There's some merit in your argument. I've argued elsewhere that 500,000 daily Android activations means that the kids growing up now form their first impression of a "computer" to mean "smartphone" and not a desktop. This world-view is totally different, and as people who create products, we have to stop and think, are the things we are doing now relavent in an age where "computer = smartphone"?

Applying this with Facebook, we have kids growing up and learning how to socialize through Facebook. It suggests that that, unless I dive deep into Facebook, I will remain on the other side of this generation gap. As a product creator, I would make products suited for the older generation -- already obsolete. It extends outside of making products. We've already seen policy makers make bone-headed moves, attempting to restrict internet access for its citizens. That's like grounding a teenager from using Facebook. Grounding a teenager and making sure they can't use Facebook? Really?

However, on deeper reflection, this points to a huge flaw. It comes back to, "let's do this because everyone else is doing it."

I've written about this as an answer on Quora. We used to have rites of passage conducted by elders and parents. Now these rites of passage form from peer interaction. That's not such a good thing.

http://www.quora.com/Teenagers-Teenage-Years/My-classmates-s...

So yes. Stepping away from Facebook means missing out on being social. Something that's broken right now. Hmmm.

I'm talking about a generation of kids growing up with technology. This isn't about the value of the network increasing as people use it. It's about a fundamental shift in one's worldview by encountering the technology during formative years. I'm basing much of this on Clotaire Rapaille's work, as described in his book, The Culture Code (http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-Peop...).

Rapaille conducted a study for Nestle. Nestle wanted to open up the Japanese market for hot chocolate. Using his research methods, Rapaille found that adult Japanese never formed early childhood impressions of chocolate, and so introducing chocolate products to Japan would fail miserably. As a result of the study, Nestle shifted its marketing strategy towards introducing chocolate to Japanese children, with the idea that twenty years down the road, they can sell chocolate products when they become adults.

Half a million daily Android activations means that a generation of children grows up encountering a personal computer in the form factor of a smartphone. Having come from the older generation, I still picture a desktop computer in my mind when I see the word "computer", despite working primarily with web technologies and cloud servers. To make sure my products do not become obsolete, I have to step into the shoes of someone who grew up picturing "smartphone" when someone says "computer". It means that any web/cloud application I make must be delivered on a smartphone first, with the desktop experience being an after-thought. I can live with that. That will mean twenty years from now, software development will mean keyboard-less IDEs, but I can still live with that.

I apply the same frame to these Facebook announcement. What is it like growing up where your first impressions of social dynamics is Facebook? I can separate my online identity because I entered my teenage years in the era of text-based MUDs and email. I had access to the internet when most of my friends do not know what it is. I could and did interact with adults. But a pre-teen or a teenager growing up now, knows that you can't separate the social identity like that. What, are you crazy?

What would a society with the unexamined assumption of "Facebook = Social" look like? One that accelerates the general trend for the past several generation: further isolation from the deep wisdom of previous generations; rites of passages conducted by clueless peers that end up in tragedy; a new life stage to describe young adults in their 20s to describe an extended childhood, much the way "teenage" was invented to describe the emergence of an extended childhood.

I do not like what I see in this thought-experiment. So while I might embrace the future when it comes with mobile devices, to this ... travesty ... called Facebook = Social, I say, "bah humbug."

(And next thing you know, I'll be walking out my front door with a cane, shaking a fist, "Dang kids! Get off my lawn!")

Which is interesting, considering that many of us are here because we want to take some risk as entrepreneurs, to step out and do what people are not doing. Does that mean entrepreneurs are not social?

You make an excellant point here. I have not seen examples in the wild of the kind of "deep wisdom" being shared across the Internet by private family groups, but that doesn't mean it does not exist. However, I know certain wisdom cannot pass on through the internet, can only pass on by face-to-face. They are typically transmitted through body language, physical motion, and sheer charismatic presence.

"Each generation has to go through its own unique rite of passage given cultural, technological and social standards of the time. I think they'll figure it out and make it work, somehow that always seems to happen."

This has been true only within the past several generation, and only due to Moore's Law. In other words, this uniqueness for each generation is an aberration.

Tribal wisdom used to be told through folklore, myths and initiations. These days, in the mainstream and in geek subculture, we use the word "myth" to mean "superstitious", and "something to dismiss" in contrast to "facts." The surviving stories appear in the better science fiction and fantasy novels and pop-culture TV shows. Comics. Anime. Some movies. A tiny handful of video games. Often tainted by consumer lifestyle values.

An example of what I mean, that's meta enough to discuss this within the story: Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age

It comes back to what I wrote in that Quora answer. Today, peers, not elders, conduct modern rites of passages. Elders today cannot keep up with Moore's Law, so peers conduct them. You end up losing things that still remain true, generation to generation regardless of technological changes (hence, "deep" wisdom), and you learn them from your clueless peers.

I assume you mean, "cannot be passed along Facebook, or other Internet-like communications network".

Mindfulness is one example. It's difficult to convey over the internet, and still challenging in person. It's the kind of skill that requires someone present to point out when you're being mindful and when you become distracted. You can't force someone else to be mindful. Hell, you can't force yourself to be mindful. Many stories disguise lessons of mindfulness.

Fear and dealing with fear is the biggest example. All fear roots back to existential fear. Some (not all) older people have a peculiar attitude because they see their own demise coming, accept it, and live on. The TV show, Breaking Bad is a great example, a man who saw the end of his existence, stripped away all the BS and decided to leave behind a legacy.

However, it's one thing to watch characters on the screen deal with fear, and quite another to deal with your own. The mind plays many tricks to comfortably avoid fear. Another person in the same room witnessing your discomfort has significant impact; if they are able to mindfully witness and convey a sense of safety, such interaction helps you gain insight about your fear, and possibly change habits and actions resulting from that.

"The pace at which technological change is happening has certainly increased since the industrial revolution, and I presume that has been a major driver of cultural change as well."

Though off-topic, you might find this interesting: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/08/a-brief-history-of-the-...

Venkat's blog post led me to a book, Lever of Riches ... which I think has a lot of useful insights yet seriously flawed. But, it is interesting as a survey of technological history and look at changes within culture as well. I did not know, for example, that clockwork mechanisms reached high art before the invention of moveable type. These clockwork mechanisms directly paved the way for industrialization, and accounts for the obsession some cultures have for gadgets and gadget making.

I've also asked this series of questions on Quora. Perhaps you might have some insights:

"How has the invention of moveable type accelerated the tempo of invention and innovation?" ( http://www.quora.com/How-has-the-invention-of-moveable-type-... )

"How has Open Source accelerated the tempo of software innovation?" ( http://www.quora.com/How-has-Open-Source-accelerated-the-tem... )

"How has Github accelerated the tempo of software innovation?" ( http://www.quora.com/How-has-Github-accelerated-the-tempo-of... )

"How does the tempo of innovation within Github differ from that of a geographic technology hub such as Silicon Valley?" ( http://www.quora.com/How-does-the-tempo-of-innovation-within... )

"In fact what do you think of most western countries where population is actually getting older and there is a lack of young people?"

I have not studied up on Western cultures as much as I did American and East Asian cultures. I'll think about this.

As a distraction, I offer this story. Japan has a cultural value in which the elders (now mostly from the WWII generation) believe that they can and should sacrifice themselves for the future generation, the children. It's a sort of a, strange mix of bushi and Confucian values. Another interesting thing: the Japanese Shinto values of spirit ex machina leads to a great obsession with robots and androids ... and exoskeletons to help the rice farmers continue growing rice. Because many of the younger generation do not want to farm. There's big problems with social recluses.

Yet, I have also read reports of the attitudes of the generation just now entering ... post-high school. Unlike their older siblings (about half a generation older), they ... don't quite outright reject their boomer parents workoholic attitude, yet don't seem to run and hide away in a closet. I look forward to the stories coming out of this generation. Maybe I'm wrong about "rites of passage conducted by clueless peers" after all.

"Further, I think it’s reasonable to assume a correlation between private use & public use: if you were constantly posting things on a service and each time you were given the option to make it public or private, surely sometimes you’d make it public, especially as a somewhat public figure wanting to help your own company’s new service get going."

This is fallacy, and it is not even persuasive fallacy.

I make significantly more private posts than I do public posts. I've made exactly two public posts since using it in the early field testing days, and have many more private posts. The friends in my circle tends to share privately, not publicly. You don't have to make public posts to use Google+.

We can say for certain that Google management do not make public posts. We cannot say for certain that Google management do not use Google+ at all.

However, you didn't entitle your article, "Google Management Doesn't Care About Google+" You said, "Google Management Doesn't Use Google+". The former expresses your perception of Google strategy backed by the data you've collected. The latter is merely link bait.

I do congratulate you. The link bait worked.

That's a very good question. Something to mull over.

> You should checkout The Ascent of Money for a good history of corporations and the financial innovations that made them possible.

Sure. I'll check it out.

http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/

I suppose, something similar to the file/db libraries, only these would go let you persist files and settings to iCloud (similar to Valve's SteamCloud for games).

Does DropBox have anything similar? This looks like something that will run over DropBox.

The next question: think iCloud -- or DropBox even -- will provide Google Wave technology? I have no idea how useful that would be to all apps. But it would benefit an app such as Ulysses.

Ulysses markets itself as a writer's editor. (To my programmer's eyes, it looks more like an IDE). It distinguishes itself in the market with a very strong document management system. However, it does not have auto-save, and the backups are kept in some obscure location. That's ripe for iCloud or Dropbox integration. However, it can go farther -- some method to sync changes with editors and proofers without having to export to Word.

Google ditching Reader API makes more sense as a possibility than Google ditching Reader all-together.

But just to sanity check so I don't get my supply cut off: the 2013 international standard is relabeling Grade B as "Dark" and "Very Dark", yes?

You can see what some of the constituents are saying: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr3261/report#nation

Note: POPVOX has an iPad2 app that seems to be filtering its way through lawmakers. The comments supporting and opposing a particular bill gets streamed into the app.

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr3261 click on 'Oppose'

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s968 click on 'Oppose'

Slightly harder:

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_sopa (Sends modifiable form email to your Senator and Representative).

Add a comments to the PopVOX entries

Go viral and tweet/facebook/G+ the DemandProgress page.

Harder still:

- Lookup your Senator and Representative's phone number and make a personal call. This gets the most traction as a constituent.

- If you are lazy, sign up on Demand Progress. Eventually you will get an email encouraging you to make a personal call. The software will provide you with the number to call and who you are calling based on your zip code. You don't even have to use Google.

Having HN black out is a dumb move. Most techies are aware of SOPA/PROTECT-IP. Many non-techies do not. Explaining just a little bit to my non-techie friends gets them opposing these bills. When we black out HN, at most we're simply shutting down a source of addiction. Even if it reaches the ears of the legislators, at best it will be seen as children saying, "I /QUIT, and I'm taking my ball with me." A bunch of techies shut down their own community site in protest. Wow ... Failure to understand Rhetorics 101.

Having FB and Google black out on the other hand reaches out to people who are not aware of these issues.

Best if you can convince non-techies to oppose these bills and then to have them call up their Congressmen. Tell them that bills do not, in fact, save jobs and would make life difficult for non-techies still treading water financially.

Calling out for Redditors to distributively discuss PIPA with senators.

This device will measure heart-beat variability too.

What was it Alan Kay said? It's not about the objects, it's about the messages. (That is, messages and redirecting messages).

Twenty years after writing Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson, the Arbiter of Badassness, wrote in Reamde:

"It was then that she cut him off in midsentence and said that it was over. She said it with a certainty and a conviction in her voice and her face that left him fascinated and awed. Because guys, at least of his age, didn't have the confidence to make major decisions from their gut like that. They had to build a superstructure of rational thought on top of it. But not Zula. She didn't have to decide. She just had to pass on the news."

I've noticed this in myself and other guys: even if our guts or our hearts tell us we did wrong, we tend to rationalize and defend our actions instead of simply apologizing.

It gives people a taste of the "post-PC" world we are evolving towards. And there are some deeper stuff, too.

Even if you played chess with a multi-pronged attack, you're still ultimately gunning for the king. Your objective is absolute, and each side knows this. Your objectives within the course of a Go game is more fluid and ambiguous.

All fluid objectives during a game of chess between strong players are still subordinate to the ultimate objective: capture the king. There's only one king on each side, so there is not much give. There are 361 empty space to choose from in Go.

- http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/01/06/the-gollum-effect/

- http://dopamineproject.org/2011/12/the-dopamine-matrix-where...

No wonder we have a recent resurgence in Zombie Apocalypse myths in pop culture.

I suppose, this too shall pass.

(1) When the urge comes, observe the urge as it rises and goes away.

(2) Do not avoid the experience. It will feel like it sucks because it does. There is no magic pill to avoid the experience.

(3) Things come and go, nothing is permanent. This urge will eventually pass.

(4) If you want to take this further: try to discern the physical sensation making up the "urge" with the "mental echo".

(5) It is important not to try to "beat" these triggers. That's a form of avoidance and rejection and will only make the urges stronger. People usually give into the urge to make the feeling of suffering go away; if you accept and experience the suffering for what it is, you break out of the dopamanine/gollumization loop.

For (4), as you know, your neurons do not fire continuously. It's an analog pulse that decays after the peak. The sensations and urges you have feel like they are continuous because you experience other things that fills in the gap. This filler is the "mental echo".

It is possible to develop enough skill in perception to distinguish between the physical sensation and the filler gap. When you can perceive this, you can see how experiences like these "urges" are actually sequences, melodies, and rhythms of sensate pulses that when combined with the mental echo, you normally recognize as a particular "urge" (or thought, or feeling).

Usually, recognizing these component parts as they happen is enough. You can still choose to go with the urge, or you can ... not.

For more information:

- Mindfulness in Plain English. http://bit.ly/mindfulness-in-plain-english

- Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha: A Surprisingly Hardcore Book of Dharma. http://bit.ly/hardcore-dharma

- The Pomodoro technique accidentally has the features for creating a time-boxed mindfulness meditation as you work. The essential components are all in the first chapter of that book.

- Read Neal Stephenson Diamond Age

- Read Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga

- Watch Star Trek: Next Generation (replicator technology)

This isn't the "third" industrial revolution. This is a continuation of the Information Revolution. 3D printing isn't really about being able to print things from your home. It's about Software Eating Things.

It won't just be what you do in the office either. Modularity like this would help speed up iterations in car nav technology. (Why should GPS units be so tightly coupled with the display tech? Why did it take several years after the first iphone before we saw multi-touch GPSs? Shouldn't I be able to upgrade the voice command module in an older-generation car?)

I like what Peter F. Hamilton imagined in his Commonwealth Saga. Your personal computer expands out to available resources as you move from place to place.