The easiest way to figure out who the customer is in an online space is to figure out who is paying for the thing. Usually, the people paying are the customers. So on Facebook, the people paying are marketers. That makes them the customers. And it means we are the product being delivered to those customers.

New content online no longer requires new stories or information, just new ways of linking things to other things. Or as the social networks might put it to you, 'Jane is now friends with Tom.' The connection has been made; the picture is getting more complete.

The industrial age was not about craftspeople trading peer to peer. It was about stopping that. You weren't supposed to be a craftsperson, you were supposed to be an employee.

Overwinding happens when hedge funds destroy companies by attempting to leverage derivatives against otherwise productive long-term assets.

The plague did not lead to Europe’s economic collapse. Rather, Europe’s currency-driven economic collapse led to the plague.

Books have souls. Or so romantics like me tend to think.

We Facebook users have been building a treasure lode of big data that government and corporate researchers have been mining to predict and influence what we buy and for whom we vote. We have been handing over to them vast quantities of information about ourselves and our friends, loved ones and acquaintances.