Month: July 2011

Looky Here, It’s Me, In an Ad, On Facebook! Is This Legal? Allowed? Who Knows?!

In the past 12 hours, about ten friends (and counting) have sent me a copy of this ad on Facebook for a company called "AppSumo." I have nearly 5000 "friends" on Facebook, a problem I've written about in the past, but seeing this ad threw me. Apparently, this is *not*…

john in fb ad.pngIn the past 12 hours, about ten friends (and counting) have sent me a copy of this ad on Facebook for a company called “AppSumo.” I have nearly 5000 “friends” on Facebook, a problem I’ve written about in the past, but seeing this ad threw me.

Apparently, this is *not* part of Facebook’s social ads, where people can buy ads targeting friends of particular people on third party sites – after all, this appears on Facebook.com. And those ads can only use my profile picture, which that pic is most definitely not (it was my author photo for my last book). Also, apparently, I have the ability to turn this off in my Facebook settings. However, since I am essentially “Facebook bankrupt” and have never really figured out how to fix that fact, I have never visited my “ad” settings.

Now I have. Here’s what settings says about ads using my name and picture:

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“The Information” by James Gleick

Even before I was a few pages into The Information, a deep, sometimes frustrating but nonetheless superb book by James Gleick, I knew I had to ask him to speak at Web 2 this year. Not only did The Information speak to the theme of the conference this year (the…

Even before I was a few pages into The Information, a deep, sometimes frustrating but nonetheless superb book by James Gleick, I knew I had to ask him to speak at Web 2 this year. Not only did The Information speak to the theme of the conference this year (the Data Frame), I also knew Gleick, one of science’s foremost historians and storytellers, would have a lot to say to our industry.The Information.jpg

Now that I’ve finished the book (and by no means will it be the last time I read it) I can say I’m positively brimming with questions I’d like to ask the author. And perhaps most vexing is this: “What is Information, anyway?”

If you read The Information for the answer to this question, you may leave the work a bit perplexed. It may be in there, somewhere, but it’s not stated as such. And somehow, that’s OK, because you leave the book far more ready to think about the question than when you started. And to me, that’s the point.

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Google Google, Wait A Minute. This Is About Us, Isn’t It? Google (And Everyone Else) Is Just a Means to Our Ends…

One last thought before I hit the hay after a long, satisfying evening with the people who gave me the chance to start FM in their garage, the Shores. And that is this: Google killed its earnings earlier this evening thanks in part to is algorithmic approach to display…

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One last thought before I hit the hay after a long, satisfying evening with the people who gave me the chance to start FM in their garage, the Shores. And that is this: Google killed its earnings earlier this evening thanks in part to is algorithmic approach to display advertising (not that profit was easily broken out, I’m sure it contributed in the way most mature brand businesses do, which, as a mature business, must be looking way better than it did a few years ago. Congrats, Google, on both your work in display, which I am not sure can scale to ten billion without some changes, and in Google+, which I sense, with the right ad products, just might.)

I wrote a book about Google and its world, how it all happened, five or so years ago. And I am super happy that the company I chose to focus on is still prospering, just as I and pleased that Wired still defines the tech publishing zeitgeist, and that the Industry Standard, alive in a few countries that are not really in the US, is still seen as the paragon of reporting on the story so many, including current and past partners of FM, have reported on since.

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Google+: If, And, Then….Implications for Twitter and Tumblr

It's hard to not voice at least one note into the Morman Tabernacle of commentary coming out of Google's first two weeks as a focused player in the social media space. I haven't read all the commentary, but one observation that seems undervoiced is this: If Google+ really works, Google…

It’s hard to not voice at least one note into the Morman Tabernacle of commentary coming out of Google’s first two weeks as a focused player in the social media space.

I haven’t read all the commentary, but one observation that seems undervoiced is this: If Google+ really works, Google will be creating a massive amount of new “conversational media” inventory, the very kind of marketing territory currently under development over at Tumblr and Twitter. Sure, the same could be said of Facebook, but I think that story has been well told. Google+ is a threat to Facebook, but for other reasons. The threat to Tumbrl and Twitter feels more existential in nature. (Ian remarks on how Google+ feels like content here, for example).

Let’s look at a typical flow for Tumblr, for example. Most of the action on Tumblr is in the creator’s “dashboard.” Mine looks like this:

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Time For A New Software Economy

Way back in the day, before all this Interweb stuff made news, we had a computer hardware and software industry that was both exciting and predictable. I was a cub reporter in those days, covering an upstart company (Apple) as it did battle with two dug-in monopolists: IBM in hardware,…

mc-vs-pc-vs-goog.jpegWay back in the day, before all this Interweb stuff made news, we had a computer hardware and software industry that was both exciting and predictable. I was a cub reporter in those days, covering an upstart company (Apple) as it did battle with two dug-in monopolists: IBM in hardware, and Microsoft in software. IBM was clearly on its way down (losing share to legions of hardware upstarts in Asia and the US), but Microsoft was an obvious – and seemingly unbeatable – winner.

Underdog Apple had a cult following (I was part of it), and its products were clearly better, but it didn’t seem to matter. Quality wasn’t winning, and as a young journalist that fact irritated me. But that’s only an orthogonal part of the story I want to tell today.

Back in the late 1980s, Steve Jobs wasn’t running Apple, but his DNA was very clearly still in the company (for those who don’t obsessively follow Apple, Jobs and Woz founded the company, then Steve’s board brought in John Sculley to run it in 1983. Sculley then fired Jobs from any operational role. Jobs returned to Apple’s helm in 1997.) Apple in the 80s and 90s was secretive, paranoid, full of extraordinary talent, and convinced it was being unfairly treated by Microsoft.

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Comments: Off

I know I've been a bit quiet here on Searchblog of late, and I've promised that will change shortly, as I ramp up on the new book. But one faction of Searchblog has not been quiet: the comment spammers. So I am turning comments off for a while, in the…

I know I’ve been a bit quiet here on Searchblog of late, and I’ve promised that will change shortly, as I ramp up on the new book. But one faction of Searchblog has not been quiet: the comment spammers. So I am turning comments off for a while, in the hopes it will make the spammers go elsewhere for a bit. I’ll be redesigning the site over the summer, moving it from this antiquated (and pretty much abandoned) Moveable Type codebase to WordPress, and doing a number of other key upgrades. I’ll turn comments on again soon, but for a while, things will be quiet here. Sorry about that, but that’s the Internet, it takes advantage of weaknesses. And right now, Moveable Type’s spam blocking is terrible.

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Wanted: Write Hand

I'm looking for someone with whom to work on my next book project, What We Hath Wrought. The person I'm looking for is probably impossible to find, but I'm going to try anyway. Why impossible? Because I haven't met someone like the person I'm imagining, at least not in the…

GeorgeHarding.jpegI’m looking for someone with whom to work on my next book project, What We Hath Wrought. The person I’m looking for is probably impossible to find, but I’m going to try anyway. Why impossible? Because I haven’t met someone like the person I’m imagining, at least not in the right context.

Back when I needed a partner to help me get FM off the ground, I wrote a post looking for an office manager/person friday. I spoke of how I needed someone just like Stacey, who now runs conferences for FM. Out of the blue nowhere I found Jennifer, who is now our Chief of Staff. I never thought I’d find someone like her, but the web found a way. It’s my hope lightening might strike twice.

The person I’m looking for loves the practice of writing. He or she loves complicated but fascinating topics, loves to figure out how to understand them, and loves explaining those topics with words. This is a core skill, and whoever I work with has to have it. Not because I intend to co-write the book with this person (I don’t), but because having this skill means you’ve cleared a hurdle to working with me on this project. In other words, non writers need not apply.

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Last Week’s Signal

I fell out of the habit, but here are the Signals from last week. If you want to get my daily roundup of stories worth paying attention to, get the RSS here, or sign up in email at the top right of the page here. Monday Signal: Is Google Too…

logo-bug.jpgI fell out of the habit, but here are the Signals from last week. If you want to get my daily roundup of stories worth paying attention to, get the RSS here, or sign up in email at the top right of the page here.

Monday Signal: Is Google Too Big?

Tuesday Signal: Will Big Data Save Us? We Can Pray.

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The World Is An Internet Startup Now

(image) Last night I got to throw a party, and from time to time, that's a pretty fun thing to do. To help us think through the program and theme of the Web 2 Summit this Fall, we invited a small group of influential folks in the Bay area…

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(image) Last night I got to throw a party, and from time to time, that’s a pretty fun thing to do. To help us think through the program and theme of the Web 2 Summit this Fall, we invited a small group of influential folks in the Bay area to a restaurant in San Francisco, fed them drinks and snacks, and invited their input. (Here are some pics if you want to see the crowd.)

Nothing beats face to face, semi-serendipitous conversation. You always learn something new, and the amount of knowledge that can be shared in even a few minutes of face time simply cannot be replicated with technology, social media, or even a long form post like this one. I always find myself reinvigorated after spending an evening in a room full of smart folks, and last night was certainly no exception. In fact, about halfway through, as I watched several of my close friends from my home turf of Marin mingling with the crowd, I realized something: The whole world is an Internet startup now.

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