Please, Shirky, don’t hurt me.

See, in the past Clay Shirky has expressed some healthy, justifiable skepticism about Second Life, or rather, the hype around SL in 2006–07. And on a scale of one to infinity, he knows about a googol (old…

Tim O’Reilly is one of the few public figures in technology who honestly deserve the term “futurist.” He’s a vibrant speaker and thinker; every time I’ve seen him talk, he’s set my mind spinning around a universe of amazing ideas. The future is unevenly distributed because he’s got more…

With all the recent coverage of Twitter’s financing, and earlier news about the Twitter-Facebook acquisition dance, you might think that the two are destined to compete to the death.

Facebook turned 5 years old last week, and a couple of commentators took the opportunity to compare the company’s progress unfavorably to Google’s.

I understand the compulsion to compare every hot startup to the current media darling that literally put its name next to the…

From the Department of Unsolicited Advice: Jack Flack gives Carol Bartz six pieces of advice as she tackles the Yahoo CEO job. Blodget likes all but the first, about reducing the friggin’ moxie, since a little pseudo-profanity makes his own job more entertaining.

I complained about auto industry bailouts and was chastised. Thomas Friedman says VCs should get bailed out and VCs say No No No. Then I realized that No is not enough of an answer. You have to propose an alternative, preferably one without the government deciding who gets the money. That’s not how we do…

A study that most iPhone apps fail is being picked up by credible news outlets. This is a classic abuse of the “Man Bites Dog” principle:

When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.