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How Google+ Punk'd The Oatmeal

Posted by Soulskill on from the revenge-is-a-dish-best-served-in-vanity-URLs dept.

ryzvonusef tips this quote from TechCrunch about a tit-for-tat exchange between Google+ and the creator of The Oatmeal webcomic: "This summer, the artist (Matthew Inman) wrote that Google+ comment threads sound like *crickets*, poking fun at the social network's lack of engagement. He also criticized not being able to 'set up a fancy profile URL so I don't have to link people to http://plus.google.com/blergasdf1234thimbleturdorgasm99meatpoopypoopxv9donkeypie ' — a made-up, ridiculously long string of random characters. ... In retaliation, the Google+ team didn't cite its user growth stats or give an excuse for why there are no custom profile URLs. ... Instead, they just redirected the vanity URL back to The Oatmeal author Matthew Inman's Google+ profile. Congrats, Matt, you've now got 'donkey pie' at the end of your own special Google+ vanity URL."

15 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. I still don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What does "punk'd" mean?

    1. Re:I still don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      What does "punk'd" mean?

      It's a reference to a TV show from a few years ago where Ashton Kutcher would play pranks on-

      Oh. I see.

      Well played.

    2. Re:I still don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Okay, I think I've got it. So the heading should be "How Google+ watches too much awful television and doesn't own a thesaurus The Oatmeal".

    3. Re:I still don't get it by aaronb1138 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't seem to understand that in most fields, crowdsourcing from the general public works really badly. Just look at the results of any given election. Consider GeoCities and MySpace were the result of letting everyone have input.

      On the other hand, crowdsourcing can be really effective when the source group are experts and learned enthusiasts.

      So, no, unless you have years of experience doing graduate level research in search, e-mail, or social networking, you should probably stop speaking with entitlement that Google should listen to you. If you have such experience, go get a job with them or build something better.

  2. Re:ummm....Punk Oatmeal? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Basically, a webcomic called The Oatmeal made fun of G+, claiming that it was impossible to make short URLs on G+, and they cited the aforementioned http://plus.google.com/blergasdf1234thimbleturdorgasm99meatpoopypoopxv9donkeypie as a fictional example of this problem. Google, feeling particularly clever, decided to redirect the up-until-then fictional URL to point directly to The Oatmeal's G+ page.

    This is allegedly humorous enough that it warranted being posted here. I beg to differ.

  3. Sour grapes much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Occasionally, Google does something cool (like the speech-synthesis YouTube comment feature they added after and xkcd comic) but this just reeks of sour grapes from the Google plus team. It comes off as immature and petty.

  4. Re:The reality... by SomePgmr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Facebook doesn't make people stupid so much as us stupid people like using it. Subtle difference. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go windex my window screens.

  5. Re:ummm....Punk Oatmeal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You should beg for a sense of humor instead.

  6. Re:The reality... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The average IQ is 100 by definition, it can't go up and down.

    So I can actually increase my IQ by simply killing people who are smarter than me. Something to think about.

  7. Re:The reality... by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, precisely. I'd never actually considered that, I like it. You're obviously smarter than me...

    And thus began the IQ wars, and a species' return to the trees...

    --
    Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
  8. Re:The reality... by Local+ID10T · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The signal (# of users) on G+ is moderate. The noise (# of junk posts forced upon you) on G+ is extremely low.
    Thus, the S/N ratio on G+ is very good.

    All of this is by comparison to FB.

    (The best thing about G+ is that it is not FB...)

    --
    "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
  9. Re:The reality... by tuppe666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, the average IQ is constantly rising - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

    After reading the very long and very boring Wikipedia page which contained lots of reasons why over a hundred years, Peoples *results* from IQ tests have been higher...everything from Genetics; Good Eating; Learning Stuff. You get to the end...And their is a rather large section titled "Possible end of progression" which basically states that the the Flynn Effect was over as much as 37 years ago, and shows many results showing no change, marginal increases, or a deterioration in IQ scores.

    You should really have read the link before posting it.

  10. Re:The reality... by NatasRevol · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why? You summed it up nicely.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  11. Re:Wow! That's almost hilarious! by rahvin112 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Childish?

    Childish would be receiving a lawsuit threat and settlement request for $20,000 from a lawyer, drawing a comic about said lawyers mother being humped by bears, then creating a charity drive called bears good, cancer bad to collect money for two very worthwhile charities. Then collecting nearly $200,000 in contributions for the charity drive, collecting the money as cash, arranging said cash into the words Fuck You, taking a picture of said arrangement and sending the photo to the lawyer.

    That might be considered childish. The author of the Oatmeal comic did that.

  12. Re:The reality... by garyebickford · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So you're saying that each person that leaves Facebook and goes to Google+ reduces the mean IQ of both?

    --
    It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/