October 3, 2011
September 27, 2011
Marketers have vastly more information about potential consumers than ever before. Every time you use a loyalty card you surrender personal information. Every time you do a Google search or hit the “like” button on Facebook, you surrender yet more. Google and Facebook protect personal privacy, but they also make money by selling generic information to advertisers. Professional data-miners use electronic data to create a detailed picture of what you have bought in the past (“history sniffing”) and how you bought it (“behaviour sniffing”). They can then draw your attention to products they think you might want to buy in the future. Smartphones can tell you that there is a shop nearby that stocks just the thing you have been looking for.
And consumers are learning more and more about marketers.
September 22, 2011
I actually believe that television directly reflects the moral, political, social and emotional need states of our nation – that television is how we actually disseminate our entire value system. So all these things are uniquely human, and they all add up to our idea of conscience.
The mapping of the US society psyche through the history of television shows, by Lauren Zalaznick.
the digital folks did not invent disruptive.
Indeed.
September 21, 2011
1. The most enduring innovations marry art and science
2. To create the future, you can’t do it through focus groups
3. Never fear failure
4. You can’t connect the dots forward – only backward
5. Listen to that voice in the back of your head that tells you if you’re on the right track or not
6. Expect a lot from yourself and others
7. Don’t care about being right. Care about succeeding
8. Find the most talented people to surround yourself with
9. Stay hungry, stay foolish
10. Anything is possible through hard work, determination, and a sense of vision
I usually really dislike these kinds of ‘motivational’ articles —and top 10 lists as well— but I must admit that this one struck a chord. Maybe I’m getting older and sentimental.
May you change the world.
September 20, 2011
iSuppli reckons global smartphone shipments will double by 2015 and account for more than half of all mobile phones sold. At the same time, mobile broadband traffic volumes will see a 2600% increase in the next five years, say Nokia Siemens Networks’ own figures.
My stance has never bulged since the 90s. Mobile is not a mere platform. It’s not just a strategy. Mobile will be the first screen, the main screen.
The Nokia Siemens numbers are mind-boggling nonetheless:
— a 1000-fold mobile data traffic increase by 2020, and
— a 550% increase in mobile broadband subscribers by 2015.
September 16, 2011
People act naturally, they walk around, they talk in small groups […] they’re hanging out, it’s not awkward for them. They’re not gamers, they’re just casual people […] in a casual environment.
People are facing each other, that’s key to any experience […] the social game is really a complex game that we all know how to play […] we know all those rules in our brain.
In technology, we use what we get, as one of the Shaker founders say. Kudos to them for pushing the limits all the while trying to align with the basic rules of human interaction online.
September 15, 2011
Among the first things reporters do when a non-public persona surges into the spotlight for something as big as the UBS rogue trading crime is search through Facebook “Friend” lists to get insight into the person. It’s actually the first thing IBTimes did this morning, for instance — sending e-mails to many among Adoboli’s Facebook “Friend” list.
The fact is that it’s also what I did. As soon as the name popped up in news articles, I went to look on his Facebook profile —but also on LinkedIn. Macabre curiosity. I’m not looking for excuses here.
It’s only the nature of the job of journalists: they will try to find a glimpse of who is the alleged criminal through what he willingly displayed online, but might also try to contact acquaintances on social networks to learn more. It doesn’t make any of his connections suspects of any crimes obviously, but I understand how uncomfortable this situation could be for the 419 of his ‘Friends’.
One cannot hide from another Friend list. It’s a decision that isn’t taken by third parties. For instance, having a public profile myself, everyone can see who is linked with me on Facebook. I’m okay with it, but I don’t know about every single one of my connections.
It is again a case of the reversal of the private sphere. What was private by default —no one had a list of my acquaintances— is now public by default.
September 11, 2011
If the story of the United States has a theme so far in the 21st century, it is surely one of resilience. To hail that spirit on the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001, TIME revisited the people who led us, moved us and inspired us, from the morning of the attacks through the tumultuous decade that followed. These astonishing testimonies — from 40 men and women including George W. Bush, Tom Brokaw, General David Petraeus, Valerie Plame Wilson, Black Hawk helicopter pilot Tammy Duckworth, and the heroic first responders of Ground Zero — define what it means to meet adversity, and then overcome it.
10 years.
September 8, 2011
AOL executives have decided to terminate Arrington. It is unclear how this will officially occur. Maybe a pink slip. Maybe Arrington submits a (public?) letter of resignation. Maybe Tim Armstrong simply gives Arrington a phone call, and he quickly dashes off a note to TechCrunch employees on his iPad.
The Arrington ousting is a Pyrrhic victory for an industry that, for the most part, cannot face its own demise.
September 6, 2011
David Carr, New York Times:
If insiders can trade on the news they publish, readers may become an adjunct to a business that is less about public information than private gain.
“A Tech Blogger Who Leaps Over The Line”. Really? This is utter bullshit. That supposed line between insider and observers is just a creation of the mind. Not that it doesn’t matter to know where one stands, but let’s not pretend traditional journalists —for the lack of a better word— have some kind of ownership on objectivity.
Objectivity doesn’t exist. Full point. We all see the events the way we see it, unconsciously amending them with our own frame of thought, our own life experience, our own judgements. This was the underlying meaning of my article’s title: ‘Arrington: One Man’s Terrorist, Another’s Freedom Fighter‘.
In Rashomon, one can hear the bandit’s story, the wife’s story, the woodcutter’s story and the samurai’s story. They contradict each other and the movie watcher, first inclined to believe the narrator’s recollection as objective, is left with a sour taste because of the impossibility to grasp the truth. There is actually no truth or reality. Reality exists only in our own framework of thought. It is the same narrative paradox that can be found in countless conflicts where one can be alternatively called a freedom fighter or a terrorist.
Is Carr’s journalist story actually closer to a “truth” than Arrington’s tech blogger story? We can endlessly debate about this and we will never, as in Kurosawa’s masterpiece, have one reality.
But where I stand firm is that it is not to any caste to decide for the public. A journalist diploma, no more than so-called “traditional rules of journalism”, can attest to any objectivity more than any other standard. The validity of opinions comes from the varied source of information and transparency through constant disclosures. It’s a tough exercise, but a worthy one to have daily for the sake of our free societies.
As Carr correctly points out, there are topics we are leaving out. Sometimes willingly, sometimes not. But we do. It’s human we do. We triage information, we curate it. We leave stuff out much more than we include. It’s valid for journalists as it is for a tech blog, as it is for me or anyone reading this.
You don’t have to like Mike Arrington. Nor TechCrunch or any of its writers. But claiming that there’s a line that the former has crossed is just acting blindfolded.
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
September 4, 2011
In tests that we and others are now seeing on some parts of the site (only on Pages, at this point), comments in languages other than your account’s current one now include “Translate” button next to them. If you click on the button, the comment is automatically translated to your account language. The Translate button is then replaced by “Original,” which if clicked will untranslate the comment.
Simon Kemp mentioned in his SMWF Asia talk this Friday in Singapore how global brands were adapting to an audience that speaks many languages. Some brands go the route of having only one global Page presence, holding multilingual conversations.
This is a human-intensive and time-consuming option that works for big brands. Many smaller players simply use Google Translate, if they care at all. The launch of a Translate option on Page comments would therefore be welcomed by many. My guess is that it’s using the same crowd sourced Translation Tool that’s been offered to app developers since July 2008.
I would advise brands that look for a more precise approach to their own comments —but also their content in general— to look at myGengo‘s innovative solution: the Human Translation API.
September 3, 2011
Sarah Lacy, on TechCrunch:
Mason simply hasn’t benefitted from the raft of mentoring, gut-checks, constant scrutiny, in part because Groupon is based in Chicago. But also because the company was such a phenomenon, growing so quickly, that many of its investors have come in on the company’s terms at much later stages. Like a spoiled only child, it has the dually corrosive reality of being a big fish in a small pond as the startup who put Chicago on the high-tech map, and a big fish in a big pond getting global attention, and all the kiss-ass press and money it could ever want. I don’t say this to knock Groupon or its CEO Andrew Mason. The company and the team have shown extraordinary natural ability. But like a child prodigy it’s been a victim of that easy success too.
Fair assessment of Groupon’s situation of being somewhat an outsider. Mentorship is a key element in startup growth and this is what is usually sorely missing in locations other than the Silicon Valley.
Stating that Silicon Valley is only a state of mind is easier said than done. I’ve witnessed it again and again, being myself a mentor for various startups and accelerator programs located outside of the eye of the cyclone.
Does it mean that Groupon’s business model could actually be sound if it had the right guidance? Or that the daily deals models itself is sustainable in the long run? Call me a skeptic. I have yet to witness a single company doing it right.
September 2, 2011
Going global and accessing these new markets is not trivial. But by using the latest technology and streamlining your approach, it’s easier than ever before.
Excellent report from an awesome startup.
September 1, 2011
the Google +1 Button extension allows you to “+1 a web page, anywhere you go on the web”. That’s important. You no longer have to rely on a site to implement the +1 Button, you can invoke the functionality through your browser. Imagine if Facebook made their own browser and offered an extension to “Like” any page on the web through it — same idea
People will Plus you (and soon Like you) whether you’ve asked for it or not.
September 1, 2011
Here’s a theory: Maybe there’s some sort of connection between drinking and losing things?
We’re looking at you, Apple employees of America.
Who wants to place bets on which tech blog will get it first?
September 1, 2011
Peter Kafka, AllThingD:
That means that users who aren’t following Virgin America on the service might still see an ad for the airline in their “timeline” — if Twitter thinks they have things in common with people who do follow Virgin.
Outside of Promoted Tweets, this is a new era in how Twitter displays advertising. Until now, the user had to have made some type of action to see ads. An algorithm matching your profile with similar ones will now trigger them.
Real Time is Often Not Real Time
I love the analogy. I wouldn’t go as far as calling real time tracking the “worst consequence of the social media revolution” though. There’s a difference between what the tools offer —a potential— and how we understand and use them.
Think. Talk. Analyze. For each step its measurement. For each step its tool.