flakes of nuisance » social media tools http://mcneillfamily.com paying attention to distractions since 1958 Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:49:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 Google Engineer: “Google+ is a Prime Example of Our Complete Failure to Understand Platforms”http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/10/15/google-engineer-%e2%80%9cgoogle-is-a-prime-example-of-our-complete-failure-to-understand-platforms%e2%80%9d/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/10/15/google-engineer-%e2%80%9cgoogle-is-a-prime-example-of-our-complete-failure-to-understand-platforms%e2%80%9d/#comments Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:51:15 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6647 Last night, high-profile Google engineer Steve Yegge mistakenly posted a long rant about working at Amazon and Google’s own issues with creating platforms on Google+. Apparently, he only wanted to share it internally with everybody at Google, but mistaken shared it publicly. For the most part, Yegge’s post focusses on the horrors of working at Amazon, a company that is notorious for its political infighting. The most interesting part to me, though, is Yegge’s blunt assessment of what he perceives to be Google’s inability to understand platforms and how this could endanger the company in the long run.

Google Engineer: [

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]]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/10/15/google-engineer-%e2%80%9cgoogle-is-a-prime-example-of-our-complete-failure-to-understand-platforms%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0 “too like it”http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/06/29/too-like-it/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/06/29/too-like-it/#comments Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:08:17 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6624

]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/06/29/too-like-it/feed/ 0 Our Societyhttp://mcneillfamily.com/2011/02/09/our-society/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/02/09/our-society/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:59:51 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6505

Our Society is:

a place to be inspired by possibilities and celebrate achievements a place to share your struggles and engage in honest, open discussion a support network where you can ask for advice, offer help, promote your activities a learning exchange where you tell your story, hear others’ experiences, and find resources

Our Society aims to connect people who are genuinely concerned to move power into communities and [

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]]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/02/09/our-society/feed/ 0 Egypt’s Revolution: Coming to an Economy Near Youhttp://mcneillfamily.com/2011/02/03/egypts-revolution-coming-to-an-economy-near-you/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/02/03/egypts-revolution-coming-to-an-economy-near-you/#comments Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:02:11 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6491 All of which brings me back to Egypt as the canary in a very large coal mine. It’s hard to overstate just how unexpected a transformation is occurring in Egypt. Death, taxes, and Hosni Mubarak — they were the three great certainties in modern Egyptian life.

But just underneath the surface, the tectonic pressure of dumb growth was steadily mounting. Bogus prosperity’s like magma, filling the volcanic chamber of a society: you can bottle it up for only so long before it erupts, and spectacularly. Today, the world’s gaze is fixed on the pyroclastic flow: never-ending demonstrations, protests, people [

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]]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/02/03/egypts-revolution-coming-to-an-economy-near-you/feed/ 0 “Squirrels” And 100 Other Reasons Why Tumblr Is Downhttp://mcneillfamily.com/2011/01/19/%e2%80%9csquirrels%e2%80%9d-and-100-other-reasons-why-tumblr-is-down/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/01/19/%e2%80%9csquirrels%e2%80%9d-and-100-other-reasons-why-tumblr-is-down/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:30:02 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6451

With Tumblr recently experiencing a 24-hour offline stint and a reported single 9 of service reliability, there are plenty of jokes about the microblogging service’s infamous downtime (most I’ve heard have at least a tenuous WikiLeaks connection).

Here’s the most Tumblr elaborate satire piece yet: Go to http://wellbebackshortly.com/ and hit refresh. Hit refresh again, and again.

Created by Adam Hemphill, the site is a riff on the Tumblr “We’ll Be Back Shortly” page and generates over a hundred hypothetical excuses as to why Tumblr is down so Tumblr doesn’t have to. (Tumblr is currently UP, at the moment.)

[

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]]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/01/19/%e2%80%9csquirrels%e2%80%9d-and-100-other-reasons-why-tumblr-is-down/feed/ 0 King Kenny … long live the King!http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/01/10/king-kenny-long-live-the-king/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/01/10/king-kenny-long-live-the-king/#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:30:49 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6444

]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2011/01/10/king-kenny-long-live-the-king/feed/ 0 good advicehttp://mcneillfamily.com/2010/11/19/good-advice/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/11/19/good-advice/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:55:52 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6278

]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/11/19/good-advice/feed/ 0 I am Spartacus – Twitter goes bonkers #IAmSpartacushttp://mcneillfamily.com/2010/11/12/i-am-spartacus-twitter-goes-bonkers-iamspartacus/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/11/12/i-am-spartacus-twitter-goes-bonkers-iamspartacus/#comments Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:45:15 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6235 “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!! #IAmSpartacus #twitterjoketrial “

]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/11/12/i-am-spartacus-twitter-goes-bonkers-iamspartacus/feed/ 0 Twitter and Facebook cannot change the real world, says Malcolm Gladwellhttp://mcneillfamily.com/2010/10/05/twitter-and-facebook-cannot-change-the-real-world-says-malcolm-gladwell/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/10/05/twitter-and-facebook-cannot-change-the-real-world-says-malcolm-gladwell/#comments Tue, 05 Oct 2010 10:27:07 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6059

Social networks, those loose, busy and self-absorbing communities of Facebookers and Twitterers, have always invited analogies from the insect world. If we are to accept the most common of them, then in the past week, Malcolm Gladwell, provocateur-in-chief at the New Yorker magazine, has poked a sharp stick into the online ants’ nest. The twitterers have responded to his provocation by swarming on to blogs and websites to protect their uniting belief: that the future belongs to them.

Gladwell is a spirited contrarian. His argument in the New Yorker was an attack on the prevalent idea that online [

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]]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/10/05/twitter-and-facebook-cannot-change-the-real-world-says-malcolm-gladwell/feed/ 0 How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Todayhttp://mcneillfamily.com/2010/10/03/how-facebook-can-become-bigger-in-five-years-than-google-is-today/ http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/10/03/how-facebook-can-become-bigger-in-five-years-than-google-is-today/#comments Sun, 03 Oct 2010 11:59:10 +0000 admin http://mcneillfamily.com/?p=6043 Remember three years ago, when Microsoft paid a quarter-billion dollars for 1.6% of Facebook and the exclusive right to run banner ads across Facebook.com? Tell the truth, how many of you thought that was a killer business decision? I can’t say I did at the time. But as that deal is about to expire in 2011, Facebook’s status as a revenue juggernaut is rarely questioned any more.

In fact, I have been mulling over data from both companies, and I’m ready to declare in public my belief that Facebook will be bigger in five years than Google is right [

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]]]> http://mcneillfamily.com/2010/10/03/how-facebook-can-become-bigger-in-five-years-than-google-is-today/feed/ 0