Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
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
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?
"Facebook has created the largest social analytics engine on the planet. They essentially know what we’re thinking before we do." It puts them in a terrifically strong position for now. But will their star keep rising?
Four college students plan to take on Facebook, with a decentralised social network. They hit Kickstarter for funds. It goes crazy. They make front page of the New York Times. 600k users join. Then comes the suicide
Big profile of Zuckerberg, in advance of Facebook IPO. Was he lucky? Did he have the right idea, at the right time? Yes, on both counts. But he's also a talented leader. A much more impressive man than many are prepared to admit
How much is it worth? To justify the IPO pricing, Facebook will have to be part of everything that happens on internet, as Microsoft once was. It will have to change the fundamentals of digital advertising, as Google did
MIT professor discusses social networks, and social robots. "People feel that they are not being heard, that no one is listening. They have a fantasy that finally, in a machine, they will have a nonjudgmental companion"
"Asking whether Google makes us stupid, as some cultural critics recently have, is the wrong question. It assumes sharp distinctions between humans and technology that are no longer, if they ever were, tenable." Here's why
The innovator's perpetual question: What next? Decades ago it was the Internet. Followed by the world wide web, the social network, the mobile web. But now we're stuck in a rut. It's time to think big again. What next?
Super essay on how Facebook is affecting everday life. "It's not just a technological marvel, a youth movement or a business story. After just eight years of existence, Facebook is the biggest social phenomenon since the telephone"
"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"
