Hard to believe, but it is already time to ring in another new year.  What did I learn in ‘08?  Here’s a list of some things off the top of my head, in no particular order:

• In hard times, it is good to be an expert at something
• You can teach an old dog new tricks, just don’t expect that they will be good tricks (sorry, RHD and IDAR.PK)
• Dell makes lousy laptops, but for some reason people are still buying them
• I still can’t believe there is a good reason to use Twitter
• There still may be a future for mobile search, but it probably won’t rely on the .mobi TLD
• Warm>Cold
• Never, ever be a long-term contractor instead of a fulltime employee (sorry, Google)
• Never stray far from what you are really good at (sorry, Yahoo)
• Never try to compete at something you don’t understand (sorry, Microsoft)
• Monetize, monetize, monetize.  There’s only value if you can monetize
• At least blogging is cathartic, since nobody actually reads what most people write (sorry, me)
• A moderately funny cat video can generate more traffic than all the SEO in the world
• I may never get a bag of crap from Woot, but that doesn’t stop me from trying

Some are reporting it as a surprising phenomena that a new site (www.sockandawe.com) is suddenly generating millions of visitors each day. I don’t know whether it is Bush’s smarmy grin, the fact that the shoe is clearly a 1984 Sperry Topsider (yes, I’m old enough to remember), or just the timeliness of the subject matter– but, I am not surprised.

The site is reporting that 40,769,800 of their items of virtual preppy footwear have been thrown at the president so far. At 10 shoes per visit (which can be challenging, as their servers are pelted like old Bushie himself) that amounts to 4,076,980 visits. Wow.

What are they doing to monetize all that traffic, you ask? Nothing, at least as of yet. Advertising is sure to follow, but once again I wonder how someone can recuperate the cost of all that bandwidth? Nonetheless, I appreciate the humor, the fun, and quite frankly the opportunity to get some of my frustrations out.

Thought this was worth repeating, in case anyone didn’t hear:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm

I guess it is time to finally give Chrome a fair shake, since I can’t stand Firefox.

With things going the way they are, America needs a strong drink. 

As if to respond to grim economic conditions, Google has eased their editorial restrictions once again, this time deciding to allow ads for hard liquor.  Earlier this fall, Google decided that America needed a “light” drink, and decided to permit advertisers pawning beer, wine and champagne.  That was fine then, but that was before we were officially in this recession.

If things get any tougher, you might expect that Google will once again loosen editorial rules to add extra  revenue.  So, what’s next?  Gambling?  Heroin? 

Turns out that even mighty Google isn’t immune to a recession this size. 

Without ever getting much of a chance to gain momentum, Google’s avatar-based social networking environment called Lively will come down December 31st, 2008.  A few months ago, I wrote about Lively and speculated about what it could mean for the future of web navigation (Is Google lively a sign of things to come?).  While avatar-based web navigation may have seemed a little far-fetched, it didn’t seem outside of the realm of possibility.  Perhaps when this economic cloud clears we can once again look into a Virtuosity-style internet future.  I hope so.

Google is also reported to have ceased to continue with some 10,000 contract workers.  Early reports speculate that these primarily include bus drivers and cafeteria workers.  Now, I know food at the Googleplex is good, but could it take 10,000 to prepare and serve it? 

No.  These people were probably part of the layoff, but the majority was likely to have been “talent”.  What this really illustrates is a longstanding issue with American big business.  Companies use contract labor to appear trim in headcount for Wall Street analysts, to avoid paying full-time employee benefits, and to give themselves more flexibility to handle swells.  Yes, using contract labor is unavoidable to an extent.  Profits (and related workload) are tidal— staffing needs change rapidly as the availability of cash changes.  I myself have hired ~100 contract workers over the years for just such reasons.  But, when roughly 30% of your total workforce is temporary, one has to wonder what is going on?