When Facebook gets as spammy as MySpace, are people gonna migrate elsewhere? Is there an eternal greener pasture, free of clutter, amazing deals and soft porn? Could such a social network grow large and resist the urge to ad widgetry and apps? If so, it will reflect the growing trend of “more might not equal better”.
While waiting, watch this video. It might make you start rolling on the floor, laughing [your] ass off.
thx sctt
UPDATE
5/31 Facebook Addiction Disorder
Brilliant article about brands as tradable commodities in the NYT mag on Sunday. Of course once a brand is relaunched, with it comes with a wholly new ad campaign, or at least a remix of old codes. Within this space, I’ve been wondering if there is also room to run historic ad campaigns.
So much of our personal relationships with brands are rooted not in the actual product, but in the advertising. We ‘love’ products that we may not have even used – their narrative is part of our own nostalgic construct. Can an old advert help create a new buy? I can’t see an agency suggesting it, but a planning firm might…
We’ve anted up with our friends at Fuel Industries and Oddcast to start a monthly party series called Mischief. Who can resist the siren song of sex + drugs + rock + roll?
So click me to RSVP.
And that’s the best thing too man. It just keeps going back to finding new sh*t. Let’s go out to this spot way out on Utica Avenue…and instead of getting off at the train spot that’s closest, maybe you take one farther out or get off at one early. And just try to look around you. You go to the same spot, but you find 10 new spots on the way there.
-NYC Skater Pat Smith, Deathbowl to Downtown
The more people I see twitting on Blackberries, the more I seek the skateboarder’s sense of curious chance. It’s not because of Luddite leanings, it’s that when we all start drinking from the same well, creative thinking can dry up. I believe that if we are to have value as parsers or creators, we need to look outward for thoughts and inspiration. The smartest people are tilting at windmills, not reading everyone else, keeping up with them Joneses.
So how to snort fewer pixels and keep vision fresh? Like Iain Tait, I’m rediscovering the use of pens and phones (4 tlk not 2 txt). My dude Adrian Lai taught me to batch my RSS feeds into different days of the week. And no PDA.
Obvs millennials make no distinction between on and offline. But that doesn’t mean virtual offices are the future. First Life aint dead, it’s just getting remixed and coming back stronger – witness the rise of Steampunk, Farming & Etsy. And on its heels might come a new luxury space, defined by the ability to disconnect.
When Desedo Films comes to your ‘hood (at five in the morning), believe that we’re coming away with something fresh (and a hacking cough). Hat tip to Sobotka for the inspiration.
Our friend Anj authors the funnest blog Great Googly Moogly. Her site was borne out of image searches for things like “inspiration” or “totally fun”. Love that. Could she make money by turning the blog into a full blown image farm? Pulling all the top results from key image searches, then hosting them, building supporting links and selling adspace if traffic rolls in? Basically hijacking Google Images (GI). Or could one create adspace sites based upon echoing the daily content that creeps up the Digg charts? People would land there via google keyword searches, and if the content was humorous op-ed, it could even be worth reading. Like an external comment board or the Buzzfeed aggregator. Prolly exists already, send me a link if you’ve got it.
I’ve been thinking about this because in March there was an image of the Kool Aid man on Digg. As it rose to the top of the heap, people began searching for it on Google and arriving on our site, as we too had a picture of the Kool Aid man, but different from the in question. And now somedays we are the 4th result in a GI search for Kool Aid. Somedays MIA.
What other googlery lands folks on Des Temps? Image search Nerd and we’re #5. We’re #s 1, 2 & 3 for Black Nerds. Searches for Marc Jacobs and Max Ernst also bring us new friends. And the true feather in our cap is being 13th in the hunt for Old Volvos. So so so. Going beyond whimsy and eschewing adsense, is there anything of note that we can do with these results? SEO suggestions welcomed.
UPDATE:
5/15/08 For the last few days we were #1 GI for Larry Bird.
5/22/08 Today we are #1 in a GI search for Max Ernst.
6/9/08 #2 for Bush Cheney.
6/24/08 #5 for Dinosaur Fight.
6/26/08 #4 for Ritalin
While I’m a city mouse through and through, I’ve got a wicked greenstreak. Grew up tromping about barefoot, worked for the NYC Parks department and then stepped off the grid to go farming. And then when I entered the TV game, my first two shows involved gardening and organica.
And so this spring I’ve found myself spending as much time as possible working in my backyard. And, uh, skipping industry and social events so that I could head home to prune rosebushes, transplant hostas and befriend snails.
(don’t front, you know it’s cool)
In my head, I’ve been seeing colors like Dr. Seuss.
So. If any of our dear readers want to bask in the glow of these here flowers, get some dirt under yer fingernails and crush a cup of wine with us, certainly send an email.
(We’re not a cult. I promise.)