I really don’t like pointing the finger, but this company just approaches social media in such a horrible style, that I want you all to see how NOT to do it. First of all, they advertise with social media services. Now, the funny thing is, that they have a facebook link at top and left of their site, with different like amounts, confusing the user? Hell yeah. Second, you can’t “find” them on facebook, because their page-name only directs to nyndesigns.com

On twitter, a couple of messages (often the same) sprouts up by multiple people. What could be going on here, is that a bot with some random people-stock pictures is tweeting all their pre-defined news messages over and over again, none of them responds when you tweet at them, neither the @nyndesigns account. I assume these are blind bot accounts, because they tweet the same messages over and over again, trying to over-over-advertise for the posts and services of nyndesigns.com

The funny thing is, that Nyndesigns advertists with a message like:

Professional web consultation services @nyndesigns Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Which does not add up with their behaviour on social media at all.

ground rules they are breaking:

1. Be available for questions and correspondence
2. Don’t repeat yourself
3. Be authentic

Below you see the confusing different amounts of likes on their facebook page:

Here’s a potential list of Nyndesigns potential fake twitter accounts:

• https://twitter.com/#!/denahall8
• https://twitter.com/#!/katherinejtaylo
• https://twitter.com/#!/EliseBynum
• https://twitter.com/#!/katherinejtaylo
• https://twitter.com/#!/AllieHofer
• https://twitter.com/#!/DavidRCastillo
• https://twitter.com/#!/SarahCWoo
• https://twitter.com/#!/haroldiglesia14
• https://twitter.com/#!/calvinscholl12
• https://twitter.com/#!/JuanMckeon
• https://twitter.com/#!/edithccole
• https://twitter.com/#!/sarahgraha
• https://twitter.com/#!/NathanEGrable
• https://twitter.com/#!/kathleenbryan14
• https://twitter.com/#!/williamallen12
• https://twitter.com/#!/lorikthomas
• https://twitter.com/#!/johnnymoylan12
• https://twitter.com/#!/ryanuryan
• https://twitter.com/#!/charlesboard12

and many more, able to be found on: https://twitter.com/#!/search/@nyndesigns

UPDATE: I just filed a spam report on twitter.com about this matter, including the information above.

I have a dream about yet another web project and I’m now going to present what it’s going to be.

What will transb.in be?

It will be an online interface for easily translating texts and adding annotations. EDIT: The website will not auto-translate anything, the users will be able to translate texts.

Why is it called transb.in?

Basically, because there are many “pastebins” for code out there like pastebin.com, but this one is going to show texts side by side, in their original language and the one they are translated to.

Who needs this?

First of all, I do. I think it’s much more pleasant if the texts you are trying to understand in a foreign language appear side by side (original/translation) so you can pick up some of the twists in the authors original version. Thinking from poems or songs, over speeches to any kind of written material, people may not be able to understand without a translation.

Second of all, it may be a help for anybody who translates texts, for wikis, documentations, tutorials or different material.

Why will this be better?

It will be better, because the method of displaying texts is much more natural for people who want to compare the translation to the content of the untouched text. Also annotations within the texts (like in MS Office or Open/Libre Office) will aid the user in understanding the meaning a lot better than only the interpretation of the primary translator.

On top of that, users will have the option of translating the text into another language and make it accessible for even more people, adding to the list of available languages, like on Wikipedia/Wikiquote, etc.

 When will this go live?

When it’s done.

ROARER

The past three weeks I’ve partly dedicated to writing my twitter clone ROARER and today from 08:00 until 11:00 I will be online there. Join everybody who reads this and can spare the time plus the people at my university in trying it out in that time!

Key features

• Login without password, just type your nickname
• see the notification and click it when new roars arrive
• scroll down to see older roars, page automatically extended

Launch Catapult

Key Features

• name and mail gets saved to database
• email address validated before sign up button appears
• all output can be customized throuh backend

To Do:

• add functionality for sending mails

This Friday a couple of things have to be done and some of them will not. That’s not so bad, because there is no need to be done. Not for me, because I don’t feel bad about the amount of work I’ve punched through, in the last weeks. Also, nobody will bother.

I hereby want to invite everybody to try ROARER my tiny twitter clone with the people at NoMA. I will publish a URL Friday morning, so everybody can participate and keep everybody updated through facebook and twitter.

So, what have I actually done for my NoMA specialisation?

Roarer and Launch Catapult my two little AJAX tech demos are called.
Launch Catapult is ready for productive use and already running at vollzeitblogger.de. Functionality for sending out emails for the friendly people signing up, will not be a big hassle to write.
Roarer is a little more difficult, because it craves a lot more injections into the DOM and it’s more of a demonstration how to do different things, how deep you can go into the DOM to exchange tiny values and when it might be better to reload a larger area.

After documenting the source code some more, adding features and cleaning it up, it will be published, both ROARER (which I could turn into a little Tutorial actually) and the Launch Catapult.

I’ve been posting this on diaspora, twitter and facebook yesterday, but it deserved a blog entry, so here we go:

Off book is a series of short documentaries of specific topics, which further understanding and analyses our culture at a very current state.  The two videos I’d like to show here, are about the power of videogames and also hacking culture.

Off Book: Video Games

This video shows very greatly, that video games undeniably are culture. The variety and the ways you can interact with them are unique and outstanding.

Off Book: Hacking Art & Culture with F.A.T. Lab

This one is about how F.A.T. Lab has been trying to come up with projects that ride the wave of todays media making processes and how to question monopolies.

There are some more videos on PBS arts vimeo channel and I can also recommend them, because they are interesting peeks into other worlds.