The China Debate: The Other Angle

I think China should teach Africa how to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, fast. I think China should teach America the art of total campaign finance reform. I think China should teach America fast trains and clean tech. Those are not new thoughts on my part. And China is right in wanting a new global currency. The American dollar is specific to a country. A lot of the American fiscal recklessness this past decade was due to the fact that the dollar is the de facto global currency.

Data Explosion, Data Curation And Grassroots Governance

Barack Obama in power - in terms of grassroots involvement - feels to me like Howard Dean running for president. It's not there yet. And data is the reason why. Too much of the data is locked up. What data have been liberated have not been made visually appealing and presentable yet. Those are bottlenecks.

Yahoo: Lord Of The Middle Kingdom

Or maybe Carol Bartz is the Sarah Palin of technology. The two coasts might not "get" Yahoo, but the heartland/hinterland loves it, she claims. And she has numbers to prove the tall claim.

Amit Kapur Might Be Upto Something

Scobleizer: First look: Gravity is making interest graphs of your social content

Web 2.0 Summit 2010

Hotpot Is A Cheesy Name

Google Lat Long Blog: Discover Yours: Local recommendations powered by you and your friends
Google Mobile Blog: Personally Yours on the Go - Personalized Recommendations in Google Maps 4.7
Search Engine Land: Google Hotpot: Local Recommendations From Your Friends Might it eventually be merged with Google’s other location, social, and other services to provide a robust Foursquare-like experience?

Chrome OS Moved On Further

Image via WikipediaI guess Google has been riding the Android storm and wishes to stick to the momentum for as long as possible, and so the latest hint is the Chrome OS will not see the light of day for a few more months. That's too bad.

Does Path Stand A Chance?

Path is a new social network - much talked about - that has some of the early, key Facebook people on board. Facebook limits you to 5,000 friends. Path limits you to 50 friends. Facebook does photos plus. Path does photos only.

My first reaction is I agree with Robert Scoble.

Facebook Messaging Event: My Favorite Question

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So I am watching this event - the event of the day, the event of the week - and the talk this past week has been that Facebook is about to release a Gmail killer, and the talk this past month, maybe this past year has been that Facebook is eclipsing Google, and there is some talk Facebook might make it hard for FourSquare - FourSquare stole an engineer from Yahoo months back, Facebook stole an engineer from FourSquare recently - and Mike Arrington never stopped harassing Carol Bartz, TechCrunch recently put out an "infographic" laying out how Yahoo is hemorrhaging, and Time Armstrong made news when his company is not even 1/10th the size of Yahoo but he wanted to buy out Yahoo, and people have been on a lookout for Jerry Yang - where is David? - and one person at the event asks Mark Zuckerberg this question, so, my Facebook friends are not my real friends, they are just casual friends, and all my closest friends are on my Yahoo Mail account, and how is this new Facebook Messaging going to alter my life, are you telling me all these not so real friends I have on Facebook are going to be able to message me now?

Facebook Messaging: Awesome

You don't go after Google with search like Bing did. You go after it from an angle. Call it social, call it Facebook. And so I had no idea what Facebook's Gmail killer application would look like. That was the metaphor that had been making the rounds. Facebook is not calling it email. Facebook is calling it messaging.

Facebook Blog: See the Messages that Matter: Between mobile devices and the Internet we can be more connected today than ever before, but there is still a feeling that the technology can also act as a barrier between us. .... the next evolution of Messages ..... You shouldn't have to remember who prefers IM over email or worry about which technology to use. Simply choose their name and type a message. ..... All of your messages with someone will be together in one place, whether they are sent over chat, email or SMS. You can see everything you've discussed with each friend as a single conversation. ..... From "hey nice to meet you" to "do you want to get coffee sometime" to "our kids have soccer practice at 6 pm tonight." .... It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement...... Instead of having to worry about your email address getting out, you're now in control of who can actually reach you. ..... Relatively soon, we'll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other.

Facebook has not disappointed. The expectations were high. They have been met.

Facebook's Gmail Killer Email: The Expectation Is In The Air

Image via WikipediaThis day - Monday - is going to be all about Facebook's email service. It has been touted as the Gmail killer. That is a tall wall to climb. If they deliver, that will create a new wave for them.

I think they will present something that is pretty compelling. This is Facebook, after all. But as to how much of a departure from Gmail it will be, that is anyone's guess.

I personally am very glad that a company the size of Facebook is tackling the inbox. The inbox is so raw. And I hope this step by Facebook will make Google sit up a little. It has been lazy with Gmail.

Voice Is Not Dead, Dumb Voice Should Be

Image via Wikipedia

TechCrunch: The Phone Call Is Dead: Text is just easier.

I have a few different phone numbers. I think I have three. Does that mean I am a huge fan of the telephone? Hardly. The opposite is true.

I tried to cancel my Yahoo Messenger number. I think I did. And they billed me anyway. My bank filed a complaint on my behalf. They gave me a new debit card. But that transaction went through. Felt like Carol Bartz was balancing the Yahoo budget on my back.

What Gmail/Yahoo Mail/Hotmail Can Learn From Twitter

Image via WikipediaThis is a feature request.

When you get into compose mode - and that is a mindset, a killer mindset - you should have two options. One option would be that your message - no subject line allowed - would be limited to 140 characters. The upside would be the receiver would not have to click to read it. Your entire message could be read and replied to immediately from the inbox.