WTF

From the What The Fu** department, RedHat has sent a cease and desist (c&d for you home gamers) to the DataPortability workgroup for logo infringement. You see, RedHat uses a symbol that looks like the one to the left. The Data Portability logo is a dark D plus a light P combined to look like "infinity". You can read the entire complaint here.

My opinion: the logos look nothing alike to me.

Marshall Kirkpatrick shows a picture of a pretzel in the shape of the RedHat logo. I just went to Times Square and food cart operators were closing up due to fear of a C&D on the pretzels they sell. No one wanted to speak on camera in fear of their safety.

Former attorney and Techcrunch owner Mike Arrington notes, "The ideas are what’s important - the logo is irrelevant...Have a contest and let fans create a new logo for you." I agree with Mike and would hope that the contest would allow anyone to enter and the judging would be fair and wouldn't just pick a "friend of DP". Could be a good way to get the word out about DP past the geek bloggers.

Maybe RedHat is just pissed after today's Microsoft announcement? We've seen how pissy bloggers handle things - they attack. Maybe this is the way pissy operating systems companies handle things.

In all seriousness, c'mon RedHat, let's make more great products, not worry about a logo.

Update Wednesday - David Karp tells Silicon Alley Insider that he has no idea what this Norbum is. David's statement: "I'm not involved with Norbum, I don't know what it is, and I would never make fun of homeless people."

Update - Thursday - Jakob Lodwick notes that this .org site is not his either.

Here is the title from the press release that the Lemonade widget monetization company put out today, "Finally—a Way to get your 'Facebook Addicted' Teenager to earn some Money this Holiday Season". I had to laugh. When I was a teenager, I shoveled snow and worked at the supermarket to make money for gifts. Today teens can just spam market to their friends online and make cash from their homes. Smooth!

Lemonade has created an army of youngsters willing to market anything to their friends to make some dough. Of course Lemonade wants you to only sell your friends on products you love but c'mon, we all know the Sprint phone is going to pay tons more cash than selling your friend on a tube of lipstick. Let's get real here folks.

Lemonade widgets can be inserted into MySpace, Facebook, and basically anywhere that can accept the script.

The idea is great and I am sure Lemonade will do very well. Getting teens to market products for free is great. I say for free because the purchase conversion is probably quite low. As I noted this morning, I strongly believe that 2008 is the year of widget monetization and companies including Lemonade will benefit.

Ok, as I sit here eating breakfast watching all of the other people in the "breakfast room" and wondering which are here for SXSW, I checked my Yahoo Mail. I saw the following when I opened the app:

So somehow you can have NEGATIVE inbox mails. Now that is pretty groovy!

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

Since my first web site in 1995, error messages have always been a frustration for me. Working with hundreds of developers over the years, the error messages can really put egg on your face when you go live. Many times there are swear words in them, they are not properly formatted, the non-english speaking coders show through. I have debated several times as to whose responsibility it is to make sure that they are verified before a launch.

And I completely understand that web sites have errors. We can't always test everything, sometimes in the real world, issues arise that we couldn't plan for. But the key is to get them fixed as soon as possible so that others are not frustrated. What's interesting to me is that small sub-10 people startups get issues fixed quickly while large mega corporations tend to take longer to get problems resolved. I want to share an example today from Delta Air Lines.

This afternoon CNNMoney had a segment discussing their column in Business 2.0 this month (they are partners). The reporter who appears to be one of the anchors of CNNMoney, Allen Wastler (no relation!), reviewed the top 101 Dumbest Moments of 2006 for businesses.

Normally I probably wouldn't post an item like this, but what makes it interesting is that Allen noted that this was the highest hit page for CNNMoney ever. So I had a look to see why. I would say that 1006 Diggs that should help. And this is just on the main URL, there are also Digg's and other social tools for all of the individual 101 pages as well!

Which ones are your faves? What moments did they leave off?

Looks like we continue the weird but true posts today. I was just browsing through some of the reviews on CN to check for updates. When I clicked onto the Digg review, the Amazon affiliate box down on the left menu showed some interesting products.

The products include: Hellboy volume 2, an Adobe CS book, NY Giants Book, and a Calvin Klein thong. Wait a minute. A THONG. What in the bloody heck is a THONG doing on a content site about Web 2.0 and Social Networking?

Clearly the site has nothing to do with thongs unless somehow Digg is associated with Calvin Klein or if Jay or Kevin wear them? LOL! Anyway, just shows that matching technology is not perfected yet. Come inside for more commentary and the screenshot »

A story came out about a week or so ago from the University of Florida where they ran tests that showed that microwaving a sponge for 2-10 minutes can kill the bacteria living in it. So naturally everyone ran out and started "nuking" their sponges. Loads of posts then came out about how great this is. There was a story on Digg, but the Digg search sucks and I can't find it. Even the great Congdon posted it on her tv show.

And then, just yesterday, we start to see reports of FIRE being caused by doing what Amanda shows on her video and what the University of Florida says is a good thing to do. The team at the university has modified their language to state that the sponge must be soaking wet and it will be very hot when removed.

So remember, just because someone (or some university) on the Internet said something, doesn't mean it is always right or that you should run out and do it. I think we tend to believe things we read online as if they are gospel. I am sure the TV lawyers will be all over this like, well, bacteria on a sponge!

ATT Cingular Wireless has announced a new "bee". I have heard of spelling bees, now there is a TXT Bee... I am calling a WTF! Events will be held in Florida, Atlanta, Chicago, LA, and Texas this spring. Kids can win $10,000 in scholarship and donation money and the goal is to help parents also learn more about texting. Through our TXT2 Connect campaign and TXT Bee events, we are helping parents interact with their kids through text messaging in a fun environment.

Maybe for quick things like "come home by 4pm" or "bring home dinner" will work but I wonder how fast we will move into bigger discussions with texting. Can you just imagine using texting for things between parents & kids such as: IM Prego, IM Drunk, i h4t3 y0u, etc. I think parents and kids speak so little today, do they really think texting will help? So now kids and parents will see each other even less and assume texting will take the place of a sit down discussion?

Alright here we are on a Friday nite and I am calling a WTF. In addition, I am requesting Prop 149B1 to be enacted by the WBO (world blogger organization) to remove blogger photos on home page.  And I need your support to make this proposition a reality!