Bill Gates says we’ll have robots washing and ironing, vacuuming the house and mowing the lawn. Thanks, but I’d rather have a flying car.

Some who read this blog will know how I enjoy the antics of certain trolls who know that, by pressing a certain button, they can ignite a firestorm of blog posts. If you listen to sports radio or read fan blogs, you’ll know trolls exist also in the sporting world — and they make Internet trolls look lame by comparison. Right now, the ESPN analyst Merril Hoge has got to be laughing uncontrollably at how he can so easily stir up Titans fans by continuing his season-long dissing of NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Vince Young. Why do Titans and VY fans care? Vince won. It’s not like when the Downtown Athletic Club awarded the 2005 Heisman Trophy to Reggie Bush and then Vince Young had the pleasure of humiliating USC on national TV to prove he actually deserved it. This time, the voting is over. The ballots are in. Vince won. It wasn’t even close. Reggie Bush, who Hoge thinks should have won, came in last among those who received votes. Only three of 50 votes went to Bush. Last place. You don’t have to convince Merril Hoge of anything. He doesn’t matter. He’s just being a troll. Okay. I got that off my chest.

Technorati Tags: titans, vince young

One of the tempests in the teapot of the small corner of the world known as the tech blogosphere is how (or if) super-blogger-media-empire-builder Michael Arrington can be both an investor in and advisor to some Web 2.0 startups and an objective journalist covering the field. Today, in a way that seems he’s going out of his way to prove just how objective he can be, Arrington reviews the long-anticipated (perhaps too-anticipated) Daylife, a company in which he is an early investor — and, well, whacks it with the back of his hand.

Says Arrington:

“After quickly reviewing the launch product, I am unhappy to report that I am underwhelmed by what Daylife has to offer.”

Ouch. They may want to remove his name from the list of folks they thank on the “About” page.

I am a fan of several people (and a friend to a few) associated with Daylife so I’ll withhold judgement of the site until I actually have time to spend on it. (Steve Rubel has looked and likes it.) However, my snap response (thin-slice?) to Michael’s post makes me think Daylife took an opposite approach from the development strategy advocated by Web 2.0 folk-hero Jason Fried and his 37Signals’ mantra concerning doing more with less. When something announced takes over a year to launch and is so slick in appearance, it invites itself to be judged by what it lacks — moreso than by what it has. Often, obscurity is a blessing when you’re trying out something new — obscurity makes it less likely for someone to notice what obvious RSS feed feature you’ve left out, for example. Also, (back to their About page), there are so many experts who advised or “inspired” the developers I’m guessing they may also may have experienced some of tension between what Kathy Sierra describes as “collective genius” and “the dumbness of crowds.”

Update: One of the folks who helped Daylife dawn, Jeff Jarvis, provides more information about the site and invites feedback from someone other than Michael Arrington. (I’m kidding, he didn’t say that.)

Update II: Now that I’ve spent some time on the site, I’m rather perplexed at the negative reaction of Michael Arrington. No, you can’t bust up the site and send it out via RSS yet. But it’s some of the best new web design I’ve seen in a long time — and yes, I’m calling a site that uses Flash well designed. Bonus points: No Web 2.0 fonts. It seems influenced by a school of gridded web design I’d call Subtractionistic of which I’m a big fan. There’s also some Ruffinisque (a term I feel certain that I just coined) qualities about the sense in the site’s continuous movement in reflecting what the media (including blogosphere) consider “news.” This is going to be a great site despite the incestuous bru-ha-ha taking place.

Bonus links: Two observations from really smart observers of this “space”: Scott Karp and David Weinberger.

Technorati Tags: daylife, socia media, web2.0

Okay. I’m getting dizzy. In the past 24 hours, my RSS newsreader has hit me with Amazon.com-related news about wikis, online stores, space rockets and now something called NowNow. However, I can’t use NowNow because no one has invited me to the party (remember the early days of G-Mail?) Who does Amazon think they are, Google?

(via: Fimoculous)

Dell blogger Lionel Menchaca linked to my earlier response to Robert Scoble’s question about why Apple doesn’t get the negative PR Dell gets.

Quote:

“We’ve created a team to find customers needing assistance in the blogosphere, entered Second Life, recently re-vamped the Dell Community Forum and have plans to offer more options for customers to provide feedback at CES and beyond. We are making efforts to be more forthcoming. We entered the blogosphere in part to take on negative issues. Will we make more mistakes along the way? Sure, but we are listening and learning as we go. In fact, the blog is all about those conversations, and it’s why I’m recognizing this debate that goes on about and around us.”

Impressive. I’m glad I pointed out in my earlier post that we have several Dells in the office and at least one employee who loves hers. (photos to come.)

Technorati Tags: business blog, cluetrain, dell

• A community site without a community | Matt McAlister
  Matt looks at some RSS-enabled features on Pligg 9 and asks, “Can a meaningful community form around a word that represents an idea?”
  (tags: wiki collaboration community pligg)