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New York, 4:59 AM
Fri Nov 27
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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05/07/09
Why was there no liveblog of the Hans Reiser trial? Why is no attention paid to the utter hilarity of the Ruby on Rails "community"? (Pound for pound, Rails blogs have replaced LKML for the highest density of quotable insanity in the programming world. Even TechCrunch knows this.)
Owen's problem was the he saw himself as an analyst, rather than an anarchist. It was a problem for two reasons. First, the 'insider' approach is at odds with everything Gawker has ever done successfully. But more importantly, Owen doesn't know anything. He's divorced from both the technical realities that frequently influence business decisions in the Valley, and from the madness of the engineering community.
Because that is where the meat falls off the bone: it's not in the comings and goings of a couple of mid-level Valley execs (which are amply covered by about 900 other media outlets), but rather in the engineering teams and the mid-level management. These are the dark places; where a multi-billion dollar industry is built on the backs of talented but basically crazy people:
- Smart engineers who have been Peter Principled into management positions where they are no longer effective
- Open source projects who have "rejected" traditional industry power structures by replacing them with even more byzantine social constructions of their own devising
- Fairly gross, persistently male-dominated communities that don't understand where all the women went
- A narcissistic toy culture which is different in focus, but not degree, from that of the Manhattan elite
There is material enough for a dozen weblogs, if anyone had the gumption (and the sources) to make it happen. So best wishes to Owen, and best of luck to Ryan Tate. The Valley desperately needs a better 'Wag. We deserve the abuse.
05/07/09
05/07/09
Are we living in the same country? When was the last time you heard of these so-called "antitrust cops" that are out their somewhere riding into battle on their unicorns looking askance at anything?
Oh, wait. The Whole Foods takeover of Wild Oats Markets. Thank god the Feds took a hard line with that one. Excessive consolidation in the hippie/yuppie grocery sector posed a serious threat to our economy.
05/07/09
Didn't the Gov lose that battle with Wholefoods?
Also, is mobile search a market in and of itself; is it that different from regular search that it needs separate protection?
05/11/09
05/07/09
05/07/09
05/07/09
Where there's profits, there's opportunity for others. Cutting down the top company, in my mind, is not right.
05/07/09
Though I'm hard-pressed to see where the losses from abuse of monopoly power are in Google's case.
04/04/09
04/03/09
She needs a retreat, and try to figure out why she is trying to be what she "thinks" is an ideal image, and just find her true self, and learn to be comfortable in her skin. Her natural self, is probably much more beautiful, than this visual costume she is perpetrating.
I think every woman goes through this for however long a phase in their life. But nothing feels better, than just being your self.
04/04/09
04/03/09
04/03/09
04/03/09
give it up! you'll not be getting the prom queen!
04/04/09
04/03/09
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03/24/09
Obviously it would matter to its employees and its stock holders, but really... Unless I'm missing something, what would it matter to the US economy if a bunch of free software, webmail and the G1 simply vanished?
I guess I would be upset about gmail, but I could always just use another search engine...
What about them is so important that failure matters to the country as a whole?
And, seriously, even if there is an argument for this; to compare them to banks that have gotten to big to be allowed to fail is impossibly absurd.
03/24/09
03/24/09
03/24/09
I admit that I do not trust anyone, but I do not know enough to know whether the experts are wrong. Until I do, I guess I have to assume that there is some truth in what they are saying, and we probably need to give someone the tools to determine whether a company is too big and make a change.
That said, the question for technology companies is not whether Google is too big, but perhaps whether Microsoft is too big, or potentially Apple is too big. As others have said, Google is nothing more than an advertising company. Microsoft and Apple are something entirely different. Microsoft is simply huge and their software divisions make it difficult for other companies to play on their turf. Apple, while much smaller, does not allow anyone to play on their turf unless they have personally approved it. Those companies are much more questionable than Google.