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Young Boys Network

Secondo il New York Times dietro il successo di Instagram c'è tutta la potenzialità di relazioni che si è sviluppata tra Stanford, San Francisco e la Silicon Valley.

The extraordinary success of Instagram is a tale about the culture of the Bay Area tech scene, driven by a tightly woven web of entrepreneurs and investors who nurture one another’s projects with money, advice and introductions to the right people. By and large, it is a network of young men, many who attended Stanford and had the attention of the world’s biggest venture capitalists before they even left campus. Among this set, risk-taking is regarded as a badge of honor. Ideas are disposable: if one doesn’t work, you quickly move on to another. Timing matters. You make your own luck.

New York Times

 

Zuckerberg e le quattro foto da 250 milioni di dollari

Nick Bilton ci informa che Mark Zuckerberg ha postato ben 4 foto su Instagram dall'ottobre del 2010. Ma chiaramente quello che gli interessa sono i dati degli utenti. I quali, però, non l'hanno presa benissimo, come nota Bilton e come dice Mashable: solo il 12% dei commenti sono positivi. 

Some Instagram users embraced Mr. Zuckerberg, congratulating him on the acquisition and welcoming him back to the service after he had not shared a photo in 43 weeks. Others took the opportunity to voice their dismay about the deal and share fears that Instagram will be destroyed by the social media giant.

Intanto CNet si chiede se lo scarso entusiasmo per l'acquisizione sia dovuto alla differenza d'età tra gli utilizzatori di Instagram (più giovani) e quelli di Facebook (più vecchi). Quello che è certo è che per gli sviluppatori di app che mescolano smartphone e fotografia è una bonanza: la prossima preda sarà Path?

New York Times, Mashable. CNet, New York Times

 

 

Check First, Tweet Later

Il New York Times oggi racconta la storia della diffusione di una falsa notizia: l'imminente indagine giudiziaria su Nikki Haley, la governatrice della South Carolina. 

It took only two minutes. An unfounded report on a little-known blog claiming that Gov. Nikki R. Haley was about to be indicted rocketed from South Carolina political circles into national circulation, along the way becoming the latest lesson in the perils of an instantaneous news culture.

Il problema non è Twitter, ma il nowism, cioè la fortissima pressione che spinge a pubblicare una notizia ancora prima di averla verificata, soprattutto se viene da una fonte non esattamente ufficiale e senza una grossa storia di credibilità alle spalle come Logan Smith, l'editor  di Palmetto Public Record, il blog che per primo ha dato la falsa notizia.

But journalists from news outlets that reposted Mr. Smith’s report on Twitter — including establishments old and venerable (The Washington Post, CBS News) as well as new and widely read (The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed) — had no way of knowing that in the minutes after it went online, and did not stop to check first.

New York Times

 

 

Una instagram da un un miliardo di dollari

Facebook ha comperato Instagram per un miliardo di dollari (pagati in parte in azioni, però). Lo ha annunciato Mark Zuckerberg su Facebook.

Wall Street Journal, New York Times

 

The Hacker Way

La lettera di Mark Zuckerberg  che accompagna i documenti inviati alla SEC per l'IPO di Facebook è piena di buoni propositi - e Nicholas Carr fa un po' di sarcasmo sulla natura filantropica dello zuckerberg-pensiero -, ma è anche (a mia conoscenza) il primo documento in cui una big corporation  (anche se atipica) da 75 miliardi di dollari di capitalizzazione (a stare stretti) abbraccia la cultura hacker come politica aziendale. (ecco la lettera commentata da Tim Carmody su Wired USA)

The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo. Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook. We have the words “Done is better than perfect” painted on our walls to remind ourselves to always keep shipping. Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works. There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: “Code wins arguments.” Hacker culture is also extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that the best idea and implementation should always win — not the person who is best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people. To encourage this approach, every few months we have a hackathon, where everyone builds prototypes for new ideas they have. At the end, the whole team gets together and looks at everything that has been built. Many of our most successful products came out of hackathons, including Timeline, chat, video, our mobile development framework and some of our most important infrastructure like the HipHop compiler.

Rought Type, Epicenter (Wired USA)

 

Rupert Murdoch, i tweet che non ha scritto

Robert Shrimsley sul Financial Times ha scritto i tweet che @rupertmurdoch avrebbe dovuto scrivere.

@rupertmurdoch #followfriday @stevecoogan @hughgrant @siennamiller @princewilliam @thedowlers

@rupertmurdoch #followsaturday @stevecoogan @hughgrant @siennamiller @princewilliam maybe not @thedowlers

@rupertmurdoch notice people are retweeting my words without paying for them. this is theft. must start charging for tweets.

Financial Times

 

Jesus is trending on Twitter right now

 

Louis C. K. ci spiega cosa non va nella nostra ossessione per Twitter.

Conan via Gizmodo

«Today’s creepy is tomorrow’s necessity»

Sean Parker, intervistato da John Battelle,  parla con la consueta ruvidezza della politica riguardo alla privacy di Facebook. Secondo lui, comunque, il problema è che la gente che usa veramente i social media sta lasciando FB per Twitter e - udite, udite! - Google Plus.

“The threat to Facebook is that power users have gone to Twitter or Google+,” Parker told the Web 2.0 Summit — because, he says, Facebook isn’t giving them enough ways to manage a glut of information. [...] Battelle continued on the Facebook line, asking Parker what he thinks of the argument that Facebook is perceived as being a “little creepy.” After attempting to dodge the question — and pointing out that he is a major Facebook shareholder — Parker offered this immortal answer. “Look: there’s good creepy and there’s bad creepy,” he said. “Today’s creepy is tomorrow’s necessity.”

Mashable