I Will Wait For Amazon's Kindle 3.0

The Kindle has been out for 2 days, and everybody has an opinion. Even the Pope. Some people like it. Some people hate it. But everybody agrees that the Kindle is just plain too ugly to have been designed for e-book readers living in 2007.

The Kindle's best feature is its ability to download a book from Amazon anytime in seconds. All the other features are in need of refinement. I would not buy a Kindle because I am not allowed to loan it to a friend. It is against the term of use. I like sharing books. When you find a book you love, you want to tell all your friends about it and lend it to them. I don't see myself lending the Kindle to a friend because A)They might break it. B)If I lend them my Kindle, what I am going to read? C)If they decide to download their a book for themselves on the Kindle, how I am going to ask for my money back?

Amazon also wants customers to pay for things they can get for free on the Internet. They want $15 for a New York Times subscription. Are they kidding me? They are also able to keep tab on how I read my e-books. That is the one thing I hate about things electronic, every company wants to connect to my stuff and see how I am using them. I bought it fair and square, so what I do with it is my business.

The Kindle has not kindled my imagination. Amazon wanted to Kindle to resemble ink on paper as much as possible. If someone is that attached to how ink looks on paper, don't you think they would just buy a book.

The Kindle looks like it was designed by baby boomers for baby boomers, and it shows. I say that Amazon should go back to the drawing board and design something with amazing features and that has "wow" written all over it and get back to us in one year.

I Want DNA Proof Showing Saul Hansell Is Not Related To Doug Johnson

Separated at Birth


Saul Hansell of the New York Times



Doug Johnson of TLC Moving Up

I was channel flipping and I saw a show called 'Moving UP' on TLC, and I went "oh my gosh! I didn't know Saul Hansell was an interior decorator as well as a New York Times writer." I quickly realized that it was his long lost brother Doug Johnson.

If they're not related, color me blind.

Facebook:The Past Was Dead, The Future Was Unimaginable

"Isn't this beautiful?" Zuckerberg asked the crowd.

Mark Zuckerberg was 23 and a college dropout. He was the boy wonder that "put fear" into the mighty Google, and made Microsoft fall head over heels in love. He had every reason to be nervous, but he had grown accustomed to the limelight and he cherished every moment of it. Mark had just finished describing his strategy to turn users of Facebook into Internet billboards. He has never been more proud.

Manhattan is accustomed to seeing stars, but Mark was not just any star. Hundreds of executives and journalists had come to the Mecca of advertising, not only to see him, but to witness what they've been told would be the future. Executives came to see him tell them that their brands was safe in his hands.

A generation of children have grown up online and they knew nothing of privacy, intimacy, and quiet afternoons in a park with their thoughts and a book. For them life means sharing every thought with everyone, without inhibition.

They wear GUnit T-shirts and carry Louis Vuitton bags as if they were badges of honor. They talk constantly about the brands they own, and the brands they aspire to own in the near future. Some even tattoo their favorite brands on their bodies. What Mark had done was tapped into Facebookers' needs for constant reassurance, validation, and proof that they're loved. Even if the love is from marketers trying to sell to them. It is a world where fakes friends are better than none.

Mark belongs to this brand obsessed generation. He wear Adidas flip flops as if they were attached to his feet. The Adidas brand has branched into an extension of himself. He understands Facebookers need to belong.

Social networkers as a group don't mind giving every bit of themselves, as long as they are rewarded for it. Being "social" and telling the world about your deepest desires are rewarded by ads made "just for you" asking you to desire more, and share even more of yourself.

Facebookers who willingly sign up to broadcast their deepest thoughts have read about the pitfalls of letting corporations and governments too deeply into lives. They have read and written reports on George Orwell's book '1984." But for them 1984 is a fantasy written by an old Englishman before the Internet "was created" by Google.

Executives from Blockbuster, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Toyota could not believe their luck. They have wanted to capitalize on this social networking trend that had become a way of life for so many. A whole generation of young, educated users, who seemed willing to give up their souls for just $24 each. Mark had just just told them that Facebookers were willing to give up their souls, or let the thought police give them a gentle push toward what they should desire next for just a hug and affirmation. He would keep the 24 dollars.

Alas! On November 6, the past was dead, the future was unimaginable.