Tag Archive for 'ICT'

“Pownce is shutting down”

Published
by
Jason C. Romero
on December 2, 2008
in Footnotes
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Pownce came into existence as another competitor to Twitter. It’s selling point was that you could share files with friends on the site. However, it’s going away now: “Six Apart Acquires Pownce, Shuts Down Service.”

Usually a story like this would appear as a short blip on my radar. This time is a little different though, because, after searching and searching, I decided that Pownce was the place to leave messages for a close friend when she happened to be offline.

So, in a way, I feel like I looked for different places to live, then carefully decided on a place to call home, and now that home is going away.

Goodbye home. Time to look for another place to live.

“I could never live in Canada — their Internet is crap.”

Published
by
Jason C. Romero
on November 28, 2008
in Footnotes
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Cory Doctorow posted about how he can’t live in Canada because the Internet there is crap, and it made me wonder how many migrants consider this when deciding where to live.

Interesting that the quality of an Internet connection can have an effect like this. Of course, it is quite a different example, but part of the reason I don’t like going back to my parents’ house is that they don’t have a broadband connection, or even dial-up for that matter.

Is Craigslist embarrassing?

Published
by
Jason C. Romero
on November 1, 2008
in Raw Data
. Comments

I met someone on Craigslist, and they are embarrassed about telling people this, while I am not.

I understand that there is a stigma around it, but I think that this stigma is fading, and I want to do my part by “coming out” as having met someone this way to help the stigma fade further. I also think there are some generational differences with regards to meeting people this way, such that older people are more prone to be embarrassed than are younger people.

I did a quick poll of some friends over IM asking them:

Thoughts?

My friend says, “So-and-so agreed with me that its embarrassing to have met someone on Craigslist and tell your friends that part.”

And this is what they said:

M, 21: “Nah it’s just funny.”

M, 28: “I think most people would be. I don’t think I personally would be embarrassed though.”

F, 21: “Nope. Not embarrassed.”

F, 22: “I met my roommate on Craigslist, and I’m embarrassed. I lucked out, but there are some weirdos out there.”

F, 23: “Yes it is embarrassing. My fiancee and I met on LiveJournal and we never tell people that, because it sounds like we were two lonely, fat, antisocial nerds who found each other on the Internet. Not the best light in which to paint yourself.”

F, 28: “Yeah that’s embarrassing.”

F, 28: “I think its a tad more embarrassing than MySpace or Match.com, but the bf (22) says the order of embarrassment goes: MySpace, Craigslist, then Match.com type sites.”

F, 30: “Well, I agree with you. More and more people meet online and I laugh at people who are not savvy or smart enough to meet people online. I almost refuse to meet people elsewhere these days. I met this one shrink online once, and he told me that smarter populations use the Internet to meet because we know it’s easier to filter that way.”

F, 31: “I don’t think I’d be embarrassed, but i don’t embarrass all that easily. One could also be embarrassed, not because its Craigslist specifically, but because you had to advertise for friends. But I don’t think there’s much of a stigma to matchmaking sites anymore.”