Actually, it makes perfect sense. Per above – you just need a lot of background knowledge.

Social networks of the future will be largely based around affinity groups.

A container is a basic (or advanced) social network framework that can run Google Open Social apps.

Silverlight will allow such containers to run on mobile phones as well as the web.

Skinning, will allow data originating from multiple sources (such as Facebook, Xing etc), to be packaged and viewed in a consistent way in a on a social app – running on your phone, for example.

Yes, this article was poorly named and hard to follow. It would have benefited from links to the items referenced. I used google to catch up on some items i was unfamiliar with.

I’ve followed Gillmor for years – mostly via the Gilmore Gang podcasts – and there is no doubt in my mind that Steve is a brilliant strategist – who has the ability to process large amounts of information and identify key trends. The only problem is that when you have this skill set, it’s often hard to communicate clearly and concisely to those who are aren’t fully informed – or who have a different way of interpreting information.

The first problem for people that think on this level – is that to them, many things are obvious – and it’s hard to know what’s not obvious to the general punter. It takes a lot of background knowledge to digest information at this level.

At the end of the day, Steve’s insights are generally highly valuable for those in a position to benefit from them: Strategists, futurists, VC’s and those of us that care about a future where our interests are front and center.

Perhaps this is too valuable to be given away for free here at TC – especially given the time pressure to react quickly. There is a reason that analyst reports cost thousands – and it’s because filling in the gaps (with data, graphs and clarity of articulation) takes a lot of time and effort.

Perhaps Mike can:

1) Label high level industry strategy posts, such that they are easily distinguishable – and so that those of us who are only interested in these posts, can subscribe to them separately.

2) Find an editor who is also fully across industry dynamics to help make Steve’s insights easier to interpret for the TechCrunch audience.

Keep it coming Steve. There are those of us that greatly appreciate it – in whatever format it comes. (although you may find that the really high level stuff is better on your blog than here?)

steve gillmor = duncan riley + dictionary.com

steve gillmor = duncan riley + dictionary.com

Please let there be one – maybe even allow him to have the first say on the Microsoft/Yahoo deal when it finnally happens. Que 4 thousand comments of utter rage….if theres a god, it will happen.

Then again, maybe “edited” in this context refers to someone hitting the “approve” button for the post. Steve is not exactly known for clarity and concision, so we continue to wallow in the ambiguity of his use of language.

You’ll be fine. Duncan got the crap beat out of him in some of the comments but most of us warmed up to him anyway.

Remember that you’ve got the knowledge (and thats important). Shorten up your posts and you should be good. More knowledge into smaller post.

Think about it!

I’m not a native English speaker, meaning English is only my second language. That being said, I consider myself fairly good at both reading, writing as well as speaking English, especially when it comes to techno-lingo after spending 15 years in a profession filled with English terminology and white-papers and manuals… But this…
I found myself thinking after the second piece “What the …. is he talking about? I don’t understand what the point is with this… what’s the message???” And then I quickly scrolled down to the comments and realized I wasn’t alone…
I think TC-management should think long and hard about who their customers/readers are and what kind of style/form best suits their customers. Maybe Mike feels that he only addresses Americans with TC and that he therefor can allow this kind of stylistic mambo-jambo to the content. If that is the case, I think he should consider that the Europeans, the Chinese, the Indians and the rest of the world’s techno-workers wastly outnumber the Americans… This piece of masterwork is not good nor easy reading, regardless of your level of understanding when it comes to the English language!

I’m not saying Mike should take Steve off the team or anything here, that decision is of course totally up to Mike and Mike alone, but… I have been an employer and if Steve was one of my employees, I’d give him a real bashing for forgetting the number one rule of business: The customer is always right!
If Steve thinks some comments are out of line or simply rude or attacking his persona or whatever, just leave it, don’t add fuel to the fire. By calling the customers names and acting like a big jerk he is just alienating the readers, the customers, from the blog. It’s laughable…

Lastly, a big LOL at comment #79 by Steve… My God!
To say that a bad piece of text was even worse before, that’s not a good excuse, it’s not even humor…

Maybe techcrunch is just punking us?

Maybe Steve is paying to be able to write?

I’ll donate 5 bucks to his severance pay…

Just wanted to let you know I’m taking an English Composition class currently in college and the first assignment was to find an example of plagiarism online or find an article with incorrect grammar. I pulled up TechCrunch and skipped right to this post. So many run-on sentences

Is there a RSS feed for your posts only? They are getting lost in the middle of the other bleh TC’s entries. Or just tinyurl your posts on Twitter.

You should have seen the version before it was edited.