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?

I may be late to the game on this one, but I am really getting a kick out of the Woot.com phenomenon.  For the uninitiated (if there are any left), Woot is a site that sells one item per day until it either sells out, or the day ends.  Items vary greatly in price, availability, and weirdness.  Some recent products include: a micro RC helicopter, a CD of international cursing language lessons, an Aerobed, etc. 

So, why the phenomenon?  It is because every once in a while, with absolutely no forewarning, Woot puts up a special product called the “Bag O’ Crap” (the BOC, for regulars).  The bag includes a mystery selection of seemingly overstocked items, of varying value.  The site bagsofcrap.com has tracked what each of the grab bags have included and their retail values: ranging anywhere from a couple of bucks to a couple of thousand (apparently, some have included 61″ HDTVs!!!). 

Though the daily items are often interesting, and sometimes honestly good deals, there isn’t anything too remarkable about the site except for that bag of crap.  True, the writing on the site is irreverent and at times really witty.  Is that enough to account for the $117M of revenue they posted for 2007?  No, I doubt it.  I think its because the Bag of Crap is an honest to goodness, full-fledged, internet phenomenon the scale of which might very well rival or even topple such greats as the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich or even Save Toby. 

Thanks to Nathan Pabich (come on Nathan, either update your LinkedIn bio or get yourself a website I can link to) for opening my eyes to this in time to join all the others (alexa has the site as the 1,124th most popular online— not bad) in my addiction to trying to get my hands on the holy grail of all holy grails, Woot’s Bag of Crap.