Month: December 2006

  • MySpace is Dead

    Myspaceangles2My opinion has only hardened in the last few weeks. MySpace, the social networking giant… is dying. One peek at their Alexa profile will show that the ratings are way down, and while overall traffic isn’t totally flat… it’s fading. More importantly, as it’s gotten overrun with adults… almost all of the students I know have slowed their use.

    I used to get see all sorts of activity from students on a daily basis… but that seems to be fading too. Fewer content rich comments, fewer bulletins with anything valuable, and MORE spam. In fact, I’ve only been logging on myself once every few days. It simply isn’t worth the ads/spam/crappy bulletins that people post.

    It’s only natural that once the corporations take over and the dollars start rolling in that the adolescents check out. Nothing could be less cool than being labeled "corporate."

    Never fear, something else will pop up! And by the time most adults figure out what it is… it won’t be cool anymore.

  • Accidental tourist

    LostFor some reason, my blog has a very high site ranking. You put that with my unique ability to spell things wrong, despite the pretty red line that Firefox 2.0 puts under misspelled words, and it seems like my blog is a repository of lost blog travelers.

    For example, I spelled some celebrity’s name wrong… and a lot of other people don’t know how to spell his name, so they end up here. 40 so far today! Pretty funny… and if I were a marketer I’d start to wonder if spelling words wrong to increase site traffic was really worth it or not. Interesting concept.

    Anyway, if you are here because you are lost… feel free to comment!

  • Another incredible innovation

    This is called the Reactable. The developers describe it like this:

    The reactable, is a state-of-the-art multi-user electro-acoustic music
    instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface
    . Several simultaneous
    performers share complete control over
    the instrument by moving physical artefacts on the table surface and
    constructing different audio topologies in a kind of tangible modular
    synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

    I know I am a geek for this kind of thing, but while this isn’t really ready for consumers yet, I can see some potentially interesting applications. Kind of like a group turn table type of jam session. Mix it with the keytar… and we’re talking the next big wave of music! I mean, all good music comes from Barcelona, right?

  • Who loves YMX?

    This week, my partner in crime Derek Tang, (who is our Forum Administrator) is at the National Youth Workers Convention in Charlotte. Somehow they came up with the idea of getting their picture with a ton of people there with a little sign that says "We love YMX!" I think that is pretty hilarious.

    There are a few bloggers who wrote about the meet-up last night. Derek, Katie, Patti, and Marko. I think there were 12 people there officially… so Derek and I tied in our ability to get people to a meet-up. But at least they ate good Irish food.
    Leeland_ymx
    Apparently, Leeland loves YMX.

  • Not offended by Danny DiVito

    I must be the only American that didn’t care that Danny DiVito appeared on The View a little tipsy the other day. I mean, it’s not like he was appearing on something important like Letterman. Heck, if I had to go on the set… I don’t even drink and I’d want to think about it!

    In other news, I agree with 50 Cent on something. Oprah is an old white woman. It’s always been my joke that Oprah and Martha Stewart are the anti-Christ. I don’t wish either of them ill-will, but I just don’t care for them much.

  • Newsvine

    NewsvineMy latest internet addiction can be found at Newsvine. How it works is that while I’m browsing and I find something that I think is interesting, I simply seed it to a page of stuff that I want to either look at more closely later, or want other people to check out.

    Here’s a newsvine I’m trying to get going on the issue of adolescent spiritual development. Interesting concept in a Web 2.0 kind of way. I don’t know if it will really take off since the community aspect of it is really a bunch of snobs… but you never know. So… I’d love to have some more youth ministry seeders… I’m not promoting it in any way… but I’d love to have a bunch of people like me seeding articles about youth ministry and adolescent spiritual development. All they’d need to do is create an account and start seeding… just not sure if I really want to promote ONE MORE THING or just keep focused on what I’m already up to.

  • YMX Podcast going well

    YmxpodcastaThe big thing around YMX lately has been "When are you going to start a podcast?" Well, the first one launch Tuesday night and has been pretty well received. I’m looking forward to seeing where this new media for the site will take us.

    We’ve really not done it as a marketing thing… we’ve done it as a community stretching thing. That said, I had a blast doing my first round of interviews and gathering segments. So, while most of the show was put together here in Romeo, there is a segment from Belfast, a segment from British Columbia, Florida, and New Jersey.

    We’re looking to publish the next one just after Christmas… and it’s already looking like it’s going to be a real hum-dinger! So, check out our debut show here.

    Of course, if you like that… go to iTunes and search "youth ministry" to add it to your subscriptions.