Wired Business

Launching in Hollywood — as opposed to Silicon Valley or Redmond — hints that Microsoft might be working closely with the entertainment industry on its rumored tablet.

Microsoft may be more than two years late to the tablet fight, but Windows and Office still spew so many billions every year that the world’s third-largest company can still afford not to be great.

Ten questions with Clay Shirky, the startup guru, NYU professor and author, touching on the rise of GitHub, Facebook’s weak spot, the regression of online politics, his mistaken trust in large tech companies, and his all-time favorite email service.

Between their surprise nuptials, showtune-sing-alongs, Princess Bride readings, and computer-coded wedding programs, it’s starting to seem like Facebook geeks are remaking the rites of marriage just as they remade how people socialize.

The first issue of Wired hit newsstands almost two decades ago. This inaugural edition is now available digitally on tablets, complete with behind-the-scenes notes and pop-up annotations—even for the ads. Plus: An oral history that interviews people who played a key role in getting that first issue out the door.

Barraged with funding offers, startup founders are enjoying posh retreats, demanding hard work from investors, and taking on dozens of backers at a time in so-called “party rounds.”

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) released hundreds of potential domain names Wednedsay, including “.sucks.”

Ping is dead. Apple’s fumbling of its Facebook relationship, steaming model and other things doomed the social music service — and point toward how the company can succeed in the future.

It’s bad enough when you run a search company in an increasingly social world. It’s worse when anti-trust regulators say you have unfairly and illegally used your dominance in search to promote your own products over those of competitors. Now Google executives, who like to boast of their company’s informal motto, “Don’t Be Evil,” also stand accused of being just that — and rightly so. What other interpretation is possible in light of persistent allegations that the internet titan deliberately engaged in “the single greatest breach in the history of privacy” and “one of the biggest violations of data protection laws that we had ever seen?”

Facebook’s New York boss is determined to keep the company from turning into Google as it expands beyond boring old Silicon Valley.