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Well done, Ryan!

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  • Well done, Ryan!

    A fine letter in today's Honolulu Weekly.

    (You found the URL for that blog yet?)

  • #2
    Re: Well done, Ryan!

    Tee hee! I'm a little surprised they printed it. It was just a little geekly note about social software (about which I've been known to ramble), responding to the "Friendster v. MySpace" review by Mark Chittom. For the curious, here's what I sent them:
    Limiting a review of "cybersocieties" to Friendster and MySpace is like publishing "Cars: Nissan vs. Ford" (Lonely people, Honolulu Weekly, Sept. 1-7, 2004). The two are hardly the end-all and be-all of a very crowded market.

    I have the same reservations about MySpace.com, where the greater control of content allows some to go completely insane with blinking graphics and grating sound clips. I also agree that Friendster relaunched the niche (anyone remember Sixdegrees.com?), then surrendered it completely with poky servers. But there are many more players out there.

    Thinking locally, GlobalPauHana.org is a globe-spanning networking site focused on Hawaii expats and residents. As for bigger players, Tribe.net is worth a look, as what Friendster could have been. Ryze.com isn't flashy, but its simple and active. Orkut.com could really shine if they'd just unlock the door. And fresh out of the gate is Multiply.com, which has promise.

    Clearly, there's something out there for everyone, from fans of silicone-enhanced shoyu bunnies to entrepreneurs looking for relevant business contacts.

    Perhaps what's most noteworthy about the social networking boom is the fact that few have found much use for them beyond collecting friends. They're not particularly useful, and no one's making money at it... but I guess they're some kind of fun.

    By the way, Mark, you don't get off that easily. Just where is this blog of yours?
    And no, no sign of Mark's blog just yet. Anyone in the know willing to spill the beans?

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    • #3
      Re: Well done, Ryan!

      Originally posted by pzarquon
      Limiting a review of "cybersocieties" to Friendster and MySpace is like publishing "Cars: Nissan vs. Ford" (Lonely people, Honolulu Weekly, Sept. 1-7, 2004). The two are hardly the end-all and be-all of a very crowded market.

      Just as with many phrases from Shakespeare's works, he is quoted unknowingly far too often.
      And just as often, his quotes are butchered. The old bard is spinning in his grave as his original utterances slowly morph through contemporary usage into creatures quite unrecognizable and just as ugly.

      part of the above quote is a hack job of a line from Shakespeare's Macbeth:

      It were done quickly: if the assassination
      Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
      With his surcease success; that but this blow
      Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
      But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
      We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
      We still have judgement here; that we but teach
      Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return,
      To plague the inventor; this even-handed justice
      Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
      To our own lips.

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      • #4
        Re: Well done, Ryan!

        Er, "silicone-enhanced shoyu bunnies?"
        http://www.linkmeister.com/wordpress/

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        • #5
          Re: Well done, Ryan!

          Ah, "shoyu bunnies." Though I don't know my friends and I came up with it first (it was a easy jump from the term "snow bunny"), it was a phrase we embraced while at UH. It described a particular... fashion and personality aesthetic common in high school and among UH underclassmen. Tiny backpacks, translucent sandals, Bongo shorts, Billabong caps, pastel pagers (remember pagers?), and so on.

          No, not entirely politically correct... and compared to what passes for hot fashion today, what defined a shoyu bunny look is now positively plain.

          We slipped the phrase into conversations, columns in the newspaper, and of course web pages. I was tickled the day a lecturer used it in class. We even came up with derivatives, like "natto bunny" to describe a woman who thinks she's a shoyu bunny but is at least 10 years too old for it. I didn't think about it much in the years since, but seeing some of the local user photos on MySpace brought it all back.

          Getting it into the Weekly gave it new life. I've now seen it mentioned (and debated and defended) on MySpace pages, in Xangas (don't even get me started), and elsewhere. Obviously a 2004 "shoyu bunny" is pretty different from a 1993 "shoyu bunny," but the fact that so many people still think they instantly know what it means is strangely satisfying.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Well done, Ryan!

            Originally posted by pzarquon
            We even came up with derivatives, like "natto bunny" to describe a woman who thinks she's a shoyu bunny but is at least 10 years too old for it.
            "Natto bunnies." Bwaaahaaa!! Now that's funny. I work with several.

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