I keep seeing some great sites related to Free (which is my favorite word) iPhone applications. See the Sidebar for this new category of links. Let’s start with 6 iPhone apps that will save you a bundle.
Facebook Addiction Anonymous
I’ve been thinking over the last few days with my addiction to Facebook. Is there a therapy group that can help me with this addiction?
Here are some of the top ten symptoms of a Facebook Addict:
- You are constantly thinking of what your next status update is going to be.
- You find yourself looking at your iPhone, to see whether anyone has responded to your last posting.
- Before you say hello to your family, you race to the laptop/desktop, to get on facebook when you get home
- Your Facebook personna and your real personna blend into one.
- You yell at your child to get off Facebook, so you can use their computer to get on.
- You tag pictures of strangers on Facebook, just so you get some responses.
- Just to increase your network, you invite people to be your “friend”, even the ones that you can’t really stand.
- You take pictures of yourself and post them, just to get attention
- You make sure all your Other social networking sites, get RSS feeds from your account
- You look at this list and nod your head, saying, yes been there done that.
I find myself dying to get on Facebook just to see if anyone has “poked me back”. A few of my friends and relatives have been poking me and I’ve been “poking” them back for the past few months.. I guess that’s the same type of pleasure you get when you “ping” a friend for no other reason than to just “ping” them.. Don’t ask me what that means.. It sounded good when I typed it.
Fortunately at work, we are restricted from getting a FB fix. At first this annoyed me but after reading the article in Mashable, I kind of appreciate it. Mashable’s stats reflected and documented that Facebook is “the Web’s ultimate TimeSink”.
The excerpt below tells it all.
The average U.S. Internet user spends more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia, and Amazon combined. Think about that for a moment.
I get on my teen’s case for racing to her computer day and night for her Facebook updates, but what about me? I find that my fingers start twitching for my fix, if I don’t check Facebook at least once a day for MY status updates and pokes from family and friends.
Now with Facebook’s integration with Google Gmail, you can get your RSS feeds directly into your Buzz screen in Gmail account.
Oh wait, did I tweet this already?? OMG, I just realized that my addiction goes beyond Facebook.. Now I need to get my tweet fix for today. Of course you can get both fixes with your Buzz.. Now doesn’t that sound like some kind of high you get when you take some illegal narcotics or drink too much?
Ok, I’m going to start my own anonymous addiction group on Facebook (for Facebook and Twitter addicts).. Let’s call it… Are you ready…drum roll please..
FaceTweet Anonymous (FA). Will you join?
Blogging For Gifts – A teenager’s Lesson
As I was sitting this morning watching the snow accumulate from my office window, I came across this article that made me think.. “Is it bribery or is it capitalism to get compensation to Blog as an intern?”
Techcrunch (Excellent covering technology news, Web 2.0 )is a well respected blog that I subscribe to and I was reading the aplology they issued issued about the teenager (I will only use the intern’s initials here (DB)) they fired when DB admitted to taking compensation (gifts) for blogging about a startup he was doing a write up on.. The intern in question was of course suspended and terminated, but it raised for me a moral dilemma.
Question: Are we as bloggers are morally obligated to NOT accept compensation in any form, or is it acceptable get compensated for our write ups?
When I used to blog on Blogger, earning money from my blog was encouraged. I know here at WordPress this against the “rules of usage”. I totally respect this principle
DB was wrong with what he did, but have you googled, blogging for revenue? You will get thousands of ideas on how you can make money from blogging. I think DB took this idea to an extreme and as I can see from his posting, he truly apologetic for his error in judgement. Yet, for me as a teenager (I’m role playing here) being offered (requesting) compensation, I think the temptation to be compensated for my writing would be too great.
As parents we teach our children “to do the right thing” yet we also encourage them “to reach for the stars”, be it via achievements, financially or socio-economicallly.
Yes what DB did was wrong.. Yet, I would think that society’s morals need to be questioned here. What would you do? When I sit back and think, this answer is hard for me to answer.
On one hand I applaud DB for making the most of his opportunity. On the other hand, I think what DB did was reprehensible. I’m actually torn between these two emotions.
Have I gone off my moral compass? I probably have, but after what I see in the corporate world on a day by day basis, the rewards for being diligent and hard work is at times highly suspect. In many corporation, it’s not what you know or how you do it, it ‘s the perception of what you do to reach your objectives.. Yet this is a topic for another day.
DB’ s apology on his site is genuine no doubt. Yet in this capitilistic society, did the punishment fit the crime?
From DB’s Blog entry:
This is the first day of the next learning stage for me. Yes, I am young, but from here, I can only learn more. To my family, friends, colleagues and especially, TechCrunch, I am sorry. I am taking this entire experience, learning and moving on.
I’m sure that this is one of the most controversial postings I’ve made AND I’m leaving myself open to flames from my readers..
Dad's Taxi 