First of all forgive my lack of posting (I’m in my own dark time right now). I had surgery on Monday but hope to be back at a regular schedule by next week. Here is the story that made me cry a little:

Obama might be , but his tech-savvy staffers are reportedly stunned by the West Wing’s painfully antiquated gear, not to mention a constricting, Web 2.0-stifling catalog of security and record-keeping regulations.

As this funny/sad story in the Washington Post reports, Obama’s team arrived at the White House Tuesday to find only a handful of laptops, old PCs running outdated software, disconnected phone lines, and a series of rules and regulations that essentially forbid anything resembling Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, or AIM…. .

Found this on Donklephant, banner above, and thought it might be an interesting viewing of how the separation of church and state works and how the Mormon Church’s involvement with Proposition 8 might have changed the results.

It’s important to take the personal opinion out of this and look at the power of, the drive of a group that wants to have a specific outcome.

It will be interesting to see what happens as this story moves forward.

One of the other interesting points in the video is how much the Mormon Church is using the digital media to get its point across. Three old dudes talking about texting, blogging…and so on, must have been on the teleprompter.

Thanks for the original post Donklephant.

Sadly it might not be a joke and someone actually thought it was clever. Songsmith is an interesting idea but this is not the way to show it off.

I watched it all in hopes that Ricky Gervais walked out and gave everyone a backhanded compliment.

Thanks for the link Dane.

Good luck to these guys and anyone in a startup or looking for a job should read about this one and they are just around the corner from me:

Every so often I come across some entrepreneur who reminds me why it is so much fun covering this beat. That happened Tuesday when I sat down with the energetic founders of Eggsprout, a Bellevue startup that is trying to transform the way people find jobs online.

It wasn’t so much the business. After all, enough people have attempted to revolutionize the job search category over the years(Jobster, anyone?) What caught my attention was the passion and drive exhibited by Brian Ma and Hsu Ken Ooi — the former University of Washington whizzes — that are leading Eggsprout.

They’re young (all five employees are under the age of 25); smart (Ma graduated early from the UW with a dual degree in computer science and electrical engineering); thrifty (the Bellevue basement where they work has limited heat); and hungry (They are foregoing salaries, surviving on chicken nuggets.)

Furthermore, the Eggsprout team — which is launching their service today after months of development and less than $10,000 in startup costs  — are not letting something like the worst economic recession in years stand in their way.

>>> Full Story Here

I’m a big fan of John Battelle, which is why Federated Media represents DHADM and Transbuddha on media buys.

I’m also a big fan of his yearly predictions which are often very accurate. Here are the headlines, check out his site for the details.

When you go a read his predictions for 2008 and how they turned out it’s worth reading his predictions for 2009.

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1. Macro economy: We’ll see an end to the recession, taken literally, by Q4 09. In other words, the economy will begin to grow again by the end of the year, but it won’t feel like we’re out of the woods till next year at the earliest. …

2. The online media space will be hit hard by the economic downturn in the first half, but by year’s end, will have chalked up moderate gains over last year in terms of gross spend. ….

3. Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever. It will also struggle to find an answer to the question of how it diversifies its revenue in 2009. Search is the ultimate harvester of demand, and Google has become search’s Archer Daniels Midland - wherever a seed of demand might pop its head through the web’s soil, Google is there to harvest it. …

4. Despite #3 above, Google stock will soar in by Q3-4 of 2009,…

5. Tied to #3 above, Microsoft will gain at least five points of search share in 2009, perhaps as much as 10. This is a rather radical prediction, I know, but hear me out…

6. Yahoo and AOL will merge.

7. However, in the second half of the year, Microsoft will buy its search monetization from the combined company.

8. Apple will see a significant reversal of recent fortunes. I sense this will happen for a number of reasons (), but I think the main one will be brand related - a brand based on being cooler than the other guy simply does not scale past a certain point. I sense Apple has hit that point.

9. Major brands will continue to struggle with the best way to interact with "social media." They will take budget reserved for media spending (IE buying banners and building out branding campaigns) and start to become publishers in their own right….

10. Agencies will increasingly see their role as that of publishers. Publishers will increasingly see their role as that of agencies. Both can win at this, but only by understanding how to truly add value to real communities - not flash crowds driven by one time events…

11. Twitter will continue its meteoric rise. This is a very hard prediction to make, because so much depends on the company’s ability to execute two crucial - and exceedingly difficult - new features: The integration of search into the service, and the monetization of that integration…

12. Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable. I am not certain what, but it won’t have a "status quo" year. It might be a merger with a traditional media company, a major alliance with Google, hiring a head scratcher as CEO, or something else at that level of "WTF!?" …

13. Lucky #13 is reserved for my eternal mobile prediction: 2009 will see the year mobility becomes presumptive in every aspect of the web….

14. Lastly, I promise, I will have sold my book and will be hard at work on it. And yes, still running FM too. I think I have a way to do both, given I wrote 15K words last year without even knowing it….

This is worth 40 seconds of your time. I wish 2008 had gone by that fast.

from on .

I have tried to cook Monkfish (a tremendously ugly fish), it didn’t go so well. I picked it up at Pike Place Market.

The texture was good, sort of like a lobster tail but I think I over cooked it.

It was only ok but I’m sure it was me not the fish.

I will have to try how Gordon cooks it, maybe it will be better next time.

This post get hit every year since posted right before Christmas.

The only way you could have NOT seen this flash is if you only just now signed onto the internet. This is the best viral piece Burger King never did. It was funny then and it still cracks me up.

Viral is not even a solid term for this. When something is turned into a clip on Family Guy, that is mass viral.

Think of it, some guy makes a funny clip years ago and tonight it shows up on T.V. in cartoon format.

Click on the image to see the now famous flash.

Sure FG is 90% pop-culture spins but Peter doing the BK guy cracked me up.

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I’m not the biggest fan of Star Wars.

…But I still found this mildly entertaining.

We have one at the office, but still I

have yet to hear anybody give a command

other than, “R2, do you remember?”

This video is a trip. Just looney, bat-shit crazy stuff.