Work on Stuff that Matters: First Principles
Tim O’Reilly sounds off on some of his ideas on how to work for things that are important to you, why you should ask the big questions, and doing self-evaluation. “First off, though, I want to make clear that “work on stuff that matters” does not mean focusing on non-profit work, “causes, or any other form of “do-goodism.” Non-profit projects often do matter a great deal, and people with tech skills can make important contributions, but it’s essential to get beyond that narrow box. I’m a strong believer in the social value of business done right. We need to build an economy in which the important things are paid for in self-sustaining ways rather than as charities to be funded out of the goodness of our hearts.”

Extraordinary Collaboration Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Oliver Marks of Collaboration 2.0 weighs in on the myth that working in groups is always more productive than working individually. “As is so often the case with IT projects, installing and integrating tools is not the same thing as having a plan for how to use them: buying and setting up is the easy part, utility and uptake the critical factors, and it’s easy to miss the obvious problems forming by your actions. Your plan may be flawed and allow unintended consequences, however enthusiastic and bullish you are.”

The Future of Web Apps: 7 Things Companies Must Do to Succeed
On Mashable, Monica O’Brien discusses shifts in web application business models and key feature offerings. “News Flash: Web 2.0 is so over, and nobody has made any money. Large social networking sites have yet to give brands a method of monetizing, and the tired business model of ‘get funded then get bought by Google’ has been a bust for both the Googles and the startups (see Feedburner, YouTube, and DoubleClick). So companies need to do something different, which means that we are on the frontier of a shift in online communication and activity.”

Why Google employees quit
Google is seen by many as the premier company to work for – so why are some employees quitting? TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington uncovered the reasons from ex-Googlers themselves. “The thread shows a brutal honesty about what it’s like to work at Google, at least from the point of view of employees who were unhappy enough to resign. Top amongst the complaints is low pay relative to what they could earn elsewhere, and disappearing fringe benefits seemed to elevate the concern. Other popular gripes – too much bureaucracy, poor management, poor mentoring, and a hiring process that took months.”

Pros and Cons of Working from Home
Part-time teleworker Bruce Eric Anderson shares his personal experience about the good and the bad of bringing your work home. “At my home office, I can enjoy nature more easily. My office at home looks out to our tree-filled backyard and I can look out and see squirrels running around, birds flying in and out of the trees and even my dog rolling around in the grass. We live near a nature trail where, in the morning before my day begins (since I’m not commuting for 15-20 minutes), I can enjoy an extended run and see all kinds of suburban wildlife. I’m able to accomplish more work from home while also enjoying a slightly more relaxed pace. I am re-energized for the days when I’m in the office.”

“Physicalized” servers may offer virtualization alternative
Virtualized servers may be popular, but there’s other ways to improve data center efficiency and decrease costs. Joel Hruska talks about one such alternative on Ars Technica. “Rackable argues that these servers are a good fit for companies with a limited need for virtualization. There’s a certain logic to that argument, especially for small businesses. A small company with a highly parallelized or distributed workload might also benefit from Rackable’s approach; the company does pack its 1U unit with up to twelve cores, which compares favorably to the unofficial eight core/1U standard that both Dell and HP seem to favor.”

Global Internet Audience Surpasses 1 Billion Visitors

In its latest study on Internet viewership, London-based comScore noted a new milestone, with the Asia Pacific leading the charge. “Surpassing one billion global users is a significant landmark in the history of the Internet,” said Magid Abraham, President and Chief Executive Officer, comScore, Inc. “It is a monument to the increasingly unified global community in which we live and reminds us that the world truly is becoming more flat. The second billion will be online before we know it, and the third billion will arrive even faster than that, until we have a truly global network of interconnected people and ideas that transcend borders and cultural boundaries.”

Google’s Jonathan Rochelle: Docs will get more integrated, social
Anthony Ha interviews the product manager of Google Docs for Venture Beat, and they talk about what users can expect in 2009. “It must be a busy time at Google Docs. As companies look to shrink their budgets, free-to-inexpensive software like Docs becomes a lot more tempting. And the search giant keeps rolling out cool features for all its applications, most recently offline support for Gmail. Meanwhile, the other big tech players are eyeing this market, with Microsoft and Apple both announcing online collaborative versions of their office software in the last few months.”

In Cloud We Trust?
Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb takes a look at user confidence for cloud computing based on an informal survey. “Cloud computing may have been one of the biggest “buzzwords” (buzz phrases?) of this past year. From webmail to storage sites to web-based applications, everything online was sold under a new moniker in 2008: they’re all “cloud” services now. Yet even though millions of internet users make use of these online services in some way, it seems that we haven’t been completely sold on the cloud being any more safe or stable than data stored on our own computers.”