How cool are you?

21 December 2006

37 comments

A Blue Perspective: How cool are you?

So, I'm having some Baileys with a bunch of Web geeks (ok, ok, I"m the only one drinking Baileys, the rest are drinking beer) and talk naturally gravitates towards Twitter.

Now whenever Twitter is mentioned I normally roll my eyes and sigh (I won't go into how I think it could be the last straw on the back of my productivity camel right now, or that it'll soon be the holder of the land speed record by dint of how fast it's going to disappear over the horizon), but this time it left me with the feeling that I'd lost a couple of cool points by not participating in one of the defining social moments of November 2006.

The fact that I don't actively use Twitter doesn't mean that it adds no points to my coolness factor, though. For instance, I take great pleasure in the fact that I have far less "friends" than "followers", so that means people are more interested in me than I am in them – surely one of the defining principles of coolness. It's probably easier to see on a graph:

The relationship between the number of friends and followers you have on Twitter and your coolness

However, this friends/followers relationship is but one factor in your online coolness. Your actual cool factor is multivariate. Luckily for you I've managed to collate the 20 most influential points of Web coolness, so if you want to know your precise Web coolness factor it's easily determinable via my Web Coolness Calculator. Guaranteed to help cement your tenuous grasp on your own coolness.

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Comments

  1. 1/37

    Joshua commented on 21 December 2006 @ 09:15

    Haha! Very nice!

  2. 2/37

    Andrew K. commented on 21 December 2006 @ 09:23

    Hahaaa!! Oh Cameron, why must you use your powers for evil?

  3. 3/37

    Dmitry Baranovskiy commented on 21 December 2006 @ 09:45

    “When I google my name, I'm result #1”

    Sure I am! At least first 7 pages… What can I do, my name is very unique.

  4. 4/37

    Lachlan Hardy commented on 21 December 2006 @ 09:53

    Dude, I'm touched that you added a sub-question just for me

    Except, of course, it was only that combination of questions that I could answer - thus leaving me at -4%

    Still at least I know have a list that'll tell me how to make it to the big time!

    (still living it large from Flickr)

  5. 5/37

    Lucas Chan commented on 21 December 2006 @ 09:58

    Only 50% Web Coolness Rating.

    Jibbed.

  6. 6/37

    Adam Schilling commented on 21 December 2006 @ 10:14

    I need some Coolness Optimisation! ;-)

  7. 7/37

    James Edwards commented on 21 December 2006 @ 10:32

    I've managed to avoid getting sucked into Twitter ... I reckon it'll turn out to be like Day of the Triffids - it's the ones who *didn't* look who'll survive the apocalypse ;)

    I'm terminally uncool it seems - i rated 0%

  8. 8/37

    gleddy commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:00

    hmmm. did the Twitter conversation come up when a certain blogless web geek was being texted on his phone from other Twits... errrr sorry Twitterers? :-)

  9. 9/37

    The Man in Blue commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:04

    Maybe ... you can never trust those blogless people.

  10. 10/37

    Nick Cowie commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:27

    Suppose you need a higher web coolness factor than 41% to join your bowling team?

  11. 11/37

    The Man in Blue commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:29

    I'd tend to think that being in a bowling team automatically nullifies any coolness you have.

  12. 12/37

    Greeny commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:38

    That's it. Yr out of my Top 8.

  13. 13/37

    Tim Lucas commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:46

    Well at least your lack of productivity results in cool new web toys to play with.

  14. 14/37

    The Man in Blue commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:51

    Nooooooo!

    What can I do to overtake EmoGirl13?

  15. 15/37

    Kevin Yank commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:52

    25%. Harsh.

  16. 16/37

    The Man in Blue commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:53

    Wow, higher than I expected for a Canadian.

  17. 17/37

    mattymcg commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:54

    Erm, Cam, I think I'm in your bowling team in March...

  18. 18/37

    mattymcg commented on 21 December 2006 @ 12:55

    In fact, you're the captain if I recall correctly. There's negative points right there.

  19. 19/37

    Kevin Yank commented on 21 December 2006 @ 13:01

    Shouldn't you be writing a book or something?

  20. 20/37

    Nick Cowie commented on 21 December 2006 @ 13:09

    Cameron you are the capitan of Team Australia bowling team for AvalonStar Bowling Extravaganza http://bowling.avalonstar.com/teams/

  21. 21/37

    The Man in Blue commented on 21 December 2006 @ 13:13

    Shhhhhhhhhh ... you'll ruin my cred.

  22. 22/37

    Nick Cowie commented on 21 December 2006 @ 14:26

    Not in the right places, if you look at who the competition is.

    Just to ruin my cred I dugg it http://digg.com/tech_news/Coolness_Calculator

  23. 23/37

    Jesse Skinner commented on 21 December 2006 @ 16:26

    16%?? Looks like I'll have to add an XFN list and some microformats on my site, invite my friends to Flickr, and buy some Second Life property. Thanks, Cameron!

  24. 24/37

    Ben Buchanan commented on 21 December 2006 @ 16:30

    Sweet, I get a free ride out of the blogger question since blogger don't *host* nuffin :P

  25. 25/37

    David McDonald commented on 21 December 2006 @ 18:14

    Hmmm, only 25%. I really need to move my blog off Blogger one of these days ...

    In regards to Twitter, I can't really get my head around a) why it's so popular, and b) why I would want to let people know what I am doing 24 hours a day. I must be getting old.

    Also, do you simply add a 0011 prefix to the Twitter number 447781488126 to get it to work from Australia? Not that I'm using it or anything ... :-)

  26. 26/37

    Ricky Onsman commented on 21 December 2006 @ 20:07

    25%. Hm. How about extra points for having a blog and not allowing comments. Or for Googling only your surname and STILL coming up number one (you should like that one too, Dmitry).

    Still, I guess I knew having a serious discussion about w** 2.0 would come back to bite me.

  27. 27/37

    George commented on 22 December 2006 @ 01:27

    There should be additional points for:

    +3 If your site looks great in all browsers
    +5 If your site looks spectacular in modern (non-IE) browsers

    +1 If your site contains RSS/Atom feeds
    +4 If your site contains RSS/Atom feeds that you made (not ones generated by the host provider/blog SW)

    +2 If you are a member of Digg
    +3 If you joined more than a year ago

    +2 If your IM client supports multiple protocols
    +3 If you've had your handle(s) since like before 2000 dude.

    +17 If you know why "The I.T. Crowd" kicks butt!

  28. 28/37

    James Edwards commented on 22 December 2006 @ 05:17

    How about +50 if you have a pet named after a programming language :D


    [btw - knowing nothing about how Twiiter works ... but 447781488126 looks to me like a UK mobile number dialled from abroad: +44 (0)7781 488126]

  29. 29/37

    Paul Annesley commented on 23 December 2006 @ 13:16

    Wow, 16%... more than I expected. I wonder if I should gain, or lose, points for doing the test on Opera Mini at a shopping centre while waiting for my girlfriend to finish christmas shopping...

  30. 30/37

    James Oppenheim commented on 23 December 2006 @ 13:40

    Hey Cameron, can the 'axis of cool' be graphed against the 'axis of evil'?

  31. 31/37

    Dave Q commented on 23 December 2006 @ 16:32

    Is it better to be hot than cool? :)

  32. 32/37

    Aadi commented on 26 December 2006 @ 14:42

    what does MMORPG stands for?

  33. 33/37

    Tom L commented on 26 December 2006 @ 23:37

    Aadi:

    Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

    Paul: you can add a few points. ;-)

    And no, my score was not a negative number.

  34. 34/37

    Steph commented on 27 December 2006 @ 04:40

    I totally agree with George... at least some of those would improve my 25%.

    Can I get a couple extra points for not even knowing that Twitter existed, much less what it was, before today?

    And, onto that -

    +5 for caring what your sites look like on the Wii

  35. 35/37

    David Levin commented on 27 December 2006 @ 18:34

    I have never heard of twitter before. Thanks for the link... it looks interesting.

  36. 36/37

    kristarella commented on 31 December 2006 @ 12:16

    I found your site while looking for a fix to the IE-PNG problem. Love it!

    Heh, I only got 16%... can I have extra points because my real name was first in Google but my screen name is not only first but takes up 8/10 links on the first page (didn't check the second)? Never heard of Twitter, it kind of sounds like My Space, which I don't love.
    I'm checking it out anyway :)

  37. 37/37

    Say No to Crack commented on 13 January 2007 @ 00:49

    Wow, I'm uber cool ... I'll have to go bck and show the guy at Subway this chart, he'll never say "give me back my pickle, that's so uncool" to me again!

    BTW, FANTASTIC site design. Very slick, honestly I haven't seen a better one.

    Best,
    Anita

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