Creative Loafing presents Ed Loves Bacon

The Japanese kid channel icon, Domo-Kun has been a favorite of mine for some time now. He’s just so cool, and I can’t figure out why and that’s what makes even all the more hip. I mean seriously, he’s a plush block with tiny legs, knobby arms, beady eyes and the largest mouth I’ve ever seen since the original Japanese monster Gojira.

My fascination aside, Domo has crossed the ocean and made a big splash here in the states. Target has some Domo merchandise and NickToons airs two minute episodes each week. My favorite episodes usually involve big D trying to rock out or dance – it cracks me up. Due to licensing, not many of the NickToons versions of the episodes can be found online, but you can Google fan vids and some official clips as well.

Maybe I’ll try to get a Domo costume for Halloween, there’s several sites to show you how to make them, but like Domo-Kun, I’m probably too lazy for that.

Watch Domo Music Video – Check out Domonation.com in Animation |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

While cruising the web feeds today, I got wind that Facebook is launching a fresh new design next week. The new page is streamlined and looks more refined and elegant in its presentation – very “2.0″ as my contemporaries like to say. What’s up with the new view? According to their official announcement:

We’ve updated our home page to make it easier to understand what’s going on with the people you care about. Now your friends’ posts are streamed in real-time and you have more control over what you see.

The new Facebook features better filter control, real-time streaming of posts in the news stream and revised publisher settings so its easier to post links, photos, videos and more. Here’s a summary of the publisher improvements:

• Link (add a web address to external content)
• Photos (upload a photo, create an album, or take a webcam photo)
• Video (upload a video or record a webcam video)
• Note (add from Facebook’s Notes application)
• Import (add external blogs or RSS feeds)
• Gifts (add from Facebook’s Gift Shop)

I must admit I’m excited to see the changes. Facebook’s interface is rather cumbersome when adding  any external items, so this new interface is a welcomed improvement. I really like the sleek new skin and realtime updates without hitting the refresh key is just pure candy in my book. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg sums it up brilliantly in his blog.

There’s an interesting blog post in the LA times that states that Facebook’s changes are a means to combat the growing popularity of Twitter. Well duh, these two have been the only real players in the networking game for some time now. It was only a matter of time before Facebook behaved more like Twitter or vice-versa.  It will be interesting to see how Twitter will responds to its competition.