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"In the opening passage of Do Machines Make History (1967), Robert Heilbroner argues that technology has a direct bearing on the human drama of history-but it does not make all of history. The challenge he identifies is whether something systematic can be said about the matter. In this piece, I briefly evaluate the degree to which technological change shapes historical change. I leave discussion on reasons why technologies change for other debates-instead focusing on the effects of technology, irrespective of their determinants. I suggest that while historical change depends on more than just technology, technology plays an unignorable role. Technology expands the range of actions for history-makers, exerts political influence (whether reflecting or independent of the intent of its makers), and can invite a cascade of further technological change."

Facebook changes all emails on profiles to @facebook.com

""Adidas received the largest week-over-week percent change (+354%), according to Bluefin. "This could be due to the number of ad airings they had this week - 123 airings of 3 creatives - vs last week, when they only had 23 ad airings," they further explained. "114 of the airings this week were of the new Adidas Basketball D Rose commercial," leveraging a celeb for social TV chatter. Here's further commentary from Bluefin and the commercial chart. The top 3 most tweeted-about brands were Subway (5.5K), the movie Paranormal Activity 4 (4.4K), and Adidas (4.3K). As we already know, celebrity figures help build social TV buzz, and sports is no exception. 63.4% of the comments about Adidas mentioned the D Rose commercial. Here's one example tweet. You may have noticed that Old Navy, the #1 brand on last week's chart, isn't on this list at all. As mentioned in last week's post, Old Navy had run two musically-themed creatives a total of 394 times. This week, Old Navy only ran one creative, but it aired a whopping 625 times. The big drop in conversation may be due to "ad-wear," when viewers get tired of seeing the same commercial over and over. Also, the Old Navy commercial that ran this week featured musician Justin Guarini. The bulk of last week's conversation was actually about the other commercial, featuring the Backstreet Boys. Subway was not tracked last week, so there is no week-over-week percent change."

Numecent offers something it calls "cloud paging" and, if successful, it could be a game-changer for enterprise software, video gaming, and smartphone apps. Red Hat thinks so. It has already partnered with the company to help it offer Windows software to Linux users. "Cloud paging" instantly "cloudifies" any software, even an operating syste Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/were-blown-away-this-startup-could-literally-change-the-entire-software-industry-2012-3#ixzz1oM8IGUAT

encourage their readers to go from being a passive audience to an active community. The new Good.is is a place for people interested in creating change to spread awareness for different causes with a like-minded community - think change.org meets Facebook.

This pushes back "first humans" back about 200k years! Changes things like how many people have ever existed? also flattens the exponential curve I.e. we've spent about 240,000 years with very little change.

Interesting look at how users are changing how they engage with online content.

"1. Marketers suck. Including me. Look at my big tech company list over on Facebook. Do you actually learn much? A little, but marketers push themselves too much, and say too little. 2. No one is focused on what you want. Including me. I have a list of tech industry investors. Rich people. I want to hear from them about when they talk about investing, the economy, starting companies, trends, that kind of stuff. But do they stay focused? No. They talk about movies. Their vacations. Their kids. And more. 3.  Everyone is emotional. Including me. I have a list of tech industry VIPs. People who have changed the world. Invented Twitter. Or the Web. Or built Microsoft. Etc etc. But when they post about emotional topics like politics, religion, babies, pets, death, birth everyone goes crazy and reshares their posts. 4. Everyone has gone Gagnam Style. Including me. We love resharing. Retweeting. Talking. Liking. Pushing. Watch my tech news list and you'll see the same story rehashed, repeated, reshaped, remashed."

"How can brands do a better job of fostering these relationships so that they're at the forefront of consumer's minds? 1. Develop a great product. Not to resuscitate the Mac vs. PC argument, but there's a reason many people aren't hesitant to recommend their MacBook or iPhone to a friend. 2. Facilitate social sharing. Brands need to be engaged with consumers via social media, and brands need product sites and marketing programs that facilitate seamless social sharing. 3. Create sampling programs to reach digital consumers. Many influential digital consumers are eager to discuss their love of specific products and brands. Marketers need to reach and engage them in innovative ways, such as via sampling programs, contests, coupons. 4. Get game. Brand can introduce game element through badges, achievements, and prizes to turn their consumers to brand ambassadors and engage them in a fun way."

" The interactive product will be based at www.bravotv.com/playlive, and on the Bravo Now app. Bravo details exactly what to expect in the official announcement: Live voting results are shown on-air, changing in real time during the broadcast as the audience reacts to what's happening in the show. Fans can cast votes, deciding who's hot, who's not, and an array of other interactive questions customized to what's happening on screen. For example, when the experience rolls out to other Bravo programming, questions such as, 'Which chef would you choose to cook dinner for you?' or 'Who will bring the most drama this season - the housewives…or their husbands!' could appear on screen."

"Ian Heidt, director of product management for Qualcomm Labs, said the technology pulls in information from a variety of sensors on the phone, how consumers use the phone, including the camera, and location to create a unique fingerprint. "In early trials in Japan, we've seen improvement on targeting," he said. "It shows how mobile and content change the behavior of consumers." Trials conducted by Blogwatcher in Japan found that consumers were three times more likely to click through and respond to WITYU notifications and offers as compared with non-contextualized and non-personalized offers. Click-through rates rose by more than 60% when specials and offers were delivered to consumers."

""Mobile search queries and mobile commerce" which have "resulted in changes in our product mix, including a significant increase in mobile search queries and a deceleration in the growth of desktop queries. We expect that our revenue growth rate will continue to be affected by evolving consumer preferences.'"

"80% of all shoppers believe that private label brands are equal to or better than national brands in terms of quality"

 Mulu wants to change, with an ad plugin that allows users to buy the products they're reading about directly on the page.

I honestly thought the emails I received this weekend were a hoax.