Today’s summary covers the past two weeks of worthy reads, with a strong dose of the Internet’s twin titans Facebook and Google. I’ve also been busy writing on Searchblog, so you’ll find three of my own pieces highlighted below.
Facebook’s new Atlas is a real threat to Google display dominance — Gigaom
The first such challenge in … forever.
Facebook is unleashing its ads—and surveillance—onto the internet at large – Quartz
And while it took a long time, it’s now real. So what does it mean for publishers? Read on…
A tip for media companies: Facebook isn’t your enemy, but it’s not your friend either — Gigaom
The industry seems to be slowly waking up to the fact that Facebook is more complicated than perhaps we gave it credit for. Sure, BuzzFeed has been winning by leveraging viral content, but now that Facebook is leveraging its data across the web, including the data it picks up from publisher’s sites, those same publishers are starting to do the math and realize that perhaps they aren’t winning after all.
Teens are officially over Facebook – The Washington Post
Until they’re not.
Programmatic Ad Buying to Reach $21 Billion – CMO Today – WSJ
That’s a very large piece of a growing pie – and it’s set to only increase as programmatic underpins nearly all digital advertising, period.
Some pros and cons of Google’s plan to give every “thing” a URL — Gigaom
The phsyical and digital come one step to connection in this Google-led open source schema. Browse the web, browse the world…
End-user computing — The Truant Haruspex — Medium
I love pieces like this. From it: “We increasingly live in a computer-embroidered reality, and the ability to manipulate that reality is empowering. If we can find a way to bring that ability to a wide audience, it could have an impact comparable to the invention of the printing press.”
A Secret of Uber’s Success: Struggling Workers – Bloomberg View
“On-demand has thrived, in part, because the nation has dropped a bedraggled and optionless workforce in its lap — and on-demand’s success depends in part on the idea that our nation won’t change.”
Venture capital and the great big Silicon Valley asshole game | PandoDaily
Any piece that starts with “Silicon Valley has an asshole problem, and it’s high time we owned up to it” is going to get attention, and Sarah Lacy’s piece did exactly that. Lacy deconstructs the forces driving behaviors in the Valley these days, and finds our industry wanting.
Killer Apps in the Gigabit Age | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
What might a true gigabit Internet bring? Pew asked the experts.
A Master Class In Google — Backchannel — Medium
Steven Levy is right – to understand the world today, it sure helps to understand Google. Not sure that’s possible, but one can try.
Marc Andreessen on Finance: ‘We Can Reinvent the Entire Thing’ – Bloomberg
This interview lit up the Interwebs big time last week.
You are not your browser history. — Medium
Artist Jer Thorp launches a project to visualize what can be known from browser history.
New Statesman | The most influential tech company you’ve never heard of
Spoiler: It’s Alcatel-Lucent.
Veteran NSA watcher James Bamford tells his story.
The Next Stage of Mobile Quickening: Links Get Intelligent- Searchblog
In which I argue that what Branch Metrics is doing is a good next step toward a true mobile web.
My Picks for NewCo Silicon Valley – Searchblog
NewCo SV is next week!
Living Systems and The Information First Compan- Searchblog
Companies that put information flows at the center of their businesses are winning.