My mom always said that the most dangerous lies are the ones mixed with truth. That’s why the internet, namely Twitter, can be such a spurious environment. We sometimes forget that with the real-time, viral benefits of the short-winded social network come the same negative effects. Truth can spread like wildfire, and so can lies.
Today, the Bieber nation has learned that lesson. Behold, dear… → Read More
Does Facebook’s first major video ad campaign confuse you? You know, that commercial that compares Facebook to chairs?
You’re not the only one. Not only has there been a video send-off of the ad using toilets instead chairs, there’s now a dead simple site that now lets you generate your own parody of one of the shots from the commercial. → Read More
“When should I raise money?” You might not be able to ask startup sage PG in person, but new search engine “What Would Paul Graham Do?” will point you towards the YC co-founder’s most relevant essays and Hacker News comments.
In this case, you’d be directed to “A Fundraising Survival Guide”, and “The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups”. The site turns Graham into a one-man Quora. → Read More
“Check out this link: http://bit.ly/QGuBiv ”
If you clicked that, you experienced something dumb but familiar on the web — blindly clicking a link only to end up somewhere you’ve been before or you didn’t want to go. Come on, Internet. We’re better than this. We’re too busy, and there’s too much beauty, humor, and knowledge abound for us to waste time. Every URL deserves a preview. Who’s… → Read More
Millions of people are downloading iOS 6 right now, and many will use the Facebook contact sync feature to pull in photos and current phone numbers of friends. But rather than your real email address, they’re going to pull in hundreds of @facebook.com addresses. These addresses don’t actually deliver to your email, but instead to your Facebook Messages Inbox.
Why? Because with little notice, … → Read More
Apple has definitely perfected its magic trick. There’s no doubt about that. The company has the ability to brainwash, and I say that as someone who has been brainwashed myself by the beauty and simplicity of Apple products. But it stretches far beyond the actual hardware, software, or services, and delves straight into brand perception.
Reports even suggest that fanbois’ brains respond to… → Read More
San Francisco’s Four Barrel Coffee made a stir last week when it posted a sign of rules including “not talking about annoying hipster topics”. Ever the fans of self-reference, its bohemian customers wouldn’t stop snapping camera phone pics of the sign so Four Barrel had to update it with a new rule: “No posting this on Instagram, you hipster.”
And that’s not Four Barrel’s only bone to pick with… → Read More
“So normally there would be an ad in this spot. But you’re using an ad-blocker like a boss. Here’s a solution: You donate $5 to us once, & we remove all ads from the site forever.” That’s the text from a sidebar banner appearing on dating site OkCupid to users with ad-blocking software installed.
This is not about offering a premium option with extra features and services. That’s old… → Read More
I’ve been in a wonderful state of bliss for the past week boating in North Carolina (did ya miss me? I missed you). But I came back today and I’m still pretty pissed at Uber for charging me $97 for a $65 ride to the airport last Friday. More importantly, the charge worries me about the company’s future.
Last Friday I needed to get from my apartment (by AT&T Park) to SFO. Simple, right? → Read More
Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal (who could, arguably, make more comics instead of being the Internet’s Sarah McLachlan for geek causes) has taken up the ultimate in geek causes: rebuilding Nikola Tesla’s lab in Shoreham, New York. The lab originally held Tesla’s workshop and a giant freaking tower that we was about to send crazy electricity all over the world, powering the universe from a single… → Read More
Warning: There’s no real tech news reason I’m writing this, other than the fact that it’s sort of ridiculous that humans are this way and maybe that’s an opportunity for some startup to tap into.
I arrived at the Aol 770 Broadway offices on Thursday and was met with the above glass situation at the TechCrunch NYC cubicle headquarters. After several moves, the TechCrunch team is on the six… → Read More
Since The Oatmeal draws comics like 5 Ways To Fight A Crack Whore, the kids down in Mountain View figured they could play a joke on him.
This summer the artist wrote that Google+ comment threads sound like *crickets*, poking fun at the social network’s lack of engagement. He also criticized not being able to “set up a fancy profile URL so I don’t have to link people… → Read More
Kevin Rose began an AMA on Reddit on Tuesday evening and so far has answered zero questions. To be fair, he said ask me anything. He didn’t promise answers.
Users have posted questions like, “What is your biggest regret with Digg?” → Read More
Hop up out the bed…turn my tablet on?
Rapper Soulja Boy has released a branded tablet with Tokova called the “Tiger Shark Soulja Boy Edition.” → Read More
Yesterday, I named half of our Tech Dream Team; today, I name the remaining six and coach. Quick reminder: the basketball players are set by the London roster, so no retired players and some of the best players are injured, so this isn’t necessarily the best possible roster. → Read More
In one week, the Olympics kick off. When you think about it, they aren’t so different from our startup world. How many pitches have you heard that include the phrase “dream team?”
If you had to compare the startup world to one sports league, what would it be? I’d argue the NBA, where the best players leave school early to start their pro careers and work to join dynasty teams with other… → Read More
The tech news cycle is a desperate bitch, as we’ve brought up before; A brief rundown of yesterday’s bitchmeme sparked by a mere tweet from my colleague MG Siegler once again proves how absurd it is.
“I used to love to plant one really weird bit of random information (sometimes even false) into stories to catch the rewrites,” MG wrote in response to developer Marco Arment’s concise analysis… → Read More
In what appears to be a final burst of notoriety-seeking and odd behavior, Funnyjunk’s crack lawyer, Charles Carreon, told Ars that he had won because now he was “famous” and “notorious”.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, apparently without irony or self-awareness. → Read More
Facebook’s news feed is so slow to give you the goods, you could almost call it prude. But you’re about to get lucky. Now the feed will load faster, as it will be pulling in fewer stories to start so you can get browsing immediately, Facebook just told us.
Plus, if you don’t want to see every little move your friends make, there’s a new “Hide Ticker” button in the top right of the web… → Read More
Vanity Fair is one of my all-time favorite magazines — it publishes loads of incredibly well-written stories about fascinating topics and people. Its regular features, like My Stuff and the Proust Questionnaire, are always entertaining.
So, I was pretty excited to get an email from one of Vanity Fair‘s publicists this morning, offering an advance copy of a story that will run in the August… → Read More
Click ‘Messages’ on Facebook and then “Other” in the right sidebar and you might find emails missing from your Gmail or other personal and work accounts. Without giving you any warning or notification, Facebook last week changed your profile to hide any email addresses you’ve previously listed and instead show only your little-known “@facebook.com” address. Any messages sent to you or your… → Read More
Here’s a sad, and slightly ridiculous, coda to the story of Vertu, Nokia’s wrong turn into making bling-tastic handsets encrusted with diamonds and gold: a servant in China convicted of stealing one from her boss has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined 20,000 yuan (over $3,000).
The story, as published in the English edition of the Chinese People’s Daily Online, notes that Ms Zhang… → Read More
“Oh you know Johnny? Then let’s get naughty.” Whether it’s for one night or forever, we’re more likely to choose mates who have Facebook friends in common with us. This comes according to a new study by Coffee Meets Bagel, a startup that shows you a suggestion of someone to date each day and connects you if you both fancy each other.
Out of Coffee Meets Bagel’s 44,000 matches, people with… → Read More
“The Black IPs” lol. I follow nerds on Twitter, so rather than just the latest pop stars and sports games, I was delighted to see a nerdy hashtag in my Trending Topics. It’s thanks to Twitter’s new Tailored Trends that launched on Tuesday and shows you personalized trends based on who you follow.
“Creedence ClearRecentHistory? Revival” brilliant. In just a few days Tailored Trends has shown… → Read More
Gizmodo posted a “story” yesterday entitled “We’ll Pay You for Photos of Mark Zuckerberg.” Desperation aside, this is as crazy as it is stupid (And we’re not even sure it’s legal).
See, Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of a company. Sure, that company is all about sharing with friends, but when you have more than 14 million people subscribed to your page, sharing a photo or a link on Facebook… → Read More
Marketing never ceases to crack me up. Sometimes that’s a good thing, like when Samsung cracks a few fanboi jokes at Apple ahead of the Superbowl. It’s funny, and it delivers their message in a compelling, entertaining way. But there are some marketing efforts that are unintentionally hilarious — like when Samsung partnered with hot new clothing line Rag & Bone in February and had models… → Read More
While it used to fly straight ahead, Twitter’s new bird logo has its beak held high, representing a company ready to take off, not just cruise on. Bloomberg’s sources close to Twitter said the company expects to generate $1 billion in sales in 2014, almost double eMarketer’s prediction, so it’s fitting that the Twitter bird is looking skyward and has a new professional haircut. The redesigned bird… → Read More
The legend goes something like this: as a child, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s father would relentlessly hound him to “Get better”, so Jack eventually banned the phrase from being tweeted. Go ahead and try it, the tweet won’t go through. But the legend? It’s a hoax.
Here’s the real story… → Read More
If only Facebook IPO day were a little less of a snoozefest than it is now. If only it had Zuckerberg impaling investors while riding a bull rampaging through a city. Or an elevator to space. Or Zuckerberg bouncing Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar off a giant scale. But sadly, our surrealist dreams will never be realized.
We will just have to settle for the ho-hum performance of Facebook’s… → Read More
They say if you want to understand the future, you have to look at children. And if my 10-year-old cousin’s chat history is any indication, we will soon be communicating in emoji, Egyptian hieroglyphics or some other kind of pictographic language that renders the 2,000-year-old Roman alphabet obsolete.
Sometimes she sends me full e-mails with dozens of lines of straight emoticons, which either… → Read More
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