Justin Taylor

Two of my favorite Quotes from the Movie V for Vendetta:

Evey: Who are you?
V. : Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
Evey: Well I can see that.
V. : Of course you can, I’m not questioning your powers of observation, I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.
Evey: Oh, right.
V. : But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
Evey: Are you like a crazy person?
V. : I’m quite sure they will say so.

Then the second monologue -

The Speech to London:

Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way.

Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler.

He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.

So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

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I hate it when I get emails or see programs trying to sell something to businesses, especially the Internet Market crowd and they misinterpret the data.  There are so many people out there trying to capitalize on the fact that Facebook get as much traffic as they do.  Of course Facebook has a tremendous amount of traffic.

Do not delude yourself into thinking that Google will be replaced by Facebook.

Before you begin to take stock in all the hype about how Google is dying or dead and you must position yourself, so you will not see the death of Google… ask yourself a few questions:

How is that traffic counted, that you see in the stats they show?

How many of those people are actually searching for your business or the products and services that you offer?

How many of them are searching for anything other than their friends and family and photos?

The truth is, most of them are not searching for a single thing.  People do not go to Facebook to find an eBook or to look for an iPod or to read reviews on the latest droid gadget.  The fact is people go there to socialize and communicate with their friends and family.  They go to share personal information.  Then a certain percentage go to Facebook to play games, while a few people (as in a certain percentage) use it for business.  Then there are those that refuse to click on any ads, because it is not a search tool.

Anyone who tells you Google or Bing or the principles behind a Search using a Search Engine is dead, really has no idea how those search engines really work.  They have no idea how people who do the searches use them either.  Mostly throughout this article, I am going to refer to Google more than other search Engines.

A couple of reasons why are Yahoo has yet to do anything new in the market and if I remember correctly, just before MSN Search became Bing, Yahoo was using the MSN search engine to run it’s own algorithms.  Although Bing, may be a player in the search engine game, they too are not the one that many marketers and advertisers talk about most when referring to search.  They have been gaining more and more market share, which suggests that they will be a player for a long time to come.

But my personal belief is they get a lot of their traffic via their other paid products.  The diehard Microsoft OS crowd and the new users that buy a PC for the first time and use the default settings, which are Internet Explorer and Bing Search.  I believe that like Google and Bing will be around for quite a while as search engines.

Then there really are no other dominate search engines to compare.

So let’s look at a few other facts:

• First, we must recognize that social media really is growing and no going anywhere.  To that end, these marketers are not mistaken.  Today, YouTube (a Google property) is the #4 search engine.  Yes, that supports the claim that perhaps social media is taking over and Search Engines may have met their match.  YouTube may be a social networking site, but as mentioned, it is also a Google Owned property, it uses Google search algorithms and the reason YouTube is not the #1, #2 or #3 Search Engine is, because it is not designed to only be a search engine.  Not everyone searching on the Internet is looking for videos when they go online to find something.  In fact, some people do not even watch TV, so why search for more videos online.  Plus, there are plenty of people that barely have a handle on how to even use Google search or Bing as it is.  How many people do you know, that really know how to properly use any search engine?  How many people do you know that even understand how to use Boolean search terms or even what that means?

• Second, Google loves video.  Not only YouTube video, but other kinds of video too.  This is one way that Google ranks and finds relevant material.

• Third, Google gains a tremendous amount of traffic through the free tools they have available.  This will continue to drive the relevance and usefulness of how consumers view Google.

• Fourth, Google loves social media and even has one of it’s own, known as Google Buzz.  But the true potential of this tool has yet to be completely known or understood by most users, as it has not yet been completely integrated into all of Googles other properties.   There is also Google Friend Connect and integration with YouTube and the open source nature of Google‘s API’s, as well as the integration with OpenID.  So whatever you do, do not discount Google as a dominant player in the Social Media market just yet.

• Fifth, Google is a debt free company, with a ton of extra money in the bank.  How many social media companies can say that?  Facebook has yet to become profitable.  Twitter is much the same, they are still in the Red.  As each of the now existing big social media giants works to catch up financially with Google, Google will continue to build and perfect it’s Google Buzz.

It is clear that everyone should be using social media and that means learning to capitalize as much as you can on Facebook and Twitter today.   But another question you may want to ask yourself is how much stock do you want to put into any one single social media website.   Look at MySpace, at one time it was one of the biggest social media sites on the net.  But today it has lost must of it’s luster.

The beauty of a Search Engine is, it is not dependent on the whims of the people (i.e. doing what is trendy or whatever the current FAD might be) and it does not depend on the success of failure of one social network.   Even if Google Buzz fails or never picks up, Google has plenty of other properties and plenty of other ways they can stick with their company mission.

Google is dependent on maintaining proper algorithm’s in order to create relevant results and it is dependent on continuing to create an audience, which businesses will pay to reach.  As long as they do that, Google will always have relevance in the marketplace and people will continue to use it predominantly as a tool to find what they want.

So do not let the fear mongers convince you that the writing is on the wall and Google is on it’s way out.  Do not let them convince you that you must change all your business over today and you need to buy some program to teach you how, because the proof is in the stats of page visits or usage.

Whenever anyone says that, look deeper into what the results really say and think about how people are using the networks mentioned.  Then you will have a much clearer picture, that is not marred by your emotions or even a little bit of naivety, that you might not want to admit you have.

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Last night on April 14, 2010 I attended a performance of Kooza, here in Portland, Oregon. What an amazing show. If you have never seen a live production of Cirque du Soleil, then I HIGHLY recommend you do the first opportunity you have.

Kooza was filled with action, death defying thrills, gut wrenching laughter and wonderful music.

The project for Kooza was first begun in 2005, under the direction of David Shriner and two years later in May of 2007 they had their premier performance. For the last three (3) years the show has continued to be perfected and I believe it has even evolved a little. From what I can tell the word Kooza comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “magical box.”

I attended this show with a wonderful new friend and it definitely made for an exciting evening filled with many wonderful memories that will not be soon forgotten. After the show I purchased a DVD, since taking pictures or recording video is not allowed ‘under the big top’. Since then I was able to peruse a little bit of the DVD, to refresh some of my thoughts before writing about my experience. This is when I noticed some differences between the Live show and the DVD.

For instance, one of the clowns was different in the show that I saw than in the DVD. There were slight changes in some of the things that were said and done in the interaction between the clowns and the audience. The Lead Clown, did not have a beard in the DVD either. In fact, when I was watching the live performance, I thought that he reminded me or looked a little like Don Quixote, from the ‘Man From la Mancha’.

Just like Don Quixote, he acted like a man immersed in fantasy, illusion and in simple ignorance of certain realities. He appeared to consistently lose balance, stumble and fall, in strike contrast of the highly perfected, talented and deliberate actions of the other highly athletic circus style performances. But this was a good thing, as he was very, very funny and he interacted quite well with the audience and his fellow cast members.

The show was very well designed, between intense laughter and intense action, fear or awe inspiring stunts and performances, it was the perfect contrast. On the DVD, in the extras, one of the cast members that is a clown speaks of the connection between clowns and religion, because laughter is something that draws people together and creates a strong bond. Their were religious ceremonies where a clown would interact with those in attendance to create that bond that comes from laughter and then immediately they would go into some serious ceremony. Although I believe in the sacredness of religious rites and services and I probably would not combine a clown with them, I do understand and respect the contrast and how it may have been used in history.

Another very notable difference between the DVD and live performance which I attended, was in the DVD there is a juggler, while in the live performance there was a women that used rings or hoola hoops. She was quite amazing. Much like a belly dancer, she used her skills to keep the hoops in motion upon her body, around arms & legs and even on her feet. She used her motion, flexibility and gymnastics skills to delight and amaze the audience.

It was interesting to see some of the places where clearly the slip-ups or so-called ‘accidents’ were actually deliberate and part of the show, in order to heighten or intensify the sense of fear and danger that already exists.

But I guess it is to be expected that some people will change over time, people do need breaks and careers progress and change over time and it is quite certain that parts of the live performance will always be different from one show to the next as the actors continue to explore their roles and the show becomes more and more defined. Unpredictably and change, is I’m sure also part of the attraction of any circus or live style performance.

Overall, it was an amazing performance that I can’t recommend enough to anyone that has not gone to see it. If you have the opportunity, do not hesitate to go and see it.

I look forward to the next Cirque du Soleil Show that comes to town, as I will definitely go again. Or even if and when I am someplace with the time to see another performance, this will remain at the top of my list of exciting entertaining things to do.

Learn more about Kooza at: http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/kooza/

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