It's All About Ads

I have a love/hate relationship with advertising. I understand its necessity. I understand it helps pay the bills for many online sites. But I hate it. I can tolerate small, unobtrusive ads. Google's AdSense works fine, except for bloggers who plaster those ads everywhere there's some space. feh

I have a paid LiveJournal account, partly to be able to have lots of userpics, but also to keep my LJ ad-free. I have a paid flickr account, mostly for the unlimited storage space, but a bonus is that it's ad-free. I'd willingly pay a small annual fee to keep other favorite sites ad-free.

Facebook has ads. They're fairly harmless. I've even clicked on a few -- often by accident, but that's another story -- but mostly, I ignore online ads. I avoid sites with blaring, pulsating graphics and colors and especially ones with audio -- those annoying talking heads. And with the non-obnoxious ads, I've mostly trained my eyes to not notice the ads. So this article about Making Money with Facebook just flat out annoyed me.

I don't doubt that's where things are headed. I just hope the ads remain easily ignored. I'd hate to have my Facebook experience ruined.

~~~o0o~~~

Tweeting

The Library of Congress is now on Twitter. I can't wait to see what they tweet about, so of course, I had to add them to the folks I follow. Twitter might be a fad, but it's a far reaching one, and one growing in popularity.

~~~o0o~~~

Online with the Obama Administration

One thing for sure, the presidency of Barack Obama will be more in tune with the folks who spend much of their time in cyberspace than any before. I'm not sure Bush even understood what the internet is, but the newly redesigned WhiteHouse.gov went online yesterday and already, there are indications of a new openness.

So far, here are the blogs I've looked at:

• White House Blog. I had a bit of a problem getting a working feed, but it seems to be updating now, instead of telling me there were new posts, then showing nothing when clicked in Bloglines. Here's a list of links for Federal Agencies & Commissions, and one for the Cabinet.
  
• DipNote, the Blog of the State Department and there's a Twitter widget in the sidebar! There's also a Facebook page and a YouTube channel. Citizen participation is encouraged. For people who need a bit of a tutorial to social networking, the State Department provides a nice overview.

I looked at some of the other cabinet pages, but they have what looks like an older design. The government sites seem to be a work in progress, but it looks like things are moving forward. These are exciting times.

Maybe stuff like this existed in the Bush administration, but there was no encouragement to go look. Since yesterday, so many blogs are reporting on these innovations, with links, that finding the information is a snap.

~~~o0o~~~

Quick Thoughts on the Inauguration

Dianne Feinstein gave a wonderful speech. There was a time I thought she might be the first women president. There haven't been many women politicians who have stood out as much as she has. Hillary Clinton (and Bill Clinton sure looked happy to be back in the spotlight, even at the periphery) is always a possibility, though as with Feinstein, age will start becoming a factor. Nancy Pelosi is another possibility, but she needs to distinguish herself more.

Great speech by our new president. He hit all the right notes, re-emphasized the points from his campaign and acceptance speeches, emphasizing change and reminding people that we all have responsibility to make change possible. Bush didn't exactly squirm at the few digs at his administration ("America is ready to lead again"), but he did look uncomfortable.

Aretha Franklin can sing anything. Just wonderful. The other musical number was not special.

The invocation and benediction were stirring, even for this non-believer. And I appreciated the reference our president made to non-believers.

The poem and delivery were ho-hum.

I'm not the sort of person who typically comments on what people wear, but Michelle Obama's yellow coat was beautiful. Jill Biden's red coat was nice. But when the two of them stood next to each other, watching the Bushes go bye-bye (and good riddance), my eyes couldn't handle it. Reminded me of my junior high school's colors: red and yellow (graduation was a hideous red gown with yellow cap).

But my favorite image was Bush and Cheney leaving. Now, I hope, we can get back to the values that make the US great.

~~~o0o~~~

Finally

Sorry for the lack of posts here. I've been sick, and with so many blogs to keep up, some don't always get updated in a timely fashion. However, today is a momentous occasion. I think this says it all:

I'd expected it to count down til the actual inauguration, but it went to just the start of today. While Barack Obama's presidency will be historic because he's our first African-American president, it is also a day of utmost relief that George W. Bush no longer holds that office.

~~~o0o~~~