03-01-12

Slate columnist Farhad Manjoo will discuss battle of tech giants in ISU talk March 7

AMES, Iowa -- Farhad Manjoo, a technology columnist for Slate magazine and National Public Radio contributor, will speak at Iowa State University on Wednesday, March 7. His talk, "The War between Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon," will be at 8 p.m. in the Memorial Union Great Hall. It is part of Iowa State's National Affairs Series: The Nation in Transition, and is free and open to the public.

While it used to be that Amazon sold books, Google was a search engine, Facebook a social network and Apple sold computers, these companies have branched out into all kinds of products, disrupting business across the economy. Manjoo will examine how these tech giants battle with each other - and other companies - in markets for mobile phones, apps, social networking, retailing, advertising, finance and more.

Manjoo is the author of "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society." He contributes regularly to Wired News and Fast Company, for which he recently wrote "The Great Tech War of 2012" about the battle for the future of the innovation economy.

Manjoo's lecture is cosponsored by National Affairs and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by the Government of the Student Body. More information on ISU lectures is available at http://www.lectures.iastate.edu, or by calling 515-294-9935.

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