metal&gin | (a weblog by craig t mackenzie)

It’s been a while since I updated, and I got a couple of bits I want to write about, so I figured I should, you know use this blog thing. ok first up:

Work

We’ve been watching Prison Break lately and I have to tell you, it’s amazing. Watching this group of people struggle to escape from a prison resonated with me because I handed my notice in the last day of July and was trying to convince my work to let me leave after a month instead of three.

Well things got tough, then they got nasty, then they got ugly, there was threats made, angry “i hate the world” days and lots of general struggle. Eventually though things got better and I realised I was approaching this the wrong way, I got my act together, spoke nicely and what do you know, it worked.

Last friday (7th August) was my last day at Impact, this wednesday (12th September) is my first day at Avenue A | Razorfish. I’m really excited, if not ever so slightly nervous (like shitting ‘em nervous).

I did a ‘dry run’ today, which basically consisted of going to London, walking my route to work, coming home. Sounds kinda dumb but I get lost incredibly easily, so I figured it was important to get this straight in my head…. OK and I went to the apple store.

Facebook

Everyone you know is on facebook right? Well it seems that way sometimes, it’s great though, I love facebook, I’ll be honest I really do love it. I even have FMenu running! The more the merrier.

The problem I’m starting to notice is the direct consequence of something I thought was so amazing when I found out. When I first joined facebook, f8 hadn’t happened, Mark Zuckerberg hadn’t got up on stage and announced the facebook platform, there was no public FHTML or FSQL.

The platform seemed excellent, wow I can develop for facebook? really? me? that’s awesome, I can use either my existing app or some purpose built thing and instantly tap into a rich user base of millions.

It all sounds so lovely.

Problem is there is nothing but crap out there, the applications being developed for facebook are shit, ugly, horrible pieces of work that are unusable, lack quality and serve no real purpose.

That’s a bit of a sweeping statement, and there are some great little gems out there, such as My Profiles, a great little app for adding links to your other online profiles, Graffiti Wall is another awesome app, really fun.

But there are so many more apps which are really poor quality, and they are generating masses of information spam, before the app development stuff I used to check my fb for updates in my news feed and would be able to see at a glance what everyone is up to, now it’s a sea of icons and links begging me to add this app or see this gift or view that tattoo or whatever. And I get really fucking pissed when it lands in my email inbox.

Another problem is the more people join fb from places like MySpace the more popular these apps will become, look at the Top Friends app, a direct lift of MySpace’s top friends list.

I guess there is no real ’solution’ and that is one of the problems with opening it up to anyone, look at MySpace are these people really web-designers? No. (yes, I know they are expressing themselves, blah blah blah). On the flip side are the people creating apps such as ‘water-fight’ really developers? No. Should facebook be opening it’s doors? Yes. Should facebook vet applications for quality and usability? Yes.

Context

This is just going to be a quick one, but it’s an old net classic, context. You see it in the forums, you get it on IRC, even your text messages aren’t safe from it.

Context, or lack-thereof should I say. It amazes me how easy it is for context to be misunderstood when reading written word, and that has just happened to me. I’ve pissed people off because they misinterpreted the context in which my comments were made.

I’m really upset and disappointed because the uproar of it all was really hurtful and I honestly didn’t think this particular person was like that at all. Oh well, time is a healer I guess.