Links for 05-15-2012

• Making Choices in the Age of Information Overload - NYTimes.com - "The Internet is, among other things, a massive, chaotic marketplace. Too much information, it turns out, is a lot like no information. “If we researched every single purchase, we wouldn’t have time to make any purchases,” says Anna Kirmani, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland. “I have better things to do with my time.” Signaling can be a shorthand to identify whom you want to buy from. That’s why we may need it now more than ever."
• The Fertile Unknown: Improv Theater and Complex Adaptive Systems
• Death of a Saleman: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Mediocrity : The New Yorker - "Ten years later, at the Ethel Barrymore, I found myself squirming in my seat from boredom and exasperation, amazed at how much glaringly conventional stagecraft “Salesman” was able to pack into its two acts. The rising action, the dramatic irony, the laborious, grandstanding speeches (“Spite, spite, is the word of your undoing…When you’re rotting somewhere beside the railroad tracks, remember, and don’t you dare blame it on me”)—I kept wanting to exclaim, “It sounds like a play!”"
• How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet - Quite the read, though IMO somewhat overstated.
• Anatomy of an iTV rumor - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech - So many "column inches" in the online tech press is devoted to endlessly regurgitating these sorts of rumors. Cheap clicks.
• VMware pros glean vSphere roadmap from CTO in VMUG videos - "“Those of you who know our products deeply know that they don’t fit as well together as they need to,” Herrod told the VMUG attendees. “Some have multiple databases. Some don’t look the same. Some install differently. And what I can’t stand is that currently Site Recovery Manager doesn’t work with vCloud Director.”"
• Do I Build or OEM My Cloud Service? The Top 5 Considerations | BostInno
• Bits or pieces?: On the death of great companies
• More Americans Leave Passports at Home for Summer Vacation | BostInno - More domestic flying than international in summer Euro airfare this summer was really $$ when I looked
• Expensify Trips: Track your itinerary from your expense report « Expensify Blog - Expensify is apparently trying to bridge to offering a Tripit-like service