Dino Baskovic Can’t Lose

I hate when Google gets bad press, even if it's from an obscure group of web geeks.

Sure, this dirt isn't nearly as tawdry as a Gmail outage, Chinese firewalls or the roller coaster ride that is Google's stock price.  But speaking as a recovering web geek myself: oh, it's bad, baby...

It seems that the jQuery project has decided to drop Google Groups as its de facto discussion board and mailing list for over 20,000 web developers worldwide.  For the uninitiated, jQuery is a "a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development."*  In layman's terms, jQuery is a way to make web sites to act like Flash without actually using Flash, a browser technology that makes web sites look and act pretty but has a vexed history of bad browser behavior.

John Resig, jQuery's creator and lead developer, broke the news on his blog this week, leaving web designers to wonder "Now what?" while the rest of the world thinks "So what?"  Wired's Webmonkey blog and Slashdot (yes, good ol' Slashdot) also weigh in on the war of words.  In a nutshell, Resig is displeased with Google Groups' inability to stave off spam:

As far as I'm concerned, Google Groups is dead.... This post isn't so much about the usefulness of mailing lists as a discussion medium, it's the complete failure of Google Groups as an adequate purveyor of public discussion software. For the jQuery project we're already in the process of moving the full discussion area to a forum that we control.... There is one area in which Google Groups continues to shine: Private, or restricted, mailing list discussions. However any attempts at using it for a public discussion medium are completely futile.... The primary problem with Google Groups boils down to a systemic failure to contain and manage spam. Only a bottom-up overhaul of the Google Groups system would be able to fix the problems that every Google Group faces.

The comment threads are flaming hot on jQuery's abandoning ship -- one of the largest on Google Groups.  And while Google is yet to respond formally, I eagerly await their next move.  Ironically, Google employs jQuery across a number of its web properties, namely Google Code and -- you guessed it -- Google Groups.  Personally, I relied more on the jQuery documentation wiki than boards and lists, but that's just me.

Back when I designed web sites for sport, I grooved on jQuery's logic and efficiency.  Community support was weak at first but gained groundswell quickly.  Competing JavaScript frameworks like Prototype, MooTools and Yahoo! UI worked more like Flash and were simpler to learn, but jQuery was so damn clean and the robust UI libraries evolved so well that I couldn't resist adopting it like a puppy.  Tens of thousands of web developers now roll with it, and even marquee sites like Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter and Bank of America infuse jQuery.

Casual web users won't care, and why should they?  Unless you code for a living, this is pretty dull stuff and overshadowed by the wealth of positive coverage in recent days resulting from Google Wave (myself, i'm still not sold), Google Voice (the FCC is really not sold) and Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation ("sold," to the chagrin of Garmin and TomTom).  The issue of jQuery developers getting spammed on Google Groups whenever they can't chain together an AJAX event handler is pretty much a non-issue to everyday folk and a dead letter to mainstream media.

Of course, if the world's biggest search engine can't appease the very crowd of said geeks that continues to make Google -- heck, the entire web -- the success story that it is, then maybe it's worth a second glance.  After all, you never know when a Facebook or a Bing might one day woo those developers with: "Aww, Google gotcha down?  We understand how busy they can be.  Care to step into our spam-free kitchen?"

* From the jQuery.com home page.

What up, Parns?  I am such a slacker that I meant to post up yesterday just for the word play but couldn't make my own midnight deadline.  A precocious 5-year-old with a 104-degree fever will do that to a daddy's blog.

And slack I shall.  I have a few posts in mind (e.g. customer service clashes with PR, the web wages war with the AP, bloggers do battle with the FTC) but each of those require more research and writing than can be done in 140 characters or less.  Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I shoot off a few bullet points from other blogs at random, merely because I can:

• Sidewikis.  Just one more freakin' thing.
• GeoCities.  A small tear shed for my old haunt.  Otherwise, buh-bye.
• SocialSafe.  Finally, a way to back up Facebook, 150,000 limbo accounts notwithstanding.  Not necessarily a way to restore profiles, but it's a start.
• Mountain Dew and Pushead.  I am 13 again.  Not to be confused with AMP's new iPhone app which actually is targeted towards 13-year-olds.
• Dyson's new bladeless fan.  If Fast Company, Wired and Engadget are that enthralled (and two outta three thumbs up ain't bad), then I'll probably run out and buy one tomorrow then never use it like my Wii Fit.

See, this was good.  Cathartic, self-serving and an utter waste of time -- like most tweets.  Not a lick of context nor any real purpose.  I should scrape off my feed reader more often.  This is crazy delicious fun.

UPDATE: Gizmodo's review is the best.  True dat.  Double true.

Now that "Rich Uncle Pennybags" is finally open for business, here are my first impressions of Monopoly City Streets:

• Slick interface.  Think "Command & Conquer meets Google Maps."
• Buying the streets I grew up?  Cool.  Rebuilding my old school and childhood home?  Very cool.  Owning high rise condos on Whiskey Island? Now we're talking.
• The fact that no other registered user in the world can touch my properties?  Now that is neat.  Unless of course, they own a bulldozer.
• Sharing my real estate prowess on Twitter, gravy.  Facebook, I wouldn't know...
• The game servers lag a bit and the official blog is a tad preachy, but it's free and I ain't griping.

MCS won't replace the kitchen table.  Sure, I miss my thimble, but that's not the point.  This isn't "online" Monopoly, which already exists on multiple platforms.  Nor is it a mere transformation of an American classic.  Rather, a transubstantiation of a ageless brand from gaming tradition to global juggernaut. 

Think of it.  Monopolists in Moscow, for example, snapped up parcels along Arbat Street faster than they could say "это очень дорого" within hours of the site going live.  Save the uber-wealthy, Muscovites can barely afford to stare into store windows along Arbat, much less live there.  But as of today, they are virtual landlords, competing with other consumerists around the world in a digital land grab not seen since Second Life.  The economics of EverQuest also come to mind.  Wake up, marketing!  This could be bigger than Mafia Wars, larger than Second Life!  We need banners and apps and contests! 

Maybe I'm wrong.  Second Life did lose luster over time.  Then again, MCS could be the next "next big thing," spawning countless cottage industries and consulting fees. 

That's the marketer in me talking.  What about the consumer?  Perhaps this fad will pass by my next blog post.  Or maybe I get hooked.  Would I pay for premium play?  Will I crave each session as I once did with Scrabulous (now Lexulous) on Facebook?  And this is light years ahead of Lexulous...

Time will tell.  For now, it's fun to frolic in the old 'hood.  Think I'll go grab another green house.

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While I wait in earnest to reunite with my precious Facebook account, here are 10 things I'm instead doing:

1. Rebuilding my Google account.  Another story altogether.
2. Rekindling my on-again, off-again relationship with Twitter.
3. Linking back into LinkedIn.
4. Playing wiith Posterous.  Wanting to update WordPress.  Missing Magnolia.
5. Changing and encrypting passwords like nobody's business.
6. Backing up data like a summabitch.
7. Catching up on sorely overdue deadlines.
8. Finding a life outside of social media.
9. Making sense of my mid-30s.
10. Eating a ham sammich.