Some people have too much time on their hands…

Skrevet - Monday, May 21st, 2007 kl. 23:08 | Kategori - Rants, Underholdning

I was recently introduced to StumbleUpon. It’s not by any means a new thing - but things take time before reaching me. This service is a way of finding internet sites sort of randomly. You put in a few keywords and interests and start pushing the ‘Stumble’-button (sorta like Google’s ‘Feeling lucky’-button). Now, I think it’s a brilliant initiative for a couple of reasons - just like Pandora opened me to new music - this service has introduced me to webpages that I would never have found - nor looked for - before.

Now for a few teasers - how about a page with a collection of Photoshop wonders (I keep telling people that radioactive waste is dangerous - but who ever listens?) - or a hand-drawn watch? But thruthfully - I’ve had countless hours wasted with this service - and enjoyed every last one of them.

It’s funny, how people with too much time on their hands will get side-tracked, start something up (perhaps under the influence… very likely actually for some projects…) and pretty soon, it will have a life of it’s own on the internet. I read a few web-comics (like CTRL+ALT+DELETE (CAD) and Order of the Stick) and most of them started up as pet-projects and before they started reading their e-mail, they had fans from all over the world. The guy drawing CAD was at one point stumbed for ideas, drank a few litres of alcohol and came up with a new character (Chef Brian). A very far out, very … uhm… let’s call it imaginative character. He did a ‘I’m so sorry’-newspost about it, but was spammed with e-mails telling him to continue this character.

As a sidenote - Pandora has now been closed to non-US listeners. I guess, RIAA, decided that their new bands should have one chance less of reaching new listeners. It is a never-ending source of forehead-palming to read what these associations do to ‘protect’ their artists. Pandora was like listening to your own radiostation - you didn’t decide what they’d play, but you had influence according to what genres and styles you liked or disliked. If used smartly - it could have been a brilliant way of finding fans and listeners for new bands since you could test it here and see which demographic to aim your music at. But of course, why make it hard when you have the possibility to make it impossible? (Rhetoric question - you don’t need to answer that one…)

But still - hooray for this kind of services that widen my horizon!