Attention Seeking: A Guide For Startups
People need attention: it’s a normal and healthy part of life. And getting attention is marvellous: it makes you feel smart, sassy and confident and leads you to perform better in life, at work and in...
View ArticleSilicon Valley: an apology
Previous editions of this column may have given the impression that Silicon Valley was a smug, self-absorbed, humourless, xenophobic white middle-class hellhole populated by cliquey trendies who scoff...
View ArticleTwitter is a playground for spiteful Lefty bullies
Last week, I was a trending topic in the UK on Twitter. As in me, personally. It happened because I said – perfectly reasonably, I thought – that in this country protesting has historically been...
View ArticleSocial media ‘gurus’ are the internet’s trade union officials
OK, confession time: I got it a bit wrong when I implied in a recent column that social media gurus most resemble blood-sucking vampires. Because, actually, when you think about their oafish herd...
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The weird world of social media ‘amplification’
Sometimes these things just fall into your lap. On Wednesday night, I was chatting to a stranger in a London pub who cheerfully informed me that he was a “social media amplifier”. Say what? Well, the...
View ArticleThe EU’s legal war on cookies is barking mad
New regulations, which come into force in the UK on 26 May 2011, change the law relating to the use of website cookies. This new law is the result of an amendment to the EU’s ePrivacy directive. It...
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Review: Paul Carr, The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of Life Without Reservations
In some circles it’s considered bad form to review books in which you appear. Fortunately for you, I don’t move in those circles. Because as one of this volume’s (admittedly minor) characters, I’m...
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Lower taxes and fewer regulations create better corporate philanthropy
Meet Julie Trell. Julie is a friend of mine who lives in the Marina here in San Francisco. She has a very comfy couch. Julie works for the Salesforce.com Foundation, a non-profit attached to...
View ArticleThe Catholic Bishops’ Conference urgently needs to overhaul its website
This column originally appeared in The Catholic Herald. One of the most appealing things about Pope Benedict XVI is that he can communicate subtle ideas in simple language. His prose is clear and...
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Sam Sethi asks: why don’t black people work hard like Jews, Indians and the...
Civil disobedience really brings out the worst in people. Case in point: has-been London wantrepreneur Sam Sethi driving the final nail into his own professional credibility this afternoon with this...
View ArticlePayPal is becoming toxic to small business
This column originally appeared in Real Business. PayPal’s enthusiasm for placing withdrawal restrictions on its customers’ accounts is the stuff of legend. But while it would be easy – and no doubt...
View ArticleAn open letter to UKTI on the subject of Tech City
This column originally appeared in Real Business. Dear UKTI, This is a difficult letter for me to write, since I consider Eric van der Kleij, chief executive of the Tech City Investment Organisation,...
View ArticleSue Black: the greatest threat to women in the workplace since Jack the Ripper
This column originally appeared in Real Business. Last week, legendary ball-buster Carol Bartz was dismissed from her position as CEO of troubled Internet giant Yahoo!. Bartz was ousted because she is...
View ArticleMy gift to UKTI
This column originally appeared at Real Business. Well! What a lot of fuss there was on Twitter this week after I revealed the results of my Freedom of Information request about the cost of UKTI’s...
View ArticleThe Tech City website: how it could have looked
This column originally appeared at Real Business. Read it there to see the artwork referred to in the piece. Here at Real Business, we’re all about constructive, helpful advice. That philosophy extends...
View ArticleCan ‘tech hubs’ help to lift our economy out of moribundity?
I wrote this short opinion piece on what technology has to contribute to the UK economy, and whether the idea of regional tech hubs has any merit, for Prospect magazine. The UK’s technology industry,...
View ArticleLondon VC: a gold-digger’s guide
I’ve done a feature for Real Business on the most eligible investors in the London technology industry. Since it’s pretty picture-heavy, there’s little point in reproducing it here. Read it at Real...
View ArticleSteve Jobs, the greatest conservative icon of our time
One of the things I thought everybody knew about Steve Jobs, darling of the Left, was how gloriously conservative he was, in that peculiarly American way. Sure, everyone admires what a ball-busting,...
View ArticleThe rise of internet pornography is distressing, but a ‘filter’ isn’t the...
This post originally appeared at The Catholic Herald. The production and proliferation of internet pornography is increasing at an unprecedented rate. The internet has changed the mechanisms of content...
View ArticleHow Steve Jobs beat the smut merchants
This column originally appeared in The Catholic Herald. Steve Jobs, the legendary technology chief executive who finally lost his battle with pancreatic cancer last week, had some odd habits, which led...
View ArticleThe hypocrisy of Lady Gaga
This column originally appeared in Real Business. When Lady Gaga rips off someone else, it’s high art; a loving homage in the finest tradition of pastiche – even when the results look more like theft...
View ArticleLondon’s most eligible startup CEOs
Regular readers will know that for the last few years I’ve been on a one-man mission to inject some tabloid values into tech reporting. So, after the extraordinary reception to my Gold-digger’s Guide...
View ArticleNow trending on Twitter: tragedy tourism
Originally published at Blottr. Read it there. The protests at Dale Farm and the “Occupy” protests elsewhere have more in common than you might imagine. Both are evidence of a growing phenomenon:...
View ArticleJeff Jarvis: the game is up
Earlier this month, scholar and author Evgeny Morozov published one of the most explosive book reviews I have read in several years. For all its faults – Morozov desperately needed a good editor to...
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The state of tech PR in Europe
Regular readers will know that I leave serious reporting to the likes of Tim Bradshaw at the FT and the inimitable Mike Butcher. Love those guys. But frankly, for me, slavishly reporting on funding...
View ArticleWall Street Journal gets it hopelessly wrong about Silicon Valley Comes to...
I admire the Wall Street Journal Europe‘s tech blogger, Ben Rooney, for his initiative and enthusiasm, but in his naïveté and inexperience about the European technology industry he made a hopelessly...
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Blubbing and blackmail: g2i’s intriguing new approach to meeting start-ups
Violet Elizabeth Bott’s got nothing on the g2i executive who just visited a start-up CEO friend of mine in Shoreditch. I’ll leave both her and the friend unnamed, for the sake of kindness. Here’s what...
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It’s time to fix European technology journalism
Because the emerging technology industry is small, there’s a shortage of brilliant, opinionated writers with the wit and intelligence to make people smile, and, more importantly, think. The ones who...
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Affiliate marketing industry still working hard to shake off its sleazy image
I was sent this by my friends at Skimlinks as an example of the sort of swanky dos they get invited to. Though I am reliably informed that very few women (or men) who attend these parties look much...
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Back to Black(Berry)
As with so many significant relationships in my life, my love affair with the white iPhone 4 has come to a juddering halt just as it was getting started. I don’t understand how anyone can use an iPhone...
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Skimlinks closes $4.5m funding round led by Bertelsmann
I don’t normally bother with funding stories, but since the chief exec of Skimlinks is my best friend I don’t think she’d forgive me if I didn’t point out some happy news. VentureBeat reports that...
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More information about my new publication, and a call for submissions
I’m delighted to share with you today a bit more information about the editorial vision behind my new project. I’ll be revealing who’s behind it in the coming weeks: we are adding new team members all...
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Ballou PR Sells US Operations To MWW Group
My favourite technology PR firm, Ballou PR, which focuses on high-growth technology and health IT clients, has sold its US operations to MWW Group. Founder Colette Ballou told me that the firm’s focus...
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When criticism turns to hate: the case for unfollowing @TechShitty
Who am I to talk, right? I mean, who’s been more of a thorn in UKTI’s side than me, with the embarrassing Freedom of Information requests, the patronising “how it could have looked” pieces and the...
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Towards a virtual cartography of real-world relationships
Sometimes it helps to make a list of your friends and close contacts and rank them. I’ve been doing this for years. It really helps you prioritise. If you do it in a spreadsheet, you can colour-code...
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My new magazine launches 19 December
My new online magazine covering technology, business and innovation from a European perspective will go live to the public on Monday, 19 December 2011. We’ve assembled an excellent set of writers and...
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Tech City has spent £1million on admin in one year. Where will it end?
It’s the object of widespread ridicule from those not endlessly flattered and sucked up to with invitations to swanky drinks parties. It spent £55,000 on a website everyone hates and which fails to...
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Introducing The Kernel
From an in-depth examination of how technology is reshaping our lives, to rumours on the entrepreneurial social scene, The Kernel will take on every question in business and technology. On Monday, the...
View ArticleThe age of the troll is over
A common misconception about those awful people in the comment box who screech obscenities at journalists and toss insults as though they were green salad, whom we in the trade call trolls, is that...
View ArticleRelatable
I’m reading a lot at the moment. I’ll post extracts from time to time that I’ve found helpful or enlightening. In the meantime, though, here’s something that simply made me giggle, from David Brooks’s...
View ArticleGoogle Glass and surveillance culture
I’ve written a long piece for Slashdot’s original content channel on Google’s new wearable computers. You can read the whole thing here. Consumer hardware may not yet have the power to capture and...
View ArticleAn open letter to my friends in the technology industry
We have to talk. This thing you’ve been doing, it has to stop. When I ask you for a recommendation for an app, or a restaurant, or a new brand of toothpaste, I do not need to know that the CEO is a...
View ArticleIch bin ein Berliner
As friends will know already, Berlin is rapidly becoming my home from home. Part of the reason is the extraordinary friends I have made there, particularly in hy! founders Hans Raffauf and Aydo...
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Broadening horizons
I’m in the south of France, on a post-MIP creative retreat with a hand-picked group of technology entrepreneurs, television commissioners, network producers, actors, entertainment professionals and,...
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Residential home
I have today been appointed writer-in-residence at Axel Springer’s new Plug&Play Accelerator in Berlin. It’s a cool project – more credible and considered, it seems to me, than Telefónica’s...
View ArticleThe Next Web imploding, PandoDaily in shame… yes, technology journalism still...
July has been a rough month for tech blogs. Robin Wauters, a talented startup reporter, announced just now that he has been let go from The Next Web. Brad McCarty is also out the door. But they’re not...
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Tech City News video producer charged with child rape
Chris Leydon, who produced video content for technology news blog Tech City News and was a freelance video editor for the Guardian newspaper, has been arrested and charged with child rape. Leydon was...
View ArticleProducer wanted
I’m looking for a freelance producer for a series of radio shows – more like podcast episodes, really – discussing the major issues in the #GamerGate saga: press ethics, the role of feminism, video...
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New #GameJournoPros leak: the email summaries
Today I reveal more leaked correspondence from the #GameJournoPros emails amd a complete list of members. Highlights from the email summaries leaked to us appear below. Telephone numbers have been...
View ArticleAbout RADIO NERO Episode 4
LISTEN: RADIO NERO, EPISODE 4 Brianna Wu, a developer who received a death threat on Twitter last week, approached me on Sunday, suggesting that we talk to bridge the divide between pro-GamerGate and...
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