
The 2010 technology of the year is ... - 10smom
http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/12/2010-tech-of-year.html
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kondro
Must have been a slow year in technology.

    
    
      Time = Marky Z
      O'reilly = Twitter
    

Both technologies seem ultimately centered on selfish desires of people to
want the minutia of their lives to be found interesting by others (Twitter
especially).

I would've thought both Time and O'reilly would've named something with a
little more of a net positive on society.

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qq66
The highest purpose of any technology, whether microblogging or semiconductor
fabrication equipment, is to improve human lives.

One can make arguments on both sides about whether Facebook and Twitter are
net positives or net negatives on society. However, given the sheer scale of
their userbases, and the amount of those users' time they choose to spend on
these services, if FB/Twitter usage is even mildly positive in net impact, the
total impact dwarfs other more "hardcore" technology products.

~~~
mynameishere
Yeah, but Michelin year after year leaves McDonalds off its ratings.

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enjo
Surely Android has had a more impactful year than twitter? It really is hard
to pin down one thing isn't it?:)

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mahmud
Calling Android the technology of the year is to take sides in an ongoing war.
This would put O'Reilly in an unfavorable position with Apple.

~~~
silentbicycle
Has O'Reilly really been solid for a while, though? I realized recently that
the last O'Reilly book I cared about was "Programming Collective Intelligence"
(and that one is flaky) - I haven't actually /liked/ an O'Reilly book since
Perl was big. O'Reilly has a lot of reputation, but I've been much happier
with No Starch (_Land of Lisp_, etc.), Morgan Kaufman, etc., and anything
Brian Kernighan has ever touched. (Either he has the CS midas touch, or he's
the world's best tech writer. I'm thinking BOTH.) My wife is currently using
my Unix manuals to weigh down recently-glued carpet on our basement steps
though.

(and I've wondered about it because I feel inclined to spell-check "O'Reilly"
every single time)

~~~
mahmud
In terms of technical publications, Morgan Kaufman, Prentice Hall and Addison
Wesley are far more superior. But O'Reilly has Tim's personal brand behind it,
and he has proven himself to be a visionary by betting on Unix early, then
noticing the Free Software movement and fully embracing it. Then going on to
godfather two editions of the web (bubble.)

Think of O'Reilly as the "Virgin" airlines of Richard Branson, compared to the
classics, like British Airways or Lufthansa.

Yes, I too double check the spelling often.

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jaybol
In other news, a lot of people are using Google to search the Internet.

