Twitter

Zuck Threads The Needle, Pricks Musk

a block with the number six on it
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Facebook/Meta launched Threads, a Twitter competitor, last week. Mark Zuckerberg says 100 million people have signed up for the new social platform. Yes, I am one of them, in case you were wondering. My approach to social media is simple: controlled consumption. As on other platforms, I will use Threads at my convenience. There is no urgency to open the app first thing in the morning. It is not as if anything critical is awaiting. For now, it lacks Facebook’s hallmark addictive dopamine loops. I am sure they will come in time — this is a Zuckerberg production.

Continue reading...Continue reading Zuck Threads The Needle, Pricks Musk

Technology
1 comments

My top 5 articles for 2023 (so far)

When the calendar turned to July, I decided to take a moment to check out the most-read articles on my website. Not surprisingly, they mimic the year so far in technology. 

Even before Facebook launched Threads, its show across the bow of Twitter, we have had an eventful year with ups and downs. For instance, the year started on a downright sour note — technology layoffs, slowing investment into startups, and a sense of doom around the technology ecosystem. 

Silicon Valley itself had a near-death experience when Silicon Valley Bank went bust. The bank was a key part of the technology economic ecosystem — everyone from startups, venture capital firms, and entrepreneurs banked there. And so did many who depend on startups and their investors. We all had a few very sleepless nights. First Republic, another bank part of the technology ecosystem, fell on hard times and has since been

Continue reading...Continue reading My top 5 articles for 2023 (so far)

Technology
0 comments

A letter from Om Issue #08/2023

Hi! In case you are new around here, I’m Om. In this letter, I share my latest thoughts, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & occasionally, my photography.

In this issue, I address the following: 

Social has made us anti-social

It is a long weekend in the United States. I am celebrating Independence Day, staying away from the social web (and the Internet) to give my mind and body a chance to exhale from the ballast of bullshit it receives via social and mainstream media. Lately, social media has been even more tiresome. 

Every day on social media, I am reminded that if I have half a brain, impulse control, and respect for my intelligence, I should not be on any social media platform. 

The so-called free

Continue reading...Continue reading A letter from Om Issue #08/2023

A Letter From Om
0 comments

Why Elon isn’t paying his bills?

“Obviously Elon can afford to pay Twitter’s bills: it’s couch cushion money for him. So he must have a reason for not doing so, which of course he’s not sharing.”

Puck’s William Cohan asks the question that is on the mind of many: why is Elon Musk not paying his bills? He owes rent money to Twitter landlords. He is stiffing Joele Frank, the PR company that helped him during the takeover, and he is refusing to pay his Google Cloud bills and even the arbitration administrator dealing with Musk’s legal disputes with former Twitter employees. The answer to Cohan’s question is right there in the story.

Continue reading...Continue reading Why Elon isn’t paying his bills?

Technology
0 comments

A Letter from Om Issue #06/2023

Hi! In case you are new around here, I’m Om. In this letter, I share my latest thoughts, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & occasionally, my photography.

In this issue, I address the following: 

Why AI won’t eradicate humanity

I have spent most of my past week playing around with Adobe’s new “Generative Fill” technology, which is very much like AI programs such as Dall-E and Midjourney that can create pictures based on written text, except that it works within the confines of Adobe’s Photoshop. You can type a phrase, such as “place a tree in the background,” and the program does it quickly and accurately.

As a photographer, I primarily use Photoshop to eliminate objects like out-of-focus grass clumps or tree stumps from my images. Even

Continue reading...Continue reading A Letter from Om Issue #06/2023

A Letter From Om
3 comments

The Musky Fox

In my latest piece in The Spectator. As a financial investment, I make a case that Twitter will be a bust. However, the power it gives Elon Musk is unprecedented. 

Elon Musk has decided it’s too much work for him to be the chief executive of Twitter, a fraying social network, in addition to running Tesla and SpaceX and a potpourri of other startups. He recently named Linda Yaccarino, an NBC ad executive, as the new CEO so that she could focus on business operations and he could focus on product design and new technologies. As an employee of Musk’s, Yaccarino has an impossible mission — to stem the bleeding, appease the advertisers, and, of course, keep her new boss happy.

Good luck to her, I say, for Twitter’s current fortunes are going in only one direction — south. When Musk acquired Twitter, he paid $44 billion for a company that no

Continue reading...Continue reading The Musky Fox

Me In Media, Technology
0 comments

A Letter from Om. Issue #05/2023

Hi! In case you are new around here, I am Om. If you are new around here, here is something About Me and why you should read my newsletter. In this letter, I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & sometimes my photography. It’s mostly about technology and how it impacts our present future. 

In this issue, I address the following: 

  • What I have been up to
  • Twitter is the new Fox news
  • Some of my recent pieces
  • Three Good Reads

***

What I have been up to: 

That took longer than I thought, but having a proper mental reset was a good payoff. I went to Japan and did a lot walking, eating, and reading. It was an opportune time to take a break — we were making some tiny tweaks to the blog and switching my email platform. I have

Continue reading...Continue reading A Letter from Om. Issue #05/2023

A Letter From Om
0 comments

Why Media Can’t Quit Twitter

Last week, when reading Ben Smith’s newsletter, I came across a graphic based on a poll conducted by MuckRack. It showed that media folks weren’t pulling back from Twitter despite much handwriting and mock outrage, just as they didn’t move away from Facebook. The switch to Mastadon made for a grand narrative, but like most of the stuff on Twitter, it was great marketing. When I pointed out this hypocrisy, Anil Dash (an early blogger and early Twitter user rightly noted that the “prestige media won’t go to the fediverse for another 2 years, same lag where they didn’t think Twitter existed until after Ashton Kutcher legitimized it.”

“They would rather cover Musk talking about things that he not only won’t do, but couldn’t do, than actual new tech made by real people,” Dash added. “They love failure by tycoons a lot more than success from regular people.” The argument made by Dash was

Continue reading...Continue reading Why Media Can’t Quit Twitter

Technology
3 comments