Image from WikipediaFeeds added to Industry Leaders of Tech 2.0: Techmeme, TechCrunch, Fake Steve Jobs, Digg, Boing Boing, Mashable!, Valleywag, ReadWriteWeb, Sobelizer, Ars Techina, Gizmodo, Endagadget, All Things Digital and GigaOm Network.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Feeds added to this website: TechMeme, TechCrunch, Fake Steve Jobs, Digg, Boing Boing, Mashable!, Valleywag...
Friday, March 28, 2008
Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) … - Wired
Source: WikipediaFuturist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) …
Excerpt:
"Ray Kurzweil, the famous inventor, is trim, balding, and not very tall. With his perfect posture and narrow black glasses, he would look at home in an old documentary about Cape Canaveral, but his mission is bolder than any mere voyage into space. He is attempting to travel across a frontier in time, to pass through the border between our era and a future so different as to be unrecognizable. He calls this border the singularity. Kurzweil is 60, but he intends to be no more than 40 when the singularity arrives.
Kurzweil's notion of a singularity is taken from cosmology, in which it signifies a border in spacetime beyond which normal rules of measurement do not apply (the edge of a black hole, for example). The word was first used to describe a crucial moment in the evolution of humanity by the great mathematician John von Neumann. One day in the 1950s, while talking with his colleague Stanislaw Ulam, von Neumann began discussing the ever-accelerating pace of technological change, which, he said, "gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs as we know them could not continue.""
Friday, March 21, 2008
John Battelle Mirrors Alex Hammer in TechCrunch comments
Related:
Michael Arrington’s Rant - Good but What’s Missing? The User
John Battelle Mirrors Alex Hammer in TechCrunch comments
In today's Michael Arrington TechCrunch post: Federated Media’s Battelle Slams Rival, Hints At Investing In Publishers
TechCrunch comment #18 below is mine and comment #19 below is John's. Michael's response (#24) ignores both of us. (Note 1: the mirroring refers to ad networks generally vs. one company Note 2: I wish there was spell check within comments. I could cut and past into a spell checker but I do not normally take the time to do this).
Alex Hammer
March 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am
I don’t think the first half of this TechCrunch title is accurate in regard to the Battelle interview, to my mind. I read it that Battelle was talking about general industry issues, not at all picking any fight whatsoever with one company (that company he cites I read as indiciative of the general issue, nothing more).
Also, this may be off base (I don’t know) but this TechCrunch piece to me, in places really feels like airing of “dirty laundry”. Not that issues can’t or shouldn’t be aired. It’s not a value judgment, just an observation (perhaps a theory).
John Battelle
March 21st, 2008 at 8:02 am
Hey Mike & all on this thread,
Thanks for the thoughtful coverage. I wanted to clarify one thing, which is in my answer to Stefanie about Glam, I was referring more broadly to all ad networks. We represent, as you know, a portfolio of brands. Ad networks more broadly sell categories - demographics, behaviors, etc. That’s what I think is the flavor of the month. I wrote a very long diatribe about this on my site:
http://battellemedia.com/archives/004330.php
As for deals & rev shares (which Cnet got wrong, the spilt was reversed), I can’t comment on specifics save to say we have given the majority to our partners as you know. It’s very expensive to run a fully scaled, national brand sales and service force, as well as all the technology and infrastructure (finance, ad serving, reporting, biz dev, etc.) a high quality media company needs to run. And it’s true we don’t own our publishing partners. I think that’s a motivator for most of our partners. Happy to talk more at any time, of course!
Alex: Note 3: I could see that the CNET split was wrong (that's a pretty important error in a story on this topic!) but I didn't want to point that out to embarrass anyone until I now see Battelle has corrected that information above.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Michael Arrington’s Rant - Good but What’s Missing? The User
See also:
Michael Arrington - Talking (Too) Tough At Times - By Alex Hammer
Comment #95 to: More Bloggers Raising Money. Here Come The Politics. And Here Comes My Rant.
Alex Hammer
March 19th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Michael Arrington’s Rant - Good but What’s Missing? The User
Michael Arrington is - I believe - a brilliant individual. Success speaks for itself and TechCrunch is highly successful. I watched his recent interview on Charlie Rose, and it felt like seeing a master at work (each of the two individuals above, actually).
As with Michael’s postings generally, this one is thoughtful, nuanced and insightful (no doubt infused by personal experience). Michael generally can provide greater insight than most authors (bloggers or otherwise) first because he has more of substance to say, and second because he is better at saying it. But to my mind this Arrington post focuses too exclusively on competitors and political, venture and competitive dynamics to really explain fully enough the significant success of blogs, and blog companies. Blogs are popular, obviously, as are all successful businesses fundamentally, because they service a consumer need (in the case of blogs this is a quickly growing, perhaps previously un or underserved consumer need). Blogs are more immediate than is the mainstream media (MSM) clearly as a whole, more personal and subjective, and you could I think well argue also more authentic in their voice collectively as well. Users flock to blogs (at least a growing number of highly popular blogs) for these and similar reasons, which is what makes the valuations, the blogging competition, the blogging salaries and all the rest of it possible. Without the user none of these things - significantly highlighted in Michael’s post as key factors - would ever be possible. I think most all of us could agree most likely on that.
Realizing anything less than this - and stressing it in an examination of blog and blog companies success - is putting the proverbial chicken before the egg, in my view, and thus ultimately either incomplete (if a relative omission, post does not ignore consumers completely) or short-sighted. That having been said, blogs are increasingly a business, and a big business for some. In addition to serving users as a primary focus blog businesses must also, of course, be well attuned to these other important factors as well. Those blogs that integrate best these diverse focuses in efficient, effective and productive manners will be most successful in the long run.
TechCrunch is highly attentive to users, and I believe that this is a great part of its success. Just never forget to highlight that, if you wish, in any discussion detailing such blogging successes.
Finally, it goes probably without saying that the huge (or significant depending upon your financial perspective and circumstances) capital influxes into blogs could well prove a major competitive threat to TechCrunch, should they decide not to go down that same road. As a result, some might argue that this Arrington post might be self serving in that regard. It may also be (or a combination of factors) that Arrington wishes others - even competitors - to do what he truly feels is beneficial for their long term growth and well being. And of course not every blogging company is a direct competitor with every other, to be sure, there are niches etc. (so I am not saying all those that were named are directly competitors).
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Friendfeed co-founder Bret Taylor - API weeks, not months away; Duncan Riley criticism "completely valid"
Friendfeed co-founder Bret Taylor - API weeks, not months away; Duncan Riley criticism "completely valid"
http://www.lastpodcast.net/2008/03/17/interview-with-bret-taylor-from-friendfeed/
Podcast: 21:24
Excerpt from posting accompanying podcast:
"An API is coming “within weeks”...They are listening to feedback about comments and feeding them back into blogs and twitter, but are mostly focused on the conversation among friends"
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Eric Schmidt / Official Google Blog: - We've officially acquired DoubleClick
Eric Schmidt / Official Google Blog: - We've officially acquired DoubleClick
Excerpt:
"I'm pleased to share the news that we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick today. Although it's been nearly a year since we announced our intention to acquire DoubleClick last April, we are no less excited today about the benefits that the combination of our two companies will bring to the online advertising market.
Because we have been waiting for regulatory approval for our acquisition, we've been limited by law in the extent to which we could conduct detailed integration planning to map our way forward. That work will begin in earnest now. Although we don’t have detailed plans to announce today, we will communicate regularly with you about our progress in integrating our two companies."
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Zuckerberg on Facebook's Future
Zuckerberg on Facebook's Future - In a conversation with BusinessWeek.com, the social networking site's CEO holds forth on recent hires and going public
Excerpt:
"What are your plans for an IPO? I gather this may not happen until 2010. Why are some of the most promising Web companies, like Facebook, Slide, and LinkedIn taking longer to go public these days?
We're not even thinking about an IPO right now. I know the guys who run Slide and LinkedIn, and they're smart. In the past, a lot of companies viewed it as their goal to go public. We're focused on building a company for the long term, something that can really deliver a lot of value for everyone. Going public is a secondary thing, and we'll do it when it makes sense for us.
What's your perspective on the outlook for the online advertising? Some experts predict a slowdown in revenue growth and question the efficacy of advertising on social networks in general.
We just launched the last iteration of our online advertising product in November. I can't speak to broader market trends as a whole, but we're in a rapid growth phase right now. Even if there is some broader slowdown, we'll continue to grow over the next year. All the metrics we're seeing point in a positive direction."
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Love Him or Hate Him, Fortune Cannot Make Up Its Mind About Steve Jobs
Love Him or Hate Him, Fortune Cannot Make Up Its Mind About Steve Jobs
Excerpt:
"Once again, Steve Jobs is on the cover of Fortune magazine. He is there because Apple is the most admired company in America. No, wait. He is there because investigative reporter Peter Elkind wrote a 12-page takedown of his Steveness. It turns out both are true. Jobs is steering the most admired company in America and he is a “reckless” CEO whose “behavior put the company and its shareholders at risk.”"
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Ballmer: IT is entering another period of revolution
Ballmer: IT is entering another period of revolution
Excerpt:
"IT is about to undergo another revolution, this time allowing us to interact with it in more natural ways, Steve Ballmer predicted at the opening ceremony of the Cebit trade show in Germany.
Ballmer recounted seeing the IT industry undergo four revolutions since he joined Microsoft 28 years ago: the arrival of affordable personal computers, the development of graphical user interfaces, the rise of the Internet and "the Web 2.0 revolution," which was just beginning when he last visited Cebit in 2002, he said."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
