GONE VIRAL IN THE WILD FRONTIER OF YOUTH ORIENTED ONLINE MARKETING

Here is a paragraph from TechCrunch today:

Sprout Commerce, the company behind MyPickList, has launched a new product today, called FavoriteThingz. A widget for social networking sites like MySpace, FavoriteThingz lets users identify their favorite bands, movies and other branded products and display those brands in a nice looking slideshow. Their readers can click through to purchase the same goods and affiliate revenue is split between FavoriteThingz and widget publishers.

You can't say that paragraph without your soul leaving your body, so I don't recommend reading it aloud. I'm sure glad that I will be allowed to display my favorite branded products and split the revenue with someone for displaying my favorite branded products on branded websites with co-branding.

Here is the second paragraph of that article:

After identifying a product category, users select between hundreds of bands, for example, with press photos to display and affiliate revenue percentage listed next to each. Widgets can be customized a bit, which is liable to be appealing. Press photos can also be replaced by any image you chose - which seems like a branding disaster waiting to happen.

Oh it sure does. Wait until the Somethingawful Goons get hold of that. Goatse always wins, and half the Internet is going to end up joining the Lemon Party. I am glad, though, that I'll be able to choose from musical artists by affiliate revenue percentage just like the big record companies do, instead of just doing something stupid and Web 1.0 like listening to music I like.

I'm going to skip a paragraph here and go right to the end:

Will this type of service take off? Sprout Commerce and many other people think that social commerce is set to be big in the future, not because of the affiliate revenue it generates for users but because of the existential opportunity to associate ourselves with brands. Sounds pretty vapid to me, but if brand association is an important part of being a teenager then FavoriteThingz could be a winner at monetizing it.

This service is easy to use and the widget can look quite nice. Its success will probably come down to marketing. Who can guess what will go viral in the wild frontier of youth oriented online social networking?

I already have a lot of existential opportunities. I can, for example, die. Also I can reinvent myself consciously in every moment in a world without a priori meaning, without God, without others. But in the end, as Kierkegaard and Camus both said, it comes down to marketing.

The last sentence of the article is also, of course, the last sentence in Beckett's Happy End. Or at least it should be.

An email from Kazakhkstan leads to coffee in Newport

Saw Tom today, for the first time in more than 20 years. I went to high school with him and I think saw him once after that. In the meantime he's had a few careers and is currently fully employed saving the world. This is a damned good thing in that the world is in need of saving and Tom is both smart and on the side of the angels.

I tried to explain some of the more recent features of our locale including Mortgage Bro 'n' Ho Culture, the Vanguard Nice Christian Kid Death Star Attack, and the deadly affluenza of drugs and alcohol among the Kids These Days. Not sure if I was sufficiently descriptive.

I went away with the happy feeling of having reconnected, some good stories from both of us, and a sticker that says COALITION CONVOY / STAY BACK 50 METERS / DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED in English and Arabic. I think that is going to go on the laptop. I'll leave the rest of the storytelling to him, if he chooses to tell the stories.

On the way over there I was listening to Indie 103 (which I'm liking more and more) and it was Steve Jones' show. It was a crazy reunion show at that because Jonesy had John Lydon on the show and they were bullshitting and laughing about the Sex Pistols days. Best quote was from Lydon: "And we were very confused, as one ought to be."

Anyway they wrapped up the show as I was driving from the shrink's office to meet Tom at Kéan. Just as I drove past my alma mater, all decorated with happy cheerleader girls doing the splits, the radio spat out "God Save the Queen" and I realized that this was something like my 25th anniversary of driving past that high school blasting that song on my car radio.

As Tom said, "that still works."

Who needs money when you're soaked in steaming hot infected brain tissue?

I am at a Starbucks and there are morons talking about blogs, demographics, and "making or breaking bands." The guy are talking about shit like "Yeah if someone looks for a band like Yo La Tengo then I get a list of that" and "Most of the blogs are just advertising stuff but some of those kids get, like, credentialed." I think one of them just said that a band had a "web tour." also: "THERE'S ACTUALLY SOME REALLY GOOD CELEBRITY SITES!!!"

One of them has Hippie Hair that he saw on a TV movie repeat from 1981 in 2003, clearly, complete with headband. I think they've mentioned Seattle about 8 times in the last 5 minutes.

I never remember to bring the kukri or the short-barrel 10-gauge when it's really, really needed.

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