Overheard Online

The Internet today, is a lot like mail delivery in the 1800’s. Surprisingly, web services don’t have “flags”. Rather, applications are forced to “ping” Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, etc. every few minutes and ask “have any of our users done anything new?” These applications are literally checking to see if each virtual mailbox is empty/full every couple of minutes.
Redeye VC on Internet Applications

Sometimes it will be hard, or impossible, to discover simple models explaining huge collections of messy data taken from noisy, nonlinear phenomena. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Hypotheses aren’t simply useful tools in some potentially outmoded vision of science; they are the whole point. Theory is understanding, and understanding our world is what science is all about.
Cosmic Variance on Theory

So it turns out that what the public really trusts is whatever journalists tell them about science. This is why it is so important to do everything we can to support good science journalism, and to resist the temptation to contribute to poor efforts by overly sensationalizing our own work when speaking to journalists about it.
Cosmic Variance on Science Journalism

The recent flood of activity around data portability has stirred in me two reactions: keen interest and a distinct feeling of being underwhelmed. Having been in the data business since the early 90s, it’s clear to me that data portability is a non-solution to a non-problem, a storm in a teacup, an emperor with no clothes.
GigaOm on Data Portability

In the information business, experience is ultimately is your product. Ignore that, and you will be making decisions that at best, will amount to a huge amount of opportunity cost. Here’s hoping that as we move forward with DataPortability, the thinking of businesses can change. Locking down data is not how you make money; it’s the compelling experience you offer your consumers that is the true source of competitive advantage and ultimately, revenues.
Liako on Experience

If everyone had the same, high quality data, all of our products would be better for it. To this end, I think we should create a Wikipedia for data: a global database for all of these important data sources to which we all contribute and that anyone can use.
Bret Taylor on Data

Data mining and visualization tools reduce risk, make business more efficient and measurable. Great rewards will come to those who know how to dig into data and make sense of it all and can parse that into insights that help companies optimize the dollars they put online. Be that guy or gal.
Micro Persuasion on Data