Alec Saunders SquawkBox

This morning we wrapped up some of the big stories of the week.  We talked about traffic shaping, as new data has emerged showing that Comcast has lied to the US FCC.  We also talked about Jerry Yang’s new nightmare - Carl Icahn, and Icahn’s hostile slate of Yahoo directors. And how about the story that Vodafone has bought Danish social network Zyb. Comcast bought Plaxo earlier in the week. That’s two carriers buying two social networks in one week.  Is it a trend?  Some of our participants expressed condolensces to Vodafone customers now stuck using Zyb. 

We also touched on RIM’s about face on touch screens.  Blackberry “Thunder” is coming this fall apparently.  The Blackberry tech I am chatting with on the phone right now swears he knows nothing…

How about Facebook’s decision to ban Google Friend Connect?  Claiming that Friend Connect violates the Facebook TOS, they’ve disallowed it.  Is Facebook doing right by their users, or are they hiding out behind their terms of service in order to disadvantage a competitor?

And what about Twitter?  After breaking the china news this week, the service has returned to it’s old deadbeat dad unreliable ways. Sometimes it’s there for ya, sometimes it’s not, and ya just can’t count on it when ya need it.  European participants on the call report no problems, but we in North America are having a devil of a time.

On the call:  Jeb Brilliant, Jim Courtney, Andy Abramson, David Brown, Adam Somer, Ian Hood, Bill Volk, Eric Fisher, James Body, Jonathan Jensen, Mike Pruyn, Henry Lewkowicz

Enjoy the recording.  No SquawkBox for Monday, as it’s a holiday here in Canada.

 

 Squawk Box May 16 [38:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve been wondering where Ken and Sheryl have been on the SquawkBox recently.  Last night I found out.  They’re moving again, just two weeks after moving the last time.  A new job in Spokane in a new (to Ken) but related industry.

Congrats!  And now that I’ve outed you, Ken, we’ll be expecting the full story.

Yeah, that’s right, a deadbeat dad.  Sometimes it’s there for you.  Sometimes it’s not.  And mostly, you just can’t count on it.

This week in particular Twitter was spectacular breaking the news over the earthquake in China.  Then Wednesday and Thursday happened.  The last tweet I got on GTalk was at 3:20 PM Thursday.  Twhirl’s a big fat blank that doesn’t even log in.  Twitter for iPhone, the same. Twitterfone couldn’t post any of the tweets I recorded at 5 pm EDT yesterday. And by mid-afternoon Wednesday and Thursday, the Twitter website was telling me “Twitter is pretty stressed right now” and refusing to give me access to replies.

I’ve stayed on the sidelines through the entire discussion by Dave Winer and others about decentralizing Twitter, and making it an open standard.  Frankly it’s none of my business.  Surely Evan Williams and his board realize, however, that the magic of Twitter is the community, and not the technology.  It could be easily duplicated, and likely more reliably.

Best to catch up on those alimony payments, and make sure you don’t get behind again.  Otherwise the judge (a.k.a. the user base) is going to find a way to penalize you.