I Drew This

Two net-related things that annoy me recently:

1.Twitter.

Or, more specifically, twitterspam. I wrote something about looking through stock images the other day and within a few hours, I was being followed by a company that was all about providing stock images.

This is an interesting example, because although I hate the concept of trawling twitter for keywords as a way to market your wares, I actually found this kind of interesting and am currently following back (big internal dilemma, that one). I think because I actually found the targeting kind of useful, I found myself following. I’ll give them a week.

But I hate 99% of the other twitspam.

I kind of think of the twitter “conversation” as being like a crowded pub, or party. I’m talking to a friend. I mention stock photos, or whatever. There’s a guy standing near me who hears me mention this and says “That’s interesting you mentioned stock photography because I actually manage a photo library”.

This isn’t too bad. Though the analogy is more like he was at the party eavesdropping on multiple conversations, hoping someone would mention it. If you did that at a party, people would think you were weird and avoid you, you lurking freak. But it’s niche enough that some people might, if they’re already talking about it, be interested. Fair enough.

What shits me though, is the number of new followers I get who have pictures of pretty teenage girls attached, who say nothing in their feeds, only posting a bunch of links (and while url-shortening services are cool, they do mask the real url, so you have no idea if it will land you somewhere extrememly nsfw, which I bet most of them do).

The pub or party equivalent of this is some filthy fat bugger in unwashed jeans, holding up a facemask of a pretty young model, walking up to his target demographic (probably just males) and whispering “wanna see some pictures of chicks doing it?”

Block.

2. Domain name gluttons

I’m looking at doing a new website (long overdue). Having my own url will mean I can finally get some business cards printed so I can at least give off the illusion of being a professional freelancer (in a completely on-the-side way, you understand).

But, be buggered if I can think of a good name for a domain. Or, more precisely, be buggered if I can think of a good name that isn’t already being used. Or, more precisely, be buggered if i can think of a good name that isn’t already not being used but is owned by someone who has no intention of using it and only owns it on the off chance you’ll want to use it and wants to charge you $3,500US for something that should only cost $20. Fuck you, mate, dot com.

For the record, I want something fairly arbitrary as a domain name. The only thing I don’t like about my friend Bruce’s domain, tenpm (where he kindly lets me park this rubbish), is that it actually stands for something.  I liked it better when I though it was just a short, memorable but completely nondescript entity. It doesn’t have to mean anything. That’s what I want. (And the one I really wanted, arbitraryurl.com, is already taken by someone who, while not using it, at least isn’t whoring it out to the highest bidder. Actually, they may be using it. It’s either laziness or art. I can’t work it out.)

And since I posted to twitter about this the other day, I’m surprised the domain whores aren’t following me, hoping I’ll grace them with a clickthrough.