10 Things I Hate About The Internet

My life has been the internet, without a doubt if the internet didn’t exist I would likely be working at McDonalds for the rest of my life. It has given me the opportunity to do something I love as a job and get paid for it, essentially the internet rocks. Still, there are things about it that twist my nipples every now and again. Let me share them with you now;

1. Blogs

I’m being serious here, even though you are reading this as a blog post, I do dislike blogs. Now obviously when I say “blogs” I’m referring to the nonsensical, boring and downright ugly things that people publish using software like Blogger and LiveJournal. These blogs are normally filled with lengthy articles about their actual day to day life and they are the kind of people who say Twitter is pointless.

I know that entire paragraph was extremely ironic but let me explain…

These people need to be introduced to the awesomeness that is Tumblr. A blog is merely a way to show off your position in the world, a way to distinguish you from the rest of the puny mortals that roam the globe. However blogging via a platform such as Tumblr opens your blog up to other people, it makes your blog no longer yours but the communities. Simply put it, it’s genius. I respect the people that blog using Tumblr (even though I don’t really understand the “beauty” in some of the odd pictures they post) it’s still better than the crap Bloggers and LiveJournalists post.

2. Internet Explorer (IE)

FUCK! This piece of shit just won’t die because Microsoft won’t either. As the majority of you will know (looking from gre.gs analytics) there are some truly amazing browsers to choose from these days. Firefox for it’s extremely wide choice of extensions, Safari for it’s ever impressive webkit engine and Chrome (also webkit) for generally just being awesome. Internet Explorer thankfully only accounts for 9% of my visitors to gre.gs (that’s shared between 8, 7 and 6) however I do own and build websites where IE accounts for about 70% of all visits.

3. Opera

Once again we have a browser that seems to exist merely to annoy me and the hundreds of thousands of other developers in the world. It seems like one of those browsers that should be really pushing the game with Mozilla, Apple and Google but it isn’t. It has some “nifty” features like the quick dial screen but they never improve them. As soon as Chrome (Most Visited) and Safari (Top Sites) had quick dial screens Opera looked like pig shit. My message to Opera would be to get rid of all it’s baggage and make a damn good browser that could compete with the ability of Chrome much like they do with their mobile versions of Opera.

4. Flash

This has been one of those technologies that I love to use but hate when I have to develop along side it. It always seems too clumpy and fat, like Big Mama. I’m a Mac user so when Steve Jobs finally announced he was going to stick it to Adobe over Flash I cheered but even when I was a Windows user it pee’d be off big time. I’m really looking forward to the day when all video online is played via technologies like HTML5 which already allow some great results in their early days.

5. Corporates

One thing that has impressed me with the web world is how it can be so open and kind when it comes to building businesses on it. This is because the majority of startups are made by humble and creative individuals who are interested in making a great product for the world to use.

Hold on though because there are people in the world who like to change all that because it’s not “business like” - corporates. They aggravate the hell out of me with their constantly money focused approach to every decision and possibility. I really do enjoy the technology stories where a website has chosen a direction for user experience and enjoyment over money.

Obviously money makes the world go round so I’m totally aware that every now and again you do need money on your side. Still I believe there are other ways to gain finances without jeopardising your entire product strategy and user friendliness. Recently I think Twitter has gone about this extremely well and the people who complain about sponsored search results need a slap across the face with a rotting fish.

6. Social Media Gurus

I will shoot you… Anyone who claims to be a “social media guru” and is proud of the fact is clearly a moron. Social media is a way in which media can be interacted with on a social basis. Such as comments on Facebook photos, liking a YouTube video, digging a blog post but the list is ENDLESS. The entire idea of social media is too big for any one person to be a guru of it. These gurus are a danger to the internet and must not be approached at any time.

7. NO CHANGES PLZZZZ

Ever noticed when Facebook changes their UI in anyway there is a universal uproar about it by morons who aren’t willing to try out something that will inevitably make their lives easier. Facebook have a HUGE team of UI geniuses that spends hundreds and hundreds of hours perfecting the way the website looks, they know FAR more than these whiney little bastards. Every now and again I have my doubts about the Facebook updates however I don’t complain until I’ve had time to fully try it out and get to know the feature. There is a reason that Facebook continues to grow while MySpace is slowly falling into a deep dark sea to begin a never ending sleep with some rather odd looking fishes.

8. Facebook Applications

These things are like pubes in your ice cream. WHY USE THEM?!?!?! There are obvious exceptions like the applications that help make external sites more available and useful. I love the fact I can connect my Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, Gowalla and pretty much every other service I use to my Facebook.

What I don’t like are the bullshit “Jimmy has posted Something on your wall.” notifications which you find out is some shitty application that needs you to “Allow” it to see your information before you can see what Jimmy has linked you to. Which to your over expected enjoyment is the answer to whether he thinks you’re hot or not. PEOPLE?!?!?! Quit doing these fucking annoying question and publish games on Facebook, they don’t provide your life with anything and only frustrate those around you when you flood their wall and notifications with shit.

9. Farmville

This one needed it’s own section away from “Facebook Applications” just so I could say this…

FARM THE FUCK OFF!

10. People Who Don’t Use The Internet

These twats who make comments about how the internet is bad for the human way in the 21st century when they themselves have never used the internet for anything more than porn consumption. We saw these people magnified when the Digital Economy Bill was being debated. They have a closed view on what and how the internet has affected people’s lives and only listen to the stories where it has ruined people’s well being. The internet as a whole has changed the way humans interact on a global scale and there has never been anything on this scale before. Bunch of wankers…

Well that’s my list of 10 things that I hate about the internet. Of course there are exceptions in most of the cases however on the whole they all piss me off.