ReadWriteWeb

Sarah Perez's post on Friday had my number: I'm one of those people who click right past the user agreement whenever I install software or sign up for a new web app, without even a passing glance at what rights I'm surrendering. I'm pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg is allowed to claim one of my kidneys on demand.

Part of the problem is that EULAs have only two options: Accept or Cancel, also known as take it or leave it.

Sorry you're not seeing this cartoon earlier, but I had to update my Facebook status, upload and tag my Flickr photos from yesterday, answer three LinkedIn questions and stay on top of my Twitter feed.

There's something seductive about the social web, and the way it drives us to be always updating, always staying on top of our friends' updates, and always painfully aware that we could and should be doing more. I'd discuss more, but I need to go join a Seesmic chat...

There are people out there in the worlds of PR and marketing who jump on the Cluetrain, order big pitchers of the Kool-Aid and start authenticating transparently like mad. God bless 'em.

But there's always one in every crowd who, well...

There are times when I wonder if there's something wrong with the fact that I anticipate, say, the next Macworld keynote or big Google announcement more than, say, my own birthday.

But then I get distracted by a cool new web application, and the feeling goes away.

I love the way that our culture and technology shape social media, encouraging self-expression and transparency. But it's easy to forget that there are pretty good reasons why we don't, for example, yell about our sex lives at the top of our lungs at the bus stop. Or tweet about that giant city-levelling robot we're building in the basement. Or, ahem, twitter funerals!

Ever had something you reeeeeally wish hadn't shown up on your FriendFeed?

So Google has released Chrome, its entry in the browser wars (bonus points, Google, for promoting it with a Scott McCloud comic).

I know, I know, it uses the same rendering engine as Safari... but even still, Murphy's Law of Browsers dictates that weird little quirks and idiosyncrasies will somehow find their way in. And in a world where we have to test web pages against Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, old versions of Netscape, various mobile browsers and that web-enabled toaster oven in your client's office kitchen, well... oy.

Just when we thought the damn things were dead and buried, I ran across another Flash intro screen the other day. And like practically every other one I've seen, it was half useless puffery about the organization behind the site, and half lookit-this-kewl-effect self-indulgence by the designer.

But they can't all be bad... can they? Has anybody seen a Flash intro that doesn't have you scanning the screen desperately for the "skip intro" link?

You've probably been in those meetings too: someone mentions a cool, "edgy" (uh-oh) youth-oriented campaign, and someone else says "video", and then someone else completes the axis of online evil with the word "viral".

It's been said over and over again, but maybe one more time would help: "viral" can be encouraged, it can be prayed for, but it can't be engineered. Your only hope is to create engaging, compelling content, and tell a terrific story... and then hope.

I loved tag clouds from the moment I saw them, and I still do. Two years ago, they roamed the social web like buffalo on the pre-Columbian plains of North America... huge, thundering herds of keywords of all shades and sizes. And you'll see them to this day on many of their earliest adopters - from Delicious.com (makeover and all) to 43 Things.

These days, though, I'm noticing that on more and more sites the tag clouds have evaporated. I'm not saying they're dead (okay, granted, that's exactly what the cartoon's saying, but that's why they issue artistic licenses), but they're getting scarcer.

Earlier this week we reported that Google had opened up Knol, its Wikipedia competitor, to the public. It had announced a private beta of the service last December.

Now that Knol is public, it makes us wonder who you would rather party with: Knol experts, Squidoo lensmasters or Wikipedia editors?