Browsed by
Tag: Viral

VirusHead in Space Again

VirusHead in Space Again

Comments 4 comments

I love, love, love this idea. I don’t care if any marketing folk make fun of me and think I’m a simple mark for the ploy. Here’s the service, here’s the fun stuff – I’ll gladly send them traffic. Honest, don’t you want a certificate every few months that your blog has been transmitted into space? The messages are cute too.

Next, I would really like the flying cars, the transporter beam, and the holodeck. How about that limitless, safe and cheap energy? Anybody working on that? I was sure we’d have it by now.

Dear Humanoid:

The landing of Space Shuttle Discovery was no end at all, yet the beginning to the double digit attempt of having alien life forms contact us as thousands of blogs left Planet Earth for a mission of their own. Please take this certificate as a symbolization of your audacious bravery on July 18, 2006 at 12:07 AM EST at North Latitude 28° 29′ 23” and West Longitude 80° 35′ 08” at a frequency of 5945 Mhz. This mission will not falter.

While many may have followed in your footsteps in the past, taking missions to the International Space Station to fix orbiters, your mission has gone even further, surpassing the station, Mars, Venus and out of the galaxy. Your mission is limitless, until it reaches a being with the ability to transcode, transcribe and transmit a return message. While it may not be in the lifetime, the Blog in Space team is certain this day will come.

Please, only encourage other life forms to return a message through transmitter waves, storks or Morse code. The Blog in Space team supports only safe intergalactic communications.

When Telling the World Simply Isn’t Enough.

Friendly Green Wishes,

– The Blog in Space Team



I’m thrilled to be signified by herby too!

Dubya’s Dashboard – ooh, shiny

Dubya’s Dashboard – ooh, shiny

Comments 4 comments

Since I’m considered a nationally influential blogger, particularly for the viral distribution of bright shiny Blogger objects, here’s another: Dubya’s Dashboard from JumperBailey.com

In addition to counting the number of days left, it gives a few hints as to why many of us are counting down the days.

I’m placing it on the sidebar right beneath the running national debt so as to quicklook the misery.

Here’s the explanation, and I’ll plug in the numbers for today.

  • Days Left, 911
    The number of days left in Dubya’s presidency. 911, huh?
  • Approval = 31%
    Dubya’s current approval rating as determined by Gallup (updated every couple of weeks)
  • Deficit/Surplus = $319B
    The current U.S. budget deficit (updated annually)
  • Forbes 400 = $1.13T
    The cumulative wealth of the richest 400 Americans, which interestingly dwarfs the deficit (updated annually)
  • Soldiers = 2648
    The number of coalition deaths in the Iraq War (updated weekly)
  • WMD = 0
    The number of “weapons of mass destruction” found, which is the ostensible reason we went to war in the first place (updated whenever we find them)

Links:

  • An approval “trend” graph which shows the president’s Gallup approval rating over the course of his administration. (Updated every few weeks)
  • A budget deficit “trend” graph (shown as a percentage of GDP) which charts our budget deficit history from JFK to Dubya. (Updated annually)
  • A “winners” table which shows which segments of society won and lost after taxes from 2002 to 2003.
  • A list of the names, ages, and hometowns of the men and women who have lost their lives in the Iraq conflict. (Updated weekly until the deaths stop)
  • A “Get the Dashboard!” link which allows people to get their own dashboard.

My criticisms are these:

  1. The statistics, graphs and lists aren’t updated often enough.
  2. It’s not intuitively clear that you can click within the frame to return to the original state of the display.
  3. I had to adjust the width and height to get rid of scrollbars.
  4. It would be a better strategy all around to have the links go out to full webpages

I would like to see an expanded version of these kinds of statistics. Here are some of my suggestions for blog toymakers:

  • How much money is being printed (trend report)
  • Amount of tax revenue lost through corporate welfare (trend report)
  • Environmental effects – Increase in children with asthma, extinctions, top 50 companies who destroy for profit, etc.
  • Number of schools “left behind” (Does that phrase remind you of the Rapture, or is it just me?)
  • Average college tuition (trend report)
  • Average student loan debt (trend report)
  • Average household credit card debt (trend report)
  • Consumer price index, and price of a gallon of: milk, gasoline, housepaint, water (trend report)
Unconscious Mutterings 181

Unconscious Mutterings 181

Comments 0 Comment

Unconscious Mutterings

Weekly Unconscious Mutterings Meme – Week 181

  1. Requirements :: Syllabus
  2. Pizza :: Beer
  3. Dating :: Single
  4. Issue :: Disagreement
  5. Sharp :: Dull
  6. Distinguish :: Reality
  7. Remote :: Control
  8. Felony :: Trial
  9. Exercise :: Wander
  10. Choose :: Freedom
Unconscious Mutterings 180

Unconscious Mutterings 180

Comments 1 comment

Unconscious Mutterings

Weekly Unconscious Mutterings Meme – Week 180

  1. Video :: DVD
  2. Fantasy :: Daydream
  3. Homework :: Housework
  4. Crush :: Infatuation
  5. Late :: Date
  6. Husband :: Wife
  7. Soccer :: Baseball
  8. Wine :: Cave
  9. Before :: After
  10. Romantic :: Interlude
Theoryheads and Postmodernism

Theoryheads and Postmodernism

Comments 1 comment

I’ve added a new page – “About VirusHead.”

There is a short explanation of why the blog is named VirusHead.

There is also a long rambling section about theoryheads and postmodernism (only for the intensely curious).

I’ve also added a page dedicated to Jehovah’s Witnesses issues, news and resources. In addition to page links (to bits of the main VirusHead site), the page lists all the titles of the blog posts on this topic, so that you don’t have to click through the category pages to get a sense of what’s there.

I’ve also moved my tag cloud to its own page, which includes all the tags. All of them.

VirusHead in Space, part 2

VirusHead in Space, part 2

Comments 2 comments

The VirusHead blog has been beamed into space five times since last September.

Blog in Space ranked 7th in SherpaMarketing’s 2006 Viral Hall of Fame.

I’m tickled that VirusHead is cited as a “nationally influential blog.”

This campaign is proof that if you blatantly appeal to bloggers’ egos and desire for more traffic/attention, they will in turn happily link to you. And if your offer is appealing enough, where a few influential bloggers go the rest will virally follow.

Yes, I think it’s a terrific idea, and it showed how viral marketing can really work. I love the idea of the blog being transmitted into space. So I don’t mind (much) being portrayed as the “typical” blogger, irresistibly attracted to shiny graphic objects.

In fact, here’s another, just for the fun of it… (grinning)