NFTs are useful not simply because they are unique, but because they are an easy-to-understand way to understand the importance of blockchains.
Ben Thompson
Google Makes Deal With News Corp, Facebook Blocks News in Australia, Microsoft’s Cynicism
Google gives in in Australia, not to the government, but to News Corp. Facebook, meanwhile, pulls out; they are right on the merits, but terrible at the politics.
Ben Thompson on the Good Time Clubhouse Show
A recording of Ben Thompson on Good Time, February 16, 2021
Clubhouse and AirPods; Twitter, Meerkat, and Clubhouse; Clubhouse Monetization
More on Clubhouse, including the importance of AirPods, why it is different than Meerkat, conflict between privacy and competition, and monetization options.
Clubhouse’s Inevitability
Clubhouse will do for audio what Twitter, Instagram Stories, and TikTok did for text, images, and video.
Mistakes, Memes, and Foreign Ground; Coronavirus Context; The New York Times and the China Model
Considering a world of memes is uncomfortable, and perhaps explains why journalists want a world of information control. The problem is that we will never be better at this than China.
Mistakes and Memes
Information on the Internet is conveyed by memes, which can be anything and everything. The real world impacts are only now being understood.
Google Earnings, Google’s Response to ATT, Google Cloud Losses
Google’s earnings were impressive, but the company should disclose even more. Meanwhile, the problem with following Apple’s lead on ATT is it’s anticompetitive.
An Interview with Eric Seufert about Apple, Facebook, and Mobile Advertising
A quick rumination on where Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs were similar, and then an interview with Eric Seufert about mobile advertising and the dispute between Apple and Facebook.
The Relentless Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is retiring, and will go down as one of the great CEO’s in tech history, in part because of how he transformed Amazon into a tech company in every respect.