Who cares about your product?

These are the days of online advertising, and ad-funded online business models. In the midst of all this excitement, how does a traditional marketer think about advertising and marketing? Who should a product be marketed to? And how?

Seth Godin, whose blog I read regularly, speaks at TED back in 2003. The subject is, if anything, more relevant today, especially if you're in the Silicon Valley echo chamber. I recommend watching it. And do check out Seth's blog as well.

The long tail of technology

The editor of WIRED magazine talks about the long tail of technology. Briefly, his point is that every major technology goes through four stages in its life cycle:

• Price falls below a critical amount
• Adoption gets to critical mass
• Replacement of another (previous incumbent) technology
• Price approaches "free"

This talk is from 2004. Four years later, it is interesting to sit back and see how many of the trends he pointed out in this talk fulfilled their potential in the interim. Accuracy of prediction nothwithstanding, the "stages" he outlines in this talk is a useful takeaway.

The secret history of Silicon Valley

The credit crunch explained...

...in plain and simple English.

Climate change: are we going to make it?

A few weeks ago, I flipped through Al Gore's book. Summary: the prognosis is not good. We're in a *lot* of trouble, and we'd better do something about climate change. Quickly.

Since then, I've been reading about the impact of climate change on our world. The Green movement is gathering steam, and more and more companies are jumping on the bandwagon. Is that going to be enough, though?

John Doerr doesn't think so.