A couple weeks ago I posted on the oddness of Facebook being honored for its business acumen.  At the time I made the point that Facebook had made some impressive technical achievements but had not yet proven itself as a viable business and certainly didn't deserve to be honored as such. 

After thinking on it for a couple weeks I came to the conclusion that the business community just gets enamored with tech companies.  Something about the creation of new business models makes them abandon any rational analysis of a company's actual performance or future chances of success.

That theory is what's on my mind after reading the news that Marc Andreessen has joined the board of Facebook (as reported by Techcrunch)...

Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, Opsware and Ning and the former CTO of AOL, is adding a new notch in his belt: he has joined the board of directors of Facebook, two sources close to the company confirmed to us (speculation about Andreessen possibly joining the Facebook board started last month on the Boomtown blog). The company should be announcing it shortly, perhaps this week.

I have a lot of respect for Marc Andreessen from the technology perspective and the guy is a master at selling companies for more than their probably worth.  But a business man who builds for the long term he is not. 

In fact, Netscape's downfall was largely due to the fact that he and Jim Clark squandered their resources at the same time they were taunting the biggest, most aggressive company in the IT industry.  The end result of which was to take a company that was already profitable and on its way to long term success and effectively bury it.

That makes Mr. Andreessen seem like an odd fit given Facebook's insistence that it's in this for the long term. 

Even more bizarre is the fact that he's founder, chairman, and a full time employee of Ning which is a direct competitor to Facebook.  This isn't like Eric Schmidt of Google joining the board of Apple even though both companies make Cell. phone technology.  Facebook does one thing, Ning does one thing and they're both the same thing.  Its ridiculous.

I bring all this up to again point out the bizarre nature of Silicon Valley funding.  No company in any other industry would dream of pulling a move like this particularly when they had no profits and no viable plan to eventually turn a profit. 

Addendum: I stick by what I said in the post above but in thinking it over I wanted to add a couple things. First, Andreessen was 22 when Netscape was founded and only 28 when it was acquired by AOL so it’s a little unfair to hold a lot of what happened at Netscape against him. Second, though he’s famous for turning huge profits on companies that aren’t that successful it should also be mentioned that he makes more of an effort than most to stay involved in those companies. He stayed on after Netscape was acquired by AOL and he remained chairman while Loudcloud/Opsware was changing hands.  That should all count for something.

Whenever I see a Steve Gillmor byline I always think back to the above cartoon (excuse the poor scan quality, I don't have the books with me right now and had to go off an old scan I gmailed to someone a few years back). 

For those who don't know Steve Gillmor is a man famous for posts that contain sentences like this...

Imagine (not for long will it be ephemeral) an information bus that orchestrates the signaling of text, rich media, calendar, communications, transaction, and group location status under a social graph umbrella based in part on user-controlled behavior aggregation (gestures).

Honestly, I'd kind of come to terms with the man.  Don't get me wrong, I still think its immoral to write in a way that purposely tries to make others feel dumb so that you can appear smart.  But people who I respect seem to like him so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

Maybe he's doing it on a sub-conscious level or something. 

Which is why I decided to comment on a story he posted yesterday where he said...

As Bill Gates closed the door for the final time Friday on his ex-office (Ballmer takes over Monday) the rhetoric about continued one day a week doesn’t match the reality.

Now that looks a lot like he's saying he didn't realize Gates wasn't the CEO any longer but you have to assume he knows that.  But if he comes back and tries to defend himself its going to look like he's covering.

So I jumped in and tried to illuminate what I think he meant for him.  I said...

I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume by “(Ballmer takes over Monday)” you meant to imply that Gates was somehow “shadow running” the company from his position as Chief Software Architect since I can’t imagine you’d be so stupid as to not realize Ballmer has been CEO for years now.

But something went wrong and the post didn't show up. 

Now I was on my way out the door at that point and didn't have time to retype it so I just let it go.  Then I checked back a couple of hours later and...it was there.  Not only that, there were no posts criticizing Mr. Gillmor's writing style.

That's when it hit me...he's moderating the posts.

Now I realize there are trolls on the Internet and if someone is posting just to cause trouble I have no problem with people moderating those comments.  But moderating for any reason (like in this case where the purpose is clearly to silence his critics) is rude and disrespectful.  The people commenting that his posts don't make sense have the right to their opinion and don't deserve to be treated as undesirables because of it. 

I always thought Mr. Arrington (Techcrunch founder and CEO) had a little more respect for his audience and its disappointing to find that he doesn't.

P.S.  Just to end on a bright note here are a couple other comics that I sent in the same e-mail.  I'm a big Calvin and Hobbes fan and these two are my personal favorites...

Duncan Riley of The Inquisitr writes a post on the "bitchmeme" phenomenon of Techmeme entitled "Techmeme and the Noise Problem".  In it he says...

Bitchmeming about Techmeme has long been a favorite past-time of bored early adopters over numerous weekends in the last year. The arguments are usually similar, and revolve around variations of Techmeme is to focused on reporting news from large companies and/ or ignores small startups, and that it is dominated by a few sites while others don’t get a look in.

To be honest, I don't really think this is a problem.  In fact, I'll go even further and say I think trying to "fix" this would be a problem. 

(In fairness Mr. Riley makes the same point in his post and I'm really just elaborating on what he said.  But he said it in a way that was awkward to quote because it required combining two non consecutive paragraphs which, when done, made it look like he was making an entirely different point)

The important thing to remember here is the definition of a meme tracker.  It's a tool that tracks topics across a certain community segment.  For Techmeme to do what Mr. Riley is asking it would have to actively supplant the community's judgement for its own.  At that point it stops being a meme tracker and becomes just another news site. 

Meme Trackers, as the name implies, track the community.  If Bitchmemes arise it's because that's what the community was interested in (whether they want to admit it or not). 

On that note there is a solution to the problem outlined above and it's a simple one.  It's called the Inquisitr, or TechCrunch, or ReadWrite Web, or any other site that's covered by Techmeme and can publish news on small startups.  Its a cyclical thing, if Techmeme is failing the community its because the community is failing Techmeme.  If you run a web site dedicated to the tech industry its your job to hunt down interesting startups and make a post that gets other Techmeme covered sites interested. 

The true irony of Techmeme is that its probably the most "Web 2.0" site out there.   Everyone loves to go on and on about the community on Twitter or on FriendFeed or on whatever the A-List decides to love next but all those sites are individual focused.  You have your individual Twitter page, or FriendFeed, or whatever.  Techmeme may be the only site out there that's legitimately community driven.

The Quick Aside Point: When I first saw the quoted post I went in a completely different direction based on this quote...

I’ve been a Techmeme fan for a long time, and I still religiously visit the site daily, although I have found myself using it less and less as writing here at The Inquisitr has allowed me to move away from pleasing someone with a Techmeme headline, to writing about what I love or am interested in, Techmeme headline or not be damned. I’ve also had the privilege of meeting Gave Rivera before and as well as being a great bloke, he’s smart as well…and I should know, I’ve tried multiple times to get a Techmeme clone scripted without any success.

I'm not sure it justifies its own post but I did want to point out how amazing it is that Techmeme has persisted through all the other tech industry fads.  It has lived through Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, et al. and is still going strong.  In a community as fickle as tech blogs that's pretty darn amazing. 

The REALLY out there Aside: Wall-E Rocks!  That has nothing to do with the rest of this post but we just got back from it and I felt the need to say it. 

Those who might think I've given up my "no politics" stance need not worry.  The title is just a little bit of sensationalism to perk everyone's ears up on this lazy Saturday.  It could just as easily say John McCain up there. 

The reason I used Obama is because the inspiration for this post is a quote by Robert Scoble in his most recent post entitled "The changing power in Washington DC".  In it he says...

Interesting to have been in that room, though, talking about tech policy with one of Barack’s advisers. He told me that Obama is going to make tech (both the policy of, and understanding of) one of the key differentiating points between Obama and McCain. To me that mattered more than who was raising money for the candidates, even as that story swirled all around us.

Now first lets address the Obama issue.  Regardless of what people might tell you no candidate gets an issue all to themselves.  If Obama unveils an "online plan" then John McCain will have one three days later.  That's the nature of politics. 

So this really isn't about one candidate its about the nature of Government itself. 

That being said, and with as little intended offense as is humanly possible, the above quote is profoundly ignorant of what I think are the realities of the world we live in.  Government involvement is not a good thing.  Ever.  Sometimes it's a necessary thing and that is why Governments exist in the first place but its  never preferable. 

Why is that?

Because Government exists to restrict freedoms.  That's their job.  If you get drunk and then hop in your car you are a danger to others around you so Government makes laws to prevent it.  They restrict your freedom to drive based on your intoxication level because of how dangerous your intoxication makes you to others.  But they are restricting your freedom because that is what Government does. 

So the question becomes whether there's something so dangerous on the Internet that it requires the restriction of people's freedoms.

Because there is a danger in Government intervention itself and that is Government's inevitable need to over restrict.  The FCC started as a service that simply assigned frequencies to people so they wouldn't interfere with each other's broadcasts.  But its now grown into an agency that concerns itself with everything said and done on any of those airwaves and which actually doles out punishment for saying things that the Government doesn't approve of. 

If you remember nothing else from this post remember this: Once Government turns its attention to something it will continually place more restrictions on that thing. 

This trend is so inevitable that it even has a name, the "slippery slope".  Anyone who studies history knows that this "slippery slope" has brought the end of almost every form of Government in history.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Government is as close as we have to absolute power in this world.   

So my question becomes why do people like Robert Scoble want Government involvement in the Internet?  What do they think it will accomplish other than to restrict it? 

Sadly, I appear to have gotten my answer in a quote further down in the post... 

I asked Ross to get Obama online to demonstrate he’s willing to use online media to listen to his supporters and have conversations. I also encouraged Ross to bring Obama out to meet with other bloggers so he could explain his tech policies and how they are different from McCain’s.

So really this comes down to plain old self importance.  They might as well create a lobby entitled "Bloggers so desperate to feel important that they're willing to bring down the Whole Internet to get attention"

Addendum: For the record some will cite "net neutrality" as a reason for Government interference but honestly that, like many things in politics, is a made up issue.  No ISP is ever going to impose bottlenecks because its too good of an opportunity for their competitors to steal market share.  The only way "net neutrality" is an issue is if every ISP imposed those bottlenecks and that is an anti-trust violation and already against existing laws.

Gizmodo  has what has to be the saddest defense of Windows Vista that I personally have ever seen.  In an article entitled "Ten Reasons Why Vista Isn't That Bad" they give the following list of what I will generously call features...

1. It's more secure than Windows XP

2. It's the best looking Windows yet.

3. Games work just about as well as under XP.

4. Vista Media Center is a fantastic DVR.

5. The sleep mode works.

6. Built-in search is better and more useful.

7. User Account Control is useful for some people.

8. Drivers support isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

9. It's not any buggier than Windows XP.

10. Vista is not slow if you have enough RAM.

Now the thing to notice about this list is how little there actually is.  3,5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are all basically disproving an extreme negative (rather than listing a positive).  6 is available on XP and 1 isn't all that accurate (XP can be as secure as Vista if set up right).  4 is only available in the very expensive premium edition which leaves 2 (visual appearance) as the only real good thing that can be said about Vista. 

They then go on to list several negatives which I think are all fairly significant...

1. Things aren't where they used to be.

2. File transfers are slower than on XP

3. Wireless networking is a pain.

4. Lots of balloon notifications pop up on the taskbar.

5. Folder view in Windows Explorer doesn't remember your settings.

This, to me, is basically the issue with Vista.  It really isn't any better than XP and in some ways it's decidedly worse.  Which is why the discontinuation of Windows XP by Microsoft (now scheduled for Monday) has been weighing so heavily on my mind. 

At first I was really angry about it but now that most manufacturers have announced they will continue to offer a downgrade option it is less of an issue.  That said I still find that, on principle, it bothers me and I think that says a lot about my current relationship with Microsoft. 

I've seen a lot of articles that discuss Microsoft and the challenges they face in the future but from the standpoint of one of their corporate customers their biggest challenge is winning back my trust.  Because they don't have it now and I often find myself actively looking for ways to avoid the Microsoft solution these days. 

The reason for that is largely that the company has gotten to the point where they simply don't seem to care what I think anymore.

This XP decision is the perfect example of that.  They released a new OS which offered very little and which no one was interested in.  Then, rather than just accept that, they chose to force their customers into buying it.  The message is very clearly "you will do what we say whether you like it or not" and honestly that's not a message I'm comfortable with.

The true irony though is that it didn't even work.  The path they chose was so anti-customer that their own distributors chose to reverse it (albeit for a small handling fee).  So not only are they the bad guy but they're an incompetent bad guy at that. 

So I ask myself, if I weren't already locked into Microsoft products would I really be doing business with them?  If someone came up to me on the street and asked if I wanted to do business with an incompetent company that doesn't care what their customers think would I really say "Yes"? 

Of course not and that is something the people at Microsoft should think long an hard about. 

Mike Elgan posts "The Mouse Is Dead" on Earthweb today.  Its the perfect example of why people who haven't actually looked at the design issues involved shouldn't judge the mouse.  In his article he suggests a few "mouse replacements"...

1. Apple's giant trackpad with multi-touch.

Available on MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, this pointing device represents a body blow to the appeal of using a mouse with an Apple mobile computer. The new trackpad is superior because in addition to pointing and clicking, you get gestures, which adds a whole new layer of control.

2. Gaming pointing devices.

Remember when everyone used to play games on a PC using a mouse and keyboard? Neither do I. Console gaming has re-set the bar for gaming input devices, and now even PC games seem to call for joysticks, yolks, steering wheels and other non-mouse input devices.

3. "Brain-reading" devices.

Like the mouse between 1963 and 1981, these devices are still in the lab. But one company, Emotiv Systems, plans to place a $300 headset on the market by the end of this year that lets gamers control some aspects of games with thoughts alone (go here for the demo).

4. Apple iPhone and the "iPhone Killers."

This newest category of cell phone boots physical keyboards and phone pointing devices (like BlackBerry's "pearl," toggle switches or the tracking sticks on some handsets) altogether in favor of full-size touch screens. Although people tend to see iPhone-like devices as replacing keyboards, they're getting millions of people used to the idea of controlling an entire operating system with a touch screen.

Now a few of these I don't think are even worth of mentioning.  Most serious gamers still use a Gaming mouse and the "Brain Reading" device is a helmet which no one is ever going to wear so I think you can safely rule those two points out.

But what I wanted to focus on is Touch.  I'm bullish on Touch interfaces and  have been working a lot with TouchScreens from Elo Tech lately.  I've deployed about 8 of them serving different purposes around the campus at this point (mostly as Timeclocks/Kiosk applications). 

But here's the thing, Touch is not effective as a mouse replacement.  This is for a few reasons...

1.  Accuracy goes out the window with Touch.  Here's what I mean...

Anyone who has accidentally clicked on a link while using their iPhone can attest to this fact.  Touch is great with alternate interfaces where everything is made really big but it sucks for day to day use because the finger just isn't accurate enough.

Some might suggest that Multi-Touch fixes this by allowing you to size screen elements and that is partially true.  But while Multi-Touch might fix this particular problem it still means you're having to use 3 gestures and both hands to do what the mouse now does with one click. 

2.  Touch creates a problem when dealing with multiple angles.  This doesn't become apparent until you actually try it but if you touch something on the screen while right in front of it and then stand up and touch the same thing while looking down on it you'll actually be hitting different parts of the screen.  Because your viewing angle of things on the screen changes while your finger (which is outside the screen) stays essentially the same.  This happens every time you change your viewing angle and it makes touch ineffective for anything but relatively short uses.

The mouse is on the screen just like all the other elements so it doesn't suffer from this problem. 

3.  Range of motion is tiring.  Notice that, when you use your mouse, you are really only moving your fingers and your wrist.  The rest of your arm is pretty much at rest.  Now pretend to use a touch interface and watch how quickly your shoulder and upper arm get tired from all the gesturing, reaching, etc... 

The truth is there are a lot of issues with a touch interface that simply make it unusable with current systems (which were all designed around the mouse).  Someone may some day find a way to design an OS based around touch but until that happens the mouse is here to stay (and since I don't see a dramatic shift to an OS that no one has even invented yet happening in the next few years I think its safe to bet against Mr. Elgan here)

A couple days ago I wrote a post about Nicholas Carr's article for the Atlantic.  I didn't actually find that article directly but instead found it courtesy of a blogger that I just started reading who goes by the name "Drama 2.0".  He writes a response to Mr. Carr here. 

In his response he expands on Mr. Carr's concept of "Deep Reading" (a.k.a. becoming engrossed in long written works) by saying this...

A small 2006 study by the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut demonstrates what happens when individuals don't engage in "deep reading" and hints at the implications of a society in which individuals have access to large amounts of information through the internet but lack the critical thinking skills needed to analyze that information.

Researchers asked middle school students to evaluate a fake website that provided information about an endangered species that does not exist - the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. All students sent to the website fell for the hoax, all but one ranked the website as "very credible" and most were unable to locate the clues that the website was fake even after being told that it was.

This highlights what I believe to be the most frightening implication of an internet that can change our brains.

Now I completely disagree with the above statement because I don't think there is an inherent connection between "deep reading" and "critical thinking".  In fact, I really don't see how the argument can even be made.  Unless they are arguing that things should be badly written because it causes students to devote brain power to extracting the worthwhile information out of a long article which in turn leads to better critical thinking skills. 

But if that's their argument I'd say there are easier ways to teach critical thinking.

With that said I do think most people have extremely weak critical thinking skills in our society but I don't think that has to do with the Web.  In fact, I think Mr. 2.0 provides his own answer in a paragraph a little lower in the article...

In the past, I've argued that many of today's technologies and internet services have contributed to an increase in narcissism, reduction in meaningful social interactions, degradation of basic values and have even made happiness more elusive for those who seek friendship online but in reality only become more isolated and lonely.

So the problem isn't really the web as much as it is an abundance of simple, everyday narcissism.  Narcissism by definition is the enemy of intellectual curiosity because it makes a person more concerned with their self than they are with the world around them. 

Put it this way...

Researching a claim takes effort and most people don't want to put any more effort into things than they have to.  When someone puts effort into disproving a false claim they do it because they value truth more than their individual desire to be lazy.  But if they are narcissistic enough that equation gets reversed and what they want becomes more important than what is true.  At which point they'll believe anything just so they need not put any effort into disproving it.

But the web just enables narcissism it did not create it (as even the most die hard hippie will admit to the rampant narcissism of the 60s).

Anyway, going into the reasons for this narcissism is further out of the realm of tech than I want to take this blog.  Suffice to say, I don't think it has all that much to do with technology. 

Society in general seems like a much likelier culprit. 

A couple days ago I made a post on what appeared to be the end of the Shel Israel saga but sadly it persists because Mr. Israel simply can't seem to let it go.  Here's a quote from his latest post entitled "About Loren Feldman & Michael Arrington"...

Another question that I get asked is why more people have not stepped forward in my defense. I'm pretty certain I know the answer to this one. Loren Feldman has a big and powerful friend in Michael Arrington. I have received a great number of private messages from people who have said precisely that they hate seeing what is being done to me, but they will not speak out because Arrington has become singularly the most powerful individual in social media. We should all think about the power he is assuming and what the repercussions of it are.

How Michael elected to assume the role of Loren Feldman's champion, I do not know. Some think that this was all a set up, that Michael will start a TechCrunch Video with Loren--his frequent houseguest--as the lead program. Actually, I tend to believe it is more the way Michael said it was when he called me to extract three words from from a 20-minute interview about our feud. He told me that he had been ignoring the whole matter, until Loren brought some incendiary tweets of mine to his attention. Then, he decided he was going to stand up for his little friend and give me what-for.

But that's just my perception. To understand more you'll have to ask Michael.

This has been an unquestionable success. Silicon Valley is a bad neighborhood to live in when you have pissed off Michael Arrington. There was a noticeable step back after Arrington ran three pieces in three days extolling the virtues of Loren and the vices of Shel.

I do believe Arrington was instrumental in getting the puppet interviews rolling. The first wave of interviews was with people who are closely connected with Arrington, including people with financial ties or well-known friendships. It has spread to include people who are notable, and less connected to Arrington's inner circle. Some of them are people who I have considered friends for a good many years. The perception is that they have gathered around Loren in support f him and against me.

The rest of the post goes on in about the same manner.  Notable omissions include the fact that both Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis were attacked by Loren Feldman in the same way Mr. Israel was but they both took it in stride and are now friends with him.  Also missing is the concept of "people can find something funny and not be against you". 

So much easier to explain your troubles away with a persecution complex I guess.

On that note, this is the end of my writing on the issue.  The truth is up until now I didn't really have a horse in this race.  I thought the situation was fascinating from a "what not to do" perspective but I really wished both parties the best (and have made a  point of saying I hoped Mr. Israel would wise up in both of my posts on it) 

But that has now changed, I honestly dislike the guy at this point and really do hope he fails in all his future endeavors.  I feel terrible for saying it but its true.  People that arrogant and that stubborn don't deserve to succeed.  At least not when there are people who are hard working and willing to see their mistakes out there. 

Which is why I have to bow out here.

I'm someone who truly believes there's a place for everyone and truly wishes the best for everyone which is how I can function as a blogger.  Once I stop wishing the best for a person I won't talk about them anymore because it makes it too easy to be mean.  So I'm done with this (though I can't imagine Mr Israel is).

Addendum: One Caveat Here, if this is Mr. Israel realizing the value of publicity and specifically attacking to get attention I'd have to admire that.  It really is the only thing that could redeem the man to me at this point (though sadly I don't think he's that clever)

Addendum #2: I’m going to harp on this just a little bit longer because I think there’s a revelation to be had here. I keep asking myself “How can someone who has been on this Earth more than double the time I have be so lacking in wisdom?” and after considering it I think I have a simple answer.

Anyone who has studied morality learns really quickly that there are truths that are universal among most religions and moral systems. One of those is that systems listing vices/sins always seem to put Pride at the top of the “dangerous” list.

Christians believe Pride gave birth to Lucifer, Jews believe it felled the 1st generation of man, Mayans feature it prominently in their creation story and even secular philosophers like Immanuel Kant and Ayn Rand make a special point of defining a level of excessive Pride that is unacceptable. Sir Thomas Aquinas goes so far as to say it is the cause of all sin (paraphrase, I can’t find the exact quote).

When I was young and studying all these various moral systems I have to admit to wondering why it was given such a prominent position. I mean, people kill over envy and in anger (aka Wrath) and because of Greed and because of Gluttony and because of Lust. So how could Pride be the deadliest of a list that contains all those others?

 But in the end I think Pride is the death of the mind. Though all of the above are a danger and all of the above lead to horrible consequences Pride is the only one that can actually kill the person inflicted with it by effectively sticking them in amber for life. That person inflicted with excessive pride can’t learn or grow because they’re self-love keeps them from doing so.

I’m not sure I saw just how true that was until now. It’s amazing how a seemingly small incident can lead someone to a truth that had eluded them for years but that's how I feel. I have a respect for the dangers of excessive Pride that I simply didn’t have before and that's based largely on Mr Israel and his handling of this situation.

(For the record, the answer I was given to the question above about people killing for other vices is this: People kill over envy, greed, anger, lust and even Gluttony.  But in each circumstance they know what they are doing is wrong and choose to do it because their other needs are overwhelming.  Pride is the only sin that convinces people they are correct in whatever they do and that opens them up to kill for no reason at all if they so choose.  Which is why it is even more dangerous even in that sense)

Last Week Nicholas Carr wrote an article for The Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".  In it he says...

Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

He of course lays the blame for this change on the Web. 

I don't disagree with the idea that this is happening to people.  In fact, I'd argue that people 30 and below have probably never thought in any way but this.  But I don't necessarily think its a bad thing nor do I think its entirely due to the web.

More than anything I think this is a symptom of a more active society.  Anyone who has studied history will tell you the modern age has seen a dramatic increase in activities that are available to even the lowest income levels. Not only is there the Internet but you have TV (with hundreds of channels), Movies, Video Games,  Music, Books, Radio, Sporting Events, Amusement Parks, Carnivals, State Fairs, and a whole host of other things that cost..in the scheme of things...next to nothing. 

Heck, our Cars are more fun than those of any past generation. 

This is relevant because in every past generation reading was not only a way to get information but also the primary source of entertainment.  So Books and Magazines needed to be long because they were all you had to do during the day.   Now that people have more activities than they have time to do them they've begun to look at reading not as entertainment but solely as an information delivery system.  Because of that changed role people gravitate towards writing that is more efficient (a.k.a. shorter and more direct).

But that certainly doesn't mean people are becoming ignorant because of the trend. 

Read any 14 page magazine article and you'll find the information you get out of it can be summarized in about a page.  The rest is stylistic filler that doesn't deliver any relevant information of its own.  Look at Mr. Carr's own article and you'll get a good example of what I mean by that.  He repeats the same point over and over, uses anecdotes to again reiterate the point, over explains things that everyone already knows, and so on. 

His point is a simple one that can be stated, in its entirety, using about two paragraphs.  The other 10.5 pages are nothing more than fluff used to reinforce the point, not components of the point itself.  Meaning someone who read a more succinct version would still get all the information provided in the longer one they just wouldn't get all the fluff. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not faulting Mr Carr or any other print writer for the above cited "fluff".  Some people still read for entertainment and those people will surely get that from Mr. Carr's 11 pages of article.  But that doesn't mean the rest of us are any worse off or any less informed for not wanting to sit through pages of superfluousness.

It just means we prefer a more efficient approach.

A while back I made a post on a situation that had arisen between Loren Feldman and Shel Israel over...well...basically over Mr. Israel's general suckiness in the area of video.  In the post I tried to lay out exactly how Mr. Israel had gone so wrong in handling the situation and how he could do better in the future. 

Today that situation reached as much of a conclusion as it probably ever will in that  Mr Israel announced that both his video show on Fastcompany.tv and his website sponsorship from SAP would be ending.  Here's the quote from The Inquisitr...

According to a post at Global Neighborhoods, Israel claims that he asked to take the GlobalNeighborhoods.tv (GNTV) out of FastCompany.tv and to show it instead on the Global Neighborhoods website. Israel notes that the cost of sponsoring a show with Fast Company involved was too high and now that the show has been liberated, it will cost less to sponsor the show.

Notice the extensive use of the word "claimed" in the Inquisitr post.  That'll be important later.  (Edit: See Duncan Riley's explaination for this in the comments below)

But before I get to my point I wanted to quote an exchange from the comments of Mr Israel's actual post.  The first comment comes from Tom Guarriello who says...

The whole episode with Loren was an integral part of much of happened during the period you're describing here. I hope you've learned something from this whole episode, 'cause you've definitely paid the tuition.

Best of luck, Shel.

Shel Responds...

Tom,

Could you tell me what the lesson you think I had to lean from Loren was?

and then Techcrunch's Michael Arrington responds to Shel...

Shel, based on your last comment, i can pretty much say you didn't learn much from the loren situation.

Obviously I agree with Mr Arrington and in the spirit of "posting productive" I thought I'd make a list of lessons that Shel Israel STILL hasn't learned from the situation...

Pride and Transparency simply don't mix:  Lets be blunt here, the man's Fastcompany show couldn't get sponsorship after months of trying yet he claims it was his decision to move it to his personal site and frames it in a way that makes it seem like Fastcompany was the reason the show didn't get sponsored.

Now, if that's true I apologize in advance but that is the most untrue sounding thing I think I've ever heard.  I suspect there is a lot of sugar coating of the truth going on. 

(I doubt I'm the only one given the extensive use of the word "claimed" that I pointed out above)

There's nothing necessarily wrong with sugar coating a harsh situation but if you're a guy who co-wrote a book on transparency it comes across as completely disingenuous.  You can be transparent or you can be diplomatic but you can't be both. 

Know what type of detractors you have:  There are two types of detractors in this world and those are (a) people who just want to attack someone to cause pain and (b) people who attack for some constructive reason.  One of the most important life lessons I've personally learned is to realize the difference between the two and to seek advice from the latter group. 

What Mr. Israel should have done from the start of this is to acknowledge the criticism he was getting and ask for help from those critiquing him.  Instead he threw out some snide replies and continued to go it on his own which we now see ended in failure.

Never take things personal: This is where Mr. Israel lost any respect I might have for his expertise.  The blogosphere, and the Internet as a whole, is full of people who are going to be critical of you.  If that's not something you can deal with than you shouldn't be claiming to be an expert on social networking or blogging. 

Take a look at this post I made a couple days ago.  In it I have to admit I screwed up and flew off the handle.  The subject of the post, Mark Evans, left a comment on the post that was completely good natured and that took the post in stride.  Because of his response I gained more respect for him in the end.  THAT is how you handle criticism on the blogosphere. 

Don't take yourself too seriously: One of the "satirical criticisms" of Mr. Israel was the presence of a really gaudy owl in one of his videos.  After that was mocked Mr. Israel started carrying the owl around with him which he apparently thought was funny.

The problem with this is that Mr. Israel wasn't "getting the joke" he was trying to "one up the joke" with a weak attempt at mocking it.   It was pretty awful.  So the bottom line is this: don't take yourself so seriously  and if you can't help but take yourself seriously than know that's a weakness of yours and drop the subject entirely. 

In Closing...

Though I'm a little ashamed to admit it, this situation brings me a certain amount of personal comfort. 

I'm someone who feels very guilty about the modest success I've achieved.  When I look back over my life I generally find that a lot of my success was due to nothing more than dumb luck.  Not having any way to gauge how much dumb luck other people  have received and looking at how lucky I've been I often think that maybe its all random and I just happened to get a little more luck than they did. 

Then I see a situation like this and think that maybe everyone gets their fair share of luck and some people just constantly squander it because they are too stubborn to learn from their own mistakes. 

The good news for Mr. Israel (if you can call it that) is that there isn't much further he can fall.  He wouldn't be the first person to find the strength to change at rock bottom and I hope, for his sake, that he does. 

Addendum: This was too much to pass up.  In response to the Michael Arrington comment above Mr. Israel replies...

Michael, I have learned one thing from you. People should be extremely wary, when you call them a "friend" in your column. There's no telling what sort of "friendship" they'll find in the following paragraph. Take care, old buddy.

When people point out your idiocy they are, at some level, trying to do you a favor by getting you to stop acting like an idiot.  The above comment couldn't be more snide but the true irony of it is that Mr. Arrington's comment was actually trying to help Mr. Israel.  He's just again too proud and too arrogant to realize it.