What if the crowd is a shower of morons?

MySpace is going down. Yes I know: you thought it already had. Me, too. Turns out it’s staying aloft for a while longer by throwing 60% of its employees over the side of the balloon. That’s lead to a great thread on reddit by a soon-to-be ex-employee. The thread is digested by UX Magazine in MySpace’s US-Induced Death.

Digesting the digest, the unhappy employee writes:

What [MySpace's customer surveys] may have missed is a survey of people currently not using Myspace. Because I’d bet that a reason for leaving/using Facebook instead was the clean, elegant look of Facebook… People like customising, but they don’t like it when other people can customise too…

… 9 times out of 10 what the public collectively wants is just plan awful. The fact is most people just aren’t very smart, and the more you have in a group, the dumber they get. When you have a focus group of grandmas and parents and kids all sitting in a room together, and you ask them a question like “would you like to be able to customize your website?” most of them are going to think yeah, that sounds good! without even realizing what that will entail. … This should be a cardinal rule for every business: people, for the most part, have no fucking idea what they want until it lands in their fucking laps.

It won’t surprise many who know me that the idea of the crowd being wise has always struck me as deeply bogus. I think this MySpace casualty is right on the money.

HT to @fayafshar

How to get newspapers and magazines on your Kindle for free

Google Analytics can be a fount of useful information. I learned, for instance, from the logs of Kindle Automation for the Mac how many people are interested in learning how to subscribe on their Kindles for free to newspapers and magazines. They were finding the Kindle Automation site because that’s one of the things the book teaches Mac users.

I decided to write a separate ebook how-to guide for Mac and PC users looking for free newspaper and magazine subscriptions for their Kindles. The result is Kindle for Newspapers, Magazines and Blogs, which is available from its own website or from Amazon.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-01-10

• Mr 12 is now watching David Attenborough on his Xbox. Take that, fuddy duddy parents. Also, he's killed about a billion Nazis. #
• I'm a Superfan of Kindle Automation for the Mac on @GetGlue http://bit.ly/huZUup #
• Kindle Writers post, Maybe you don't "own" a Kindle book. Get over it. – http://bit.ly/e7fXXE #
• An amazing number of people think they should have the same rights to ebooks as pbooks, more in fact. #
• Should I be flattered that someone is trying to find a torrent for Kindle Automation for the Mac? http://bit.ly/bHWpyn #
• Winners! RT @webdynamo: AMP recognised in Nielson's 2011 10 best intranets. Very proud of the team achievement! http://bit.ly/BTmsP #
• If subtle were a hammer, Google Adwords needs an anvil to give a keyword a quality score of 7/10. What for a 10? One word, 70pt, bold? #
• Kindle Writers post, How to get free Kindle newspapers and magazines – http://bit.ly/ghUI3c #
• Mr 12 is sitting on the sofa reading the Oxford English Dictionary. The apple has not fallen far from the tree. #
• What a way to go! RT @damjanov: Reasons to vote me #TopGeek I got fired for a tweet before twitter was even popular – http://bit.ly/topgeek #
• loved Human Target – s1 | e7 – Salvage & Reclamation on Boxee http://bit.ly/cir8WM #
• Not often I'd expect my path and Triple J's to cross http://www.triplejunearthed.com/Artists/View.aspx?artistid=41176 on @jUnearthed #
• New home for Kindle For Newspapers, Magazines and Blogs – How to Get Free Content for the Kindle http://bit.ly/hsz07R #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-01-03

• If you've resolved to enjoy Sydney more, my self-guided walk from Circular Quay through the Gardens is on Amazon http://amzn.to/g1SIbZ #
• We now have Foxtel courtesy of the XBox. "Amazing," says I. "Welcome to the 21st century, Dad" says Mr 12. #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-12-31

• Received a Christmas Day auto-DM from @dgupta5150 offering his book "Tired of Being Marketed To?"; must be the sequel to "Tired of Irony?". #
• Irony's plaything, @dgupta5150 is a "Savvy Marketing & Social Media Visionary" but he's also "humble". There are too few humble visionaries. #
• Went to Picton. It was closed. Eight years here and I'm still surprised by the Australian approach to commerce. #
• Helloooo, Kangaroo Valley. The view from my chair on the porch http://yfrog.com/gzzfwjcj #