Last week my friend @SheenaGoodyear posted a tweet on Twitter that I couldn’t have agreed with more. It’s a little untimely for me to finally post about it, but I’m out of post ideas today despite having taken a vacay from this site.
Sheena wrote:
Oddly, I’m meh on the “endearing” geek habits (http://tinyurl.com/n976uu) but find the “annoying” ones endearing. http://tinyurl.com/mv6jvs
There has always been the knowledge that short URL generators (like what Twitter uses, TinyURL) were bad for the web because of a phenomenon known as “link rot“. If these website go out of business or shut down then every website address dependent on their service ceases to exist.
Well recently that threat became bigger than ever. One of those websites was hacked. As the Consumerist said, “with a little work, millions of links can be redirected to phishing or spam sites.”
Twitter needs to develop its own system of handling shorter URLs in 140 character-restricted tweets. Using third party micro-URL generators is a terrible idea.
Please avoid using these services where at all possible. Using these services contributes to a bad internet for our future.
From Consumerist: Tweet URLs may be tiny, but they can also be dangerous
I know everyone is expecting me to write something regarding this topic as if I was Michael’s best friend. For those of you who do not know last year my friends and I recreated the Thriller video shot-for-shot in St. John’s with me as Michael Jackson.
I’m not sure what is the best way to show respect for this amazing entertainer, but I’ll write a little about the last day.
News of the story exploded on Twitter last night. Unfortunately I was not on the Internet at the time and was unable to cover the story but word is that Michael Jackson, for a while, dominated all 10 Trending Topics, which is no small feat. According to this graph provided by Mashable nearly 1 in ever 4 tweets was contained the words “Michael Jackson”.
Online news websites got swamped with visitors last night. Website availability for the top news websites fell from 100% to 86% as visitors flooded in to learn more about the incident. The average load time for every page doubled from 4.2 seconds to load to 8.9 seconds to load. Only one in every ten visitors was able to access ABCNews.com as they were floored with visitor requests.
I have no doubt there is a great deal of sadness amoung among his thousands of obsessed fans and the millions more who love his music (and how can I neglect to say dance moves). MJ’s family has requested that they be left alone to pay their respects and love to Michael. I doubt they will get any kind of peace given the power of these circumstances, but I respect their wishes and send my condolences.
In light of this tragedy I think I will upload our version of Thriller online despite my intention to save it for Halloween. I can imagine no better way for me to show my respect for this pop legend than to publicize an imitation of his great work, one of my favorite videos, Thriller. I will publish the video here when it is ready.
Good buy Michael. RIP.
From Mashable: Michael Jackson Dies: Twitter Tributes Now 30% of Tweets
From CNet News: News sites swamped following Michael Jackson’s death
From BNO News: Request from Michael’s family
The Notificator was a system for passing public messages circa 1935.
The Notificator, circa 1935