As I watch Lachlan fetch some Scotch and wonder how much fun BarCamp with a hang over is going to be tomorrow, I must remind all challengers — Team Stoopid takes no prisoners!

The account tally quickly grew from the low teens to 50-odd, and then the server started to choke. Dreamhost were having some hiccups (their email went down at the same time), so I offered to host the 700+kb of images to lessen the load and hopefully stabilize the site. What’s the point of a parody site that times out when you try to create an account? Little did I know that those images would use approximately 5.5GB of bandwidth over the next 24 hours.

As the day progressed, traffic continued to increase and the account tally kept rising. Once it passed 500, the joke was officially a raging success. Jim was absolutely wrapped and I was blown away that his “silly little joke” had been so warmly received.

Then Digg got onboard.

By this morning, there were over 3000 accounts created and Useless Account had made the front page of Digg and del.icio.us. Things were out of control. Truly, the crowds had spoken. Stupid is good.

The peak is now over, but it looks like the account tally will make it to 5000. That makes my original estimate of 200 off by a long, long way. Congratulations to Jim, and his 15 minutes of fame!

So, who wants to buy a database of 5000 email addresses? JUST KIDDING! Jeez, talk about paranoid.

I’ll let the press release tell you what Quizlet does:

After entering a list of vocabulary words and definitions, users are given three ways to study them: a simple flashcard method; a highly-configurable test page including written, matching, multiple-choice, and true/false questions; and a specialized ‘Learn’ mode that tracks the user’s knowledge of individual words and retests the user only on unlearned words. The site’s most innovative features include a live chat box which classmates may use to discuss vocabulary usage (or to gossip about teachers); groups that allow users to alert classmates about new sets they have entered and to edit sets collaboratively; the ability to import data from other websites and documents quickly and easily; and the ability to quickly combine word sets to study large quantities of vocabulary at once.

Created by Andrew Sutherland and tested over the past year by some of Andrew’s friends (myself included), Quizlet is a great example of using Web2.0MG concepts to enhance a quality product, instead of just creating another tag-happy circle jerk.

Check it out, I think you might like it.

So what has tempted me to step out into the unknown? An opportunity to that was too good to pass up; an opportunity to be immersed in cutting edge web technologies, working with great people for a company that totally Get It. As of the 15th of November, I will be joining SitePoint as a technical editor. To quote an Australian quasi icon, I’m Excited!.

If you’ve got any tips, hints or general advice for someone moving to Melbourne (inc. a good removalist company – I’ve got to get my bonsai down there :-/), I’d be grateful if you leave them in a comment.

Last year’s Web Essentials conference was a fantastic experience; an event that will keep a code monkey happily tap-tap-tapping away at a keyboard for another ~360 days awaiting the chance to do it all again. The presentations were an invigorating mix of education and inspiration – enough inspiration to be assured the extra effort of developing with standards is worth it and enough education to to go home wanting to rethink just about every project you’re working on (*sigh*).

To help everyone attending to keep track of the people they meet and the social events associated with WD’06, Tim and Cameron have put together just what every web conference needs – a Web2.0 app to call its very own – Web Connections. It’s got folksonomies, it’s got Google Maps integration, it’s got flickr account integration, it’s even got a gradient or two and some rounded corners for good measure. If you’re attending WD’06, hurry up and create your Web Connections account.

Apparently there are still a few tickets left, but be quick!