-
Way back in 2008, when the iPhone was new and Instagram was a gleam in Kevin Systrom's eye, I was involved in creating a service called CrowdFire. It was a way for fans at a festival (the first was Outside Lands) to share photos, tweets, and texts in a location and event specific way.
John Battelle -
As the border between physical and digital gets more permeable, a new kind of literacy emerges. And that literacy is built on a foundation of code - whether it's the codes of letters and words, or the code of bits and algorithms.
John Battelle
-
I have done a pretty good job of partitioning my life digitally, posting utterances and stories that I'm happy to share with anyone on Twitter, leaving a few sparse comments and 'Likes' on Facebook (I'm not a huge user of the service, I'll be honest), and sending any number of photos to thousands of 'followers' on Instagram and Tumblr.
John Battelle -
Building out a professional profile on LinkedIn certainly makes sense, and bolstering that CV with intelligent pieces of writing is also a great idea. But if you're going to take the time to create content, you should also take the time to create a home for that content that is yours and yours alone.
John Battelle -
The smart phone isn't a perfect device, as we all know. It forces the world into a tiny screen. It runs out of battery, bandwidth, and power. It distracts us from the world around us.
John Battelle -
I think Facebook is an extraordinarily important part of the Internet ecosystem, and having a robust presence there is a critical part of any brand (or company's) strategy.
John Battelle -
Ideally, content should be shared, mixed, mashed, and reposted - it wants to flow through the Internet like water. This was the point of RSS, after all - a technology that has actually been declared dead more often than the lowly display banner.
John Battelle -
An elaborate system of etiquette and social standards flowered around the home phone: how long a child might be allowed to stay on the phone, how late one could call without being impolite, and of course, the dread implications of a late night call which violated that norm.
John Battelle
-
You happily give Facebook terabytes of structured data about yourself, content with the implicit tradeoff that Facebook is going to give you a social service that makes your life better.
John Battelle -
It seems there is no area in our culture that is not touched, changed, even swallowed by the Internet. It's both medium and message, mass and personal, social and solitary.
John Battelle -
Every good story needs a hero. Back when I wrote 'The Search,' that hero was Google - the book wasn't about Google alone, but Google's narrative worked to drive the entire story.
John Battelle -
Google is a global Rorschach test. We see in it what we want to see. Google has built an infrastructure that makes a lot of dreams closer to reality.
John Battelle -
I found the iPad to be too large and heavy to use comfortably in casual situations (like reading in bed, for example), and too limited to use as a replacement for my laptop. By comparison, the Nexus 7 is just the right size for use anywhere - it's very similar in size to my daughter's Kindle Fire, but lighter.
John Battelle -
Google Now supplants the need to open an app by surfacing cards - cards that magically turn into just the information you need, when you need it - without having to go to an app to get it.
John Battelle
-
I've always liked the fact that anyone with a great idea, access to the Internet, and an unrelenting will can spark a world-beating company simply by standing up code on the Internet and/or leveraging the information and relationship network that is the web. That's how Facebook started, after all.
John Battelle -
'The Victorian Internet' is a must read for anyone interested in the history of technology and in the cycles of hype, boom, and bust that seem to only quicken with each new wave of innovation. Highly recommended.
John Battelle -
When good media takes a bounded form, and comes once in a period of time, it begs to be consumed as a whole - it creates an engaging experience. We don't dip in and out of an episode of 'Game of Thrones,' after all - we take it in as a whole. Why have we abandoned this concept when it comes to publications, simply because they exist online?
John Battelle -
Facebook's data trove is enviable, and its moves into nearly every aspect of our lives - from payment to media, will create even more of it. The company also has created a huge base of developers for its platform, but the ecosystem is incomplete compared to vertically integrated OSes like iOS, Mac or Windows.
John Battelle -
In conversation marketing, you're providing a service, a continuing dialogue whose course through the Web is unknown. The more value it adds to the ecosystem, the more it will be shared, amplified and celebrated.
John Battelle -
Search is now more than a web destination and a few words plugged into a box. Search is a mode, a method of interaction with the physical and virtual worlds. What is Siri but search? What are apps like Yelp or Foursquare, but structured search machines? Search has become embedded into everything and has reached well beyond its web-based roots.
John Battelle
-
When you use Facebook, you're always logged in, and your identity and relationships - to others, to content, to apps and services - are assets Facebook can use to customize your experience (oh, and your ads).
John Battelle -
Where one industry stumbles, another rises up.
John Battelle -
There's a reason publishers don't build on top of social platforms: publishers are an independent lot, and they naturally understand the value of owning your own domain. Publishers don't want to be beholden to the shifting sands of inscrutable platform policies.
John Battelle -
Just as like the music industry still wishes for the days when it controlled its own production and distribution, the media and marketing world still yearns for the silver bullet of the thirty-second spot on 'Seinfeld,' even as it knows those days are over.
John Battelle