Alan Is Good

Haiku Monday August 31, 2009

Life: Less about what

You learn, and more about what

You’ve known since day one

Haiku Monday August 24, 2009

Like an artist paints

Life is lived – a limitless

Dream canvass realized

Haiku Monday August 17, 2009

Spit on Aladdin’s

Foot today; feel Prince Ali’s

Dropkick tomorrow

Facebook Is Now In A Complicated Relationship With FriendFeed

First off, Facebook acquired FriendFeed for $50M this week.  If you’re not familiar with FriendFeed, its an aggregator of your activity on Facebook, *Twitter (<—- :-O )*, Youtube and dozens of other compatible social networks.  It’s a good site to use.  TechCrunch posted pics of the meeting:

Yeah, these guys party real hard.  Anyway, everyone goes around whispering that this is really bad news for Twitter, but 9 out of 10 people I asked couldn’t give a decent explanation for how or why.  Sensationalism and drama are awesome, don’t get me wrong, but its good to be able to simplify and dissect conflict. More »

Haiku Monday August 10, 2009

I can’t run or flee

That dastardly Weegee is

Coming to get me

This is Weegee.  But let’s talk about memes first.

Overexposure and the Lifecycle of Memes

I’d like to start off by addressing the issue of explaining/archiving memes that are born on message and image boards.  On a previous post of mine I referred everyone to sites like Encyclop(a)edia Dramatica, Know Your Meme and their RocketBoom series of YouTube videos for lurking and absorbing memes.  While those are wonderful resources for learning more about web memes and the culture of online communities, I dare admit to being savvy enough to know that theres a bit of a stigma about the impact of these sites on the lifecycle of a meme.  (What?)

Think RickRolling.  When it was on 4chan and other underground communities, it was viral and funny.  When it broke free and became mainstream, it was annoying.  When this happened. . .

. . . the meme was buried and spat upon.  Why?  Because the reason memes and jokes go viral in online communities is that they are inside jokes.  Inside jokes and references are what separate seasoned community members from n00bs. People aren’t in these boards to share mainstream jokes and simple gags – an actual sense of ‘community’ is what keeps them coming back for more (moar). More »

Haiku Monday August 3, 2009

They’ll boo, or they’ll cheer

Never will they say that I

Lived my life in fear