John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

We like to watch

As participatory as that darn Web 2.0 can be, it really comes down to most people standing on the sidelines. Or so it seems. And, in the interest of being passive, I'm going to turn you over now to Alan at Gen X at 50 40, who already has what I would point you toward anyway.

A clock with handwritten appeal

No doubt your computer has a clock on it, but here's an option to keep handy for time-checks: a handwitten version. The above capture shows the date; the hours, minutes and seconds are constantly changing. Check it out.

McSweeney's: A course outline that's probably closer than we think

McSweeney's offers notes on the "Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview," for the Perez Hilton generation.

You can't just sign up for this imaginary course. You need some prerequisites:

Students must have completed at least two of the following.

ENG: 232WR—Advanced Tweeting: The Elements of Droll
LIT: 223—Early-21st-Century Literature: 140 Characters or Less
ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking
ENG: 301—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming
ENG: 231WR—Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance
LIT: 202—The Literary Merits of Lolcats
LIT: 209—Internet-Age Surrealistic Narcissism and Self-Absorption

Ouch. The rest is here.

Excellent YouTube tricks

Learned several things here about YouTube that I hadn't known before. Check it out.

Recently, on Twitter

My non-Twittering friends and family (that is, almost everyone) ask what the deal with Twitter is. To each their own; I like the tips to stuff I didn't know, but I also get a kick out of the observations that flow by ... sometimes by friends, sometimes by total strangers. A few from the last while:

SteveIsaacs Robin Williams and Bono have aged into the same man.

Karen_Nfld Mural on Blackhead Road - http://bit.ly/qMF9c #nlblog #photog

shelleypardy feeding baby mcmessy mess while toddler mcprincess pants watches sleeping beauty for the gajillionth time

slashdot Reflections On the Less-Cool Effects of Filesharing http://tinyurl.com/crjssb

eBourque is finished j-school!! Anyone want to give me a job?

Oprah skews the Twitter signal-to-noise ratio

Oprah jumped on Twitter on Friday morning, creating what the New York Times is reporting as both boon and bane for network:

Some power users, like Andrew Davis, chief strategy officer for TippingPoint Labs, an online marketing company, worry that Twitter’s potential to transform how millions of people communicate online is diminishing as more people use it.

“When someone like Oprah, who is a very smart businesswoman, sees that a new media platform is worthy of her engaging on it, it signifies a real sea change,” he said. “The mega-celebrity marketing machine that is Oprah seems like the next level of adoption.”

Mr. Davis said the service was overflowing with messages, known as tweets, making it hard to filter out the important ones. Indeed, within moments of Ms. Winfrey’s first post, thousands of tweets began flowing through the system each second, welcoming the media mogul to the service.

“People can no longer digest the content,” Mr. Davis said. “You start to think, what am I really getting out of this service?”

Another worry is that the Web site, which has suffered from outages and attacks by malicious hackers, will not be able to handle the crush of new visitors eager to try out the service.

But none of that seemed to deter Twitter’s newest members, who signed up after the afternoon broadcast of Ms. Winfrey’s show.

I noticed, for what it's worth, that the CBC Newfoundland and Labrador Twitter account, which I look after, picked up more new followers in the last 24 hours or so than in any other day. Just saying.

Me and an iceberg, cartoonized

I've been having a bit of fun with BeFunky, a free and almost-too-easy web-based pic plaything. This is yours truly, standing in front of an iceberg that was off Cape Spear a couple of years ago, as modified by the "cartoonizer" option. There are others to play with. Have some fun.

For the moments when tinyurl is just plain wrong ...

.... you'll want HugeURL. Hilarious.

Flutter: For those who find Twitter too expansive

From Slate, a parody that Twitter types should find amusing.

Webware 100

Voting in the Webware 100, which recognizes the best online applications, is open. Even if you don't feel evangelistic about a favourite app, you can learn a lot by seeing what's made this year's cut.