Excellent - and funny - piece by Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow on the real problem with Social Networks: You pretty much have to talk to everyone who asks you.

Quote:

It's socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list -- but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war. The least-awkward way to get back to a friends list with nothing but friends on it is to reboot: create a new identity on a new system and send out some invites (of course, chances are at least one of those invites will go to someone who'll groan and wonder why we're dumb enough to think that we're pals).

Infoweek piece

Google knows where you are, even without GPS in your phone.

Thanks to Advertising Lab for this one.


On the heels of Samsung's RFID reader news, here's an alternate approach to getting location-specific content into the hands of a mobile-phone user.

My Location is a new beta technology from Google that uses cell tower identification to provide you with approximate location information, so it will work on phones without GPS. Simply fire up Google Maps for mobile, press [0], and the map will indicate your approximate location by centering on a blue circle like this:



If you do have a GPS-enabled device, My Location can actually complement it. My Location kicks in faster than GPS in most cases, so you can access your location even faster on the map. It also works reliably indoors (unlike GPS) and doesn't drain your phone battery at the rate that GPS does.

While the Google piece doesn't mention ad serving, obviously Google can target a user more effectively if they know where she is right now. This looks like it'll see the light of day a lot sooner than Samsung's approach - it's in beta now.

Google Mobile blog

AdverLab article

Eye candy time.

These are by far the most creative balloon art I've seen. Definitely a show-stopper.
Via Boing Boing






Boing Boing post

Hackenwerth's site

Additional photos from a rehearsal dinner(!)

Here's a rundown on some well-made Flash sites, along with some useful guidelines on how to avoid Stupid Flash Tricks.

Sample:

Long texts shouldn’t be embedded in Flash movies, because it’s harder (if possible at all) to work with the embedded text once you need to. Cubamoon is a perfect example of how this is done wrongly. The completeness of the design is enviable, its beauty irresistible, Flash-effects are stunning. However it’s really hard to work with the content of the site. Visitors can’t open links in new windows and the text can’t be selected and copied.

Here's one they like:


Visiting the agency’s web-site you actually visit their agency. Clean images, great use of video features.
Smashing Magazine link