VentureBeat held its first event of the year, our annual Mobile Summit, last week in Sausalito. My summary of the event appeared on our site this morning. If you work in the mobile ad industry, please give it a read and tell me what you think. One other note: VB is hiring. I’m looking for a […]

$19 billion for WhatsApp only makes sense if you view it in the context of the pending battle that Facebook — and Google — are preparing to wage against the telcos that control their access to customers. If you want to know what Facebook’s strategy might look like for the next five years, read this

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning,” said Mark Twain. An editor’s job, at its best, is about turning lightning bugs into lightning.

I spent some time at the studios of KRON-4 TV here in San Francisco on Friday evening, chatting with Catherine Heenan about that day’s launch of the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C and answering reader questions. Thanks to Gabe Slate for inviting me on!

Something seems to be amiss with our budget forecast.

This story, from last week, appeared earlier on VentureBeat and on LinkedIn Today, where it’s generated a ton of commentary. I also did a video on the topic with KRON-4 TV, embedded here. You can only put so many dents in the universe. This week, Apple unveiled a respectable upgrade of its iPhone li

I read the Times story on Amplify, Rupert Murdoch’s 650-person startup aimed at reinventing education via tablet games, with mixed feelings. On the one hand, as I wrote in a piece today on VentureBeat, this is exactly the vision — shared by One Laptop per Child — first outlined in Neal Stephenson’s

Vineet Jain came to America with just $100 in his pocket — literally. He laughs as he remembers arriving in the San Francisco airport in 1993. “I had a single $100 bill, folded up in my shirt pocket,” he says. Now, he’s running rapidly growing hybrid cloud company Egnyte — his second startup — and l

Twitter says, starting today, you’ll see “related headlines” appearing underneath tweets that have been embedded on websites. There’s some confusion about whether these headlines will appear on websites or not. Some people, like Jay Rosen, hate the idea of embedding links to other people’s websites.

KGO’s Jonathan Bloom came by VentureBeat’s office yesterday to interview me about Yahoo’s new logo. Here’s his video! And here’s Jonathan’s writeup on the new logo, including some great man-on-the-street interviews and a classic reaction from the head of the Academy of Art’s design school. It’s a go

About a year ago I wrote about Walnut Studiolo, a Portland-based craft shop that makes leather and wood accessories for bicycles. If you think it’s reasonable to spend $72 for a leather cup holder that’s the perfect size for a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, then you’ll love Walnut’s work. I love the way

The effort of some Wikipedia editors to delete the entry for tinywords is bumming me out. It’s clear that the discussion is being led by people with little to no understanding of haiku and short poetry (Sample quote: “let’s face it, they’re not publishing Finnegan’s Wake here, it’s real short stuff”