Please Stop Calling It a Widget

Mike Berkley of SplashCast Media recently wrote about the bad naming convention of calling of syndicated direct marketing applications like the SplashCast player a "widget," and how that practice inadvertently contributes to the "old skool media" syndication's weary-eyed view of "new skool media" syndication technology.

At the core of the issue is the silliness of the word itself, which depreciates the application's simple yet powerful ability to let fans spread a brand's message faster than you can say "viral marketing". To me the word "widget" conjures an image of small peoples who practice the Wiccan religion, not fantastically efficient social media technology. We might as well call them "gizmos". So, how shall we refer to them instead? Direct Media Applications? Brand Ambassador Tools? Syndicated Media Appliances? Even the word "gadgets" discredits their value.

This morning I found yourminis.com, which provides customizable Syndicated Media Modules (Ooo! I like that one!). With it, in about 60 seconds of dragging and dropping and without even creating an account, I made myself a syndication-enabled module of my Flickr photos. I went ahead and created an account anyway, however, to keep track of the data my Syndicated Module (another good one!) collects, such as views and how many times the code was copied.

I have high expectations for media syndication technology, and certainly consider myself to be a Social Media Module Ambassador. Now, if only people would stop calling it a widget!

Let's go steady!

A Typical Conversation With My Wife II

Long before @lollyrae there was Say. A delightful girl from academic stock, Say impressed me in high school with her impeccable jewelry/clothing/bag ensembles and triumphant mid-80's bang poofs. She was Honor Society, Lead Actress in a Musical, devoted daughter in a tight family unit. (Here's her Senior photo. Isn't she dreamy?) I was 2.0 GPA, Villager #2, angry girl from a splintered home. We bonded Sophomore year on the set of The King and I, both cast as Royal Wives to a dreamy King of Siam named Stefan. There were at least 30 Royal Wives, all of us painted an unnatural brown with smelly sponges and wrapped in tropical discount fabrics. We wives mostly sat around picking at our black spray-painted hair, chatting and scheming and feeling self-conscience as teenage girls are wont to do, waiting to float on stage like waves of colorful flowers in a stinky poo river.

Say and I have been through a lot together, some truly wonderful and some utterly horrendous. As you can imagine (or not if you're just getting to know me) it took a long time for dear Say to scale the pointy walls of tumulus aggression and emotional sensitivity of my youth. (Don't let my Senior photo fool you; this was probably taken right before I called someone the "c" word.) Luckily my girl wanted me badly enough to court me better than any man ever has. She showered me with a bevy of personalized flattery, such as a short story about how John Cusack and I would meet at a school dance and fall madly in love, several picture collages touting my perceived virtues, and open-door invites to hang out with her family who (I hope you're sitting down) enjoyed each other's company and (good LORD it isn't POSSIBLE!) ate dinner together at the same table. For realz.

Obviously, I am Say's Number One Fanatic and she is mine. And so when someone really hurts me, I can count on her to inflict pain on the culprit, or at least try to make me feel better. For instance, once upon a time there was a stoopid boy who was so utterly ruthless with my heart that he warranted a very special poem by my BFF, aptly entitled "Ode to a World-class Shithead":

Oh you, with azure eyes so sincere
Words of honey'd persuasion like the sweet poison of antifreeze
You are a world-class
Shithead.

And I mean that sincerely.
I hope your teeth rot with the putrid oil of lies you leak
From those pouty European lips
And choke on unquenched tears for the person
You could have been.

What about the touch, the movement of fingers on skin
That made it all seem so real?
I hope the leprosy of wasted chances eats at your flesh
Until one day, dazed and confused,
Rotten, depleted, old-man shriveled-dick useless,
Until you realize.

You realize.

That the dark pit of tortures and indecencies and rapacious gloom
That we call Hell
Is the only hole your soul
Knows how to fuck.

Can you feel the devotion? For this kind of love, I will quite happily punch my fist down the throat of any wrongdoer of my Say, grab ahold of their blackened heart with my angry hand and squeeze the @tweetJeebus out of it. QUITE happily!

And so, that is how it came to pass that I have two hawt BFFs that I married at Voodoo Doughnuts recently, in front of all our friends and lovers and Keep Portland Weird strangers. It's why @lollyrae calls me her "faux wife". And it's why I am blessed!

Let's go steady!

A Typical Conversation With My Wife

There is this redhead in my life called @lollyrae who, oh about forever ago, latched onto me like a starving pit bull. An starving Irish pit bull. It wasn't long before this lady started calling me up and inflicting her children on me, while feeding me goodies, hanging her paintings in my home, and telling me how beautiful I am. Since neither of us are lesbians (Whoo hoo! Lesbians!) we opted to be bosom buddies. Read into that what you will.

For my first post I share a sliver of my special relationship with the talented, and yet damned high maintenance, @lollyrae through an IM conversation I just had with her. (I'd give you a little background on what the hell she's talking about, but I'm not really sure.)

h: i should get some sleep, as these Seattle and Vancouver people wore me out and left me with unexplainable bruising
me: right. "unexplainable". BTW, you're a bitch for not twittering your experiences.
h: oh I"m gonna
i just had to concentrate what's left of my brain matter on some death penalty stats tonight
so it's going live tomorrow
me: evs...bitch
h: i love you too!! <3
good night!!
me: VOM
gnight

Let's go steady!