Om Malik

Om Malik is a San Francisco based writer, photographer and investor. Read More

The Forever Immigrant Challenge

Photo by Sachin Kushwaha Photography on Unsplash

I am reminded daily that the Internet and online media can be awful places. Today, the reminder came in the form of reactions to the election of form Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, as the British Prime Minister. Whether these are bots doing the bidding of some hidden powers, or just plain old-fashioned racism, it is depressing to read comments about Sunak’s race and ethnicity.

To call him Indian would be a stretch. Is he of Indian origin? Of course. But make no bones – Sunak is British. He was born in Southampton and educated at Winchester College, & Oxford. Sunak is the grandson of Indian migrants who moved to the U.K. from Kenya. That leads me to the bigger question: if birth doesn’t make you “British,” then what does? 

To be clear, I am not naive enough to think that these

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Musings
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Who’s Streaming’s Top of The Pops?

man listening to Soundcloud music on smartphone
Photo by Rachit Tank on Unsplash

When Apple announced that it now has 100 million songs on its music streaming platform, it started a conversation. Bruce Houghton, founder of Hypebot puts the conversation to the rest with his estimates: 

  • Soundcloud: 300 million
  • Apple Music: 100 million
  • YouTube: 100 million
  • Amazon Music: 90 million
  • Tidal: 90 million
  • Deezer: 90 million
  • Spotify: 82 million

With just over 100,000 songs being uploaded every day, the totdaily, this number will soon balloonal number of songs on streaming services will continue to increase. The rise of generative AI will redefine music and creative an exponential boom in available musical content.

“The internet has the power to reach everybody, nearly instantly. But we’ve found out that there’s so much stuff that it’s hard to reach anybody.”

Bob Lefesetz

The elephant in the room is that with this many songs on tap, how much can we listen,

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Technology
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Lana has lost her drive

As a Lana Del Ray fan, I sometimes keep up with the news about her. Today, a news alert popped up — a laptop, three video cameras, and hard drives were stolen from her car. The computer has her book manuscript, and music and videos are on those drives. The singer took to Instagram to share her story and her loss. 

“I had to remotely wipe the computer that had my 200-page book for Simon & Schuster, which I didn’t have backed up on a cloud.  And despite that, people are still able this week to remotely access my phone and leak our songs and personal photos.”

Lana Del Ray

I feel a certain kinship with her. Nothing as radical as a car break-in, but we have lost hard drives to corruption and age. We have forgotten to back up our data to the cloud. I remember back in early

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Technology
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TikTok, New York Times, Charlatans & the Nobel Prizes

I have been busy researching two long pieces, which have my mind going in many directions. I need to calm down and start writing. But up until then, enjoy these random bits I have accumulated on my blotter. They are bits of data, quotable quotes, and stuff worth reading. And just me thinking out loud. 

***

While Mark Zuckerberg fiddles in the metaverse, in the real world, his social platform burns. According to some Chinese media reports, ByteDance’s TikTok has surpassed 1 billion daily active users. Others in the billion-a-day club: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube. And WeChat. Just a reminder, TikTok’s global penetration rate is less than 20 percent. And it is also banned in India, one of the largest mobile markets.

Make what you may, the Chinese now own culture as well. 

***

Ben Smith (formerly of Politico, Buzzfeed & The New York Times) has launched his new

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Technology
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Weathergraph

When Apple bought Dark Sky, it was apparent that the days for one of the best-designed, data-dense, and yet visually simple apps were numbered. It is a shame, considering Apple’s weather app is mediocre. About a week ago, I asked my Twitter community for recommendations to replace Dark Sky, which will be shut down by the end of the year. I was looking for an elegant, not too fussy, but “Information-rich in simple fashion” weather app!

MJ Tsai, a software developer who writes a blog about Apple software, recommended Snowflake by Bjango and Weathergraph. I acquired both of them with a handful of others like Carrot. In the end, I settled on Weathergraph. It is dense with data, but only if I want to dig deeper, and it is simple enough for me to get a better view of the weather ahead quickly. There is a premium forecast source, Foreca that is worth

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Technology
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Of Monsters & Media

The paragraph (below) sums up the predicament of the post-social world: there is hardly any difference in information, misinformation, and disinformation anymore. You have to spend more energy and burn more neurons to distinguish what is real and what matters. You are better off paying no attention. And yet, there seems to be no escaping! 

Kanye is a public figure, making news 24/7.

Kind of like Elon Musk. Like this guy can solve the problems in Ukraine, like he knows more about the situation than Zelensky, like Ukraine should just accept that Crimea is now part of Russia, even though Russia stole it after the 2014 Olympics. There are people who can’t get over what the state did to them a hundred years ago, but Ukrainians should just get over it. And how the hell would Elon even know? It’s a full-time job keeping up on the world situation, and

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Technology
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Delhi Minimal

It has been a minute since I shared new photographs. I was traveling to India, and when I returned, I got an infection that rendered me useless for a few days. Now that I am back in the saddle, I wanted to share some photos.

I had a tough time finding things to capture in Delhi. After all, it is hard to find moments of silence and simplicity in a chaotic city like Delhi. At the edge of a little pond, I found tiny reeds poking out of the water (above.) I felt compelled to capture the feeling. While waiting around there, I found a dragonfly hovering over the reed. It was perfect.

River Yamuna flows through Delhi. I have many distinct memories of the river. It used to be clean, pristine, and a force of nature. At some point in my life, it flooded and caused significant damage.

Many

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On Photography
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You Got No Mail (aka Bulletin)

Facebook's transition to Meta — in 3D. More 3D app icons like these are coming soon. You can find my 3D work in the collection called "3D Design".
Photo by Dima Solomin on Unsplash

Facebook is shutting down Bulletin, its newsletter subscription service, and it will wind down by the end of 2023. This is terrible news for idiots who keep falling for false promises of Facebook, Google, and every large platform that lures than with traffic and large audiences.

But I am not surprised by Facebook, and it’s about turn. They do it so often that it is almost comical that people still believe them. Media folks, in particular, are so thirsty for getting an audience, which is why platforms continue to play them for suckers. I have been highly suspicious not just of the big platforms but also of the upstarts.

Remember Medium? Man, did they yank the media ecosystems’ chain or what? I still can’t embrace Substack, despite really liking the team and what they bring to the table. It is one of the reasons

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Technology
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