Can We Have Skype & iPhones & Media Romantic Moments?

Microsoft announced it bought money-losing Skype for $8 billion. That's not the way Alexander Graham Bell started. CEO Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was trying to be gushingly happy about the marriage. But what does an overworked, dull dog geek know about communications at the personal level? Sure Skype has 170,000,000 users but that didn't stop Apple or Google from dominating personal communicators in spite of Skypes lead. No it's not about stuff it's about seamless personal comfort when using the stuff.

Sorry Steve but not all the players in communcation devices will succeed. And why should they. It turns out that for every talk-happy user of hand held devices there are many voyeurs who like to watch and listen. Whether its Facebook or Twitter or private conversations there are predators in many forms. Some are scavengers for information that can be resold. Some are sexual creeps who are looking for gratification at a base level or criminal level. In either case the hapless user may regret being open and gabby. Privacy seems to be a personal no mans zone. Avoid privacy says Steve Jobs. Avoid privacy says the baby faced pair at Google. And now Steve Ballmer convincingly joins the anti-privacy movement. Who would want to confide in Steve Ballmer?

With privacy slipping away one of the casualties will be romanticism. Romantics by definition avoid public glare. Romanticism has been replaced with light or heavy pornography in all its forms.

Cityville, Pokerstars & Osama bin Laden

I wonder if from time to time Osama bin laden or some of his followers play a few hands of Texas Hold'em on Pokerstars. com? (Do C.I.A operatives use agency slush funds to play?) Does North Korea's Kim Jong Il or any of his cadre participate in Zynga's Farmville? Would it be hopeful that they did? Or would it be more hopeful that the popularity of these two social network sites would gradully decline in popularity to be replaced with a renewed interest in real world?

P.S. The German stock exchange has made a $25 billion dollar for the New York Stock Exchange. That price is about half of the valuation that Goldman Sachs placed on Facebook! Should Facebook make a counter offer to the NYSE or should Facebook be a short sale on its stock offering debut?