So every once in awhile I wish I knew more about cool things people are doing on the internet and every once in awhile I look on the internet and wonder why people are using these things. So here is my personal views on some popular or not so popular internet things.
First of all, the reason why I am writing this now is because of www.pandora.com. This website is awesome. Basically, you enter in some of your favorite musicians and it scans for radio stations on the internet playing those artists and looks for other artists who are in common between those stations and plays them for you. You can vote up or down on whether you like them. Pandora slowly learns about you and starts fine tuning the list to make the perfect station for you. I am not even an ideal person for this thing, because I don't really like most music the first time I hear it. I tend to need to hear a song a couple of times to really enjoy it. This would be great for people who really trying to find new artists and want to experiment but don't want to listen to stuff that is nothing like what they like. I'm thinking Shawn Walding would like this. The only people I could see not liking this are people who don't like to listen to random music or people who don't listen to music on computers.
The next website is www.shelfari.com. I think when I signed up for this I spammed everyone in my contact list with membership stuff. So I apologize. This website would be cool if it new what books you had read, but it's kind of a pain. This website allows you to list all the books you have read and rank them and make comments. You could also link to friends like a social community and share reading lists and make reccomendations. So far Brendan and I are the only ones willing to take the time to list over a hundred books on this thing. On a personal note, I like having a list of books I read and a place to make comments because I tend to forget these things. I would say this is a good personal program but not a great social website.
Facebook vs Myspace.
I don't really like either all that much. Jenny likes facebook and my family likes myspace. Myspace is like Vegas without the fun. It really just looks like a bunch of flashing lights and loud music. Everything is always loading and half the time people have fonts the same color as the background. Facebook is just bland. They keep offering fun downloads but they are never all that fun. Most of my friends use facebook so I check that one somewhat frequently but once I check it I get bored and leave. This probably has a lot to do with not having a ton of high school and grade school friends who I am dying to catch up with.
The next one on my list is youtube. I have heard so many great things about this and have been sent so many spam links to it and in the end have never been blown away by the comical genius of any of the links. I still have hope but it mostly just seems like 15 yr olds playing with their dad's video camera. The only amazing thing I have seen so far, not counting my brother killing people for money, is speed free soloing.
Finally, this website. I still don't think I need a blog and don't know why I have one, but I'll keep using it until it gets me in trouble.
Oh there are other websites to talk about but I'm sick of hyperlinking.
here are some quick 1-5 scores
straightdope.com (4)
urbandictionary(3)
picassa(4)
google anything(4)
rec.sport.disc(2)
farecast(4)
wiki(5)
sierra trading post(5)
craigslist(3)
angieslist(1)
minneapolis public library(3)