25 Random Facts.

Okay, I'm stealing this idea from Laura. I've been tagged about a million times on facebook, three of them just happened in the last hour.

1. I was drawn by a comic book artist and appeared for 10 frames as a character in Bear number Seven by Jamie Smart.

2. When I was in high school Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin was my favourite song while everyone else loved the Spice Girls.

3. Pasta with grated cheese on top is my favourite food.

4. I used to be terrified of death, and disease and going blind or losing limbs and I would end up upset in school because of using acid in chemistry or learning about nuclear bombs. (I was bullied to say the least.)

5. I used to always want to live in California and work for disney

6. I wanted to be Kelly Kapowski when I was small, so I could date Zack Morris and go to American High school (snap on that one Laura)

7. I have two surgical scars, one accidental scar, and one scar that didn't need stitches on my small finger on my right hand where my mum jammed it in a door when I was 3.

8. I love cats but I only want to ever own one at a time and it must always be a black female cat.

9. Small children terrify me, until they can jump I want nothing to do with them.

10. I always wanted to be and still want to be a an author(ess).

11. The number 11 haunts me, and I base a lot of my decisions around seeing that number.

12. It took me a year, £2,500, 5 driving tests, 5 instructors and seven cars to pass my driving test.

13. I really really really really love M&Ms (peanut butter first, then the rest follow, but I hate crunchy and see no point to them).

14. I have two regrets in life not seeing Radiohead in August in Glasgow 2008, and not seeing Silverchair in Utah in November 2007.

15. I hate wearing odd socks, it throws off my balance and perception of life. Socks are also my favourite thing to put on in the morning.

16. I've lived in eleven different homes.

17. I used to make up dance routines and dance in my bedroom all the time and pretend I owned a dance school.

18. I grew up with childhood movies like Empire of the Sun, Stand by Me, back to the future and the goonies.

19. The Catcher in the Rye always changes my life when I read it.

20. To Kill a Mockingbird is my favourite book and Radiohead Just my favourite song and The Goonies my favourite movie, just because of what they meant to me at the most impressionable times of my life. I've not read or listened to them properly in years.

21. I really enjoy making stencils and doing art for art's sake.

22. I am the most anal typographer you most likely know. I nit pick and pull apart leaflets, menus, posters, tickets, everything. I hate bad type when it's commercial and out in the world promoting people.

23. I read eats, shoots and leaves and became a spelling and grammar nazi.

24. I have an odd obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tom Cruise.

25. I have a cheerleading oufit that I bought on ebay and sometimes I wear it in the house while watching bring it on.

Facebook is the new Coca-Cola.

The other day I was reading an article in a business magazine and they were trying to predict trends and wax financial about the future of the economy and what would replace the things we already have in society.

One of the questions was about someone trying to predict or create what comes after facebook.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I have come to realise that my prediction, in this whole affair, is that nothing is going to come after facebook. Well not nothing, there will be things invented and created i'm sure, but nothing is going to over take it.

Here is my reasoning, and we're going to mention MySpace and Bebo and frienster and Hi5 and every other failed networking site as well. MySpace used to be the best thing on the internet. But nothing changed, nothing was updated, nothing was new, there was no user to client contact and thus no improvements in the service (and still, there's no new beneficial improvement; all the new things we saw on facebook a year before).

I'm not the biggest fan of facebook, which you wouldn't guess considering the amount of hours I spend on it. The reason I'm not a fan is the amount of hours. It has me trapped, I want to know if someone has posted new pictures, I want to know if so and so is attending the event I'm thinking of going to, I want to know how my friends are doing and what they are up to all day.

I find myself refreshing the page, just in case, about a million times a day. It's now a habit. Those are my reasons for not liking it. I also fear that it will get too big, that there will be too much information and we will all explode from an information over-load. My other beef with social networking sites in general is that they mess with the general order and natural cycle of friends. I can now stay in touch with the people that bullied me in high school, or the people that I knew when i was 5 years old and I could still play out in the street and not get kidnapped.

But back to my theory. Myspace has never changed, it was replaced, and now, rather than realise that it is actually used for music more than networking, it continues to wriggle the knife further into its own heart. It's time it reinvented itself and came up with new ideas rathe than ideas pinched from facebook.

Facebook on the other hand updated their site, changed the layout, realised there was a problem with information display and did something about it. At first people could choose to change sites, eventually everyone had to. And they had the attitude of 'you will get used to it' when people moaned and complained. Now, I quite like it. people hate change, but once they know it for it a while they won't remember what was before. And that is what they knew and what they did.

The people behind facebook and who are working constantly on facebook are not stupid, they are smart, and they know how to stay alive. If they had just left things the way they were all myspace hell might have broken loose and they would be burried in the dust like friendster and hi5.

So my theory is that facebook is going to be like coca-cola, it's not going anywhere. It will have competetors, there will be cheaper versions, but it will always capture the main market, and it's not because the product has every changed. No, it has always tasted the same, just the marketing and the look changed. The logo progressed, the advertising was clever, and always different.

So as long as facebook keeps the product the same, ie. makes sure it's ALWAYS a social networking site that is easy to use and clutter free, but changes the look to keep up with technology then my bet is that it's not going anywhere, and that it will become a brand like Apple, McDonalds, Nike and Coca Cola.