the instant win.

The 50 Best Things I've Seen on the Internet in 2011

In no particular order, here's a compilation of the web's greatest pieces of content from the last twelve months....

50. Elfster - Better management for secret santas. Though everyone will still buy each other iTunes gift cards...

49. The Huffington Post's thorough article on the rise of Ron Paul. My favorite part: He wants to lower the presidential salary to $39,000 to match the median income of the American worker.

48. Pajiba's passionate thoughts on why we need Community.

47. Redditors raise $31k in a matter of hours for a toddler needing a bone marrow transplant. I think I have something in my eye.

46. Rick Perry's debate meltdown.

45. Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating TED talk on the Norden Bombsight.

44. The New York Times' op-ed on millenials being defined as The Entrepreneurial Generation.

43. Mark Cuban's blog post on how he'd fix the economy.

42. The TIL subreddit. Someone shares something they learned and the community votes up what they found most interesting. Fascinating to find out Vin Diesel plays Dungeons & Dragons and that Rebecca Black donated all of the proceeds from Friday to earthquake relief in Japan.

41. Alec Baldwin's impersonation of Tracey Morgan.

40. Monopoly board from HBO's The Wire.

39..Farhood Manjoo's near-perfect Slate article on Facebook's decline -- drowning out signal with mundane, overshared noise. Considering their pending IPO, it could be the most important read of the year.

38. Salman Khan's TED Talk on disrupting the current American education model. It's the greatest 20 minutes I've ever spent with TED. Truly a must-watch and Bill Gates makes an appearance at the end to discuss Khan Academy.

37. @jessedee's cleverly titled "You Suck at Powerpoint" powerpoint presentation. Oft-neglected points for those of us who are pitching or presenting on a regular basis.

36. The 101 Most Useful Sites on the Internet. Agree with the lion's share of the list.

35. The official trailer for the second season of Game of Thrones.

34. Paste Magazine's Kirk Hamilton plays and reviews Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII for the first time. 14 years after it was accurately described as "quite possibly the best game ever made," his "Final Fantasy Letters" series with Leigh Alexander (blogger for Kotaku) were heartwarming, sad, and funny all at the same time.

33. Jimmy Kimmel trolls kids on Halloween.

32. Zenhabits' always excellent coverage on productivity.

31. Ricky Gervais interviews Warwick Davis while he's sitting on Karl Pilkington's lap. Hilariously awkward.

30. Philly Mag's article on the rise of Wawa.

29. The Forbes feature on Sean Parker's influence on Silicon Valley.

28. Chuck Klostermann's profile of Tim Tebow and the people that hate him.

27. RedBubble -- my new favorite online shopping destination.

26. Bears rookie J.T. Thomas took a girl to the prom after hearing she didn't have a date. Class act.

25. Buzzfeed's reading list for Harry Potter's hypothetical MBA.

24. The trailer for David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

23. The 99 Percent - perhaps the best overall blog on the web right now.

22. Staff sergeant surprises his daughter during her school spelling bee. I'll give you a minute to compose yourself.

21. Guy performs the history of hip-hop in a four minute beat-boxing video.

20. Evernote.

19. Dropbox.

18. Ken Jennings (of jeopardy fame) does an AMA ('Ask me Anything') on Reddit.

17. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's speech at TED about why we have too few women leaders. Pretty good advice for men, too.

16. Cringe-inducing piece from Rolling Stone on internet bullying and comment section 'snark' that turns ugly.

15. Another Rolling Stone article -- this time on how Roger Ailes built the biggest propaganda mill in U.S. history.

14. Jonathan Franzen pens a fantastic NYT op-ed on passion -- an oft-ignored emotion in the age of weak-ties. "The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships." Yes.

13.Grantland's Charles Pierce pens the internet's most insightful article on the Penn State scandal. A must-read.

12. The Man Who Sailed His House. GQ's article on Hiromitsu Shinkawa -- the man who spent 2 days floating along Japan on the roof of his house post-tsunami.

11. Sara Bareilles covers Mumford and Sons' Little Lion Man at Central Park. As great as it was on the internet, it was even better in person.

10. Tommy from Norway is pretty mad at us.

9. The tumblr devoted to Kim Jong-Il looking at things. I know what you're thinking, but don't worry.

8. A tumblr devoted entirely to dressing up corporate brands in Comic Sans.

7. Louis CK successfully kills the entertainment industry's distribution model. He produces and edits his own special, sells it to the internet DRM-free, and charges $5.00. Highly recommend you buy one copy...or five.

6. Tyrion Lannister slaps Joffrey Baratheon for 30 seconds. If this list were ranked in some sort of order and half my readers watched Game of Thrones, this would be number one.

5. The most comprehensive wallpaper search engine on the internet. Nothing else comes close.

4. Duncan Harris captures in-game screenshots from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on Flickr. The most beautiful game ever released.

3. Pajiba's scathing review of New Year's Eve. Girls - this sounds like the type of movie that makes us question our relationship wtih you. For your benefit, don't force us to go.

2. Troy & Abed plot to infiltrate Santa Claus' operation. Then Childish Gambino goes off.

1. Mona Simpson's eulogy for her brother, Steve Jobs.

I certainly don't expect you to get through this entire list in one session. Overall, it's about 3 hours of content if we factor in the length of the TED videos. Hope you enjoy the list though, and that it serves as penance for my lack of updating.

(Guess what my resolution for 2012 is...)

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Superb Spaghetti Monster, and have a killer start to 2012.

-The Instant Win

If you think I missed something, post it in the comments.

Posted by Matt DeSiena

Winter 2011: The Playlist

With the amount of time I've spent preparing for Steam Communications' launch party, updates have been few and far between. As I get the personal blog back on track, enjoy the tracks currently playing on my iPod in no particular order.

Grooveshark's best feature is that it automatically updates your blog widget when songs are added to the playlist in question. Check back for additions. As usual, I'm taking requests in the comments section.

Rock on,

M

Update 1: Added Mumford and Sons - Little Lion Man (H/T to Christa!)

Posted by Matt DeSiena

My Thoughts on the Passing of Steve Jobs

It's a sad irony that my blog receives new life the day after Steve Jobs' passing. It's also appropriate.

There's a fantastic line delivered in Love Actually by Emma Thompson's character that draws a perfect parallel of my "relationship" with the Apple co-founder. In this particular scene, Thompson's fervently defending her taste in music from her husband (played by Alan Rickman) and delivers the following gem:

"Joni Mitchell's taught your cold, English wife how to feel."

In terms of personal redemption, Steve Jobs did the same for me. Six years ago he gave what I consider to be both the best and most influential speech of my lifetime. The college dropout walked into Stanford's graduation and - true to form - gave an uplifting speech in the most unconvential and effective way possible. This was a day for champagne and celebrating achievement, so of course Steve Jobs rounded off his speech by talking about death. Of course.

Speaking to a generation characterized by their rigid belief in individualism rather than universal truths, Jobs - as he's done so eloquently many times before - proves us wrong. You should really watch the entire speech from start to finish, but his strongest moment begins at 9:20:

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

If you think about this honestly, it's universally true and not really debatable. It's true for your work, your relationship with yourself, and the people you choose to have in your life.

Learning what, who, and how to love can't be achieved with an algorithm. There's no real definition or exponential equation. But he comes as close as humanly possible to giving people a working formula for doing it right. I don't know if this beats his lifetime of cultural and global contributions - the personal computer, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, Toy Story, and Up - but it means just as much.

If there were a hall of fame for notable speeches, Jobs' commencement keynote to Stanford would get its own wing.

I never particularly loved his software or his app store, but I wouldn't have the career, degree of influence, or scope of knowledge without them.

Thanks, Steve.

Instant winners (so...the 2% of you who still read this blog i hopes that it came back) - Enjoy this brilliant wallpaper created by a fellow Redditor.

Update 1: Steve Jobs' biography pre-orders went up 39,000% as of the time of this post.

Posted by Matt DeSiena

The Instant Read: Don't Drink the Blog. The Blog Has Gone Bad.

If that were the actual quote by heaven's valedictorian, William Lichter; he would've been right.

As of today, I'm retiring the Instant Win. (The blog is lacking in both 'instant' and 'win'.) I'll be focusing entirely on Steam Communications, a blog and social media venture aimed at improving the internet's abysmal signal-to-noise ratio.

In language my readership understands: If the internet is Amanda Beckett, then she's making poor relationship choices. We're going to concentrate all of our efforts on fixing her up with people that don't make her cry.

I appreciate each and everyone who supported The Instant Win. You've made this microblog a rousing success. Little blogs that aren't particularly cared for shouldn't get 50,000 hits in under a year. You were awesome.

If you'd like to read more about my latest antics, emerging web platforms, social media usage, and the occasional lavish praise of one Aaron Sorkin, you'll be able to on my Twitter feed or http://givemesteam.tumblr.com. (Will be launched in a week or so.)

Onward!

M

Posted by Matt DeSiena

The Instant Pic: How My Furniture Feels About Me

Thanks, Reddit. Toe-tally accurate.

/dodges tomato

Posted by Matt DeSiena

The Instant Pic: Incomplete Map of the World's Social Networks

Don't see Posterous, therefore it can't be finished.

Posted by Matt DeSiena

The Instant Pic: Periodic Table of Mad Men

[via 37signals]

Posted by Matt DeSiena

The Instant Read: The 5 Essential Rules of Facebook Etiquette (August 2010)

Introduction

After the Facebook News Feed gained prominence and routine use, the quality of information on Facebook immediately began to deteriorate. They deemphasized the features people found useful (the ability to sort through your geographical networks, the ability to see which of your friends liked similar movies/music, the ability to see past birthdays, the ability to connect and control what information appeared in the feed, etc.

In truth, those features weren't de-emphasized. They were removed. In their place came the status message -- a feature that allowed you to broadcast a message directly into your followers' news feeds. A powerful tool to be sure, but in doing so Facebook became the face of the modern internet's biggest problem: the laughably bad "signal-to-noise-ratio."

While that may seem like a bunch of marketing speak, it isn't. It's quite literally the way a signal has been corrupted by noise. The ability to retrieve useful information on the internet became exceptionally difficult, and I will donate to any startup that successfully solves this problem.

Emerging technologies and product development won't do it alone, however. Our habits need to change, guidelines need to be written, and codes of social media behavior need to be followed in order to make it work. We need to understand why we look completely fucking retarded when we post the day of the week in a status message. We need to understand why we love some Facebook users and can't stand others.

The ambitious goal of this post is to improve the quality of information coming into Facebook (actually...ALL social media properties. I'm looking at you, Twitter) and allow me to "unhide" the few of you that turn checking Facebook into a chore.

That's what this post is about and to date will be the most important piece of writing in this blog's 1-year anniversary. I've been truly inspired by Richard Ziade's post on Internet Clutter, which secures my vote for Most Important Blog Contribution of the year.

Check out the Essential Guide to Facebook Etiquette below. Add any you think I missed in the comment section.

1. Your status is for me; not for you.

You may be watching TV while reading this. You may be cleaning. You may be cursing me out for sporadic blog updates. Whatever you are doing -- stop. Highlight the sentence above, copy, paste, and put it somewhere you will never, ever forget. The least likable Facebook users are the ones that don't understand the basic premise.

Ever see one of them? Here are some examples from my feed:

I love summer!
omg when is work going to be overrrrr?
So pissed right now
Eating dinner.
Going to the doctor w/ [name redacted].

What makes these statuses so mind-numbingly awful is that the person posting them didn't even consider whether or not you'd care. (Spoiler alert: It's not just you. Nobody cares.)

Prior to posting, imagine you're standing in front of 750 Facebook friends and speaking it out loud. If you don't think anyone gives a shit that you're going to the doctor, "eating dinner," or that you're pissed about something you didn't give enough information about in the first place.....well.....you're right.

I do want to be clear -- It's mildly irritating to see that pop up in a news feed, but the content of the status isn't the most obnoxious part. What makes it really bad (and I perhaps it's the reason why this post is being written) is that now I'm forced to sift through the banality of your post to get to something better. In essence, you've succeeded in wasting my time.

Solution: Consider what you're posting. If it isn't entertaining or informative, step away from left-click and come back with something better.

2. Your Facebook status is your Facebook status.

When people agree to become friends of yours, they agree to become friends of yours. Not your dog's. Not your kid's. Not your husband's. Not your wife's. With that in mind, there's no reason to post a status about any of the above.

Solution: Good news for the new moms out there! A dedicated few of your Facebook friends *DO* want to see you catalog your child's everyday life. Create a personal page for them. My future child, Bisquick DeSiena, will probably eclipse my friend count within a week of coming into the world.

3. Avoid the obvious -- Kill the "Weather Report," "At Work" Update, and "Motivational Quotes"

The inner desire to provide a weather report via status message baffles me. Does anyone think people rely on your "rain, rain, go away" update to learn that it is indeed raining? I'm somewhat speechless every time I see this populate the home page.

The runner-up to "most obvious and unnecessary status message" is when people let me know they're at work. Really? It's Tuesday and you're at work? So...you're not hammered at a bar like I assume all people are on a Tuesday at 10 am?

Solution: Don't be a complete asshat.

4. Beware the Overshare

Major props to The Oatmeal (a Reddit favorite) for creating a hilarious cartoon dedicated to egregious uses of Facebook. Scroll all the way to the bottom and look for the mountain lion of overshares.

Solution: Use discretion when posting a Facebook status. "The overshare" is directly related to a lack of thinking before posting.

5. The Rule of 1's

Counting down"to a particular moment in time is one of the few questionable habits which serves a useful purpose. I'd looove to strike countdowns from my news feed forever, but some events (birthdays, weddings, etc.) are certainly worth more than one reminder.*

Enter the "Rule of 1's" -- where countdowns become acceptable one year, one month, one week, and/or one day from the big day. There's no way to convince me that your entire list of friends needs a more frequent reminder. (After all...that's what events are for.)

Solution: Respect the "Rule of 1's."

*Note: The day you leave for vacation does not qualify as "countdown worthy."

What other Facebook status-related guidelines did I miss? What other ways would help to cut down on noise and improve content?

Posted by Matt DeSiena

Afternoon Delight: "We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat"

You know the guy that takes off on vacation for two months but doesn't ask his neighbors to pick up his New York Times? His papers just collect in the driveway, soak up the rain, gather leaves, and harbor all the field mice they possibly can?

My blog's become the internet equivalent of the annoying next-door neighbor. You peer out the window hoping against hope that something's changed in two months. Pretty soon you don't want to look. You can only take so much disappointment.

Well, it's time to clean up the mess. I'm back. And as a reward for continuing to visit this little micro-blog despite its shortcomings, I give you a list of links that you will never, ever get to the end of.

Enjoy.

Dahlia Lithwick marries impeccable writing with the brilliant analysis of a judge who's actually read the Constitution. Honestly, the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment is so clear-cut the only thing that makes the overturn of Prop 8 so bittersweet is that it was even allowed to pass in the first place. [Politics]
TechCrunch features great work by Moma, a Brazilian ad agency, who created "vintage ads" for Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube....Mad Men style. "Come in, sit down, and shut the door." [Mad Men]
Screencrave spins the five best movie soundtracks of all-time. (OF ALL TIME!) [Movies]
BWE mines some great one-liners from last night's Jersey Shore. In a related (and totally true) story, I bought chicken from Trader Joe's today without realizing why. [TV]
Paul McCartney is lobbying for Beatles tunes to appear on Glee. [TV]
Mashable plots five Twitter mapping tools in my Google Reader. Pretty good list, but Trendmaps blows the other four out of the water. [Twitter]
Digg was just hijacked by a bunch of neocons and will wiping the egg off their face for the next few days. Seriously bad PR. What happens when your site is gamed by people whose #1 choice for president in 2012 can barely read? How do you rebound from that? [Digg]

Take a few breaths....continue....

Liam Gallagher opened a clothing line in London. Noel doesn't shop there. [Music]
The iPad is consistently overhyped, but the My Pulse app may finally justify the purchase. [Apple]
Speaking of the iPad, it now supports uTorrent. I'm not taking anything away from the Android app, but getting approval from the App store is an unnecessarily difficult process. Have to tip your cap to the developers on the project. [Apps]
Pajiba skewers Charlie St. Cloud while praising Zak Efron's performance. Apparently his six-pack is a dark horse for this year's Best Actor? [Movies]
You can run - but you can't hide - from this Phil Collins/Katy Perry mash-up. We're not even halfway through and the bad jokes rear their ugly heads. [Mashups]
Wifi is on its way to New York city subways. I read the initial headline as "OMG the 6 train gets Farmville!!!!" [NYC]
Glenn Greenwald does what he does best. CNN, put down the microphone and step away from the vehicle. [Greenwald]
Gmote hands you the controls to your PC on your Android phone.[Google]
Paste Magazine chronicles the Evolution of the Hipster. Nowhere in there does it mention bathing. Just saying. [Hipsters]

Nice job, instant winner. You've made it halfway. Go take a food break. We'll be here when you get back.

I'm on record as believing social media doesn't merely foster a two-way conversation between a brand and consumers. It also drives sales. Techcrunch shows us how. [My Job]
Screencrave takes a break from butter beer to review the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at MGM. [Hogwart's]
Mel Gibson calls Christian Bale. You knew it was coming; You DIDN'T know it would top all the other Mel Gibson mash-ups on Youtube. [Gibson]
Paste Magazine, Yoda, and your GPS use the force to get you to your destination safely. [Apps]
Lifehacker brings their smartphone comparison chart to the masses. Absolutely LOVE the Droid. [Phones]
Paste editors come right back with their respective Top Ten albums of the year so far. Is there any more room on the LCD Soundsystem bandwagon? I'm thin; I can squeeze. [Music]
Daniel Carlson trolls the internet with the only bad review of Toy Story 3 I've ever seen. Agree that the writers were a tad lazy with the jokes and their punchlines. [Movies]
The state of Utah announced an execution via Twitter. Yes kids, this is an example of an overshare. [Facepalm]
HTTPS Everywhere forces a secure connection to the websites you visit on an everyday basis. If you're a Firefox user, it's well worth the download. [Firefox]
NBC chows down on the best burgers in New York. Then they tell you about it. [Yum]
Finally, NBC closes out the list with the best bars that feature liquor-fueled pyrotechnics. Ben Fitzgerald - if you read this blog - you are not allowed in. [Bars]

Posted by Matt DeSiena

The Instant Gig: Allison Veltz on Rockwood Music Hall's Big Stage

Who: Allison Veltz

When: 8/5/10 - 8 pm

Where: Rockwood Music Hall (Big Stage) - $10

Map:
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A few of us are going. Great music, strong drinks, and a lively discussion about my lack of blog updates between sets. We're all looking forward to the first two.

Posted by Matt DeSiena

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