sandwichesandapples

I’m only casually interested in the issue of blog advertising. I’ve written on it before here. I’m not sticking ads on S&A and I just don’t care about ads in general. They’re a lousy user experience 95% of the time. Maybe more.

Anyway, a few days ago a pal was telling me he was looking for software to build a social website and I remembered an article I’d just seen in my Reader from Smashing Apps: How to Create Your Own Community Website for Free. I sent it along.

A day later he emailed to draw my attention to the comments section of the article (which I’d have missed since the comments weren’t in the RSS feed version of the article that appeared in my Reader).

Comment by Rubric B on May 25, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
Nice that Boonex happens to be an advertiser for this site. Article seems a little biased: what are the specific “pluses and minuses” of how to use this software?!

Comment by Andrew on May 25, 2009 @ 11:36 pm
@Rubric B… also, check out the URL… looks like an affiliate link to me…

If this is an ‘affiliate article’ then be upfront about it.

Comment by giedrius on May 26, 2009 @ 12:26 am
Whatever you do, do not use boonex. It is poorly written software : your developers will hate you if you will want to customize it to suit specific network needs (aka need extra functionality). We used it for couple projects, and it became usable once we ripped out almost all boonex code.
Also, it has security risks. If you create boonex website, put all mentions of word “boonex” in images, so worms wont find and attack your site automatically. I wrote about boonex in my wordpress blog and see bots searching for boonex on my site with cross-site code exploats.
There are good alternatives for it : elgg, insoshi, or host it on Ning…

Given that information, it does appear that Smashing Apps wrote up a piece of software simply as a quid pro quo to a sponsor. And that just makes me think the article (and others on the site) are bullshit. And that’s a really bad spot to put yourself in as a publication. They could have responded to the comments in the comments or in a separate post but they didn’t.

A week later Smashing Apps thanked their sponsors for the month including Boonex.

A few days ago, the Fail Blog posted this “news item”:

The problem is it’s a story that’s been floating the internet for quite some time and in popular culture even longer. Call it a hoax or urban legend or whatever. It just isn’t factual. I was suspicious as soon as I read the parenthesis under the headline: “(the actual AP headline).” The last sentence — “Lisa is blonde” — cinched it: bullshit. A quick trip to Snopes illuminated the issue.

It’s not like I expect the Fail Blog to be real journalism but for me the appeal of their items is their realness. So is it the Fail Blog getting pwnd when they blog dusty old urban legends?

Those freaking freecreditreport.com jingles drive me nuts. Mainly because they’re just bullshit. FreeCreditReport.com is not free. It’s just a 7 day trial with Experian — one of the three main credit reporting companies. After that you’re billed just like you ordered the credit report directly from Experian.

Federal law allows you to receive an actual free credit report from each of the companies. All you have to do is visit annualcreditreport.com.

As I recall, the user experience of annualcreditreport.com is pretty lousy but in the end you do get a no-strings-attached free (as in beer) credit report from the major players.

Do that. Avoid the bullshit of freecreditreport.com.

This is the moment when she says, “I’m the cook here.”

I like to think I’ve always had a healthy opposition to bullshit. But certain events in my life that climaxed last week caused me to consider it my calling, my mission perhaps, to oppose bullshit. I still haven’t figured out how best to do this, but I believe writing here will play a significant role.

After another day of shoveling through the stuff, I went out and bought Harry Frankfurt’s slim volume, On Bullshit. I love the opening sentence: “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.”

Amen, brother.

I was in a meeting yesterday where my boss told a potential client our hourly rate and added the hyperbole, “we’ll wash your car for an hour if you want us to but it’ll be an expensive car wash.”

For the record, I won’t wash your car for an hour. At least not in the capacity of web designer. I know that was just salesmanship exaggeration and fun but I just don’t think I could ever even say that to a client. I’m good at my job. I’m better when my job is interesting to me.

Not to say that washing cars isn’t interesting. In fact, washing cars is much more interesting to me than adding site content via hard-coded HTML (rather than through a flexible CMS like a civilized person). But I don’t like the sales theory that the firm (or the designer) is simply for hire. I’ve taken too many dull gigs just for the payday and it’s never been worth it. It’s a waste of everyone’s time when the client is just hiring a valet and the designer doesn’t get to do what he’s good at.