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Month: May 2019

With the Socials Catching Heat, Is this the Summer of Opportunity?

With the Socials Catching Heat, Is this the Summer of Opportunity?

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Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

Memorial Day Weekend always officially kicks off the summer season and serves as a reminder that, if you’re looking for funding, carpe diem – investors are about to unplug for the season.

We’ve long mentioned that no one stays on top forever – times, tech and tolerance change – and you’re aware by now that the socials are under attack. By governments and users. Last week, CrossFit, Inc. Suspend(ed) Use of Facebook and Associated Properties, reporting, “Recently, Facebook deleted without warning or explanation the Banting7DayMealPlan user group. The group has 1.65 million users who post testimonials and other information regarding the efficacy of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. While the site has subsequently been reinstated (also without warning or explanation), Facebook’s action should give any serious person reason to pause, especially those of us engaged in activities contrary to prevailing opinion.”

This is not an advert for Crossfit. It’s a heads up to entrepreneurs that it’s not game over. With all of the missteps on the part of the socials, the heat is on. It’s now open season and time to focus on the problems that they’ve created and that someone somewhere will solve – by building a better mousetrap. You want to be a unicorn? Solve a big problem that a lot of people are having, and a lot of people are having problems with the behemoths, including Facebook (and its properties), Twitter, Amazon (and its devices), and Google. Read More...

The Next Iteration: Beware Demon Tech

The Next Iteration: Beware Demon Tech

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Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay

Now that the LUPA/PAUL stocks have (mostly) gone public – Lyft, Uber, Pinterest and Airbnb), these supposed category killers aren’t exactly killing it in the stock market. It’ll be interesting to see how the massively funded We Company (nee WeWork) does and despite all of this, we’re still witnessing massive funding rounds. Vice, for one, despite its stalled growth, recently raised $250M, a pittance compared to the $575M raised by Deliveroo. At some point, growth does stall; hockey stick growth is unsustainable or as Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human et al, said at the Techonomy conference in New York last week, “exponential growth is a problem. The only thing that can grow exponentially forever is cancer, and then it kills its host.”

We’ve known Rushkoff personally since the early days of Web 1.0, which, he reminded us, was when we all innocently believed that the web would distract us from the insular world of television and bring us together, which Mark Zuckerberg told Congress was the intention of Facebook. Well, that and world domination, although he did not share the latter with Congress.

Back in those early days, Wired Magazine told us that the internet was going to be the salvation of the NASDAQ stock exchange. This was the attention economy, and, said Wired, thanks to digital, the economy would grow exponentially, unstopped, forever. And Alan Greenspan agreed: New paradigm! Unlimited growth! Forever! What they didn’t realize was that this economic system was a very old, obsolete operating system invented by the monarchs in the 12th and 13th century to prevent the rise of the middle class, Rushkoff noted. Read More...

Pay Attention to the Insights of Co-Founders

Pay Attention to the Insights of Co-Founders

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If you’ve ever applied to an accelerator or approached (many) investors for funding, one of the most important points they check, especially in the case of investors, is team.

Above all, they want to know about the co-founders, and truth be told, most investors shy away from a startup with a solitary founder, the stated reason most often being that you should be able to find at least one person who shares your vision or passion and is willing to throw in with you. It’s also difficult to operate in a vacuum: much easier if you have that other person off whom to bounce ideas, and to keep you in check, if need be. Read More...

Don’t Look Now, But Tech Just Became Way More Dangerous (Actually, You Need to Look)

Don’t Look Now, But Tech Just Became Way More Dangerous (Actually, You Need to Look)

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While we’re not big on conspiracy theories – we’re simply too busy to get sidetracked – we do love to follow trajectories to see where things may be going. Or to once again quote Wayne Gretzky, if you want to know where the puck is going, look to where it has been.

The news this week was the banning that has been happening with the social media platforms. War on Free Speech: Facebook Bans People It Considers “Dangerous”, and Twitter is at it, too. While the question seems to be coming up more and more – Is it time to break up Twitter, or regulate it as an edited platform (Big Tech Trying to Have it Both Ways as Platform and Publisher)?, and this would extend to all of the socials – let’s be honest, aren’t they publishers, after all? In fact, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself is calling for regulation, and that should be concerning, especially given his focus, which is in lock step with that of the tech cartel, trust us. As Wired reported, Platforms Want Centralized Censorship. That Should Scare You.

So, why now?

Forest through the trees time, and Big Tech has gotten the four Ds down to an art, and yes, four – Deny, Deflect, Defend, Delay. Important, considering what else has been going on in tech to which not many people have been paying much attention: the rise of the Fakes, or as we prefer to call them, PHAkEs, which is our acronym for Post Human-Acknowledged Entities. Read More...