"I stopped the conversation and noted that search isn't what it used to be and pointed out that many websites get more traffic from social than search."
Farhad Manjoo:
Apple's profits ($13 billion) exceeded Google's entire revenue ($10.6 billion).
"The Green Button is an initiative promoted by Aneesh Chopra, the CTO of the United States. In a speech last fall, he challenged the utility industry to come up with a simple way to allow consumers to access their utility data. Last week, three big California utilities announced they had made the Green Button available on their websites.
And by sunday, the green button was in a half a dozen web and mobile apps that had been created over the weekend. This is the kind of innovation that gets me excited. The Green Button is like OAuth for energy data. It is a simple standard that the utlities can implement on one side and web/mobile deveopers can implement on the other side. And the result is a ton of information sharing about energy consumption and in all liklihood energy savings that result from more informed consumers."
"Chasing down all the implications of what's said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions. The best word to describe the failure to do so is probably "denial," though that seems a bit too narrow. A better way to describe the situation would be to say that the unsuccessful founders had the sort of conservatism that comes from weakness. They traversed idea space as gingerly as a very old person traverses the physical world. [1]
The unsuccessful founders weren't stupid. Intellectually they were as capable as the successful founders of following all the implications of what one said to them. They just weren't eager to. "
"Congress is the real winner here. They showed that they can and will pass bills that will cause irreparable harm to the tech industry just because Hollywood is willing to pay them off with huge lobbying dollars. And while SOPA/PIPA may be stalled for now, a big part of the reason is that tech companies got into the lobbying game, too.
From that NY Times article:
Data shows that copyright holders and supporters of the bills outspent opponents substantially in the early stages of the debate. But by many accounts the tech industry has stepped up its lobbying efforts in recent weeks. New spending reports expected shortly indicate whether the balance has shifted.
That's right, slowly but surely, Congress is sucking the tech industry into their world, making us play by their rules. We have to pay them off, literally with cash, or we get slaughtered."
Again and again the winners are individuals and organizations that spot opportunities in the next thing, as opposed to those that would demonize, marginalize or illegalize (is that a word?) it. Breaking systems that benefit your customers is dumb. Taking money from lobbyists to break those systems is dumber still."
Terrific piece by Kirby Ferguson — explains clearly and succinctly why the proposed PIPA legislation will not only fail to achieve its intended purpose, but will outright harm the entire Internet.
Sometimes you need a 6-year window.That is such a awesome chart. I have a theory that too many ideas/startups fail because they do not have the proper structure to let things soak. This is one more example to back that up.
We usually take a pretty hard line against phones at dinner, but a new trick just popped up that gives us hope for the future.
It's called a phone stack, and it's a buzzing, flashing reminder of every phone-etiquette rule the world seems to have forgotten.
It works like this: as you arrive, each person places their phone facedown in the center of the table. (If you're feeling theatrical, you can go for a stack like this one, but it's not required.) As the meal goes on, you'll hear various texts and emails arriving… and you'll do absolutely nothing. You'll face temptation—maybe even a few involuntary reaches toward the middle of the table—but you'll be bound by the single, all-important rule of the phone stack.
Whoever picks up their phone is footing the bill.
It's a brilliant piece of social engineering, masquerading as a bar game. It takes the phone out of the pocket—where you can sneak a glance and hope nobody notices—and places it in the center of attention at all times. Suddenly, picking up your phone is the big deal you always secretly knew it was. And more importantly, it comes with consequences.
But if, after the third ring, you decide your call is more important than your lunch tab, we're sure your friends won't object.
"The New Normal as PIMCO and other economists would describe it was a world of muted western growth, high unemployment and relatively orderly delevering. Now we appear to be morphing into a world with much fatter tails, bordering on bimodal. It’s as if the Earth now has two moons instead of one and both are growing in size like a cancerous tumor that may threaten the financial tides, oceans and economic life as we have known it for the past half century. Welcome to 2012."
"There is a moment in the life of every sports fan when you must come to terms with the mathematically irrefutable, yet somehow still surreal fact that the athletes on the court or field or ice are younger than you.1 It's a particularly brutal landmark — youth shifts out from under your feet and the future doesn't seem as limitless as it once did. Some kid is doing something you'll never do and making money you'll never make."
Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they've raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once again. The organization says donations have risen every year since its global fundraising campaigns began in 2003.
Wikimedia Foundation claims its sites now serve more than 470 million people every month. Wikipedia, which will celebrate its 11th anniversary in about two weeks, now boasts over 20 million articles in 282 languages.
The organization says more than 100,000 volunteers work on Wikipedia and sister projects.
The foundation employs approximately 80 people full-time.
From the press release:
The annual fundraiser is how the Wikimedia Foundation pays its bills. Funds raised in this campaign will be used to buy and install servers and other hardware, to develop new site functionality, expand mobile services, provide legal defense for the projects, and support the large global community of Wikimedia volunteers.
The Wikimedia Foundation's total 2011-12 planned spending is 28.3 million USD. The bulk of that is raised during the annual campaign, and the remainder comes throughout the year in the form of grants from institutions such as the Sloan Foundation, and many other small donations year round.
If you'd like to learn more about the organization's annual plan for 2011-2012, start here.
Also read:
A Personal Appeal TO Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Programmer: We Do The Funny Portrait Placement Thing Because It Works
