Microsoft Bing: Why Bother?

Another news response, this time regarding Microsoft's new search engine Bing:

Microsoft revolutionized PC's for the consumer market back in the mid-90's. They did so with Windows OS and MS Word. Microsoft effectively started what we now call the "digital era." We should thank them for that.

However, since then, they have disregarded web standards in their newest release of Internet Explorer 8 and any time they see an opportunity to do so, they reset IE to be Windows users' default browser (attempting to boot out Firefox and other competitors). They have proven that they cannot be trusted on the web, and should refocus their efforts on their Operating System (because Vista was epic fail) before they lose the majority market share on that, too (enter Apple & others' rising market presence).

Flawed career advice

This is my response to an article about how "Grads need honesty, dependability, work ethic" to land a job:

Let's be honest about the issue, since that's what this article says employers are looking for...

Telling students that employers desire integrity, ethics, and dependability is telling them to fake it. Who doesn't claim to be a dependable hard-worker? And who will honestly admit an ethical weakness? No one... job interviews are all about giving the right answers to convince the potential employer that they are speaking to the perfect candidate for the job.

You can't train someone to be an ethical person. Well maybe in Guantanamo you can, but not in school. A confident smile and a firm handshake can just as easily be a fraudulent betrayal of one's ethical standards, but what else do you have to bank on? You can teach them what's right/wrong, but they will still be dishonest if they are a dishonest person. Of course, you won't pick up on such during an interview because you'll be too distracted by their "self-confident dependability."

Dependability is yet another intangible trait, but employers still try to measure it against a candidate's past experience. This is a flawed metric, though, because recent grads will not have enough relevant experience to properly decipher how dependable they will be in the workplace. And high academic marks are easy enough to attain even for someone that isn't going to use good judgment in their professional life.

All in all, I think the entire system is skewed in favor of those that are dishonest enough to fake the best intentions. Someone that admits their weaknesses will be disadvantaged because, well, they have a weakness. Gee, imagine that...

Facebook Fan Pages Being Misused

"I <3 SLEEP"

The above is an incorrect title of a Facebook Fan Page. There are hundreds of examples of misnamed Fan Pages, this is just one example.

Just look at how Facebook worded the process: "Become a fan." Put that in a sentence with your Fan Page title:

"Become a fan of [insert Fan Page title here]."
"Daniel Fowler became a fan of [insert Fan Page title here]."

If your Fan Page does not sound right in these two statements, it is wrong. Unless "I <3 SLEEP" is the name of a t-shirt business or an underground TV show, then "I <3 SLEEP" should be a Group, NOT a Fan Page.

Fan Pages are designed to be for organizations, bands, celebrities, activities, etc. In a word... nouns. When you start titling a Fan Page with a full statement or verbs or anything that isn't a NOUN... you should be creating a Facebook Group, not a Fan Page.

Please stop naming your Fan Pages incorrectly. And stop joining incorrectly named Fan Pages. Let's defeat this epidemic of amateur content.

Facebook Fan Page Fraud

OK, so it's not fraud EXACTLY... but it's darn close and it is the single most aggravating thing in the [Facebook] world to me. Fraudulent representation of Fan Pages.

Chick-fil-A has an official Fan Page on Facebook. They advertise it on their website, so you know it's legit.

But look at their fan count. As of this being written, 582,871 people have become fans of Chick-fil-A. Is that all? Apprently, yes. Actually, no. There is another Fan Page claiming the same title, just with the "F" being capitalized [incorrectly]. This page has an additional 405,618 fans at the time this article is being written. That is a combined total of 988,489 fans of Chick-fil-A. Account for facebookers that are probably fans of both pages (why would you do that?!), and Chick-fil-A should still have well over 800,00 fans.

Now... Facebook has in place the option to report fan pages. One of the valid reasons for reporting, as listed in the dropdown menu of choices, is "Fake page." I urge everyone reading this to go to the fake page, report it as such, remove your fan status, and become a fan of the real page. If you love Chick-fil-A, you'll do this. Benefit from coupon giveaways, store opening announcements, and avoid the lame status updates from the fake page ("Chick-Fil-A wants to wish everyone a HAPPY DAY!" posted May 12 at 8:18pm - GAG).

Pandora Radio Desktop Application

Dear Pandora,

Maybe I'm alone in feeling this way, but I still prefer having Pandora open on the web instead of via desktop application. The application brings an extra double-click in addition to the browser unless you set it to start with Windows... which people HATE. I think the browser is the first thing most people click on when they start up their computers, anyway, which brings me to my suggestion...

An effective alternative to having an external application, I feel, would be a browser toolbar. So it's "always on top", opens with the browser, and doesn't require its own tab (which I don't mind the tab anyway). Then song ratings are only one click away (versus 2 with a tab or app: once to bring Pandora into focus, and once to rate a song).

OR...

Make the application operate like a stock ticker. Make it 20px high and 400px across. Have the "always on top" option turned on by default. Let it dock against the top or bottom of the screen. Now you've got a non-obtrusive, always on top, click-minimizing application that can operate without the browser, which is pretty much your main marketing point for the current one as it sounds to me.

The sacrifice of my suggestions is the album art. That's easily solved by an icon on the ticker/toolbar that displays the album art onRollover (or mouseOver, depending on your programming language of choice :))

That's all from me for now, thanks for listening!

Romantic Ideology

I'm a hypocrite. I've temporarily removed this post. :) Love you all!