Bubble 2.0 - details on the eve of Facebook's IPO

Okay, so back when Facebook was first valued at $50 billion I wrote a post proclaiming a new tech bubble.

But then a friend mentioned that it's not very meaningful to just say that we're in a bubble. The useful thing is to say when it will end, how much prices will drop, or at least what phase of the bubble we're in.

Touché. I didn't have an answer to that. But now I just ran into an interview on (shudder) TechCrunch that was actually very informative. It was with a tech investor, and I know what you're thinking, but he actually seems quite grounded and well-versed in the economic history of bubbles. I think he gives a pretty realistic picture of where we are.

In short, we're in the second or third phase of a bubble that was kicked off by Yuri Milner and Microsoft investing in Facebook at a $10-15 billion valuation. Then the second phase was high valuations of competitors like Twitter. And yes, the third phase will follow high-price purchases like Instagram at $1 billion. But I guess what really matters is the fact that it's not going to really get crazy (and crash soon after) until people stop worrying that it's a bubble and it's all fake. Buuuut I'm not sure that'll ever happen, given the memories of the last bubble. So I don't quite know how that plays out. In the end it seems we still have a few years before it all crashes to earth.

The video: “In the Studio,” CRV’s George Zachary Discusses Bubbles on the Eve of Facebook’s IPO - TechCrunch

Oh Hulu

Chainsawsuit puts it well, and then comically, as usual. To be clear, this isn't Hulu itself pushing for this, but instead the major studios (once again) trying to strangle it through restrictions. And it's not necessarily actually going to happen. Still, it's one more reason I suspect they're never going to learn, and we'll be forced to find some way to make them irrelevant.

GoDaddy: The Dane Cook of the Internet

..quoth Will, just now. Too perfect. That is all.

Google's new privacy policy: Nothing new

Or at least, nothing we didn't think was already happening.

Yesterday, Google's infamous new privacy policy went into effect. I've seen so much ranting and catastrophizing about this, I feel like I have to add to the few voices clarifying what's actually changing:

They aren't collecting more information on you.

They aren't sharing more information with others.

Is that clear enough? All that's happening is that they're pooling the information they already collect through different sites like Youtube and Google Search, instead of keeping it compartmentalized. So instead of Youtube ads being personalized based only on what you search at youtube.com, they'll also use what you search at google.com. That's what's new.

Which is why I'm kind of surprised at the uproar. I thought everyone already assumed they did that! Especially after the Wall Street Journal's big "The Internet is Scary"* series. Google is supposed to be the worst offender, right? Why wouldn't they be using every bit of information they can suck up? Honestly, when the privacy policy thing hit headlines I was kind of impressed that they'd kept this stuff separated.

But really, I'm not surprised. This just reminds me of moments like when the internet started focusing on ACTA after SOPA/PIPA were defeated. There were all sorts of scare stories going around, talking about how ACTA was SOPA squared, when there was absolutely no truth to that. It turns out, people on the internet  will dump a ton of effort into getting outraged about something, without spending half that effort to actually find out what that something is.

*Disclaimer: Yes, there are many problems with the level of personal tracking on the web and the lack of user consent or knowledge. We need a lot more of both. I think the Do Not Track header has potential, as long as it's done correctly. But most stories, including the WSJ ones, just come off as "Watch out! They eat people out there on the internet!"

Stop complaining about "Music these days"

(source: Pleated Jeans)

Mp3 Patents Slowly Dying

So two more mp3 patents expired just last month on the 24th. 2012 should actually be a big year for patents on the encoding technology, with four total due to expire. By Halloween we'll only have 12 left!

You always hear about how mp3 is a patent-encumbered technology, which causes lots of pain for anyone trying to make any tool that deals with audio data. But I rarely hear specifics. Since the technology is pretty old at this point, I started wondering if we're getting to the point where the patents will just expire, and it goes the way of the .gif?

A little searching leads you to this page, listing the 20 patents registered in the U.S. I wanted to get a sense of the timeline we're looking at, so I put together a simple visualization. Looking forward to 2017!

On Quines

$ ./quine.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Had an idea for an easy way to write a quine. This might be cheating.
use strict;

open(my $fh_in, "<", $0) or
    die "Error: Cannot open file $0: $!";

while (<$fh_in>) {
     print;
}

Did I not get the point?

(Okay, okay, quick explanation after the jump)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Neil deGrasse Tyson (and Stephen Colbert)

Here is a wonderful discussion between Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Colbert. If you aren't familiar with Neil deGrasse Tyson, here is a great way to start that beautiful relationship. He's an astrophysicist best known for hosting NOVA and various science shows, and generally for explaining and popularizing science. He's also the person I most admire in science, because of his way of demystifying it and making it understandable and approachable. I'm a huge fan of taking something "too complex" to be understood by laypeople and showing how anyone can grasp it if you work with them to understand it.

Summary: He is a great man, and inspiring to listen to. And here is him being interviewed by Stephen Colbert, who (it turns out) is also an inspiring and deep thinker.

Obligatory SOPA post. But seriously this is important.

Sorry about the politics again, but I feel obligated to do my part to spread the word about this. I think the ratio of ramifications to how many people know about it is really big on this one. It's the first proposal to censor the U.S. Internet. It will put us in a club that includes China, Syria, and Iran.

Suffice to say, watch the video, that will explain it pretty well. And then visit americancensorship.org.

Oh! But before I forget, here's the most important point I can get across: It won't work. Not at all. There are already point-and-click workarounds. This won't stop a single criminal. If you know enough to use BitTorrent, you know more than enough to be able to simply ignore this legislation. It is a completely half-baked bill. Half-baked, but horribly destructive.



Note: PROTECT IP is the Senate version of the House's SOPA bill.

Goodnight Sweet Prince