Harry Stonecipher, Boing CEO who resigned last week, said he had to explain the difference between a meeting and a party to the management when he started some 15 month ago. Obviously in those days meetings at Boing did formally not comply to what a meeting is supposed to look like, but rather resembled parties. Probably he was right about insisting on a formal distinction between the two kinds of social gatherings in question.

My time in advertisement and IT Companies during the last 6 or 7 years has taught me though, that the social and functional difference between parties and meetings is not that big at all. In both cases the promotion of oneself is of great importance and not being invited is the worst. Meetings often have a much higher entertainment factor than ordinary parties. Maybe one should start organizing parties that resemble meetings.

Through an article on Spiegel-Online I found the website rentagerman.de.

Before you click on the link, I must warn you: The site is extremely dissappointing. The HTML sucks and the whole design along with the lack of functionality make it very obvious that the promised service is not actually available. Don’t get me wrong, generally I don’t have any problem with that kind of a fake. A good fake in my opinion qualifies as art as much as a (good) painting or a (good) performance.

While I don’t believe that art is a question of skill, I do do believe, that things should be done well enough, so the lack of skill is not the first thing that one notices. It just sabotages the experience (unless lack dilettantism is the very topic of the work). In the case of this site the credit for the website is given to an advertisement company whose website is also kind of confusing. I hope they didn’t charge for the truly amateurish job and the design that fails to transport the idea.

I am quite impressed though, that they’ve made on the most popular German News Website. Or should I say that I’m not very impressed with Spiegel-Online’s preselection of what news they feed me with?

This is the mail I sent to the rent-a-german team (no reply yet):

ich bin gerade �ber spiegel-online an euere website geraten. die idee find ich durchaus am�sant, leider sch�pft ihr das potential dieser idee aufgrund der wirklich schlechten website bei weitem nicht aus.

in verschiedenen browsern (firefox, safari – beide gerade bei eurer potentiellen zielgruppe verbreitet) sind die inhalte des hauptframes zun�chst gar nicht sichtbar, man muss erst nach unten scrollen. in internet explorer / mac gibt es eine extrem langen quer-scroll. im internet explorer windows sind die inhalte zwar sichtbar, dennoch sieht man der seite auf den ersten blick an, dass es sich um ein unprofessionelle unternehmung handelt.

das liegt zum einen am design, zum anderen an der umsetzung (keine halbwegs professionelle seite benutzt heutzutage frames, da sich komplexe anwendungen mit frames nur schlecht umsetzen lassen und frames nachteilhaft in bezug auf suchmaschinen sind). auch funktional wirkt die seite nicht ausgereift (bestellung sowie registrieren per mailto, anstatt �ber ein richtiges formular, keine agb’s, usw.) insbesondere agb’s und eine ausgefeilteres registrierungs formular b�ten gelegenheit juristische sprache zu persiflieren und “seriously funny” zu sein.

ich sage euch das nicht, weil ich korinthen kacken will, sondern weil ich es schade finde, dass ihr das potential eurer idee nicht aussch�pft.

A comment spamer had found me by the time i released the mouse button after posting my first article. Despite of having a decent understanding of how the net works, I was amazed how quickly the bad guys could strike. There was also a certain fascination how public my new late night activity actually was. It felt a bit like hanging out in a half empty bar near the station at 1.30 AM trying not to make eye contact with any of the shady figures at the pool table.

Of course the fascination gave place to sheer annoyance after a couple of days. I have a black list in function now that blocks all comments that mention ONLINE POKER, GAMBLING and TEXAS.

This pretty much solves my problem. But what, if I would write about the referee scandal (1) that is taking place in Germany and someone wanted to comment on it? One would be likely to run into one of the terms I had to exclude. What, if my entire blog dealt with sex, gambling and George W. Bush? Are those topics de facto taboo for me?

I find myself imaging how it would be, if one had to use white lists: A list of some 100 words which people who I know personnally or who can identify themselves with a trustworthy PGP key can request via email. Alternatively one could agree on a secret language like argot (2). Or flee english as a language all together and seek refuge in language where the world is still intact like Swedish (3).

(1) Football referees manipulated matches so that their partners in crime could make money using online betting services. furthermore it turned out that football clubs regularly invited them to brothels before the matches

(2) A french slang which is produced by flipping syllables. It is said to have been invented by criminals as a secret language.

(3) Watching a heavy weight box fight a couple of weeks ago I learned that not only buying services from prostitutes is illegal in Sweden (that I knew before and discussed extensively with my swedish friends), but also professional boxing.