Howdy, I'm MG Siegler. I’m a general partner at Google Ventures and a columnist for TechCrunch. This is where I collect things.
Some selected works. Some haikus. Some investments. Ask away.
Showing 85 posts tagged jackassery
My friends Hunter Walk and Gregor Hochmuth made this simple site to protest the jackassery that is SOPA.
If you want to join the cause, simply use the site to change your Twitter profile picture to one of 3 “Stop SOPA” images. You can also revert to your original pic from the site — nice touch.
What's your opinion on Robert X. Cringely's recent post on his blog predicting that there will soon be an "insurrection" at Apple and Tim Cook won't be the CEO for much longer?
Asked by Anonymous
My professional opinion is that it’s preposterous.
My unprofessional opinion is that it’s fucking preposterous.
Is there going to be turnover at Apple in 2012? Of course. Guess what? There was turnover under Steve Jobs every year as well. Is Tim Cook — who has been acting CEO for extended periods of time twice before, remember — going to be stabbed in the back and forced out in 2012? Ha.
The sad thing is that the prediction isn’t even the most batshit crazy one that Cringely has this year. I guess when you’re about to retire you can just say whatever the hell you want and not worry about it. Good for him.
Get ready for this one — it’s huge. In fact, you better sit down.
You know the 28-day window* that studios now impose between when a DVD goes on sale and when it can be made available to rent?
It’s about to made 56 days, reports Peter Kafka.
Boom.
Hollywood is saved. DVD sales are going to flow like wine again. Everyone will be drunk. Glory days.
*sometimes known as “the bullshit 28-day window”
Following up on yesterday’s news, Verizon has decided not to charge their ridiculous $2 fee to those wanting to pay their bills online or via phone.
Good save. But I’m with Harry McCracken:
When Verizon says it won’t charge $2 for online payments, it’s saying it’ll get $2 out of you in some less obvious manner. Some victory.
— Harry McCracken (@harrymccracken) December 30, 2011
But it doesn’t contain a middle finger, so it’s fine.
Update 12/31: Pulled in the most open way possible.
I give AT&T a lot of shit (and rightfully so for jackassery moves like this). But it’s important to remember that their main competitor, Verizon, is also a sleazy carrier. Today brings the perfect example of that.
The largest carrier in the U.S. is apparently about to start charging a $2 fee if you pay your bill online or over the phone, sources tell Droid Life. Yes, they’re charging you to pay your bill. The only way to avoid the charge is to set up automatic payments which some people, like myself, don’t want to do.
What a total shitbag move. Verizon is actually incentivizing many people not to pay their bill. Pure greed.
Update 12/30: That didn’t last long.
Earlier today I noticed something funny. My Google profile picture — the picture associated with my Gmail account, my GChat account, my Google+ account, etc — had vanished. A bug? Nope.
It turns out, Google — without telling me — went into my account and deleted my profile picture. Why? Because I am giving the middle finger in it. See: above.
While ridiculous prudish, I figured this was probably the case so I uploaded the picture again to make sure. Sure enough, gone. At least this time, Googler Alex Joseph left a comment as to why:
As the first point of interaction with a user’s profile, all profile photos on Google+ are reviewed to make sure they are in line with our User Content and Conduct Policy. Our policy page states, “Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content.” Your profile photo was taken down as a violation of this policy. If you have further questions about the policies on Google+ you can visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html, or click the “Content Policy” link located in the footer of Google+ pages.
My problem isn’t so much with the fact that I couldn’t have a profile picture of myself giving everyone the finger — which I can and do on Twitter and elsewhere — it’s that no one bothered to tell me or warn me before they just went into my account and deleted the picture. What if this was the only place I had stored the picture?
Bigger picture: this seems like a ridiculous thing for Google to be policing. At first, they were all about ensuring that everyone was using their real name on Google+. After a shit storm about why that was stupid, they backed off. They should back off here as well because, honestly, who gives a shit? If my profile picture offends people, let them un-Circle me or whatever.
This also seems like a slippery slope. In certain cultures, various hand gestures mean different things. Is Google also going to delete my profile picture if I have my fingers up to my chin, for example?
If I were Google, I would be much more concerned about the rampant spam problem currently plaguing Google+. Flag and delete those fuckers — not the fine, upstanding citizens of your network who just want to have a little PG-13 fun.
Anyway, I’ve fixed my attitude and uploaded a picture (below) which should hopefully be in line with the terms of service no one actually reads anyway:
High-res
AMC does not own and operate the Kabuki Theater, Sundance Cinemas does. Is this not the very definition of false advertising?
*based on things other than popularity
Yesterday, Facebook made waves by revealing that a game called Gardens of Time was the “most popular” game on their platform in 2011. The only problem? It’s total bullshit.
Only after Josh Constine called them out, did Facebook highlight the fact that “most popular” didn’t actually have much to do with number of people actually playing the games as much as it was based on ratings of the games from a select group of users.
Why does this matter? Because Gardens of Time isn’t made by Zynga, the social game company that dominates Facebook’s platform. It sure looks like Facebook was trying to convey that their platform isn’t dominated by Zynga. As Constine puts it:
It’s almost as if Facebook used its cloudy methodology to keep Zynga from completely dominating the list, as the Mark Pincus machine currently owns all 5 Facebook games with the most DAU and still ended up with 4 of the top 10 spots on Facebook’s list.
Facebook’s post and list are disingenuous at best, pure jackassery at worst.
As Constine points out, Zynga’s CityVille had a peak of 100 million monthly active users. Gardens of Time had a peak of 17 million monthly active users. Which one would you say is the “most popular”?
Awesome. So glad I was included on the notable list of people using the service even though I’ve never heard of it and have obviously never signed up.
At least Joel Housman and others were on the case to call out the “douchebaggery”, as Housman puts it. Looks like they removed all the profiles they created for people.
Wow. Josh Topolsky is mad. And that by itself is fine — he’s clearly passionate about technology, which is great. What’s not fine is the fact that he’s way off-base in his rant. So far off-base that I need to respond.
First and foremost, Topolsky has decided to turn my thoughts on the Galaxy Nexus into full on class warfare between Android and iOS. That is, he twists my comparison of attention to detail into an argument about rich vs. poor people.
I mean, he actually tries to do this.
One little problem.
Congratulations to CNET’s Brooke Crothers for writing one of the most ridiculous things I’ve read in a while — and successfully getting myself (and undoubtedly many others) to link. Even more impressive: he didn’t have to break 400 words to do it. My guess is that he wrote this in 10 minutes. If not, that’s just sad.
You used to see a lot more of these types of posts a few years ago. But once those writing them started getting exposed as fools, they slowed down. You see, the argument used to be that those constantly writing positively about Apple were both morons and brainwashed — Apple was insignificant in the all-important PC market at the time, so those who liked the products were obviously whack jobs on the fringe of humanity.
Then a funny thing happened.
Apple became one of the most successful companies and the most valuable company in the world. They transformed the entertainment landscape, the retail landscape, the mobile landscape, and did something all the naysayers said was impossible: created an actual market for tablets. Now most companies around the world are trying to copy at least part of Apple’s business.
Matt Rosoff responding to my post about his post on Business Insider.
Spoiler alert: at one point he compares Business Insider slideshows to New Yorker photo essays.
Seriously.
I’m not trying to pick on Rosoff. I actually think he’s very good. I’m just not sure how you can argue that a slideshow was a good format for that story — or really any story on Business Insider.
I suppose you can make an argument for using a slideshow when pictures are the key element of a story, but that wasn’t the case here. Also, if I’m going to view a slideshow emphasizing pictures, I want to see big beautiful pictures. Most of BI’s slideshows look like shit.
Anyway, I obviously get why you’d want to do slideshows from a business perspective. As Marco Arment writes:
Unscrupulous or desperate web publishers will always invent new ways to inflate pageviews and defraud advertisers into paying for more reader attention than they’re actually getting.
And it will always work.
I just wouldn’t stand for such nonsense ruining an otherwise compelling story that I had written. I’m not convinced that Rosoff isn’t suffering from Stockholm Syndrome here.
