by Jason Preston on March 14, 2010
RT @Editer: @Moniguzman is essentially dictating…
Editer: .@Moniguzman is essentially dictating the manual on how to report in real time – story of response to cop shootings. #processjournalism
Apparently “Something is technically wrong” with my Twitter account, which means I can’t tweet. Here’s to seeing if I can tweet via my blog.
New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook’s servers to break into Facebook members’ private email accounts and read their emails–at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company’s systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful.
It’s all irrelevant, because none of this is going to hurt Facebook at this stage. Critical mass.
by Jason Preston on March 4, 2010
SharesPost, however, is a company that lets owners of shares in private companies sell them to prospective buyers, and they’ve just released an index detailing valuations of some of the most prominent companies in the social media space.
I find it fascinating (and frankly, bad) that private companies are finding ways to become publicly traded without the restrictions and regulations imposed by the government on pubilc companies.
Shawn Blanc’s much linked review of iPhone RSS readers, to which my response is: “why use an RSS reader?”
I’ve switched back to bookmarks, mostly because RSS readers are often ugly versions of content that is well rendered in a browser. I open up eleven sites in browser tabs every day, and follow links that interest me.
On the iPhone, Safari is more than sufficient for me.
Well, there are a lot of evolutionary steps. I think the way that the weapons work and having access to all the weapons; switching between them often, because the game encourages it with the way that the AI works. Some AI are weaker than some of the weapons. Some AI you have to use a specific weapon to defeat them with. And I think the Titans threw the entire team for a loop. How do we develop on these things?
I am so beyond excited for God of War III. Hey honey? You probably won’t see me for a few days.
by Jason Preston on March 1, 2010
Just, seriously, look at the address this spam is being sent to.
“undead_smurf”
REALLY??
- J
Begin forwarded message:
Date: March 1, 2010 4:01:08 AM PST
Subject: World of Warcraft Account Management
Greetings
An investigation of your World of Warcraft account has found strong evidence
that the account in question is being sold or traded. As you may not be aware
of, this conflicts with Blizzard’s EULA under section 4 Paragraph B which can
be found here:
WoW -> Legal -> End User License Agreement
and Section 8 of the Terms of Use found here:
WoW -> Legal -> Terms of Use
The investigation will be continued by Blizzard administration to determine the
action to be taken against your account. If your account is found violating the
EULA and Terms of Use, your account can, and will be suspended/closed/or
terminated.
In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are
the original owner of the account.
To verify your identity please visit the following webpage:
{LINK REMOVED BECAUSE IT’S SPAN AND WILL STEAL YOUR PASSWORD}
Only Account Administration will be able to assist with account retrieval
issues. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter, and your
continued interest in World of Warcraft.
Sincerely,
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
Posted via email from Jason Preston’s posterous
by Jason Preston on February 26, 2010
Fred Wilson talks about the totally ridiculous nature of software patents in general. Facebook has patented the “news feed.”
Same with social news feeds. They [Facebook] are the dominant provider of social news feeds in the world. Because they out executed everyone else. But not because they invented the idea. Giving them a patent on this idea is lunacy. But the whole idea of software patents is lunacy. We need to eliminate software patents and we need to do it now.
The Patent System theoretically provides a very important protection to the young entrepreneur: a guarantee that if you invent something, nobody else can steal it right away.
In reality, it seems that more often than not, larger companies with deep pockets patent ideas that are already in common use, and then extract money from the unfortunate entrepreneurs.
John Scalzi, with usual aplomb, on how ridiculous it is to think that the “middlemen” in book publishing add no value:
I’d personally use an even simpler formulation, which is that there a lot of people who seem to think that all you need for a book are a reader and an author, but no one seems to think that all you need for a double cheeseburger is a hungry dude and a cattle rancher.
Republicans plan to emphasize six smaller ideas to change the health-care system, including new limits on malpractice lawsuits, allowing small businesses and individuals to buy insurance across state lines and creating high-risk pools to cover the sick. They will stress that Americans are more concerned about lowering insurance costs than expanding coverage, and that an incremental approach is more palatable to the public.
My opinion, not that anyone asked for it, is that there is actually ONE thing that would be simple, easy, have incredible bipartisan support, and would make more difference than any of the ideas on the table now:
Government agency tasked with creating an easy-to-navigate public and freely available web database listing the final consumer costs and success rates of every medical procedure as provided by every medical facility in the US.
If you did that, costs might actually go DOWN for the average Joe.
But the two roads to revenue signified by these two bits of news diverge in a wood, of sorts. And I’m wondering if Twitter, like Robert Frost, should take the road less traveled.
The ad platform, obviously, promises to derive money from advertising, the tried-and-true revenue stream that’s helped every media property from Collier’s magazine to Facebook.
The Yahoo deal, as with relationships Twitter has set up in recent months with Google and Microsoft’s Bing, calls for Yahoo to pay Twitter for the “firehose” of data the new relationship will bring to Yahoo.
The money has always been in the data and the API. The public has been slow to realize this because they never SEE the API, and they’re always working through an interface.