BOSTON, USA – Change is the only constant. But there comes times where the disconnect between yesterday and tomorrow is great, and we need to stop and try to understand what is going on.

One thing we don’t do here is speculate on hard core market trends, like customer numbers, market share, or revenue. We also don’t comment (much) on competitors or try to openly discuss what we think is going down and how we’re going to respond to it.

But what we can do is read what others have written and at least point it to you. That’s the idea behind these round-ups and, even more so, the articles we bookmark on our Delicious stream (and that show up in our Twitter feed).

In today’s collection of links, I have two articles that I found interesting but which I am not so comfortable discussing (for one, I am biased). That shouldn’t stop you guys from having a discussion about these articles, though. So, let’s scroll down to see what these articles were about.

Pausing
Due to holidays and other “in-real-life” issues, I take a break from the online world, going (unbelievably) silent on my blog, Twitter, and other places I live online. It’s a nice digi-cleanse.

Well, I am not the only one. This great post by Aaron Swartz is a plea for folks to consider the real life vs digital balance.

The great Matt Jones once expressed the desire that the second life (digital life) provide richer opportunities in our first life (the physical world).

I think Aaron would agree with that.

What do you think?

Moving a large ship in rough seas
There is no shortage of articles about Nokia and what it should do. Indeed, there is no shortage of articles that support or condemn the actions of Nokia, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and RIM; and it’s even crazier with the current market conditions. As I said before, it’s easy to surround yourself with the articles that confirm your own favorite bias.

Two article kinda stand out this week for me. The first one is from BusinessWeek and is today’s summary of what is going on in the smartphone market. It’s more straight journalism than any in-depth analysis. But it serves as a good baseline for us to look back at a year from now to see what it all meant.

The second article is an interesting prediction into what Nokia would do in response to the iPhone. The prediction, written in 2007 when the iPhone launched, hinges upon the product cycle at Nokia as the limiting rate for the response. Go read it. What do you think about it?

And them press releases
To end in a lighter note, I had a good laugh reading Robin Wauters rant about the inane vocabulary in press releases. I totally agree (d’oh, I work in PR!).

Image from Sarah G…