The official Perton.com Best of 2007
By Marc Perton
Gore’s Nobel
Without Karl, Ralph or the Supremes in his way, the winner of the 2000 presidential race sailed to a well-deserved victory in Sweden. Of course, it remains to be seen whether his prize helps influence policy on climate change.
The Consumerist
Nick Denton will never be confused with Colston Warne, but as the force behind The Consumerist, he’s shown that he’s capable of actually helping people other than gossip-hungry New Yorkers and Valleyites. Featuring everything from recall news to guerilla support tips, Consumerist is the new face of consumer advocacy for Gen Y.
Alas, I didn’t make it to this show, the group’s first in over 25 years. But the YouTube clips confirm that my boyhood idols still sound great—but are now bald, fat and middle-aged … just like their fans.
Zoho Writer
Google Docs may get all the glory, but Zoho feels a lot more like a real word processor, and includes such niceties as a tabbed interface, ad-free environment, and, most impressive of all, a seamless offline mode—powered by Google Gears, which has yet to make an appearance in its parent’s online editor.
Forever Stamp
I buy stamps. I lose them. I find them five years later and have to buy extra pennyweight stamps if I want to use them. Not anymore. I can buy as many stamps as I want, lose them for decades, and still be able to use them to mail my pleas for cash to the Social Security Administration.
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Alt-history, Chandleresque suspense and the “frozen chosen.” What’s not to like?
OLPC XO GOGO
I’ll leave the hardware reviews to the experts. But Nicholas Negroponte’s “Give One Get One” ploy was pure genius, and managed to change the public perception of the XO from a well-intentioned failure to a cool way to be philantropic and get a free gadget at the same time (or even make a profit, as some eBay merchants have managed to do.
Yahoo Pipes
Plug-and-play RSS mashups for the masses. Users have created pipes that do everything from add a category-specific price-watch service to craigslist to the most recent “interesting” flickr photos, except for those that feature flowers. And, of course, all scripts can be copied, merged, altered and further mashed as needed.
WGA Strike
The union movement in the U.S. may be a shadow of its former self, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely toothless. The ongoing strike has brought one of the country’s most powerful industries to its knees and, like the Tasini lawsuit a half-decade ago, serves as a reminder that companies that control content don’t have a unilateral right to use it “in any medium yet to be invented” without compensating its creators.
Since everyone else has already compiled their “Best of 2007” lists, here’s mine, in no particular order:
Gore’s Nobel
Without Karl, Ralph or the Supremes in his way, the winner of the 2000 presidential race sailed to a well-deserved victory in Sweden. Of course, it remains to be seen whether his prize helps influence policy on climate change.
The Consumerist
Nick Denton will never be confused with Colston Warne, but as the force behind The Consumerist, he’s shown that he’s capable of actually helping people other than gossip-hungry New Yorkers and Valleyites. Featuring everything from recall news to guerilla support tips, Consumerist is the new face of consumer advocacy for Gen Y.
Alas, I didn’t make it to this show, the group’s first in over 25 years. But the YouTube clips confirm that my boyhood idols still sound great—but are now bald, fat and middle-aged … just like their fans.
Zoho Writer
Google Docs may get all the glory, but Zoho feels a lot more like a real word processor, and includes such niceties as a tabbed interface, ad-free environment, and, most impressive of all, a seamless offline mode—powered by Google Gears, which has yet to make an appearance in its parent’s online editor.
Forever Stamp
I buy stamps. I lose them. I find them five years later and have to buy extra pennyweight stamps if I want to use them. Not anymore. I can buy as many stamps as I want, lose them for decades, and still be able to use them to mail my pleas for cash to the Social Security Administration.
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Alt-history, Chandleresque suspense and the “frozen chosen.” What’s not to like?
OLPC XO GOGO
I’ll leave the hardware reviews to the experts. But Nicholas Negroponte’s “Give One Get One” ploy was pure genius, and managed to change the public perception of the XO from a well-intentioned failure to a cool way to be philantropic and get a free gadget at the same time (or even make a profit, as some eBay merchants have managed to do.
Yahoo Pipes
Plug-and-play RSS mashups for the masses. Users have created pipes that do everything from add a category-specific price-watch service to craigslist to the most recent “interesting” flickr photos, except for those that feature flowers. And, of course, all scripts can be copied, merged, altered and further mashed as needed.
WGA Strike
The union movement in the U.S. may be a shadow of its former self, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely toothless. The ongoing strike has brought one of the country’s most powerful industries to its knees and, like the Tasini lawsuit a half-decade ago, serves as a reminder that companies that control content don’t have a unilateral right to use it “in any medium yet to be invented” without compensating its creators.
August 14th, 2008 05:27
[...] garnered is that it has received so much notice. I loved the book when I read it; I put it on my Official Perton.com Best of 2007 list. But when I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think, “great book, but who the [...]