Circles are for real!
Google Circles knockoff hits Facebook courtesy of unofficial plug-in:
…Circle Hack is a self-described “one-night experiment with Javascript” created by a few Facebook engineers in a non-affiliated capacity, which unofficially brings …
Google+ 2 days
Google+ for the Blogger and Researcher:
After a couple days of playing with it, I haven’t quite identified what it is for, or at least how I’m going to use it differently from twitter or facebook, but so far I am generally impressed –…
Google+, not Wave or Buzz
I’ve been playing around with Google+ a little today. Farhad Manjoo no like, More Like Google Minus:
… First, I don’t know whom the company thinks it’s kidding; Google+ is obviously a direct competitor to Facebook. Given the lar…
The collapse of Myspace and its legacy
BusinessWeek‘s The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace is a compelling read. But a huge piece of the puzzle which I thought was omitted was that Myspace was incubated in the short term bottom-feeder world to begin with, so the later fixation on r…
The trials of the “content slave”
Some of you may have read Oliver Miller’s AOL Hell: An AOL Content Slave Speaks Out. If you haven’t read it, please do! This section is important:
“LADY GAGA PANTLESS IN PARIS” is the example given in “The AOL Way” internal document…
Peak Facebook?
Three weeks ago I observed that Google trend data indicated that Facebook had finally plateaued in its growth in the USA. Today a story on data from Inside Facebook:
Facebook just lost a few faces. Six million users in the U.S. ditched their Facebook a…
The swell of content
In the 1980s my family went and visited friends in Queens for a week in August. Down the street from the house there was a small shop with an arcade machine with Legendary Wings. Every day I’d start out with a fistful of quarters and pop them in…
Fun with Google Correlate
A few people have pointed me to Google Correlate. Google says that this tool is like “Google Trends in reverse.” You know I love Google Trends, so of course I’m going to poke around Google Correlate. The tool shows you the strongest c…
Zanran Numerical Data Search
Via Kevin Drum, Zanran, “Your source for data & statistics – graphs, charts and tables.” I am just checking it out, but I think it will be of use to readers.
Twitpic, all your photos are ours
We’re in a brave new world when it comes to our conception of property. I’m on the skeptical side when it comes to the current aggregate long term utility of IP law (I think the value of property rights may be overwhelmed by the abuse which…
Facebook finally plateaus in 2011!
I’ve been using Google Trends to track the rise of Facebook and the fall of MySpace for years. To my surprise Facebook has kept ascending up the Google search traffic for years past when I thought it would hit diminishing marginal returns of mind…
Where people use their information appliances
In the U.S., Tablets are TV Buddies while eReaders Make Great Bedfellows:
Fast Company has a write up of the survey, concluding:
What can we learn from this data? Smart gadgets are pervasive. They’re already changing long-held habits, and doing …
Kindle books outsell print books on Amazon
Amazon: Kindle books outselling all print books. This is more something I’d put on pinboard, but this requires noting more prominently. The figure itself isn’t important, but it is a marker for a silent transition occurring as we shift med…
My dreamquest: what has the “phone” become?
What is this?
I experienced a very strange and perhaps illuminating dream last night. I’ve had an HTC Evo 4G since Christmas (for what it’s worth, Sprint’s customer service has been horrible, but the phone itself is great). Before …
The decline of web 2.0
In 2006-2007 I worked at a firm which had its own web application, and “web 2.0″ was a big term in the marketing materials. This article in DealB%k, Is It a New Tech Bubble? Let’s See if It Pops, made me wonder what happened to that term….
“Content farms” and the media Precambrian
I’ve only become aware of “content farms” in any significant way over the past few days. Yes, I’m aware of Associated Content and eHow. I use Google! But I’ve always ignored them. But with Google’s turn against these…
Facebook is for the herd
That seems to be what John Dvorak is saying, Why I Don’t Use Facebook:
Which begs the question as to why anyone would use Facebook when it is essentially AOL done right? The fastest growing group on Facebook are people in their 70′s. Oldste…
Goodbye Delicious
Delicious is shutting down. Since I use it a fair amount, can anyone recommend alternatives?
Collapse, stagnation, and explosion – Myspace, Yahoo!, and, Facebook
A tale of three firms via Google Trends. I’ve been checking in on Facebook’s numbers in Google Trends for years to see if I can see evidence of plateauing. Not quite yet. Interestingly all three companies were drawing similar search traffic on Google at the end of 2008, after which Myspace began its long descent, […]
The naked years: the end of privacy
I do talk periodically on this weblog about the coming ‘transparent society.’ The main reason I bring up the issue is that I think it is probably inevitable, and, I think we’re sliding toward it without even reflecting on it too much. Many people are very surprised at how little time it takes to find […]