Midas: The Methodology - Forbes.com. Proverbs of St. McLuhan. Marshall McLuhan famously dictated much of his “writings” — his literacy began in orality — an irony that was part of his message about the new media. He would lie on a couch in his office and channel some oracle from the future while his students scribbled down his announcements. For this reason, no one really needs to read McLuhan. Much better to hear his quotes second hand or just scan his blurbs and proverbs. McLuhan was very religious, his variety being Catholic. Highlights from Understanding Media * Man the food-gatherer reappears incongruously as information-gatherer. . * Everybody experiences far more than he understands. . * It is a principal aspect of the electric age that it establishes a global network that has much of the character of our central nervous system. * Electric speed mingles the cultures of prehistory with the dregs of industrial marketeers, the nonliterate with the semiliterate and the postliterate.
. * Each new technology turns its predecessor into an art form. Another Internet bubble is coming Therese Poletti's Tech Tales. By Therese Poletti, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investors have been singing the same song for the last few years: “we really learned last time,” “it’s different now,” and “you don’t need that much money to start up a company anymore.”
Sure, many in this wave of Internet companies have had a relentless focus on costs and are becoming profitable. But it’s been pretty clear based on the skyrocketing valuations of some companies (I’m looking at you, Facebook and Groupon) that we have been seeing the beginnings of a major Internet or social media bubble, even if it is a pre-IPO one. Google bids for Nortel patents Google has bid $900 million for the broad patent portfolio held by bankrupt Canadian telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks, in an attempt to shield itself from current and future patent litigation.
Simon Constable and Spencer Ante discuss. The news about Color’s funding was more of a jolt. Paul Allen slams Bill Gates in memoir. Borrell Report: Who will benefit as local ad spending nearly doubles online in next few years? Hard on the heels of last month’s State of the News Media 2011 report comes consultant Gordon Borrell’s annual benchmarking of local online audience and advertising. The Borrell Associates report, issued late last week, has at least three hot headlines.
“Pure-play” Internet companies like Craigslist and Monster have stopped growing share of market. This will come as welcome news to newspaper companies and broadcasters, who watched the pure-play’s Internet advertising share grow from virtually nothing in 2000 to 48 percent last year. Borrell attributes the leveling off to weaker companies folding during the recession, some churn among advertisers, and newspapers and broadcasters successfully partnering with the thriving digital-only companies.
If Borrell is right, this marks a third phase in how newspapers have fared in the digital era. Earlier on they held share, growing as quickly or more quickly than the total local online advertising pie. There are interesting exceptions, however. Twitter’s new search favors Groupon’s many accounts over local media organization accounts. Unveiled this week, Twitter’s newly upgraded search engine promises to deliver more relevant “who to follow” suggestions for users.
But in my examination, the results appeared inconsistent, if not biased, when searching for the best Twitter sources in specific U.S. cities. For example, when testing the new feature using 20 different city names as search terms, Groupon placed near the top of the new recommendations with amazing consistency given its relatively modest popularity and influence on Twitter.
By comparison, many accounts owned by major media organizations often did not rank as high in the search results, despite having significantly larger and engaged audiences. The results raise questions about the criteria Twitter is using to rank recommended accounts, and what — if any — optimizations media companies can implement to improve their search rankings. Twitter improves its user recommendations The social network announced its improved search tool on Monday. The 5 Models Of Content Curation. Curation has always been an underrated form of creation. The Getty Center in Los Angeles is one of the most frequently visited museums in America – and started as a private art collection from one man (J. Paul Getty) who had a passion for art. Aside from a few well known examples like this one, however, the term curation has rarely been used outside of the world of art … until now.
One of the hottest trends in social media right now is content curation – thanks in no small part to the leading efforts of several thought leaders actively promoting the idea. Joe Pulizzi is a “content marketing evangelist” who speaks and writes often about content marketing publishes a list of the best content marketing blogs across the web. Steve Rosenbaum just published a book called Curation Nation looking at the rise of content curation in the business world – and a recent post on the Psychology Today blog even declared that “content curation is the new black.” What Is Content Curation?
Silicon Valley experiencing new hiring boom. Stanford's Marty Hu has turned down interview requests from big tech companies to launch his own startup. Silicon Valley companies are again competing to hire the best young computer scientists The valley produced 1,200 jobs last month, and thousands more openings are expected Companies like Facebook and Google are expanding their workforces in 2011 (CNN) -- When Marty Hu graduates from Stanford University's computer science program in June, he'll enter the hottest Silicon Valley job market for software engineers since the dot.com crash a decade ago. In fact, times are so good that Hu, 21, turned down interview requests from several blue-chip companies, including Google and Microsoft.
"At this point, I've sort of taken it [the interest from tech firms] for granted," Hu said. Instead of joining an established company, Hu, who still gets weekly invitations for interviews from would-be employers, has opted to launch his own company. "No question, the seeds of a turnaround are in place. Insider Trading in Silicon Valley. Over the weekend I got several inquiries from people challenging my interpretation of securities laws to apply to these trades.
"Confused @carney, how can there be an insider trading issue in the Valley if everyone buying is basically an insider? " venture capitalist and serial online entrepreneur Jason Calacanis asked over Twitter. (His handle is @jason.) Calacanis went on two make two more arguments that insiders in Silicon Valley should be exempt from insider trading rules.
"Only insiders r selling on private markets—person buying knows seller has more information by definition but r buying anyway right @carney? " Let me say that both of these are short-hand versions of some very persuasive arguments against insider trading rules, at least when employed against sophisticated investors trading with each other. But this is not the state of the law. Arguing that insider trading rules shouldn't apply because investors are sophisticated is like arguing that you drive better when drunk. Real-Time News Curation | Scoop.it. Rickwebb's tumblrmajig (On The Bubble)