I spent half an hour in front of some video cameras at Revision3’s SF studio on Friday, with host Patrick Norton and fellow guest Mike Elgan, of ComputerWorld. We talked about Microsoft’s big reorg (and whether Ballmer was killing the company or not), the NSA’s PRISM program, the upcoming Def Con co

I was briefly walking behind a mother and daughter in downtown San Francisco last week about midday. They were both very nicely turned out: The mother in her thirties, the daughter probably 8 or 9, in matching brown coats and matching mid-length haircuts. A pretty picture. The daughter was talking t

This story deserves an award of some kind for business writing. A subject like this calls for just the right mix of completely straight-faced reporting and just a tiny hint of a wink. Plus, of course, a huge love of Doritos. I laughed, and I wept a bit for the outright enthusiasm that Taco Bell’s […

My latest “Dylan’s Desk” column for VentureBeat looks at a disturbing trend: The way app developers are giving up on three decades of openness and interconnection. I am not yet sure that this is a truly widespread or irreversible trend. But I do feel skeptical about the rush to replace mobile websit

Here’s the deal: The NRA is simply *far* better organized than the gun control lobby. A passionate minority will prevail over an apathetic majority any day, in our political system. Here’s what I think gun control people need to do, if they’re serious: Start a “National Gun Safety Association.”  Mak

There are a lot of rumors going around about a certain blog founder. My take is that most of it is completely unfounded and comes from people with an obvious interest in discrediting him. So for now, VentureBeat is not covering this “story.” After I posted this note on Facebook, I got asked: Are we

“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy […]

I’ve had several HTC phones, and I never seem to learn. The latest is an HTC One V. They all start out great — excellent hardware, seemingly fast and snappy interfaces — and turn into useless, molasses-slow junk within a few weeks. I think I’ve isolated the source of the problem: It’s something to d

Personally I don’t mind the gratuitous boobage in Game of Thrones. Any shape or size: I am a fan. But if those boobs are accompanied by a complete absence of relevance or character, it starts to feel a bit empty. Throw in loads of violence — especially when that violence seems to have no point […]

My latest column for VentureBeat started off as an attempt to describe how I’ve replaced Google Reader, with a custom-rigged PHP-based RSS news river of my own, supplemented by some IFTTT recipes and a minimalist RSS reader called Skimr. But it turned into a meditation on impermanence and change. He

I went to Austin, and I came back with an excellent orange beanie. I also spent a lot of time talking to interesting people and — when I wasn’t busy producing content for VentureBeat — drinking a bit too much. (And I made a brief appearance on NPR, which made my mom really proud.) I’m […]

Fast Company asked me how I manage to be productive, which gave me a chance to explain how I use Evernote and Instapaper. Here’s their writeup: Dylan Tweney, the executive editor at VentureBeat, said Evernote, the popular note-taking and archiving service, is his go-to productivity tool. “I use Ever