Om Malik

Its definition can be a bit murky, but to me, native advertising is a sales pitch that fits right into the flow of the information being shown. It doesn't interrupt - native ads don't pop up or dance across the screen - and its content is actually valuable to the person viewing it.

The lens through which I view the media world is pretty simple: If you are in the business of sucking up attention, then you are in the media business.

Google came of age when search was inefficient and cluttered, and made it simple and easy to find what you wanted online.

Just as two people can have similar personalities, two companies can have a remarkably similar approach to business.

The early entrants into the world of A.R., as with its cousin virtual reality, were disappointing: the phones were too weak, the networks were too slow, and the applications were too nerdy. But now the technological pieces are in place, and a whole generation - much of which is on Snapchat - has come to consider the camera almost a third arm.

The possibilities that come with thinking about the camera as a portal into the realm of information and services are attractive not only to Snap but also to every other big player in the tech world. Facebook, for instance, has slowly been enhancing the visual capabilities of its Messenger.

QR codes have always been a kind of half-measure, a useful but inelegant transitional technology; the ultimate goal is augmented reality.

Cameras can look down from on high and predict crop yields, traffic in Walmart parking lots, and travel patterns on Labor Day weekend. On the ground, they form the foundation of autonomous-driving systems.

Writing works when publications are writing and serving the best interest of their users; numbers are good yardstick but not a way to compensate a person.

In 1947, Porsche began work on its 356. In many ways, it was like the original iPhone. It wasn't perfect. It was underpowered. But it was streamlined and aerodynamic.

Most competition in Silicon Valley now heads toward there being one monopolistic winner.

Apple has always been, and always will be, a hardware-first company. It produces beautiful devices with elegant designs and humane operating-system software.

Augmented reality is the 'boy who cried wolf' of the post-Internet world - it's long been promised but has rarely been delivered in a satisfying way.

Unlike Facebook or Instagram, Twitter's core experience isn't about photos. It's a world of text, with occasional embedded photos, animated gifs, and short video clips.

Photography has always been about capturing light.

Our ubiquitous mobile access has made time and location important data points in how businesses can now be built and managed.

I love my paper and ink, but I see the benefits of the iPad and Apple Pencil.

Now every person edits the story they tell about themselves, carefully ensuring what the world looks at - whether it's over Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

We live in crazy times - that is true - and things have gotten crazier, but it still doesn't feel like the turn of the century.

Uber, like Google, is taking a highly disorganized business - in its case, private transportation such as taxicabs and private limousines - and ordering it neatly.

Fog is my weakness, and every time there is low fog, I am out and about with my camera.

Finding your soul begins by discovering our ability to listen! Alternatively, by sharing a smile, a laugh and just by being human to everyone - from friends, colleagues, family, and especially strangers, including those who are not from the same station in life as you.

I like the muted sounds, the shroud of grey, and the silence that comes with fog.

In the simplest terms, a fast-growing company can't keep growing at the same fast rate forever. It eventually has to slow down.

Business, much like life, is not a movie, and not everyone gets to have a storybook ending.

Pokemon Go, which involves trying to 'catch' Pikachu or Squirtle or other creatures with your smartphone, is an inherently social experience. You need to be walking around - on the streets, in public places - to catch the Pokemon.

I worry about Google's data ethics and about the idea of handing over the corpus of my life, but I can't deny that it is exceptional at making sense of my ever-growing photo library.

From analog film cameras to digital cameras to iPhone cameras, it has become progressively easier to take and store photographs. Today, we don't even think twice about snapping a shot.

Sure, we all like listening to music on vinyl, but that doesn't mean streaming music on Spotify is bad.

I want fewer interruptions in my day. I have eliminated a lot of things from my life. I'm on a declining scale of wanting things.

Our entire society is rooted around the idea of more, and longer has become the measure of success.

For the longest time, computers have been associated with work. Mainframes were for the Army, government agencies, and then large companies. Workstations were for engineers and software programmers. PCs were initially for other white-collar jobs.

Twitter is short-form, real-time, and text-based. It's built for instant alerts and rapid consumption. It is an ideal system for delivering sips of information from an abundant stream.

Social sharing of photos - landscapes, selfies, latte-foam art - can spark conversations and deeper engagements.

Before we had the Internet, we would either call or write to our friends, one at a time, and keep up with their lives. It was a slow process and took a lot of effort and time to learn about each other.

Computers in general, and software in particular, are much more difficult than other kinds of technology for most people to grok, and they overwhelm us with a sense of mystery.

It is becoming harder for us to stay on top of the onslaught - e-mails, messages, appointments, alerts. Augmented intelligence offers the possibility of winnowing an increasing number of inputs and options in a way that humans can't manage without a helping hand.

A lot of what people are calling 'artificial intelligence' is really data analytics - in other words, business as usual. If the hype leaves you asking 'What is A.I., really?,' don't worry, you're not alone.

I know I am not alone in struggling with Facebook and how we experience it through its news feed.

Ideally, Facebook would take all our clicks and information and would magically give us everything we want, without us even knowing we want it.

Facebook needs to maintain its vise-like grip on our attention to become a conduit of not only advertising but also commerce, so that it can take a cut of everything.

There are days when I look at my news feed, and it seems like a social fabric of fun - a video of the first steps of my friends' baby! My nephew's prom date! On other days, it feels like a NASCAR vehicle, plastered with news stories, promoted posts, lame Live videos, and random content.

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft are building their own versions of the future. And they get bigger and bigger.

A platform is essentially a business model that thrives because of the participation and value added from third parties with only incremental effort from the owner of the platform.

Our economy, for a long while, has been transitioning from one reliant on industrial strength to one based on digital information. The next step in this transition is a digital economy shaped by connectivity.

People pay little attention to banner ads - in fact, everyone dislikes them - and that leads to infinitesimally small click-through rates that make marketers unhappy.

Porsche's and Apple's design philosophies are similar. Much like the 356, the original iPhone was about defining a foundation for the future.

Facebook has gone from a nice-and-boring social network to becoming an identity layer of the web. It is where nearly a billion people are depositing the artifacts of civilization in the 21st century - photos, videos, and birthday wishes.