Your Matter Isn’t Urgent…Don’t Flag Your Email

This isn’t a website-related rant but one that hits home for many heavy web users, nonetheless.

Most people take issue with the sheer number of emails they get. Those of us who spend a lot of time online get inundated with way too many messages, especially when you throw social networking notifications into the mix. A friend picks his nose and three social media websites instantly notify me.

My inbox is more flooded than a menstrual cycle victim during Hurricane Ike.

Some people (like myself) simply deal with it, and others have solutions such as reducing outgoing mail or reducing their email reliance all together.

But my problem isn’t with the amount of email, but with Microsoft Office’s little red exclamation point starring me in the face.

The geniuses at Microsoft thought adding the ability to mark an outgoing email message as “Importance: High” would be helpful. Yeah, it’s about as helpful as teaching sign language to the blind.

Even the brains behind Crystal Pepsi, the Babe Ruth trade, the Michael Richards Show, Pets.com and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s agent thought it was a bad move.

Unless someone is dying, please don’t consider your message worthy enough to sport the exclamation point.

Are you a surgeon in the middle of an oophorectomy and needing to fire off a quick question? Are you in a skydiving freefall with a chute more twisted than a Stanley Kubrick flick?

Tagging your email message as urgent reminds me of a little boy in kindergarten who’s just dying to answer the teacher’s question. He raises his hand but it’s not enough. He jumps up and down and says, “Oh, Oh Oh! Pick me!”

Have an urgent matter? Pick up a phone or walk two cubicles over.

Madonna and Angelina Jolie Cause More Viruses Than a Runny-Nosed Prostitute

There’s a 2% chance you’ve already been offered an opportunity to see Angelina Jolie or Madonna naked.

According to the latest report by the research team at Secure Computing, email spammers have been using and abusing Madonna’s name in the subject line of many virus-infected mass-mailings.

Promising a scandalous video of the 50-year-old music legend, spammers based in the Republic of Moldova have been distributing malware that causes annoying pop-ups.

This makes Madonna the most enticing email celebrity. Previously Angelina Jolie held the crown as the Most Used Name in Email Spam queen.

Does anyone else find it odd that Madonna is luring so many clicks? Of all celebrities, she’s the one you pervs most want to see naked?

Give me Heidi Klum, Eva Mendes, Katie Holmes or Miley Cyrus (is she 18?). Hell give me Matthew McConaughey (just to see what I’m up against).

In August alone, Secure Computing caught 12 million spam emails with Angelina Jolie’s name in the subject line.

If email spammers really wanted to entice a click, they’d use Sarah Palin. We can’t get enough of the vice presidential candidate.

She’s all over the social media websites, TV stations and newspapers. She’s also dominates SNL, eBay, CafePress and my dreams.

Palin’s a bigger internet phenomenon than the Star Wars Kid. She clips her toenails and CNN sends Anderson Cooper to investigate.

Who’d entice you the most?

Demonstrating the Effectiveness of White Space

You’re Not Worthy of Your Own Social Network, Despite Reassurance From Parents

Before mammoth social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, the only “networking” you did involved 600 free hours of AOL and the Teenage Basement chat room filled with “a/s/l?” requests.

Social networking then entered the fray and helped bring together like-minded virgins. I have no problem with engaging in this form of community, despite my lack of virginity.

However, the trend didn’t stop with social networking sites. Suddenly it isn’t enough to simply be a member of a community. You think you need your very own self-centered universe.

This is where sites like Ning and CrowdVine surfaced to fulfill your inflated ego by allowing you to create and manage your very own social network.

What’s with the youcentric world? Are you the sun?

So Time Magazine named you Person of the Year in 2006. Big deal. Every 13 year old with a webcam, or anyone who’s ever downloaded the complete 3rd season of Stargate also shares that honor.

And so do Hitler and Stalin.

Even the third-party social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter let you broadcast every menial detail of your life. Some think this form communication is useful to the world. Myself and others think it’s about as valuable as an Elvis Presley Chia Pet.

“Tina is: feeling happy because her science project got an A+”…no one cares, Tina.

“Edward is: nervous about his date this weekend”…keep it to yourself, Ed.

Your mom, dad and pet turtle are the only ones who think your important enough to have your own social network.

Want to know if you’re really worthy? Unless you’ve appeared on the cover of Newsweek, People, Sports Illustrated, Reader’s Digest, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic or Playboy…you aren’t.

Update: I just came across another service called Smirk, which lets people with no lives share their mood with video emoticons. It is officially the end of the world.

Blogosphere Touches Itself Over Google Chrome

Over the weekend, Google announced the upcoming release of its own website browser Google Chrome.

Tickle Me Elmo riding a Segway to the theatrical release of Star Wars wouldn’t even generate this much hype. In just a matter of hours, Google stirred the blogosphere like a martini rejected by James Bond.

All Google developments get major attention. In fact, you can’t take a dump at the Googleplex without it being reported across the AP news wire.

I subscribe to a dozen or so RSS feeds, including my own (also known as RSSturbation). Every single one had a blog post about Google Chrome.

Some simply announced the launch, some offered live tracking, some gave personal opinions and Matt Cutts had a heart attack.

At this rate, Google Chrome has the potential to dethrone Sarah Palin as the most discussed topic on the internet. That’s a lot of buzz for a software application that stole its design from a 1980’s electronic game.

If John McCain’s hot running mate starts using Google Chrome on her iPhone while on the set of The Daily Show, I’m going to explode.