I read this at Roughtype. I get scared. This is not at all where I do believe we should go. I remember a Donald Duck cartoon on the same subject. Conclusion there is that it makes us dumb and even though it sounds pretty stupid I agree with that conclusion. It is stupid. I prefer to make my own decisions. Have we really become this lame that we need someone else and even a search engine/technology to make our own daily decisions? Yikes… Personally I have no idea nor understanding why that should be the case. Pathetic and scary…

You will find more on this amazing quote by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt in this Financial Times article -  Google’s goal to organize your daily life.

It makes me shiver…

I have spoken to a lot of people here in the valley who claimed that didn’t need scaling solutions early on. I have consistently said that it is important to think about scale from the beginning, not count on that it get solved down the line. Twitter is a nice concept but it is ultimately killing your earned traffic when your site has downtimes and unaccessible API:s. The downtimes due to bad architectural choices such as choosing Ruby on Rails (with known database scaling issues) have been too many and people are migrating over to a competitor Jaiku, which is more stable with less features though.

I cannot understand anyone who doesn’t think about scale for a business proposal from the beginning, especially when it comes to community/social media sites. Whoever claims to build the community without any scale in the backend from the beginning knows very little about the impact poor scale - for instance slow page loads, frequent downtimes - can have on your community. You might actually end up destroying your community totally.

Lesson learnt: Build for scale from the beginning or at least with scale in mind from the beginning and you will not have the headache. Both entreprenurs and venture capitalists should start to realize that.

Did  I mention I think Twitter is over-hyped?!

I am watching the NHL game between Anaheim Ducks and Detroit Red Wings. Rob Niedermayer together with Chris Pronger just hit Tomas Holmstrom together with their arms smashing his head against the board. Very low, very intentionally and very much disgraceful… (Robs brother Scott Niedermayer in the same manner crosschecked Peter “Foppa” Forsberg in the back into the board in the final in the 2004 World Championship.) Personally I hope this Niedermayer gets thrown out of the game for a long time. I certainly would like Chris Pronger to face the same faith. Intentionally blows/hits with the only intention of hurting a player should be “rewarded” with a permanent leave from the game. Ishockey is about playing, not hurting your oppponents.

Update: Tomas Holmstrom is back!
Update 2: Even better, now he assisted on another goal.

Today Linda Skugge decided to quit blogging. She got tired of all the negative and offensive comments. I decided to write a reflection on trolls.

… always get tougher when it is getting tough is the saying. I have thought about this recently and also saw “Remember the Titans” tonight. There are many great quotes in the film which I really think encapsulate leadership, team work and how to deal with “uphills”. The first one is very football oriented - “I don’t want them to gain another yard. You blitz all night!! If they cross the scrimmage… I’m gonna take every last one of you out! I want you to make sure… they remember… forever… the night the played the Titans?”. You stand your ground and never ever yield. So true, so true. You work as a team together always. One of the best reflections on leadership I’ve heard outside the forces is: “Attitude reflects leadership!”.

… should definitely read the New York Times’s article from today. A friend sent me an article about a puck crazy town in the northern parts of Sweden. I have only been there once, when I was driving back with my oldest brother eating burgers, but just being there for such a short while I too felt the hockey religion there. What about the burger? Yes that too was great.

For you who have missed it you can find the article here - A Puck-Crazy Town in Sweden Churns Out N.H.L. Stars.

Yet another example of problems with the current formulation of Web 2.0. Many sites have underestimated the community aspects and the loose publishing form. I do think something more intelligent is needed as a backend solution that currently to counteract the problems with the loose behavior yet providing the user with the best possible content.

I wrote a longer version on the changing media scene here.