<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, funny]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, funny]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/funny http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/funny <![CDATA[Facebook's Get-Rich-Quick Scheme Has Yankees Player Sliding Into Home]]> Facebook's revenues are reportedly up 70 percent from last year, when they came in between $250 million and $300 million. What's their magic trick? Junky ads with catchy photos!

Most of Facebook's surge in user numbers — they're now past 200 million — has come overseas, where it's hard for Facebook to sell ads. Earlier this year, executived decided to loosen up restrictions on the kind of ads that could be placed on their system. (A side benefit: Less money spent paying recent college graduates to review ads manually.)

Now there's a plethora of diet ads, IQ quizzes, and other cheap come-ons that populate the Web's lowest-rent advertising inventory.

Plus some really amusing stuff, like this homoerotic solicitation for Yankees fans and a six-pack-abs ad featuring Edward Norton as a neo-Nazi from American History X.

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<![CDATA[Ze Frank's social networking ditty]]> Add another song to the geek karaoke repertoire. Ze Frank, best known for his year-long videoblog The Show, has released a cute little tune about romance in the age of social networks. "Let's start a social network built just for two," it starts off, and, from there, references networking cliches from hacker-speak to customizable profile pages. Fair warning, though: The chorus, with the repeating phrase "online all the time," has the potential to get locked in your brain all afternoon. Click to play after the jump.

Listen to the mp3 here

(Photo by: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

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<![CDATA[Retire Early By Suing Google For Anything]]> You're likely reading The Consumerist in the middle of a workday, so we're guessing you're receptive to new ideas on how to make lots of money fast without actually doing any work. Here's a great way: just make up some reason to sue Google.

For example, last week a 25-year-old Pennsylvanian filed a lawsuit against Google because his social security number spells a scrambled version of "Google" when turned upside down, and consequently his safety is in jeopardy. He's asking for $5 billion in damages. His handwritten complaint also states quite clearly that not only is his right to privacy being violated, but that "Plaintiff and defendant(s) have a responsibility to fight the War on Terrorism."

Or here's another example: sue Google and Yahoo for stealing their names from your grandparents, who hailed from the Gogo and Yao tribes of Tanzania, like someone in Texas did last week.

See? It's easy. Here are some more ideas to help get you started:

  • I thought Google was a palindrome but it turns out it isn't (this one smells like class-action).
  • Google's ads are not always for products or services I am interested in.
  • Google is a euphemism for my genitalia, and therefore has caused me millions of dollars worth of humiliation.
  • Google gave me diabetes.

"What's in Google's Name?" [New York Times Bits Blog]]]>
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<![CDATA["Eric told me that he has to assume that...]]> Interesting advice. [Steve Jurvetson on Flickr]]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=268668&view=rss&microfeed=true