Disqus - Latest Comments for JohnMcDonald

Re: FTC to Fine Bloggers up to $11,000 for Not Disclosing Payments

JohnMcDonald — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:50:51 -0000

F the FCC. I've got freedom of speech.

Re: The Social Capitalist’s Manifesto

JohnMcDonald — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:17:27 -0000

The digital revolution almost proves Marx's critique of capital consolidation during the industrial era, but it also shows how dated and irrelevant his solutions are to the new economy.

At this point, abolishing ownership of the means of production would be oppressive to average people with a bit of initiative. This is because a computer, internet connection, and free CMS script are all you need to create profit directly from own labor.

The information revolution appears to be putting control over production in more decentralized hands. Soon we'll even see it in machine manufacturing as the 3D printers become more common and affordable.

Of course, the power of the "captains of industry" isn't completely gone, nor will they completely give in without a fight. If any tribes get too big, the kings might notice. Its just getting harder for them to do anything about it.

Re: Could Facebook spend its way into oblivion

JohnMcDonald — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:38:05 -0000

"Too big to fail" is for banks - not websites. I can't even remember how many domains have gone to the top and crashed back down again (remember when it seemed like 20% of the internet was @ geocities.com/user/?)

If Facebook isn't profitable in its current form, then its current form isn't going to exist in the future. Chances are, making the money they need will annoy & alienate the vast traffic that supposedly makes their business so special.

Re: Hamburgers

JohnMcDonald — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:18:03 -0000

Before fire, people didn't last long in general - glad to eat anything at all whether or not it might kill you. Our modern dietary biology is more likely set by mass extinctions following the adoption of agriculture. My ancestors must have had lots of cows because I think I could live on beef & cheesy broccoli with a glass of milk. Many starches & grains, however common they are in the general populace, will seriously mess me up :P

Re: Westboro Church says God Hates Obama: Protest at Inauguration

JohnMcDonald — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:53:47 -0000

These guys are willing to do anything to get some attention. Its a shame they don't have to go get real jobs to pay off some of those lawsuits and judgments that have gone against them.

Re: Is there a global left wing conspiracy to kill the Internet?

JohnMcDonald — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:15:53 -0000

Its not really a "left" or "right" issue, its between authoritarian and libertarian outlooks. Unfortunately, voters on both sides tend to be more libertarian on social issues than their politicians: Voters mostly want to be left alone and politicians want to exercise power.

When Obama talks about nationwide internet access, I read between the lines and assume that this federally funded network won't be delivering any "illegal content."

Re: Silent Running - Forum Spammers You Don’t See.

JohnMcDonald — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:21:03 -0000

I've noticed this recently, too. It seems to be targetted SMF boards, at least in my own experience. I'm used to the 1-2 posts a month and suddenly 50 people were signing up a day!

The quickest way to put a stop to it (if its the same attack) is probably re-Captcha. They cost me some of my forum PR now I'm hoping it comes back :)

Re: Bailed-Out Banks Stiff Credit Card Customers

JohnMcDonald — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:04:37 -0000

Too bad we can't go back in time and defeat the original bank bailout bill. Sure, those Republican reps are taking heat for fighting against the auto bailout, but that would have been fine if they didn't sell out enough votes to save the banks. I don't see much chance for a real recovery until the failing companies fail: bank, auto, media, doesn't matter.

Re: WordPress 2.7 breaks category feeds (and apologies if you got the wrong content)

JohnMcDonald — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:15:33 -0000

WP is calling 2.7 "Coltrane" for some reason.

It might just be a clever distraction from the fact that I can't find anything in the admin panel and there's suddenly celebrity news in my RSS reader

Re: Throwing Shoes at Bush: The Video Game

JohnMcDonald — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:23:24 -0000

Two lessons here: politics is great linkbait if you don't mind potentially angering people, and timing is everything. Other than that, I think everyone has played some variation of this game before and it would be pretty hard to promote without the timeliness of the visual setting

Re: Google’s Lopsided Trademark Policy

JohnMcDonald — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:37:39 -0000

Google isn't even that picky about their trademark claims. I started an Adwords campaign of my own a few weeks ago and it got shot down because a claim was made protecting the phrase "Promo Code."

I'm not sure Google knows who claims to own "Promo code" but they simply don't seem to care. Neither would I expect them to have any incentive to change their business unless we actually take our money and searches elsewhere.

Re: There’s no such thing as ‘local’ online news

JohnMcDonald — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:10:57 -0000

Our local newspaper is terribly biased and a little bit arrogant, but they're still independent and privately owned. Glancing over the front page of Jacksonville.com I only noticed one story that's national - and that's about the missing child that everyone's been talking about for the last year or whatever.

They were quick to get online, they got a good domain, and it seems to be saving them from the crash in their printed edition sales. It seems like they're always hiring for their online operations and they claim a huge share of all local web traffic (probably because they got such a great domain name and have been putting almost all of their printed content online for many years already).

Well, they're usually a good example of local news online but their new site design seems to have some CSS problems on the blog sections. Go figure: the timing of their redesign and me trying to use them as a good example of local blogging makes me sound a little silly now doesn't it? :)

Re: Yahoo Layoffs result in Epic Sensitivity Fail

JohnMcDonald — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:54:25 -0000

Here's what gets me: Don't attempt to answer the "why me?" Do spend less than fifteen minutes firing them.

Obviously the economy is affecting Yahoo (and obviously their poor decisions recently haven't been helping either) but why not take a few moments to explain why the individual is being marked for termination? Obviously, some people are keeping their jobs - what did they do right?

Now, these jobs can't be saved at this point and they're obviously not trying to re-negotiate with everyone who has to go, but answering these questions honestly could help the folks out with their next employment venture. Me personally? I'm a big fan of quitting before the ship sinks. Never underestimate the power of a strategic resignation :)

Re: The Worst Band in the World, According to Google

JohnMcDonald — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:34:53 -0000

I saw this on Reddit earlier today and it opened up a pretty interesting debate: Isn't Nickleback worse than Creed?

I'm kind of interested in this from an SEO perspective too, what exactly happened here for Google to associate the phrase with the Creed brand? (other than by paying attention to what the denizens of the internet were saying about them)

Re: The Growing Movement for Copyright Reform

JohnMcDonald — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:21:31 -0000

Public opinion...What's that have to do with anything? ;)

I mean, Will it even matter when the copyright holders have millions & billions worth of that rent and they're willing to share it with the politicians and parties that serve their interests? I don't find much sympathy for the "poor" (freaking rich) IP owners, and people are even starting to realize that it isn't the authors, artists, and scientists that own their own works.

This hasn't slowed down government enforcement of such absurd laws, it has accelerated them. They wouldn't need such harsh laws if public opinion was as compliant as it used to be - the laws are a symptom of that shift in public views. /cynical

Re: louisgray.com: AOL Radio Lulls Kids to Sleep... With Metallica?

JohnMcDonald — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:47:03 -0000

That's kind of funny and unexpected, but really: The Black Album definitely makes for good sleeping music. If you're listening on a CD and skip the first few tracks, its really slow, relaxing stuff. Bass solo intros, acoustic ballads - The only songs on the second half that could wake one up is probably Wolf and Man or Through the Never. I've actually fallen asleep to the CD quite a few times, but of course, who is actually listening to a CD these days?

BTW, I wonder if Lars "allowed" this band to cover their song.

Re: It’s The Link Economy Stupid

JohnMcDonald — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:33:17 -0000

Am I blind or have they taken it out already? I looked around on their site for a little bit, and as usual they've got about 100 internal links per page and just one or two external links which just go out to their employment site (as if they were hiring, hah!)

Anyway, it doesn't seem to help them very much. I ran a few search phrases of common news-related keywords and they're constantly behind other PR9 news sites that have more external links (of course, twice as many still only means two or four per page)

I dunno, they can do whatever they like with regards to the links on their own website. I'll just make sure that I'm not linking to them on my social profiles, blogs, etc... They don't want to participate in the link economy so they won't get any benefits of that from me. Its not really REALLY shady until they start taking samples of other peoples' content without proper attribution.

Re: Whopper Virgins: it doesn’t get much more offensive than this

JohnMcDonald — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:47:45 -0000

I'll volunteer! Although I already know I like Filipino food because my neighbors cooked it all the time and it was freaking awesome. Especially fried bananas...mmmm...

Oh and for the record, Burger King and McDonald's both make terrible burgers. Making an ad campaign to say one is better than the other is like saying "Hey, we're not the worst!"

I'm jealous of anyone who hasn't had a fastfood burger. Chances are they're enjoying healthier, fresher, and tastier food than most Americans eat on a daily basis. Here in the states, there is so much emphasis on convenience that taste, nutrition, and overall quality go down the drain quite quickly.

Re: Pandora solidifies its place as the top iPhone app with its 2 millionth user

JohnMcDonald — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:50:28 -0000

I hope the extra advertising and popularity can bring them back into profitability, despite the new fee schedules. I don't know how they've managed so long - we had serious problems keeping our online college radio station broadcasting, and that was with cash flow coming in from the students. Real profitability against RIAA fees? We never dreamed of such a thing.

Re: Report: Twitter Turns Down $500 Million Offer From Facebook

JohnMcDonald — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:34:25 -0000

This is basically what I was thinking, too. $500 million is a lot different than $500 million in Facebook stock. There are a lot of online destinations with huge traffic and questionable monetization plans - its hard to believe that they'll all figure out profitability one magic day in the middle of an economic collapse. When someone comes offering cash in that kind of range, I'd say they should go for it.

Re: Microsoft’s Shane Kim loves Nintendo, talks up new Xbox Experience as social network

JohnMcDonald — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:53:14 -0000

MS fanboy? That's rich. I'm glad to hear thet 3rd party developers are doing fine, but Sony is still losing money on the PS3 last time I checked.

Call me old fashioned, but I think businesses should pull a profit. From that perspective, Nintendo did it right: Sony AND Microsoft did it wrong.

Re: 10 myths of blog marketers debunked

JohnMcDonald — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:32:00 -0000

Good advice, but I'd like to add one more myth:

#11: You need tons of traffic to make any money online. Well-matched ads in a specific niche market can convert pretty well while "general appeal" sites can bring in a lot of traffic that isn't particularly intent on buying anything. Of course, I don't mean to say its easy to get that small amount of traffic that does convert.

The whole thing is a lot of work and effort but if you enjoy writing and discussion blogging is definitely the thing to do.

Re: Print newspapers will be the first to fall

JohnMcDonald — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:02:09 -0000

Yeah, the local paper here is terrible but they're hiring. They got the Jacksonville.com domain name early and now they get a huge portion of all local news and community-related traffic. Of course, they're hiring SEOs and learning how to crowd-source more content, so I expect they can actually survive despite the fact that even The Onion makes fun of their "journalism."

Re: Microsoft’s Shane Kim loves Nintendo, talks up new Xbox Experience as social network

JohnMcDonald — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:28:39 -0000

I dunno... I can't get into these console games at all. Sure, sure, The Legend of Zelda was great back in the day, but by '94 you could get your PC into an online deathmatch with Doom2.

Microsoft says their console is catching up to the PC? Great! Let me know when the games are available for Windows so I don't have to go buy an extra machine or worry about smaller game selections due to platform exclusivity.. Let me know when I can get to the next generation of games with a new video card in my old XBox rather than buying yet another whole machine!

Oh wait, casual players don't want PC-like consoles... what else explains the success of the cheap & simple Wii and the utter failure of the PS3?

Re: Reader poll: Should the U.S. bail out the car makers?

JohnMcDonald — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:40:42 -0000

Where's the money going to come from? Are we going to borrow it? Are we going to tax it and raise the deflationary pressure?

Nah, there's a lot of businesses out there and for every one we have to bail out we're putting extra pressure on the rest who don't get a hand out. The automakers are in a deep, deep hole - but that's not a good reason to keep digging that hole with more debt we can't pay off in the long run.

There's going to be a huge fire-sale for American assets are really "depressing" prices, but borrowing money (borrowed time) can't ultimately "fix" that as much as it can delay the inevitable.