Writers. Pah!

Like the remora fish in the slipstream of the great white shark, we sit on the fringes of society and suck away at its marrow. Or feed off the crumbs. We’re worthless, is what I’m trying to say.

And yet, we’re tasked with keeping the masses informed. It’s laughable. Anybody can write (really, just try it) and it’s usually the sort of people who aren’t very good at anything else. I imagine humankind’s next giant evolutionary step is replacing writers with machines. In fact, you’ll find that journalists have already been replaced by machines. They’re called public relations specialists. In the meantime, until ice-cream pooping, back-massaging Corvette Transformers that can write come along, we’ll have to do.

When the internet came along, and it spawned thousands of well-moneyed industries, the writers naturally followed. Tech journalists. Bloggers. Et cetera. These days, normal people do most of their reading on some sort of screen. Writing for online is huge. But it has its own, annoying memes that I wish would end. It’s like a never-ending insider joke and is a bit unimaginative.

You come across these:

Facebook killers

Facebook is the most gigantic social network on earth (stating the bleeding obvious: another trick of online writing). But every early adopter is sick of it, and barring Twitter, there’s nothing that’s come along and swept us up like Facebook did.

That hasn’t stopped tech writers from dubbing every goddamn social-like thing that’s come on the interwebs as being a Facebook killer. Even if the new network isn’t designed to fulfill the same functions as Facebook.

So Google Wave, the email/IM/surf/chat/share thingy was a Facebook killer. Google Buzz, probably the crappest social network ever thought up, was dubbed a Facebook killer. Some even tried that trick with Twitter.

There will probably never be a social network to kill Facebook. If Facebook does eventually die, it will be because it will have failed to evolve quickly enough to satisfy needs. Not because we all migrated to a different network.

• Google’s lame Facebook killer is called Google Buzz in Business Insider.

The undeserving praise given to new social networks, especially the crap ones like Google+

While on the subject of Facebook killers, aren’t you a little sick of the praise afforded to Google’s new social network? It’s not that great. Not only haven’t we been able fit it into our lives, the problem it pretends to solve isn’t solved at all. The reason why people aren’t so keen to separate their Facebook friends into little categories is because we don’t live like that. The people we interact with aren’t separated into neat, little compartments. A social network that does that feels odd and somewhat pointless.

Sorry, first adopters. We’ll just have to wait for the next one.

• Six reasons to drop Facebook for Google+… Or at least give it a try in TechWyse.
• Why I’m loving Google+ in Basic Blog Tips.

Writing on memes, especially very old ones

Rebecca Black has a new music video out. I don’t care. Neither, I’ll bet, do the type of people who drive memes. We move on. But as soon as a meme makes it onto CNN, then by god, it gets followed to death by the sort who hope to cash in on it.

Hence the new slew of articles on Black’s new song. Honestly, who cares? She was a joke, not a singer.

Yes, memes are great for unique hits. But then we move on. Trying to revive is like putting plasters on a zombie corpse that’s been decapitated. It ain’t coming back to life.

• Rebecca Black’s follow-up to ‘Friday’ has arrived in Mashable.

Apple

There’s no doubt that what Steve Jobs and co are doing is going to change the web forever. And ever. But do we really need to go about them like its Jesus and his 12 disciples? The shameful fact is that Apple has really taken a turn for the sinister, what with the rights it affords itself. It is starting to resemble Microsoft in the way it treats users. And yet is steadfastedly refuses to shed the “cool” label. Sure, we all like a well-designed product. And the iPad is pure genius. But unblinking worship isn’t healthy.

Take that from an Apple-ista.

• Beware the ‘Garden of Steve’ in Gawker.

THE INTERNET IS DYING!!1!!11!

Look, the internet is not dying. The web is not dying. It’s changing. The type of people who say that “the web is dying” are usually of the older cache – men (it’s invariably men) who were there when Steve Jobs still had good hair. They revel in open source and open networks. To them, the net is 4chan, not Facebook. Its viruses and hackers, not legal downloads and firewalls.

Companies like Facebook, Apple and the like made safe havens on the net where tech-illiterate people could take refuge. The internet became easier. Your mother has a Gmail account. Your grandmother has 12 friends on Facebook. It seems like the “open web” is shrinking, but that also means that late adopters, the sort of people who take on tested and tried products, are joining in droves.

That is something to be celebrated, not feared. Imagine if the motor car was always made difficult to drive. Where would we be now?

• The web is dead. Long live the internet in Wired.