"Nobody’s going to get rich off just creating an API — a lot of it depends on what you have to offer to begin with,” Frons said. “At the same time I think there’s no going back from it. If you have content on the Internet, APIs are the best way to provide access to it."

Publishers Enter the API Era | Digiday

"Since October 2010, more than 500,000 people have been infected with cholera in Haiti; more than 7000 have died and still, 200 or more new cases are reported daily. The UN acknowledges that it introduced cholera into Haiti but claims it is not responsible for the epidemic because of Haiti’s weak infrastructure. As IJDH executive director Brian Concannon explains, “It is as if the UN dropped a lit match on a dry field and when a fire began to rage, claimed it was not responsible for the fire.” It simply doesn’t make sense."

Abby Goldberg: The UN and Cholera in Haiti

Congrats!

"Virtual goods elegantly fill up the demand curve for an offering. In other words, they accommodate customers who can happily spend hundreds or thousands of dollars (“Whales”, in Vegas parlance) without having to give up mainstream users (who can still be valuable as evangelists beyond the fact that they give the whales someone to play with)."

Tony Wright on how to evaluate a paid iPhone app idea. via Buster Benson

I’d never thought of virtual goods in exactly this way, but it makes sense.

(via dianakimball)

Imagine on Flickr.

#photo Imagine

"Facebook’s biggest business opportunity isn’t advertising, but something more core to the how and why people use Facebook. Facebook’s future is its social utility, not a social network."

Facebook’s future is its social utility, not its social network. | Taylor Davidson

"Increasingly, media and consumer brands are recognizing that social networks are great, but keying in on large, well-connected communities of people organized around a single interest topic is even better."

Awakening Nonprofits’ Sleeping Giant: The Interest Graph « Fenton | Progress Accelerated

untitled on Flickr.

#photo Oyster Bar /cc @carlrnelson

My latest thoughts, piecing together Andreesen Horowitz’s recent fundraising, the growth of the private markets, and Facebook.