Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Conversation with Perry Chen, co-founder of online funding platform Kickstarter. "You have systems that are based on who you know. That’s what we want to break apart. Good ideas can bubble up without these gatekeepers saying yes"
Against Facebook. Provocative from the off: "Facebook is not only on course to go bust, but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it." It's a marketing business, run by geeks. It's not the next Google, it's the next AOL
Facebook, Google and others have latched onto wheeze of having two classes of share, so they can sell ownership stakes while keeping voting rights for themselves. Why? Because they can. And it's part of a significant shift in power
"Everything I read about maximising your web presence and impact told me that SMEs must integrate and embrace social media, especially Facebook." So owner of packaging business tries out some paid ads. It doesn't go well
Fascinating report. "Today, with Gadhafi dead and a provisional government of former rebels in charge, we can begin to uncover the secret, high tech spying machine that helped the dictator and his regime cling to power"
Cassidy casts his eye over impending Facebook IPO: "It’s the fulfillment of the dreams of the nineties—and a reminder of their potentially fatal attraction." Has a website that expands at astronomic pace just got to be worth money?
"This is the story of a wonderful idea. Something that had never been done before, a moment of change that shaped the Internet we know today. This is the story of Flickr." A revolutionary photo sharing service, destroyed by Yahoo
36.9 million active customers. 100,000 merchants served in first quarter of 2012. Revenue of $559 million. And a profit at last. Is this the turning point for Andrew Mason's beleagured daily deals website? Watch this space
Media mogul Barry Diller on disrupting TV market. "Television wasn’t the destruction of radio. Cable wasn’t the destruction of broadcast networks. What happens is new alternatives come, and they live alongside whatever existed"
"As much as we think the old world of phone numbers may one day disappear, and we’ll eventually be calling each other through Facebook or something, the practical reality is that they won’t." They're a gold mine for web advertisers
On Netflix and their risky bet on original programming. "Extreme expenditures on content — a planned $3.7 billion over the next five years — represent either a massive protective moat or a hole deep enough to drown in"
Interview with fugitive hacker Christopher Doyon. "Right now we have access to every classified database in the US government. The access was given to us by the people who run the systems. The pimply-faced kid in the basement"
"Give us a world where half our institutions are run by women"
"In terms of user experience, Facebook is like an NYPD police van crashing into an IKEA, forever"
