mway’s blog

(x-posted to Situation Interactive)

Okay, “time bomb” is a bit dramatic. Still, if you look at the span of modern civilization, much of the caliber of a nation is determined by the strength of its working class, which is, in turn, defined by how much work there actually is to do (and how many people there are to do it).

So, let’s imagine for a moment that we live in a world where technology evolves at an exponential rate. Let’s also imagine that, as newer and more efficient technologies emerge, they effectively do more work in less time with fewer resources (by definition). This ultimately means that there are fewer jobs available. Could this be a problem?

I’m not necessarily a neotechological-evangelist (I made that up, it sounded fancy in my head), but I think that, before too long (relatively speaking – maybe in the next 10-20 years), we will be faced with a shocking realization: all of those crazy futuristic scenarios we’d seen in movies or read about in books (what is… book?) will be becoming reality and all at once, we will stop dead in our tracks and muse, “Holy shit, it really happened”.

In the end, though (not of the world – after intense internal debate at Situation, we’ve decided will likely NOT end on December 21st, 2012, if you were wondering), it all comes down to gradual change. If this were an abrupt milestone – meaning, if some new technology emerged that changed the world in a very short amount of time – there might be some sort of social recoil, but as we are mostly accustomed to the rate at which our technology advances, we will probably be welcoming these changes every step of the way.

What’s the point, though? As needs and markets change, as manned factories are converted to automated processes, and as a human buffer is decreasingly necessary for societal interaction (meaning we don’t need middlemen to facilitate what we do – consider old switchboard operators, versus web servers that post our comments now, or allow us to video chat, etc), we will ultimately end up shifting our roles in the grand scheme of things. The web architects of today will be the pathfinders of tomorrow, and while labor will likely always be present (at least for a time), more and more people will continue to become tech-savvy and be involved with advanced technological fields.

The other day, I saw something deeply troubling.  It caused a fair amount of confusion at first and, for a brief moment, made me question reality: Microsoft is putting IE8 on a pedestal and discrediting every other major browser.  While not entirely shocking, this came from the same company whose reps, when at web conferences, would start with things like, “Okay, so… we know you guys hate us.  And we know we suck, but we’re trying to get better.”  Now, now, Microsoft.  Life isn’t all that bad.

That isn’t to say it’s all that good, either.  From a company whose strength lies in proprietary software, platforms, and standards, it’s hard to see Microsoft being very much in line with the evolving web.  If you consider the fact that the Internet (aka, Al Gore’s Internet Tubes) is evolving to be a global social community, and the technologies used are becoming more and more widespread, it makes less sense to keep everything under lock and key as time goes on.  Granted, Microsoft has been making decent (albeit abstract) progress with new services like Bing, but they have a long, long way to go.

Anyway – a recent IE8 promo stated that IE8 is essentially the king of all browsers.  Microsoft boldly states that features like security, privacy, ease of use, reliability, compatibility, and manageability are benefits exclusive to the latest Internet Explorer release.  Anyone who has used IE8, Firefox, Chrome (the only 3 browsers Microsoft samples), Safari, and Opera for about 5 minutes knows that this is a complete farce bordering on insanity. You’re right, Microsoft – most web-based exploits don’t stem from ActiveX controls or browser security loopholes in IE.  Errrr… right.  It’s both largely disrespectful and an outright lie to actually promote their checklist as being anything remotely true.  It is beyond me how anyone can buy into that at all – somewhere, on some level, Microsoft has to realize that they are not pioneering anything anymore.

For example, both Safari (which was not sampled) and Firefox make use of extensive security controls.  Safari 4 was released with “Privacy Mode”.  Firefox, Safari, and Chrome are all massively simple to use, and if you use a final release of Firefox, both Firefox and Safari and extremely reliable (despite FF’s memory issue).  Firefox is extremely compatible, with its endless supply of add-ons and great support for migrating from IE (good thinking, Mozilla).

Tangent: I guess “browser security” depends on your definition, though – whether they mean from the outside, or from yourself, because when you’re coming from something like Vista, everything at least seems secure.  Do you want to do that?  Are you sure you want to do that?  You need to confirm that you want to do that.  Are you sure that you want to confirm that you want to do that? They really set themselves up sometimes.

Moral of the story: don’t buy into any company (not just Microsoft, but specifically in this example) propagandizing you; find out for yourself.  If you don’t know enough to find out for yourself, get a general consensus from the web – do some kind of research – otherwise, we will be chained to the sinking ship that is bad browsers until propriety drags us to its cold depths.

Once upon a time, I had dealings with BuyDomains.com.  By “I had dealings”, I mean that I was interested in a domain and inquired about it once I saw that it was a ubiquitous generic search page, and was then told that it would cost me thousands of dollars.  I had reps trying to negotiate with me, set up payment plans, and commit to paying exorbitant amounts of money.  If this has ever happened to you, I’m sure you are currently commiserating.

Personally, I believe in old fashioned business models.  You know, the kind where you do something, then people pay you for the fact that you actually did something for them.  There’s something about not working hard for your money that really, really bothers me – thus, I would like to mention, for the record, that domain squatters are my mortal enemies.  Why?  Because they do nothing, and charge you ridiculous amounts of money for it.  They register a domain, put up one of their completely retarded and utterly pointless search pages, and then put a 4-5 digit price tag on it, just because they can.  Some people will say, “but that’s legit – they’re making money, they got there first; if they can get someone to pay that, more power to them”.  I say fuck those people and their domain squatter loving ways, if we’re being honest here.  The friend of my enemy is also my enemy.  Er, I think it’s supposed to be the other way around, but whatever.

Anyway – imagine that you are in a startup, and you have a great thing going. You’ve worked hard on your business model, you have everything mapped out, you have a great product, and you’re ready to start working on your web presence.  I’d estimate that at least 7 out of 10 (maybe more) companies in this situation will be thwarted by people just sitting on their top few domain choices, just waiting for someone to buy into the stupidity of the squatter business model and shell over some cash.  It’s bullshit.

If you ask me, domain squatting is much akin to spam – both are totally worthless and a complete detriment to the web.  They take up space, obstruct and obfuscate the concept of discovery and possession, and are just really slimy ways of doing business.  If you are a domain squatter yourself, contact me so I can personally berate you.

Now that I got that out, I’m going to go have a beer and celebrate today’s Situation team win.

I would like to revisit the idea that when you give people who have any number of minor social issues something like Twitter, you’re asking for trouble.  The hyper person, the boring but overly conversational person, the oh-my-god-I-just-found-the-best-deal-on-plaid-pants-pls-RT person, the I HAVE THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IDEAS EVER LET’S TALK ABOUT IT… BUT AFTER I’M DONE AT MY 6TH INDUSTRY CONFERENCE THIS WEEK person, and the incredibly simple bandwagon tutorial person are all common people to encounter on Twitter.

To be blunt, every time I read a tweet even vaguely related to anything in the above paragraph, I wish I were a) blind, b) mildly retarded and couldn’t understand what I was reading, or c) naive enough to think that any of those cliche (and common) scenarios were worth reading about.

I’ll get to the point – if you are using Twitter in a semi-professional capacity, or if you have more than two thousand followers or so, you should be tweeting with incredible scrutiny.  You should not be retweeting stupid things, or assaulting your followers with a consistent stream of RT’s that contain nothing but mindless content.  Yes, I know – “stupid things” and “mindless content” are subjective – but we all know where to draw the line.  If you don’t know, I’d be happy to draw it for you.

Consider the following:

I especially love the suggestions people give for how to be just as annoying as they are.  I have a tip (write this down): if you find yourself feeling like “you don’t know what to retweet”, DON’T FUCKING RETWEET ANYTHING. PERIOD.

Twitter is great, fun, useful, a cure for boredom, etc.  As with anything, there is an inherent amount of bullshit involved regardless – the spammers, the con artists, the “U CAN MAKE $80K/YR WORKING FROM HOME!” people that have especially come out of the woodwork lately, etc – but everyone should still do their part to not contribute to an epic humanity fail.

This also gives rise to the fact that, since Twitter gained popularity – and since Facebook became mainstream – everyone is out to become a social media expert. There isn’t anything in the world that makes me quite as nauseous as a teeming multitude of “social media experts” all screaming to be heard and out-tweet each other. I shudder at the thought.

Anyway, more on that later.

For the record: I’m sure the people that I used as examples above are fantastic, talented, knowledgeable people.  This is nothing personal, just that someone needed to go under the bus for the sake of example.

All throughout history, humanity has largely revolved around recognition.  As time passes, we have little left to remind us of past ages, save what monuments (figurative and literal) have been established by our deeds… or something like that.

Facebook, though, seems to think that a name in itself is quite enough, if only it were repeated 12 times on the same page for everyone to remember it:

Don’t get me wrong, I like my name – this, though, is a little overkill. In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if Facebook offset the organic search rankings of personal websites. Just in case you didn’t know: my name is Matt Way, and I am on Facebook.

Anyway, at 12AM EST last night, Facebook launched the vanity URL feature, where users could use usernames in their Facebook URLs instead of profile.php?id=506358811.  Within 15 minutes, 200,000 users chose URLs.  Within an hour, over half a million people used this feature.  The process is so simple that I was able to do it drunk, standing outside of a bar in Brooklyn at 12:09AM EST (I love you, Google G1 phone).

With the addition of vanity URLs, though (which I’m still bitter about, because ‘mway’ is too short – cut me some slack here, I can’t help that I have a short name), users can now gain that clutch 13th name drop on Facebook pages (when visitors are not logged in).  Psychologists (et al) say that if something is repeated, what, 5 times, you’re bound to remember it – hell, Facebook felt that almost tripling that was a good way to make sure that our names live forever in the memories of search engines.

So, if you haven’t yet, go to http://www.facebook.com/username/, pick a Facebook username/vanity URL, and ensure a little bit of e-immortality.

It’s both awesome and sad how I can cite Penny Arcade to express exactly how I feel at almost any point in time.  That said, here is how I currently feel about the internet:

I think this is sufficient enough to avoid captioning.

Maybe it’s living in New York that makes things seem more dire than they really are.  Maybe it’s trends like Twitter.  Who knows – the point is, things get really old, and fast.

When I say things get really old, I don’t necessarily mean that they are useless – I mean that, in no uncertain terms, the people who exploit these things are ass clowns.  To expand on the word exploit in this context: anyone who continually produces useless stuff because they think the “next big web app” is built entirely on a single, trendy social medium and regurgitates stale technology that is only minimally different than anything else because no one has any goddamn ingenuity whatsoever.

I’m all for improving things, but jesus christ, please do just that: improve them.  Almost every web, desktop, and device app in recent memory that has even the faintest whiff of social networking has been exactly the same; what’s worse, there are retards out there who eat this shit up.  I won’t go so far as to hope for a technological dark age, but something really, really needs to come along to put all of this shit out of its misery.  To be fair, that could very well be a technological evolution of sorts – and yes, that sort of thing, like many others, comes gradually and with trial and error – but if you are a developer or creative mastermind and you find yourself circling the drain around Twitter visualizations, Facebook quizzes, or, hell, even restaurant finders for the iPhone, please let me know so I can give you a courtesy flush.

I have an idea: make things we need.  Example: for those of us who aren’t about to get fucked in the ass by AT&T and the iPhone’s siqqQqQQqqQqqqqq new 3GS release, make a fucking G1 mail client.  You know, that thing that is so broken it makes G.W.’s reign of, heh heh heh, terrer, look like the icing on the 80 billion wedding cakes being made this time of year (don’t even get me started).  Even better: if you love Twitter so much, stop writing useless apps, move to California, and work for the fucking company so they don’t eat shit 70 times a day.

The times will change – and sooner, rather than later – but until then, for the love of all that is holy, think about whether what you’re doing is even remotely useful or just makes you another idiot that happened to jump on the web app bandwagon.

It’s because of all of this that, when people ask me “why don’t you release all of the stuff you do as open source?” or “why don’t you make an app that does x y and z?”, I’m forced to reply that I just don’t see the point.  Most of what I do is proprietary, but more importantly, I like to put a little faith in the people who are actually heading these movements, like Facebook and Twitter themselves (despite the fact that they faceplant when more than 3 people make an API call at the same time).  Additionally, everyone else in the world is busy trying to write every possible implementation of social networking right now, so I’ll just be here making useful apps for clients while everyone else is playing make-believe in Web-2.0-All-Over-Again Social Networking Start-Up Land.

On a slightly related (but not really) note, BING really stands for But It’s Not Google.  For some reason, when I envision the future of the web, it always has Google as the ubiquitous hub of information that we all somehow orbit, even more than we already do – and strangely, I’m okay with that.

Money is a touchy subject.  It always has been, and it always will be.  This is the part where everyone tends to throw in the obligatory “especially in these hard economic times” line.  Before I begin, I would like to offer some advice to everyone harping on about the economy: shut up.

It’s interesting that, as a whole, we treat the recent economic situation a lot like the weather.  Everyone talks about it (ironic, but I’m getting to the point) – I can’t walk half a block in Midtown without overhearing someone warbling on about how rough things are or how there’s no money anywhere or how no one wants to hire anyone.  People: this isn’t the fucking depression.  This isn’t a third-world country where we barter with goats and small children.  In the words of our illustrious previous president, “This, uhhh, this is Americuhhh.”

Keeping both that and the fact that everyone perceives this to be such a dire time (fiscally speaking), I would offer just one suggestion to anyone looking for a job: stop asking for 6-digit salaries.  To be as vague as possible, I have seen numerous people lately with mediocre skillsets (putting it nicely) asking for ridiculous amounts of money.  Don’t get me wrong – I totally think that people should be paid what they’re worth, but honestly, honestly, you can’t walk into a company and say, “oh, yeah, I am skilled in x, y, and z, so x * y * z = 40 bajillion dollars”. It just doesn’t work like that.

Working in a field that delicately balances both massive technological expertise and creative ability (with an emphasis on the latter if you’re ever going to do anything useful with yourself), you have to have passion.  You have to absolutely and unequivocally love what you do, or you will never be more than a mediocre asset to whatever it is that you’re investing your time in.  Example: I love my job (I am fortunate) – if, hypothetically, I weren’t being paid but my bills were taken care of, I would do it anyway.  I love my work so much that I would happily do it for free if I could.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t work in the real world, but it’s the thought that counts.

Back to the point: it seems like every developer I meet has the mindset that just because they “have N years experience with PHP/Rails/whatever” that they automatically qualify for executive-level salaries.  Let me clarify: you do not.  I tend to find that anyone who asks for a ridiculous salary right off the bat is not playing with the team in mind; they are less likely to be interested in long-term committment and would probably leave at the drop of a hat if someone offered them a bit more money.  I am not interested in hiring any of those people.

It’s an unfortunate stigma that potential employees feel as though a company owes them something.  You don’t just get something unless you really, really are worth it.  I had always assumed that it was common knowledge that when you’re hired, you usually bite the bullet a bit at first, and then work your way up to where you belong.  That said, if you are unemployed or seeking a job, it’s your responsibility to prove yourself and cater to a potential employer – not the other way around.

I think it would be a fun experiment to ask someone what they think their salary ought to be right off the bat in an interview, then go through the motions and assault them with a barrage of technical questions (the idea being to knock them off of their pedestal if they’re not really worth the money), and then ask them what they think their salary should be at the end.  If someone is obviously unqualified for that pay grade, they ought to be noticeably less certain (or are just really stubborn).  Maybe I’ll give that a shot.

Morals of the story:

1. stop whining about the economy
2. stop asking for money you don’t deserve
3. don’t suck

~fin.