A quick burst of five links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
With Three Key Exits, Facebook's Top Talent Departures Continue >> AllThingsD
Ethan Beard, director of platform partnerships, and other top executives leave Facebook. This isn't turning out to be a great year.
Dear Mark Zuckerberg by Dalton Caldwell >> Dalton Caldwell
A developer whose competitor product Facebook attempted to hire goes public.
Mark, I know for a fact that my experience was not an isolated incident. Several other startup founders & Facebook employees have told me that what I experienced was part of a systematic M&A "formula". Your team doesn't seem to understand that being "good negotiators" vs implying that you will destroy someone's business built on your "open platform" are not the same thing. I know all about intimidation-based negotiation tactics: I experienced them for years while dealing with the music industry. Bad-faith negotiations are inexcusable, and I didn't want to believe your company would stoop this low. My mistake.
As Twitter Goes To War With Its Developers, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue Quits The Board >> Business Insider
And this is where the cards have fallen today.
The Future of Twitter's Platform Is All in the Cards >> AllThingsD
Fascinating post by Mike Isaac:
The mandate to crack down on developers comes straight from Dick Costolo -- no doubt feeling the pressure of being the company's third CEO in almost as many years -- who is charged with the task of making profitable a company backed by hundreds of millions in venture capital and valued near $8 billion (see Googler Hunter Walk's excellent post for more on this). Right now, Cards are the long-term bet in continuing to bolster monetization efforts.
Windows 8 has reached the RTM milestone >> Windows Team Blog
There we go:
Today, I am excited to announce that Windows 8 has been released to manufacturing (RTM)! This means we've completed the product development and testing of the product and have started handing off the final code to our OEM partners. They can now begin preparing new Windows 8 PCs and devices they'll introduce starting with General Availability. For more on RTM, I suggest reading this blog post from Steven Sinofsky on the Building Windows 8 blog.
Smartphones mix: >> Twitter / asymco
Horace Dediu: Smartphones mix: Samsung now at 54%. Two years ago they were at 3%. Nokia now at 12%. Two years ago they were at 22%.
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