Category: Internet

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The World According to Pravda, 2007

Example front cover of Pravda

Ah Comrades, remember Pravda? Правда or “The Truth” was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party — at least until the late, great Boris Yeltin closed it down in 1991.

However the name lives on at pravda.ru — and Lenin would be turning in his grave at this lowest of the low in tabloid trash. I love it!

Photo of dog sex toy

Here’s just a sample of the stories on offer tonight:

Men lie for no reason because women make them
Various media outlets portray breasts differently
Fake Brad Pitt, 77, lives in New Hampshire
Miss Universe contestants pose in bikini

“Is your dog in heat and humping anything it can wrap its horny little legs around? Are you constantly having to pry your promiscuous pooch off the legs of guests, parents and members of your church? … It’s easy, all you should do is to buy a sex doll for dogs.”

OK, OK, there’s a few serious stories, some with a suitably pro-Russia slant:

It was only the USSR that defeated Nazism
Russia develops new generation strategic bomber
USA and Russia start Cold War over the Moon

But the best bit for me? The fact that all the advertising on Pravda is provided by that traditional communist institution, Google. Sweet.

[Thanks to the Freakonomics boys for the tip.]

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TagCrowd: visualising writing

Tag clouds have emerged as a great way to visualise what some text is _really_ about — whether it be a political speech or anything else. Now TagCrowd (still in alpha) allows you to create tag clouds from any arbitrary text.

Here’s a tag cloud of my post Stay alert, ye nameless, toiling animals:

created at TagCrowd.com

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Web 2.0 design

What is “Web 2.0 design”? Is there such a thing? Before he explains how to do Web 2.0 design, Ben Hunt points out: “In sociological terms, movements impact people on many levels: economic, cultural, political, etc. Is skate-punk about entertainment and sport, music and the music industry, fashion, or the breakdown of society?”

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I’ve had it with dodgy “web designers”

The web is a shoddy piece of work, as any real information professional will tell you. The two incidents I’m about to relate are pretty typical — and in my opinion they’re also clear examples of unprofessional behaviour bordering on the unethical.

So why are web designers allowed to get away with dodgy work which in other industries would get you driven out of business?

Continue reading “I’ve had it with dodgy “web designers””

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Alex Tew, you’re a clever bastard! But can you pull it off twice?

Screenshot of PixelLotto website

Is making money out of nothing an act of genius, a scam, or both? Or is it just a lucky fluke?

Consider Alex Tew. He made himself a millionaire with the Million Dollar Homepage — selling the pixels in a 1000 x 1000 grid to advertisers for $1 each. Advertisers loved it, according to _The Cottage Economist_, because of its ability to generate website traffic for a cheap, one time payment.

People who tried to copy the idea failed — because, of course, it wasn’t news any more. No media frenzy meant no traffic spike.

But now Mr Tew is back with a twist: Pixellotto.

This time the pixels cost $2 each. Half of that goes to Tew. But the other half goes into a prize pool. Once all the pixels are sold, that million dollars goes to a random person who clicked on one of the adverts. In theory this should be even more attractive to advertisers because there’s a real incentive to click on those adverts.

But will it work?

So far 15% of the pixels have been sold. But it doesn’t look like the media frenzy is happening. _The Cottage Economist_ reports that while Pixellotto did hit the top 1000 sites on the Internet, currently it’s down to number 32,193 — more than ten thousand spots lower than the now-inert Million Dollar Homepage.