Of course, were such a hypothesis true, one might imagine that the over percentage of GDP represented by government workers would have gone *down* over the past few decades. However, as this chart shows, that’s not the case:
I recently joined Facebook. Have you heard of it?
I know, I know, that sounds crazy, given that I’m “an Internet guy.” If you search for me on Google, say “John Battelle Facebook,” you see that I am already there, and that I have nearly 5000 “friends.” (The interplay between Google search and Facebook is worthy of an entire treatise, I’ll leave that for later). You’ll see I also have a fan page, which has about 5400 “fans” – I think that’s the terminology, though now I think Facebook has turned those fans to “Likes.”
But as many of you know from reading my past posts on the subject, I’ve been essentially “Facebook bankrupt” for years. The service has never been of much value to me, in the main because I made an early and fatal decision to accept any and all folks who asked to be my friend. (For details on that, see this post: I Blew It On Facebook.)
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Readers will recall my multiple calls for “metaservices” that begin to unify our disparate online worlds of data. Today’s announcement of Slice, which does just that for online purchases, albeit through an email hack, is a step in that direction. Readers will also recall that “Purchases” are one of the key fields in my “Database of Intentions” graph. I wish Slice worked because Amazon and others provided us our data easily through an API, but hey, that will come, I think. For now, the email approach is an elegant workaround.
More at TNW. Interesting to note that Eric Schmidt, Exec. Chair of Google, is an investor.
I have to say, I’m really, really proud of how the event came off, of all the folks who made it happen (including our speakers, staff, advisory board, and my partners at TechWeb and O’Reilly).
The playlist is 109 songs, and I’m way too lazy (or tired) to figure out how to put them into an actual live app. So here’s a picture of them. If any of you have suggestions for how I might create a playlist, I’m all ears. I’ve been looking for a good app for that for some time, and I keep not finding the right one….
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http://cdn.livestream.com/embed/web20tv?layout=4&height=340&width=560&autoplay=false
If there was a theme to Day One at Web 2 Summit, it was this: We have to start taking control of our own identity and data. And this is not just because we might be worried about how the government or large platforms might use our data (though both issues certainly came up in talks with Chris Poole, Senator Ron Wyden, Genevieve Bell, and Sean Parker, among others). But also because of the value and benefits that will accrue to us and to society in a culture that values individual control of data. Problem is, it’s not simple or natural to do so….yet.
This reminded me of a post I did a couple of weeks ago, called I Wish “Tapestry” Existed. It elicited a very thoughtful response from Jason Cavnar, co-founder of the important Lockers Project and Singly, the startup which hopes to drive this trend forward. So for a bit of light reading, go back to that link and peruse my musings, then read this, which Jason was kind enough to write up based on the points I made (in bold) and agree to let me post:
JB: Services don’t communicate with each other; and # of services (apps) we use is skyrocketing
Cavnar: they don’t talk to each other, but what all apps do talk to, is you. You should be the protocol around which those things are built and data flows.
I appreciate all you Searchblog readers out there who are getting tired of my relentless Web 2 Summit postings. And I know I said my post about Reid Hoffman was the last of its kind. And it was, sort of. Truth is, there are a number of other interviews happening…
I appreciate all you Searchblog readers out there who are getting tired of my relentless Web 2 Summit postings. And I know I said my post about Reid Hoffman was the last of its kind. And it was, sort of. Truth is, there are a number of other interviews happening as well, ones that I am not personally doing. And I wanted to post a last chance for any of you to ask any of these folks questions as well. I’ll be in touch with the winners of the contest (details below) soon, but here are some other interviews of note:
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon Interviewed by best-selling author of Game Change, John Heilemann.
Paul Otellini, CEO, Intel I am doing this one, but it’s quite short as Paul is also doing a short presentation, so I figured a call for questions might not be needed.
Our final interview at Web 2 is Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and legendary Valley investor. Hoffman is now at Greylock Partners, but his investment roots go way back. A founding board member of PayPal, Hoffman has invested in Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Zynga, and many more. As he wears (at…
Our final interview at Web 2 is Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and legendary Valley investor. Hoffman is now at Greylock Partners, but his investment roots go way back. A founding board member of PayPal, Hoffman has invested in Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Zynga, and many more.
As he wears (at least) two hats, I’ll be asking Reid to not only discuss LinkedIn’s business and industry (think jobs), but also ask him to ponder the culture of our industry, and the current economic and investment client.
Next up on the list of interesting folks I'm speaking with at Web 2 are Charlie Cheever and Adam D'Angelo, the founders of Quora. Cheever and D'Angelo enjoy (or suffer from) Facebook alumni pixie dust – they left the social giant to create Quora in 2009. It grew quickly after…
Next up on the list of interesting folks I’m speaking with at Web 2 are Charlie Cheever and Adam D’Angelo, the founders of Quora. Cheever and D’Angelo enjoy (or suffer from) Facebook alumni pixie dust – they left the social giant to create Quora in 2009. It grew quickly after its public launch in 2010, inspiring some to claim it was the best structured Q&A site ever. They’ve also snagged funding led by Benchmark. As far as I know, this is the duo’s first major on stage interview together.
I’ve used Quora, a bit, and probably will be using it a lot as I start researching my book in earnest. But I’m curious as to how the service scales beyond its current place as a repository of quality – yet incomplete – knowledge. I’m also curious about its business model.
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