Does anyone else thinks this sounds like it came out of a Web 2.0 buzzword generator?
 
"[COMPANY]'s premier product aggregates a global knowledge-base of information, imagery and introductions, empowering a social network and media search platform on which your goals and aspirations link you to a community of like-minded dreamers."
 
Better yet, can anyone tell me what they do without googling the text to find out who it is?

The shelves are full at Circuit City in Union Square despite 20% off or more - the original prices were just too high, even after the discount. As one guy in the row said, "it's only twenty off -- let's just come back when it's fifty." I went in to see if I could pick up an extra external drive for backups. But even at 20% off, their drives were more expensive than going to Amazon and getting one the next day via my prime membership. No wonder they're going out of business. Smaller selection, worse service, higher prices than online.

Just finished the half marathon in Miami. Beautiful day but an ugly
time. Still worth it, as always.

Seems like a quarter of the retail spots here are empty and the rest are running 70%-off sales. Retail looks like a tough play this year.

Picked up a copy of Wired for the flight, mostly for old times' sake. It's a feeble shadow of its former self -- fewer stories than ever, more ad pages for lame, mature tech companies like Microsoft and NEC, and TWO full pages of masthead information. Seriously, if I wanted to know who the "Senior Vice President / Operations and Strategic Sourcing" is, I think I could check a listing online. Using up 2 percent of the magazine each issue to do it just stinks of a corporate ego stroke job.

I'm really enjoying the new blog on Building Web 2.0 Reputation Systems at http://buildingreputation.com/ ... definitely worth adding to your RSS reader if you're working on any kind of social web projects or a heavy social web user, and they're also using a wiki to develop a new book on the topic. One of the lead contributors is Randall Farmer, who I've worked with in the past and is a leader in this burgeoning field.

Despite the ongoing economic downturn, one persistent trend I've noticed is pennies lying on the ground in high-traffic, public space. It seems like very, very few people find them worth picking up these days.
 
This has been coming for some time, with the cost of producing a penny inflating to (I believe) more than its face value some time ago. But it's still interesting to see its perceived value to the general public drop this far... Given that we're now talking about something that would buy about a tenth of an ounce of soda, ignoring them is actually fairly rational. But doesn't that mean we should revisit just getting rid of the damned things altogether? Does anyone have a reason not to?

It's time for a fresh start. Here's looking forward to a great 2009. Much love to everyone.