It's more than 15 years since I wrote the posts below, retrieved today because Barry Wellman isn't well. I had a conversation with his beloved wife Bev, who is at his side, and found myself wondering just when it was that we first met. To my astonishment I see that I recorded it - in a
When Robert Plotkin, our IP lawyer, came to my office and tried to explain this to me a few years ago, I got the gist but still found it hard to explain the concept to someone else. Now the book he came to get my advice about is a reality, and this review of The Genie
International news can seem unreal, disembodied, and that's so often the problem with online communications. But here's Twitter responding to the campaign to stop them doing maintenance tonight: Down Time Rescheduled A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for
There are many extraordinary and important aspects of what is going on, online and off, in Iran and in coverage of the Iranian election. The most striking thing, though, is how differently things appear--because of the content itself and the way stories are told--when I flip between mainstream media and the interactive online world. My kids
It's not an attractive thing, I-told-you-so-ism. And the joy of being proved right by an academic study ("and it took $100,000 to prove X Y or Z, when anyone with an ounce of common sense could have told you!") is usually dimmed by thinking about the good things one could have done with a similar amount
I don't know what to think about all the middle-aged people, almost all men, who are great enthusiastists for iPhones and Twitter and Plaxo and LinkedIn and even Facebook. It's a little embarrassing, especially since middle age lasts a LONG time these days. Especially when I know what at least some kids think about it. One
My friend Isaac Mao suggested I make a special offer of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of China via Twitter. Dell is apparently doing this and, heck, what's to stop a tiny reference publisher from doing the same? Creating the first big general audience Encyclopedia of China to be outside China itself took so much chutzpah -- or
Can this be true, that Google would print and ship to me all the mail -- junk, copies, spam, and obsolete - that I use its copious storage for? The reference to paper made of soybean sputum is a giveaway, surely. I'm just trying to figure out how to efficient gather and print the 150 or
This looks like a winner: Web2.0h...Really?, a blog that looks at social media with some skepticism. And some welcome clarity.
There's a new breeze blowing in the United States, and it is not just the chill winds of Wall Street and Detroit. A friend sent a message from a friend of hers in which he describes wanting to hang a flag or hear the song America the Beautiful. That kind of obvious patriotism is generally the