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Facebook’s veto over what friends get to tell us
David Weinberger has a great op-ed on CNN.com titled “When is Facebook NOT messing with your head?” on the recent “psychological experiment” controversy. My feelings are exactly the same that he expresses: So, I’m upset about Facebook’s cavalier toying with our emotions, but I’m far more disturbed about what Facebook and other such sites do…
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Facebook: With 100% of potential customers, is total user sell-out next?
From Facebook’s most recent earnings statement: Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.23 billion as of December 31, 2013, an increase of 16% year over year. There are only 7.1 billion people on the planet. Some are babies, some are in jail, some illiterate, and some are Amish, and the like. Facebook’s customer reach is close to…
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Two unethical “business” models
It was pointed out to me that there are two more ways people make money, and that means there are two more “business” models of some kind. I didn’t list them in my original post as “business” models because, to me, they are so awful: 4. Take valuable things from others by force Bank robbery,…
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There are only Three Base Business Models
[Updated 2014-01-05: for completeness reasons, here are two more categories: 4) robbing people, and 5) taking advantage of people. In my book, they don’t qualify as “business” models because they are borderline or actually criminal, but they do exist.] If you put all business models into the following three buckets, suddenly all sorts of things…
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The “we-pretend-its-free-and-sell-you-out-behind-your-back-Web2.0-business model”
Silicon Valley goes through those phases. They are long enough that somehow, everybody seems to have forgotten that they are just the flavor du jour and will pass just like platform shoes and Milli Vanilli. For the past ten years, all that anybody can conceive of doing in startup land is this: we build a…