Simply Everything

By Peter K. Lam

Kanye West Disses Taylor Swift

If  you’ve been reading or watching some news the last few days, I’m sure you are well aware of the tasteless actions Kanye West did on stage while Taylor Swift was giving her acceptance speech. It was rude and disrespectful. Many have criticized West for what he did, even President Obama. President Obama was preparing to do an interview when the subject of West’s actions came up. President Obama referred to West as a “jackass” without really knowing what possible ramification that comment would have. Terry Moran, a former White House correspondent overheard what was said and promptly released a tweet which said, “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.” With tweets about President Obama’s comments running wild, they were deleted but it calls into question journalistic integrity and responsible use of Twitter.

A lot of people that use Twitter are the type of people who want instant gratification. This applies to those who tweet as well as their followers. Celebrities and regular users are pretty much able to say just about anything and not worry too much about backlash. Some celebrities have more impact on public opinion than others so when they say inappropriate things, the fallout not that bad. Journalists and politicians, on the other hand, must be very careful about what they say. The people who started tweeting about President Obama’s comment really should have thought things through before release the information to the masses.

With technology like Twitter, information spreads even faster than ever before. It only takes mere seconds after a tweet is released for followers to start commenting. That’s exactly what happened with the tweet about President Obama’s comment. Twitter is a powerful force in cyberland that isn’t showing any signs of fading popularity. As the user base grows and more professionals adopt the tool, guidelines should be in place to help prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

By Peter K. Lam

Facebook and FriendFeed

News broke out today that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed although details have been sketchy at best as to the terms of the acquisition. FriendFeed operates very much like the wildly popular Twitter. With Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed, Twitter’s reign over the microblogosphere may no longer be as dominant as before.

Twitter became popular so rapidly that it’s hard to remember what the internet was like when it wasn’t around. It took the social networking circles by storm and has become the communication tool of choice for celebrities, athletes and even media personalities. With Facebook’s new business venture, it’s highly possible that Twitter may not remain the king for much longer.

Facebook remains one powerful force of social media overthrowing MySpace in terms of user preference. Facebook has only continue to grow and expand, gaining more members and popularity than ever before. The minds behind Facebook have all the necessary tools to mold FriendFeed into Twitter’s formiddable rival.

This war is definitely going to be fun to watch. I simply loathe Twitter so watching them go down will be absolute joy! If Facebook is able to utilize the same principles of Twitter and maybe add in a few cool unique features, it will be only a matter of time before Twitter becomes a distant memory. Facebook did it to MySpace now it’s time to do it to Twitter!

By Peter K. Lam

Twitter and Facebook

As many of you are probably already aware of, both Twitter and Facebook were attacked by hacker who distributed “denial of service” to the popular social networking sites. Twitter was shut down for several hours and Facebook was slowed by the attacks. The attacks probably happened early on the east coast time zone because I woke up this morning and was able to access Facebook with no problem at all. I’m in the Pacific time zone . It probably was fixed relatively quickly.

As for Twitter, I was absolutely estatic to hear it was silenced even if it was for a few hours. Twitter is a very interesting phenomenon since it allows users to have instant access to bits of information. Initially it was used to network friends together. Now it has expanded to include celebrities, polictians, media personalities, and more. Twitter is useful when used correctly but too often do I see just a bunch of random bullshit posts that just pisses me off. I really don’t give a shit if you are are eating breakfast and have something stuck in your teeth. Who the Hell really needs to know about that?

Why do people need to know when you are going to the bath room or if you are scratching your head? Is anybody’s life THAT interesting that you need to know what they’re doing at all times? It’s seriously ridiculous and I’m so happy that the hacker was able to shut up these chatter boxes if only for a few hours.

I subscribe to a few RSS feeds of a few people who use Twitter. I use it to find out about new music the person is releasing or perhaps just instant breaking news. Using Twitter to inform people about news and latest developments about things is what Twitter is made for. It wasn’t really meant for people to dish out weird random details about their life to a bunch of “followers” who I’m sure don’t even know the person they are following…

I’m sure the attack was very bad but for those who simply loathe Twitter, it was blissful peace for a short time. Hacking in general is never a good thing but in this case I’ll make an exception.