Imagine if Microsoft Had Made a SkypePhone

Today when Marc Andreessen talks about how software is eating the world, the companies he evokes are merely parroting the playbook of Skype, which did eat the phone companies and thus set the template for the notion that software is eating the world.

Om Malik, writing on Skype’s 10th birthday

In Vogue

There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google

Technical Sweetness

I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik

Question Everything

Facebook collects social information and uses it in the most unsocial way possible.

Om Malik, speaking to @AaronCohen’s #nethistory class at NYU, as tweeted by Jackie Widmann

Jobs-Like

Not because Bezos has copied anything Jobs did, but because he has not. What he’s done that is Jobs-like is doggedly pursue, year after year, iteration after iteration, a vision unlike that of any other company — all in the name of making customers happy.

John Gruber, in agreement with Om Malik that Jeff Bezos is the inheritor of Steve Jobs’s crown

Rafat Ali 2.0: Meet Skift, the Travel Industry’s Version of PaidContent

What do you do after you build and sell a pioneering digital media start-up? Take two years off, and start building another media star-tup.

Forum

The “B” Word

Pundits and others are using the B word — bubble — more than ever. Is it time to stop, or will this gain even more traction in 2012?

News Byte

Foursquare Co-Founder Naveen Selvadurai Leaving

Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai is leaving the company, three years after launching the check-in service. Sevaldurai says he’s “not sure about my exact next steps” but will remain on the company’s board. Foursquare investor Spark Capital is reportedly buying employee stock, and Selvadurai and co-founder Dennis Crowley have previously sold shares in an earlier funding round. Gigaom’s Om Malik reported Selvadurai’s departure earlier.

Is GigaOM Buying paidContent?

Om Malik won’t say. But we should find out soon.

Pirates! Rupert Murdoch Rails About Obama, Google and Silicon Valley

Looks like the News Corp. CEO is getting the hang of this Twitter thing: Perfect for stirring up trouble.

Viral Video: Om Nom Nom Nom

Tumblr Falls Into a Really Big Pile of Money

The Pros and Cons of a TechCrunch/AOL Deal

Game Site OMGPOP Asks Teens to Pay Up