At the end of last week Facebook announced that it would stop having humans write summaries of trending news stories. This follows previous allegations that the selection of trending stories had been changed to remove conservative ones. This is a good time to revisit some foundational questions about the spread of information in a digital world. First, it is too easy for information cascades to occur. It takes much less effort to like, share, retweet than it does to read, think and possibly e...

At the end of last week Facebook announced that it would stop having humans write summaries of trending news stories. This follows previous allegations that the selection of trending stories had been changed to remove conservative ones. This is a good time to revisit some foundational questions about the spread of information in a digital world. First, it is too easy for information cascades to occur. It takes much less effort to like, share, retweet than it does to read, think and possibly e...

Periodically, I find that a week comes along in which a ton of important stuff on and for the web comes to a boil all at once. This is one of those weeks. Here are just some of the things that I am looking atThe Release of Office 2010 and the fight between hybrid mode (desktop + web) versus online only Facebook’s extraordinarily complex privacy settings and its all-hands meeting to address the issue at the same time as the small alternative Diaspora project gets big time press and becomes a b...

Periodically, I find that a week comes along in which a ton of important stuff on and for the web comes to a boil all at once. This is one of those weeks. Here are just some of the things that I am looking atThe Release of Office 2010 and the fight between hybrid mode (desktop + web) versus online only Facebook’s extraordinarily complex privacy settings and its all-hands meeting to address the issue at the same time as the small alternative Diaspora project gets big time press and becomes a b...

In Monday’s post on the Economics of Abundance, I gave “name your price” as an example for how to deal with zero marginal cost. This is a case of voluntary price discrimination, i.e. folks who value something more are more likely to name a higher price. The first question of course is if such a scheme can work at all, that is will anyone pay if paying is entirely voluntary. We know the answer for this to be yes from the Radiohead experiment with about 40% of folks paying (according to Comscor...

In Monday’s post on the Economics of Abundance, I gave “name your price” as an example for how to deal with zero marginal cost. This is a case of voluntary price discrimination, i.e. folks who value something more are more likely to name a higher price. The first question of course is if such a scheme can work at all, that is will anyone pay if paying is entirely voluntary. We know the answer for this to be yes from the Radiohead experiment with about 40% of folks paying (according to Comscor...

I used to read the NYT every morning as a way to get an overview of what was happening in the world, find in-depth coverage and investigative reports, and see opinions on politics and the economy (I also used to do the same with the WSJ). But increasingly I find that I only skim the paper and then head for my computer to read techmeme and the Huffington Post. Both are great at what they do, but leave me yearning for more. I want a personalized new service that meets the following needsCovers ...

I used to read the NYT every morning as a way to get an overview of what was happening in the world, find in-depth coverage and investigative reports, and see opinions on politics and the economy (I also used to do the same with the WSJ). But increasingly I find that I only skim the paper and then head for my computer to read techmeme and the Huffington Post. Both are great at what they do, but leave me yearning for more. I want a personalized new service that meets the following needsCovers ...

There are a lot of posts worth reading about the potential impact or lack thereof of a possible deal between Microsoft and News Corp (and maybe other news sources as well), including Danny Sullivan, Jeff Jarvis, Andrew Parker and others. But one thing that I have missed from everything I have read (and it may well be that it’s there and I missed it) is what this is truly all about: the immense competitive pull of Google’s amazing profits! The big challenge for businesses with network effects ...

There are a lot of posts worth reading about the potential impact or lack thereof of a possible deal between Microsoft and News Corp (and maybe other news sources as well), including Danny Sullivan, Jeff Jarvis, Andrew Parker and others. But one thing that I have missed from everything I have read (and it may well be that it’s there and I missed it) is what this is truly all about: the immense competitive pull of Google’s amazing profits! The big challenge for businesses with network effects ...

A while ago I wrote a post on “who will be my New York Times?" Today the NYT announced a partnership with LinkedIn that suggests that it may well be the New York Times itself! I have long thought that the social graph and industry information on LinkedIn would provide an ideal filter for determining relevant stories. I hope this means that I can soon get a personalized news feed from LinkedIn or the Times or both. I would be happy to contribute to the creation of such a feed by doing a bit of...

A while ago I wrote a post on “who will be my New York Times?" Today the NYT announced a partnership with LinkedIn that suggests that it may well be the New York Times itself! I have long thought that the social graph and industry information on LinkedIn would provide an ideal filter for determining relevant stories. I hope this means that I can soon get a personalized news feed from LinkedIn or the Times or both. I would be happy to contribute to the creation of such a feed by doing a bit of...