Disqus - Latest Comments for Ryan Holiday

Re: Disappearing comments on Tumblr blogs

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:21:03 -0000

Awesome. Your post was extremely helpful - I had no idea about the changes, noticed a glitch, logged on to Disqus and was instantly informed. Really appreciate it.

Re: That Was Quick

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:59:22 -0000

I realize that you are biased in that you've funded Twitter, but look at that screenshot. It's WORTHLESS. You managed to weigh in with two non-substantive comments revolving totally around yourself, some girl admitted she wasn't productive, and another gave a shot out to three friends. I think that pretty much sums up the value of the project.

Re: Facebook and The Privacy Backlash

Ryan Holiday — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:06:34 -0000

Fred,

Don't you think that is precisely the problem? Facebook handled the Feed launch poorly, didn't learn from it and now they're handling this even worse. They reacted badly and FB realized they could get away with ignoring that and now they've completely overextended themselves.

I tried to explain it more in depth this morning... http://www.ryanholiday.net/archives/why_success...

Re: Talking Blackberry

Ryan Holiday — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:06:57 -0000

Fred,

I agree with you but have to raise a constant issue I have: the trackball. I am on my 4th blackberry having completely worn out the trackball. I had at 8830 with the trackwheel that never had any problems and when I was upgraded, I got stuck with the trackball.

Being that I'm not 40 years old, I can't wear a pda holster and have to keep it in the backpocket in my jeans. I can feel it on this phone that I'm about a month away from having to replace it (topping out at about 2 months usage). I only use blackberries because of the keyboard but the trackball is forcing me to have to reconsider.

Re: What If Your Model Is Wrong?

Ryan Holiday — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:49:27 -0000

We all can tell why you got a C.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevol...

Re: What If Your Model Is Wrong?

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:52:13 -0000

If the President's job isn't at the most fundamental level to influence the direction, tone and ethics of a nation, I'm not sure you could really ever call him a leader. Would you honestly say that the role of General is to decide only where battles are fought but not how and why? That's ridiculous.

Re: One Thing You Don't Need To Be An Entrepreneur: A College Degree

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:55:17 -0000

"College degree is necessary for everything else but being an entrepreneur"

I would disagree with this too. A college degree is necessary when the person's work and personal qualifications aren't enough. That's it.

There are plenty of companies that hire people without college degrees to all sorts of things. I think if you look at the places that require a degree you'll find they need more proof that just work credentials can provide.

Re: One Thing You Don't Need To Be An Entrepreneur: A College Degree

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:01:30 -0000

Fred,

What many people fail to consider is what that "place" is like for the person leaving college or deciding not to go at all? It's terrifying, frankly. Parents should provide a safety net - not necessarily a financial one, but a level of moral support that encourages risk and self-confidence. What's the worst that can happen with someone leaves school? I mean really, the worst. Has anyone ever died from it?

Most people will fail. In which case they should be in a position where the result is not so traumatic that they never bet on themselves again.

Re: Music: Snapshot of an industry in turmoil

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:26:07 -0000

Have you read The Pirate's Dilemma?r

Re: Ze Frank knows about community

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:12:22 -0000

Mathew,

I tend to understand where you're coming from normally and appreciate that it comes from a different angle than most tech writers. I've spoken with Ze Frank befoe and generally agree that he's prescient with his moves, but how is this knowing his community? I don't see what this even has to do with community at all. He asked a question and people answered. You don't think this might be a reach?

Re: Pepsi & Twitter as early-warning device

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 22:41:45 -0000

The one thing I think people are forgetting to raise is this: Is the audience on Twitter really the canary you want to trust? There is certainly a pretty skewing self-selection bias there that doesn't reflect much of the population and in fact is dominated by a very specific type of person. Is that person that person that you're attempting to appeal to? Because if it's not, it doesn't matter if they're upset by your ad or not.

I just know Microsoft probably made a mistake using blog reception to judge their Seinfeld commercials considering that the entire point of the campaign was to appeal to normal people, not techies.

I think that may be something brands should consider.

Re: Journalism, or irresponsible rumour-mongering?

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:13:11 -0000

This is going to be an interesting reality to deal with going forward. Blogs, because they're are more of them and can respond faster, get more stories right in the aggregate. But on an individual basis there are going to be complete disasters like this one. So, how does society learn to adjust and "deal with it"? I'm not sure. The influence of a blog like TechCrunch is so big that the damage from its mistakes reverberate everywhere.

We face the same question with Wikipedia. In the long run, the amount of knowledge it puts in people's hands is spectacular. But the consequences of a false report are still very real. If Last.Fm was a publicly traded company what would TC's report have done to the stock price over the last few days?

I'd be curious to see with what solutions you think there are Matt.

Re: Mark Cuban still won’t admit he was wrong

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:37:32 -0000

The funny thing is that the example you used for "user generated content" IS a profitable one for YouTube. Look at Charlie Bit My Finger right now, they're serve ads next to it and have been for quite some time. Let's say YouTube monetized 1/4 of it's 100+ million views in the last year, you're still looking at property bigger than most of the blogs people are talking about.

Re: Gawker, the WaPo and the death of journalism

Ryan Holiday — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:46:01 -0000

Mathew,

I don't mean to put words in the reporter's mouth but there is something strange about all this that no one talks about. Gawker essentially outsourced all the labor of the story to the Washington Post and at the same time gets credit for being lean and efficient and profitable. Apparently the paper is supposed to be grateful for the link.

I'm not saying the solution is lawsuits or more complaining but it's just funny that people like to hold up these sites for their business models and then don't examine the subsidies they take advantage of.

Ryan

Re: Fail Dogs

Ryan Holiday — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:24:53 -0000

Hanno you're so a good widdle puppy

Re: Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Build it and they will come

Ryan Holiday — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:06:42 -0000

That the deadpool is filled with all sorts of neat social networks ought to be reason enough to realize that it takes more than just a field or a few cool collaborative tools.

The Field of Dreams analogy works when you understand how PASSIONATE Kevin Costner's character was - that it was the cumulative effort of a lifelong obsession that made them come not that he cut down some corn stalks and chalked out a baseline.

Re: Maybe baby?

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:49:19 -0000

It's not a view of poverty. It is a fact. Poor families have on average more daughters while richer families have more boys. Not because it helps them economically but evolutionarily. If you're rich and you have a boy, he will on average, father more children than if you're poor and you have a boy. Conversely, if you're poor and have a daughter she will have more children than if you were rich. It's not an argument. It is a statistical fact.

Re: Ancestral bones

Ryan Holiday — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:12:49 -0000

"Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. They were absorbed alike into the life-force of the world, or dissolved alike into atoms." Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations.

Please don't stop doing this.

Re: Enjoy the Perfect Shower Anywhere in the World…for $2.96

Ryan Holiday — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 04:51:12 -0000

Those are the ones that dilute the water with air right? To increase the pressure?

Re: 12 Filtering Tips for Better Information in Half the Time: RSS, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon

Ryan Holiday — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:29:47 -0000

Shift A is Read All? Perfect.

Re: What if you protected personal time as “family time”?

Ryan Holiday — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:40:00 -0000

I need to start f*cking following this. It's going to be a long, dark, miserable road if I don't.

Re: How Not to Use a Lawyer - A Personal Case Study (Plus: Protocol Marketing correction)

Ryan Holiday — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:19:34 -0000

Pmen - I think it was Richard Feynman who said that if a scientist can't explain their research so that a normal person can understand, they've failed. If a lawyer can't communicate with people who aren't lawyers, they've done more than fail. They're worthless.

Re: Napoleon on News and Information Management (Plus: Video on Outsourcing E-mail and More)

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:46:42 -0000

AHH, Tim this one is the best:

"Space, I can recover. Time, never." - Napoleon

Re: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:51:57 -0000

@Sean

Socrates was an expert at spiritual exercises. If you can run a Socratic dialog on yourself you can convince yourself to abandon almost any negative or destructive thought.

@Doc,

The Hays translation of The Meditations is so basic and so straightforward that I have a few copies I like to give to people. It sells itself. One of the important tenets of Stoicism though, or at least where it differs from Christianity, is that it's not necessarily evangelical. We all have a lot of work left to do on ourselves before we should worry to much about converting others.

Re: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:39:56 -0000

@Rod

I can't believe I didn't remember this but I actually interviewed Gregory Hays last year. It's worth reading for anyone who is on the fence about reading the book. You get the sense that Hays understood Aurelius much deeper than other authors had and that's why his writing seems more genuine.

http://www.ryanholiday.net/archives/mediations_...

Re: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:28:20 -0000

@Carter

It is EXACTLY like cognitive behavior therapy. The two are very similar and I think that's why it has been so effective for 2,000 years.

@Jack
Christianity v Stoicism is an interesting discussion all by itself. For some reason, Christianity viewed Stoicism as a threat early on (even though Christianity came after) despite how similar they are. John Stuart Mill once asked whether the world would be a better place if people replaced the Bible with Aurelius' Meditations. For me though, I like Stoicisms emphasis on taking responsibility for oneself rather than giving it to God. Prayer is much more theoretical and mental than the Spiritual exercises are.

Re: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:30:55 -0000

@ Tom
"What are the facts?" is a perfect modern translation of a Stoic exercise. A common theme in Epictetus and then later in Marcus is to look at a situation and say "What part of this is under my control and what part is out of it?" Then only worry about the first part.

Re: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:07:08 -0000

@Chris

Marcus wrote a large part of Meditations on campaign in Germany. The Stoics often wrote in the morning and at night as a well to prepare and reflect on the day. It's meditative primarily in the sense that the intended audience was often THEMSELVES and not other people.

So when Marcus writes "Remember to always..." what he is sort of saying is "Marcus, I am reminding you to always...because you forgot it earlier today and it caused you problems."

I try to do it as often as I can. On my site, my goal is to digest what I'm learning out loud as way to hold myself accountable through my readers but I like to observe the same principles.

@Sherry
I think the fairest thing to say is that they're both equally similar to each other. It's probably a good thing that they developed the principles independently of each other because it means there is some deep human truth to them rather than just "respect for something old"

Re: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:43:46 -0000

@Leonard,

I would actually recommend NOT reading the free online texts. Some are as much as 100 years old and written in a completely different style. Part of the reason that philosophy is so inaccessible is the reliance on old texts that use colloquialisms the reader no longer understands.

Marcus never said "Thou" and that phrase was only common in English for a few centuries. In 2009, using thou instead of "you" is alienating.

The new translations are fantastic. Try them.

Ryan

Re: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

Ryan Holiday — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:16:41 -0000

@Robert

Believe it or not Cicero has an essay on just the topic you mentioned (could you be happy while on the rack being tortured?) Perhaps someone else could take a crack at answering but it could be possible, especially with a mix of some Epicurean principles. No one ever said it would be easy or fun or painfree, though. That's your straw man.

Re: My Daughters Are So Pissed

Ryan Holiday — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:25:16 -0000

Shouldn't that tell you something? FB was built on the backs of people like your daughter to get away from people like you (parents) Why on earth would opening it up, encouraging adults to use it be a good thing? It's not. Facebook could have learned from Myspace's mistakes but they didn't.

Your conversation was a death knell.

Re: Every Media Mention Counts

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:00:36 -0000

You're 100% right. I try to tell our authors this all the time, it doesn't matter how small EVERY LINK COUNTS. The web only has a small fraction of its eventual audience right now so consider this the wild west land grab. Set up a foundation or a network of links now that will be able to catch the big rush when it comes.

Re: Sell the result, not the tool

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:34:48 -0000

"People don't buy paint, they buy painted walls."

Re: Business plan obfuscation: Twitter style

Ryan Holiday — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:26:49 -0000

Yeah Twitter is brilliant. Or they could be totally stupid and this might NEVER catch on. Frankly, you don't have a clue and like always you are confusing what YOU like with what the rest of the world likes.

How about we give talking about Twitter a break and talk about it again when it starts to find resonance with people outside the tech/hipster crowd? Until then it's not scalable and whatever BP they have will fail.

Re: Business plan obfuscation: Twitter style

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:14:52 -0000

DUDE. Facebook is the epitome of your bubble. These features have been around for less than 2 months. 2 months! Almost no conclusions ought to be made around their usage and viability yet.

Data we can use:
-College students went to Fb in droves to get away from the shit on Myspace.
-FB was wildly popular before the apps.
-Geeks gave it almost no attention before they added geek stuff to it.
-You thought Second Life was going to be the Next Big Thing.

Twitter has no killer app. The concept might have legs (microblogging) but why would teenagers--the rest of the world go to that service when it is very easily integrated into existing service?

You will be wrong here, as usual and no one will hold you accountable. Unsubscribed. Tired of your shit.

Re: Business plan obfuscation: Twitter style

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 02:17:45 -0000

Robert:

You simply do not understand markets or incentives. Multiple people here have raised the same point. Twitter has nothing that protects it from competition--that prevents others from simply emulating their methodology. Just like you don't understand the iPhone. Neither are "disruptive" technology. They simply move the market forward with innovations but they control nothing. The iPhone doesn't really bring anything to the table that prevents Samsung from making a better cheaper phone to steal the bottom out from Apple. (They could have had one, many people think, had they created a phone that wasn't tied to a single network. THAT would have been unique, instead of simple innovative.) Twitter is the same way--what do they bring to the table that someone can't copy? They are simply a concept, not a business. If it's successful, FB will steal it, if it's not Twitter goes away. All risk, no upside.

Of course they have a user base--but not a sustainable one in the light of HOW FREE MARKETS WORK. It's ok, you don't understand these things. Many don't. But if you're looking for a reason to why many, many of your predictions fail, this is it.

Re: Business plan obfuscation: Twitter style

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 02:53:07 -0000

They had all sorts of things: Buy It Now, Feedback System, etc.

Killer Apps can be less than tangible--in Ebay's case it was CREDIBILITY. TRUST. SAFETY. You can't steal that, at least not quickly.

What was YouTubes? Free hosted, no-plugin required video. Facebook? College student tailored. Myspace? Place for bands, hosted music, customizable profiles and UNRESTRICTED ACCESS.

That's the point: Buzz is not a foundation to build a business on, especially with how fickle you people are. All Twitter has is buzz: no new technology, no massive market share, no loyal users, no killer app.

Re: Business plan obfuscation: Twitter style

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 02:54:25 -0000

Feel free to do some research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology

Re: Internet TV Goes to the Next Level?

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:32:21 -0000

I thought EXACTLY the same thing. Apparently the key, once you create something new and viable and successful, is to hand over creative control to the older generation of creators. I'm just not understanding the logic of carving a totally new path through the jungle and then putting in the SAME tollbooth operators just months later.

Re: PEJ Social News Report Demonstrates Only That Digg and Reddit Are Highly Niche Sites

Ryan Holiday — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:18:44 -0000

I think you're very right Scott, and anyone who has spent time on Digg knows how easy it is to suddenly fall under the impression that Ubuntu is a pressing concern of the public.

I'm not sure what your point is though. Yes, Digg is controlled by an elite few (although I can tell you it is very easy to crack that and become one). So is the mainstream media. Didn't we already know this?

Re: Reinventing the Economics of News

Ryan Holiday — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:10:56 -0000

That's a good point. Internet-think seems to exist in a bubble where transaction costs don't exist--or at least, are not considered.

But couldn't you find the equivalent for reading the paper at home? "I'm paying for the table I set it on, the time I wait for it to be delivered, it's unreliability etc"

Re: Top Ten Things That Suck About Google Docs

Ryan Holiday — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:51:34 -0000

Let's not forget the fact that you can't use the FireFox 2.0 spellchecker. It's a 100 times quicker to use than the Google one, yet Docs disables it.

Not a fan.

Ryan

Re: Facebook’s Core College Student Users Laugh At Attempts To Use It For Business

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:27:15 -0000

It seems to me that the idea that an outside group could swoop in and--in a matter of a few months--redefine the purpose and direction of a community that had 9 million members contradicts the whole ethos of web 2.0 and all the bullshit we hear.

Facebook picked a very short sighted strategy. Instead of growing with the college crowd they had (who inevitably would have become the next generation of professionals and adults) they decided to shoot for popularity with the geek crowd today. Good luck, but I think it is a mistake.

Re: Apple Wins: Verizon Is First Wireless Carrier To Open Network

Ryan Holiday — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:33:03 -0000

Please. This is exactly the opposite of what Apple wanted. More simply, if it was what they wanted...they would have done it. Instead they pursued the a model that is profitable only off the subsidies that this announcement makes slightly more obsolete. Apple has to power to disrupt the industry if they wanted and the explicitly chose not to. That it changed in spite of them, I feel, is much more due to Google and OpenSocial than the relatively insignificant sales of the iPhone.

http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2007/11/researc...

Umair is right.

Re: The Web’s Link-Driven Attention Economy

Ryan Holiday — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:38:03 -0000

Right, why should she cede her control of HER property if she's not getting anything out of it?

Re: Data And The Future Of The Web

Ryan Holiday — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 13:54:23 -0000

Keeping in line with Umair's new definition of data, I think that it reaffirms whoever said (I believe it was Scott) that a social network isn't about who is on it, it's about who is NOT on it.

The endeavor for networks/sites/blogs isn't to collect as much data as it can possible get its hands on but to collect data that it can DO something with. Like the house analogy, a foreman doesn't just pile up a stack of wood and try to build something out of it. He gets the specific wood that he needs.

The old idea that you start niche and then mellow out so you can appeal to the middle might not work in that new paradigm.

Re: Digg Demonstrates The Failure Of Completely Open Collaborative Networks

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:07:39 -0000

Disrespect of the top users? I would argue that they haven't done it enough. It's laughable to think that users who've submitted 5,000 stories or voted on even more care about quality anymore. The inflation of diggs it takes to get to the top is a direct result of that. And ultimately that alienates the other 2 million users--who in the aggregate mean much much more to the site than those 5 or 6 elite people whining in a podcast.

Re: Lessons from a failed meeting with a Social Media Guru

Ryan Holiday — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:22:19 -0000

The whole notion of there being legal difficulties or SEC guidelines or clients that only like to do things a certain way are common place in reality and rare of tech blogs. This is the reason that most of what they say is completely meaningless and masturbatory. This is just starting to become obvious.

Re: MySpace Targeted Ad Efforts; 80 Percent Clickthrough Likehood Increase; Self-Serve Launching in Nov

Ryan Holiday — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:07:24 -0000

How exactly will an 80% increase in CTR increase revenue by 200%? Sounds like fuzzy math to me.

Re: Christie Hefner: Newspapers Can Learn From Playboy's Digital "Success"

Ryan Holiday — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:54:00 -0000

And you're giving her a little too much credit on the social networking too. Didn't they just build it on Ning? Please tell us more about innovating on the web Playboy, you're such a groundbreaker.

Re: Streaming Ads Driving Users Away From Content: Report

Ryan Holiday — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:42:52 -0000

Marc,

Your comment is the PERFECT example of this. I subscribe to your blog and have for a little while now. I wasn't aware that you spam comments section with you link. I could have clicked the live link in your name, made the connection and been locked in as a reader forever. Instead, I see the lame little signature and I value your opinion less.

People often take the easy route and use immediate returns as the justification. Long term, it hardly ever stands up. Are you really disputing that people dislike streaming ads? That they tend to react differently when the transaction costs are raised in viewing content?

The easy route rarely pays for itself.

Re: How To Save MySpace: The Seven-Step Plan

Ryan Holiday — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:01:03 -0000

If I was an investor in DocStoc I would be pulling my money out so fast.

Please somebody explain how making Myspace more like Yahoo is the answer. Last time I checked, Yahoo was desperately trying not to be Yahoo.

Where is their Ashton Kutcher? Court star power? Have you ever even been on Myspace? Celebrities aren't the problem. In fact, at least there Ashton is a c-list celebrity like he is in real life.

Someone could go through line by line and point out how mostly this post was just name dropping of popular web 2.0 startups none of whom would solve Myspace's revenue, DNA, or technology problems. If you really read Angwin's book you'd see that most of these problems are unfixable and have deep deep roots. You sure as hell don't solve underlying engineer, culture and strategy problems by having Guy Kawaski twitter about your company more.