News and Opinions

Microsoft is the New GM

Edit: Good discussion at Reddit. There are two differences between Microsoft and GM: Microsoft doesn’t have GM’s debt issues, and MS isn’t labouring under onerous union contracts. Otherwise, the two are eerily similar: both have significant product perception challenges, have bloated product & brand portfolios, and seem to be wildly out of touch with their… »

A Note for Rupert Murdoch: “Content” has been overvalued on the basis of Distribution

Rupert Murdoch sounds off on expanding the WSJ model of pay-wall websites to other News Corp. web properties. The summary is the same old story: traditional media, watching their revenue decline, seek to reclaim profitability by looking to online subscriptions to form a revenue stream.
What I would suggest, however, is that Murdoch’s assertion that “content”… »

Chaordix: The Rise and Fall of Cambrian House

I’m sure this has been written about elsewhere, but I was saddened today, upon revisiting Cambrian House, to see that the experiment is over. Cambrian House began as an internet crowd sourcing platform where communities could form around ideas submitted by anyone, with execution moderated by Cambrian House, and profit sharing for all.
Out of the… »

Scoble and Twitter in the Borneo Bulletin: the future of news?

Wow - a funny occurence, in light of my growing interest in Twitter of late. I was flipping through the Borneo Bulletin at a cafe in Brunei, and amidst the coverage of the catastrophic earthquake in China, stumbled across coverage of none other than the tech blogosphere’s two darlings: Robert “Andrew” Scoble and Twitter…. »

Verified by who??! A letter to VISA.

Dear Visa,
Over the last few days I’ve spent many frustrating hours trying to book an AirAsia ticket over an hsdpa connection from a sandy tropical island. Not fun. Once the lethargic AirAsia site actually allowed me to book a ticket, the payment process was interrupted by something called “Verified by Visa” - a mysterious page… »

Tweetmeme DOA?

I’m fitting this in while visiting family, so this post is late, and likely short on insight - that being said, after pouring hours and days and weeks of hobby-time in building a relevancy algorithm (see: techwatching) I feel the need to comment on Tweetmeme, which launched yesterday to much fanfare.
Divining interesting-ness from a content… »

Is EveryBlock is going to bump into EveryProblem that BlockRocker did?

Today sees the widely covered launch of EveryBlock - a hyper-local aggregator. Coverage is characterized by words like “redefines” and “slick.”
All of which is great for the people behind Everyblock, and I wish them all the best. For what its worth though, I tried a similar concept a few years ago at BlockRocker.com. The concept… »

The Big Digg Disappointment

I long appreciated digg; if not for its content, then for its algorithm’s ability to dynamically sift through the huge volume of submissions and deliver that content. Today we find out digg’s algorithm relies at least in part on human moderation.
What’s the significance (to me)?

Digg isn’t an agnostic platform, its as editorial and mod-driven as… »

Predictions for 2008, #4: Apple & iTunes Stumbles

Continuing my series of predictions for 2008 (also see number one, and number two, about boingboing and yahoo respectively, and number three about semantic apps): to balance out Yahoo’s prophesized resurgence, someone must fall - and I think Apple’s due.
Actually, this is two predictions in one: firstly, DRM will continue to wither, and the sale… »

Predictions for 2008, #3: Semantic apps will continue to suck

Well, “suck” is probably too strong a work. How about “Semantic apps will continue to be completely irrelevant?”
2007 was a year heavy on buzz around so-called next generation, 3.0, semantic apps - things like PowerSet & Hakia (natural language search), Spock (people search), Twine (who knows), and so on.
Well, after a year of anticipation, each… »