David Weinberger has an interesting article about the blog for Presidential candidate Howard Dean. Apparently, “Dean’s campaign shows the smart mobs, hive minds, have more benefits, power, energy, vitality and adapability than the single mind of any political advisor.” David goes on to say “they’re viewing the Internet not as a cheap way to reach the masses but as a way to let us talk together.”
Category Archives: Online Life
New way to find a job: Blogs
It looks like my former employer, Quovix (a great place to work, BTW) decided that they’d try something new and look for applicants by posting a blog entry.
I think the idea is great, especially if the people that read your blog are the same group that you want to hire. Of course, this might not be for everyone — I can imagine whole sectors out there that don’t have people that tend to be into blogging — or even Web surfing, for that matter.
The World of Ends
The World of Ends has been getting a lot of attention lately. It’s an article about how we think about the Internet, and mistakes that keep getting made because of the wrong paradigm. Of course, there are also people disputing the claims made there. Well worth a read even if you disagree.
A Fresh Look at the ‘Net Tax
Recently, many U.S. states and large bricks-and-mortar retailers are again pushing the “Internet tax” — an effort to add sales tax to online purchases. This gets debated every few years, it seems, and we see similar arguments each time.
What the sates and existing retailers miss is that the sales tax is really a local tax. If I live in Lafayette, Ind. and drive to Chicago, IL for a day of shopping, I’d pay Chicago’s sales tax. And that is only right. After all, I’m contributing to the wear of Chicago’s roads, I’m benefiting from the police officers keeping the area safe, I could benefit from the fire dept. if there was a problem, and their snow crews let me travel around.
But if I sit at home and place the order, I’m doing none of those things. Without stepping foot in Chicago, I don’t benefit from their roadways or safe streets. The people that do — perhaps UPS, which delivers my package — already pay local taxes (fuel, sales, etc.) and that cost is passed along to me as part of the shipping fee.