Daily Archives: February 13, 2011

From ridiculous to essential: the history of Twitter

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My Observer piece about Twitter.

“When a true genius appears in the world”, wrote Jonathan Swift, “you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in a confederacy against him”. Thus it was in July 2006 when Twitter appeared. It was a “microblogging” service that allowed one to broadcast one’s thoughts to the world, on one condition: that they should be expressible in not more than 140 characters.

I thought it was a work of genius the first moment I laid eyes on it.

But most normal people, and not a few of my friends, thought otherwise…

Copyright madness and Rooney’s goal

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Last night I was so entranced by Wayne Rooney’s astonishing goal against Manchester City that I embedded a YouTube video clip of it (from a Dutch TV broadcast, judging by the commentary) in a blog post. Clearly, the goal had become a meme, spreading across the Web like that famous clip of Susan Boyle, the singer from nowhere who entranced TV viewers.

You can guess what’s happened to the Rooney clip, can’t you? (Check the post if you’re in any doubt.)

Understanding Steve

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This morning’s Observer column.

Watching Jobs in action, I've always had the feeling that there's something eerily familiar about him. But it wasn't until I read a new book, The Master Switch, by Columbia law professor Tim Wu, that the penny dropped. The book chronicles the history of the major communications industries of the 20th century and finds that pivotal moments in their evolution came when an entrepreneur arrived to offer consumers higher quality, production values and/or greater ease of use than were being delivered by the incumbents…