Akkam’s Razor

The concept of "flare" is inspired by the seminal 90s movie, Office Space, where Jennifer Anniston's character gets berated by her employer at a Fridays-Bennigans-Houlihan's knockoff for not having the required amount of "flare" on her uniform.  The "flare" is supposed to be the equivalent of a sticker filled bumper or the backpack covered with band patches and buttons.  What does it all mean in terms of webculture?

In thinking about this, I contemplate email domains.  It means something, depending on what kind of domain you email from.  Emailing from a corporate email address has a certain tone, as well as having a ludicrous and unenforceable statement at the end about privacy and confidentiality.  A student email says something else.  But beyond that, what does it mean if you have a custom URL and you own your own domain?  Are their hierarchies among the free services?  Does Gmail equate to tech savy , Hotmail and Yahoo as mainstream, and AOL as the email equivalent of WebTV?

Thinking back to the early days of the web, we did this too, no?  Weren't certain levels of geek credibility based on what tools you chose to author your site?  Did it matter which browser your site was optimized for?  And as far as links - are 'you' who you link-to?  Do the various types of blog flare act as merit badges of accomplishments and achievements?  Or are they more like the backpack, where the items that are present let the cool kids know whether you are one of them?  Or maybe it's more like the bumper stickers, where your badges and buttons tell the world about your principled stand and technology, platforms, and formats.  And of course, there's the page-counter.  To few, and you are a leper; too many, and you're a whore.  What's the right number?

I suppose you could say the same things about social networks?  What does your MySpace look like?  Do you have glitter-text and an auto-loading MP3?  How about dark-text on a dark background?  Numerous slideshows?  Does that give you MySpace credibility?  Is your MySpace public or private?  What does that mean?  And Facebook - is there too-few and too-many friends?  Does no friends equal a sociopath, and several-hundred indicate a megalomaniac?  Does the ratio of pictures you've posted versus the number of pictures where you are tagged by others mean something?  Does more pictures uploaded by others mean more popularity?  To many of yourself (and friends) indicate narcissism?  And how about web services, blogging platforms, and communities?  Does it mean something if you use Twitter or Pownce?  Digg or Reddit?  Metafilter or Fark?  Mag.nolia or del.icio.us?  Flickr or Webshots?  Wordpress, Xanga, or Livejournal?  Does the choice mean anything, and too whom?  AIM versus gTalk versus MSN versus IRC versus ICQ?

Have widgets made things even worse?  Badges?  We seem to NEED stinkin' badges, don't we?  Twitter.  Flickr.  Google Reader.  All kinds of blog-bling.

Back to the purpose of this - what blog-flare belongs in your footer and sidebar?  What are you trying to say, and what does it all mean?  Does it matter if you are "W3-something compliant"?  To whom?  How about a link to a mobile version of your site (mine reformats automatically based on browser, thanks).   Do you need to have an add-to-[social network of choice] button somewhere?  Is missing an RSS button the kiss of death in the blogosphere?  Must you have a Creative Commons badge to be credible and authentic?  Do different blog networks mean different things to your readers?  How about who is (or is not) on your blogroll?  Do you need to show your Technorati rank, your Google PageRank, and a Feedburner subscriber-chicklet?  Does it even matter ?

How much and what kinds of blog flare do you use?