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Jul 18

“MERCHANT and pirate were for a long period one and the same person,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. “Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.” Companies, of course, would strongly disagree with this suggestion. Piracy is generally bad for business. It can undermine sales of legitimate products, deprive a company of its valuable intellectual property and tarnish its brand. Commercial piracy may not be as horrific as the seaborne version off the Horn of Africa (see article). But stealing other people’s R&D, artistic endeavour or even journalism is still theft.” Piracy | Look for the silver lining | Economist.com

Jul 18

“But Facebook’s ick factor in the executive suite might have as much to do with its shiny, happy world of “friendship” as with security. “There’s almost an inverse relationship between seriousness and how much you participate in social networking,” says ReputationDefender’s Fertik, laughing. That basically nails it: Facebook is simply unserious—particularly given how it prompts hard-driving business executives to regress into adolescent vernacular. “Poking” people, requesting “friends,” writing on someone’s “wall”: It’s cute when you’re in high school or college. But in a corporate environment, it sounds disingenuous and downright silly.” Facebook: Too Creepy, Childish for the Workplace

Jul 18

Organic information visualization

Visualizing the commit history of the Apache webserver project - done by Michael Ogawa at UC Davis (via Vimeo)

“This visualization, called code_swarm, shows the history of commits in a software project. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to the code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. Both developers and files are represented as moving elements. When a developer commits a file, it lights up and flies towards that developer. Files are colored according to their purpose, such as whether they are source code or a document. If files or developers have not been active for a while, they will fade away. A histogram at the bottom keeps a reminder of what has come before.”

Jul 18

TECHNOLOGY; Knowing Their Politics by Their Software - New York Times

An older article, but deserving a reprise in this US election season…

Jul 18

“Listening to Google’s executives on their conference call with investors Thursday afternoon, you’d never know that the company’s second-quarter results fell short of expectations and its shares plummeted 10 percent in after-hours trading. Since Google has chosen, as a matter of principle, not to offer any guidance in advance about what its sales and profits will be, it avoids any embarrassing questions if it misses its own marks. So Eric Schmidt, and other executives, blithely insisted that all was well. Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, said that while the company sees a bit of softness in ads for areas like auto lenders and real estate agents, other areas that might be economically sensitive are holding up, such as ads for home appliances. He suggested that Google is benefiting because shoppers look to the Internet for bargains.” Google Deliberately Sells Fewer Ads And May Have Gone Too Far - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Jul 17

“On Saturday  12th July, between 5.30am and 9.30am, at least 60,000 passengers who swiped their Oyster Card, Transport for London’s pre-payment system, had them corrupted.  To avoid rush hour chaos on Monday, bus and tube commuters travelled for free if  their cards registered an error.” Ian Angell and Ash Khanna: No Pearls in this Oyster

Jul 17

Social networking sites search for right revenue model - Marketing Week

Jul 16

50 Things Marketers Will Ignore About Social Media

Jul 16

Ethiopian proverb on strategy

“When the great lord passes, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts…”

Jul 16

“Facing competition from a new and faster iPhone from Apple Inc., Research in Motion Ltd. is launching a campaign to try and broaden the appeal of the BlackBerry hand-held device beyond business users. RIM told its annual meeting this year that it wants to change the perception of its brand to deliver the message that BlackBerrys are for more than just work. The move follows lower than expected first-quarter earnings which caused shares to slump by 12 per cent in one day last month.” globeandmail.com: BlackBerry for more than just work: RIM

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