Matt Butterworth

jakelodwick:

I love adding ‘activity logs’ to websites. It’s nice to see the site coming alive with activity.

Thanks to everyone who’s been participating in this project. I’ve been working on it all day.

TooManyBrands.com

Also an interesting NYTimes article that I found on Ricky Van Veen’s tumblr recently:

“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us,” Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”

A very smart friend of mine once commented on his MySpace or Facebook profile in the about me section that by listing his favorite bands, movies, etc., that he was boiling his life down to a narrative of economic choices or taste preferences.  At first glance maybe TooManyBrands is doing the same thing, but I actually think it makes an important choice by implying “I use/recommend this” rather than “I am this.”

There is some pretty good theory behind this I’m sure, but I haven’t read an media theory in ages and so I speculate in snippets.

As an aside - Jakob also tumbled about whether Vodka or Conor Oberst are brands.  Vodka is not, Svedka is.  Conor Oberst wasn’t a brand when he was Bright Eyes, but now that his music is under the name Conor Oberst his name represents his brand of musical expression.  I’m sure that last part can be argued.