Sunday, May 01, 2011

Chris Dixon Kind Of Person

Caterina, Chris and meImage by Zach Klein via FlickrThere Are Two Kinds Of People In The World

This blog post by Chris Dixon has been making the rounds of the blogosphere. It has generated many comments at the blog itself. I happened to see the post soon after it came out, and I was the first or second person to leave a comment. I returned a few hours later, and there were already close to 100 comments. Obviously the post had sparked something.

Future Of The Internet: Easy, Says Dixon

One of my favorite Chris Dixon posts is equally short, it is one where Chris is relaying as to how the Internet stands to transform anything and everything.

Superfluidity

Acrylic Fluid ArtImage by markchadwickart via Flickr
CNN: 4 trends shaping the emerging "superfluid" economy: A new paradigm is emerging, where everything is increasingly connected and the nature of collaboration, business and work are all being reshaped. ..... Transactions and interactions are growing faster and more frictionless, giving birth to what I call a "superfluid" economy. ...... Our devices are becoming smaller yet more powerful. Cost continues to drop. ..... Whereas a guru might advise “Know thyself,” a technologist might suggest “Quantify thyself.” ....... Technology tackles the challenge of self knowledge through the pursuit of full-systems quantification - creating a simulation and map of everything. ...... our preferences, buying behaviors and social connections .... financial histories and medical records. ...... making previously invisible information transparent means it can be quantified and measured, so economic value can be tied to it. ..... data can be converted to become a useful tool for crisis mapping and visualizing real-time information ..... Supply chains can be mapped to help us assess the carbon footprint of the products we purchase ...... an initiative to map the real-time statistics of the entire planet, dubbed the Earth Dashboard. .... close to a billion smart phones will be shipped worldwide by 2015. ...... the financial and infrastructural challenges of laying down cables will be leapfrogged as these places transition directly to a wireless web via mobile devices ...... the ‘unbanked’ are being brought into financial inclusion through innovative services like M-PESA that enable the transfer of money via mobile phones. ..... within a few short years, we may see billions more people connected to the internet and capable of participating in economic transactions ...... Comments, Facebook likes, recommendations, and reviews all contribute to the growing layer of social metrics that reveal general perception around brands, people, events, issues and topics of interest. Not only could this alter the way democracy works by gathering real-time sentiment and developing positive feedback loops for improving civil society, it also shifts the way people make decisions about purchases or lifestyle behaviors. ....... hundreds of peer-to-peer marketplaces that are springing up around the world ...... As money and exchange increasingly go digital, our assumptions about what “currency” means are also being challenged. ...... When the tools are in place to allow individuals or groups within a local area to easily exchange value without using traditional/centralized currency, it’s reasonable to expect a serious challenge to the ingrained public perception of money. ...... It is not necessary to abandon every time-tested practice and jump headfirst into something radically new. But, it is wise to integrate new approaches as a sort of hybrid “coopetition” - going from push to pull, defining a new capitalism, and welcoming “social” as a 21st century strategy. ...... Wealth is not just a number on a financial statement, but rather a celebration of sustainable and resilient communities, a clean environment and an educated and informed society.
A Social Graph For When Everyone Is Connected

Is Location The Fifth Dimension?

Cover of "A Brief History of Time"Cover of A Brief History of TimeThe SimpleGeo Promise

I put out this blog post earlier. And I have been thinking. Your laptop screen is 2D. Your smartphone screen is 2D. But Twitter and Facebook happened before FourSquare happened. The time dimension got added before location ever became a factor. Length and width were the first two dimensions. The third dimension was not spatial, it was time, chronologically speaking, pun intended.

But if you go into 3D computing, the third dimension is not location. Easy math, that would make location the fifth dimension of web tech.

That makes it really, really interesting to me. Location has several sub dimensions. Location can be local, it can be global. Local can be hyperlocal with all its associated richness. When you move from local to hyperlocal, that starts feeling like fractal territory all over again. Blows my mind.

Jazz And Rock Fusion From Nepal

Mutual Friends: Cindy Gallop



Mike Arrington And I: Close
Mike Arrington Liked My Comment

After I got a friend request from her on Facebook, I googled her up for the first time. Interesting. :-)

My Morning Jacket: Holdin On To Black Metal



(Via Kirk Love)

The SimpleGeo Promise

Image representing SimpleGeo as depicted in Cr...Image via CrunchBaseBefore Einstein the world was 3D. There were the three dimensions of space: length, breadth, height, the usual suspects. You could argue Euclid's world was 2D. Well, old man Einstein came along, and added the time dimension to the equation. And that had huge implications, humongous huge.

I think that whole metaphor is a great way to try to understand contemporary web tech. I just read the name SimpleGeo in a tweet and I saw its promise. I had heard of it before, I think I might even have read a TechCrunch article on it months back.

The Daktaris: Super Afrobeat



(Via Whitney McNamara)

Soundtracking May 1 Trending