Why I’ve Shifted More Attention to Facebook
I’ve been spending a lot more time on Facebook as a blogger than I ever did. So I thought it was worth explaining why. And I’m going to cross post this entire post on Facebook as an experiment rather than just posting a link on FB and trying to drive people to my blog. If […]
What Everyone Should Take Away from Twitter’s 8% Staff Reductions
Twitter announced it had laid off around 336 jobs or 8% of its workforce. Nobody should celebrate, cheer or shout, “it’s about time.” This is about 336 people whose lives are altered and need to begin looking for work, saying goodbye to friends & colleagues and go on that journey of transition that most people […]
The Loneliness of Success that Nobody Talks About
Yesterday I saw two biopic films: “Amy” about the life of Jazz sensation Amy Winehouse who died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 and “Montage of Heck” about the life of Kurt Cobain, the grunge-rock generational voice who died of an overdose of heroin and valium at the age of … 27. It […]
Some Thoughts on Twitter as a Micro-Blogging Tool
1/ Twitter started off positioned as a micro-blogging platform but in the end became more of an RSS reader — Mark Suster (@msuster) May 29, 2015 2/ @pmarca popularized the “Tweetstorm” which ironically brought the real concept of microblogging to Twitter many years after its inception — Mark Suster (@msuster) May 29, 2015 3/ What […]
Twitter, DataSift, platforms
Twitter, DataSift, platforms: Many of you will know that Twitter unexpectedly cancelled it’s [sic] contract to allow DataSift to resell Twitter data to 3rd parties. I read the declarations by industry analysts on Twitter that this was “proof that you can’t build a business on somebody else’s platform” and perhaps DataSift should have known better. […]
Here’s What The @NYTimes Should Teach Its Writers About Social Media
Not everybody likes the NY Times. I happen to be a long-time fan and paid subscriber. I mostly read the op eds and have for years. I count amongst my favorite people to read from the left & the right as David Brooks, Thomas Friedman & Paul Krugman (and was a big fan of the late […]
Privacy is Dead and We Killed it
Privacy…everyone keeps talking about it and apparently everyone is concerned with it, but does it matter? I recently watched the documentary, “Terms and Conditions may Apply,” which provides a fascinating look at how organizations such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and others have changed the way they look at and approach privacy. After watching the movie […]
Want to Know What Marc Andreessen’s Magic on Twitter is? Hint: It’s Not Tweetstorming
By now almost everybody knows that Marc Andreessen has taken Twitter by storm. By Tweetstorm, that is. Marc seems to single handedly have changed all conventions in Tweeting by dropping 7-10 rapid Tweets in a related stream-of-consciousness labeling each Tweet with a number and a slash before it. Fred Wilson wrote a Tweetstorm and then […]
APIs Are Bridging the Mobile App Gap
Almost overnight, it seems, our lives came to revolve around social networks: We scan our Facebook feeds for updates from our families and relevant news, use Twitter to follow friends and celebrities, and pin the latest fashions or home-improvement ideas via Pinterest. Behind it all is the desire to drive engagement, to stay connected with […]
DataSift Announces Mega-Round. Apple Buys Topsy for $200 Million. Here’s What You Need to Know
I’m super proud to announce that DataSift has just completed a $42 million financing round coming at the end of a year where its revenue grew several hundred percent year-over-year. Considering our revenue is SaaS revenue this achievement is even more remarkable. The timing of the announcement of this investment couldn’t have been timed more […]
Should entrepreneurs blog?
Keith Rabois touched off a mini-Twitter firestorm the other day when he posted a tweet saying, “I don’t know of a single successful CEO or entrepreneur who blogs regularly.”http://bit.ly/1b0gv4VSadly, as I often note, 140 characters isn’t enough for a …
Stop Shooting The Messenger, Silicon Valley
On Sunday, I weighed in on the Twitter board controversy: My argument then was that there is a dangerous tendency on the part of Silicon Valley’s power players to think that those who have achieved less than they (read: everyone) don’t have the right to criticize them. Then I read an editorial by Pando Daily […]
The Hidden Assumptions That Neuter Criticism in Silicon Valley
The contretemps of the day comes courtesy of TechCrunch, where Professor Vivek Wadhwa has published a guest post addressing a Twitter debate he had with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo (now how’s that for meta?):http://tcrn.ch/GD0570The controversy began with…
Influence tools: the devil is in the details
For those of you who haven’t heard of Klout, let me give you a brief history: they started back in 2009 with a lot of marketing, a so-so product and non-existent service. They had two ways of handling criticism: either shower the critic in increased Klout score, or ignore him (or her). With criticism multiplying […]
Why Titles Matter a Lot if You’re a Blogger
Gabe Rivera wrote a post on why TechMeme is now using its editors to curate titles that appear on its site. Gabe’s post appears first on TechMeme’s website, which must mean Gabe has paid off some TechMeme editors to get his story to rise to the top. I never saw it go out with a […]
