Nuclear Powered Blog

As someone who works in the Internet industry, I'm often asked to prove how popular new technologies are in order to separate hype from reality. From podcasts to video on cell phones, there are endless research papers out there that tell us in the most deathly-dull ways possible what kind of penetration certain technologies enjoy.

But now I realize that this is all pointless. From now on, I have a new indicator that tells me whether a technology has "made it" or not. So without further ado, please allow me to introduce the President of Iran, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This week, Mr. Ahmadinejad launched his own blog. His first posting dealt with several light-hearted subjects, including Iran's Islamic Revolution and the country's war with Iraq. Future postings will no doubt include hilarious anecdotes such as how to sell missiles on the black market, and how to build your own nuclear reactor at home.

But as an Internet professional, this is good news for me. Because if anybody asks me if Blogs are now a "mature" technology, or are part of the "online mainstream", I don't need to spend seven hours arseing around to find statistics to prove this point. Instead, my reply can be "The President of Iran has got one. End of story."

Now i'm not a PR expert by any means, but surely this is something that promotions experts should be exploiting. If you want to prove that your product has "made it", don't dick around sending free samples to Paris Hilton or asking Lyndsay Lohan to promote it, send it over to our man Mahmoud. Because if he's seen out in public with a day-glo chameleon skin iPod case, or a high-octane carbonated energy drink, people are going to sit up and think "Well if the President of Iran's got it, it MUST be popular."

In fact people would start to be feel inadequate. Imagine finding out that the President of Iran has got something that you don't. You'd feel compelled to go and buy whatever product he's sporting, just to keep up. That's part of the reason why I started this blog - I mean, how can i sit here and idly do nothing while the Presdient of one of the most oppressive regimes in the world is fooling around with Blogger?

So that's my plan for the rest of the week. I'm going to write to the North Korean Embbassy to try and persuade Kim Jong Il to launch a video podcast, and then approach Libya's Colonel Gadaffi to open a Myspace account. If that happens, the online research industry will be finished and I can spend all of my time writing this nonsesne rather than reading the nonsense contained in endless industry reports and papers.