Maggie Jackson, 1/28/12

Award-winning columnist, author of "Distracted"

Parents and educators alike are buzzing about this new cure for our distracted, multitasking children. The name of the app? SelfControl.

Faisal J. Abbas, 1/27/12

Award-winning journalist, blogger & social commentator based in London, England

However, I am not one of those commentators who preach all day without providing a solution -- I think Twitter should simply charge for its service and become totally advertising-free; it is true that countries will still ban it but people will find a way to connect.

Alex Nowrasteh, 1/27/12

Policy Analyst, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Soviet central planners, whom Brin's family sought to escape, tried to predict demand for goods and services with catastrophic consequences. American immigration officials shouldn't harbor the same conceit. It's time to end this charade.

Steven Weber, 1/27/12

Actor, wise-ass

The stream of regularly refuted garbage churned up in the AEI think tanks and Fox newsrooms for confusion's sake is spewed everyday into our culture and subsequently, Twitter. How difficult is it to keep your head straight when you're paranoid and threatened? Oh, very.

John Dearborn, 1/27/12

President, JumpStart Inc.

If entrepreneurial education is important to America's economy and global competitiveness, and good for its students, why don't we recruit entrepreneurs for our colleges the way we do athletes?

Ryan Holmes, 1/27/12

CEO, HootSuite

A social media skill set is valuable to anyone entering the job market or looking for career advancement. But is everyone who uses Twitter or Facebook a pro? Not even close.

James Denselow, 1/25/12

Writer, Middle East geopolitical and security issues

It was not Facebook, Twitter or YouTube that brought down Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian people did that. But this does not mean that social media and Internet‐based technologies played no role, or that their role was insignificant, as some have alleged.

Dori Hartley, 1/26/12

Author, 'Angels and Echoes'

Social networking is about having an audience and being an audience. You make friends for entertainment purposes. It feels good. And then it becomes a lifestyle, an addiction.

Michael McGown, 1/26/12

Semi-retired arbitrator

Google, you want to be all things to all people. It won't work. Stop it and go back to doing what you once did well: totally unbiased search, excellent email, great photo storage, wonderful voice mail, and so many other useful services.

Dean Garfield, 1/26/12

President and CEO, Information Technology Industry Council (ITI)

We want to continue as the world's dominant economic and innovating power, maintaining the level of prosperity we have enjoyed for the past 30 years. Together we can attain these goals if we focus on solutions instead of launching salvos against each other for the sake of politics.

Shelly Palmer, 1/27/12

Host, Shelly Palmer Digital Living

Skynet can't win -- at least not in the world I want to live in. Let's get ahead of this while it's still just the subject of the occasional rhetorical blog post -- because, no matter what anyone tells you, the world of big data is never going away.

Mateo Gutierrez, 1/27/12

Builds online communities

I don't think people who play Zynga games are bad. Just like I don't think the grandma in Vegas is bad. They're just sad.

Susan Landau, 1/26/12

Author, "Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies"

If highly invasive data can be collected by third parties and then used, how easily can individuals function in the modern world?

Bo Fishback, 1/26/12

Founder and CEO, Zaarly

Small businesses can get overwhelmed trying to figure out which social networks or new types of communication should be added to your communication toolbox. So what trends do you need to be paying attention to -- and acting on -- in 2012?

Nathan Newman, 1/26/12

Founder, Tech-Progress.org

The Hollywood unions largely formed in the 1930s are actually one of the last thriving representatives of that historic surge of working class power. The danger is that a Googlization of the television industry could mean the end of a living wage industry there as well.

Tom Vander Ark, 1/27/12

Blogger, GettingSmart.com

The real benefit of technology will be in the development of new learning progressions -- pathways that combine adaptive learning, social learning, and project-based learning -- that are engaging, efficient, and effective.

Jacqueline Leo, 1/26/12

Editor in Chief, The Fiscal Times

My house and my car are getting smarter. After replacing a furnace, a water heater, a dishwasher, a car, and a coffee maker, I would give my house a B- on an IQ test. The problem is, the smarter our houses become, the more incompetent we become -- with impunity.