Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

• Ten Lessons from Peter Thiel’s Class On Startups – Forbes. "If you want to learn how to build tech companies, Peter Thiel is a good place to start. He taught a class at Stanford — even though he’s famous for telling people to drop out — and it was the hot ticket on campus. Here’s a student–and prolific note-taker–Blake Masters‘ summary of the course." (Alistair for Hugh).
• Napster, Udacity, and the Academy – Clay Shirky. "Since we’re all about the future of business this week, it being the cusp of the New Year and the Mayans being all wrong and stuff, let’s kick it off with Clay Shirky. In this post, he looks at how MP3s were about more than free music–and by analogy, how Massive Free Online Courses (MOOCs) are about more than free, but rather represent a complete upheaval of how we learn, just as MP3s were the tip of a music industry iceberg. ‘The risk,’ he concludes, iis that we’ll be the last to know that the world has changed.’" (Alistair for Mitch).
• Ottawa’s $800-billion housing problem – The Globe And Mail. "I’m endlessly fascinated by the global financial crisis of 2007/8/9/10, and how it came to be… Canada seems to have escaped. Or, maybe just delayed the crash." (Hugh for Alistair).
• ‘I Pretty Much Wanted to Die’ – Grantland. "We live in a time of great television. I’m not quite sure what to think of Lost – but it sure was addictive, and … well … completely nuts. Here’s part of the story of the unlikely show came to be." (Hugh for Mitch).
• Joi Ito’s Trends to Watch in 2013 – Think With Google. "I hate end of year lists. The only think I hate more than end of year lists is ‘things to watch in 2013’ type of lists. So, here I find myself at a crossroads. I love the way Joi Ito thinks and I love (even more) that he took over at the MIT Media Lab. I often find myself telling audiences that I am not a ‘Futurist’, because I consider myself a ‘Presentist.’ In this piece, Ito calls himself a ‘Nowist,’ so I figured it was only fair to share what he’s thinking about as a courtesy to someone who shares a business title with me." (Mitch for Alistair).
• Do We Still Need Libraries? – The New York Times. "This is a debate and conversation piece that keeps creeping up in the media from time to time… and, here it comes again. On one hand, I love the look, feel, concept and reason that we have libraries. On the other hand, I often find myself looking around at the vast amount of books, magazines, content and more, and wonder why we have such large institutions for something that can now fit on a memory stick." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.