The Lewis Show

I never cared to call anyone or anything Ugly. So this year's Ugly list had to really have gotten on a nerve, or just produced enough of a mess on the web that it deserves mention in this post. The site in question either left me with a bad taste in my mouth, or showed me how hilarious us humans can be. Here's my list of honorable mentions for 2008: I was going to give Pownce the big Ugly award for this year, but I've talked about them enough, I gave enough of my time to them, and they don't deserve another second of my time. Any company that comes in and shuts something down only to restart it under a different name from scratch has lost my respect completely.  JustinTV , for those who haven't visited the site, is a life casting service. Amid copyright issues that the company have been facing this year, they were hit hard by the suicide of one of their users last fall. The site maintained the site is moderated and I agree with their stance, but something like t...

Part two of my three part series on the web in 2008 focuses on what went wrong. What went bad this year? In these troubled times, a lot of sites have hit the skids, or some services just fell short either in customer service, brand promotion, or a combination of many other things. I'm saving the sites that hit the skids for tomorrow. Today I want to focus on sites and services that lost their steam this year. First my honorable mentions for The Bad of 2008: Yahoo had one whale of a roller coaster ride this year. Their services were starting to give them an edge in social media with their acquisitions of Flickr and del.icio.us  . Microsoft came in this summer to outright buy Yahoo at $31 per share. Yahoo and their board fought off this buyout and this fall, Microsoft pulled the plug and killed the deal. Yahoo's stock is now trading around $12 and the future is not looking bright at all for them. They've tried partnerships with Google and AOL, but their days ...

My next three posts will be three sites that were influential this year to me and stood out above other sites. The other two posts will feature The Bad and The Ugly sites for 2008. I'll be sure to mention several honorable mentions, but for now, I wanted to highlight three sites specifically. First my honorable mentions for The Good sites in 2008: Twitter leads this group hands down. Despite the down times this year and the immense growth, Twitter to me is still the exact same service now, as when I signed up last year. It also gets a mention for surviving this tough year in social networking.   Twit Live (not related to Twitter) comes in second. Leo Laporte decided this year to kick up things in new media by live streaming his content practically every day. I've always enjoyed his programming, but now it's even more interactive.   Google Reader's advancements have been very important to me this year. Not a day goes by when I'm not checking my feeds, shari...

Janine and I just wanted to take a moment to wish our readers a Merry Christmas and wishes for a happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year. See even I can get into the holiday spirit despite my grinchyness. We got lots of good presents this year. She got a new iPod, a Flip Ultra camcorder, some Godiva chocolates (which she's yet to share with me), and some earrrings. I got a backup external hard drive, a Wiimote docking station, a tie clip, and the latest Simpsons Wii game. We also got a Shop Vac and Toaster which were desperately needed, and some other odds and ends. I am left with one gag gift though, a bottle of Ukrops syrup. I probably shouldn't mention this gag because I think it would make a perfect re-gift. I mean who wouldn't love to receive a bottle of rich delicious maple syrup from Ukrops?

The kitchen. Most used item by far? The coffeemaker! 1 Toshiba flat panel TV + 1 Fios HD receiver = W00T! Yes, that's FiOS. It's fast! This would be me getting royally whooped at Mario Kart! That would be Janine after I got a hold of the color editor in Picasa. Hello, Sephia!

A homeowner's work is never done. I've coined that phrase lately. It seems for every one task completed, three more come in to take it's place. We've come a long way unpacking and getting settled into our new digs, but we still have a long way to go. We still have a garage full of things that need to come inside, we still need to unpack and sort our den, we need to get at least one (maybe two) entertainment centers, we need to make way for our new stove next week, I still need to move addresses, we need to sort out bills, and on top of that we have a lot of car maintenance that needs to be done along with haircuts. Oh, and there's still the whole Christmas thing. Lucky for us we're not traveling this year, but we still have to meet up with family and that means getting gifts. Better yet we still need to figure out gifts. Janine and I compliment each other in one way more than anything else to a fault, and that's the ability to procrastinate like it's n...

december 014 Originally uploaded by Mike and Janine This was not what I had in mind for the cats adjusting to the new neighborhood. I guess a birdseye view is still the best way to go. Maude eventually decided to come back to earth later on that morning.

Yeah, we're getting there, slowly but surely. The move went pretty flawlessly actually. Now that we have everything at the house, the slow process of unpacking all the boxes has begun. We carried three cats with us, Topaz, Maude (pictured), and Luci. So far they have adjusted well. We have had a few distractions in the meantime. We went to Maryland over the weekend to visit Janine's friends (I can say they're my friends now too, they seem to like me). We all had a good time and got to witness another youngster enter his thirties. We also did some siteseeing around Chestertown and I'll post some pictures soon. For now, we're both settling in, cooking at home, enjoying each other, and enjoying all this newfound space.We are completely without the internet for another week, so the blog will be pretty quiet still for a while. I plan on making a few changes around here once that FiOS is up and purring!

Pownce users are commenting on 6A's blog to ask why they are shutting down their beloved site. If you have a digg account, please log in and lend us a digg. Help us send a message to keep the best social media network alive. read more | digg story

I had posted about Pownce a few times here. A big reason my posting had cut back so much was because I spent my energy posting there. Well after all that energy was spent up, Pownce is closing down their service. According to their blog , Six Apart, a property that offers Typepad, Vox, and others have absorbed the micro blogging service and on the 15th of December, will shut Pownce down for good. Pownce really never took off into the mainstream as it tried to enter the space occupied by Twitter, but the rich features that it boasted kept a small tight niche community. That community is now displaced and are trying to find a new service that will have the features that Pownce had but more important to keep that community in place. I'm sad by the news, but it's a dog eat dog world and sometimes the things we like cannot last forever. It's a shame too, because it's not easy pulling for the underdog sometimes.