The lightbulb, the most humble and illuminating of all technologies, when combined with a network connection, transforms itself from being a bulb into a wake-up alarm, a mood alteration mechanism, and in some cases, a cupid's assistant.
— Om Malik
Facebook has gone from a nice-and-boring social network to becoming an identity layer of the web. It is where nearly a billion people are depositing the artifacts of civilization in the 21st century - photos, videos, and birthday wishes.
Avoid the spectacle of technology and instead focus on technology and science solving real problems.
We live in crazy times - that is true - and things have gotten crazier, but it still doesn't feel like the turn of the century.
There is better than a good chance that while relaxing on a beach somewhere or sipping a martini in your favorite lounge, you have heard music that makes raise your eyebrow and ask, 'What kind of music is that?'
Whether it is through stock-market trading or the sale of hotel rooms, the Internet has a way of bringing deflationary forces to all businesses that were hitherto inefficient and involved many middlemen.
Everybody's trying to repeat the past with the new network, with new devices and new tools. Why not make something brand-new?
Everybody has a different interpretation of immigration problems, and it's a highly personal experience. If anyone tells you there is a uniform solution to it, there isn't. As far as I'm concerned, it worked for me. And I don't know how to fix the problem.
Having followed the wireless industry long enough, I can tell you that building and supporting an application for different platforms is as tough as climbing a straight wall of rock.
When it comes to the mobile web, the technology industry seems to be split between two camps - native apps and HTML5 web-based apps.
When I see Kickstarter, I don't see a company. Instead, I see a social movement. I see people doing things for people.
Why don't we face up to the fact that many of us in Silicon Valley are living lives that involve telling ourselves a lot of lies.
Finding your soul begins by discovering our ability to listen! Alternatively, by sharing a smile, a laugh and just by being human to everyone - from friends, colleagues, family, and especially strangers, including those who are not from the same station in life as you.
The funny thing is that I used to be a blogger, but it wasn't known as 'blogging' at that time. This was in the '99/2000 time frame.
Looking back, Google's success came from the fortuitous timing of being born at the cusp of the broadband age. But it also came about because of the new reality of the Internet: a lot of services were going to be algorithmic, and owning your own infrastructure would be a key advantage.
Apple continues to make ever-thinner devices with a superlative build and a luxurious feel. What the company has achieved beneath the surface is worth even more praise.
We are splintering what was the 'camera' and its functionality - lens, sensors, and processing - into distinct parts, but, instead of lenses and shutters, software and algorithms are becoming the driving force.
Instead of standing in the way, technology is increasingly an enabler of emotion. A message at the wrong time at dinner can turn a gourmet dish into something insipid because of the interruption.
In the digital realm, companies are free from the friction of producing physical goods, and as a result, we see companies like Google go from zero dollars in revenues to billions at a much faster rate.
The digitization of our society is a challenge that is both legislative and philosophical.
Internet, for all its faults, exposed me to a lot more music.
Writing works when publications are writing and serving the best interest of their users; numbers are good yardstick but not a way to compensate a person.
My definition of media? 'Anything which owns attention.' This could be a game or, perhaps, a platform. Ironically, the media tends to associate media with publishing - digital or otherwise - which, in turn, is too narrow a way to consider not only the media but also the reality of the competitive landscape and media-focused innovation.
On my end, I am still surprised that many media organizations are unable to adapt to new media formats and, more importantly, new network behaviors.
The marriage of computing and connectivity without the shackles of being tethered to a location is one of the biggest disruptive forces of modern times.
In the touch-based mobile device era, folks need to think of ways to have a single technology stack married to the ability to create unique experiences for different devices.
I think the emotional appeal of a platform is what works. I think the old-media entities still have not figured out that part of the game plan.
When I look at Kickstarter, I see small businesses that have been funded by their customers. I see the acceleration of this shift away from the industrial manufacturing ideology to more of a maker economy. And I also see an idea so powerful that the company name has become a verb.
Most of the stress we feel here in Silicon Valley is self-inflicted.
For me, stories are like Lego blocks. If I don't put one down, I can't put the next one down.
I don't think I had a role model. I just was very inspired by an article which I read in Forbes magazine around the information superhighway and the Arpanet and stuff like that. To me, that intuitively made sense, and when I decided to come to the U.S., I knew exactly what I wanted to go and write about.
Most competition in Silicon Valley now heads toward there being one monopolistic winner.
If you're texting a friend about dinner, Google will give you restaurant reviews and directions automatically.
In a way, digital cameras were like very early personal computers such as the Commodore 64 - clunky and able to do only a few things.
As someone who has been wrong often, I can tell you one thing for sure: hindsight reminds you of your follies every day.
Many companies that become verbs actually end up modifying our behaviors, and companies that modify behaviors end up becoming behemoths.
Technology is now part of the social fabric; it is what is causing dislocation. It is the cause of fear amongst all of us.
If you look at something like Spotify, many record labels are investors in the company. So from that standpoint, the money is all going back into the labels.
Some media companies that rely on advertising revenue are tying journalist compensation to the traffic their story generates. It doesn't work because it de-prioritizes writing.
Snapchat works because using a selfie is way easier than texting or tweeting. Stories should adapt to the medium and do so without cheapening the story.
There's only one way to succeed: Show up, work hard, and do everything right. Regardless of who you might be or what kind of job you may have.
In cities like New York, it is common to find taxicabs with wireless-enabled card readers.
Apps have become a preferred way of accessing information on mobile devices.
For a while, I have had this theory that we, as a society, are coming to the end of the mass production, industrial phase of the human race.
Living a 24-hour news life has come at a personal cost. I still wake in middle of the night to check the stream to see if something is breaking, worrying whether I missed some news.
Mindfulness is natural when you do not need to think about minor daily problems like making a living!
As an online journalist, newswire journalist, newspaper writer, I wrote every day. My whole thing was, 'I have to write and report and write every day.' That was my thing.
While in the early days of networks, growth was limited by slowness and cost at numerous points - expensive telephone connections, computers that crashed, browsers that didn't work - the rise of the smartphone has essentially changed all that.
The battle between Google and Apple has shifted from devices, operating systems, and apps to a new, amorphous idea called 'contextual computing.' We have become data-spewing factories, and the only way to make sense of it all is through context.
Sure, Google's and Apple's ecosystems look a little different, but they are meant to do pretty much the same thing. For the two companies, innovation on mobile essentially means catching up to the other's growing list of features.
