Twitter, as a company, has made its share of mistakes over the years. These include implementing its own retweeting system that makes it significantly more difficult to see how many people retweeted you and who they are (not to mention the fact that when I use the Twitter retweet, I can’t add my two cents to the original tweet, it all kind of defeats the purpose), the Twitter URL shortening service, which seems to break more links than it shortens, or many others. But the good news was that with all these issues, I always had Tweetdeck to fall back on. Then Twitter bought Tweetdeck.
Truth be told, I kinda love putting these posts together, it helps me feel productive by seeing exactly how many posts I have written in the last week or month. The fact that people keep telling me they love them and use them as a resource to catch up on all the technology news they missed, well that is just the icing on the cake.
So I just finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs and to say I loved every word of it would be an understatement. I wrote a review of the book and if you can only read one post, this one or that one, read my review. Of course, what made the book so amazing was not just my love for technology or Apple products, nor was it my admiration for Steve Jobs, it was the story of a man filled with contradictions who ended up revolutionizing anywhere between seven and nine industries, depending who you ask.
It has been quite a crazy month in and out of the tech industry and while I usually try to post these articles on a weekly basis, clearly, that did not work too well in the last couple of week. But since many (many) people seem to depend on these posts to get up to date, I am forcing myself to get back into the swing of things.
If I had a dime for every person who said to me “I don’t do Twitter. Why do I need to announce to the world what I am eating or when I go to the bathroom”? Now, I am not sure how or when Twitter got the reputation of being a service for pointless and insignificant status updates, but if anyone deserves that title, it is Facebook. The amount of content, relationships, and engagement I have gathered on Twitter over the years, or even on a daily basis, is absolutely unprecedented anywhere else on or off the Web.
The technology reporting scene on the Web is always full of excitement and drama. Paul Carr makes sure of it. The man is a constant source of entertainment both in his blog posts and on Twitter. The latest TechCrunch story brought out the best in Paul and as soon as Arrington was not permitted to choose his successor as the Editor of TechCrunch, Paul left, just like he promised he would.
This week will most definitely go down in the books as the most monumental week in its effect on the tech industry. Except, I mean that in the worst possible way. We lost the father of tech, the legendary Steve Jobs, and many industries will never be the same.
When I sit down to write a blog post, I often plan it out for hours before. I think about the content, and how unique my angle is. I think about the title and how I will make it enticing enough for people to click. I think about the length of the post and I think about what other articles to link to.
I am writing this post by going back to the reason I started this blog, to just put what I am thinking down on paper. I have no idea how this will come out and I have no idea if I even have a unique angle or story to add to the millions of tweets and blog posts that have and will be written about Steve Jobs on the day of his passing.
All I keep thinking is how does a CEO of a tech company make so many people around the world, geeks and non geeks, love and respect him so much? I mean, just open Twitter and you will see what I mean. No one is talking about anything else.
I think the answer is one simple word. PASSION.
I am not going to link to any of the articles I have read over the years about Steve Jobs because the list would not end. There have been so many. They all came down to one thing. Passion.
Steve Jobs loved Apple. He loved great products and he did not stop at anything to create them and inspire millions. There is the story of the Macbook that was ready for release until Jobs discovered that a tiny little screw stuck out a fraction of a millimeter from the bottom. He then postponed the release because it was not perfect.
There is the famous story of how Jobs called Vic Gundotra of Google about the logo of Google on the iPhone. Steve called Vic on a Sunday all frantic because the shade of yellow in the Google logo did not satisfy Jobs as it appeared on the iPhone.
The stories go on and on. The bottom line is, Jobs had true passion and he followed it no matter where it led him.
Here lays the fundamental reason that Steve Jobs has inspired so many people. Everyone, whether they know it or not has a passion of some sort. Most people, if not all, do not let their true passion lead their every day decisions. There are always other factors involved. Money, practicality, location, etc. Jobs taught me that all of that is irrelevant.
If you have a passion for something, follow it. Blindly!
I did that when I started blogging. I did that when I decided to go into marketing. I did that in my personal life on many occasions. Without even one exception, my passions have led me to wonderful places and I honestly, on a conscious level, made all those decisions thanks to Steve Jobs.
I really do not want to go on about how I feel as I do think, to some extent, anything I say will cheapen the way I really feel, and will cheapen the tragic death of such a legendary man. I do, however, want you to watch this video of Steve Jobs speaking at Standford University. I am sure many of you have seen it already. If you have not, you have to, it will inspire you. If you have, I would recommend watching it again. I have watched it countless times and it leads me to think about life in a new way every time. These will be the best 14 minutes you spend today, I promise you that.
In any case, I probably did not add anything you did not already know by writing this post, but I felt a need to write it anyway, so thanks for reading.
Oh, and one last thing (how symbolic, but I honestly almost forgot to mention this), over the years Steve has been known to answer occasional emails and I have been tempted to test that out. I never did. Until two days ago. Except I did not write my very first email to Steve jobs two days before his death because I wanted a reply, I wrote it because I genuinely wanted to write him that he is in m my thoughts.
It is that time of the week again, time to sum up all the tech news of the previous week in one easy-to-read blog post. This edition of Above the Fuld is a little shorter than usual, as I was on vacation for three days this week. That means no coverage of the Amazon announcement for example, among other things.
Google+ for iOS gets a major update: Finally, the Google+ iOS app is on par with the site and its competitors. Especially the mobile hangouts, which bring video chatting to a whole new level.
Boom! My interview with Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare: Took me over a year to land this interview but it was well worth it. Whether you are an entrepreneur, a mobile fanatic, or just a plain old geek, you will find some gems in this interview.
I recently tweeted this question. Out of the tens of responses I got to the question “What services do you use daily” almost half of them included Foursquare, along with Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter. If you are not familiar with Foursquare, it is the undisputed king of location-based services. The concept is simple. You “check in” to locations and let your friends across the Web know where you are.
If you are new here, I have been summarizing all the content I write throughout the week in one weekly post called Above the Fuld (as in Above the Fold but since my last name is Fuld…)
