Category: RoundUps

On Building A Better Web: The Marlinspike Threads

If you want to follow the debate about crypto’s impact on society, which I believe is one of the most important topics in tech today, you better sharpen your Twitter skills – most of the interesting thinking is happening across Twitter’s decidedly chaotic platform. I’ve been using the service for nearly 15 years, and I still find it difficult to bring to heel. When following a complex topic, I find myself back where I started – in a draft blog post, trying to pull it all together.

That’s where I’ve been this past weekend as I watched the response to a thoughtful post from Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike.  (And yes, the fact that the Twitter conversation was driven by a blog post is not lost on me…)

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A Draft Syllabus For The Rabbit Hole

(image) The most common complaint I hear from friends and colleagues who are interested in the crypto/web3 world is how hard it is to “get smart” on the topic – for a neophyte, there’s just so much noise and precious little signal. Sure, you might dive headfirst into crypto Twitter – but the experience is both jarring and unproductive (ditto that for crypto-related Discord servers).

I’ve been exploring crypto for enough time to have developed a point of view on a handful of people and resources I trust to help me make sense of what is an increasingly fractious and confusing space. Below is a first draft of what I hope will evolve into a more polished “syllabus” of sorts for smart folks interested in getting smarter. This is purposefully not complete – the list could have been much, much longer. Please comment, email, or hit me up on Twitter with additional suggestions, and I’ll incorporate them as I can. And one caveat: I’m reading in this space with an eye toward crypto’s impact on tech, society, and governance. This list is *not* created with an eye toward investing in either currencies or NFTs. There’d be an entirely different set of resources for that task!

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Predictions 2021: How’d I Do? Pretty Damn Well.

As has been my practice for nearly two decades, I penned a post full of prognostications at the end of last year.  As 2021 subsequently rolled by, I stashed away news items that might prove (or disprove) those predictions – knowing that this week, I’d take a look at how I did. How’d things turn out? Let’s roll the tape…

My first prediction: Disinformation becomes the most important story of the year. At the time I wrote those words, Trump’s Big Lie was only two months old, and January 6th was just another day on the calendar.  A year later, that Big Lie has spawned countless others, culminating in one of the most damaging shifts in our nation’s politics since the Civil War. The Republican party is now fully captured by bullshit, and countless numbers of local, state, and national politicians are busy undermining democracy thanks to the Big Lie’s power.  A significant percentage of the US population has become unmoored from truth – and an equally significant group of us have simply thrown our hands up about it. Trust is at an all time low. This Barton Gellman piece in The Atlantic served as a wake up call late in the year – and its conclusions are terrifying: “We face a serious risk that American democracy as we know it will come to an end in 2024,” Gellman quotes an observer stating. “But urgent action is not happening.” I’m not happy about getting this one right, but as far as I’m concerned, this is still the most important story of the year – and the most terrifying.

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Else 4.7.14: So Much Information, Precious Little Insight

appsvwebReading over my picks from the past week, I noticed a strong theme – we’re using more and more apps, creating more and more data, but we’re not seeing the true value we might from connecting all the dots. Sure, the NSA is – and Facebook, Google, and other large platforms are as well. But imagine what happens when *we* get those insights?! A move from the center (big platforms) to the node (us) of the information ecosystem seems imminent…

Apps Solidify Leadership Six Years into the Mobile Revolution – Flurry 

Nearly three hours a day on our mobile phones (and we’re not talking). Most of that time we’re in “AppWorld” – not on “the open web.” That is a scary trend, to my mind. But I think it’s temporary. Or rather, I hope it is.

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Else 3.3.14: Is The Internet A Utility?

elecutilThe week was dominated by Google related stories, but the top dialog had to do with the Internet itself. I’m sensing something of a shift in society’s beliefs about the Internet’s central role in our humanity. Five years ago, no one wanted to talk about Internet access as a basic human right. In 2012, the UN called it exactly that. With access consolidating into what looks like a natural monopoly, might regulation as a utility be far behind?

Real Time (Medium) Another, denser version of previous essays asking whether it isn’t time to call the Internet a basic utility. “..the immaterial organisation of the internet has now become the most dominant force on this side of the planet...” Unfortunately, this piece is too dense. Try this one instead: The Internet Is Fucked (TechCrunch) in which the author enjoins: “Go ahead, say it out loud. The internet is a utility.There, you’ve just skipped past a quarter century of regulatory corruption and lawsuits that still rage to this day and arrived directly at the obvious conclusion.” Of course, that created a rejoinder: More? – “The Internet is an incredibly useful tool in modern society, but it isn’t essential to the basic functioning of society. Utilities are.” My take: The Internet is a basic need now for the info-organism we are all becoming. So I’m leaning toward the utility camp, I’m afraid. There’s a new book on the subject, should you be interested.

The Monuments of Tech  (NYTimes.com) A meditation, with far too photos, on the meaning of the campuses built by Google, Twitter, Apple, Facebook. Have you read The Circle yet? Read The Circle. Then read this.

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Predictions From Last Year: How I Did (2012 Edition)

Every year around this time I do two things: First I look back at my predictions from a year ago and grade myself, then I get around to making a new set of predictions. These are often my most popular posts of the year, proving the old magazine saw that the world loves a list. So who am I to buck the trend? Let’s get cracking on seeing how my crystal ball turned out, shall we?

As you can see from my 2012 predictions roundup, I took something of a new approach to the prognostication game last year. Instead of one lengthy post with all my predictions, I actually broke them into a series of posts, seven in all. I went into detail on why I thought each forecast would prove correct (save the last one, which was a series of “shoot from the hip” predictions.)

I’ll be as brief as I can with this review – this marks the ninth time I’ve done it. Overall, I’ve had a pretty good run of it. I hope 2013 keeps pace.

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Predictions 2012: The Roundup

(image) As promised, here are all my predictions in one place. I’ve written a brief overview of each as well.

Predictions 2012: #1 – On Twitter and Media

Twitter will become a force as a media company, not just a platform for others’ media. To do so, it will improve its #Discover feature and roll out something like Flipboard.

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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 Swan Song of Mich Matthews, Outgoing Chief of Marketing at Microsoft

After a 22-year career helming communications and later all of central marketing for Microsoft – she counts her budgets with a "b", folks – Mich Matthews, who I admit I've grown fond of, is leaving Microsoft later this summer. For years I've asked Mich to sit down with me and…

mich-matthews-microsoft-marketing-head.jpgAfter a 22-year career helming communications and later all of central marketing for Microsoft – she counts her budgets with a “b”, folks – Mich Matthews, who I admit I’ve grown fond of, is leaving Microsoft later this summer.

For years I’ve asked Mich to sit down with me and endure one of my trademark grillings, and for years she’s demurred, in the main because she believes that the CMO should not be a front person. “You’re an onstage guy,” she told me when we last spoke. “I’m the person pulling the ropes backstage.”

Well, maybe because she’s leaving, and maybe because she’s exploring what comes next (she honestly doesn’t know, but has an inkling), Mich has finally agreed to speak her mind on stage, and if our prep conversation earlier this week was any indication, it’s going to be one hell of a swan song.

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The Past Week In Signal, 5.23 Edition

Another seven days, another news cycle full of chewy goodness. For you 316K or so RSS readers, here's what I do from about 8-10pm each evening, over on the FM blog: Monday Signal: Mind Your Private Bits, Folks, It’s Getting Hot Friday Signal: LinkedIn Steps Out Thursday Signal: Policy…

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Another seven days, another news cycle full of chewy goodness. For you 316K or so RSS readers, here’s what I do from about 8-10pm each evening, over on the FM blog:

Monday Signal: Mind Your Private Bits, Folks, It’s Getting Hot

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