Off the Hoof

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I awoke Sunday morning to the news that Favrd was dead. Without ceremony. Without warning. Without a chance to say goodbye. It didn’t go out for cigarettes. It didn’t tell us we needed some time apart. It didn’t become ‘Favrd from Yahoo!’ It didn’t tell us it had found its soul mate elsewhere. Dean Allen just pulled the plug and it was over.

For those not familiar, Favrd was a small but passionate community of people dedicated to amusing themselves on Twitter. Its ‘no webcock’ policy managed to keep the prancing fools who claim to have unlocked the secret genie secrets to ultimate success in 140 characters or less at bay.

And like most communities on the web built on the passion of a selected few it had to die. Lucky for us it had a smart bastard of a lovely human being at the helm. He knew when to kill it.

It’s a cliché, sure, but in the year that Favrd existed I made some really great friends. Those are mine to keep. Favrd was Dean’s to kill. And as with many community-building situations in life; summer camp, college, different jobs, conferences and prison, the relationships you build can last longer than the situation; if you’re willing to maintain them.

Now, we can all bitch about it being gone or we can go build something good enough that people will cry when it’s gone too.

Thanks Dean. You fucker.

Written by Mike Monteiro on December 7, 2009 with 7 comments |

Ben Brown on Content Distribution

Ben Brown’s long post on YouTube, Google and content distribution contains this gem of a line:

All of a sudden, the hammer is demanding part ownership of the birdhouse I used it to build.

Ben’s been on fire lately. His post about Facebook and the stupidity of crowds is worth a read as well.

Written by Mike Monteiro on January 11, 2008 |

Facebook, you owe me one Christmas Present.

Last Saturday I went to the movies with friends. I purchased my tickets on Fandango. That last sentence is important, or rather; the fact that I’ve decided to tell you that is important. Because where I spend my money is my business, and what I spend my money on is also my business. Unless of course, I choose to tell you.

That’s a really important distinction.

As I was wrapping up my transaction a pane popped up and made some mention of Facebook and tickets and Beowulf. I didn’t pay much attention as I was running out the door.

But today I decided to buy a video game for my son. For Christmas. You know—a secret gift kinda thing. Again, I get the pane pop up from Facebook.

At no point did either Fandango or Gamefly notify me that they’d be sharing this info with any other site. I was informed after the information had been passed.

So then I go to Facebook and my transactions are listed out for everyone to see. Without my permission. This is what I see:

I click on the privacy settings and find nothing except too many bizarre sliders. Reading around I discover that the only way to turn this off is at the site of origin. Once again; you only find out the site of origin is using this AFTER your information has been passed.

There are things I’m fine sharing with you lovely people and things I’m not. I need to be able to choose what those things are.

Some people would consider this ‘conversational marketing’. It’s not. If Mrs. Kravitz is peeking at me from across the streets through the blinds and then running to her neighbor to give her an update that doesn’t mean Mrs. Kravits and I are having a conversation. It means she’s eavesdropping on my business.

And Facebook, you owe my son a Christmas present.

Written by Mike Monteiro on November 20, 2007 with 15 comments |

The Record and The Bet

Six years ago Jeff Veen and I made a bet on whether Barry Bonds would break Hank Aaron’s home run record. The loser of the bet had to attend a Giants’ game in a dress. Jeff lost.

To his utmost credit; he is a man of his word! And for this we applaud and honor him. We also want him to look his best that evening. I know NOTHING about dresses so please help me out and suggest something nice for him to wear.

Feel free to add your helpful suggestions to this group.

Oh hey! I made a paper doll to be EXTRA helpful! You’re welcome, Jeff.

Written by Mike Monteiro on August 8, 2007 with 3 comments |

Signal To Noise

There used to be too few places on the internet that pointed to many good things; now there are too many places all pointing to the same few things.

(Thanks to Pownce for the insight.)

Written by Mike Monteiro on July 27, 2007 with 0 comments |

Let's make fun of things...

One of these magazines is real, one of them is not. Both of them are funny. One is funny, “ha ha”, the other is funny like “smell this milk.”

And a hint about magazine design: I’m sure that the Robert Scoble story about how a pudgy white male (full disclosure: I am a pudgy white male) made good even as all the odds were stacked against him is incredibly uplifting, but try not to bury your subjects at the bottom of the page. Especially when they’re looking a little creepy and holding cameras. See how the guy on the right is in a nice inspirational pose? He looks hot, right? People buy magazines because they’re aspirational.

Oh, also… when you refer to white guys as “conquering” stuff; yeah, don’t do that.

Written by Mike Monteiro on April 25, 2007 with 1 comments |

The internet is built by boys

If you’ve ever doubted that the internet was built by 12 year-old boys (and I haven’t) take a look at Sizeasy, where you can compare the size of any two things side by side.

The potential for abuse here is off-the-charts fun.

Here’s the Apple iPhone compared to the Lego Ultimate Collector Millenium Falcon. Both $499. (Thanks Eric.)

… and a Brown Zune compared to an average baseball bat.

… and Andre Torrez compared to a Beard Papa cream puff .

Written by Mike Monteiro on February 12, 2007 with 3 comments |

Given today's iPhone announcement...

...it seems like the Zune was not just badly executed; it was sadly devised. I expect that our children will someday tell stories of a rumored landfill where all the brown Zunes were tossed.

Written by Mike Monteiro on January 9, 2007 with 1 comments |

Christmas Is Coming

It starts with Black Friday. It's followed by a tidal wave of news reports on how we're doing as a nation, and as a people based on our retail consumption over the next month. It continues with pans of people in line to buy Wii's and PS3's, and the trampling over of each other as the store doors open.

And then there's Leslie Harpold.

For the past 6 years Leslie has lovingly hand-crafted her Advent Calendar. Every year it's special and every year it manages to be the spark that reignites the hope for a happy holiday season by reminding us of the decency we are capable of as human beings.

Thanks for doing it again, Leslie.

And by the way; if you have a special holiday story to tell Leslie wants them.

Written by Mike Monteiro on December 1, 2006 |

Techno, Trucks, and Tubes

Bold Headed remixes my senator, Ted Stevens. DJ TED! (mp3)

(via Battelle via Gibson via AlterNet:PEEK)

Written by David McCreath on July 13, 2006 |

The Internet Is Not a Truck

It's a series of tubes.

I love this.

Written by Mike Monteiro on July 3, 2006 with 2 comments |

Voxy 4 You

When I was sixteen or seventeen or something like that me and a friend wandered into a steak shop in West Philly that we'd heard tell of. The place was called Abe's and there was a room in the back that was possibly smaller than the office I sit in today. It was packed and it stank so bad of sweat and beer and stank, but OH! the girls were really cute and kind of fucked-up looking with mismatched knee socks and interesting hair and thrift store dresses held together with safety pins.

And there was music! and it wasn't played very well, but it was played fast and hard and it was being played by PEOPLE I KNEW! And those PEOPLE I KNEW were playing short fast songs about not having money and going to the Jersey shore and Bitchin' Camaros. And, oh man, I had found SOMETHING, that in its attempt to be unimportant had managed to be worthwhile.

Anyone could do this. This is the simple most important thing I've learned in life. Anybody can do this.

Fast-forward a while to this thing called the Web. And again, anybody can do this. The early days (at least what I define as the early days) of the web gave me that same feeling as that stanky steak house. People had no idea what to do on the web, so they would try ANYTHING, and it was fucking glorious. People were failing in amazing wonderful ways. So then blogging tools show up and it becomes that much easier for someone to just start TALKING. Anyone can publish.

Then came business. Then came professional blogging, then came the books on HOW TO BLOG, and there are ways to blog in order to maximize your Google Adsense revenue, and hell you're just gonna grab the RSS feed anyway. And man oh man it got boring. And worst of all, it scared people away. Blogging, talking, writing on the web became something for professionals. Not something anybody could do at all.

So I've been playing with this thing called Vox, built by the fine people at Six Apart. It looks like a fine place to dive into writing online and deciding it's just for your friends to see and not worry about what you're saying too much. And to be honest, it feels a little messed up and a little chaotic and I get lost in it a bit. But it's FUN and it's filled with PEOPLE YOU KNOW. And I hope they never fix it up too much. Learning that 4th chord leads to a lot of trouble you don't need.

Written by Mike Monteiro on June 1, 2006 with 6 comments |

Anatomy of a Snoozefest

Seriously? People are getting bent out of shape about this? Take a look at Anatomy of a Shitstorm over on Valleywag. Also look at O’Reilly’s official response (I expect more to come.)

Okay, some over-eager lawyer for CMP (the company that runs the official Web 2.0 conference) sends a C&D to a little group telling them they can’t use “Web 2.0” in their conference name and suddenly the pitchforks and torches are out and the mob is howling for Tim O’Reilly’s head on a pike (overreact much?). Whoa. Have you learned nothing about lawyers? They do stuff like this all the time.

Here’s my suggestion. Let them have the stupid phrase. It’s three years old now. I don’t know a single developer that doesn’t roll his eyes when someone else refers to “Web 2.0” in any terms other than “oh that stupid buzz phrase”. It’s just the web. It evolves. It’s not a software package. It’s a network. Build the apps, build the sites, focus on the user, focus on making the web a better place to do business and to connect with other people and screw the buzz phrases.

UPDATE: Thanks to the fact that I work with actual designers, the shirt is now available in the Feed Store . Thanks, Amber!

Written by David McCreath on May 26, 2006 with 1 comments |

Matt Haughey finally loses it

Matt Haughey, who used to run Metafilter, shows off his mad macsaber skills.

Written by Mike Monteiro on May 22, 2006 |

TechCrunch: Respek, yo!

The Mules have noticed the hubbub regarding the new TechCrunch design. Some appear to be confused as to why the hubbub has grown so loud. For those of you who do not follow Valleywag, allow us to break it down.

TechCrunch launched a new design by Rachel Cunliffe last Friday. On Monday Michael Arrington, the head of TechCrunch, posted a screen shot of a TechCrunch redesign by Jeremy Baines to his blog and praised Baines for it. (Baines sent Arrington said design of his own accord.) Cunliffe resigned her position via her blog* in response to Arrington's praise of Baines' design.

So why is there so much hating going on?

When Designer and Client agree to work together on a website redesign, many hours are spent getting things just right. Designer works with Client to establish goals for the project. Designer does user research (hopefully) to make sure that Client's goals are in line with user priorities. Designer creates something that takes everything into account and shows it to Client. Then there's a back and forth, adding and subtracting, many hours put in to make sure not only that the design is where it needs to be, but that it does everything that Client (and users!) need it to do. The end result may not be what Designer or Client had originally intended. But there it is, the end result of a true collaboration and many hours of labor.

Then a stranger, who did not go through the above process (nor is privy to user research) goes and does a design for Client according to his own rules and on his own time. Then he sends it to Client. The intended message in that act appears to be one of disrespect not only for Designer and The Design but also for The Process.

Respect The Process. That is all we are saying.

*Mule Design in no way advocates quitting a job via one's personal weblog. We think it's pretty inappropriate. Update: Rachel was nice enough to contact us and clarify that she actually quit over e-mail and then announced it on her blog.

Written by katiespence on May 16, 2006 |

Hey YouTube,

How many days should I wait for that confirmation e-mail? Or should I go out to the mailbox? Is it in there? Oh, maybe you wrote it in the sky, or sent it Western Union, or maybe snuck it inside a fortune cookie. Oh, that would be cute!

Seriously, how long does it take to get a confirmation e-mail? And if e-mail is THIS broken maybe there's a better way to be doing the confirmation thing.

Update: In my ignorance I didn't realize that waiting for the confirmation email would pale in comparison to processing the video, which is about a minute long and now celebrating it's third birthday.

Written by Mike Monteiro on April 15, 2006 |

SXSWi was fun

We’re back from a fun weekend at SXSW. I’ll write up some details on a few panels later. But here are the highlights:

• Jon and Heather Armstrong are sweethearts.
• Andy Baio, where you put your links, and Jason Kottke, who is good for links, both need sandwiches.
• Whoever’s responsible for the Design and Social Responsibility panel should be shot.
• Ruby’s BBQ STILL makes the best home fries on the planet.
• Scott Beale is EVERYwhere. (He took that picture.)
• Michael Buffington had children because of me.
• Yes, that WAS me in the Podcast Pickle suit.
• Oh yes, there’s the Mena Trott thing I can’t talk about.

Written by Mike Monteiro on March 15, 2006 with 4 comments |

Coinage Alert: Metro-technical

n. Someone who's willing to try ANY piece of software or hardware for at least a week until the shine wears off and they go sniffing for the next buzz. The metro-technical is to the far left of the tech scale, equidistant from the suspender-wearing sys admin and the nervous iPod upgrader.

Yes, I mean you Michael.

Written by Mike Monteiro on February 24, 2006 with 2 comments |