I was actually thinking about using the word "neat," but I didn't because I try to avoid "neat," "awesome," "peeps" and other such slang!
But I guess you're right. "Because it's neat" is an appropriate phrase for why people code some apps.
As for Zynga games, I have another word besides "neat," but I won't write it! Anyone who sends me tweets about their progress in a Facebook game, I unfollow.
I also agree that if Audioo's voice mails are sufficiently funny, stupid and/or embarrassing, it might become successful.
It's not so much "because we can" as it is "because it's neat." That has been the driving force behind many web and nother technical innovations these past few years.
If you have a smart phone, just look at some of the applications that you have on it. How many have actually had a meaningful impact upon your life and your productivity/efficiency, and how many do you use simply because "they're neat"?
Uploading entertaining voice mails and being able to listen to others' entertaining voice mails is not especially useful (unless you are talking about simply an online voice mail storage mechanism, without necessarily making them accessible by the world at large), but it's pretty neat. Just like iPhone apps, Zynga's FaceBook games, and all sorts of other high-tech toys.
I think the answer to your question is, in part, "because we can." Some people just want to try things, for good or bad. Let's see what happens when we put Mentos in Diet Coke. Let's see what happens when we put an iPhone in a blender or in a microwave.
It's sort of the same reason why the first person thought: "Maybe I should try eating this oyster!" What sane person would open a mollusk, and after peering inside, think about eating it?!
Another reason is, to be fair, creativity. If you don't experiment and try "crazy" things, you sometimes don't produce something great.
Of course, one major reason is trying to generate money.
The Internet has unleashed the world's creative, greedy, evil, etc. spirit. It has enabled humans to do more human things.
I don't disagree with you, Alan. It is more thank likely that there will be some unfortunate results from posting voice mails on the web. The people who feel everything they find interesting is appropriate for a public forum generally do not practice enough self-restraint to avoid possibly damaging consequences.
You can never tell, though, whether all the voice mails posted on Audioo will be innocuous, at least from the standpoint of significant ramifications for businesses, legal situation, personal relationships, etc.
I think we've seen enough examples on the Internet of Web sites with security breaches (see this week's Twitter settlement with the FTC), let alone intentional posting of inappropriate information, to realize that, as I said, Audioo is an accident waiting to happen.
I can see where an archive of voice mails would be useful, just as the Library of Congress is archiving Twitter messages.
However, I assume, cynic that I am, that Audioo's primary goal is to host as many funny, embarrassing and otherwise inappropriate voice mails as possible -- whether they are real or simply put-ons -- in order to generate as many page views and advertising revenues as possible.
The nobility of "archiving the world's voice mails" notwithstanding, the bottom line of Audioo's raison d'etre is, as usual for businesses, merely the bottom line.
Likewise, I am also skeptical, as I noted the video, that Audioo's security measures will prevent an eventual security breach, as witness Blippy's.
LED lightbulbs will be used not only for home and business lighting automation, but possibly also for locating shoppers inside stores and transmitting data at hundreds of megabits per second.
Businesses helped neighbors with Internet access and mobile device charge-ups during Sandra. Following that example, enterprises should consider preparing Internet disaster plans to help the public during disasters.
There's a trend underway to make employee performance reviews everyone's business – letting peers, customers, and direct reports in on rating people's daily doings. Mary gives this a thumbs down.
Introducing Shopycat, a Facebook app for sort of maybe determining what to buy your friends and family for the holidays. Analytics at its finest? Not so much.
Congrats to the best-selling author who persuaded Facebook to allow him to register an account as Salman, rather than under his "real" but never used name, Ahmed Rushdie.
Based on reactions in Nicole's Newsfeed, everyone hates this version of Facebook. This should matter to Facebook now that there's a real competitor on the scene named Google+.
Allowing users to share music and video on Facebook might sound like good news, but is this part of a coherent strategy, or is Facebook just stumbling from idea to idea?
Facebook's "Improved Friends Lists" are rolling out, but they're very different from Google+ Circles. The latter are like private labels; you're the only one who sees them. The former are like rooms you can invite visitors to, where they see you and each other. Google's approach is better.
So here we are, the last day of the 2013 US Open Golf Championship at Merion, and Phil Mickelson -- who has been a US Open runner-up five times now but never taken the trophy -- is right up there at the top of the leaderboard.
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