Here is a list of things I want to see changed on the Web:

Social Networking
Blogrolls
RSS feeds
email

It helps to think conceptually of the commonalities in these items. Primarily, I’m concerned about how we manage information flow. In the future, sociologists will look at our nascent digital culture as a clumsy initial attempt to acquire and manage useful information and relationships. Our current clumsiness is resulting in information overload. Our feeble attempts at keeping up with information flow is leading to new symptoms of “digital addiction” for which we have few remedies …

Prompted by the rumblings of activist hedge funds Harbinger Capital and Firebrand Partners last month, I wrote about the New York Times (NYT) and its evolving technology assets. I found the Times to be surprisingly forward-thinking in its investments in the online world. As a strategic investor, it has made some fairly impressive investments in innovative startups that could solve the riddle of monetizing online news and content. Its investments include bets on blog advertising networks, news aggregation websites, blogging platforms, video sharing sites, job search engines, …

Social networking has thus far been primarily about connecting with lost friends, playing simple games, and gawking at strangers. Aside from the amazing ability to reconnect with buddies from middle school, the rest of social networking mirrors normal human behavior in real life. Lots of people need an avenue for rest and relaxation. Dumb games like Pirates vs. Ninjas on Facebook replaces old time-wasters like watching TV. Who hasn’t been to the mall or the park watching people pass by? We’re all voyeurs to some degree but social networks like …

Robert Ricks, a marketing maven and not too shabby graphic designer, writes a good piece about the commoditization of Web widgets. Robert’s resumé includes working at some of the early trend-setting dotcoms during the boom, creating his own trading card game (Magic for the ghetto), and even patrolling the halls as a security guard at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) where he learned his craft in digital media. Yes, he started there as a nightstick-wielding muscle man but took the initiative to learn some marketable skills from the environment around him. …