According to this brilliant website, the next big fashion trend for the tragically hip urban male is … wait for it, wait for it …

Mantyhose (as in ‘pantyhose for men’).

Yes, you read that right — MANTYHOSE.

Apparently aware of the stigma attached with wearing women’s underwear, the stated purpose of this website is to ‘accelerate the acceptance of male pantyhose as a regular clothing item.”

As such, the site provides — among other things — an illustrated male pantyhose wearer’s survival guide for any potential ‘mantyhosers’ wishing to successfully integrate their new tights fashion accessory into their wardrobe. Among the serving suggestions is this gem:

Act and behave as usual: this way you are communicating to others that you are in fact a usual guy.

Only a very few people will notice that you are wearing pantyhose. You should communicate with your clothes and behavior that you are not there to show off yourself in pantyhose, but rather to do your regular business – shopping, walking etc. You may also wear support pantyhose at the beginning for more “legitimacy”.

A usual guy? Legitimacy?

What. The. Fuck.

For the love of Christ! You’re wearing women’s underwear and you’re worried about legitimacy?!? Good god man, it’s a new year, a new President … a new beginning — get a fucking grip!!

Uggh … I just threw up a little in my mouth.

All these years, I’ve been fighting the whole spamming thing tooth and nail — installing enough pop-up blockers, email spam blockers, and other crap to choke a horse.

But all these prophylactics also tend to block some of my regular email as well, which sometimes necessitates my going through my various spam filters and folders to weed out the spam from the occasional non-spam. Rarely do I take the time to even read the stuff.

I happened to look at a couple of these emails today, however. And I gotta say — some of them are pretty fucking funny! And by funny, I mean stupid. Really, these advertising whores have branched out since their inception. And here I thought they were only advertising penis-pumps and fat pills. Who knew?

So today I’m starting what I hope will become a new tradition — a ‘Fun With Stupid Spam Mail’ feature, where I’ll post these moronic spam-mails verbatim for us to ridicule. So we start out with the following, because practical witchcraft is always a big seller:

Dear [OMITTED],

“Old Witchcraft Secrets” will show you in detail, how you can cast powerful spells, to make your wildest dreams come true.

It’s NOT your fault that your spells and rituals aren’t turning out like you want… Yet.

The truth is… you’ve been misled by self-proclaimed powerful wizards and witches… and the truth is that 99% of these ‘professionals’ are Dead Wrong!

In fact, a lot of what they say will actually diminish your powers.

They don’t want you to know the right way to cast spells because if you did, you’d never need them again and they would lose their power!

You cannot invent ‘new’ spells just like you cannot invent a new tree. Everything is old. But not everything is known in the right way.

Get 3 Spells just for visiting our site [SITE OMITTED]

Old Witchcraft
642 Main Street
Chalestown, Nevis, Saint Kitts Nevis

The problem with this is that there are just so many ways to go:

So it’s not my fault my spells aren’t working? No shit?! And I thought it was just because there’s NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC!

And what’s that, we can’t ‘invent a new tree’? Really? What ever happened to that whole ’seed-planting’ thingy that seems to have been working since, ohh … for-fucking-ever?

And ‘everything is old’, huh? Go tell that one to the Judge at the statutory rape hearing … trust me, I’m a lawyer, I guarantee it’ll work! (‘But Your Honor, this girl quite obviously cannot be under 18 — because everything is old!’)

What does it take to become a ‘professional wizard or witch’? Do they have to go through a minor league first? Is there a draft? Is there quidditch? Can you drop through the pro ranks like in boxing?

Probably the saddest part about this is that they wouldn’t send out this crap if at least SOMEONE didn’t buy their shit. Who knows, it could work — look at Sarah Palin.

Okay, help me answer me these two (2) questions if you will:

1. Is it silly to try and paint Obama as a “cult of personality” when 56% of the American people selected him President in one of the world’s most historic elections?

Probably. People worldwise are truly inspired by Obama, because they believe he’ll bring about much needed change to the U.S. and to the rest of the world, regardless of his overwhelming popularity.

2. That being said, it is silly to paint Obama as a “cult of personality” when people have already started using his celebrity status to sell CONDOMS?

Probably not, but I’ll be able to formulate a better opinion after they release those “Obama/Che Guevara 2012″ t-shirts.

P.S. I love the tag-line for the condoms — “Use With Good Judgment”. Fucking hell, doctor heal thyself.

To prove the point of my immediately preceding post, as if by some crazy interweb magic, I just found this article from Advertising Age (online, of course), entitled “Most Painfully Clueless Press Release of the Week – 700 Views Does Not a YouTube Hit Make.”

Apparently, the article’s author received a really stupid and pointless press release heralding the latest and greatest “Video Gone Viral” YouTube sensation. The only problem? This supposedly hot viral video has only been viewed on YouTube 700 — 700!!! — times.

Notwithstanding the mountainous dribble now permeating every crevasse of the interwebs, this particular press release is truly flabbergasting considering you can get more visibility by posting a video of your cat on YouTube. In fact, Nora the Piano Playing Cat currently has 1,959,260 more views than this supposed viral video.

I don’t get it, really. Some shlub with a phony G.E.D. is getting paid money to write press releases about a “viral video” that has garnered less attention that a random drug test. Meanwhile, I can’t seem to convince anyone outside the legal field into giving me a paying job. Christ, I can come up with better SEM and advertising ideas than that, and I’ve done nothing but write legal briefs for the past 10 years.

Okay, here’s one for you; just show these knuckle-dragging nimrods a cat, any kind of cat — big, small, fluffy, shaved, wet, dry, awake, sleeping — what-the-fuck-ever. As noted above, it doesn’t matter.

And if you don’t like cats, go ahead and use a dog instead. Once again, it’s the fucking internet — it just doesn’t matter. For the love of god, Disney is producing a live-action “Underdog” movie this year. Trust me, use the same concept on the internet and you’ll make a damn fortune with that masterpiece.

You can use that idea. Go ahead and take it. Go ahead — call it a freebie.

Yeah, I know, the world’s not a fair place, and stupidity abounds. Whatever. Just know this — if you keep up with that attitude, I’m gonna have to change the name of this site from “A Bowl of Stupid” to “A Bowl of Shut The Fuck Up.”

Bitter? Me? Naaaah.

Given some extra time on my hands this afternoon, I happened to review the content of this blog over the course of the past few months and I’ve noticed a discernible, and disturbing, change in focus.

My earlier posts drew from everyday activities in which I was engaging or interested — including, without limitation, internet marketing, search engine optimization, social networking, Web 2.0, and venture capitalism. Also included were my attempts to refine my writing skills for the ostensible purpose of changing my focus from legal persuasive writing to a more narrative format.

Lately, however, my posts have been reduced to simple, and admittedly mediocre, reviews and/or publication of pre-existing media, music and otherwise. This has occurred for a variety of reasons.

The first reason is that, although I am still irritated about the deteriorated level of intelligent and reasoned discourse as to politics and current events here in the United States, the subject matter no longer raises my ire the way it used to. Perhaps, after having been deluged with stories of unopposed incompetence and corruption for the past 6 years, I’ve simply become jaded with the entire system – to the extent that even the guilty verdict again “Scooter” Libby and the shame of the Walter Reed Hospital closure are of no greater concern to me than the latest hairstyle choice of Britney Spears. Indeed, based upon reports from our beloved media, one could easily beleive these events are of equal importance in the great scheme of things.

Unfortunately, at this point, the media is probably right. And at this point, even pointing fingers at the fourth estate, which shares much of the blame for such shameful conduct, no longer concerns me. They are who they are, and they cater to the lowest common denominator to which they must cater. There’s no such thing as right and wrong; just popular opinion. So be it.

The second subject which I am no longer driven to discuss is internet advertising and online media trends. This has become the case as I have been forced, out of monetary necessity, to abandon the online marketing and retail experiments I undertook towards the latter months of last years. Instead, I have been spending much of my time looking for another paying gig that would not otherwise require me to once again join league with evil Satanic forces – otherwise known as the practice of law. I would much rather put my dispute resolution and writing skills to better use than convincing judges into allowing one evil conglomerate to extort money from another. In this regard, however, I have found that writing about the search for employment is not necessarily the most stimulating of topics to discuss, let alone to read.

This, in turn, leads to yet another subject matter I have avoided discussing of late. The online business world in which I hope to eventually garner wages.

Last week, I fortuitously obtained an interview to work in just such a non-legal capacity, and with one of my favorite internet companies – MyBlogLog. Given the public profile associated with the position (as well as my underlying Jewish neurotic angst), I thought it best not to discuss any of the ideas I have and/or were discussed as to making MyBlogLog even better than it already is – which is, unfortunately, a subject matter I would otherwise very much like to discuss.

I still hold to that maxim to some extent. However, I do believe no damage would be done by simply writing about the fact that I flew out to San Francisco last week to meet with MyBlogLog, and that said meeting did nothing but further increase my desire to work for them. Suffice to say, they have some great ideas and will likely progress into one of the premier “online community” applications on the web (although, quite obviously, their progression would go much faster with me onboard – ahem).

This all leads to an underlying question – as I no longer apparently have the angst to write about the state of politics or current events, I no longer wish to burden the ever-diminishing readers of this blog about my personal exploits, and I am restrained by my own code of conduct from writing about the internet industry I have taken on as a potential second career, what the fuck else can I write about?

Where does this blog go from here? And should I even worry about that issue in the first place?

Ironically, I was talking with Votar about this topic recently. Specifically, to what end do we even have blogs? Is it because we want to obtain what little fame and notoriety that may be available to bloggers in today’s world? Or is it because we wish to use it as a cathartic means of therapy and/or creativity for our own personal reasons? Or is it truly the best way in today’s world to meet people of like minds and form new corresponding bonds?

All of those reasons are fine, I suppose.

However, whereas I originally found myself wanting to write about certain topics simply because I thought they merited discussion on a public forum, I now find myself struggled to write about anything I can simply so I have something posted – regardless of the merits.

Publication for the sake of publication isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I started this blog. If it were, I’d have gone to work for CNN.

Just quickly.

I mentioned the other day how myself and others are questioning the underlying value of ThisNext, CrowdStorm, MySpace, and all the other new “social networking” technologies, especially in light of the recent $10 million purchase of MyBlogLog by Yahoo! I also asked how such “social networking” companies plan on making money off of these technologies?

Could “Virtual Tollbooths” be the answer. Is this the missing-link of relatively stable revenue streams? Check out this interesting article from GigOM on the subject. As aptly noted by the author:

What if MySpace suddenly decided to put up tollbooths and all the players within the MySpace third-party ecosystem had to start paying the mothership access fees?

Without doubt, a strategic shift in policy by MySpace along such lines could cause significant ripples, if not outright panic, among many of those vested in the MySpace economy.

It would also answer at least some of my questions.

UPDATE: If anyone has read the article I link to in the post, as well as it’s associated comments, it appears that the whole concept of “virtual toll-booths” may be nothing more that an urban legend generated by internet profiteers looking to gauge public sentiment regarding a potentially new type of revenue stream.

Welcome the the wonderful world of the internets.

I’m heading back out to the water, just in case the last of the surf swell we’ve had this week is still pushing in this afternoon. There’s a stiff breeze off the water, so there may at least be some minor wind-slop. Who cares – it’s a sunny day in January here in the ol’ MIA, air temperature 78 degrees, water temperature 71 degrees – good day just to get out in the water for a bit.

That being said, I wanted to quickly post on something I’ve been thinking about since speaking with a friend of mine the other day about the guys in Orlando recently selling MyBlogLog to Yahoo! for an estimated $10 million. The first thing asked by my friend – who is, like most people, much more astute than I – was “so, what’s the value in it?” After explaining to him the concept of the site and its application(s), he responded with: “That sounds really cool. So how does it make money (other than by selling to Yahoo)?”

Ironically, my friend also had a similar question when I first brought to his attention the concept behind ThisNext.com several months ago.

If you’re not aware, ThisNext, as well as Crowdstorm and others, are also social networks. However, these “social shopping networks” refer users to products by measuring the buzz around said products. The users view the rating on the sites or via widgets, and they can see recommendations from friends and other people they trust. There have been a number of these “social shopping” sites sprouting up around the internet, and it seems that more are trying to break into the crowded space every day.

Admittedly, Crowdstorm and ThisNext base their model on a proven aspect of eCommerce, that Customer Reviews increase sales. I understand the concept and indeed, I myself was contemplating pursuing something similar last June. However, there have been a number of questions raised concerning the viability of such networks, as “they are great for SEO as they bring some UGC (user-generated content) to shopping sites, but are not that useful to choose a product.” Moreover, myself and others still don’t fully understand the business model behind these sites. As aptly noted in the latter cited article:

Great, sounds fun and will most likely lead to more people buying products online, although the more likely effect is the same people buying more products online.You are able to recommend items, blog about them and search for the product on eBay, but unless there is some behind-the-scenes revenue sharing with eBay, this site seems to have the same chance of turning a profit as Digg.

Similarly, the same can be said for the other social networking sites noted above – such as my favorite, MyBlogLog. However, the effect is even more pronounced with respect to these networks since there is apparently no way to monetize on these sites, as there potentially is with respect to ThisNext, CrowdStorm and other “social shopping” sites.

Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely happy for the guys over at MyBlogLog, one of whom recently visited this little train-wreck I’m driving. I congratulate them on quickly building out a project and successfully executing on an exit strategy (with regard to their ownership interests, at least). However, I’m with another commentator, who noted that while “[t]hey took an okay stats system and made it into something pretty interesting[,] I just have to wonder what Yahoo is going to do with the data.”

The bottom line, and the problem with all of these sites, is that like many other social sites functioning on votes or reviews, all of these companies really only provide value to companies and/or persons besides themselves.

The gent at Varien asks Yahoo the rhetorical question “what are you going to do with all these great technologies to make our lives better?”

I would ask that question, but I would also follow up by asking Yahoo, ThisNext, CrowdStorm, and the other “social networking” companies a much simpler question:

“How do you plan on making money off of these technologies?”

Paul Boutin at Valley Wag continues his “Silicon Valley Users Guide,” urging you to skip the year-end recaps and predictions for 2007 in favor of boning up on “these four tech/biz insiders whose blogs you don’t read, but should say you do. All four are way more successful than you. Each posts faster than you can read.”

Read the full story here.

I, of course, read them all … (Ahem)

I was just reviewing my site content over the past week and I noticed that I’ve sort of been “phoning it in” during that time. I know it’s the week before Christmas, but that really shouldn’t make a difference considering that I was raised Jewish, and I really don’t have anything else of substance going on these days.

Given that realization, I was planning on working out my draft of the “Grass is Greener” theme from Friday. I also wanted to write something in response to the advise I saw on a site last week advising against the reliance on “blog communities” to drive traffic.

However …

I am, at this point, closer to 40 than 30. And although I take care of myself, I am only now starting to learn that there are several things that I cannot, and should not, be doing at this age on a Friday night. One such activity is drinking and smoking heavily until 5:00 a.m. A second is climbing fences in order to sneak into a club where I know the doormen, for no other reason than it seems like a good idea at the time. A third, which I’m sure nobody really wants to know, is having hot-wings and beer at 6:00 a.m. when someone else my age ought instead be having oatmeal and coffee. Participating in any or all of the above activities will lead, inevitably, to a horrible, horrible Saturday. Just a friendly reminder for anyone out there considering that course of action – and, more importantly, to myself if I ever happen to read this post before I EVER consider doing that again.

Moving on, yesterday I was planning to write something about the topic of “cross-linking” of blogs and the whole “blog community” phenomenon, especially in light of the recent advise I saw about how joining such communities is not conducive towards gaining site traffic. But that was sheer fantasy. I wanted to write something about it today as well, which is what I was planning when I first starting writing this about 10 minutes ago. Apparently, that also is not to be, considering I am getting dizzy while typing this. As such, I’m going to summarize my point and basically steal content which I would have otherwise paraphrased.

I agree that there may be some validity to the point of not joining blog directories. However, I also think there may be some benefit in doing so. Especially considering the best of those directories are morphing into something other than simply “link-sharing” programs. One such directory is MyBlogLog.com, which I joined only recently and believe contains some interesting possibilities.

From Cooqy.com, which itself I stumbled upon through My Blog Log, comes this analysis:

Blogging in isolation is rather pointless. MyBlogLog’s “reader widget” makes you feel you are not blogging alone, by providing tangible proof that someone cares enough to visit your blog postings. It’s also fun from the point of view of leaving my mark on other people’s blogs…my own “Kilroy Was Here” or “Sign of Zorro” mark. Both bloggers and readers can benefit.

MyBlogLog has the two key ingredients for success nowadays…social components and widgets. According to this post, they are experiencing accelerated growth across all metrics. The widget growth in particular is what caught my eye…widgets are a key component to viral adoption on the Internet. It’s funny that MyBlogLog is reporting a doubling of widget growth month-over-month, because that is similar to Cooqy’s growth for the last three months as well. Coincidence? Or is there a mathematical formula in action that describes widget propagation?

Sometimes when a company creates their product/service and releases it to the world, the utility of their creation cannot be fully appreciated. I believe this is the case with MyBlogLog, in the sense that their name and focus seems to be exclusively on bloggers. I feel that MyBlogLog is more like a socialization engine for any and all web pages. Sort of like a MySpace without walls.

I had those same thoughts when I first went to My Blog Log. It may be a service that is greater than the sum of it’s parts (and definitely its name). The integration of the widgets and the socializing potentially makes My Blog Log (which Cooqy aptly notes is a horrible name that does not fully describe the services possible) much more than a “directory.” It would be a means towards achieving a true online social community which, through the use of widgets would (unlike MySpace) be mostly contained on the individual websites of the users. This obviously would allow for more diverse content, accessibility, etc.

And while the service is now directed only towards bloggers, it could just as easily be geared for others, including those in the online business community – with all the possibilities that would entail.

That being said, I’m going back to bed.

Considering the fact that most of my “side projects” are not really bringing in any substantial income right now, I am actually considering going back to work as an attorney – if nothing else, probably just part-time. I shudder at the idea, but like I said, none of the projects I’ve tried to implement over the past six (6) months seem to be coming to fruition as of yet.

Regardless, in the interim, I will keep plugging away – quite literally. This time, I’m posting a site link and a “coupon” prepared by my partner over at Wish Upon A Stove. I personally think it’s a great idea, my friend is a gourmet chef and he’s taken to posting “learn to cook” videos online as a preface to starting his own online culinary school. The guy taught at one of the big schools in California and from what I understand, there’s nothing you can learn there that you can’t learn by watching videos and a small bit of personal guidance (much like sex, I suppose).

I’ve been told that, if you’re a foodie (a term I never even heard about until earlier this year), it’s like nirvana.

If you’re not familiar with the site, PSFK is a collaborative trend spotting resource for business professionals and trend watchers of marketing and consumer trends and business ideas. The site is run by Piers Fawkes and Simon King with a team of contributors in Europe, Canada, the US and Asia. They report on innovations and new business concepts for researchers and marketing managers.

It really is an outstanding information source for up and coming trends and business models.

Lately, they have been running a series entitled “Trends in 2007.” It’s interesting because it’s part of a collaborative effort, obtaining commentary from both inside and outside their collective. They are requesting users to submit their own predictions via YouTube with the tag psfk2007.

Some of the viewer submitted ideas have nothing to do directly with business or marketing trends (i.e., immigration reform). Others, like the latest submissions predicting an upsurge in “Psychedelia & Green Fuel” are at least somewhat more pragmatic. There are, however, some very interesting submissions like this one concerning widgets; and more are sure to follow.

You can view the existing predictions, and add your own, right here.

UPDATE: Although I’m not sure if this falls under the category of PSFK’s “Trend Search,” I came across this video interview of David Gensler, and just wanted to post directly for future reference. Gensler is a designer and strategist, co-founder of The KDU, SVSV, and publisher of “The Royal Magazine.” Great stuff regarding the relationship between, and interaction of, design, function and marketing.

As I’ve noted elsewhere ad nauseum, and if it’s not abundantly obvious from my rhetoric and grammar, I used to practice law. My apologies, but I still can’t help trying to work as many words as possible into my text simply because it usually leads towards more billable hours.

That being said, I’ve spent the past 6 months working my way back into the online world, in terms of internet marketing and sales, search engine optimization, website design, and, of course, blogging. I’ve not gone into the industry completely blind, and I have been consulting with several friends who have been involved in one or several of the aforementioned industries for some time. That does not, for fuck sake, mean that I have any clue as to what I’m doing – in any of them.

For this reason, it’s always nice to come across some clues that people have been kind enough to randomly drop on the internet without requiring me to provide a (dummy) g-mail account, my name, address, blood type and first born – ostensibly for allowing the viewing of said information rather than allowing them to later bombard me with spam notices of their “indispensable” seminars.

One of the many reasons I decided to start a personal blog (other than allowing me the opportunity to post nudie pictures, of course) was to provide myself with a quick and easy personal resource for any links, commentaries, suggestions, guides, etc. that may further assist me in my efforts.

While it may be simplistic, I am classifying such resources – for now – under the general category of “internet marketing.” That will probably soon change given the number of links and resources I may find.

To start it off, I came across this link clarifying Google’s recent decision to disallow the placement of images next to Adsense ads to increase clickthrough rates. In short – they don’t want it. The remainder of the explanation is here and here. Good to know, considering my friend, who has been in the industry for years, was himself unclear about the issue. Thanks, although I think Google’s reasoning is a bit silly.

The second point, taken from that same site, is of greater import to me personally, given that I have been focusing much of my time during the past month to building out several blog sites with some friends. The gent over at Connected Internet just posted an article entitled “The Dos And Don’ts For Driving Traffic To A New Website.” Although the title is self-explanatory, I’ll also mention his following blurb:

In my view there are certain actions and steps that can be taken for driving traffic to a website, which are only useful or worthwhile at certain stages in its life cycle. For example, the benefits for a larger and more established site which already has a significant number of links from participating in a link exchange program, will be minimal.

Over, the last year or so, I’ve managed to turn this site into a reasonably trafficked site. Below I’ve listed what I consider to be The Dos and Don’ts For Driving Traffic To a New Website, where the payback from certain actions will be greater than for larger sites.

Although the author writes in (necessary) generalizations, it’s a good resource and should be referred to from time to time. Personally, the most interesting piece of advise he gives is “Don’t Waste Time With Blog Directories.” I have been told by many others the opposite up until now, but he has a good point – Feedburner already pings the various services, so anything else would be somewhat superfluous.

Okay, if you take a look to the top-right of the page, you’ll see that I’m trying out a couple “storefront” options on the site just to see what happens (it’s a shame that I don’t play golf, since there are apparently 50,000 online golf supply stores to plug).

I’m linking up to suppliers from whom I would purchase myself, thus explaining my immediate posting of a link to the “Playboy Store.” I’m also putting up links for music and DVD’s, surf and skate gear, and travel guides/gear.

If anyone happens to buy something through the links, then great – maybe I’ll be able to pay my mortgage this month. If not, at least I’ll be able to get some decent deals for myself before declaring bankruptcy and running to Costa Rica.

Thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense.

UPDATE: I’m also going to start adding content from my partner’s cooking site over at Wish Upon A Stove. He’s a professional chef and he posts daily cooking videos. Frankly, this is more of a personal thing than business. I love food almost as much as music, surfing and politics. My personal favorite is the Braised Beef Short Ribs with Chocolate and Cinnamon that he prepared just the other day. I love meat and I love chocolate, what’s more to say? I’m posting the video below: