Slashdot Mirror
Graffiti Bridges Worlds for Cell User
babokd wrote with a follow up to a piece we ran about the phenomenon of Grafedia, graffiti with links to the internet. The idea has caught on, and 'a communion of the real world with the Internet' may become more and more common. From the article: "It's all around you -- and not just in the phone lines and cables running under the streets or in the airborne Wi-Fi streams....If you send a text message to an e-mail address scrawled in paint on a subway advertisement or on a sidewalk, for example, you could get some digital pop art on your phone in return. An adhesive arrow on a telephone pole could hold the key to the history of a nearby building."
Not that anyone ever saw real examples of it.
Smells like someone is trying to bring back viral marketing again. It was a stupid idea the first time.
Clickable Graffiti, or Not
When we first heard of Grafedia, we thought it was an amazing new technology: take a photo of a word with your camera phone and it turns into a clickable link. The truth is more mundane, although you wouldn't guess that from the hype. The word does indicate an e-mail account - e.g. word@grafedia.net - but the picture-taking is superfluous. All Grafedia really is is a mailserver whose e-mail accounts return files to anyone who e-mails. The "twist" is that the person who creates the account has to upload a file and then tattoo, spraypaint, or engrave the word out in the wild. It's more like an invitation to urban blight than an honest-to-goodness new medium. John Geraci, who dreamed this up, sees it as an extension of the Internet. He and at least one Grafedia fan Wired interviewed claim that they don't advocate vandalism. Meanwhile, we wait for software that can read words from photos and turn them into links.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
Am I the only one feeling that only a minute amount of graffiti fits into the first category?
Graffiti is not art, it is vandalism. Anything that encourages it should be outlawed.
I know that their are possible legitimate uses, but vandalism centric services really should not exist.
Eye-spam is just as bad as other spam.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
5. Advertising.
Graffiti in general. I don't understand it. Whats the appeal of wrecking the apperance of otherwise beautiful communities? Just to say you were there? Do you dipshits realize how UGLY spraypaint and pseudo-old-english looks sprawled across an overpass or on the side of the building? Its bullshit and it needs to stop.
Almost a haiku, but not quite. Change "How's" to "how is", take out the "any" and you're there (if you slur your "different" into "diffrent" like everyone I've ever met.)