while restricting their privacy settings as well. Do folks really want to show up in some rando’s search? Additionally, there are some indications that usage is beginining to dip in the U.S. (ever so slightly). This is unsurprising if true as Facebook is reaching maturity (again, at least in the U.S.) from a unique user standpoint.

One final point, according to at least one study 65% of Facebook users are 35 or over. My pure speculation is that younger users are more likely to heavily populate their Facebook social graph, profiles, etc. than older users, but younger users are using Facebook less and less. Those are bad trends if true (which they may not be, because I made them up.) But still, my theory could theoretically be more than theoretical!

(Damn, just undermined point #2 completely.)

3. With Facebook’s user base moving quickly (600 million+) and in many cases exclusively (39% of their base) to mobile, it seems counter intuitive that Graph Search will only be accessible through the desktop version of Facebook, with no specific plans for a mobile integration. Why ignore mobile when that is where the growth is from a usage and macro trends standpoint? Probably because the experience that Facebook is showing on desktop with Graph Search is difficult to port over to a mobile experience. So, IF they figure out a desktop search UX they probably are going to need to completely revamp the product for mobile. At which point, it may be too late.

I’m doubtful Google is shaking in their boots. Though, if they are they are most certainly doing it in a self-driving automobile while wearing nerdy, “Project Glass” Google Glasses.

writeworld:

What are the differences between stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes? What are they? How do writers use them? Let’s take a look at some vocabulary and how we define these terms to make sense of them for ourselves.

Stereotype (n): A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or…

Sometimes, we all have those days…