En la edición de Noviembre 2009 de Wired Magazine aparece un artículo de Steven Levy titulado

“Twitter’s founders created a simple messaging system. Its users turned into something huge. So the question now: Who’s in charge?”

Pregunta interesante pues todos sabemos que desde sus inicios esta plataforma no ha cambiado o introducido funcionalidades nuevas; los usuarios somos quienes nos hemos encargado de su evolución, al convertir a Twitter en una plataforma generadora de información en tiempo real, a tal grado que sobrepasa la capacidad informativa de cualquier medio de comunicación tradicional.

Mi primer tweet data del 08 de Marzo de 2008 y lo que he visto en estos dos años es un cambio en la manera de comunicar, adquirir y absorber la información a través de este medio. Desde los absurdos what are you doing? de mis primeros tweets hasta conversaciones entre múltiples usuarios y centrar a Twitter como uno de mis principales medios para mantenerme informado.

Who’s on charge? Twitter responde esta pregunta de manera directa al otorgar la libertad que ha dado a usuarios y desarrolladores al interactuar con la plataforma. Los múltiples servicios y aplicaciones creadas alrededor de Twitter lo demuestran.

Tema aparte merece el modelo de negocio de Twitter. Tal vez la plataforma es tan maleable por los usuarios que la gente de Twitter no sabe lo que puede ocurrir en unos meses o años con el servicio. Lo que si es cierto es que Twitter esta acumulando fortuna con toda esa información de los usuarios, paraiso para muchos departamentos de marketing.

La pregunta está ahí. Who’s on charge? Los usuarios. Tal vez esto sea uno de los primeros rasgos de la mediaconomy.

Steven Levy, who was embedded with us during our State Department trip to Iraq this past April, has a feature story in this month’s issue of Wired:

Peter Schwartz is a futurist, author, and co-founder of Global Business Network, a corporate strategy firm based in San Francisco, California. His published works include The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World, Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Ahead in a Time of Turbulence, The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity with Peter Leyden and Joel Hyatt, and When Good Companies Do Bad Things: Responsibility and Risk in an Age of Globalization with Blair Gibb. He is arguably the world’s greatest authority on scenario planning for organizations and in the August 2009 issue of Wired magazine, in an article written by Steven Levy (“Your Future in 5 Easy Steps: The Wired Guide to Personal Scenario Planning”), Schwartz shares his thoughts about how an individual can “envision possible futures, which will serve as guideposts to the path forward.”

1. List Driving Forces: What variables, trends, and events will affect your mission? The first step is simply to list them, then divide them into uncertainties (e.g. economic, political, and social) and relative certainties (e.g. global population growth). “Finally, rank the items according to their importance, from most to least significant. The result: a catalog of factors that will determine the future of the area in question.”

2. Make a Scenario Grid: Now it’s time to map out possible futures. The two most important uncertainties — from the top of your list – form the axes of a grid, with each quadrant representing a potential future. “Some may be more likely than others – and some might seem downright impossible – but they all depict the interplay of key forces. Thus, they’re within the range of possibility and deserve your attention.”

3. Imagine Possible Futures: Sketched as a simple grid, the possible futures you select are so abstract that it would be difficult to recognize them if they emerged. “Make the scenarios more concrete by fleshing them out into imaginary, but plausible, new s stories that are emblematic of the forces at play.”

4. Brainstorm Implications and Actions: Now it’s time to develop strategies for coping with the futures selected. List the implications of each scenario. “Then come up with actions that would enable you to prosper under the new conditions. Some actions would apply to almost any scenario. These should form the basis of your plan, since they help you prepare for a range of possibilities. Bolster core actions with those related to the future you deem most likely.”

5. Track Indicators: Scenarios sensitize you to indications of how the future unfolds. Over tyime, the world will gravitate toward one of the four quadrants formulated. “The trick is to recognize the shift in progress. As you monitor the news, look forsignals that a particulat possibility is bevoming a concrete reality [or at least a prtobability]…EvaluAte developments on a quarterly basis so you can track the trends. Adjust your action strategies to anticipate the future as it emerges.”

Here’s a link to Wired magazine. The complete article should soon be available.

http://www.wired.com/wired/

Peter Schwartz

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them.

Penn Stater Steven Levy ’74g—who used to be the top technology guy at Newsweek but got lured away to Wired magazine last year—has written a review of the new iPhone 3GS, which he says “introduces a long list of improvements, big and small.”

The new iPhone will be released tomorrow, but if, like me, you already have an older iPhone (or an iPod touch), you can download the new 3.0 software for your current device any time now. The software upgrade has many, though not all, of the bells and whistles that the new device has. I did the software upgrade last night and can already tell that I’m going to like the Voice Memos app, the spotlight search, and the ability to turn the thing sideways while typing e-mails in order to get a bigger keyboard.

Levy says if you’ve already got an iPhone and you’re not yet at a point in your contract where you’re eligible to upgrade to the new 3GS, there’s no rush about getting the new device: “…the wise thing for those more recent buyers to do will be to install the new software and stick with their 3G iPhones at least until their contracts run down.”

If you don’t want to read the full review (which isn’t that long), you can read a quick-hit summary of it at Wired’s “Gadget Lab” blog.

Tina Hay, editor

$21 billion. Billion.

That’s the amount of revenue that Google Ads generated last year. If you’re like me and 60% of all Internet surfers, you rely on Google everyday as your search engine of choice. Google has become such a reliable knowledge portal that it’s hard to recall what served as “home base” on the Web prior to their existence.

As critical as the Web is to my job, I’ve never thoroughly understood Google’s advertising structure beyond my basic involvement and research of pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Organic search and search engine optimization are of course crucial to understanding the Web, but the advertising aspect has always seemed a bit foreign to me.

I’ve never been one to give much thought to clicking on the sponsored links listed at the top and on the right sidebar of Google’s search results. Maybe it’s been my instinctual fear of viruses or phishing scams, but I’ve always viewed organic results as the “safe” play when determining where to navigate next on my search path.

Steven Levy’s Secret of Googlenomics article in the latest issue of Wired magazine opened my eyes up to a whole new understanding of how Google’s sponsored ads end up where they do. Aside from bidding on select keywords that connect ads to specific dates, time and geographic locations, Google also assesses the quality of an ad, examining how well the ad matches a search query, the load time and quality of content on an ad’s landing page, the ad’s past clickthrough rate and other key criteria. An ad’s rank on a search result page is then determined through a formula that multiplies the bid by the assigned quality score (1-10).

Aside from gaining some additional technical knowledge about PPC, Steven’s article speaks to the larger economic trend and overall impact of how Google’s auction-based marketplace creates a new “auction” each time a new search is processed.

It’s mindblowing to think about the wealth of data Google and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter (obviously on smaller scales and with Twitter having yet to capitalize on this data in a monetary fashion) are capturing on any given day. If you’re on Facebook, you’ve likely seen tailored “social ads” for products or activity on facebook that reflects your friends’ activity. The friend endorsement is a huge step forward and I’ll admit that it makes me far more likely to check out a particular link on Facebook.

Where does search and social network advertising go from here?

I’d love to hear any SEO/PPC or other online ad experts’ thoughts and  insight on where they see search and social network advertising going next.

-Scott

In an obvious homage to Michael Lewis’ 1999 book, The New New Thing, Chris Anderson, Charles Mann, Kevin Kelly and Steven Levy collaborate to write Wired’s June 2009 feature story, “The New New Economy.”

I know, I know – we’ve heard this all before.  The corporate dinosaurs are going to sink into the tar pit of history, and nimble, warm-blooded little companies are going to crawl out of their hiding holes and into the sun of a new age.

What struck me about the story was not whether 2008’s economic meltdown was the proverbial asteroid triggering this long-awaited transition, but whether more corporate disintegration would lead to an age of more open innovation.

On the surface, things look rosy:  Imagine a world where many small, independent companies form organically around specific objectives to create ‘virtual flash firms’ that can just as quickly and easily reorganize in response to new opportunities.  Sounds terrific, though the dinosaur analogy doesn’t seem quite right.  There are, and have been, plenty of huge, lumbering mammals, many of which are also now extinct.  No, these writers seem to be talking about a world not of elephants but of insects…or rather, a world of insects collaborating to pose as elephants.

No doubt, as Chris Anderson points out by quoting micro-investor, Paul Graham, “The rule, ‘large and disciplined organizations win,’ needs to have a qualification appended: ‘at games that change slowly.’” This speaks to the truth of how poorly large hierarchies of humans respond to rapid change.

But looking closer, there are obvious problems with the notion that swarms of legally separate entities are better at quickly identifying new opportunities and cooperatively responding to them.  Chief among these problems is that legally separate entities, especially very, very small ones, are skittish and not typically prone to trusting each other. While it might be difficult for a team in a large company to be open about its know-how and intentions (the two things that absolutely need to be shared in order to initiate open, collaborative innovation), vulnerable startups find it almost impossible to be so open.  Startup entrepreneurs frequently refer to themselves as being in “stealth mode.”  The only thing that will freak out a typical startup entrepreneur more than the sound of a big company stomping through the forest is the sight of another startup suddenly close to its nest.

People in big companies tend to have a hard time sharing.  And people in small companies tend to have a hard time sharing.  You see, whether we organize in hierarchies or swarms, the problem with collaborative innovation is not that we are insects or elephants, but that we are human.

You’d think Iraq has more important things to worry about than Twitter and Facebook, but in fact that country has almost zero Internet infrastructure—and developing that infrastructure could play a big role in getting Iraq back on its feet. At least that’s the idea behind a State Department-sponsored trip that’s in progress over there right now. A delegation that includes representatives from Google, YouTube, and Twitter, among others, is wrapping up its visit today.

The one and only embedded reporter in the delegation is Penn State grad Steven Levy ’74g, who is a writer for Wired magazine. You can read his initial report from Iraq, filed yesterday, here and another Wired story on the trip here.

Tina Hay, editor

Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

Viene de la Parte 4

Fuente: The Edge

Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

¿Quieres compartir y difundir este artículo con otros?

Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

Viene de la Parte 3

… Continua en la Parte 5

Fuente: The Edge

Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

¿Quieres compartir y difundir este artículo con otros?

Fuente: Fractal Recursions

La primera parte de este conjunto de interesantes leyes, se puede consultar aquí

(Esto no es pesimismo, sino realismo, una analogía ampliada de la segunda ley de la termodinámica.)

Por ejemplo:
Cerebro-Mente
Mente-Cuerpo
Emoción-Razón
Natural-Adquirido
Nosotros-Ellos
Recuerda siempre que es fácil estar en posesión de alguna explicación, pero extraordinariamente dificil conocer la verdad.


… Continúa en la Parte 3…

Fuente: The Edge

Fuente: Flickr, KrisDavos

¿Querés compartir y contribuir a difundir este artículo?

［マックの 25 年を一望にできる画像はこちら］

アップルお気に入りのライターで Newsweek から Wired へ転身した Steven Levy が、昨年暮に興味深い記事を書いている。

Wired: “25 Years of Mac: From Boxy Beige to Silver Sleek” by Steven Levy: 22 December 2008

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感傷のかけらもない

アップルマッキントッシュの 25 周年がくるが、Steve Jobs の目には感傷のかけらもない。昨年 10 月、シリコンバレーのアップル本部でユニボディのラップトップが発表されたとき、マックの誕生日のことを彼に聞いてみた。Jobs にはノスタルジアなんかこれっぽっちもなかった。「そんなことは考えてもいない。1997 年にここに戻ってきたとき、スペースが必要で探していたら、古いマックその他がいっぱい保存されているのを見つけた。そこでいってやった。『どこかへやっちまえ！』と。ガラクタを全部スタンフォードへ送りつけてやった。この業界では過去など振り返っていたらツブされてしまう。前を見て進まなきゃいけないのだ。」

It’s the 25th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, but Steve Jobs’ eyes are dry. At the company headquarters in Silicon Valley, where he was presenting a set of new laptops to the press last October, I mentioned the birthday to him. Jobs recoiled at any suggestion of nostalgia. “I don’t think about that,” he said. “When I got back here in 1997, I was looking for more room, and I found an archive of old Macs and other stuff. I said, ‘Get it away!’ and I shipped all that shit off to Stanford. If you look backward in this business, you’ll be crushed. You have to look forward.”

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マックはなお高みを目指す

これこそ 25 才になるマックを驚くべき存在たらしめているものなのだ。25 年といえばコンピュータの世界では 10 のグーゴル乗という無限の時間といえる。それでもなお前進が可能なのだ。マックの当初の競争相手といえば、緑のリン光ブラウン管の RadioShack や DEC 、当時としては不可思議な存在だった IBM などだが、それらは文字どおり埋め立てゴミと化した。にもかかわらずマッキントッシュはなお生き続け、歴史上でも一番いい時期を謳歌している。このところアップルについては iPod やiPhone が注目を浴びて、クリックホィールやタッチスクリーンのおかげで、マックのシェアが二桁になんなんとするのに気がつかない。それも Jobs が 12 年も前にアップルから追われた 1997 年にはたった 3% だったのだ。どういってもいいが、ウインドウズが衰える一方で、マックが増えていることだけは間違いない。目覚めよメトセラ！マックはなお高みを目指すのだ。［注：Methuselah：メトセラ、創世記に登場する 969 才まで生きたノアの祖父］

Here’s what’s amazing about the Mac as it turns 25, a number that in computer years is just about a googolplex: It can look forward. The Mac’s original competition—the green-phosphorus-screened stuff made by RadioShack, DEC, and then-big kahuna IBM—now inhabit landfills, both physically and psychically. Yet the Macintosh is not only thriving, it’s doing better than at any time in its history. Much of the attention directed at Apple over the past few years has focused on new products like the iPod and the iPhone. Click wheels and touchscreens have distracted us from the news that the Mac market share has quietly crept into double digits. That’s up from barely 3 percent in 1997, just before the prodigal CEO returned to the fold after a 12-year exile. Any way you cut it, the Mac is on the rise while Windows is waning. Roll over, Methuselaﾑthe Macintosh is still peaking.

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Think Different

どんな製品も大衆化すると以前の輝きを失ってしまう。だからユーザーが 3000 万人になってもマックユーザーであることがステータスになるのは実に驚くべきことだ。マックのシェアが今後増え続けてもそうだろうか。5000 万のひとがマックを使うようになってもなお「ひととは違った考え方をする」（thinking different）といえるだろうか？１億人になったらどうか？いずれ答は出るだろう。

Generally, when products go mass market, they lose their edge. So it’s remarkable that with 30 million users, being a Mac person is still a statement. If the Mac share keeps growing, will that stay true? If 50 million people are using Macs, does that mean they’re still “thinking different”? How about 100 million?

We may just find out.

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アップルファンは律儀に思い出す。マッキントッシュが発売された日、アップルという会社が設立された日、Steve Jobs が生まれた日・・・。アップルにとって特別な日がやってくるたびに思い出すだけでなく、そんな特別な日には何か特別なことがあるのではないか、next big thing の発表があるのではないかとウワサする。

でもそれはアップルファンだけの思い込みで、Steve Jobs にとってはそんな感傷はいらないということなのだろう。

Technorati Tags: Apple, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy

A couple of years ago we ran a feature-length Q&A with Penn State grad Steven Levy ’74g, chief technology writer for Newsweek, on his then-new book about the iPod. That was in our November-December 2006 issue. Since then, Levy has moved over to Wired magazine and continues to write about all things Apple, among other topics. In the current issue of Wired, he writes about the progression of the Apple Macintosh, which has now been around for 25 years.

Levy’s article also talks about “Apple’s long-running PC-versus-Mac ad campaign, with the nebbishy John Hodgman portraying the PC,” and how that campaign “has deeply unhinged Microsoft despite the company’s dominant market share.”

Seeing the photo-illustrated timeline that accompanies the article made me remember, with a laugh, my my first Mac, which looked pretty much like the one shown here. I got it—a Mac Plus—in 1987 in my previous job as the communications person for the College of Health and Human Development. The Mac Plus had a whopping 1MB of hard-drive space—the equivalent of, say, a single photo on my current Mac laptop.

Tina Hay, editor

From the 1994 edition of Steven Levy’s Hackers (p. 118) comes this elegant description of what it means to program:

Looking at Gosper’s programs, Sussman realized an important assumption of hackerism: all serious computer programs are expressions of an individual. “It’s only incidental that computers execute programs,” Sussman would later explain. “The important thing about a program is that it’s something you can show to people, and they can read it and they can learn something from it. It carries information. It’s a piece of your mind that you can write down and give to someone else just like a book.” Sussman learned to read programs with the same sensitivity that a literature buff would read a poem. There are fun programs with jokes in them, there are exciting programs which do The Right Thing, and there are sad programs which make valiant tries but don’t quite fly.

Crypto is about privacy in the information age and about the nerds and visionaries who, nearly twenty years ago, predicted that the Internet’s greatest virtue–free access to information–was also its most perilous drawback: a possible end to privacy. Levy explores what turned out to be a decisive development in the crypto wars: the unlikely alliance between the computer geeks and big business as they fought the government’s stranglehold on the keys to information in a networked world. The players come alive here in a narrative that reads like the best of futuristic spy fiction. There is Whit Diffie, the long-haired Newton of crypto who invented the astounding “public key” solution; David Chaum, whose “anonymous digital money” actually threatened the global financial infrastructure; and “cypherpunks” like Phil Zimmermann, who freely distributed military-strength codes under the nose of the U. S. government. There is also the first behind-the-scenes account of what the secretive National Security Agency really had in mind when it created the controversial “clipper chip”–and how the Clinton administration bungled the operation. Sure to appeal to everyone who kept David Kahn’s sweeping The Codebreakers in print for more than thirty years and readers who are making Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mark’s Between Silk and Cyanide, and Singh’s The Code Book bestsellers, Crypto will soon be the new classic of its subject. Crypto is a bestselling book and winner in the category of best Non-Fiction eBooks for the International eBook Award Foundation 2001 eBook awards ceremony in Frankfurt, Germany.

If the National Security Agency (NSA) had wanted to make sure that strong encryption would reach the masses, it couldn’t have done much better than to tell the cranky geniuses of the world not to do it. Author Steven Levy, deservedly famous for his enlightening Hackers, tells the story of the cypherpunks, their foes, and their allies in Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government. From the determined research of Whitfield Diffie and Marty Hellman, in the face of the NSA’s decades-old security lock, to the commercial world’s turn-of-the-century embrace of encrypted e-commerce, Levy finds drama and intellectual challenge everywhere he looks. Although he writes, “Behind every great cryptographer, it seems, there is a driving pathology,” his respect for the mathematicians and programmers who spearheaded public key encryption as the solution to Information Age privacy invasion shines throughout. Even the governmental bad guys are presented more as hapless control fetishists who lack the prescience to see the inevitability of strong encryption as more than a conspiracy of evil.

Each cryptological advance that was made outside the confines of the NSA’s Fort Meade complex was met with increasing legislative and judicial resistance. Levy’s storytelling acumen tugs the reader along through mathematical and legal hassles that would stop most narratives in their tracks–his words make even the depressingly silly Clipper chip fiasco vibrant. Hardcore privacy nerds will value Crypto as a review of 30 years of wrangling; those readers with less familiarity with the subject will find it a terrific and well-documented launching pad for further research. From notables like Phil Zimmerman to obscure but important figures like James Ellis, Crypto dishes the dirt on folks who know how to keep a secret. –Rob Lightner

Crypto is available at Amazon for $9.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• Where Wizards Stay Up Late
• Code
• The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security
• iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon
• Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software

Image via WikipediaI

Talking to a friend recently he was bemoaning cyber life:

There is so much trash, and I mean big heaping pile of crap on the web it seems like anything halfway useful should be lost due to the sheer amount of garbage piled up.  Shifting through it is more of a hassle than it’s worth.

Now, if that isn’t stating the obvious I don’t know what is.

Is there a way to combat the amount of crap so only the useful things will appear?  Maybe even some kind of global blacklist (ha! I know, I know I jest) for the crap flood?

The internet is great in the sense it allows us all to get heard, even if there are some people who shouldn’t be “heard” ever.  Alas, the free for all will be in effect- even for “them”.  Which if that alone lets people who legitimately use their voice, it is a sacrifice that is worthy.  To the degrees, at some point I think we have all wandered across something that inspires us.  Then again, for that one golden piece, there are tenfold that we truly wish we could unsee.

Lately there has been a bit of banter flitting about regarding governmental involvement on the web.  Lieberman is one of the pundits involved. Although his measure failed, I am sure there will be more like it coming into play sooner or later.

Admittedly, I am curious about something.  Namely Anonymous, the “hackers on steroids” that “plague”  of the internet.  (It takes all I have to not laugh a bit at that, mainly the image of a jacked up hacker.)  Considering that for or against them, you have to be a mite bit impressed with the ability to get it together enough to hold the worldwide protests.  Considering the main  dynamic involved, no leadership, yet the group normally known for the goatse managed to hold worldwide demonstrations.

Consider also, for every push to make something more secure more “unbreakable” people will find a way in.  Even CERN wasn’t safe, then again, they thought is was brilliant to have their main hub attached to the ‘net.  Goes to  show, genius doesn’t actually equal common sense.

In all actuality, when push comes to shove- if “whomever” did indeed try to limit the internet.

People will undoubtedly find a way around it.  After all, that is human nature.

Internet explorer run’s heavy, it’s vulnerable to attacks, and it could be smarter. Google has done for the Internet, what Jordan did for the league- optimize performance. The “Google Chrome” browser is an elevation in speed, navigation, and privacy. With minimalistic user-friendly design Chrome creates a seamless web browsing experience, let’s break down the cuff-links via the preferred authority of Wired Magazine, Steven Levy:

Speed: blazing fast JavaScript engine opens the door to more advanced web applications

Navigation: the “omnibox” combines the search and address boxes, and pop-up thumbnails show your most visited destinations

Privacy: browsing history is now searchable and editable; the incognito mode offers private surfing

The improvements in navigation with the “omnibox” strike me as the most intuitive and convenient advancement. Through this new technology the computer accurately tracks and provides thumbnail links on your homepage of your most visited sites, it also provides keyword and suggestive searches through the address bar. I have seen this significantly reduce my browsing time. 

The only area I would sight for opportunity, is that some of the cms and hosting applications that are online which I use for design and email campaign creation haven’t currently caught up to this technology. This isn’t a slight to Google’s construction, but more that these interfaces haven’t fully adapted to the technology advancement. This could also be due to technology cost or to the fact that Chrome is still in it’s beta testing stage. 

Chrome: browser optimized, thanks to the collective genius of  Mark Larson, Brian Rakowski, Darin Fisher, and Ben Goodger. Take this opportunity to tailor you online space. To view Chrome’s specs and downloads, go here: http://www.google.com/chrome

Fashionably,

www.jessemillsonline.com

This is the most inspiring, whimsical, and completely esoteric thing I’ve seen in ages.  I’ve always dreamt of having my own library, but usually the one that features in my dreams is full of Gothic windows, an upper level accessible by a ladder on a brass rail, and smells musty.  Having seen this, I think I have to up the ante.

Copyright © 2008 WrappedUpInBooksBlog. All rights reserved.

Right up there with the meme that “the need for PR agencies is gone” is the “embargoes are dead.”  Embargoes are an agreement between a company and a reporter to hold news until a specific agreed upon time or date in exchange for early access to information or news from the company

As usual, ReadWriteWeb has a thoughtful piece on the benefits and pitfalls of embargoes, and a fiery denouncement of them as a “throwback to the ivory tower development system,” by Dave Winer.

Embargoes aren’t always necessary, but they can be useful particularly to show the development of a product or allow someone to take a more in-depth look at a product or service.  A recent case is, Google’s new Chrome browser. When Google announced the product earlier this week, there were literally thousands of instant reviews and short thoughts on the product. But Wired had something different, they had a look at the development, here’s the story on how that went down from Valleywag.

So, in this case, the embargo did serve a purpose, Google was able to tell the backstory of Chrome and allow someone to see it in process rather than wait and tell the story afterwards.

Embargoes aren’t dead. Like everything else in PR, they are just a little different than before and need to be managed a little more closely.

［Charlie Rose Show | A discussion about the iPhone 3G］

iPhone 3G について改めてその意味を振り返るのに最適なビデオがある。

インタビュー番組で有名な Charlie Rose がマックブログや技術ブログの大物たちと語る。

ウォールストリートジャーナルの Walter Mossberg、Wired の Steven Levy［ニューズウィークから移籍］、TechCrunch の Michael Arrington といった面々だ。

とてもおもしろいので一見に値する。

それに Charlie Rose の鋭い切り込みぶりも見ものだ。さすがの大物たちが神妙にしているのだからたいしたもの。

暑さを忘れるには絶好の見ものだ。

TechCrunch Japanese: “Mossberg、Levy、Arringtonの3人が、Charlie RoseショウでiPhoneとYahooについて語る“: 25 July 2008［Nob Takahashi 訳］

TechCrunch: “Mossberg, Levy And Arrington Talk iPhone, Yahoo On Charlie Rose” by Erick Schonfeld: 24 July 2008

Technorati Tags: Charlie Rose, iPhone 3G, Michael Arrington, Steven Levy, Video Footage, Walt Mossberg

   The only things missing were the red carpet and the paparazzi at last Wednesday’s SDForum’s Visionary Awards ceremony. It had all the trappings of the Oscars: glitz and glamor, champagne and cocktail dresses. OK, there were more business suits than bustierres, I admit. But I think the brain power at this Silicon Valley event was probably ten to the Nth power of its LA counterpart.  I kept expecting an announcer to say: “Reed Hastings is appearing with fabulous thoughts today, combining high IQ with the always elegant ideas for movie delivery.”

Held at the private home of Heidi Roizen and David Mohler in Atherton, the party kicked off with a VIP only event inside the Italian villa. Backed by a suit of armor, and looked upon by a giant Bison head and stag’s head, SDForum’s CEO Susan Lucas-Conwell (sporting one of her signature French silk scarves)  made the introductions, as everyone crowded into the wood beamed hall. Susan teased the crowd about revealing how the five visionaries are actually chosen, but the selection process remains a well guarded secret. Ann Winblad is giving nothing away.

I chatted to Cromwell Schubarth, editor of the Silicon Valley Business Journal who reports that contrary to the fate of many newspapers, like the Merc, his paper is thriving. Exploiting a niche and doing it well is key, he tells me. Next up: The Green Mayor: Chuck Reed, who was unususally enthusiastic. “The best days are ahead of us!” he exclaimed. Perhaps the optimism of all those successful techies and entrepreneurs rubbed off on him. Or maybe it was his delight in driving his wonderful Prius to the event. He told me he gets a cool green 44 MPG. That would make anyone a wee bit jovial, the way gas prices are surging!

Talking joviality, the exuberant Heidi Roizen gave me some of the skinny on her startup: SkinnySongs (an interview for Women’s Radio seems inevitable). She was determined to get the visionaries to sign her “virtual” bookshelves, a masterful tromp l’oie in her living room, already adorned with Sergey Brin, author of ”Googled” among other big techy names. A smart move by Heidi: no doubt adding many $’s to the value of her home, even in this down market.

I was cheered to hear a visionary like Forest Baskett (former CTO of Silicon Graphics and Partner at VPs NEA) pushing the case for wind power and electric cas. Moving from 20c a mile (gas) to 2c a mile (electric) sounds pretty compelling to me.

Diane Greene, pioneer of mainstream virtualization and CEO & co-founder of VMWare was the most modest of the bunch. She simply credits her ‘visionary powers’ to being an optimist. According to her intro, she established a company culture that is employee-focused and about being “nice people”.  Mendel Rosenblum summed it up by saying ”she showed you can build a multi-billion dollar software company and not be a jerk.” Amen to that.

I look forward to exploring both her company culture and her great passion for sailing (she tells me she sails a trimoran) when I interview her for Women’s Radio later this summer.

Founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings had some interesting wisdom to share about growing a startup: success is all about employee freedom he says: encourage creativity, take risk, do things different…

And finally: Steven Levy, senior writer for Wired Magazine and author of “Hackers“ was entertaining: he described all the poses Bill Gates goes through in the space of a two hour interview – from rocking madly, almost horizontal, to fetal position. Steven is proud of the fact he antagonized the richest man in the world so much that he threw a pencil at him! Only a geek would boast that claim to fame.

Heidi warned me the party goes on till the wee hours…sadly I couldn’t stay around to see if techies really can party like the Oscar party crowd. But with Heidi at the helm, I don’t doubt they’d give it a good try.

In addition to being a business success, the iPod can be studied as a cultural phenonenon.

In episode 4 of Boing Boing’s Get Illuminated podcast, Mark Frauenfelder spoke with Steven Levy, author of the excellent book, The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness.

Steven talks about Steve Jobs’ role in the creation of the iPod, why the Zune is lousy, why Sony can’t make a good MP3 player, and what the rumored iPhone is going to be like.

Get Illuminated podcast Vol. 4 — Steven Levy – Boing Boing

MP3 audio