I know this is extremely stale news by now, but for those who might not have otherwise known about it I think it’s worth posting…

September 1, 2004:

The waves of disappointment directed at Friendster this week illustrate the power of employee-driven community-building using blogs (good) and failing to comprehend and appreciate that power when things don’t work out between employee and employer (bad).

Friendster programmer Joyce Park has been an occassional blogger, writing mostly about programming issues that interested her. The company fired her Monday, she says on her blog, for a few posts about Friendster’s switch to a different programming language. Anyone with a beginner’s knowledge of programming would notice the change on the Friendster site, so it can hardly be deemed proprietary.

But that was the point. Or the lack of it. Park told ZDNet: “I only made three posts about Friendster on my blog before they decided to fire me, and it was all publicly available information. They did not have any policy, didn’t give me any warning, they didn’t ask me to take anything down.” That set off her online community — and by extension, the world of fanatical bloggers, or blogonatics.

One blogger is encouraging people to quit Friendster. News stories sprang up across the Internet. Bloggers howled. A fast-moving chain reaction ensued not just because someone lost a job, but

…excerpt from: Church of the Customer

If you’re interested in psychology and have ever taken a Myers-Briggs test (the one that classifies you as ENFP, INTJ, etc.), ACM’s Queue has a fascinating article on how these personality types function within effective software development teams, particularly small ones. Specifically, the author studied:

• The effect of the project leader’s personality on team performance;
• The effect of team members’ personalities on team performance; and
• The effect of heterogeneity of personalities on team performance.

t programmers are naturally introverted, or that development teams are led best by the “sensing” type who focuses on actual details and facts (as opposed to the “intuitive” type), be prepared to have your thinking challenged.

(Incidentally, the last time I took one of these tests, I came out as an ENFP, but pretty close to an INFP. This statement certainly speaks to me: ENFPs hate bureaucracy, both in principle and in practice; they will always make a point of launching one of their crusades against some aspect of it.)

…excerpt from: feeds.feedburner.com…

You know you play too much Scrabble when…
Caterina.net…: Freak Words
Scrabble maniacs who, when not competing at tournaments, hang out in coffeeshops, belch loudly and yell out things incomprehensible to even Jeopardy Prizewinners, such as: “GUACAMOLE with an F!” And their friends respond “CAMOUFLAGE!”

I’ve been trying to figure out how to broach this subject at work, and with whom if I did. This paper should help a lot.

cameronreilly: Trevor Cook on Corporate Blogging
Trevor wrote this article on the benefits of corporate blogging for AFR BOSS.

cameronreilly: What hit the Pentagon on 9/11
What hit the Pentagon on 9/11

A friend just sent me a link to this site which has a well-put together Flash animation detailing some of the evidence that suggests it wasn’t a Boeing 757 that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. I’ve seen a lot of this stuff before, but never put together in this fashion. It’s worth a look. And turn your sound up.

Cool, you can check out your Netflix queue in your newsreader. Not terribly useful, but cool.

Netflix – Rent DVDs Online – Try Free
Netflix offers RSS feeds as a convenient way to pass information about your Netflix account or that is publicly available on the Netflix site to your RSS reader or an RSS-associated website of your choice.

*sigh* Twenty bucks says my DirecTiVo won’t be able to do this… suck-ola.

TiVo, Netflix sign movies-on-demand deal | CNET News.com…
Netflix and TiVo on Thursday announced a partnership to develop a movies-on-demand service as well as efforts to secure content from Hollywood studios.

And in related news:
Netflix, Warner Bros. in video-on-demand test

I suspect my cats would like this a lot, heh.

DrQue.net…– Andrew Que’s corner of the net

Robs Blog: Gmail Tools & Plugins
Plugins and tools to make Gmail easier to use are starting to pop up on the web