Technology
• Social networking is purportedly now more popular than email. I read the report, and it felt mostly like (yet another) Facebook sales pitch. Of course, if Nielson can’t sell the most popular social network on earth, I’ll bet Oprah can.
• Google sales chief Tim Armstrong is leaving for the CEO post at AOL, and the move is generally being hailed as a good one (at least for AOL). There’s even speculation Mr. Armstrong will have his choice regarding keeping AOL under the Time Warner umbrella, or spinning it out. Either way, I believe one of Tim’s first moves is to find a growing property to rejuvenate AOL’s tired ship – I think that engine should be network of social networks Ning (logic to follow…later…maybe).

Finance

• One trillion dollars is a heck of a lot of money, and it’ll seem that way to just about everyone except a government official writing checks against other people’s accounts that are already long overdrawn. Yep, one-thousand billion bucks, on double stacked pallets covering an area bigger than a football field. Visualize it here.
• Value investor Ben Graham would think the S&P still too high, were he alive today. Further, that declaration was made by Bloomberg on Monday – the market chalked up a roughly 10% gain this week. Meanwhile, Nouriel Roubini already said there could be a suckers rally – maybe he’s not as tired as I thought he might be.

Fly Fishing

• Bryan Gregson’s 15+ pound pig got a mention in Fly Rod & Reel – I say it’s about time. I was kind of surprised the Madison beast hadn’t generated a little more press, until I read the recent article. See…much as Bryan lives for the outdoors (i.e. he respects the streams, and fish he chases – and conveys it openly), that grand Madison brown died after the catch. It wasn’t bleeding at the gills, or beat with a bat and then slung on a grill. It fought the good fight, but simply couldn’t be revived. For that reason (death) publications shunned the story.

   And my take…

• I’m beginning to notice a pattern: skilled anglers who just so happen to grasp the notion that fly fishing is a sport grounded in “the hunt” are putting up trophies, while a pack of panda-food-slinging, latte-sipping nancy boys jump to high-browed conclusions under cover of their keyboards. It is no wonder kids would rather play shoot-em-up video games than go outdoors – it’s genuine, unlike than the flavor of fly fishing the overzealous Gucci-elite would like to cram down their throats. The player gets a chance to comprehend finality, which is, in fact, reality.

Adieu.

From betting on the game when the other team doesn’t show…
• Bridgewater Associates say financial losses from the credit meltdown will hit $1.6 trillion. That means we’re just a few pitches into the second inning in this mess. (h/t Paul Kedrosky)
• In 2008, autumn seems to be coming early (and looking a lot like 1987). I’ve mentioned this already.
• Retailers won’t be able to hide rising prices in the revenue line forever – consumer spending is invariably linked to the housing market. (h/t Calculated Risk)

From pointing fingers is old hat, and old hats fit nicer than new ones…

• European politicians are conflicted over how to deal with bloggers. Might I suggest they send a patsy to quiet them down?
• Some social networks are having trouble monetizing their traffic. Forget the problem of short attention spans amongst teenagers – blame Google.
• Global warming hysteria has a new friend, the plasma TVs everyone bought with their second mortgage loan.

And from technology is my oyster, now give it a sniff before you eat it…

• How does a thriving technology company morph itself into General Motors? Become extremely bureaucratic about minutia. ADDED: Make sure that minutia is completely irrelevant too.
• Voicemail is dead. I agree, not because of fabulous web services, but something much simpler – caller id and internal phone contact lists.
• Email is in trouble too? I’ll agree with that as well, but not because of the newfangled services that exist today. Too few people are ever going to want their communication publicized, and too many are shifting platforms for Outlook to be a long term handicap. Someone is going to rise to the occasion for the mainstream user.

• False positives on validation emails are a big problem. But that’s really an issue for those sending the email.
• Valid items in the spam folder are only a problem if you receive such enormous volumes of email from such a wide array of senders at a single email address that you are 1) certain something really important is falling through the cracks, and 2) rarely bother to clean it out your spam folder the first place.
• Reputation will remain a problem until 1) the powers that be agree on a open, royalty free, inter-operable standard, or 2) Google listens to Fred while everyone on the planet simultaneously switches to Gmail.

The perception seems to be there is only one box. The real winner is going to be the one that thinks outside of it, and convinces the casual email user to follow suit.

UPDATE: More background on Postini, from Ryan.

But when posting, the body of the mail always gets stripped out – only the subject line (converted to title) remains.

Thoughts on this are appreciated.

If spam, which now represents the vast majority of email, is going to die soon, then we might as well shut down the instant messaging networks, the “blogosphere” (whatever that is), all VoIP lines, etc. now. While we’re at it, lets just shut down phone service too (cell included), since at least one anti-spammer (feigning seriousness wherever possible) still gets direct marketing calls. I certainly would hate to see all these services die a painful death.

The death of email…right. Someone is going to solve the problem, and make a bundle in the process.

And…nobody really cares (which is half the reason I held off). He isn’t Paris Hilton after all (although I am curious to hear whether this was again T-Mobile).

Anyway, good directions for how to turn features on/off for the popular clients. Have fun.

That whole “email losing clout” thing is starting to make sense. I doubt the fact that we are running out of IP addresses is helping matters either.

I dream of warm, clear, shallow water; bonefish tailing 50 feet from me in all directions. And a “no-tunnel” IPv6 connection in my bungalow.