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Howdy, I'm MG Siegler. I’m a general partner at CrunchFund and a columnist for TechCrunch. This is where I collect things.

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The magic of the age we live in: I’m sitting around on a Friday afternoon, drinking a beer and doing some email. Twitter alerts me that Johan Santana is on the verge of a no-hitter — the first in New York Mets history, mind you. Major League Baseball is forward-thinking enough to put live, historic look-ins online, so I can actually watch as well. I tweet out the link to others, and a father gets to watch the moment with his son. 
Beautiful.

The magic of the age we live in: I’m sitting around on a Friday afternoon, drinking a beer and doing some email. Twitter alerts me that Johan Santana is on the verge of a no-hitter — the first in New York Mets history, mind you. Major League Baseball is forward-thinking enough to put live, historic look-ins online, so I can actually watch as well. I tweet out the link to others, and a father gets to watch the moment with his son

Beautiful.

Posted on June 1, 2012

Tags tech twitter mlb mahbeer

friendsdontletfriendsusefriends:

MG Siegler is a friend and long-time former colleague, so this one pains me — especially since he knows full well about this site’s mission and is obviously hoping to get featured here as part of his never-ending quest for page views. Nice scoop, though.

I must admit that I did think of Jason’s mission when writing that headline. But I powered through and added “Status” in there just for good measure as well. “Poking Around” barely missed the cut.

friendsdontletfriendsusefriends:

MG Siegler is a friend and long-time former colleague, so this one pains me — especially since he knows full well about this site’s mission and is obviously hoping to get featured here as part of his never-ending quest for page views. Nice scoop, though.

I must admit that I did think of Jason’s mission when writing that headline. But I powered through and added “Status” in there just for good measure as well. “Poking Around” barely missed the cut.

Posted on June 1, 2012

Tags tech facebook ios

Reblogged from Friends Don't Let Friends Use Friends  Source friendsdontletfriendsusefriends

5 days before the WWDC keynote where Apple will boot Google Maps from the iPhone and unveil their own cool new 3D mapping technology, Google Maps is holding an event to discuss “the next dimension of Google Maps”. Coincidence, I’m sure.
Note that Google is saying they will “provide a sneak peek at upcoming features” — in other words, they aren’t done yet, but they wanted to get them out there before the blowback from WWDC. 
Also worth noting, I have June 6 marked down as the day of Eric Schmidt’s “six months from now” prediction. That is, on this day, Schmidt promised that more developers would be working on Android apps first instead of iOS ones. Obviously, this event isn’t related, but a nice distraction from the complete and utter lack of reality.

5 days before the WWDC keynote where Apple will boot Google Maps from the iPhone and unveil their own cool new 3D mapping technology, Google Maps is holding an event to discuss “the next dimension of Google Maps”. Coincidence, I’m sure.

Note that Google is saying they will “provide a sneak peek at upcoming features” — in other words, they aren’t done yet, but they wanted to get them out there before the blowback from WWDC. 

Also worth noting, I have June 6 marked down as the day of Eric Schmidt’s “six months from now” prediction. That is, on this day, Schmidt promised that more developers would be working on Android apps first instead of iOS ones. Obviously, this event isn’t related, but a nice distraction from the complete and utter lack of reality.

Posted on June 1, 2012

Tags tech google maps apple ios 6 eric schmidt

 Source 9to5google.com

Why Spencer Tipping Left Google

Lots of good pros and cons for working at Google, but you have to love his simple one-word con on the “corporate culture” side of things: “Google+”.

He elaborates a bit in a footnote:

I think Google+ is an effort that does not deserve the engineering minds at Google. This is mostly a personal bias. I see Google as solving legitimately difficult technological problems, not doing stupid things like cloning Facebook. Google, in my opinion, lost sight of what was important when they went down this rabbit hole.

Tipping is not alone in this feeling.

(via @dalmaer)

Posted on May 31, 2012

Tags tech google google+

A Bad Windows 8 Omen?

Admittedly, I haven’t been following the news about Windows 8 all that closely — I care because the dominant computer OS is getting a major overhaul, but I doubt I’ll end up using it much — but reading pieces like this one, my instinct is that Microsoft is in for a very rude awakening.

By most accounts I’ve read, the Metro elements of Windows 8 are good, but they clash badly with the legacy elements of the OS. Why is Microsoft insisting on both living side-by-side? “No compromises”, or something. 

Then when you consider that there’s a special version of the OS — with special rules — for ARM chips, things start to sound really complicated. It’s starting to sound like consumer poison, to be honest.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is apparently pulling out all stops in an attempt to get developers writing new Windows 8 apps. But most of the big players are’t biting.

One bullish player was highlighed by Bloomberg for their story today:

Mobile games maker Digital Chocolate Inc. also plans to have games available for Windows 8 at launch, said Chief Executive Officer Trip Hawkins, while declining to specify further.

In a bit of unfortunately timing for Bloomberg’s story, — and really for Microsoft — Hawkins resigned from Digital Chocolate three days ago as major layoffs loom.

Posted on May 31, 2012

Tags tech microsoft windows 8 digital chocolate

Facebook's 10-Second Rule

Josh Constine:

If you hate accidental auto-sharing, you’re in luck. Now you have to be watching or reading something for at least 10 seconds before Facebook apps can auto-share the activity to your Timeline. 

A simple, good change. I’ve actually avoided clicking on things inside Facebook, worried that one would be a “landmine” — some bit of clickbait tied to Open Graph sharing. Why was I clicking on it in the first place? That’s another story…

Posted on May 31, 2012

Tags tech facebook

fastcompany:

Now let us return to the tale of C1. Or should I say, MacMan. The agency team was heartbroken to learn that Steve had fallen in love with such a disappointing name as “MacMan.” Unlike C1 itself, for which our feelings had evolved from shock to love, there could be no love for “MacMan.” Ever. It had so many things wrong with it, we didn’t know where to start. Phil Schiller, Apple’s worldwide marketing manager, was in the room, and Steve revealed that “MacMan” was Phil’s contribution.
“I think it’s sort of reminiscent of Sony,” said Steve, referring of course to Sony’s legendary Walkman line of personal music players. “But I have to tell you, I don’t mind a little rub-off from Sony. They’re a famous consumer company, and if MacMan seems like a Sony kind of consumer product, that might be a good thing.” It was hard to know where to start picking at that argument. It seemed that Apple, more than any company in the world, stood for originality. Having a name that so blatantly echoed another company’s style couldn’t be the right way to go. We were also disturbed by the “man” part of “Mac-Man,” with its obvious gender bias. And then there was the fact that the name just gave us hives, but we’d need to be a bit more tactful on that one. 
Steve Jobs Almost Named The iMac The MacMan, Until This Guy Stopped Him

“MacMan”? Ouch. That would have been painful on the eyes and ears. 

fastcompany:

Now let us return to the tale of C1. Or should I say, MacMan. The agency team was heartbroken to learn that Steve had fallen in love with such a disappointing name as “MacMan.” Unlike C1 itself, for which our feelings had evolved from shock to love, there could be no love for “MacMan.” Ever. It had so many things wrong with it, we didn’t know where to start. Phil Schiller, Apple’s worldwide marketing manager, was in the room, and Steve revealed that “MacMan” was Phil’s contribution.

“I think it’s sort of reminiscent of Sony,” said Steve, referring of course to Sony’s legendary Walkman line of personal music players. “But I have to tell you, I don’t mind a little rub-off from Sony. They’re a famous consumer company, and if MacMan seems like a Sony kind of consumer product, that might be a good thing.” It was hard to know where to start picking at that argument. It seemed that Apple, more than any company in the world, stood for originality. Having a name that so blatantly echoed another company’s style couldn’t be the right way to go. We were also disturbed by the “man” part of “Mac-Man,” with its obvious gender bias. And then there was the fact that the name just gave us hives, but we’d need to be a bit more tactful on that one. 

Steve Jobs Almost Named The iMac The MacMan, Until This Guy Stopped Him

“MacMan”? Ouch. That would have been painful on the eyes and ears. 

Posted on May 31, 2012

Tags tech apple iMac

Reblogged from Fast Company  Source fastcodesign.com