not just random

The advertisement features the following line:

Let an agent install your wireless network
It’s simpler for you and weirdly fun for us

Let’s see:

weird (wîrd)
adj., weird·er, weird·est.

1. Of, relating to, or suggestive of the preternatural or supernatural.
2. Of a strikingly odd or unusual character; strange.
3. Archaic. Of or relating to fate or the Fates.

And:

fun (fŭn)
n.

1. A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure.
2. Enjoyment; amusement: have fun at the beach.
3. Playful, often noisy, activity.

Sounds like a win-win situation. Also sounds like a stereotype:

Stereotypes are ideas held by some individuals about members of particular groups, based solely on membership in that group. They are often used in a negative or prejudicial sense and are frequently used to justify certain discriminatory behaviors. More benignly, they may express sometimes-accurate folk wisdom about social reality.

Is the idea of someone coming into your home to have a weirdly fun time, setting up your wireless network appealing to you?

Here is a fun video on Geek Squad:

Some objective information on their corporate culture would be interesting.

These days, not having to go to an actual office, is the hip thing to do. It has been a while, since I had to attempt work in a cubicle. I do not miss those days. Stale air, bad lights and, well, having to face co-workers with their own needs and ideas regarding good working conditions, acceptable noise levels and/or social conduct.

People who wanted or had to actually get work done, often ended up coming in early or staying late or talking their manager into letting them work from home. The latter worked, but notably only, when the task at hand was sufficiently important. No one seemed fazed by the irony.

The September 2006 issue of Business 2.0 magazine features 2 articles on blogging, Blogging for Dollars and the smaller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers. Apart from that, this topics also dominates the cover page of the print magazine - which also reveals that Drew Curtis of Fark.com is apparently bringing in $60,000 per month. I am still not convinced that fark.com is actually a blog. That might not really be important, as it is successful and can be a fun place to kill some time.

It does not really have much original content at all, but derives much of its success from an online community:

Almost all of its content is generated by its readers, and aside from Curtis it has just two contract employees, both tech guys. Fark devotees post links to news items accompanied by rubrics like “spiffy” and “dumbass,” annotate them with blurbs of text, and open them up for comment. Controversial items about politics, religion, or sex ignite all-out flame wars–and, naturally, boost traffic, which overall stands at 40 million pageviews a month. The beautiful part is that virtually none of the content (pictures, videos, etc.) is hosted on Fark, which simply links to the goodies.

Sounds very much like digg.com or reddit.com, both of which really only exist because of their respecitve communities.

The second article, offers some (seven) tips on how to be an effective blogger. I think, effectiveness is here being measured as attracting eyeballs and advertisement. Under Blog frequently and regularly, the authors suggest:

if possible, at least half a dozen posts every weekday before lunchtime, when many readers take a break from work and check out the blogosphere.

Thinking of an audience residing in the continental United States, this is probably referring to lunch time (noon?) Eastern Time. Again, at least half a dozen posts. Ideally of course, something of substance, because, as we know, Content Matters, yes?

Another habit encourages intense focus on a narrow niche. Well, I think this is A Good Thing and sound advice. By focusing on a narrow area, a person will likely increase their odds of establishing him or herself as a subject matter expert in that area - in short, it might make them more likely to have something interesting to say. Especially, of course, if there is an audience that might be looking for information in that same area. Notably, some of the sites that the first article emphasizes as particularly successful (fark.com, boingboing.net) do not appear to have a narrow focus at all.

Bigger Fool Theory:

The bigger fool theory or greater fool theory (also called Survivor Investing.) is the belief held by one who makes a questionable investment, with the assumption that they will be able to sell it later to “a bigger fool”; in other words, buying something for no other reason than the belief that you will be able to sell it to some one else for a higher price. (WikiPedia, of course)

Current reading: Dot.con

[Amazon’s URLs are finally starting to become slightly more readable.]