Dave Caolo

Typically stunning pictures from Boston.com.

From “20 unholy recipes: Dishes so awful we had to make them.” Enjoy.

Last Tuesday — 24 hours before Apple announced the iPad — Jason Calacanis tweeted as if he had one, complete with fake stats:

• “Does Jason Calacanis really have an Apple Tablet? What do you think of his specs? : http://(link to Jason’s company: mahalo)”
• “Also, the apple tablet is really amazing for newspapers. Video conferencing is super stable, but nothing new.”
• “Yes, there are 2cameras: one in front and one in back (or it may be one with some double lens) so you record yourself and in front of u.”
• “Off to bed, but I assure you I’m not joking and the specs are real…. Most of all that this is best gadget ever made and NOT overhyped.”

Pay special attention to the last tweet and realize that each one is a lie. Not all of his 90,000+ followers realized this, however, and his tweets were picked up by The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch. Why would a person intentionally deceive his readers?

Because Jason’s purpose is to promote Jason, and in his mind the ends always justify the means. For example, he posted a rambling, anti-Apple rant a few months ago that was designed to draw outraged reaction from readers (I’m ashamed to say that I bit). Thoughtful debate was not Jason’s intention with that piece — he simply wanted the unique visitors and pageviews.

There are two lessons here for all bloggers. First, never lie to your readers. Ever. Stunts like this destroy the credibility that we bloggers work so hard for. At this point there’s no chance that I’ll listen to anything that Jason says. Don’t prompt your readers to ignore you.

The second lesson is even more important, and the root of Jason’s problem. Don’t write to Digg or Stumbleupon or Facebook or any of the others. Write because you have something valuable to say. The moment you think, “Ooh, writing about [topic x] will get me lots of links!”, stop. You’re about to sink to the bottom of the blogosphere where you’ll do something stupid like this just to boost your stats, which you’ll regret almost instantly.

Inspired by Ged’s list, I had to make my own. Here are some of my favorite funny movie moments. I couldn’t find other clips I wanted, so I’ll have to save them for part 2. Enjoy.

From The Oatmeal:

Definitely add “reddit this” buttons to your site. In addition, add a bunch of awful “digg this,” “tweet this,” “facebook this” buttons all over it. Remember, the key to successful online marketing has nothing to do with creating valuable, interesting content – but instead adding massive amounts of obnoxious share buttons.

It gets better from there.

That was all I needed to hear to listen to the rest of the Spilled Milk podcast. The show combines “…food and comedy in a bowl and stir it up until it explodes.” It’s a good listen for foodies and the hosts are funny.

Here’s the issue.

I’ve set up a WordPress blog with my contact form plugin of choice, Contact Form 7. For some reason, messages to the target email address (associated with a Network Solutions domain) via the contact form won’t go through.

Now, if I insert ANY other email address, it works fine. I tried other contact plugins like Clean-Contact and cforms with the exact same result.

Do you have an idea? I’ve been at this for hours. Thanks.

Exactly the type of thing I would have made in 6th grade.

I’m sure mine’s in the mail.

[Via SlashFilm]

Joshua Topolsky makes a great point regarding “bot journalism.”

“…you may be discerning, but most people aren’t, and most people will take a story like this — poorly sourced, poorly written — and digest it as fact. Now, there’s nothing particularly inaccurate about this piece of news — except that it’s written like garbage and essentially cites no sources. Plus, most media outlets reported on this last week, so why is it front page news now? And why does the article refer to “reviewers” when no one has actually used or reviewed the device? And who the fuck is Bruce Emmerling?”

The article he’s referring to is rife with spelling and grammatical errors and inaccuracies like:

“The [Nook] was recently released by Barnes & Noble with their on line store to much acclaim.”

Wrong. It was announced, not released. Huge difference.

“Reviewers are give the ebook high praise for its features including a a color touch screen, zoom-able text sizes, WiFi access, and 2GB memory storage.”

A 3-minute hands-on at a press event is hardly a review. As of this writing, the Nook has not been reviewed. Dec. 6th: Technologizer has posted a review.

“…the Nook is a newcomer to the field. It was released in November along with an ebook store on the Barnes & Noble website.”

Wrong again. The problem here isn’t that Mr. Emmerling needs a copy editor. It’s that his post topped Google News for a time. Mr. Emmerling isn’t entirely at fault here, though. There’s tremendous pressure to be the first to post technology news. In the rush, thoughtful analysis often takes a back seat. I’d rather post a well-researched, well written (and properly edited) post 24 hours after the fact than have Google distribute my up-to-the-second embarrassment.