My Favorite Website is Red…Google

lens1594783_1288563617Web_Design_Tips_for_BeginWhat I Look for in a Website

Consistency – A site has to be updated regularly if it expects people to visit daily.  Obviously delivering fresh, well written, thought provoking content is important as well.

Few Ads – I’m not an ad snob and I understand that sites have to make money but blatant trickery to get people to click on ads is the most annoying thing a site can do.  It’s not the end all but I  prefer a site that doesn’t care if I sample their work without throwing ads in my face.

Simple Navigation – When I click on a link or button, I shouldn’t be confused where I’m being led.  The less links to get somewhere, the better.  ESPN comes to my mind as I site I’m always getting lost in.

Fuck Slideshows – I refuse to sit through slideshows.  Why sites don’t understand that scrolling down to view more pictures is advantageous to clicking through a fucking slideshow, I won’t understand.  Waiting and clicking through a slideshow is worse than Donald Sterling giving a speech at Howard University.

 

My Favorite Websites

barstool6. Barstool Sports – I’ve been extremely disappointed by Barstool lately.  This site will be dropping off my list because it’s being diluted with too much useless information.  The bloggers have developed personalities that are bigger than Smitty’s head and the site has overloaded everything that has made it popular.  They have 6 daily local smokeshows.  6?  6 smokeshows!  There are 7 cities reporting now and that leads to more re-posts and a general overflow of nonsense.  I still visit this site but not as much when I truly cared about the Philly section.

facebook-evolution-6405. Facebook – For bashing Facebook as much as I do it’s hard to believe I still check it daily.  I honestly can’t even explain why other than shamelessly self promoting my blog.  I think it’s because it allows me to stay in contact with people who would absolutely vanish from my life otherwise.  I think the real question is why should I care if I girl I went to college with, and who I will never see again, is having a baby?  This information holds a 0.0 on my importance scale.  Facebook is flooded with this but for some reason I still visit.  Probably because I have to compare other people to myself and ultimately decide who is interesting and who is not.

twitter-evolve4. Twitter – My fondness for Twitter is fading slowly.  The inability to get followers is tiresome.  I try tweeting, I try tagging, I try re-tweeting, and I still get nothing.  I think it’s an incredibly powerful platform that people are not utilizing because they are too stupid to understand how to use it.  Not to mention that Tweets have become a credible source of information.  For celebrities, there is no faster way of reaching millions of people instantly.  Twitter is actually something I use on my phone more than my desktop.  It’s the ultimate boredom quencher for a few minutes.

wikipedia13. Wikipedia – I trust Wikipedia for information.  It’s the first source I check for anything in regards to history, music, movies, sports, and other relevant information.  Google obviously considers it a wonderful source as it constantly comes up high in the rankings.  I’m not sure how trusted every single page is with its accuracy but it’s good enough for me.  I don’t know of many sites who are respected in so many areas as Wikipedia is.

606px-Human_evolution_scheme2.  Google – Name one reason Google shouldn’t be #1?  You can’t.  The ability to provide credible websites in a matter of seconds for any search that comes to my brain is the 2nd best invention of this century.  The algorithm to sort by relevance is something that some genius started and it is constantly being tweaked and improved.  If I’m curious about Kate Upton’s boobs, I can pop it into Google and come up with something.  Google in the hub for finding information that is created on the amazing internet (#1 invention).  It is by far my most visited website but more enjoyment is found from my #1.

reddit-logo1. Reddit – This has become my favorite website.  As I first started using Reddit, I would sift through the posts and mindlessly click on things I found interesting.  This brought about an average experience as I thought the memes weren’t that great and some of the culture was geeky.  As I learned how to navigate through the posts a little better and learned about the sub-reddits, I was opened to a fabulous world of creative, witty, smart posts and pictures that draw minds way brighter than mine.

For instance, the sub-reddit of Philadelphia is a better source of info than philly.com.  A greater variety of articles are posted than a single website and then people who live in the areas actually comment on them.  I even opened up an account for Reddit and got sucked into upvoting and even sharing a link or two.  If a post I write gets notoriety on Reddit, the possibilities are endless.  The comments on the posts are also filled with humor.  Reading the top comment of posts you like is a must because they always deliver.  I think another huge factor is their news is usually the first to hit the internet.  I see reposts on others sites of things posted on Reddit hours before.  Reddit has become my favorite website.

 

Honorable Mention

Yahoo – It’s late to the punch in just about every instance but I still will check their finance section and their fantasy sports are hands down my favorite.

Grantland – The articles can get too lengthy sometimes but they write about a lot of content I like.

Bansheemann7 & Gourlay’s Goodies – How could I not mention websites that I visit daily?  This 3 person triumvirate will start delivering content that more than 3 people will read in due time.

By |2014-05-13T00:01:59-04:00May 13th, 2014|My Brain|0 Comments

Facebook Will Fail Because #Twitter

facebook

JKash sent me this link from Deadspin about RG3 posting a rant on Facebook wondering why fans cared about the sleeve he wears.   It’s definitely not worth the read because I can sum it up by calling it an unnecessary generic rant to a critiquing fan.  I have no clue what HTTR!!!! was at the end of his post though.    The best part of his rant was that it produced this comment by Martellus Bennent, the Chicago Bears TE.

Why a guy would take the time to write that in any source of medium is the real question. Martellus aptly points out that Facebook is heading the way of MySpace.  Although I don’t 100% agree with that, who still uses Facebook as a viable source of information? The Facebook page is such a joke compared to a Twitter account. It’s like comparing a black guy’s dick to an Asian guy.  Martellus has 20 tweets since he wrote this about RG3 and one of his recent tweet produced this gem:

 

This is what Facebook has come to.  It isn’t “cool” to be a part of Facebook anymore.  They’ve invited the world and everyone knows that it’s not cool to be part of a club that everyone is part of.   It’s a little sad really because I used to look forward to getting a Facebook friend.  Now I’m happy to accept but there isn’t any real feeling of accomplishment.  Now if I could actually get a Twitter follower, that would excite me.  Twitter followers are like the goddamn Stonecutters.  I almost feel like purchasing them just to build my self image and feel like people who actually use Twitter get to read my tweets.  Out of the 40 people who follow me, I’m pretty sure my tweets only reach 5 of them.  Out of my 400 Facebook friends, I have no purpose connecting with any of them.  This is why Facebook sucks now.

twitter-better-facebook

When I joined Facebook in 2004, it was cool because it was growing.  I’d go to a house party in college, find a girl that I know wouldn’t want to have sex with me, and try to be friends with her.  This made it fun because it turned a black out night into something of substance like getting her name and finding her on Facebook.  Now (and yes I am much older), Facebook isn’t about finding girls to sleep with.  It’s about sharing stupid links and dumb things that you are doing.  The worst part it, this content is coming from people who I barely even know.  I have 400 friends but only have about 50 people in my life who I care about.  This leaves 7/8 of my Facebook feed irrelevant.  I understand Facebook is having financial success but they sold out.  I doubt they crash and burn but they moved from my hip demographic to older, less popular people with more money.  #truth

infographic-power-of-twitter

 

By |2014-01-15T08:32:36-05:00January 14th, 2014|My Brain|3 Comments

Don’t Clog Up My FaceBook Feed

facebookthumbsdown

From articles I’ve read about teens losing interest in Facebook and their major push with ads and corporate input, Facebook is no longer the “hot” social media. The stock is maintaining momentum with a strong push towards mobile which is pretty much the only thing you have to say if you want to sound like you are in tune with what is going on. From what I gather (good phrase), Facebook is maintaining popularity amongst the older crowd, 40+, because it’s new to them whereas it was new to Generation X 10 years ago. This is preferred by Facebook because they are the demographic who has, and spends, money. Problem with this is that this group isn’t all that interesting and quality content is severely diminishing. I want to add a clause that it’s not that older people are not interesting, it’s that they don’t know how to appeal to the masses.

Stay at home moms and the unemployed tend to rule my Facebook news feed to the point that I don’t want to log on. For some unexplained reason I’ve had an influx of activity where I accepted, and requested, about 10 new friends. I have to assume that this activity opened the flood gates to people who are in my network. So without being the dickhead of the past, I decided to accept all requests. Big mistake. Within the first 12 hours of accepting their request I was littered with 2 profile picture changes of head shots. Head shot profile changes are screaming for attention. I can deal with a profile picture change quarterly and even monthly, but not weekly or daily. It clogs up my feed and immediately makes me think the thoughts I’m thinking now. Essentially, I don’t need or want you to be my Facebook friend.

It’s not just the head shots, the lack of interesting content is what is killing Facebook. Sometimes I’ll see some interesting links but am too scared to click them because 9 out of 10 are ads or spyware. The other problem is that people in general are boring. Twitter allows you to follow as many celebrities, comedians, pornstars, and athletes as you want who update with clever and fascinating tidbits. Facebook has me following 400 of my lame “friends” who update me about flat tires and bad hair days. It’s a matter of time before people start fleeing in droves.

So I don’t spend the entire post bashing Facebook, I do think it is a worthy place of displaying events and giving you a last resort way of contacting someone. Invitations of a party is perfect because people can get the details in a public setting. Also, there are cases where you know someone but don’t have their number and you can direct message them which is better than nothing. I know there are some people who use Facebook as their own blog or diary but these people are far and few between who post noteworthy work on Facebook. I find it neat to be on the edge of trends like these even though I’m still probably a year behind.

By |2013-11-19T08:56:13-05:00November 19th, 2013|My Brain|0 Comments

#FuckFacebook

facebooksucks (425 x 482)

I logged on Facebook today and without touching a single button, I was granted with the screenshot above. You’ll notice 6 ads to the right (all of which are based off my history and that I’m mostly already a part of) and a huge sponsored AD by US Weekly about some Will Ferrell event. Over time I’ve tried to give Facebook the benefit of the doubt but they’ve crossed the line. I think the turning point was when they went public and they’ve had incredible pressure to meet monetary expectations. They’ve succumbed to bombarding their users with ads at the expense of a pleasurable experience. Ads are acceptable if you actually LIKE (see what I did there) what you are about to do and herein lies the problem with Facebook, its grown stale.

I haven’t had a new friend request in the last 5 years. An exaggeration perhaps but the thrill of Facebook was initially framing your social circle. Now all I get are married, pregnant, or stay at home low life’s updating FB with the latest snorefest. It’s still a fine place to set up events because everyone has an account but in terms of anything new or significant, Facebook is old and irrelevant. What I believe happened here is that their demographic switched over time. They went from the new, hip thing to be a part of 10 years ago to catering to parents and infants and anyone else who could click a mouse. I don’t think Facebook is going anywhere but its definitely lost its glimmer. So what is trending?

As much as I’d like to think I’m on the ball, I know I was well behind on Twitter and I recently signed up for Instagram which would make me a dinosaur by tech standards. I know Instagram was bought by Facebook but the simplicity and focus of Instagram separates it. A quick way to upload pictures and video is the heart of Facebook. Meaning that without that you have pointless text updates. That’s why Instagram has stolen Facebook away from Facebook. I think also the fact that anything I post automatically uploads to my blog makes me want to use it more often as well.

The same idea applies with Twitter. Keeping updates to 140 characters limits what you can write but it also makes you be concise and hopefully more entertaining. I still haven’t figured out how to gain followers but I’m hoping in time and with this blog, it will come. I know there are tons of people who use Vine and the amount of likes is overwhelming for certain videos. Where Twitter shines though is that if you want people to view your Vine, you’d tweet the link because it’s a better, bigger platform. The idea of Facebook and having “friends” is what limits Facebook from the snowball effect of Twitter. Knowing that you are tweeting things and there is a potential for mass hysteria is what I think is appealing. This is why I really hope that Twitter doesn’t go through with the IPO even though I know they will. More business leads to more ads and more bullshit to sift through.

You won’t see rnningfool have ads until I start landing 20,000 unique visitors a month. You can see from my handy counter down below on the right that I get somewhere between 250 and 300 a day which gets me to almost 10k a month. If I can double that, I may have to start trying to pull some money out of this site and sell out. The bounce rate on this new theme is also remarkable as its been below 10% the last 3 days. I have a feeling that’s not accurate but something I’m monitoring. I’m still hoping that someday someone who reads this site will also be a twitter follower but that seems like a crazy stigma from this audience.

By |2013-09-23T15:01:09-04:00September 23rd, 2013|My Brain|0 Comments

The UnFriending Process

I don’t get new friend requests on Facebook. I’m past the point of my life of meeting new people and I’m content with never having a new friend. With this philosophy, you’d think I’d want to do my best at holding on to my current friends. You’d be wrong. There are three types of friends I currently have on Facebook. 1) Someone I know in real life that I’ve met on numerous occasions and would actually consider a friend. 2) Someone I met once, was curious about them and befriended them, never to see them again but still have some connection through mutual friends. 3) People who are somehow my friend. People from group 1 are relatively safe that I won’t unfriend them. People in group 2 and 3 can be unfriended if they do something that I don’t like. This will be discussed in reasons below. There is really no bigger slap in the face than an unwarranted unfriending. Unless you’ve done something wrong to the person, you’d never expect to be unfriended. It’s like the person is purposely going out of their way to tell you did something wrong in this facebook relationship. I’d presume that most people don’t ever think they are committing facebook mishaps to get them unfriended. Here are my reasons for unfriending.

  • A girl who is pretty hot, nice rack and I grew up a few houses away from (I barely know her) had about 10 songs in a row that she was listening to and it was updating my news feed with each one with a link to spotify. This started to annoy me and I gave her the heave ho. Clutter my news feed and get unfriended.
  • Steve asked me “how are you friends with this girl” and she was in my biology class in 7th grade and was somehow my friend. She updated her status almost every hour, wasn’t attractive, and I’d never see her again in my life. Unfriend.
  • I unfriended someone who had a lot of weed in their pictures and their wall was covered by inappropriate comments. As much as I feared unfriending this person, I stopped being a coward and did it.
  • Mystery song lyrics can warrant an unfriending.
  • Spamming links (rnningfool.com) doesn’t count. I’m referring to links that are malicious, this is an automatic unfriending even if it’s unintentional.

    You’ll notice that people who pretty much stay out of the news feed won’t get unfriended. With that new part of facebook in the upper right that tells people every little thing you do, I wouldn’t want to draw too much attention to myself. Most people don’t see it this way and leave trails and trails of activity that unless I really like you or know you, will get you unfriended. Out of the 350+ “friends” on facebook, I’d say I interact with 30 of them in real life. I have no problem leaving the other 320 but I also don’t have a problem removing them and never thinking about them again. Every so often I’ll think “I wonder what happened to so an so” but this thought happens once a year and usually if they are rumored to have croaked. I am more anti-social than you think and could probably survive without any friends. The fact that I’ve somehow accumulated this many should give some idea of how popular facebook is. However, with no new requests coming in, it’s all downhill from here on out. Once I whittle this list down to my top 100, you can hope you survive the cut.

  • By |2011-09-27T17:33:49-04:00September 27th, 2011|My Brain|1 Comment

    Nothing

    I’m getting somewhat annoyed with this whole social networking / blog deal. I want to be able to write whatever I want in this blog but I keep having people who I wouldn’t want to read what I write find my shit. This is becoming problematic and will perhaps alter the way I have done things. I wish it wasn’t so but I have a business relationship friend me on facebook and that leads right to my website and that leads right to things that people who do business with you might not want to read. So I had to change my facebook picture so I don’t look like a passed out drunk and this is really just a nuisance. I’ll comment further when I decide how to proceed.

    By |2016-11-01T23:54:26-04:00March 29th, 2010|My Life|0 Comments

    Tech Update

    I recently got a blackberry storm that I got from Verizon for 150 bucks.  They even gave in to letting me out of my contract four months early (still had to renew though) and getting it for the sale price which was a moral victory.  First impression, too confusing.  I found the touch screen to be hard to use (you need ant fingers like Evan would say) and the calling feature annoying.  After a couple of days I’ve gotten used to typing and working the phone although I’m a far cry from efficient.  I still seem to misclick the screen which leads to time wasting.   I think these blackberries are for people who want to feel important.  I now can get my emails from my phone but honestly I’m not married to my email and I don’t feel the need to be answering emails the second they come in.  The internet seems unbelievably slow and a complete waste of time but could come in handy in a bind.  I don’t need all the bells and whistles but I do find the phone an upgrade once I get used to using it.  My guess is it is something that grows on you but now I can at least say I’m part of the cult that is the crackberry.  The video feature is cool and the camera is a nice addition.

    Facebook has been around for quite a while now.  I think I opened an account about senior year of college and it’s evolving into its mature state.  I probably use it more than I should but I’m certainly not an addict to it.  I don’t have a camera so I don’t put up pictures and I really don’t like people taking pictures of me when I’m hammered, which are predominantly my pictures on facebook.  So there is really no point of me ever signing on facebook other than to view people I haven’t been in touch with in ages.  I try to never use the chat which bugs me out for some reason.  Anytime I do sign on, what tends to happen is I click on a picture of someone and the picture will be part of someone elses album.  Then I just start clicking the picture which makes me slideshow through some random person’s album and after about 10 clicks I’m viewing pictures of Jane Doe’s honeymoon saying wtf am I looking at.  I’m actually predicting the death of facebook shortly, I wouldn’t miss it.

    Moving on to another thing I hope dies shortly.  Twittering.  I really hope this twitter mania stops abruptly.  Hopefully scientists discover that twittering leads to instant death.  There shouldn’t be this infatuation with other people’s lives.  Paris Hilton’s twitter is something like (I know because I heard it on Howard Stern) “Going to the Britney concert, shopping for handbags, going to sleep with my bf).  Honestly, WHO FUCKING CARES?  People are so bored with their own lives that they get excitement living vicariously through the dumbest fucking people.  If I had a twitter this is what I’d write, “Grabbing a beer, then taking a shit while I think about how many retarded people want to know what I’m doing.”  My life is just as boring as yours and I have no interest thinking about what someone else is doing so that I hope I could be doing it too.  If you want people to follow you around because it makes you feel special than I guess twittering is useful.  I suppose it’s because “tweets” are live and up to the minute so there is a usefulness to being up to date but in my opinion nothing is that important unless someone is tweeting that they are going to die.  Maybe i’m missing something.

    By |2010-01-25T23:13:56-05:00May 20th, 2009|My Brain|0 Comments

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