Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Of all the innovations and gifts Bill Gates gave the world of technology, the one that has crossed over more than any other is the idea that “Content is King.” Written as part of an open essay in 1996, Gates’ proclamed that in order to succeed in the burgeoning online consumer space, websites and services needed to provide original and alluring content. This “Moses on the Mount” decree is as true today as it was 20 years ago. I hate this phrase. “Content is King” has become the war cry of editors, news directors, and basically every content supervisor the world, and half of them have no clue what it means. To these people, it’s a way of saying, “Do your job,” or “What have you done for me lately?” But for a more accurate understanding, one needs to look no farther than the battle for online eyeballs. Every online media giant wants your attention. Netflix wants your subscription dollars; Google, YouTube, Hulu, Yahoo want your...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Listing off tech industry power players is no easy task. Sure you start with hardware and software giants such as Apple, Google and maybe Samsung, but what about the Internet properties? That means Facebook, eBay, Twitter, Amazon and possibly Yahoo. But then there are high tech manufacturers and information service providers yet to be considered: Intel, HP, IBM and Oracle, for example. The list could go on. Now, if we were building this list in the ’90s, it would have been hard to argue that a truer giant of the industry existed other than Microsoft. Windows, the operating system offered by Bill Gates’ high tech software company Microsoft, is the most dominant creation in the history of software. No matter the iteration — 95, 98, XP, ME, NT, Vista, etc. — Windows controlled an impossible share of the consumer, professional, enterprise and government markets. However, the rise of mobile computing cracks the Microsoft monument, ...