This week Amazon released the Kindle, a wireless book-, newspaper- and blog-reading device for the low, low price of $400. If only it wasn’t so damn expensive. If only it didn’t require a subscription fee. If only books were free to access. If only it read books to me in Sean Connery’s voice. Sigh.
It’s official. Facebook will be removing the word “is” from status updates. No longer will we be limited to passive forms of verbs when sharing our status with our friends. Now it’s all about action people! Booyah!
[UPDATE] As of Thursday, Dec. 13, and after weeks of teasing and waiting (and waiting, and waiting), the removal of “is” has finally become a reality. Thanks, Facebook. I know you’ve had a few other things going on lately with petitions against you, threats of lawsuits, and your CEO making dumb comments. I’m glad you still managed to take the time out to remove those two little letters. It must have been a struggle, but I really appreciate it.
I recently read on several blogs about MySpace’s launch of a web-only series titled, “quarterlife,” so I decided to check it out this week solely because it is a new project from the creators of 30something and one of my favorite shows from my teenage years, “My So-Called Life.” MySpace had aired four super-short (we’re talking 5-8 minute) episodes already, so I watched them all back to back. The show is very weak in my opinion, with the main character an idiot who thinks she can video blog about all her friends and no one will find out. Of course they do find out and get all pissy, but oh no, that doesn’t stop her. Apparently, she’s on a mission to see how quickly she can lose all her friends. I’d like to think that people gain a little more wisdom by the time they reach their “quarterlife,” an age range I currently reside within.
Then I read today that NBC is picking up the show for prime time. Apparently, the network is feeling the pressure of the writers’ strike and is looking for shows with pre-written episodes ready to go, in case this strike continues on for some time. I know you’re hurting NBC, and you’ve been hurting for a couple years, but honestly, do you think this show has a future? The opening dialog consists of Dylan (the main character referenced above) trying to blog and asking herself in her video blog, “What is a blog? Why do we blog? We blog to exist, therefore…therefore, we are idiots.” No honey, we are not idiots. That honor goes just to you at this moment.
It’s good to know that we blog to exist though. I mean, I could be dead right now if I didn’t have my blog. I’d be wandering through the streets of Washington aimlessly, looking for the direction that only an internet diary can provide me with. Jesus Christ people, I’m nearly drowning in to melodramatism.
Instead of picking up lame shows NBC, why don’t you focus on maintaining profits by not picking fights with Apple over iTunes prices? Or how about keeping solid writers employed, instead of leaving one of your oldest programs with a skeleton staff? I know you have some good shows, even if I don’t watch any of them. Rumors suggest you might even have been the best network at some point in the distant past. I don’t know if I believe it anymore. Even Jay Leno picks on his own network nightly during his opening monologue.
Buck up NBC. At least you have one thing going for you: you’re not this network.
After a somewhat extended hiatus, I have decided to revive my personal blog. The former location of this blog was MySpace, which I have, for all intents and purposes, retired from using.
However, I do maintain two other academic/professional blogs:
The first one is on the gnovis website and relates to the issues of my program (ie, communication, culture and technology). gnovis is a student-run, peer-reviewed, online academic journal, for which I am the Peer Review Manager.
My second blog is posted on the Pew Internet & American Life Project website and deals with similar themes, mainly the impact of technology on society. Unfortunately, I do not have a direct link to my posts on this site, so you either have to scroll through or search me by name.
I may just start linking those posts to this blog, so I have one central location for all of my deep musings. However, I do not currently have the brain power to consider the implications of this at the moment. So deal.
jessica vitak, phd 