CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-14 22:32:04 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

AdWords Becomes More Insightful with Auction Insights

2013-06-14 22:16:50 (2 comments, 13 reshares, 28 +1s)

Most powerful video I have seen today, no idea what I was watching until the end.. 

2013-06-14 15:54:41 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 3 +1s)

Which icon do you prefer for a StrengthsFinder mobile app?

(While you are at the FiveSecondTest site, be nice and take a few tests. Designers everywhere love getting feedback!)

2013-06-14 15:20:12 (4 comments, 5 reshares, 27 +1s)

Lighting Strikes the AT&T building- Midtown Atlanta June 13, 2013 — at Spire Midtown. Thank you Paul Bruschi.

2013-06-14 02:58:16 (13 comments, 4 reshares, 29 +1s)

No matter how unpopular Congress is we keep re-electing basically the same people. There are reason we don't "throw them all out." Incumbents have a huge advantage in fund raising. They are extremely hard to unseat. Plus, most districts are not at all competitive because of gerrymandering. They are safely Republican or safely Democratic.

This doesn't feel like representative democracy to me. The system is rigged in favor of moneyed-interests and political insiders. It's terribly sad. But as a technologist and entrepreneur, I'm still hopeful. I know that big data and tools and sunshine can help expose corruption and abuse of power, and it sometimes takes just one person to "restore balance to the force."

History can be reshaped by just one invention, by one powerful book, or by a single whistleblower. Movements are started all the time by single,... more »

2013-06-12 14:32:22 (8 comments, 29 reshares, 60 +1s)

MIT developed a method to show normally not visible changings in colour and motion. Incredible possibilities combined with Google Glass.

2013-06-11 23:01:12 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 17 +1s)

We're calling for greater transparency--asking the government to let us publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including their scope.  Here's our letter to the US government.  

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-to-allow-google-to.html

2013-06-10 14:24:22 (4 comments, 6 reshares, 11 +1s)

This is my good buddy +Austin M. Craig and his soon to be (awesome) bride. Donate to their documentary and first 90 days of marriage! #bitcoin   #bitcoin2013   #lifeonbitcoin   #kickstarter  

2013-06-10 13:09:16 (3 comments, 9 reshares, 28 +1s)

Turnkey Tyranny Threatens Democracy

Edward Snowden's video interview ends with what I think is the most powerful line of all: the warning against "turnkey tyranny" that our technology infrastructure and current policy enables.

Today while seaching Google Scholar for "nsa" and "narus" I discovered the 2012 Wired.com article where NSA Whistleblower William Binney warned of "turnkey totalitarianism." (Source: http://goo.gl/3ZXsr)

Daniel Ellsberg (of Pentagon Papers fame) wrote this in the Guardian today:

Obviously, the United States is not now a police state. But given the extent of this invasion of people's privacy, we do have the full electronic and legislative infrastructure of such a state. If, for instance, there was now a war that led to a large-scale anti-war movement – like the one we had againstt... more »

2013-06-07 04:02:28 (5 comments, 12 reshares, 54 +1s)

Lanny Breuer prosecuted zero Wall Street executives as assistant attorney general. Now he gets $4 million a year working at a law firm that defends Wall Street. The system is rigged—but it doesn't have to be. Let's demand that his replacement be someone who isn't a Wall Street shill. If enough people loudly oppose corruption, change will happen. That's the way it's always worked.

The Daily Beast captures what we feel about Breuer in this scathing takedown:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/29/lanny-breuer-and-the-immorality-of-our-morality.html

h/t +Natty Narwhal 

2013-06-07 04:01:43 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)

Michael Lewis worked on Wall Street before he wrote bestsellers like Moneyball and The Blind Side. Here he points out the disturbing fact that Wall Street essentially got to write its own laws after it sparked the crisis—a vast injustice we shouldn't stand for. #getmoneyout  

+Rootstrikers 

2013-06-04 03:13:31 (2 comments, 7 reshares, 51 +1s)

2013-06-04 03:04:48 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 10 +1s)

Great startup ecosystem in Colorado.

2013-06-03 20:26:00 (7 comments, 5 reshares, 17 +1s)

Imagine an opportunity where you can make a billion dollar bet on a coin flip using other people's money. If your bet lands on Heads, you earn billions for your firm and you personally get to take home $130 million bonus (never have to work again). If heaven forbid, the coin lands on Tails, all you lose is your job. You don't go to jail. Nothing else happens to you. Taxpayers bail out your firm.

Any idiot can get lucky for a year or two betting on coin flips (will gas prices go up or down, etc). But it's f'd up when the profits are privatized and the losses are socialized.

How many people would do what this punk did? All you need is one lucky coin flip and you pay yourself a big enough bonus from that year's proceeds that you never have to work again. If you lose the 50-50 bet, oh well. 50-50 odds for winning the lottery are pretty good.

This is exactly... more »

2013-06-03 20:21:58 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

A scientist suggests the best question to ask in speed-dating

Some friends of mine at Gallup recommended Susan Cain's new book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking." It is rather interesting. Here's a fun excerpt:

In his book, Born to Be Good, Keltner even says that if he had to choose his mate by asking a single question at a speed-dating event, the question he would choose is: “What was your last embarrassing experience?” Then he would watch very carefully for lip-presses, blushing, and averted eyes. “The elements of the embarrassment are fleeting statements the individual makes about his or her respect for the judgment of others,” he writes. “Embarrassment reveals how much the individual cares about the rules that bind us to one another.” In other words, you want to make sure that your spouse cares whatother peopl... more »

2013-05-30 23:53:57 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 10 +1s)

Who are the open data entrepreneurs?

In this new post on a newly published "smart disclosure" report from The White House, I identify several of the unnamed startups and companies that are putting open data to work.
http://e-pluribusunum.com/2013/05/30/who-are-the-open-data-entrepreneurs/

2013-05-30 23:51:31 (1 comments, 7 reshares, 18 +1s)

How do the demographics of iOS and Android compare today? Here's a new infographic from +MarketingProfs we thought the developers here would like:

"Android dominates smartphone market share with 69.2% to iOS's 22.1%. Android also has a higher smartphone app download share (58%), compared with iOS's 33%."

The full infographic is here: http://ow.ly/kMRRo. What do you think this means for the future of Android apps and development? And do we need to ask which one people here prefer? :)

2013-05-30 03:39:13 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 13 +1s)

Here's something worth protesting loudly, otherwise this trend could continue unrestrained: 
http://www.toobighasfailed.org/2013/05/29/political-contributions/

2013-05-25 21:24:37 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

Working on some lead scoring code and algorithms. Found this helpful site:

2013-05-25 20:08:18 (1 comments, 5 reshares, 7 +1s)

Who Took Down Stockton?

Here's a mini-documentary that asks why Stockton, California went bankrupt and finds some major culprits on Wall Street. It's a good look at how what happens on Wall Street affects all of us.

Stockton's central problem was that it overreached. It promised too much in pensions for city employees, and it took on too much debt at the bidding of the Wall Street banks (which make lots of money from fees and interest whenever they underwrite city debt). 

Here are some reasons Wall Street is culpable in Stockton's problems:

1) They were part of a bid-rigging scandal where various banks colluded together in a bid for a city bond. The Wall Street banks would decide the winner of the bid together, so that each winner could get a far better deal than they would have gotten if they were bidding against each... more »

2013-05-24 18:13:17 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Gillian Frew: 17 Funniest Lines from Monty Python Star Eric Idle's Commencement Speech http://ow.ly/lmUv3 Whitman

2013-05-24 17:55:23 (1 comments, 12 reshares, 27 +1s)

Let's start #funfriday  off right.  Since people like animated gif's here on Google+, here's a cat wielding a lightsaber. 

Want to learn more about the science of light sabers? Michio Kaku explains at: Sci Fi Science How to Build a Light Saber 1/3

h/t to +MARIA URDA for the pic. 

#forcefriday   #happyfriday   #sciencefiction  

2013-05-24 02:12:14 (26 comments, 11 reshares, 34 +1s)

This is the most important testimony I have ever heard about the negative consequences of the US targeted killing (drone strikes) program in Yemen--given by a young, educated Yemeni man who loves the U.S. and spent a year here in a State Department sponsored scholarship.

If you watched President Obama's policy speech today, please also watch this.

2013-05-23 17:50:56 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Advice to graduates from Senator Elizabeth Warren.

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130523103521-239041738-class-of-2013-try-the-unexpected?trk=mp-reader-card

2013-05-23 16:30:29 (6 comments, 49 reshares, 67 +1s)

Why Facebook is Blue
The Science of Colors in Marketing

If we take a look at what the major brands out there are using, a lot of their color choices become obvious. Clearly, every one of these companies is seeking to trigger a very specific emotion

Read More Here: bit.ly/brandingcolors from +Buffer 

2013-05-22 16:43:15 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 2 +1s)

My friend Superman Clark Kent Brandon Busteed, saving the world, one school at a time

My friend Brandon is a amazing, mission-driven entrepreneur. Years ago he built a company that reduces the risk of alcohol abuse for millions of college students -- through a personalized interactive experience.

Last year he joined Gallup, just months before I did. He is focusing on education once again, trying to help everyone realize that we can universally achieve better educational outcomes for every child and every college student by measuring the right things -- not by focusing on just test scores and grades.

Here's a video clip about the upcoming Gallup Education Conference that Brandon is helping to organize, that you won't want to miss.

And here's a link to complete conference info: http://goo.gl/a7ynn

2013-05-22 02:05:57 (7 comments, 28 reshares, 111 +1s)

See? Those Russian dashboard cameras can capture other things besides the meteors. Well worth 5 minutes of your time.  Best video you'll see today. 

2013-05-20 20:54:45 (8 comments, 5 reshares, 21 +1s)

Outside the Dept. of Justice in DC (just blocks from my office) hundreds of protesters have gathered for a sit-in, protesting foreclosures of their homes and the fact that bankers have been fined for fraud but not prosecuted since the financial crisis began in 2008. They are calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute banks for illegal activities.

This will probably get a lot of news coverage in the next day or two, since some arrests have reportedly happened, and a taser has reportedly been used by police. The protest was organized by Occupy Our Homes.

2013-05-20 20:47:03 (1 comments, 6 reshares, 16 +1s)

These Three Laws That Would Actually Reform Wall Street Deserve Your Support. See Why.

Sometimes Wall Street reform seems completely hopeless. After all, it’s been over four years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and we still haven’t seen much change.

However, there’s good reason to keep up the fight.  Right now there are three laws aiming to reform Wall Street that actually have teeth and could make a real difference. Here’s a very brief introduction to each and an explanation of why each is worth supporting.

(View this post with embedded hyperlinks here: http://goo.gl/wYitm)

1. SB 985 to Restore Glass-Steagall

Last week—exactly 80 years after the original Glass-Steagall bill was introduced—Senator Tom Harkin introduced a bill to restore Glass-Steagall. This depression-era law separated vanilla commercialbanking from ... more »

2013-05-20 16:29:46 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 13 +1s)

USA Today op-ed endorses the call to break up the banks. The pressure's building...

"At least six financial institutions — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — remain too big to fail. Collectively, they hold $9.4 trillion in assets. That's more than twice the annual spending of the U.S. government.

These banks, and their lobbyists, have worked to weaken the 2010 law, fighting agency by agency to water down the regulations. Just last week, they won a major victory in a regulation that allows the market for credit derivatives — the financial instruments that helped inflate the housing bubble and bring down insurance giant AIG — to remain concentrated in a handful of institutions.

But now comes a bipartisan plan that would end too-big-to fail once and for all."
Read ... more »

2013-05-16 17:12:01 (3 comments, 14 reshares, 83 +1s)

2013-05-16 01:12:47 (3 comments, 8 reshares, 50 +1s)

An article about +Larry Page.
Worth reading in my view. 

2013-05-15 23:43:31 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)

Should Big Banks Be Broken Up?

Today The Economist held an online debate between two world-class economists about whether it'd be smart for the US to break up the biggest banks.

Simon Johnson from MIT argued for the motion, while Charles Calomiris from Columbia argued that there are better solutions. 

Johnson says that the megabanks "bear little resemblance to any form of traditional banking" and are instead "primarily large international speculative trading houses." He argues that simplifying them by breaking them up would return these banks back to normalcy and help us avoid future bailouts.

Calomiris, on the other hand, asserts that "breaking up global banks is not necessary for avoiding 'too big to fail' because there are other less draconian measures—which have not been tried and which are very likely towo... more »

2013-05-15 15:06:06 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 16 +1s)

Will definitely be checking this out after I/O.

2013-05-30 03:59:14 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Best guerrilla marketing so far at I/O -- someone handing out cards for android crash reporting to thousands of Google I/O attendees waiting in line outside the Moscone Center.

2013-05-11 01:33:17 (1 comments, 6 reshares, 24 +1s)

Any good Scratch stories out there?

2013-05-07 21:09:57 (20 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Sobering.

2013-05-06 18:31:46 (5 comments, 4 reshares, 21 +1s)

Citi offered Jack Lew a $1 million exit package when he left in 2008, but the contract said that the only way he'd get the million bucks is if he secured a “full time high level position with the U.S. government or regulatory body.”

Do you understand how insane that is? 

Citigroup invests big money to get people into Washington where they know they'll get returned favors. And it works. After all, Citi received $476.2 billion in cash and guarantees after the financial crisis—by far the most of any Wall Street bank. In other words, the reverse revolving door pays.

Unfortunately, this article from The Nation shows that "far from an aberration, such bonuses appear to be fairly common on Capitol Hill." It's something that the public shouldn't stand for.

2013-04-27 09:48:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

One of Facebook's earliest outside investors, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, is leaving the company's board ... Here's a funny story about how he first put money into "Thefacebook."

2013-04-26 01:55:53 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 17 +1s)

Yes, it's true. We are selling our Provo, Utah dream home. Pulling up roots from this awesome community that generally ranks very high in most of the quality of life lists that come out: best place to raise a family, best place to start a business, best place to build your career. Gallup said earlier this year that Provo is the most optimistic people in the U.S. And Provo ranks among the happiest communities as well. (It's no wonder Utah Valley natives call this place Happy Valley -- because statistically speaking, it's true.)

My wife and I have decided to move our family to the Washington DC area. There are a lot of reasons for this decision, which I won't go into now. But I'm sure I will later. We're making this move later this month.

So, if you know someone who is planning to move to Utah, perhaps a BYU business school or law school faculty member, an... more »

2013-04-25 23:45:46 (8 comments, 4 reshares, 20 +1s)

Awesomely creepy: Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell's voice recovered from 'unplayable' record http://bit.ly/Y75fjz

2013-04-25 23:29:17 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 19 +1s)

Features I Hadn't Seen Before in Google Translate

I'm impressed with what those Googlers have done--they've made some terrific improvements to the online version of Google Translate. I use the mobile app all the time--it's great for copying and pasting tweets from Russian when I see words I don't know (which is becoming more and more infrequent--yay!). But I hadn't used the desktop version for a while.

The new feature that shows a variety of possible words that might match the input term is fantastic--especially because of the frequency bar. So is the new My Phrasebook. Now all your efforts to translate words can be turned into efforts to review them later and memorize them. Bravo. Love it.

Благодаря Перевести команды!

2013-04-25 20:38:15 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

We just launched a tool sharing data from 36K Analytics clients and millions of conversions -- all to help you make better decisions and better value your digital marketing efforts. Check it out.

2013-04-25 11:45:03 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Creativity loves constraints.

2013-04-23 02:30:50 (7 comments, 16 reshares, 43 +1s)

The author Les Leopold wrote an explosive piece last week about the problem with hedge funds in the United States. We recommend reading it in full, and we agree with both his complaints about hedge funds (that they manipulate markets and thrive on insider trading), as well as his suggestions to fix the system (by implementing the Robin Hood Tax and full disclosure laws).

Hedge funds play in the same markets as the Wall Street banks, and they often use the same shady strategies to siphon money off the top of a otherwise productive economy.

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/americas-new-math-1-wall-street-hour-21-years-hard-work-rest?paging=off

2013-04-23 01:02:37 (1 comments, 5 reshares, 15 +1s)

2013-04-22 14:26:28 (2 comments, 6 reshares, 5 +1s)

List your personal favorite quantified self tracking tool in the comments.

2013-04-20 07:12:24 (2 comments, 15 reshares, 20 +1s)

Best countries to work on a startup if you have almost no money
http://fundersandfounders.com/where-to-start-your-startup-best-value-destinations/

2013-04-18 12:13:33 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 10 +1s)

Bill Gurley with another article that is sure to become a classic. How does he do this every time?

2013-04-18 00:57:42 (18 comments, 12 reshares, 58 +1s)

Hoping this is legit.