Category: Everything Else

Gizmodo in the Playground

I wasn’t going to blog about the Gizmodo / CES thing, but a conversation I had today made me realize how strongly I feel about what they did, so I’m going to add my voice to the chorus.

What the Gizmodo guys did wasn’t just puerile, it was mean and flat-out wrong. The fact their their boss Nick Denton seems to think it’s all good so long as the pageviews keep rolling is just as bad.

Those people in the CES booths are human beings trying to do a job and they should be treated with basic respect. If you think their shtick is stupid or their product is lame, fine. Feel free to say so. But when you decide you’re going to screw around with their stuff just because you can, you’re way, way over the line, and you’re no better than a schoolyard bully.

There once was a young girl who came home from school one day with grapefruit-sized bruises on her legs, because a couple of boys decided that kicking the crap out of her was “fun”. The bruises went away eventually, but the memories of fear and humiliation linger a long, long time.

Bottom line: It’s not funny, and if you think it is, you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what kind of person you really are.

A New (Old) Social Media Rule

I’ve been following the whole Scoble / Facebook blogstorm today. As one of Scoble’s “Facebook 5000” I have to say, I’m a little miffed that he felt entitled to scrape all his contacts’ personal data out of Facebook and drop it into Plaxo.

It gets to the nature of our connection and what exactly “friending” means between people who don’t have a pre-existing offline relationship. I wouldn’t care if one of my real-life friends decided to grab my email address out of Facebook and put it into their Outlook address book, for example. So why am I annoyed that Scoble did it? Because 1) he’s not a real life friend and 2) he didn’t ask first.

Seems to me it’s time to remind folks that, just as in the real world:

Don’t take more than you’re given. And if you’re not sure what the line is, ask first.

If you give your next-door neighbor a set of keys to your home, that doesn’t give them the right to walk in unannounced any time they feel like it. They still need to ask your permission. So too in the online world. Just because someone ‘friends’ you online does not give you an unlimited right to do as you like with their contact information. Yes, it’s annoying to have to manually re-friend people if you move from one social application to another, but it’s the polite – and the right – thing to do.

Allen Stern seems to feel the same way. And of course, Loren Feldman‘s take on things is blunt and touches on another troubling aspect to this — why was Scoble doing Plaxo’s testing for them?

UPDATE: The inimitable Lisa B over at Bruce Clay did a much better job of getting the point across than I did.

Things You Miss By Living Outside NY

Wow, this sounds like it’s going to be fantastic … unfortunately I’m on the wrong side of the country to really enjoy it:

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony have been asked to open a major celebration of the life and career of Leonard Bernstein next fall.

The festival, sponsored by the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall, will open on Sept. 24 with Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony in an all-Bernstein concert at Carnegie Hall. The concert not only launches “Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds” but also kicks off Carnegie Hall’s 2008 season.

The gala concert will feature cellist Yo-Yo Ma and singers Dawn Upshaw and Thomas Hampson. The program will include the “Fancy Free” Suite, Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story,” as well as selections from “Mass,” “Songfest,” “A Quiet Place,” “Wonderful Town,” “On the Town” and “Candide.”

The two New York organizations are teaming up to honor Bernstein to commemorate the 90th anniversary of his birth and the 50th anniversary of his appointment as music director of the New York Philharmonic.

*sigh*