Gillmor Gang: In My Room
No sooner did we start developing a newsletter, the newsletter industry exploded. Twitter jumped in with a purchase of Revue, Facebook was rumored to be investigating the platform, and each new day brought further experiments. You could blame it on the post-Trump lifting of the fog of despair. The pandemic continued apace, with new variants spurring distribution of vaccines and a transparency in communications with the new president and his team.
After years of social mining of our behavior, interests and transactions, inference has been replaced by direct evidence. The politics of data pressure mandate that we expect free software bundled with increasingly powerful hardware. The core utility of a phone culture shifted as people kept to their homes and mostly used the televisions for entertainment and news, and the phones as notifications consumers. The desktop remained the creation engine for business documents, analytics and information triage.
Gillmor Gang: Twitter+
The best thing about 2020 is we survived it. No need to say what the worst thing is, it’s hands down our collective stupidity in the choices we’ve made. That reality has forced us to refactor what we do moving forward.
If we had correctly understood the massive changes ahead, we would not be wondering when we will return to the old, new or any normal. The normal is what got us here. Unlimited air travel, freedom to do whatever we wanted without regard to the impact it would have on anybody else. Nationalism. What the hell is that all about? Keeping us in, everybody else out.
Gillmor Gang: Get Back
Today we sat on the deck with our daughter Ella and her boyfriend Nick. Knowing of my fascination with all things Beatles, Nick gave me a Japanese 45 of “Get Back” flipped with “Don’t Let Me Down.” His gift coincided with a five minute cut of material from a newly authorized production of a new version of “Get Back,” the film. A short history follows.
In the waning days of the Beatles’ partnership, the band decided to return to a more slimmed down production style, minus overdubs and plus a live feel. After original sessions in Twickenham Studios, the group decamped to the basement of their Apple headquarters and a hastily rebuilt studio courtesy of their usual producer, George Martin and loaned equipment from EMI Studios.
Gillmor Gang: Full stream ahead
Twitter is shutting down Periscope, the video app it acquired several years ago when Facebook Live threatened to lap the field. When we stream the Gillmor Gang sessions, we send them to Facebook, Twitter and an unlisted embed on YouTube. At one point, we planned to stream the sessions live on TechCrunch, but for now we’re posting the edited version there.
In the weeks leading up to January 20th, the live Telegram feed at https://t.me/Gillmorgang has been dominated by the Trump focus on overturning the election results. Each failed attempt to alter the outcome dilutes Trump’s leverage as his Republican allies struggle with his threats and Twitter rage. In just a few weeks of this, the mechanics of vaccine distribution has overwhelmed the political story as people start calculating the number of days to getting access to the medicine. What Trump does in 2024? Who cares.
Gillmor Gang: Strange Days Indeed – TechCrunch techcrunch.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from techcrunch.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.