New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook’s servers to break into Facebook members’ private email accounts and read their emails–at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company’s systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful.

It’s all irrelevant, because none of this is going to hurt Facebook at this stage. Critical mass.

“Heavy Rain” is one of the increasingly popular “non-games” like “Flower” and “fl0w” that set up hoops for the player to jump through as they see fit, but offer no significant win or lose conditions. There is just “progression.”

Posted via web from Jason Preston’s posterous

SharesPost, however, is a company that lets owners of shares in private companies sell them to prospective buyers, and they’ve just released an index detailing valuations of some of the most prominent companies in the social media space.

I find it fascinating (and frankly, bad) that private companies are finding ways to become publicly traded without the restrictions and regulations imposed by the government on pubilc companies.

Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.

From Conan O’brien

Overall, participants in our new plan ran up only $65 in cost for every $100 incurred by their associates under the old coverage. Are HSA participants denying themselves needed care in order to save money? The answer, as far as the state of Indiana and Mercer Consulting can find, is no. There is no evidence HSA members are more likely to defer needed care or common-sense preventive measures such as routine physicals or mammograms.

It turns out that, when someone is spending his own money alone for routine expenses, he is far more likely to ask the questions he would ask if purchasing any other good or service: “Is there a generic version of that drug?” “Didn’t I take that same test just recently?” “Where can I get the colonoscopy at the best price?”

DUH

Shawn Blanc’s much linked review of iPhone RSS readers, to which my response is: “why use an RSS reader?”

I’ve switched back to bookmarks, mostly because RSS readers are often ugly versions of content that is well rendered in a browser. I open up eleven sites in browser tabs every day, and follow links that interest me.

On the iPhone, Safari is more than sufficient for me.

Well, there are a lot of evolutionary steps. I think the way that the weapons work and having access to all the weapons; switching between them often, because the game encourages it with the way that the AI works. Some AI are weaker than some of the weapons. Some AI you have to use a specific weapon to defeat them with. And I think the Titans threw the entire team for a loop. How do we develop on these things?

I am so beyond excited for God of War III. Hey honey? You probably won’t see me for a few days.

Posted via email from Jason Preston’s posterous

- J

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Sent from (206) 235-8981

Posted via email from Jason Preston’s posterous

Fred Wilson talks about the totally ridiculous nature of software patents in general. Facebook has patented the “news feed.”

Same with social news feeds. They [Facebook] are the dominant provider of social news feeds in the world. Because they out executed everyone else. But not because they invented the idea. Giving them a patent on this idea is lunacy. But the whole idea of software patents is lunacy. We need to eliminate software patents and we need to do it now.

The Patent System theoretically provides a very important protection to the young entrepreneur: a guarantee that if you invent something, nobody else can steal it right away.

In reality, it seems that more often than not, larger companies with deep pockets patent ideas that are already in common use, and then extract money from the unfortunate entrepreneurs.

John Scalzi, with usual aplomb, on how ridiculous it is to think that the “middlemen” in book publishing add no value:

I’d personally use an even simpler formulation, which is that there a lot of people who seem to think that all you need for a book are a reader and an author, but no one seems to think that all you need for a double cheeseburger is a hungry dude and a cattle rancher.

Republicans plan to emphasize six smaller ideas to change the health-care system, including new limits on malpractice lawsuits, allowing small businesses and individuals to buy insurance across state lines and creating high-risk pools to cover the sick. They will stress that Americans are more concerned about lowering insurance costs than expanding coverage, and that an incremental approach is more palatable to the public.

My opinion, not that anyone asked for it, is that there is actually ONE thing that would be simple, easy, have incredible bipartisan support, and would make more difference than any of the ideas on the table now:

Government agency tasked with creating an easy-to-navigate public and freely available web database listing the final consumer costs and success rates of every medical procedure as provided by every medical facility in the US.

If you did that, costs might actually go DOWN for the average Joe.

But the two roads to revenue signified by these two bits of news diverge in a wood, of sorts. And I’m wondering if Twitter, like Robert Frost, should take the road less traveled.

The ad platform, obviously, promises to derive money from advertising, the tried-and-true revenue stream that’s helped every media property from Collier’s magazine to Facebook.

The Yahoo deal, as with relationships Twitter has set up in recent months with Google and Microsoft’s Bing, calls for Yahoo to pay Twitter for the “firehose” of data the new relationship will bring to Yahoo.

The money has always been in the data and the API. The public has been slow to realize this because they never SEE the API, and they’re always working through an interface.

I’m super excited to be part of such an awesome speaker lineup on March 4th. See you there!

Jason Preston (@jasonp107) and Mónica Guzmán (@moniguzman) How to Have an Argument
Accomplished contrarians, Ignite alums, and fiancées, Jason and Mónica will share the secrets of how to have an argument that doesn’t involve legal fees. Their talk also marks an Ignite first, a tag team talk.