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INEXPERIENCE COUNTS - ASK MAHIR!

The 4th annual Webby Awards will take place on May 11, 2000 in San Francisco. One nominee I am sure the press will be looking forward to meet if he shows up is the Man from Izmir, Mahir Cagri, of "I Kiss You!!!" fame.

His website -- nominated under the Weird category -- although I think it would have been better placed under Humour -- gets my vote. It spouts foreign-mangling of the language ala Oscar-winning Roberto Benigni that should…errr…get your tail wagging. Like Roberto, Mahir is equally in-your-face-friendly and proudly proclaims "I like sex" early on in his webpage.

His website has spelling and grammar gems that would make Mrs Ng, my secondary school English teacher scratch all her nails on the blackboard out of sheer agony.

Mahir has appeared on US talk shows and his website has crossed the 3 million-hit mark and sprouted dozens of fan sites dedicated to among other things turning his original pix into animations,screensavers, games, quizzes etc ad nauseum.

Go see his site for yourself here and try to figure what the fuss is all about:

http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/primall/mahir/index.html

Also check out the section on "pictures u sent". It's a long download -- but when the pictures show up you will know that Online Fame is one strange beast.

Here are articles on the now famous Turk named Mahir:
I Kiss You !!!!!
More Mahir Mania
Red-hot Turk lures a million to his web
Single Turkish cyberstud and his Web page make a global splash

Also check out the

The Webby nominees

THIS WEEK'S ISSUE SPONSORED BY THE LETTER e

I recently got an email that went like this - " th "E" ky on my keyboard does not always work - so this might b a strange message"

I forgive the sender. The letter e has been pretty overused in the dotcom mania phase we are going through. If you are a member of the pseudo-tech writing fraternity of which I am a life member you can be forgiven for being inundated with jargon galore from PR people on some online fix. Don't fret though. The Anti-buzzword Hall of Fame has arrived:

http://buzzkiller.net/buzzsaw.html

An example of the gems in there:

Josh McHugh's ultimate fertilizer recipe:

• robust,
• turnkey,
• interactive,
• best of breed,
• mission-critical,
• random!

Directions: mix the above terms vigorously, add resulting *solution* to soil and -- voila! -- prize blooms!

"What is a vortal?
A vortal is a cross between a vortex and a pot hole. It sucks you in and
spits you out in the middle of the information superhighway."

PR people beware!

THE REGISTER : BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS IT

The Register is my fave reading guide to all things tech these days. Its sarcasm and wit brings true tabloidish journalism to the online world. All gossipy and innuendo-laden it makes for a change of pace in those cluttered tech websites that take themselves too seriously.

See its treatment of this piece:
AMD suffers Gigglehurts hype attack

The Register site:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/

Yours, Julian

POSTED: MARCH 31, 2000

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