It doesn’t matter how you slice it but this idea of buying an umbrella with a rifle stock as its handle is something only a member of the NRA could love.

I mean really, how is it a good idea to be walking around the streets of America, or any other country for that matter, with what resembles a rifle half covered with cloth.

Talk about making yourself a target for constant police shakedown at the very least; but should you insist on being an idiot head over to the Brando site and order yourself one for $18.

via DVICE

Today’s really stupid idea – rifle umbrellas is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’ve been watching the Blippy scandal unfold, but Steve has been pretty vigilant about pointing out why credit card related social networking might just be the worst idea ever when it comes to social media and sharing.

Almost comically, just like naysayers feared, we discovered last week that the credit cards of some Blippy users were searchable in Google. And the entire internet didn’t hold back with the “I told you so” posts. It was pretty obvious up front that the potential problems that could result from sharing your credit card transactions online outweighed the completely non-existent benefits.  Does anyone really need to know you’re buying tampons on your lunch break or that your consumption of Ben & Jerry’s has skyrocketed since your boyfriend friended some random chick on Facebook?

To Blippy’s credit, they were pretty upfront about it in a blog posting about Blippygate. They start out by saying they are “very sorry” and go on to disclose exactly how the information wound up in Google search results. They outline a five step plan including hiring a Chief Security Officer to prevent future credit card leaks.

While Blippy is working to address the issues of security that surround their business model, it seems that current users might drift away and anyone who had thought about signing up might be wary now. And since we now know exactly why sharing your transactions with your internet acquaintances is a bad idea, does anyone plan on starting now? If you used Blippy, did you find any benefit, and do you see yourself continuing to use the service?

Blippy addresses credit card leak, you want to give it a try now? is a post from: The Inquisitr

I will be right up front here. I.Do.Not.Like.Blippy.Period.

I personally think it is one of the stupidest ideas to come out of the Internet’s Web 2.0 self-absorption of sharing. The fact that people are willing to share their purchase information with the rest of the world, or at least to those on Blippy is mind-numbingly stupid.

So when I saw the post today at VentureBeat that the credit card numbers of Blippy members could be searched for the first thing I did was IM my buddy Sean P. Aune about it and then we both sat back a laughed our ever loving asses off. The only small consolation is that it appears that it is only members of Blippy with Citibank issues MasterCard credit cards that are showing up in search results.

So how is it done?

Well as in all things search and Google, it’s pretty simple. The search string goes something like this: site:blippy.com +”from card” and hit the search button. For which you get back something like this graphic that VetureBeat provided

VentureBeat has contacted Citibank and Blippy founders as well as a few people whose numbers turned up in the search. This can be considered an developing story and one that we need some serious answers to. Congrats to the VentureBeat team on a great post.

Hey Blippy users – did you know your card numbers are on Google? is a post from: The Inquisitr

I can’t count the number of time over the years that I have been on the Web where some bright politician or bureaucrat has this great suggestion about applying some sort of ratings system for websites on the Web. Well as a follow-up to the brilliant Digital Economy Bill it seems a British ISP thinks it would be a great idea to have movie style ratings for websites.

UK based Tibboh (now there’s a great name) is using a rating systems similar to the British Board of Film Classification on the grounds that they are trying to make the Web safer for our children (how often have we heard that line of crap before?). The idea being that people using Tibboh can rest easy as their children will be blocked from accessing websites that the ISP thinks is unsuitable for them using the BBFC style rating.

As Martin Bryant at The Next Web points out

While the idea may appeal to some parents, there are inconsistencies and some confusing decisions. IT Pro reports that the site deems Facebook as a ‘12′ certificate, despite the fact that Facebook’s terms and conditions say that you actually have to be 13 to use the site. Meanwhile, WordPress.com is limited to people aged 15 and over. It’s truly insane to apply a domain-wide certificate on a blogging platform with wide-ranging content, much of which will be perfectly acceptable for people younger than 15 to read.

Me .. well I’ll just call the whole idea brain dead and moronic.

Those wacky Brits now with movie-style Web rating is a post from: The Inquisitr

No folks, there’s no need to go hunting for the utmost ridiculous idea to come out of 2009. It might have just scrapped under the wire with all the big fast food blogs handing out invite codes but there is no doubt – Blippy is a brain-dead idea.

When news about the service was first breathlessly broken to the world I wrote up my first impressions of the idea over at my home blog and had a bit of a conversation with Sean P. Aune in our nightly podcast about the in beta service. My feeling some fourteen days later hasn’t changed one iota.

For those of you who might not have the faintest clue as to what I am talking about here’s the gist of the Story of Blippy.

Sign up with the service.

Add one or more credit cards to your spanking new Blippy account.

As with Twitter add some people to your Blippy Followers list.

Go out and buy something using that credit card.

Then automagically what you have spent, where you spent the money and what you bought will be broadcasted to all your tag-along friends on Blippy.

Yes you read that right. You can broadcast to the world what you are buying and how much you have spent. Talk about a new way to “one up the Jones’”. Can someone please – please – tell me how this is in anyway a good idea?

In an interview with Liz Gannes over at GigaOM one of the founders of this <cough>brilliant</cough> idea, Philip “Pud” Kaplan, said that people need to get over the hump of being able to share this kind of personal information.

Uh .. No. No they don’t and neither should they just because some Social Media wanker says this is really cool idea and everyone should get in on the fun. On top of it all if you do decide to do something stupid and sign up for this Blippy defaults to share everything publicly – you actually have to go into whatever settings there and flip the switch to private.

Excuse me but this is only begging for something to go wrong. I can just see it now Christmas morning:

“Honey … where is that diamond ring that you bought the other day. You know .. the one that showed up on Blippy?”

“Uhmmmm .. ”

<Wife looks up the phone number to her lawyer>

Don’t think this will happen? Well in a world where Facebook entries are increasingly be used as grounds for divorce and lawyers are mining them for incriminating information there is no doubt that at some point Blippy will will find itself in the same place. Especially; as Kara Swisher noted in her post about the service, when Blippy inevitably integrates Facebook and Twitter as a way to expand its userbase.

Of course Mr. Breathless Blogger is back pimping a bunch more precious invites but regardless of the spin this is still the absolute stupidest idea to come of 2009. Period.

The absolute stupidest idea to come out of Web 2.0 & Social Media in 2009 – Blippy is a post from: The Inquisitr

While it might only still be in the development stage the idea of Twitter doing some reality type television show has to be one of the most unique business ideas I have heard yet for the company.

According to the AP report at SFGate.com Twitter has teamed up with Reveille Productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners to create a show that would have Twitter users become real-life stalkers players on the trail of celebrities in an interactive and competitive format.

The producers call their proposed series the first to bring the immediacy of Twitter to the TV screen.

"Twitter is transforming the way people communicate, especially celebrities and their fans," said Reveille managing director Howard T. Owens, who expects the new project to "unlock Twitter’s potential on TV."

No further details were made available on the show’s format or when it might hit the air.

Now as inane and stupid as I might personally find this whole idea of Twitter crossing over into an equally stupid and mind-numbing reality TV format there may actually be a legal battle brewing if they actually try to make the jump.

The reason I say that is Leo Laporte, the man behind TWiT (This Week in Technology), is asking folks on Friendfeed if this is the point where Twitter finally crosses the boundary into his trademarked area as far as naming is concerned

Question for you all. I have a trademark for TWiT – first used in May 2005, trademark applied for May 2006 and registered March 2007. The trademark is in "Entertainment in the nature of visual and audio performances, and musical, variety, news and comedy shows." http://bit.ly/HT7L0

As Leo pointed out he has defended the trademark when it came to some of the 3rd party Twitter clients

Up until now there’s been no conflict with Twitter. (We have sent out cease and desist letters to several companies using "twit" in their name and doing podcasts). But now Twitter is doing a TV show. The confusion between Twit and Twitter is mounting. What do I do? Defend my mark? Or let my brand be swallowed by the big guy (even though we were first by several years)? I need your advice. What does the community think?

While I think he might already have weakened his brand by not establishing some sort of legal notice against Twitter in the first place I personally think he should at least attempt to draw a line in the sand at this point. The reaction on Friendfeed at this point; an hour into his original posting of the question has almost 50 responses, is falling on both sides of the question.

It’s not a position that I would want to be in but then the idea of Twitter coming to a TV set near me is scary enough. Not to mention (again) just plain stupid.

Someone call the Fonz – Twitter’s doing TV is a post from: The Inquisitr

Duncan talked earlier today about this insanely stupid idea brought to you by the world’s most shoot themselves in the foot web service – otherwise known as Twitter but I missed out on the fun due to being taken out of action by a case of exhaustion. Now that I’ve had a chance to get caught up on this total insanity I thought I would add my two cents to the discussion.

To be honest though I am at such a loss of words over this stupidity that I am falling back on the old adage of a picture being worth a thousand words to express my incredulity at this move by the King of Fail Whale. First off I have to ask Twitter

Not only are you removing – and then sort of return in a half assed way – an integral part of the whole Twitter experiences you are also showing that you don’t have a clue about how Twitter has grown beyond you. This kind of ridiculousness earns you a

You then compound this original brain dead idea by slipping on a pair of John Kerry flip flops and say that we’ll get the @replies back but only if it is intentionally done. Excuse me but what kind of drugs are you all smoking?

Maybe you should be sharing so maybe the rest of us can make sense of this brain fart moment, because as it stands right now all you are doing is making everyone go

Way to go Twitter. How to screw up people and lose users. Maybe you should write up a PowerPoint outlining how best to screw up a company and alienate users. I hear Facebook might be looking for some new pointers.

Twitter turns brain dead is a post from: The Inquisitr

Kid Records Himself being Run Over by a Train [VIDEO] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Primary among the guilty parties of this sickening trend is Chris Pirillo who under the guise of letting us all know what his thousands of Twitter sycophants feel about his every muttering is literally polluting the blogosphere with utter inanity. In the last 48 hours of posts from Chris we have had to deal with this repeating of his Twitter stream – which I don’t want in the first place which is why I don’t follow him on Twitter – three separate times with each posting showing progressively more and more of this stream.

The first one of the last 48 hours – and yes he has been doing this longer – was thankfully limited to sharing the Twitter thoughts of 6 people about something to do with brain toniq. This was followed up with a post by Chris asking about tech support for parent to which he then had the pleasure of seeing 33 responses of which this idiot’s overblown avatar took up the whole screen of my feed reader – gee thanks for that.

Finally yesterday we get this beauty where Chris talks about Weird Al and guess what – anyone getting his RSS feed has the pleasure of it exploding with 125 Twitter posting. Now granted I’m not a fan of Weird Al but I’d still be just as pissed and irritated if it had been a post about him declaring his undying love for Windows 7. I read a bloggers posts because I want their opinions and thoughts not their sycophant Twitter entourage.

Now as bad as it is that a leader in tech blogging like Chris thinks that this invasion of inanity is okay it becomes equally bad – if not worse – when someone like Robert Scoble decides to pull the same kind of stunt when he asked on his blog about what new productivity tool people have adopted. Which isn’t so bad because one would figure that some of the replies in the comments would be handy to know.

But no … Robert decides to pull the same stunt as Chris and post his Twitter stream of responses to his Testing of a new Twitter Tools which amounted to 73 responses that took up more space that what their replies were worth.

He then followed that up with yet another time wasting post of Twitter replies when he asked about What’s the best new productivity tool you’ve adopted in past year to which we got 4 lines of text from Robert and then flooded with 71 pointless repetitious crap

Then from Mr. Social Media himself – Louis Gray we are made to suffer through the same invasion of Twitter replies that should have stayed in Twitter. Louis’ post of course was the one that let the cat out of the bag about the new service that will let anyone with a Twitter stream suffer this same invasion upon their own readers.

Apparently the service is called Twickie; which by the way is being hosted on Chris Pirillo’s domain (not a surprise there) gives you a couple of steps to follow and then you to can have the HTML or CSS code needed to piss off your readers. which of course give Louis the prime opportunity to pull off the same crap by displaying 7 replies from his Twitter stream.

I’m sorry but from where I am sitting this is just a stupid fucking idea that should have been left on some-one’s drawing board because what you have seen so far will only be the tip of the iceberg. I realize that we see a lot of really stupid ideas pop up time to time whether it be giving your iPhone the opportunity to fart right through to this one; but I have to think that this not only is a stupid idea but is one that will end up seeing a lot of bloggers end up losing readers.

I know for myself that if this stupidity continues to grow in use my feed reader is going to start seeing a lot of blogs being dropped from it regardless of how valuable I might have originally found the blog to be – and yes Louis this would include you along with Robert and Chris. If I want to read Twitter streams then I’ll use Twitter tools but I will not accept myself or others to the excruciating irritation of posting bullshit posts that contain nothing more that refried tweets.

Making blog posts even more worthless is a post from: The Inquisitr