mr. bland says...

Facebook’s Upcoming Changes: Last Days for Twitter?

Today Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, posted on the company’s blog, the upcoming changes to Facebook. At first glance, the changes seem to be targeted directly at obtaining the steam Twitter has collected over the past year. High profile user’s who have fan pages, will now be more open to the public.

From the blog: “Starting today, we are announcing new profiles for public figures and organizations. Once called Pages, these new profiles will now begin looking and functioning just like user profiles. Just as you connect with friends on Facebook, you can now connect and communicate with celebrities, musicians, politicians and organizations. These folks will now be able to share status updates, videos, photos or anything else they want, in the same way your friends can already. You’ll be able to keep up with all of their activity in your News Feed.”

This is a huge step for Facebook. It almost seems like Facebook will become an enhanced Twitter. But will it derail Twitter? Twitter has become popular because of its simplicity and 3rd party community. The effect of these changes to Facebook will be determined on how open their API will be. I, for one, do not want to open a browser everytime I want to see what everyone is up to. In fact, I rarely open up the Twitter home page. I use Twhirl for my desktop app and Tweetie on my iPhone. So how lenient is Facebook willing to be with their API? Only time will tell.

While writing this, a thought hit me. Can Facebook become your all-in-one portal for browsing the web? Can it be a one-stop shop for browsing news feeds and keeping up with your friends? I think it could be and this is where Facebook will grow. Allowing businesses to publish their RSS feeds in their Facebook feeds will be huge for, not only Facebook, but also the businesses. I rarely open up a browser to read a news story anymore unless the RSS feed is truncated *cough cough* Engadget/TUAW *cough*. Instead I use NetNewsWire to keep up with everything happening around the world.

So will Facebook be the Walmart of the internet? I think it can and will be. There’s nothing wrong with that. People will be mad, blogs will be upset that their visitor numbers will decrease but who’s fault is it that YOU didn’t think of this? Blogs and other news entities can make up for this by putting subtle ads in their feeds like some sites already do.

So how will you use the new Facebook?

The New Facebook Home Page

via Facebook Blog

I’m Losing My Job…

*sigh*

I never thought it would happen to me. But it turns out, it is happening to me. It looks like, in a matter of weeks, I’ll be losing my job. The company I work for will either be sold to a competitor, who is just buying out the client list and closing us down, or we will be going out of business. The latter will only happen if my boss, the owner, turns down the offer. I had no idea this was going to happen.

Our business has picked up tremendously over the past few weeks and I thought things were looking up. Apparently, the business has been hemorrhaging money over the past 6-8 months and we have accumulated too much debt to catch up. With today’s economy, companies are cutting their budgets left and right, which, in turn, slows us down and their payments come in later and later slowing down our cash flow. I mean, I knew things were kind of bad, but I had no idea it was like this. My boss has been taking money out of her retirement and putting it into the company and she’s now tapped out.

You want to know how I found all of this out? While my boss was out to lunch yesterday, I get a phone call from a guy asking about the equipment we have for sale. At first, I just assumed maybe my boss had some personal stuff for sale. But after taking down the guy’s information, I asked, “Is there any particular piece of equipment you are interested in?” He responds by naming two of the printing presses we have. My heart dropped. I wanted to think that maybe she was just selling them to get rid of the debt and then lease them. But that wasn’t the case.

When my boss returned from lunch I handed her the message and I saw it in her eyes. Fifteen minutes later, a few minutes before closing, she came back, sat down and looked at me. I knew what she was going to say. She tried to spin it to make it seem like it wasn’t that bad, but I knew she was lying. I told her to just be honest, and she told me I should start looking for another job. The only people that know are her, the bookkeeper and now me. The other 5 employees don’t. She doesn’t know what to tell them. Since we have alot of work in the shop, it needs to be done or else we won’t get our last paychecks. So, if she tells them now, she risks everyone walking out. If she waits until D-Day, everyone will be pretty pissed off. I kind of feel bad for her. I understand her predicament. I told her, “In the end it’s still a business. Whatever your decision is, it won’t be personal. At this point you have to worry about yourself. You’ve done all you could do.” At that point, I think it really hit her as a tear dropped her eye.

I’m glad I found out when I did. My fiance and I have been looking for our first house feverishly over the past few weeks. Our lease ends at our townhouse in June so we wanted to be out by then. We are also getting married in June. So, if I wouldn’t have found out, I would have spent my savings on a downpayment. The only upside to this story is that this potential new buyer already has a very successful printing press and, with the influx of new clients, may be hiring two more people. My boss has highly recommended our lead pressman and myself. But, it is in the Waynesboro, VA area, which is the complete opposite direction of where we were house hunting. My fiance works has about a 45 minute commute east of Charlottesville, VA as a middle school special education teacher. Our intentions for buyng a house was to find one in between Charlottesville, VA and where she works. So our house hunt is on hold until I find another job.

So I have some decisions to make over the next few weeks. If I do get offered the job in Waynesboro, and we keep looking for a house in the same area, I’d have about a 45-50 minute commute, which I don’t mind. But, I drive a Jeep Wrangler, which I’ve wanted ever since I was a little kid. So I’d probably have to sell it to get something with better gas mileage. If we moved to Waynesboro, my fiance would have close to a 80-90 minutes commute, which she doesn’t need to do. No one seems to be hiring a graphic designer here in Charlottesville so the next location to look would be in Richmond. That would also give me a pretty lengthy commute and, again, I’d probably still have to sell my Jeep. I love my Jeep.

So over the next week I’ll be updating my resume and feverishly finishing my website that is loooong over due. I’ll be posting a link to my resume for download. So if anyone in the Charlottesville/Richmond area knows of an opening for a graphic designer, please let me know.

F%&K

*sigh*

“OctoMom” Offered $1 Million to Make a Porno

This is just sad. Vivid Entertainment has offered Nadya Suleman, the mother who gave birth to octuplets not too long ago, $1 million to make a porno. On top of that, if she becomes a ‘contract star’, they will also provide full medical and dental care for her family.

The really sad part is, I bet she takes it. She has no job, no income and the house she is living in is being foreclosed on. She can’t work because taking care of 14 children, with no father, is a full time job, plus overtime, on its own.

This woman appauls me. She already had 6 children in an abysmal situation and opted to try and have another one. Somehow, she ended up having 8 more. Not only that but she is exploiting her situation by going on several talk shows and giving numerous intertviews just to get by. I guess you can’t blame her for that, seeing as how she has no income and 14 kids, but it just sickens me.

So my question is, do you think there is a market for this porno? As much as I hate to admit it, there is. There are some sick people out there and the publicity alone will substantiate Vivid Entertainment’s reasoning for producing such filth. But as long as people keep buying them, they’ll keep producing them.

Thank you, Nadya Suleman, for making Best Mother of 2009 an easy choice this year.

via TMZ