Too bad we can not get a bigger view or print it.

Today we take Stanford, tomorrow the World! The phrase that never existed? Interesting map to add to the penetration of Facebook in Europe.

Play with the world map of social networks to get a more detailed view.

One of the things that has always amazed me about the Renaissance is how the most famous wise-men of the time had all multiple fields of expertise and interest. They had a focus on learning and education, coming out of a time of obscurity, fighting ignorance, status quo and superstition. Leonardo Da Vinci is a great example having his main source of living in art but also developing his knowledge and inventions in science.

This is where I see the parallel between the two times: today people are learning and experimenting in different fields, sometimes turning their hobbies into their profession and vice-versa. We are living a time with enormous cross-fertilization among different fields which is fueled and driven by the innate thirst for knowledge and communication of human beings. Thanks to the Internet we have easier access to all sorts of information and also to other people that share our same interests: it is easier and more exciting to learn, while we also get a lot more return for smaller effort.

The Internet has brought a new rennaissance focused on learning and expanding our personal horizons: the Netrenaissance. Just look around you and you will see that the most successful people in your entourage and the people that you admire the most have all multiple interests to which they devote a lot of time and effort. But why go that far? Just look at yourself, don't you also have different fields of interest to which you devote your energy for the pleasure of learning?

Because learning is the cornerstone of the Netrenaissance: continuous and never ending learning, whith all its joy and, sometimes, pain. Everything is evolving so fast that the learning just can not stop.

There is one main difference in both times though, and it is the different approach to perfection: while in the Renaissance from the 14th century there was an obsession with classical perfection and equilibrium, in today's Netrenaissance the focus is on improving through iteration; not perfecting: improving, making it better.

The sources of financing stay the same, what where then patrons are now investors (business angels, venture capitalists...) but it is much easier now for individuals to fund their projects with their own money, which helps fuel much faster development and, of course, learning.

Bruno Peeters has crawled the Belgian twitosphere to get some insight about it. He has produced a very interesting infographic extrapolating data from over 46000 Twitter accounts located in Belgium.

The average Twitter account in Belgium follows 90 Twitter users, is followed by 87, is listed 4,5 times, and has tweeted 378 times.

Out of an estimate of 75.000 to 100.000 accounts, 32% Tweet weekly and 18% have no activity at all.

I'm looking forward to more information coming from Bruno about what is going on in this country. Thank you Bruno!

Dear Android handset manufacturers: 

I understand that you would like to lock-in your users with something more than the hardware you produce, which risks being completely commoditized soon. But please, do yourself and your users a favor and stop screwing up the interface of Android. The user experience with Android needs a lot of refinement still and you are only subtracting from it. 

If you really want to keep a healthy business and prevail over other systems like Apple's iPhone, what you should do is create an umbrella organization together with Google to help each other produce the best Android interface on earth that will work with all the different devices you make.

Believe it or not you and Google have a thing or two to learn or stop ignoring from other operating systems like Linux (the best example) and Microsoft Windows (the more popular example): simplify the updating process for the operating system by eliminating all your unnecessary meddling (and now that you are up to it, also that of the telecom operators which just add an extra layer of incompetency and user neglect). Just have one source of updates. Your participation only adds unnecessary steps and delays.

With your efforts to screw-up the interface the only thing that you are producing is frustration with Android, your brands and your handsets. You are pushing your clients to your competitors, not among yourselves but to alternative operating systems and handsets like those produced by RIM (Blackberry) and Apple (iPhone). 

So please do everyone a favor and unify your interface efforts. I bet you can do better than a D in your own business and keep us, your clients, happily locked-in because of the quality of your hardware and the operating system running on it. 

Best regards, 

Ramón Suárez

PS: Google's Android team in cc.