Some recent statistics on Twitter show how the reality can be more convincing that the hype. Do we never learn that the eye-rolling, "Oh my God it's going to change the world" enthusiasm for a new technology buries that technology's real success in an avalanche of hyperbole?

 Click here for the full treatment at The Heretech.

Google's announcement about the Chrome OS raises a whole lotta questions about the future of the operating systems market, or what an operating system really is, or how the Chrome OS fits into Google's larger strategy. As interesting as these questions may be, we also have very little foundation on which to answer them.

I have a much longer post here about the reasons why we can't reach any conclusions yet. Here's the short version:

• Netbooks, which play a significant role in the prospects for Chrome OS, can be both a blessing and a curse.

• You could say the same thing about the degree to which the Chrome OS depends on the Chrome browser.

• Users may not see the compelling reasons to use this new platform, or even understand it fully.

• Governments may not be thrilled about the implications for competition and privacy.

• There's still a lot of murkiness about cloud computing in general that this does nothing to dispel.

• Serious technical challenges lie ahead.

For people in product management and product marketing, organizational questions—for example, Where should we report? What specializations of the PM role seem to work?—are always high on the list of hot topics. That statement is true of this week's Heretech podcast, to be posted later today, in which Saeed Khan and I spend a good deal of the interview discussing these issues. It's also true of the research that I do, including a recent study that revealed some interesting results about the relationship between product management and product marketing.

In today's post at The Heretech, I come out of the closet. Yes, I am a bigger history geek than you can possibly imagine. Hello, my name is Tom, and I play wargames.

However, by playing a lot of games designed to simulate historical events, I've learned a couple of things that apply to designing products in the technology industry. Specifically, how do you create a design teeam that can overcome some of the common pitfalls, such as unnecessary complexity? To read more, follow this link.

[P.S. Thanks for pointing out the problem with the link. Typepad is intermittently eating the hyperlinks I enter. From now on, I'll just have to test them before I publish.]