We live in an extremely repressive era, and we fail to realize how repressive it is, because we’re told that all these outlets for rebellion, like listening to rock music, are no longer satanic. Smoking weed—that’s sort of O.K. and acceptable in some circles.” To Parker, the implication is that people in his position have almost an obligation to do what they can with the tools at their disposal—software and the Internet—to free up society through disruptive technology. As he muses, it is clear that he sees entrepreneurship and invention as handmaidens of social transformation.
Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon: The History of Rap
When Jimmy Fallon first started his late night show, I had a feeling that he might just end up being one of the greats. Like, beyond Conan. It sounds crazy, but I think I should just put that out there now so I can say ‘I told you so’ 20 years from now.
This is great on a lot of levels, and is clearly a television show doing a bit that’s meant to go viral online. It’s also troubling. It reminds me of the fact that a lot of North American pop culture is really arts and culture from black folk that got taken and given a lighter face to sell to the wannabe-gangsta kids from the suburbs in order to take it big. This is literally two white guys telling/owning the history of rap, with THE ROOTS playing backup.
As problematic as that is, it’s also part of what makes the clip funny. If it was Jaime Foxx and Will Smith, I might think it was cool but not surprising or particularly forward-able. So when all’s said and done, as long as we can recognize this as a well put-together promo for The Social Network (and a fan-freaking-tastic performance by Jimmy Fallon; performing right along with TImberlake is no small feat), we can all look back on this and laugh. But seriously it’s weird that The Roots are the background in this, even if their instrumentals were perfect.
First teaser trailer is out for The Social Network!
I’m still super excited for this David Fincher-directed, Aaron Sorkin-written movie about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Eisenberg seems to have the Zuckerberg voice down in a way that sounds right but isn’t spot-on enough for the movie to be as unbearable as listening to Mark for two and a half hours.
Justin Timberlake manages to sound the best, even with just one line “You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.”
I’ve gone to Gmail 5+ times today to check Buzz. So yeah, I think this is going to be a social network *I* use a bunch, now I guess we just wait and see what happens long-term. But when it comes down to it, and everyone has smartphones, suddenly the fact that most of my friends are already on Buzz and I can see their locations makes it far, far more useful than other location-based services.
Ultimately, I don’t think anyone’s going the be the Microsoft Office of the space. For almost everything, we all use more than one service/device, and I think Buzz just launched into being a major player in it’s space.
I’m going to gather my thoughts on this though, and write a proper article on this in a week. Having just launched less than 48 hours ago, almost any analysis on the platform is a little too knee-jerk for true perspective. I know a week isn’t a long time, but it’s enough for me to have a slightly better idea of the big picture.
