The Rise of the Asset-Light Generation

Every year, Mary “Queen of the Net” Meeker releases her must-read “State of the Internet” report, gleaning insight from predominant internet trends, with almost prescient accuracy. In this year’s presentation, one of the major themes she identifies is the rise of the “sharing economy” or as Mary calls it, a shift to an “Asset-Light Generation.” A simple translation …

Third Industrial Revolution – led by renewable energy and the internet

Jeremy Rifkin is a renowned economist on the environment, author, and advisor to the European Union. And he has a theory about the next great movement of the world – The Third Industrial Revolution. From Omega: The great economic revolutions in history occur when new communication technologies converge with new energy systems. New energy revolutions …

Is there sugar in toothpaste?

There can’t be sugar in toothpaste. The dentists wouldn’t allow it. Indeed, the American Dental Association (ADA) says: No ADA-Accepted toothpaste contains sugar or any other ingredient that would promote tooth decay. But notice the qualification, “or any other ingredient.” This refers to sweeteners and toothpaste does contain sweeteners. From the preceding sentence, toothpaste includes: …

Summary of Matt Mullenweg’s – State of the Word 2012

In early August, 2012, Matt Mullenweg delivered his sixth State of the Word, giving us an update on all things WordPress. An interesting talk because WordPress is the dominate platform for bloggers, it powers 17% of the internet, and is the software I use for this blog. Unfortunately, there are no summaries of the talk, …

Inside Barack Obama’s visit to Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything”

Peter Kafka got a chance to ask Reddit founder, Alexis Ohanian, “How Reddit Got Obama”: There’s not a lot to it. I’ve gotten to know quite a few folks in the WH & Obama campaign team over the years and it was always something I brought up when I got the chance. There are quite …

“Text 62262 to contribute $10 to Obama” – both campaigns launch donations by text message

If you want to be a politician then you have to get online. Not just with a website but a million social media personalities and a smartphone app. To put it another way, you have to be cutting edge. It’s no surprise, then, that the Obama campaign is open to accepting donations via text message: …

Google Chrome now owns the internet – most popular web browser in the world

The Next Web is covering the massive rise of Google’s web browser, Chrome:   Remember when Google’s Chrome browser overtook Internet Explorer as the world’s most popular browser for a week back in May? And next, for a full calendar month?   Now, it’s on top and looking to stay…   For July 2012, StatCounter pegged Chrome’s global …

How change.org was turned into the internets biggest tool for social change

“The idea was to build every possible tool for nonprofits, social fundraising, skills based volunteerism, a blog network…really big, unobtainable objectives,” said Ben Rattray who, at 22-years-old, founded Change.org. “We failed.” Rather than giving up, he pivoted. Instead of attempting to provide every technological service to anyone trying to make an impact, the business narrowed …

People are pulling the plug on cable television by the hundreds of thousands

People are pulling the plug on cable television by the hundreds of thousands. Comcast’s Q2 2012 earnings show the cable company is relying heavily on its high-speed Internet service subscribers. Though the cable giant reports a total Q2 increase in customers of 138,000; the cable company also lost a massive 395,000 television subscribers in the last year. …

As Digg rebuilds – thinks differently & innovates by scoring all shares – tweets, likes, and diggs

The early Digg was brilliant and honest and democratic. Each digg was a vote and each vote counted towards the ultimate objective: moving a story closer and closer to the top position on the Digg homepage. Today, we vote on Facebook with every share and on Twitter with every tweet, and conversations take place across …