Magazine Covers, Government Scandal and Social Networking Similarities .. oh my!

This morning I sat down to make my second post to this blog. Exciting stuff! The second post, as most bloggers know, is the one that solidifies the tone your brand spanking new blog is about to take. As this is a blog that focuses on current events and the stunning examples of human "ingenuity" (read stupidity) that can be found in the days headlines this should be an easy task.

What did I find when I opened up my news reader? They are doing my job for me!

The Current New Yorker cover (July 21 2008) is prime material for a blog of this nature. Unfortunately I have standards and not even I will lower myself to describing the levels of stupidity this so called satire exemplifies.

MSNBC's slip of switching images of the Joker for Presidential Candidate McCain is yet one more stunning example of what this blog is dedicated too. All I can say to that one is "Wow, that was totally intentional, dramatic pause and 'we aren't suggesting a parallel' speech and all."

Here in Canada we have the leaking of the Conservative Government's plans to cut funding to Food Inspection and allowing the industry to police itself in terms to safety and standards. This coming on the heals of the unveiling and debate over Bill C-51 which will fast-track prescription medication, put heavy restrictions on natural health alternatives and allow the big drug companies to police themselves for safety and standards. All I can do in this case is shake my head and marvel at the backroom dealing tactics of government no matter what flag they are flying under. There is no stupidity here, simply greed.

I held out hope for the science and technology headlines.

Apple reports that Ipod sales are holding steady while Mac's are selling at all time highs resulting in record profits for this quarter. No surprise there, I am a PC user by necessity not choice. Given a choice I would be all over a new Mac Pro.

Facebook is suing a "copycat" company from Germany for intellectual property theft based on a similar look ... hold on a second ... social networking sites have similar looks? Who ever would have guessed.

Some of the examples of "clone sites" put forward by Facebook do in fact have very similar looks, it would not at all be surprising if a few were direct code clones. Then again you see this same thing everywhere. Here in the blog-sphere there are countless blog hosts all of which have remarkably similar interfaces and even templates for blog users to choose from. Any random blog on Blogger has as much chance of looking exactly like a Wordpress hosted blog.

The newer versions of Internet Explorer have all looked remarkably similar to various versions of Firefox. Mozilla is not suing Microsoft though. Why? There are only so many ways to present the same damn thing! Imitation is the highest form of flattery. The executives at Facebook would do well to remember that age old adage and perhaps find a better use for their resources.

Commercial websites, personal webpages, software interfaces (Age of Conan's UI bares remarkable resemblance to World Of Warcraft), web browsers, blogs, even local and nationally published print media. They all look the same!

I personally am awaiting the launch of Attentionwhore Central simply so that we can have at least one company operating a social networking site that holds no illusions about a higher purpose they perceive their users to have. Don't get me wrong. Social Networking could work, it could be exactly what it is intended to be, but not before the general populous stops putting emphasis on cleavage shots over all other content.