onfocus

A great though depressing article by Mat Honan about the history and current state of Flickr at Yahoo!.

A list of companies that have become successful without VC funding.

"Remix culture is the new Prohibition, with massive media companies as the lone voices calling for temperance. You can criminalize commonplace activities from law-abiding people, but eventually, something has to give."

"Like a service? Make them charge you or show you ads. If they won't do it, clone them and do it yourself. Soon you'll be the only game in town!" This is both absolutely true and heartbreaking.

This is a great milestone for Pinboard and Maciej. I'm a happy customer.

Jay Rosen's question/answer site that tries to wed unanswered questions with journalists. "The eventual plan is to recruit journalists, or partner with an existing news organization, to answer the ones that a.) interest the most people and b.) require reporting, investigation and explanation--in other words, real journalism."

What Jay Rosen will say at SXSW about desperately needed explanation of major stories in the news.

"We have all our story elements in place. It's all politics from here on. Bring in the sports and war metaphors and let automated processes carry the rest. Don't dig, just dine. The sausage-machine rocks on." A nice explanation of how journalism's stories need to change. [via mneznanski]

Excellent analysis of the difference between Posterous and Tumblr. "Posterous is an engineered product, while Tumblr is a designed product." [via Emptyage]

Andy funded a chiptunes jazz album in less than two hours with his new project Kickstarter. Nice demonstration of the new service and the album is a fun project I'm looking forward to hearing.

A list of all the books mentioned in the classic Ask MetaFilter thread: What single book is the best introduction to your field?

"The Federal Government now controls what were -- up until last month -- vast private assets. These are extreme -- truly radical -- changes to how our society functions. Does anyone have any disagreement with any of it or is anyone alarmed by what the consequences are -- not the economic consequences but the consequences of so radically changing how things function so fundamentally and so quickly?"

Lawrence Lessig gives one of his trademark presentations about Palin's experience compared with past Vice Presidents.

A startup that wants to help people raise money for their projects. (via Waxy, who's on the board.)

Oregon's Peter Defazio on the bailout.

Robert Reich rants about the bailout. And he's right.

Representative Marcy Kaptur from Ohio on the bailout: "Real reform now, or nothing."

Great advice in this article like, "If you can fail with your integrity intact, you'll build a network of people ready to help you when you're ready to try again."

The mullet strategy for naming a startup: one part business, one part party. [via magnetbox]

Derek on the often brutal world of startups, even for founders. JPG Magazine is/was great, this sucks.

Great tips about running a successful online community.