Essays — GigaOM

Essays

Big Data has been at the forefront of many vendors’ agendas lately. Perhaps no one has been leading the charge as vocally as Cloudera, but the question now is when Cloudera’s stewardship and alliances will result in it getting snatched up by a large vendor. Read More »

Sept. 9: What We’re Reading About the Cloud

Amazon Introduces “Micro Instances” on EC2; ARM Announces Cortex A-15 Eagle Microprocessor; HPC Meets Cloud Computing with Dell’s New Server and Random Access Compute Capacity (RACC). Read More »

 
 

Hewlett-Packard Sues Former CEO Mark Hurd

Hewlett-Packard is suing its former chairman and CEO, Mark Hurd, alleging breach of contract and potential misappropriation of trade secrets. Hurd left the company last month, after allegations that he was involved in a number of improprieties related to a human resources consultant the company hired. Read More »

The Importance of APIs in Collaboration Tools

As your team and your projects evolve, it’s easy to find yourself in a position where tweaking your tools would make life a lot easier. If you choose tools with APIs, you’ll have far more options in terms of tweaking down the road. Read More »

How are you today? And how’s your SuperMe? According to one of the media industry’s leading lights, all of us who engage in social networking create a “Digital SuperMe … that only drinks the best wine, vacations in the finest locales and has the brightest children.” Read More »

In Recovery: No More Tweets

I own every major Twitter client for the iPhone, and many for the iPad. Some were free, but most were bought and paid for. They each have their merits and I’ve used them all variously at one time or another, though some more than others. But … Read More »

Social Currency and Online Brands

Social currency isn’t just “buzz,” says Erich Joachimsthaler, the Founder and CEO of Vivaldi Partners, it “represents a shared asset of consumers and company-owned brands.” It’s not something that companies create and control on their own, but there are six “levers” that organizations can use. Read More »

Next month will see our cloud computing conference, Structure, returning for its third year, which got me thinking about the impact of cloud computing on web working. It is amazing how cloud computing has revolutionized the web working landscape in such a short space of time. Read More »

How Can Advertising Work on the Social Web?

Who said that the advertising models of print and yesteryear would be sustainable online? Everyone just hoped they’d translate, because porting old models onto new platforms didn’t require much innovation or effort. Read More »

Remote Workers Should Lead the Charge for New Mobile Tech

Not only is it just plain cool that field testing new toys often falls to us and then trickles up, it’s also a responsibility I think web workers and the places that support them should openly and actively embrace. Read More »

Businesses and the Social Media Trap

Many businesses set up Facebook pages when everyone was jumping on board to see what all the hype was about. Yet they didn’t know what to do with those pages in the longer term, and now they languish across Facebook. Read More »

The Future of Blogging

A recent Pew survey revealed that the popularity of blogging among teens and young adults has declined dramatically from 28 percent to 14 percent from 2006 to 2009. It reveals a trend that clearly shows that blogging is losing its luster with today’s younger generation. Read More »

More Must Reads

Am I the only one struggling with a consistent and coherent definition for the term “social media?” What is social media, who came up with the term, and who defines it now? Read More »

As I’m watching all of these events, I’m struck by one thing in particular: All of these athletes represent the consummate niche professional. They do one thing (or sometimes two or three, but all under the same basic umbrella) and they do it very, very well. Read More »

Do you ever get to a place in your life or business when you just need to clear the decks, start fresh, clean the slate? Maybe it starts with the long-awaited end of a project, a move, or even the reorganizing of a close. Read More »

In early 2007, the Council of Public Relations Firms (CPRF) and APCO Worldwide partnered to learn more about interactions and relationships between public relations (PR) professionals and bloggers. Findings showed that PR professionals who understood blogger “culture” were having more success in communicating in … Read More »

What if I told you that it was possible to use a magic machine at home that could make anything…and that maybe you could use it to conjure up “things” to sell as part of your job? Read More »

A few days ago, Engadget turned off comments on its posts — a move which, ironically, reignited discussion about the value of blog comments in a world pulsing with social media. Some sites I’ve worked on have inspired commenting that I could only describe … Read More »

Dedicated gym-goers use some tried and tested methods to make their workouts more efficient and effective. As usual, what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, and a lot of these same strategies can apply quite well to professional workflows, too. Read More »

I’ve already expressed my opinion on what would make the Apple tablet a significant part of my day-to-day web working habits, but Amazon seems keen on positioning itself in or around the same space in the market, so it’s only fair I turn my attention to … Read More »

I’m excited about the much-discussed Apple tablet, which is expected to be unveiled next week. I would be excited if Apple was releasing a new device that only provided me with a painful electric shock every hour on the hour, frankly. That said, once I get … Read More »

The beginning of a new decade is a great time for retrospectives and looking back at what brought us to where we are now, but it’s also a good time to pause and reflect about where the next ten years might take us. Specifically, how might … Read More »

Recent discussions suggest that we’ve reached that point in the evolution of social media. What point? The point at which social networks have become sufficiently popular for entrepreneurs to recognize the potential of this as a market space not just for showing advertisements in well-defined … Read More »

In the wide world of business there is still an enormous resistance to embracing newer communications tools such as blogs, microblogs and social networks as part of fully-integrated marketing strategies. Here is how that can, and should, change. Read More »

I’m old enough to remember when being at home meant that you were off work. There was no logging in from home to check your mail. (If you wanted your mail, you had to drive into the office to pick it up.) Computers were big … Read More »

In planning to work from home, we consider in detail the technicalities, the home office setup, and all the fun, exciting things we’ll do to fill in all that extra time we’ll have. This is, after all, a lifestyle change, and there’s a lot to … Read More »

At any given time, there is usually an ongoing debate in some blogging circle about whether ghostblogging is a good or bad thing. I say it depends on how you’re using the term, and how you are using your ghostblogger. What is a “ghostblogger,” anyway? The … Read More »

One of my favorite holiday songs is “Grown Up Christmas List.” Amy Grant sings about all the things that she wants for Christmas that can’t be wrapped in a box. Her list, of course, is full of grand altruistic dreams such as peace and … Read More »

I still can’t really believe that the “noughties” have nearly gone; it’ll be 2010 in less than a month. I’ve been thinking about 2010 (what an impossibly futuristic date that sounds!) and what it might hold in store for me as a web worker: Faster, … Read More »

I’ve written previously about how I find it often more trouble than it is worth to take time off of work for vacations. But many of us in the first generation of web workers are part of the so-called “sandwich generation,” caring for kids … Read More »

It’s a little early yet to be thinking about the new year (there’s still at least 75 percent of the holiday party season ahead of us, after all), but one of my New Year’s resolutions last year was to try and be more prepared, so … Read More »

The holidays are a time for giving. I remember when, during my days as an office worker, the Unicef box would travel between cubicles, or if the organization was larger, sometimes management would ask that a portion of your paycheck go to such-and-such charity. When you’re working … Read More »

In an effort to curtail my disastrous gadget spending habits, I’ve decided to take a look at devices I’ve purchased with the stated intent of increasing my productivity, to see if intentions and reality reflect each other at all. Today, I’m turning my critical gaze on … Read More »

While not all web worker are freelancers, a good portion of them are — and a freelance lifestyle is part of the appeal of working from home. The fact is, working as an independent contractor is not all wine and roses. Personally, I wouldn’t have it … Read More »

As I sit down each day to do my work, the vast majority of which involves writing (articles, web site content, tweets and blog posts), I can’t help but think about the writing rules drilled into me by past English teachers. In most cases, their advice … Read More »

Because of its recent return to my working methodology, I want to take a moment to single out a very low-tech web working tool for praise. I’m talking about the sketchbook, that handy little tome in which we can capture and generate some of our best … Read More »

I was very eager to get in on the Google Wave beta. So much so that I solicited invites from pretty much anyone who even mentioned it on Twitter for about two solid weeks. Eventually, my constant pestering paid off, and I was rewarded with an … Read More »

So you’re well into your web working career (hopefully thanks, in part, to the posts featured in our just-released free “Web Work 101″ e-book), and you’ve gotten off to a great start, but after a certain amount of time (it will differ from person … Read More »

Lately, my inbox has been filling up with notices. Notices about the impending renewal date of my web-based server space, and the domain names attached to said space. Which means, as the emails ominously remind me, that once it lapses, neither I nor anyone else … Read More »

Even in the best of times, a freelance web worker’s income can be spotty and irregular at times. Unlike salaried employees, contractors are subject to sudden and frequent variations in the amount of revenue they can generate at any given time. Those variances can be mitigated, … Read More »

You may come to web work through no choice of your own, either because you’ve been moved into a remote working position at your current job, or because your current gig is ending and finding a replacement full-time salaried job isn’t the easiest thing to do … Read More »

In my Labor Day post, I talked about the importance of web workers advocating for ourselves, and why it is necessary. One of the topics for advocacy that is on everyone’s mind right now (at least in the U.S.) is healthcare, or more particularly health … Read More »

Whether freelancing, or in the corporate world, we all have to contend with deadlines. Deadlines generally come off sounding like shlock horror villains: they inch closer, approach, loom and grow larger. I’ve worked in settings where deadlines were paramount, and followed rigorously, and in situations where … Read More »

There’s a temptation to title this piece “Local Boy Makes Good!” or something similar, for it’s extremely exciting to see that Dan Harmon (Heat Vision and Jack) has got himself a bona fide TV show. As the co-creator of Channel 101, Harmon is indirectly responsible … Read More »

A few recent experiences on the road left me feeling like I was doing my 21st century job in very 20th century hotel rooms. It got me thinking about what my wish list would be for the web worker hotel room of the future. Power The typical hotel … Read More »

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