The late, great Bill Campbell passed away this week, and there is no shortage of encomia from the technorati about him. He was the greatest coach in Silicon Valley, and the list of leaders that have paid tributes is appropriately star-studded. Some of the most successful people in the…

Gene Yoon in ginsudo

Jan 22, 2014

Bit flip

I was wrong about the PC. As a kid I played with the TRS-80, Apple ][ and C64 — I was engrossed in them all, I thought they were the future. But I didn’t predict the sweeping change the PC would have on society and the economy. I didn’t devote my hobbies and education to learning more about computer science.

Gene Yoon in ginsudo

Nov 12, 2011

why second life failed

This post is about why Second Life failed — but not in the sense of, “here are the reasons why Second Life failed,” but instead, “here is why it is true that Second Life failed.”

Slate published an article titled “Why Second Life Failed” that also, like this…

Gene Yoon in ginsudo

May 11, 2010

the nature of their game

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

Facebook may be overplaying its hand, but do we really understand the game they are playing?

Gene Yoon in ginsudo

Aug 19, 2009

trademarks gone wild

I try to avoid drawing parallels between trendy tech issues of the day and my own past experiences — generally I believe that to move forward you have to treat most of your past as irrelevant.

Gene Yoon in ginsudo

Feb 9, 2009

still misunderstanding micropayments

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…