willswideweb

Teenagers. Probably.

…or it may not get used at all.

Oh, and try to respond at the very least within 24 hours.

From: Will Head
Date: Feb 7, 2008 10:13 AM
Subject: Re: [your product] high resolution images
To: [company person]

Hi [company person],

Don’t worry - we’ve found something else we can use.

Thanks,

Will

On 2/7/08, [company person] wrote:
> Dear Will,
>
> there is no problem to send you some high res pics, however can you clarify
> the type of publication that is being produced?
>
> And we would also require that you could confirm that the company and
> product information would be used in conjunction with any images.
>
> Regards
>
> [company person]
>
>
>
> ——– Original Message ——–
> Subject: [your product] high resolution images
> From: “Will Head”
> Date: Tue, February 05, 2008 4:58 pm
> To: [company person]
>
> Hi,
>
> I’m working on [a magazine]. Would it be
> possible to get some high resolution images of [your product]?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Will
> –
> Freelance journalist:
> music, internet, technology, consumer electronics

Genius. And I actually learnt something.

[Robbed from: Duncan]

[More: CES 2008 : The Rap]

And no, it’s not the fact everyone is calling it GizmodoGate (slapping gate on the end of something does not make it a sensational scoop. It just makes you look like a lazy, uninspired, second rate writer with no ambition, ability or inspiration).

If you have even a passing interest in tech, then you can’t have helped but notice a modest gathering going on in Las Vegas last week. Everyone shipped out to the dessert for the Consumer Electronics Show, ready to be wowed by the thousands of vendors showing off their annual wares. CES isn’t an easy show to cover - it’s absolutely huge. It fills not only the entire Las Vegas Convention Center, the slightly smaller Sands Convention Center, nearly all of the exhibition space in the Hilton plus the lion’s share of the ballrooms in the Venetian. All this for five days of tech geekery.

However, with so much noise out there, companies are literally falling over one another to have the flashiest, brightiest, lightiest booth to wow the assembled press and buyers into visiting its stand - which means loud soundsystems, scantily clad women, men in fancy dress and a plethora of slick, tightly edited videos, featuring beautiful people having AMAZING fun with its product, plastered across plasma after plasma as far as the eye can see. It can be a little overwhelming, and doesn’t make it easy to find the good products among the mediocre, the tacky and the iPod accessories.

This year was no different - if anything it was one of the biggest yet product-wise - but while there was certainly plenty to see it was lacking anything major. There was no Xbox 360 or PS3 or Vista or even a spoiler pre-announcement of a touchy-feely phone 600 miles away to steal the show. And when faced with such a situation you have to make your own entertainment, which is exactly what gadget blog Gizmodo did. Armed with just camcorder and a remote control programmed with the switch off codes for almost every TV ever made. Point it at a TV in a bar that’s blaring away when you want some peace and quiet and it’s quickly silenced. Turn it on a wall of LCDs looping through product demo after product demo and the result should be much more satisfying.

So the Giz boys hit the floor and zapped. And zapped. And zapped some more until their was nothing more to switch off bar the Panasonic 150in fertility symbol - which is so far from being an actual real telly anytime soon it didn’t even have a remote control. The video quietly slipped onto the Gizmodo site among the other 4,397 stories filed from the show floor and quicker than you can switch off the last remaining screen on a presenter valiantly ploughing on through a speech beset with TV technical problems, an all mighty shit storm erupted all over the internet - no doubt fueled by the fact there was little else big to write about.

Condemnation and persecution bounced furiously around the blogging echo chamber, building up venom with each reverberation. It was like one big pile on as the third tier/rate blogs all clambered over one another to release stored reserves of pent up anger against Gizmodo because for years they’ve had to pretend to be best buddies despite it stealing all their content and only linking back one time in ten.

“I didn’t want to weigh in on this because I know all the parties involved,” started John Biggs over a CrunchGear, before weighing in a further 1,000 bitter, bitter words on the subject. But then if Gizmodo’s making page impressions from the stunt, then you might as well at least try and claw some back by being the most over the top in condemning it. “Too Bad Gizmodo / Gawker Media is Not Public,” pondered Zoli Erdos because if if it was then EVERYONE would be able to ruin its share price. YEAH! Because everyone cares soo much and has the power to make such a significant difference to the financial markets. Robert Scoble said something unintelligible like “WAH WAH - no one’s linking to ME! I AM TEH INTERNET. Behold my marvellous (sponsored*) PODCASTS.” before vacuously imploding into a ball of self created hype.

The fracas even hit the top of TechMeme for a day - which is the tech blogger’s equivalent of Bryan Adams topping the singles chart for 13 years with (Everything I Do) I Do It for You.

But despite all the thinly disguised animosity and chest puffing about it setting blogging back five years (it hasn’t - because there isn’t any difference between a blog and a traditional media organisation at the Gizmodo level) no one has seemed to noticed the one big problem in all of this: the video itself. It’s fucking awful. The idea is a good stunt, but it’s executed appallingly. There’s no narrative, no story, no close up reaction shots of people’s confusion - even Jackass had better direction and more engaging footage. Gizmodo may not have changed the status of blogging in the media hierarchy, but they’ve proved people will watch any old shit on the internet. Over and over again. Welcome to the new race to the bottom.

He also has no fixed abode, as of next week, as he’s travelling around the world.

Here’s what he said:

If you have a blog, please, please, create a link to SFTGE (acronym heaven, I tells ya). Get people clicking on it. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your cats about it. If you run out of internet one lunchtime, give it a click and a read. It’s going to be good, promise.

So here it is: Sorryforthegroupemail.com

The lion didn’t stand a chance.

Only a girl would order such a measly portion…

Snapped in Jersey.

Fascinating logic.

[More: Ananova - ‘Gay’ peacock tried to have sex with car]

[Robber from: Brand Infection via FFFFOUND!]

Radiohead’s next album is being released without a record label. The band made a surprise announcement: Their new album is finished and will be available only through their website, starting on October 10th. There are two options to buy: A “discbox” edition that includes vinyl, CDs and bonus materials, or just a simple digital download, for which the buyer gets to set the price.

[Robbed from: BuzzFeed via Dan]

[More: “Hello everyone. Well, the new album is finished.”]

[Robbed from: FFFFOUND!]

[Robbed from: Nick Douglas]

[Related: Wow - that’s harsh]

Spooky.

[Robbed from: FFFFOUND!]

So, what do you do if a student starts asking John Kerry awkward questions at an event? Why Taser him, of course.

Although it would be a better video if the person filming it realised the camera wasn’t their eye…

[More: UF Student tasered at John Kerry Speech]

[Robbed from: BuzzFeed]

Fnar.

No, not that type. More the scary, swallow you up into the ground type. Yikes.

[More: 7 amazing holes]

[Robbed from: Nick Douglas]

Wow.

[More: YouTube - LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!]

[Robbed from: LinkMachineGo]

CrunchFood - the latest addition to the Crunch network:

The minute chicken kicked beef to the curb for dominant market share in the DAF (dead animal food) category, we knew it wouldn’t be long before the imitators would come looking for their slice of the pie. Today comes word of Turkey, a rare animal whose name (and flesh) may soon be on your lips and tongue.

Even the comments are in keeping with the house style:

I got into the beta for turkey but it’s just so dry. Michael–I think you might be interested in one of my clients–Duck. Though only offering dark meat, it is contained in a significantly smaller package (read portability) and has ever juicy meat. It hardly needs basting yet produced succulent breasts and tights that are full of flavor. If you would like to speak with an executive for Duck for a future posting, you can reach me at the email address above. Regards, Sean

This will, of course, mean nothing if you don’t read TechCrunch.

[More: Michael Arrington’s CrunchFood]

[Robbed from: Valleywag]

[More: The Serif - Cool advertising!]

[Robbed from: Bobbie]

While trying to install a couple of Vista updates, Microsoft made me me jump through the normal “Have you got a proper paid for copy of Vista there, sonny?” checks - except this time, for some reason, it failed:

As it is a valid copy of Windows, I thought it just needed a reboot to sort it out (it is actually amazing the number of problems that can indeed be solved by turning it off and back on again…). On getting back into Windows I was welcomed by various friendly reminders that I might be running hookey software:

Even the system info box has changed from a pretty Genuine Windows logo to a link reading: Get a proper copy of Vista, you thieving scum Get genuine…

After an hour or so of arguing with Microsoft’s webpages, it’s still not giving in. My only option is to use the hidden link to submit a support request, pleading with them to recognise it as genuine. EXCEPT THAT PAGE DOESN’T WORK. Brilliant.

How much is a MacBook these days?

From: Arsebook.org - Anyone Heard of It?

I just found Arsebook.org via Stumbleupon. Many of you social networkers will realize it looks strikingly similar to Facebook, except its red and has a different tag line:

Arsebook is an anti-social utility that connects you with the people YOU HATE.

I didn’t register since I’m afraid it’s just a big scam to get e-mail addresses, but is it really a real site? If so, what can you do if you register?

Nah - I reckon it’s legit.

[Robbed from: Andy Davidson via Richard]

Now, that’s actually quite funny.

In other news, the word gullible has been removed from the dictionary…

[More: Let Me Tell You A Story about a kid named Spidey]

People that use them might, but then they might do in real life too.

Still, the article’s worth reading just for the hopelessly inappropriate phrase ‘on the hit website You Tube‘.

There’s also something a bit ominous about the ‘24 hours a day’ tagline: I sentence you to the Daily Mail, 24 hours a day…

[More: Daily Mail - ‘Social websites like MySpace encourage anorexia’, warn charities]

More from lichtfaktor but this time, animated (for cash).

[More: Star Wars Vs Star Trek]

[Robbed from: David]

Take one camera, a long exposure, several torches and some wavy arms. Voila:

[More: Flickr: Photos from lichtfaktor]

[Robbed from: Dan]

There’s a story on the Times’ site about Facebook having to sell a big part of the company to buy more servers as it couldn’t cope with the rapidly increasing number of users.

That’s if you can actually reach the Times’ site at the moment - it appears to be suffering from too much traffic…