Thomas Mahoney

I often allude to my work and crazy ninja hacking skills, either in this blog or in casual conversation with friends and family, but when I get asked straight up what I do I usually avoid answering the question. To paraphrase the Germs, I usually take a “what I do is secret” approach to work, especially after my time at MySpace, where the FOX Interactive non-disclosure agreement pretty much forces you to shut up or be nuked. But it is Halloween, so I figured my anti-costume will be to get naked, meaning to discuss projects I’m currently working on instead of dressing up and further disguising my 9 to 5 activities.

It’s important to know what makes me tick. I believe businesses should be completely transparent. I love open-source anything. I love clean code. I’m down with valid XHTML and CSS, and the minimal amount of PHP it takes to make a MySQL database go the fuck off and collect awesome data. AJAX is ok, and Flash is stupid. I should be paid by WordPress, Drupal, and Twitter for all the word-of-mouth marketing I’ve done for their products. I willingly lose sleep at night studying Google Analytics and Quantcast data. I’m obsessed with semantics; titling and tagging and the keywords that drive traffic and connect everything. When given a topic, I research the fuck out of it and try to figure where its audience lives online, and deconstruct them on a psychographic level. Once in a while I’m the dude creating the digital media, whether a song or a video. And I’ve currently caught mobile app fever due to Justin Taines’ contagious love for the iPhone SDK and my own fascination with BlackBerry’s renewed entry into a similar space.

With that said, here are some campaigns I’m currently focusing on at work:

GameStop’s Guitar Hero World Tour: Ever heard of video games? No? Hi, welcome to the present. Video game culture is fucking enormous. It’s a giant industry, and it’s awesome. Now, have you ever heard of this little game called Guitar Hero? Yeah, it’s the one that made millions of kids act like rock stars in their bedrooms and made playing riffs relevant again. We’re working on a campaign involving a way for consumers to unlock all the hidden tracks in the newest version and win a chance at having their likeness turned into a character/avatar in the next edition. You can check it out here: http://www.guitarheroauditions.com/

Television? Yeah, we do that. G4TV is getting ready to premiere “Human Wrecking Balls,” and we’re helping them out. Billed as “Witness Man Vs. Man-Made,” the concept is two brothers known as world famous “breakers” (skilled technicians who Hulk-smash everything from cars to houses with their own bodies) showing off their skills and the science behind it. Need more info? Go to: http://www.g4tv.com/humanwreckingballs.

On top of that, we work with MTV on a regular basis. Our current focus with them is the new Paris Hilton show and the upcoming 50 Cent reality series, an “Apprentice” meets “Survivor” mashup done urban style. It’s always interesting to work with celebrities like this, because they are so polarizing to the masses and present challenges which get my neurons firing off more rapidly than usual.

Kodak put out this strangely appealing web app which melds your photo onto the face of a 70s TV style superhero. It lives at http://www.makemesuper.com and we’re driving traffic to it, along with making plenty of our own vids. I must admit my Lil Wayne one fucking ruled – where you at Weezy?

We’re also overseeing various aspects for the online identities off NASCAR driver Kyle Busch (http://www.myspace.com/kylebusch) and a very young rock band out of Oklahoma called Crooked X (http://www.crookedx.com).

Other than that, we’ve got some cool campaigns going on with Samsung Mobile, Time Life (it involves the Real Ghostbusters animated series, remember that?), POM Wonderful and what looks like a million more whenever I open up my calendar in Outlook every AM.

Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms? Foul language? Jokes? Threats? Ideas? Inspiration? I have a terrible case of insomnia, I love my Mac, and I’m in a serious relationship with my BlackBerry, which means I’m available 24/7/365, so hit me up, motherfucker. I’ll build your web property, brand you, and in the words of Billy the Kid, “I’ll make you famous.”

Camerin, who played a valuable and life-saving role in my life today, has a new blog: http://www.camerinkelly.com. You should check it out, especially if you were a fan of his previous blog, the Metawitch. I helped Cam create the database, do the WordPress install, and added several features to it, but please be aware it still needs some minor tweaks over the next day or two to achieve the ultimate minimalism he is looking for. Cam’s blog is pretty much like mine: down for whatever AKA down to pound. Check it out frequently.

I’d like to acknowledge this post is pretty much stolen from my friends over at Blogging on Meds, who have been a recent fascination of mine.

First, let’s look at Webster’s definition of intervention, example 5b to be exact: to interfere usually by force or threat of force in another nation’s internal affairs especially to compel or prevent an action.

Now, let’s look at what ancient lizard alien John McCain has to say in a recent debate with Barack Obama:

The clip speaks for itself. I’m not even a conspiracy theorist, but this one is tough to fucking swallow.

My body is failing me. On multiple levels. My kidneys are damaged, filled with stones that turn my urine blood red. I can’t sleep. I stay up till all hours of the night, dreading the appearance of the sun. No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot sleep. Studies on sleep deprivation will indicate the sufferer eventually starts to suffer delusions and the inability to complete simple tasks. When I’m up at night hurting, unable to dream, I work on computers. Recently, I’ve been spending my time tinkering with databases and PHP and CSS and other computer related stuff. And I hate it! I don’t want pharmaceuticals to dull my pain, and I don’t want to distract myself with the foreign language of machines.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. It’s probably purely frustration. I’m unable to function correctly at work, at home, in relationships, in private. Doctors are completely useless. Any advice? Just take the Ambien and drift off into that false sleep? That’s what we do, isn’t it. We find our miracle cures in the forms of tiny, white pills.

Unfortunately, I suffer from deeper damage than pills can provide relief for. I have a high capacity for pain, but lately, it’s just been too much. I stay up late expecting the day to come soon where the doctor tells me he will have to remove various parts of my body. I will be sad, but at least I’ll know I’m broken, and not just suffering from a poor attitude.

If you’re feeling good, please do me a huge favor. Enjoy it. One never knows how long it will last.

(I’ll try to make the next post a little more fun).

John and Rama showed me this video over the weekend. Is it the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in recent memory? Without a doubt. This weekend I learned that bestiality sells, NSFW tags do not prevent people from viewing the content at work, and some dude with a fucking wheel for a face is making some crunk-ass hyphy jams out of the Bay Area. This is not your parents’ world anymore, but I’m starting to doubt if it’s ours either.

Thank god I didn’t have to write it: http://metawitch.blogspot.com/2008/10/trademark-recordings-future-now.html

Thanks to Cam for posting this. He has inspired me to get off my ass and start working on 2.0 of the web site. We’ve got a Motherless Children album coming soon and then a retrospective multimedia compilation which touches upon everything we’ve done for the first two years. We’re going on a little retreat up north around Thanksgiving and plan to emerge from the woods of nowhere with some great new things…

Last night, John LaCroix and I were in a serious conversation about web metrics. To fill you in, John is from Boston and used to play in a hardcore band called Ten Yard Fight — look them up, they are famous. Anyway, John has a company called Medicine Agency with my good friend Rama. I’ve worked for Medicine Agency in the past and continue to serve as a “consultant,” whatever that means (basically I tell them rad shit and we give each other high fives).

So John has a blog called Blogging on Meds. If you look it up on QuantCast, the metrics will, I believe, tell you they average anywhere between 5k to 10k hits a day. Not too bad.

Anyway, John was showing me some stats tonight about his blog posts. One famously got picked up by Gawker because it involved some exclusive content involving Chris Matthews and Ariana Huffington. No big deal. I don’t care.

The point is, John shows me the inside of his site and points to the most popular blog post, which is based on search keywords. This is the blog: http://www.medicineagency.com/blog/archives/2163

The metrics tell the truth: BESTIALITY is the reason why people are coming. Beastility is one of the top searched words on the internet everywhere in the world. Blogging on Meds casually used the word bestiality, and it is their top post. Of all time. Ever.

Are you reading this? This means people on the internet want to see people FUCKING animals. Straight up. Whether it’s a joke, or they are serious, that’s the truth. (I mean, they also want to see cyber vikings, but that’s a totally different story).

Bestiality. The defining tag of 2008. All you people are fucked up. And I love it!!