While searching for Kelly Stewart’s New Media Douchebags video with the terms “common craft parody” I came across some videos from local wiki company Wetpaint, and a friend directed me to the their eHarmony spoof which I’m posting here for your viewing pleasure:

As a member of the Seattle Tech Startups mailing list, I received the word from Ian on the list that he was ready for us to give it a try. I’ve created a page to track Mobile Social Network news, and spent 20 minutes getting it started. To get an idea of how this works, watch the quick demo video on their homepage.

Thoughts & Suggestions

1. Without RSS this page I have just created will not remain current for more than an hour – at best. I wish I could provide a feed URL (such as a Google search of blogs for the term “mobile social network”) to feed into the page in order to keep it current.
2. Once I have added component to the page, it appears impossible to delete it.  Update: I figured out how to do this, there is a button called “Archive” after you double-click on something.  Took me trial-and-error to figure out what this meant.
3. If I go back and then forward again, all the changes I’ve made are lost. That’s painful (I just did this on accident).  They have a note at the bottom of the page which I didn’t even notice – maybe that should be front and center.  Better yet, don’t flush the data so soon – you probably want to hang onto aborted sessions of contribution anyway for metrics purposes.
4. When I add a news story link, such as the link from TechCrunch, it seems like it would be nice to have a little Ajax lookup of the URL that grabs the meta data (author name, title, date posted, blog name) so that I wouldn’t have to enter all that as text.  Structured data is gold.
5. I’m primarily a keyboard user (avoid the mouse whenever possible) and the tab order did not include the “Save” buttons, so I had to use my mouse frequently.
6. I’m not clear on how I can get my friends to subscribe to this page, so that they will hear about updates when I add to the page.
7. I was unable to add more than one link to the 3rd (far right) resources box – seems like a bug.

Fundamentally, I am unclear on how this is better than a feedreader + forum combination for managing a community that is interested in a specific topic.  That being said, I know this is a soft launch so I can only imagine there is a more feature-rich version of the service in the works.  I can see promise in this, as a feedreader-style landing page that is public.

I just spent the past four days peacefully with my family. We do three things a lot (and, I think, well):

1. read
2. play boardgames
3. drink

There was also a delicious dinner and some fudge in there. Here’s some video from the adventure:

Christmas Morning 2008 from danielle morrill on Vimeo.

My Mom is a Total Martha from danielle morrill on Vimeo.

I wanted to come up with three high-level goals to encapsulate how I’m approaching 2009.  I made this video this morning at breakfast, and I’ll be explaining them more in depth soon.  For now, here’s what I’ve got:

Heading into the office late today, I just happened to be on I-5 shortly after the two charter buses crashed into the guard rail.  To say they were “dangling” over the freeway is an exaggeration, but there is no doubt in my mind that the driver and passengers must have been terrified.

Here’s the video:

Listening to talk radio this morning, the host asked listeners what the deal was with their reaction to the financial situation of this country.  Why aren’t they panicking?  Why is everyone continuing on as if nothing has happened?  As large sums of money get thrown around in conversation like they’re nothing, it does seem a bit odd that the average person on the street seems somewhat disinterested in talking about the economy.  Is it because we’re just so sick of the doom a gloom — or do people actually buy into the idea that this crisis is a creation of the media, as opposed to a legimately disasterous policy debacle?

I’m certainly aware of these bailout and their long-term impact on me, my family, my business, my goals, and ultimately my entire future.  I’ve heard so many people say that the losses of the stock market had no impact on them, and therefore how can it really be that bad, as I’ve watched my investments’ value cut nearly in half.  Investments that aren’t just stocks, but 401(k) plans I packed tight with money for the 2 1/2 years I worked at Expeditors for tax reasons.  Le sigh…

I also notice the price cuts all over the place, even Starbucks was offering 20% off all merchandise and whole bean coffee in their store – and if you imagine that is happening nationwide then that could indicate a significant drop in profits.  So what am I doing, panicking?  No, but I do think it’s important to have our eyes wide open now and through the coming months while Barack Obame takes over the roll of president.  The risk of further dillusionment of Americans towards their government is great.

Love yourself with great music.

This song resonates with me deeply, and while I’m on this Mark Kozalek kick in the blog I’ll include a video that has the song (a redone version of the original) in it, AND scenes from one of my favorite foreign films “He’s Loves Me… He Loves Me Not” (1992) with Audrey Tautou playing an erotomaniac (only the French, I swear!)

Enjoy!

Thinking you recognize this sound. Red House Painters (Mark Kozalek lead singer) has a song on the movie “Excess Baggage” called “All Mixed Up”. You might like it if you like this. Click here to view (embedding has been disabled).