On the contrary, they build specialized products for their clients; they just don't build consumer products. They build very complicated, extremely expensive products based on cutting edge research that they perform in their own labs, which is why this investment is solid.
I heard an IBM guy give a talk at a research conference recently, about a 1U rack system that processes 8 live feeds of traffic, automatically classifies vehicle color and type, and optionally registration, so you can ask queries like "show me all red sedan cars traveling north on monday the 8th". It was part of their better cities initiative.
As an example, this reminds me a bit about P4 (Perforce www.perforce.com). It seems to be not that well known as say git, or other versioning systems, but in reality it's widely used in the game development, and last I've heard google, Microsoft and other big companies do use it (or use some licensed source code based version of it).
Perforce is well deployed on variety of systems. Git is fine, but cygwin's version can get broken due to fork() not always forking (no one to blame here, the cygwin folks are doing an enourmous job to translate over).
P4 also comes with approachable UI (p4win (MFC), and the not so pleasant, but then again better P4v (Qt)).
The command line is one of the easiest things ever p4 has did. For large binary files it's very well done, there is good customization of how many levels of file log to be kept.
But the best feature it's is changelists. The CL (heh, not common lisp) becomes part of your language at work, such as - get this CL, or shelve this CL, unshelve that one. It's very clear to a lot of people (coders, artists, production) what it is, and how it works.
I'm still puzzled by "git stash" or push/pull here and there (granted I'm n00b, and it would take me a lot of time to progress).
P4 is like good action game, GIT is like hard-core RPG where you need to level all the time, and learn magic, collect artifacts (that is scripts, and .gitignores).
I have worked for at least one game development studio that uses perforce on a massive Unreal-Engine codebase. I have no major complaints about it - I'd imagine the primary reason it was used was for administration purposes (tighter control by an admin / senior level developer). You know, so us n00bs didn't wreck everything at every available opportunity.
I think that one of the reasons perforce is used at large companies is the audit log / permissions model makes it easy to meet certain regulatory hurdles.
It bothers me when people apply a new buzzword to an old concept. Calling things like HN and forums "Social Media" is no more descriptive than calling a garbage truck driver a "sanitation engineer."
I can just imagine less scrupulous investors saying, "Hey, look! That thing you're doing? It fits in my overly-broad buzzword category! Give me money for my Social Media fund!"
It's more like telling that a truck driver works in transportation or logistics. The thing is, of course forums and IM were here since a long time. But different developments have made people aware of it around 2005, it's gotten a lot more pervasive in everyone's life, and so there is now a category for it. The classification of new phenomenons often take a few years until someone can "abstract" it together and explain it. The fact that people here discuss together, meet, share makes it social, no matter what other people tag with that word. Every trend can be subject to abuse, for sure.
>It bothers me when people apply a new buzzword to an old concept. Calling things like HN and forums "Social Media" is no more descriptive than calling a garbage truck driver a "sanitation engineer."
But it's a social... version of media...
What exactly is wrong with using a properly descriptive term that is in popular usage? Almost entirely unlike your garbage truck driver.
Perhaps it would be helpful for all, if you could specify what in your opinion is "real Work"? We're all here to share views and we could learn something from what is at the back of your mind.
The first part is pretty on the spot, but the second part is stupid, wasteful and does not belong on HN since Social Media is productive (Facebook allowed me to get back in touch with some old friends that I haven't heard from in years). You don't have to turn out forks or dig iron from the ground just to be productive.
I agree that social networks facilitate communication on an unprecedented level and scale. The problem I see is that the users of social networks have become the product, being sold to the advertisers, rather than the other way round.
I think the point that the parent was trying to make was that it was useful (and still is) up to a point where we actually got the benefits from it (like in the example you mentioned), but people seem to be realizing that the rest of the "features" of social networks are simply ways to extract more metadata out of a person.
There are some really novel applications that have been born from the social networking movement, but this seems to be a minority compared to the endless amount of trash that is coming out in parallel.
I don't think Buffett actually cares about that. Also, Facebook produces attention to sell to advertisers, and that's been valuable for a while -- the social part is just a good idea we have right now for attention, which in the past was newspapers, radio, TV, web portals, search engines, etc.
Hmm, so reallocating a few billion dollars is going to fill the multi-trillion dollar output gap we've fallen into these past few years? No, the answer is no.
"Social Media" is just a buzzword for communications. I promise you that communicating over the internet is valuable and won't be going away anytime soon.
I think you're wrong, because "social media" is not a bubble. Actually, it's part of the real life. :-) And I don't know what Warren wants with this, maybe he's believing in another monopolistic move of IBM, which is not too smart these days.
Actually, I agree with you on the benefits from social media to the society. But for 5% of useful features, there is 95% of trendy/fashionable projects that do not have any benefits to the grand scheme of things, are really expensive (color?) and are driving workforce away from more important projects.
You're conflating useful with productive. Huge productive industries employing tons of people are built around things that are merely trendy and fashionable (pop music, LV purses, etc).