Dec
16

Can Another Company’s Branding Damage Yours?

Justin on December 16th, 2009

You’ve probably seen the U. S. Postal Service’s ads* proclaiming “If it fits, it ships.”  The actor entrusted with that tagline is former Second City comedian Mike Bradecich, whose boyish charm combines with his unflappable postal efficiency, soothing the jangled nerves of every worried customer he encounters. Which is ironic, because you’ve probably also seen [...]

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Armchair Sociology 3 Comments »
Dec
15

Fuck Privacy. What About the Rest of Your Life?

Justin on December 15th, 2009

Last week, I wrote about Spokeo, a service that lets people who barely know you find out more about you than either of you might realize.  But the problem isn’t the service itself — it’s our expectations of privacy, and our intentions for wanting privacy in the first place. As Ian M. Rountree writes in [...]

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Armchair Sociology, My Social Media POV 13 Comments »
Dec
11

Another Nail in the Privacy Coffin

Justin on December 11th, 2009

Somehow, even though it’s been around for years, I managed to remain unaware of Spokeo until yesterday.  But lord knows they’ve been aware of me — and you. If you’re also unfamiliar with the service, it’s basically an aggregator of anything you’ve ever done online.  You join, and then Spokeo scrapes your email contact list [...]

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My Social Media POV 5 Comments »
Dec
9

Let’s Talk About What We Never Want to Talk About

Justin on December 9th, 2009

I know, I know: we elected a black president, so we’re supposed to be done with racism.  Also, it’s a subject we all hate to talk about because it reminds us that the world is still full of stupid people that we’re trying to leave behind on our march toward utopia.  But the Internet has [...]

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Armchair Sociology, My Social Media POV 14 Comments »
Dec
8

10 Words That Don’t Mean Anything

Justin on December 8th, 2009

I remember the day in 1993 when MTV News reported Al Sharpton was leading a funeral service for the word “def,” announcing that a word which had once meant something specific to a certain culture had now been appropriated by the mainstream, thus robbing it of any relevance to the culture that coined it. But [...]

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Armchair Sociology 9 Comments »