Scores of bloggers, lots of video blogging and 198 employees on Twitter help keep the company’s profile high and humanize the folks behind the shoe sales. Of all the different types of social media the company uses, none are as interesting as its use of Twitter. Twitter may sound cliche, but it’s not just about Twitter as one single service. Twitter is symbolic of rapid, short, synchronous and public conversations. Zappos has bitten off a big chunk of that paradigm.
ReadWriteWeb on Zappos
30 April 2008
I don’t understand how it works, but to watch a computer–literally watch it–read something in English, dissect what it’s about, translate it into a language that I don’t speak and having that other person say, `Wow, that’s incredible,’ to me, that’s magic.
Eric Schmidt on Translation
29 April 2008
Geeks are by far more influential than any other online contingency, except the big media. Geeks pass the puck from Twitter to blogs back to Twitter. Eventually it hits Techmeme, Saul Hansell at the Times takes notice and then the whole world knows.
Micro Persuasion on Geeks
The the Florida Legislature is considering a new specialty license plate drivers can order that explicitly promotes Christianity. The plate shows a Christian cross in front of a stained-glass window and says “I Believe.” Even better is the admission of the “I Believe” plate’s sponsor that he would oppose an atheistic “I Don’t Believe” version. Evidently, state promotion of religion is fine as long as it is your religion they are promoting.
Atheist Revolution on Promotion of Religion
Now, is that really fair? Or more importantly, is that really journalism? It seems that more journalists, in the effort to be the first to the press, are skipping the interviews of friends and families and turning more to finding out what they can on the web. The reason I ask if it’s fair: How many of you would like to have your legacy defined by what’s in your Facebook profile?
The Idea Shower on Online Legacy
28 April 2008
For if the doomsday predictions are fulfilled and the world does come to an end, then all the money in the world — even if it be in the form of gold coins or pieces of silver, stored in a locked chest in the most remote corner of the planet — would prove of no value, because there would be nothing left to buy or sell. Apocalyptic investors will miss great opportunities if there is no apocalypse, but ultimately they will end up with nothing when the apocalypse arrives. Heads or tails, they lose.
Peter Thiel on The Apocalypse
27 April 2008
While I understand why companies want to “protect their assets,” ultimately, online communities can be fickle and rebellious. They do not want to be owned. Trying to turn a community into a commodity is ultimately a recipe for failure.
Web Worker Daily on Communities
The web2.0 era is far from over – the recent global recession however has flagged though that the pioneers of the industry are looking for something new. As the mainstream is rejuvenated by web2.0 like the Valley was not too long ago, it’s time to now look for what the next big thing will be. Innovation on the web apparently flattening. Perhaps it has – but the seeds of the next generation of innovation the web are already here.
Liako on Web 2.0
26 April 2008
This is a truth of the Internet: When traffic comes to your site without focused intent, it bounces.
Seth Godin on Traffic
Saying “Rails doesn’t scale” is like saying “my car doesn’t go infinitely fast”. Alternatively, saying “We’ll have no problems scaling because we’re using Django” is like saying “I will win every race because my car is the most powerful”. Maybe so, but you suck at driving, and you’re up against professionals.
If you’re having scalability problems and blaming it on a single technology, chances are, you’re doing it wrong.
Ted Dziuba on Scaling