Professional Whuffie anyone?

Yesterday I posted a review of Super Sad True Love Story, the social network sci-fi setting of which includes people real-time ranking one another in a process called "FAC'ing".

Then today Techcrunch posted about CubeDuel. Think of it as the bastard child of LinkedIn and HotOrNot. Social ranking of your professional network based on who would like to work with whom.

Don't tell me you aren't heading there right now...

Oh sure, it's all fun and games right now, but how long before employers are looking and saying "how'd this guy rank among former peers and coworkers?"

They say truth is stranger than fiction, in this case it's just neck and neck.

Book Review: Super Sad True Love Story

Seeing as how it is mid-January, it's probably too early to call my fave book of 2011, but Super Sad True Love Story is certainly going to rank high on the list.

The book is a romantic tragedy, set amid near-future distopian sci-fi which it uses as heavy satire about current-day American decline and materialism. 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" + "Little Brother" + later Adrian Mole volumes, perhaps. It is to Facebook & Amazon what Halting State was to MMOs and Virtual Worlds.

The love story at it's heart is, as the name implies, sad. However, what I really loved about this book was the commentary on social networking & whuffie, materialism, information control and willful ignorance. One of those pictures of the future close enough to be plausible, and thus disturbing and frightening.

Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel