What else can $1,000,000,000 buy? 800 patents

Just as Facebook was announcing $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, there was another one billion dollar deal happening.  It was Microsoft buying 800 patents from AOL.

Microsoft announced $1.06B patent purchase from AOL;
winner is clearly AOL, but it will take more than
patent sales to turn AOL around.

Yes, Microsoft has agreed to pay $1,060,000,000 to AOL for 800 patents.  Not knowing any detail about those patent, only intelligent thing about that deal we can say is that each patent is costing Microsoft about $1,325,000.  It means there are some patents that will be worth more than that.

When you look at this deal side by side with Facebook's Instagram acquisition, it makes Instagram deal look like a bargain.  Why would Microsoft spend money to get these patents instead of acquiring growing mobile start-up like Instagram?

AngelList: HotOrNot For Startups

After seeing about 20 tweets talking about 'angellist', I couldn't help but look. For a moment I thought it was yet another fallout from angelgate that I wrote about last year. It sounded like a leaked document outlining shady angel investment practices...

Got Killer Idea But No Seed Money?
AngelList Might Get You The Other Wing You Need...

In reality it was not. AngelList is a craigslist-like service for startups, but with a touch of crowd sourcing. In Hollywood executive pitch, I would call it HotOrNot for startups; connecting entrepreneurs with angel investors.

That seemed straight forward, but there have been lots of tweets about what we might be losing and what we might be gaining because of AngelList. Some praised it as break-through in venture funding (as Dave McClure wrote on his 500 Startup blog) while others cautioned the indiscriminate use of it citing increasing signs of overblown hightech startup bubble (as Mark Suster wrote on TechCrunch).

Which is it? Is AngelList a boon to angel investment and startup community or a failed experiment because of decreasing signal-to-noise ratio?

Get Federated Or Get Obliterated

About 15 years ago I was happy with my desktop applications installed. Computer was a glorified calculator, typewriter, and video game machine back then. When I powered up my desktop, I was either going to write quick proof-of-concept Pascal code, type up school reports, or play Doom. All executables and contents that I used was installed on my hard drive. Whenever I wanted to talk to friends, I picked up the landline phone and called. Whenever I needed references checked, I headed out to library.

These days computer has turned into all-in-one communication device. When I open my laptop, I immediately open my browser, check out the latest tech news on Twitter, read what my friends are up to on Facebook, and respond to emails. No longer I have to pick up the phone or drive. I just open my IM client to chat with my friends, or use Google to look up any fleeting question that I may have at any moment. I cannot possibly imagine using a computer without network connection. Computer without internet connection is as good as dead weight.

In this post, I would like to make a case that this increasing connectivity is not a trend isolated to computer networks, but applies to social networks as well. Urge to share things and get connected has deeper roots in our human nature. It is something that cannot be ignored, and must be harnessed to make the leap into next stage of networking.