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In a review of Sherry Turkle’s book Alone Together, John Battelle notes a familiar experience in regards to technology: “this cake ain’t baked. I mean, think about it. Facebook: Not quite right. Smart phones? Not quite right. Desktop computing? Even though we’ve had nearly three decades of interaction, it’s still not quite right.” This issue … Read more

An article in the art magazine Frieze talks about “a disconnect between having social media resources and actually employing them to engage various audiences […].” Lauren Cornell, executive director of the technology-focused art organization Rhizome, writes that “institutions could amplify their educational and social role by publishing – daily and online – a great deal … Read more

With the proliferation of Internet-connected devices, it’s getting easier to create or consume media on devices like smartphones, tablets and set-top boxes. However this multi-device world is still evolving and it’s often not obvious which apps to use or even how to set them up. So in a series starting today, we’re going to explore … Read more

Yesterday I wrote about the lack of big ideas in tech media, in response to a New York Times op-ed about the “post-idea world.” I basically complained that there is too much mindless pap on Techmeme these days, most of it about business deals and rumors. Where are the “big idea” articles about technology, I … Read more

Big ideas aren’t prevalent anymore, posited academic and author Neal Gabler in a New York Times op-ed. “We are living in an increasingly post-idea world,” he wrote, “a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are … Read more

Did you know that both Kanye West and Jay-Z are on Google Plus? Each has less than 1,000 followers at time of writing, so chances are you didn’t. Now that Google Plus is going mainstream, or at least experiencing rapid growth in user numbers, you’d think that entertainers of Kanye and Jay-Z’s popularity would be … Read more

Icelandic musician Björk recently released what she claims to be the world’s “first app album.” It’s an iPad and iPhone app featuring 10 songs, each song accompanied by an interactive app. The “mother” app is called Biophilia, which is the name of the album. That is available free on iTunes, but the ‘song’ apps then … Read more

Today Amazon launched an HTML5 browser version of its market leading eReader application, Kindle. Called Kindle Cloud Reader, it’s a direct response to the 30% cut of sales that Apple now takes from in-app purchases and subscriptions via iOS apps. The 30% Apple toll hits businesses like Amazon hard, because the margins on book sales … Read more

The acronym “YASNS” is well-known in Web geek circles. It stands for Yet Another Social Networking Service. In 2011, perhaps the acronym should be “YAUSNS”: Yet Another Useless Social Networking Service. Even large, otherwise successful tech companies aren’t immune to YAUSNS. In September last year, Apple launched a music social network called Ping. It’s basically … Read more

Kindle Profiles is a social service that was quietly launched by Amazon in March of this year. Its existence was little known, probably because it wasn’t very useful as a social tool until Amazon recently added connections to Twitter and Facebook. I myself only discovered the service after VC Fred Wilson blogged about it the … Read more

According to research from McKinsey that we looked at yesterday, young people are using online media significantly more than older generations. When it comes to online video consumption, the difference is particularly stark: 84% of “Digital-media junkies” (whose average age is 28) consume online video, compared to 18% of “Traditionalists” (average age 48). With those … Read more

Older Internet consumers are very low users of smartphones and online media, states a new report from McKinsey. To analyze this more, we decided to compare the youngest and oldest groups surveyed: “Digital-media Junkies” (average age 28) and “Traditionalists” (average age 48). McKinsey states that “Digital-media junkies” are three times more likely to be early … Read more

What would you do after building a successful Dot Com business that was acquired by SAP in 2005? Many entrepreneurs would do their earn-out in the bigger company, then repeat the same formula with a new startup in the next Web era. That’s exactly what the founders of a forward-thinking Internet of Things company called … Read more

This week we’re reviewing 5 trends that have helped define 2011. So far we’ve covered online privacy, group messaging, HTML5 and second screen apps. In this final installment we’re looking at mobile payments. This has been a very busy market in 2011, as credit card companies, banks, carriers, Google, eBay and a number of startups … Read more

This week we’re reviewing five trends that have helped define 2011. So far we’ve covered online privacy, group messaging and HTML5. Today we’re looking at a still emerging trend, but one which is (pardon the pun) very much worth watching: second screen apps. By that we mean apps that run on your smartphone or tablet … Read more