Two columns by Lance Ulanoff (of PC Mag) caught my eye today.
MySpace, Second Life, and Twitter Are Doomed. I think he's right. All three of these sites are the equivalent of visual 'noise' to me (and I swear it's not just because I'm 38)--MySpace especially. My take on MySpace is that it exists solely to create the most visually damaged, poorly laid-out web pages that have ever existed in the history of the Web. And Ulanoff is so right about all of the 'page stumps' out there in MySpace land that will never be developed and are just cluttering up the online landscape.
I'm glad to hear his thoughts on the corporate presence in SL. None of this has ever made sense to me--how a Dell store in SL can lead to anything remotely rewarding (in a commercial sense) in RL. Feel free to refute me if you think I'm wrong.
And finally, Twitter. Ah, Twitter. How I love you for telling me when someone I know is eating ice cream and preparing to watch American Idol on tv. While i think you've helped jell the idea of 'micro-blogging' for some of us, I will not miss you when (or if) you go.
The other column is:
iPhone to Flop...Then Fly (and you can see Jim Louderbeck's rebuttal here):
He says of the iPhone:
No, the iPhone will struggle initially because consumers will be unwilling to break their cellular-service contract simply to have a new phone.
I knew there was a reason why I had pay-as-you-go cell phone service and a used phone I bought on eBay! Goodbye, PagePlusCellular, Hello iPhone!
Don't forget the Mike Furlough Twitter Challenge (tm) - he will buy lunch for whoever can make a useful library related twitter application.