Articles
August 11, 2009
# The Feed: Facebook Buys FriendFeed
There is a deal announced this week, and the deal is the feed: the Facebook agreement to acquire FriendFeed, the real time sharing service, on Monday. The deal is the surprise: the social network that bought the team from Google, the undisclosed price, reported near fifty million dollars. The questions began that day: what would happen to FriendFeed, what Facebook had actually bought. The Feed is the August 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: the real time web that became the prize.
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July 10, 2009
# The OS: Google Goes Chrome
There is an operating system that arrived this week, and the operating system is the challenge: the Chrome OS that Google announced on Tuesday, the platform that takes on Windows itself. The announcement came on the official blog, the post signed by two engineers, the news that spread through the week: the headlines, the analysis, the debate about what Google is building. The logic is simple: the web is the platform, the browser is the window, and the company that lives online must own the floor beneath the window. The operating system is the July 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: the search company that built a browser last year now wants to replace the machine under it.
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June 8, 2009
# The Speed: Apple's iPhone 3GS
On Monday, Apple announced the iPhone 3GS at its developers conference in San Francisco, and the announcement was the quietest kind of revolution. The new phone looked exactly like the old one, and the sameness was the strategy: the S stood for speed, the company said, and the speed was the upgrade. The company was selling the same dream faster, and the faster was the future. The reveal is the June 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: in the middle of the worst economy in decades, the company that kept making things people wanted kept winning.
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May 28, 2009
# The Challenger: Microsoft Unveils Bing
On Thursday, Microsoft unveiled Bing, its new search engine, at a conference in San Diego, and the company insisted that the name was not the point. The point, the executives said, was that Bing was not a search engine at all but a decision engine, a tool built to help people decide, not just to find. The company had spent years and billions chasing the leader, and the chase had produced the challenger. The reveal is the May 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: when the number two spends a decade chasing the number one, the chase itself becomes the story.
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April 20, 2009
# The Rebirth: IBM Buys Sun
On Monday, IBM announced it would buy Sun Microsystems for about seven and a half billion dollars, and the news felt like a funeral and a resurrection at the same time. The company that had defined the internet boom, the company of Java and the network is the computer, was being acquired for a fraction of its former glory. The price was the verdict on the boom, and the verdict was the story of the year. The deal is the April 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: in a crisis, the giants of the previous era become the bargains of the next one.
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March 9, 2009
# The Bottom: Markets Turn After Seventeen Months
On Monday the market closed at 676.53, the lowest close of the crisis, after seventeen months of decline. The Standard and Poor's 500 has fallen 56.5 percent from the October 2007 peak, and the great technology names have lost half to two thirds of their value. The question hanging over the market is whether the selling is finished. The question is the March 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: the bottom is the price of the fear, and the fear is the sale.
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February 17, 2009
# The Stimulus: Washington Betting on Broadband
There is a bet made this week, and the bet is the stimulus: the $787 billion package that President Obama signed on Tuesday. The bet is the largest in American history, and the history is the crisis: the worst recession since the Depression. The bet is the broadband: the $7.2 billion for the rural and underserved, the argument that connectivity is infrastructure. The stimulus is the February 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: the Washington that bet on broadband, the broadband that will be built, the digital economy that will be watched.
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January 7, 2009
# The Block: Bitcoin's First Step
This week, a ghost built the first brick of a new money. On Saturday, January 3, Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block, block zero, of a currency called Bitcoin. The block carried a headline from The Times about the Chancellor on the brink of a second bailout, a protest and a proof. The first fifty coins were created, and the coins had no price. The block is the January 2009 story, and the story is the lesson: the first brick was laid quietly, and almost no one noticed.
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December 29, 2008
The Fall: Tech and the Crash of 2008
The worst market year since the Depression nearly destroyed the technology industry, and in the wreckage the seeds of the next era were planted.
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November 3, 2008
The Cloud: Microsoft Answers Amazon
Ray Ozzie announced Windows Azure at the developer conference, and the software giant finally answered the cloud question.
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