Bryan O'Rourke

Daniel Boorstin, author and historian, was right when he observed that, "the greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance: its the illusion of knowledge." Its true; to realize the potential this exciting time of change offers requires letting go of certain past assumptions. Disengaging from old thinking enables a consideration and potential adoption of innovations impossible before but central to driving new opportunities. When evaluating every industry today, the primary barriers to moving ahead toward a positive future have much more to do with interests vested in the past than the potential the future offers. Nowhere is this more accurate when considering the struggling music industry of today. Enter Spotify. Founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek, former CTO of Stardoll, an... (more)

Web 2.0 and the Mobile Internet

The Web 2.0 summit just wrapped up in SFCA this past week. There are some noteworthy observations and content on their web site and in particular Mary Meeker's annual overview of Internet trends . Take an moment to review her in-depth presentaioin below. A huge surge in mobile access is about to, yet again, revolutionize businesses and the adoption of new technologies using cloud infras... (more)

Google Book Settlement & Lessig on Copyright Law

Much is being made of the pending Google book settlement. Now Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo are jumping in to object to the settlement as well. Despite all of the fuss about Google, this complex matter truly results from a lack of appropriate stewardship of our intellectual property laws by Congress. It is why most of these issues are relegated to the courts to settle (see Lessig's lecture... (more)

Eric Schmidt On Transparency & Open Immigration

Google's head, Eric Schmidt, recently shared his views on a series of topics at the Aspen Ideas Festival. He addressed how "old" institutions are inefficient and in particular governments. His solution is transparency because as he puts it, "many bureaucrats know what they are doing is not effective". Schmidt goes on to question why the US attracts foreign students and then kicks them ou... (more)

Salesforce.com & Wave - Customer Service on Crack

Cloud Computing on Ulitzer Cloud computing is offering advanced ways for businesses to apply the most cutting edge technologies to support their key business processes - rapidly and affordably. Now there is another interesting example as the video below shows. Google's Wave is a new and interesting seminal Cloud technology. Wave was invented by brothers Jens Rasmussen and Lars Rasmussen ... (more)