Friday Recap: Random Cool Stuff Edition
Happy Friday, everyone! I’m in an especially good mood today for two reasons:
- I had so much fun liveblogging at DOMAINfest yesterday. It was my first time doing it and that event was a perfect way to break myself in. It was right on the water at the Fairmont in Santa Monica, the people were very nice and the setup was comfortable. They even had a really great food spread for attendees.
- I’m headed to Vegas in T minus 20 hours for a long three-day weekend. After listening to the chat with author Ben Mezrich yesterday at DOMAINfest, I’m feeling inspired to try my luck at counting cards. [I think that's exactly what MGM was hoping for by making the movie. --Susan]
So, on to le recap de Friday!
According to one study, what letter your last name starts with correlates to how fast you’ll buy something. Let me explain. If your last name starts with an “A,” you’re used to being first (think roll call). If you’re last name starts with a “Z,” you’re used to being last, and therefore somehow feel time is always running out. So, as a Z surname, if you see a “Last chance, buy now”-type ad online, you’re going to jump on that. Here’s a quote from the article, “Tyranny of the Alphabet“:
“[R]epeated delays imposed on children whose last names are late in the alphabet create in those individuals a chronic expediency motive that is automatically activated.”
In totally messed up U.S. weather news:
And while we’re on the topic of awesome nature stuff, check out the aliens creating blood-red waterfalls in Antarctica. A glacier is leaking a small body of water that was frozen more than 2 million years ago. The foreign microbes are responsible for the bloody scene. Pretty neat.
You’ve all had a chance to look at Bruce Clay’s post on paid links this week? It sure did heat up this week on the blog as well as on Sphinn. Lots of people had something to say. We love when people are passionate about a topic. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, commented on it as well:
Check out this infographic on the unemployment situation (hat tip to @portentint). Wow, there are more than 5,000 people working as janitors right now who have a Ph.D. For some reason, Good Will Hunting comes to mind.
LinkedIn launched LinkedIn Skills this week, a service in beta that allows you to search people, companies, jobs, locations and groups by skill. So cool!
This morning, Susan found in her Twitter feed an example of what happens when a Web designer gets revenge on a non-paying customer. Ouch. I have a feeling this site is getting a lot of traffic now, however. [Netmeg commented that this the most she's ever been retweeted. Web marketers are a vengeful lot. --Susan]
Great weekend, everyone!
Thanks for sharing Jessica! I hadn’t heard about LinkedIn skills yet.
There was another story getting around the web 1-2 weeks ago about an unpaid web dev. in the UK & how he took matters into his own hands. It is a very short sided way to deal with temporary problems. The story is on Digg as, “Gas Company Gets Pwned by Unpaid Web Developer.”
@ February 6th, 2011 at 08:45That’s a lot of snow. Has your entire country just collapsed, or does that only happen here in the UK?
@ February 8th, 2011 at 08:42You’re very welcome, Brent. I have a feeling LinkedIn is going to really start getting more attention this year.
Yeah, those stories make for a good laugh, but I could never do that to a client — even if they were at fault.
@ February 8th, 2011 at 09:57Hi, Andy! Yes, the whole country except Southern California and Florida.
@ February 8th, 2011 at 09:58