Mark Andressen on Chance and Entrepreurship

A brilliant summary of what role chance plays in our successes and how we can leverage our behaviour to influence the outcome.

Henry Blodgett - Why Newspapers are Screwed

Very interesting analysis on the coming failure of large newspapers, independent of their online success. Henry uses my favorite print and online newspaper as a reference for analysis, the New York Times. This will be a fascinating trend to watch and see how these business innovate and adapt. Hopefully some smart people are at the helm at the NY Times and we'll see how Murdoch does with the WSJ.

A Great Film - Zodiac

If you can live ;> with a little gore. The film Zodiac is one of the best I've seen in a while. Great acting, suspense, directing and a compelling mystery combine to make a great story based on real events. Another aspect of the film I really enjoyed was the accurate re-creation of 1970's bay area.

'Baby Einstein' Videos Ineffective, Study Finds

Why does this come as no surprise?

"A popular series of videos targeted at babies and praised by President Bush has been found to be ineffective. A new study has found that Baby Einstein videos actually inhibit learning. "

The slick marketing of these videos always was a warning sign to me as a parent to stay away. Also, any parent who believes that placing a baby in front of a passive video could be helpful is not doing their homework.

NowPublic

Here is a poor implementation of a great idea and emerging trend. Citizen driven news and information is evident in many online niches (digg, wikipedia, mahalo), but community news is not currently offering much in the way of journalism. I'm sure we'll see this change over the next couple years if the right business model, technology and community is built.

The GigaOm Show

Another look at what will be displacing traditional broadcast television. This is not as good as 'Crank Geeks', but still a good example of where things are heading and the 'long tail' of media.

Unilaterilism in the era of Globalization

This essay by the prominent macro-economist Willem Buiter is insightful and disappointing in its outline of the failure of Bush/Cheney policy in the era of globalization. The opportunities missed by not acting unilaterally to defeat terrorism and other global issues has undermined the potential of America in a post cold-war world.

Marketing for Web 2.0

The New Rules for Marketing is the quintessential book on how to market for web 2.0. Targeting your message to personas, creating an online media room, effective blogging and online news releases to name a few.

Cranky Geeks

In case you haven't discovered 'Cranky Geek's have a peek at what I believe is a forebearer of the coming dis-intermediation of traditional broadcast television. This low-budget weekly net broadcast is fun, informative and worth every penny I pay to watch it ($.0). I'm sure we're going to see a 'long-tail' of these types of productions emerging over the next few years, filling every conceivable niche and replacing so much of what we watch today.