Nabe resident/weblebrity Jakob Lodwick has nerd tongues wagging today with the brief launch of norbum.org. The website, which is meant to be satire, displayed "fashion" photos of the homeless and this message:
Norbum.org is an open, crowd-sourced, web 2.0 application powered by Tumblr. Why the name "Norbum"? Simply put, Norbum is like Nordstrom for the homeless. We bring to you the latest in urban street fashion from the people who live it. Rather than relying on an elitist group of professional editors, we invite our readers to submit photos of the most stylish street people from around the world. If you spot one of these edgy trendsetters, just snap a photo and email it to 2tvazf87@tumblr.com. We'll post the best ones to Norbum.org.
The site is now down.
Lodwick, founder of Vimeo, recently left communications conglomerate IAC. Shortly thereafter, he put his psychiatrist couch up for sale online.
Update (1/3/08): Lodwick denies creating the site on his blog today. He does admit to registering the domain names adding, "I might make fun of homeless people in the future." Meanwhile, Valleywag, the Gawker Media site which broke the website story yesterday, continues its "coverage" of Lodwick today.