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  • Verizon-AOL, Facebook Instant Articles, and the Future of Digital Advertising

    Two seemingly unrelated stores — Verizon buying AOL. and Facebook offering publishers the option of Instant Articles — are actually very much connected: advertising online is undergoing a fundamental shift, and while there will be a few big winners, there will be a lot more losers.

  • The AWS IPO

    AWS has long been a question mark when it comes to Amazon: it’s a good idea, and it makes money, but like it’s parent company, will it ever be profitable? The revelation that AWS is already very profitable indeed is a really big deal both for AWS but also for Amazon itself.

  • Twitter Needs New Leadership

    Yesterday Twitter released very disappointing quarterly results, with misses on both user and revenue growth. From the Wall Street Journal: Twitter Inc. delivered its weakest quarterly revenue growth as a publicly traded company, casting a shadow on its fledgling advertising business, which until now has been a consistent bright spot. Investors, who sent the company’s […]

  • Facebook and the Feed

    In a week where much of the Internet was all atwitter about Mobilegeddon, Google’s pre-announced algorithm change that will favor mobile-friendly sites in mobile search results, a potentially far more impactful announcement was much more of a surprise: Facebook is tweaking the News Feed algorithm. This is a big deal for publishers in particular: according […]

  • Twitter and What Might Have Been

    Twitter’s blog is generally a cheery place, with one big exception from 2012: the innocuously named Changes Coming in Version 1.1 of the Twitter API, and in particular, the section called “Changes to the Developer Rules of the Road” that attempted to put the kibosh on 3rd-party Twitter clients:1 If you are building a Twitter […]

  • It’s Not 1999

    The question of whether or not we are in a tech bubble has been raised regularly for years now; 2012, particularly Facebook’s acquisition of an app1 called Instagram for a ridiculous2 $1 billion, was a particular high point. The fact that Instagram is now valued at $35 billion suggests the 2012 doomsayers were just a […]

  • Tidal and the Future of Music

    Predicting success and failure is about understanding who has leverage. In the case of music, the winners will be the labels, not the artist. But perhaps there is hope for tomorrow

  • The Facebook Reckoning

    Publishers are wringing their hands about whether or not to utilize Facebook’s Instant Articles, but the truth is most have no choice

  • The Changing — and Unchanging — Structure of TV

    The way we get TV may be changing, but the importance and defensibility of great content will persist

  • How Apple Will Make the Wearable Market

    Last fall, Apple CEO Tim Cook described the Apple Watch as the “next chapter” in Apple’s history, placing it at the same level as the Mac, iPhone and iPod. I get the sense that a lot of people don’t believe him; they just don’t see the need for a wearable. There is ample precedent for […]