Posts tagged Daily
Daily Wrap: Google Drive Will Be Different and more
Feb 9th
Jon Mitchell explains why Google Drive doesn’t have to be a Dropbox clone. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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Fabled Google Drive Won’t Be Another Dropbox
Google’s long rumored cloud file storage, Drive, doesn’t have to be a direct competitor to Dropbox or iCloud. Jon Mitchell discusses how Google Docs is already a file sharing service for some, how Google Search Plus Your World affects the ecosystem and how Drive can set itself apart from iCloud and Dropbox to become it’s own different beast.
From the community:
Mitchell Bundy – “Great post. What about the possibility of Google working with their other services? Google Music recently had an update, and you can now download the music you uploaded. Since there is already an application installed on the user’s computer, what stops them from expanding to a Dropbox style sync? It’s not that far off.”
Leena – “There’s free Google drive app, Syncdocs, that syncs music to Google Docs. I use it because Google Music is for the US only. Syncdocs lets me stream music from Google from anywhere in the world, except maybe China.”
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A Look at Steve Jobs’ FBI File
Yes, it’s true. The FBI had a file on Steve Jobs. It’s not what you might think, though. The FBI performed a “level III” background investigation on Jobs as a potential presidential appointee in 1991. He was described by most witnesses as an “individual of good character and integrity” that would be suitable for a “position of trust and confidence with the Government.” Jobs also had a brush with the FBI when Apple received a bomb threat in 1985. (more)
![[Infographic] Mapping the Tools in the Mobile Development Ecosystem](http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/mobile/shutterstock_killer_apps_150.jpg)
[Infographic] Mapping the Tools in the Mobile Development Ecosystem
The mobile development ecosystem is a large, complicated space. There are innovative startups making tools for native and mobile Web apps along with large enterprise-grade companies that offer solutions from cloud support to frameworks and developer environments. For a mobile developer, it can be confusing to know where to turn and what to use to make the best app possible. (more)
Saudi Twitter User Faces Death Penalty for Tweets
A 23-year-old Saudi Twitter user, Hamza Kashgari, fled the country Sunday to avoid being arrested for his religious tweets, only to find himself in the hands of the Malaysian police today. He was heading to New Zealand to request political asylum. (more)
Harry Reid Wants a Bigger, Badder Version of SOPA/PIPA
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., still licking wounds from last week’s defeat of the Protect IP Act and its House counterpart the Stop Online Piracy Act, is reportedly working on an even more sinister, Internet-regulating bill. (more)
Oracle Claims Taleo’s Cloud-based Talent Management Jackpot
In the 20th century, corporations recruited talented professionals but then nurtured them and integrated them into their organizations. Talent was part of their business foundations. In the more intricate economy of the 21st, talent is something perceived to be possessed by individuals. Corporations recruit these people, and then undertake what’s called compensation management in an effort to retain them as long as possible, and to let go of talent that doesn’t perform up to scale. (more)
Hangout With the Scientists Looking for the God Particle
Want to hang out with the people who run the CMS? No, not the content management system. The Compact Muon Solenoid. It’s one of the two big detectors at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world. (more)
![[STUDY] 61% of Social Media Users Feel So Close To You](http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/shutterstock_strange_smileyface.jpg)
[STUDY] 61% of Social Media Users Feel So Close To You
A new study from Pew finds that for the most part, adults are kind to each other on social media sites. In fact, 85% of adults say that most of the people they come across on social media are rather kind; only 5% say that people are “mostly unkind,” which would imply rude or mean. (more)
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Implement Mobile Cloud Services in Titanium
Mobile development company Appcelerator announced today that it is buying “backend-as-a-service” startup Cocoafish to implement cloud services and functionality in its Titanium Platform. Acquiring Cocoafish is an astute move by Appcelerator, which focuses on tools for developers to create native and mobile Web apps. (more)
Microsoft Will Launch Kinect For Workplace Next Month
Microsoft wants its popular Kinect to be a game changer for more than just video games.
The company plans to introduce the first version of Kinect authorized for use in the workplace next month. The product will be marketed through its Microsoft Dynamics division, which develops enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (CRM) software applications. (more)
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Daily Wrap: January’s List of Apps You Need to See and more
Feb 8th
Dan Rowinski rounds up the best apps, in our opinion, of January 2012. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012
In what is surely a labor of love, Dan Rowinski combs through the mass of apps released each month and highlights the best for you. This month we have added a few staff picks, so you can see picks from several ReadWriteWeb staffers too. From new releases on Android and iOS to notable updates released last month, this list will help you get your phone and tablet up to date. Check out New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012.
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Were Turntable.fm and “Group Listening” Just a Summertime Fad?
Other than Spotify, there could hardly have been a more buzz-worthy music startup this summer than Turntable.fm. The group listening and virtual DJing app seemed to come out of nowhere and take the Web by storm, grabbing funding and users in huge quantities. The company, which rose from the pivot-generated ashes of mobile scannable sticker startup StickyBits, first went live in May of last year and became all the rage among the kids. (more)
Web Pros: Candidates Are Running Neck-And-Neck In Mediocre Web Design
We asked expert Web designers to evaluate the major presidential candidates’ campaign Web sites. The candidates got okay, but not great, marks. And in a year when social media and mobile technology could play a role in the election, okay may not be good enough. (more)
Harvard Researcher Uses Social Media To Predict Stock Market Volume
Social media sentiment can predict fluctuations in stock market volume as much as six to seven days ahead of time, according to a Harvard Business School doctoral candidate who has been studying the impact social media has on equities. (more)
Watch Out Netflix: Amazon to Stream Everything From Spongebob to Jersey Shore
Amazon’s on-demand streaming video offering just got a whole lot more attractive. The company announced today that they signed a deal with Viacom, allowing them to offer thousands of new videos from sources like MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, BET and Nickelodeon, among others. (more)
Path Apologizes For Privacy Mistake. Do You Accept?
After an enterprising hacker discovered a privacy problem in beloved new social app Path yesterday, its creators have issued an update and an apology. “We commit to you that we will continue to be transparent and always serve you our users, first,” CEO Dave Morin writes. (more)
![[Video] An IT Security Guy Walks Into the Room...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/Screen%20Shot%202012-02-08%20at%206.32.38%20PM.png)
[Video] An IT Security Guy Walks Into the Room…
In honor of yesterday’s Safer Internet Day, we present a tribute to the IT security folks that keep most of us running during the day and from drowning in a sea of spam and malware. We know the “$#!& people say” meme is a little played out, but we feel that’s mostly because there have been some really mediocre entries into the genre recently. The video below is sure to leave you giggling if you belong to the geeky group of IT security experts. Check it out. (more)
Expect “Windows 8 for Mobile” at Feb. 29 Barcelona Rollout
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to ReadWriteWeb this afternoon that the Consumer Preview phase of Windows 8 testing is slated to begin on Wednesday, February 29, with a gala rollout event in Barcelona. That’s to coincide – for the first time – with Mobile World Congress, which has not generally been known as the kind of affair where a PC operating system is the headliner. (more)
![Exclusive: Interview With Inside Apple's Adam Lashinsky [Video]](http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/images/rwwsay_jonlashinsky2.jpg)
Exclusive: Interview With Inside Apple’s Adam Lashinsky [Video]
On Friday, February 3, at the lovely Delancey St. Theater in San Francisco, ReadWriteWeb and our new home company, SAY Media, co-hosted a release party for Adam Lashinsky’s new book, Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired – And Secretive – Company Really Works. It was our first joint event since we joined SAY in December. RWW and SAY are working together to figure out the future of media, so a gathering to discuss a book about Apple was a great place to start. (more)
Grovo How To Do SEO Video Series
We’ve written earlier about Grovo, an online video e-learning site that conducts a lot of celebrity interviews. Some of them are more interesting than others. Today they have a new series with Zach Ciperski, the Director of SEO for EliteSEM and also serves as Vice President of CoffeeForLess.com. He has built sites for some major retailers and teaches SEO at New York University, among other places. His series is on How To SEO, and is worth watching if you are still struggling with the basics, or need some help before you go forth and try to hire an SEO specialist. Here is one five-minute segment on making small tweaks to your site. (more)
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Daily Wrap: Path Steps In It and more
Feb 7th
Path uploads your entire address book to their servers. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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The Price of Free: Path Uploads Entire Address Book To Its Servers
Hacker Arun Thampi discovered today that Path is uploading your entire address book to its servers. Though most people don’t expect this liberal sharing of data, Path doesn’t warn you ahead of time. Path could generate hashes of the contact info locally, on the user’s phone, and only upload that secure information to its servers, but it doesn’t. It stores the whole address book unencrypted.
Reactions were strong across the internet today.
Wow @path sure stepped in the doodoo. plus.google.com/11109108952772… Not good @davemorin not good.
— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) February 7, 2012
. @Path .. Is there an OPT OUT of you having my ENTIRE iphone address book on your server ?bit.ly/zKsLky /via @heykim
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) February 8, 2012
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![[Infographic] History of Mobile App Stores](http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/apps_150x150.jpg)
[Infographic] History of Mobile App Stores
The rise of the app store has fundamentally changed the concept of software delivery. Gone are the days when zealous software companies sent users discs in the mail (oh, AOL, we remember you well) that ended up making better coasters than promotion. Many computers these days do not even ship with a CD-ROM drive and smartphones have never seen any type of physical downloads. The delivery mechanism of the application store is an often-overlooked revolution of the mobile era. (more)
Amazon Bucks Storage Trend: Drops S3 Pricing
Amazon is looking to continue its rapid growth for S3. While hard drive costs are staying steady or going up due to limited supply, Amazon is actually dropping pricing for S3 storage. (more)
Apple to Developers: Don’t Mess With Our App Store Rankings
Apple really does not like it when you mess with its finely tuned systems. Especially when it is the company’s cash cow iOS platform. In a short statement yesterday, Apple warned developers not to game the rankings system in its App Store, threatening the loss of Apple Developer Program membership to those who are found using services intended to artificially raise the profiles of their apps in Apple’s store. (more)
Wolfram Alpha Pro is “Freemium” Done Right
Wolfram Alpha isn’t the “Google killer” that many hyped it up to be prior to its 2009 launch. Instead, the self-described computational knowledge engine takes a completely different approach to letting users find and analyze information. Rather than scouring the Web and ranking everybody’s pages in the order it thinks we’d find them useful, it uses its own data sets and computational power to return detailed reports and analysis about whatever topics users query it for. (more)
The Disintegration of PaaS
In PaaS Makes Progress in 2011, I argued that the previous 12 months had been pivotal to the advancement of platform-as-a-service. As a result of this fast-paced evolution, the PaaS of 2012 is quite a different beast than that of just a couple of years ago. While this second-generation PaaS differs in many ways from initial forays in the field, one of the most important distinctions is that this new PaaS has been disintegrated, or at least made more modular. (more)
Study: PDF May Be Creating More Paperwork Than It Saves
In 2008, a UK-based Adobe Acrobat engineer remarked, “I believe in striving to minimize the use of paper, but I do believe that we will probably never reach a position where paper is eliminated from our workplaces.” This morning, his predictions were clearly confirmed by a study published by the information professionals organization AIIM. (more)
How To Get My Attention
It’s an attention economy, and the good people at Jones-Dilworth have built a tool that will help you get some. Totem launches today, a free app that helps anyone build a great press page. Whether you’re a giant company, a start-up, or even a solo act, you shouldn’t have to think too hard about a press page. For that matter, neither should I. (more)
PR for Developers 101: How to Bootstrap Project Coverage
One of the things that I’m often asked by developers at conferences is “how do I get coverage for my project?” I had that conversation with several people at Monktoberfest, and thought it might make for a good talk at Monki Gras. (more)
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Apsalar’s Daily Cohorts Gives Mobile Developers Real-Time Analytics to Engage Users
Feb 7th
When a person downloads an app to a smartphone, the first interactions the user has with the app will determine its overall success ands potential longevity. If a user likes an app, its long-term potential greatly increases. If not, well, it is destined to the black hole of app oblivion.
That is why the ability to track the first few sessions a user has with an app in real-time is critical. Mobile marketing and analytics startup Apsalar is releasing an update to its platform called Daily Cohorts that allows publishers to track app analytics in real-time the day it is published. Developers can then make determinations on how best to market and monetize the app while it is still fresh in the users’ mind.
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Oiknine describes the results of updating Xco’s app after the first batch of analytics:
“After the update is released, Xco looks at the cohorts of users who first launched the app for the 3 days after the update. Both revenue and retention is up for each cohort – not quite yet reaching the benchmarks, but a significant overall improvement can be seen. In addition, more users are now completing the tutorial, with the rate up to 75% of new users. Xco is pleased with the results but knows it needs to do more and so it will begin the iteration process over again.”
“After the update is released, Xco looks at the cohorts of users who first launched the app for the 3 days after the update. Both revenue and retention is up for each cohort – not quite yet reaching the benchmarks, but a significant overall improvement can be seen. In addition, more users are now completing the tutorial, with the rate up to 75% of new users. Xco is pleased with the results but knows it needs to do more and so it will begin the iteration process over again.”
The ability to retain users after the launch of an app is critical. All the best plans for marketing, engagement and monetization will go for naught if a user has stopped using the app after the first few days.
Apsalar CEO Michael Oiknine describes the scenario of a mobile game from a theoretical mobile gaming company called “Xco.” The company set up several cohorts to track the retention of users and finds that after three days the app is not living up to expectations and revenues are falling short. Xco finds that users that completed the app tutorial are more likely to keep using the app while those that do not are letting it slide into app oblivion.
“As Xco takes a closer look at the data they realize that by looking at the segment of users who completed the tutorial, retention and revenue are slightly ahead of their benchmarks and those users are leveling up more frequently than other users,” Oiknine said in an email to ReadWriteMobile. “However, only 65% of users are completing the tutorial. Based on this data, Xco goes into action and decides to make the tutorial more prominent in the UX after first launch of the app.”
This is a familiar scenario for many mobile games. The ability to track early sessions is extremely important. In this case, a quick tweak to the app to push more people towards the tutorial would benefit the longevity of the app.
The cohort method of analytics differs from just tracking sessions or daily average users. It provides a level of detail that other metrics (what Oiknine calls “vanity metrics”) do not.
“With daily cohorts, app developers can make critical changes fast enough so that they don’t lose the valuable users they’ve acquired,” Oiknine said.
Apsalar’s Daily Cohorts allows publishers to group users together in a single segment by the day they launched the app. For instance, users that downloaded the app the first day it was available can be grouped as “Day 1″ users and their history can be tracked as a single segment. Same with Day 2 users etc.
Apsalar’s platform focuses on engagement and monetization. Daily Cohorts is a change for the company as it used to provide weekly cohort analysis, which means that the information gained from initial users could not be acted upon immediately. A week is a long time for a newly-downloaded app and can cost the publisher thousands of dollars (and a plethora of poor reviews) if the app is subpar or users are not sticking with it.
To a certain extent, Apsalar’s Daily Cohorts falls into the realm of “predictive analytics” but with real-time data. The ability to track and group user sessions from the earliest possible moment will give developers a better understanding of how future users will interact with the app. The idea is to get actionable data as soon as possinle. Apsalar can then engage the user across apps with its Mobile Engagement Management (MEM) system that segments the user base on a common criteria.
Apsalar’s puts up its Daily Cohorts against a variety of other services that offer similar functions. Mobile analytics company Flurry, what Apsalar considers its chief competitor, tracks user sessions and has a “Re-Engagement” model to monetize user behavior. PlayHaven has the ability to track user behavior in real-time in mobile games and update an app accordingly.
Developers: What do you think of Apsalar’s Daily Cohorts? Is there anything similar on the market that you prefer to use? How important are early-stage analytics to the success of your app? Let us know in the comments.
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Daily Wrap: The “Not on Facebook” Movement and More
Feb 6th
Alicia Eler explores the not on facebook movement. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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Now is the Time to Quit Facebook
Did you know there is a movement supporting those who have chosen to quit Facebook? Alicia Eler found that the movement is a great place to discover the stories of those who have left the social behemoth, and maybe buy a t-shirt to celebrate your Facebook abstinence as well.
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Is the Digital Music Revolution Really Ruining Sound Quality?
It seems like every advance in digital music brings with it a debate about whether the latest format degrades quality in exchange for convenience. This was true when CDs first came onto the scene, and it’s probably even more true today with MP3s and their digital audio brethren. Heck, even the advent of the gramophone in 1889 sparked debates over whether its sound quality was worse than Thomas Edison’s phonograph. (more)
Microsoft Defines the New Mobile Business Experience on iPad
In 1984 and for a few years thereafter, Microsoft got its hands dirty in graphical computing by producing a few surprisingly mediocre applications for Macintosh, starting with a port of its otherwise decent spreadsheet called Multiplan. By the time Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, many of us felt the company would never again premiere a software concept on a machine bearing an Apple logo. (more)
The Most Social Super Bowl Breaks Records, Offers Advertisers Lessons
Twitter did not crash and the Super Bowl became the most tweeted sporting event in history, averaging more than 10,000 tweets per second.
That wasn’t all that surprising: continued growth of the social network, not to mention tablet and smartphone technology that make it easier to tweet while watching television, means that record will probably be broken several times between now and next year’s Super Bowl. (more)
Google Begins Building 1-Gigabit Internet Service in Kansas City
Google breaks ground today on the super-fast fiber optic network it plans to build for the lucky residents of Kansas City, Kan. They’ll get a 1 gigabit-per-second Internet connection, which will offer downloads 100 times faster than what most Americans get. Uploads will be a thousand times faster than average. (more)
Since 2009, Mobile Internet Usage Has Doubled Every Year
The growth of the mobile Web is on a steady rise. While pundits throw around words like “explosive” and “outrageous” the more precise word is probably “consistent.” According to analytics firm StatCounter, users accessing the Web through mobile devices has almost doubled every year since 2009. In its latest report, StatCounter says that global Internet usage through mobile devices rose to 8.5%, nearly doubling the 2011 figure of 4.3%. (more)
The Online Ad Fails at the Super Bowl
While most of us know the results of yesterday’s Big Game, the results of the online ad campaigns from the dozens of companies spending multiple millions are less clear. Fortunately, monitoring firm Yottaa is here to lead the way and let us know who scored and who missed serving up online content to complement their TV spots. (more)
Believe It Or Not, There’s An Upside To Diminished Online Privacy
Sunday’s New York Times was a Luddite’s dream. Tthe paper’s Sunday Review section had three lengthy opinion pieces dedicated to “Life Under Digital Dominance” (their words, not mine), including Evgeny Morozov’s lengthy treatise that social media will kill originality because we’re all too afraid to publicly “like” something on Facebook that our friends don’t like, a plea to adopt European-style rules to keep data private and a particularly threatening piece by Lori Andrews promising sudden cuts in our personal credit lines and troubles obtaining insurance because Facebook is using us. (more)
Twitter Could Go Public In 2013, But Why Bother?
If last week’s highly-anticipated Facebook IPO was too much excitement, not to mention too many numbers packed into a dense, 197-page S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, breathe easy: it does not appear as if Twitter has any short-term plans to follow suit and become the last of the big three social networks to trade as a public company. (more)
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Here’s Another Way Groupon Will Personalize Daily Deals
Feb 6th
Groupon really wants to get to know you.
Today the daily deals giant acquired Adku, which describes itself as an “early stage startup working on big data for e-commerce” with the goal of giving users “a more personalized experience.” Adku focuses specifically on e-commerce sites.
Ever since its public offering last November, Groupon has been working on personalizing its services. It acquired social shopping start-up Mertado earlier this year. Similar to Adku, Mertado’s goal is to create shopping experiences that “build bridges between content, commerce and community.” Adku focuses on bigger ecommerce sites; Mertado is more focused on home-related products.
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The ecommerce space is focused on personalization. Last year, eBay bet $80 million on taste-graph recommendation technology Hunch.
Groupon isn’t the only daily deals company that is working on personalization. Competitors Google Offers and Amazon Local are also trying to figure out what its users want the most.
San Francisco-based Adku was founded in 2010 by former Google employees.
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Daily Wrap: CTOs Should Avoid These Patterns and More
Feb 2nd
Joe Brockmeier shares several anti-patterns for technical leaders. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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Anti-Patterns for Technical Leaders
Joe Brockmeier, reporting from the Monki Gras conference in London, shared management learnings gleaned from Joyent technical leaders, Jason Hoffman, CTO, and Bryan Cantrill, Vice President of Engineering. Of particular interest were their tech leadership anti-patterns. If you’ve worked for a tech enterprise, you’ll probably recognize at least a few of these types.
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How YouTube is Part of a Global Economic Transformation
The Internet may have grown up first in the United States, but it’s a global phenomenon now. The same can be said for the fast-growing body of educational content on the web. YouTube announced a new batch of partners that were added to its Education Channel today and noted that nearly 80% of the viewership of educational content on the site came from outside the United States. Less than 70% of the site’s total traffic is International, so the educational content is disproportionately viewed by global audiences. (more)
Looking for a Better HootSuite? Try Gremln.
If you aren’t happy with scheduling your Tweets and analyzing the sentiment of your social networking accounts, a new service from Gremln.com is available today that might be a better alternative. The company has been part of the St. Louis-based Capital Innovators startup accelerator/incubator program that we wrote about yesterday. (more)
Biggest Winners In Facebook’s IPO
When Hugh Hefner founded Playboy in 1953, he famously offered photographers, writers and artists the choice of cash or stock in the then-private company. While most chose cash, a few held onto shares that were worth millions by the time the company went public. (more)
One More Reason to Jailbreak Your iPhone 4S: Tweaking Siri
The first untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 dropped two weeks ago, much to the excitement of the hundreds of thousands of people who rushed to download it.
Despite its recent growth in popularity, jailbreaking is still not a mainstream activity among iPhone and iPad owners generally. (more)
Showyou 3.0: The Remote Control for Web Video
Showyou 3.0 launches today, and if you watch videos on an iPad, a Kindle Fire, an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you need to try it. If you have an Apple TV, so much the better. Showyou brings in all the videos from your various social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. It displays them for you in a glorious, sweeping grid organized by magic. (more)
StumbleUpon Says Goodbye to Direct Links
When StumbleUpon did its big rebranding, reorganizing and redesign late last year, we figured that the 20-million-plus discovering engine was done making big changes. At least, for a little while. Boy were we wrong.
The newest SU update removes all direct links. (more)
Jumptap: Use of Native Apps Versus Mobile Web is Tied
The mobile advertising industry was a $1 billion business in 2011. It is expected to hit $6.5 billion by 2014, according to eMarketer. For reference, it was 1998 when Web advertising hit the $1 billion mark. In 2010, it was a $26 billion industry fueling the growth of companies like Google and other Web-centric properties. (more)
New Reuters Site Turns News Decisions Over To Social Media
News agency Reuters launched Social Pulse, which it describes as a “social media hub” that will display “the most talked-about news, companies and influencers across the Web.”
The site is unique in the news-curating space in that it uses trends from the Twitter accounts Reuters and its journalists follow to arrange headlines: in effect, the news agency is automating editing and story selection and putting it in the hands of “everyone from Nouriel Roubini and Jenna Wortham to John McCain and Rachel Sterne.” (more)
Why Facebook Will Become a Food Porn Kingdom
On the same day that Facebook announced its IPO, the FoodSpotting app dished up a few new offerings. Now it creates a personalized picture menu for you, the FoodSpotting user, delivering “smart dish recommendations” based on what you like. The “filter wheel” categorizes food into dishes that you want to try and have already tried, and those you hope to never eat again; you can also see how your friends feel about various dishes. (more)
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Daily Wrap: Android Fragmention of Less Concern and More
Feb 1st
Dan Rowinski explores the ramifications of fragmentation in Android app development. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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[Study] Android Fragmentation Not as Bad as You Think
While fragmentation is probably seen as the most difficult impediment to developing Android apps, a new study notes that it might not be the huge problem that people expect. Most, nearly 96%, of devices in the Localytics network are running either Android version 2.3 Gingerbread or 2.2. Froyo. There are really 5 screen sizes, with the majority on 4-inch or 4.3-inch screens. Focusing on key areas should make app development less of a headache.
From the comments:
veggiedude – “Amazon’s Kindle Fire is about to fragment it more than any time in its history.”
DanRowinski – “I don’t actually disagree with that. The open nature of Android allows many companies to create their owned silo version of it. Facebook, for instance.”
More Must Read Stories:
The Anti-Piracy Discussion We Haven’t Had Yet
In 1959 (as I recall), my mother, an acclaimed professional artist, had entered a handful of her oil paintings into an annual art show. Someone attending the show noted that one particular work, the face of a peasant boy, strongly resembled a photograph that had appeared in Life magazine. Well, there was no coincidence about it: Mom had studied precisely that face, and her work was based on that photograph. (The card tacked to the wall actually said so, if anyone had bothered to read it.) (more)
Facebook Files IPO: What It Means For You
Facebook shocked no one by filing an initial public offering of its shares today.
The filing was the first glimpse into the company’s inner financial workings and, as expected, Facebook said it would try to raise $5 billion when the company’s shares begins trading – a number that could eventually be raised to $10 billion and would ultimately value the company between $75 billion and $100 billion. (more)
How Social Sharing Changes What You Drink
What do you drink when you’re out at the bar? What do you brag about afterwards? If you’re like a lot of Untappd users in the United States, they’re not the same thing. At least that’s what the data from Untappd suggests, according to lead developer and co-founder Greg Avola. (more)
Case Over Who Owns Ex-Employee’s Twitter Followers Moves Forward
San Francisco-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James will allow a case by a company arguing that a Twitter list created by an ex-employee is its property to proceed.
PhoneDog LLC, which reviews mobile phones and other tech products, is claiming that former employee Noah Kravitz owes it $340,000, or $2.50 for each Twitter follower he kept by switching the name of his Twitter account after he stopped working for PhoneDog. (more)
![[UPDATED] Microsoft Takes Advantage of Google's Bad Press](http://www.readwriteweb.com/Screen%20shot%202012-02-01%20at%208.10.00%20PM.png)
[UPDATED] Microsoft Takes Advantage of Google’s Bad Press
Microsoft gloated on its official blog today about the oodles of coverage of Google’s new privacy policy. The post uses the word “discussion,” but it only linked to the vigorous freak-outs in which many sites engaged. It mentions “concerns and worries” and “lack of choice,” but it never explains what Microsoft is talking about. The central thesis is that “Google… made it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information.” (more)
Akamai Says The Internet Is a Nastier, and Faster, Place
Akamai has released the results of its latest “State of the Internet” report covering the third quarter of 2011. What is interesting is how nasty the Internet has become, with increasing attack incidents recorded and changing strategies for hackers looking to exploit systems. Our last post on the first quarter results can be found here. (more)
Report: Facebook Ad Spending Grew 1600% in 2011
We’re all on the edge of our seats waiting for the Facebook IPO to drop. Thankfully, Kara Swisher over at AllThingsD reports that we can all hang out a bit (maybe), because the FB IPO isn’t dropping until later today (probably). Phew.
The Wall Street Journal properly reports (no offense, AllThingsD) that Facebook probably makes most of its revenue from online advertising combined with cuts from game purchases. (more)
Flurry Adds HTML5 to Mobile Analytics Platform
Mobile analytics and monetization platform Flurry is adding a new vertical to its platform offering today. Recognizing the coming growth of mobile Web apps, Flurry will begin tracking HTML5 mobile Web apps starting with a beta software developer kit today. (more)
How Not to Advertise on Twitter
Twitter’s sponsored tweets and sponsored hashtags are cropping up more often as the social network places a heavy focus on advertising. As with any new advertising offering, we’ll learn how to use it effectively by watching the efforts of others. Advertising on a social network offers up opportunities for engagement that can’t be found elsewhere, but that opportunity comes with significant risk. (more)
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Daily Wrap: Lanyrd’s Innovative HTML5 Mobile App and More
Jan 31st
Dan Rowinski takes a look at how Lanyrd has created a great mobile web app using HTML5. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch everything that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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How Lanyrd Uses HTML5 for a Great Mobile Web App
Lanyrd’s new mobile web app, released today, is a great example of how the HTML5 spec can be innovated upon. Taking advantage of offline caching, if the phone and browser support it, the app allows for a mobile conference experience that isn’t at the whim of the very fallible Wi-Fi offerings at so many events. Dan says that there is great potential for an app like this, especially in regards to how they might package the app.
“It can offer this functionality to conferences as a backbone service and help organizers put together dynamic cross-platform apps with offline caching. Or it could lend its mobile Web app to conferences as a partner app. This is not just cool technology being put to use. With a little creativity, Lanyrd could build a business model around its HTML5 offering.”
More Must Read Stories:
![[Infographic] The Rise and Fall of Megaupload](http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/megaupload-150.png)
[Infographic] The Rise and Fall of Megaupload
We’re not even two weeks into the aftermath of the Megaupload shutdown, but the saga seems to unfold with a new angle or detail everyday. From Kim Dotcom’s colorful personal life to questions about the fate of non-infringing data uploaded by former Megaupload users, this story is far from over. (more)
How to Take Better Food Porn Photos
Admit it. You’re an amateur food porn photographer. But don’t worry, you’re certainly not alone.
Last week, my esteemed Internet ReadWriteWeb-y colleagues Jon Mitchell and Curt Hopkins cooked up this insanely hilarious story about the grossness of amateur food porn. Amazingly, every single photograph in his story was shot by an amateur. And every single time, the food looked totally disgusting. (more)
How Pinterest Uses Your Content Without Violating Copyright Laws
Pinterest, the increasingly popular pinboarding social network, is able to present a visually arresting interface in large part by using copyrighted images pinned by users.
“It’s a huge concern for creative bloggers,” said Amy Anderson, who blogs on the arts and crafts site Crafter Minds. “I don’t think Pinterest does anything to help protect copyright besides removing content when people ask.” (more)
Not So Fast: Teens Aren’t Fleeing Facebook For Twitter
Contrary to an Associated Press report implying otherwise, teens are not shutting down their Facebook accounts in favor of Twitter.
Emil Protalinski has a much more thorough analysis of what is happening, which includes the Pew Research report AP used, as well as a July 2011 Pew report that focused solely on teens and social media use. His conclusion? Teens are definitely using Twitter more, but they are not giving up their Facebook accounts to do so. (more)
Startup’s Petition Raises $3M in 24 Hours if Senate Passes Crowdfunding Act
“We can gamble in Vegas. We can donate on Kiva or Kickstarter. But it’s illegal to purchase $100 of stock in a job-creating business? That makes no sense.”
That is the tagline to a new project called WeFunder from three TechStars Boston alumni who are trying to garner support for the “Democratizing Access to Capital Act” (S.1791) that would allow entrepreneurs to crowdfund startups. (more)
“Anonymous” Fights the Drug Cartels and the Movie Moguls: Reaction
It’s being called the “Mexican SOPA,” especially by press sources wanting to place highly with Google News. Last week, Mexican Senator Federico Döring announced an anti-piracy bill, which that country’s justice ministry describes as establishing a notification service for suspected content pirates, one which would enable the authorities to obtain those suspects’ identities. (more)
The Other 99% of Entrepreneurs
In my recent piece Reengineering Capitalism I highlighted a phenomenon that the global entrepreneurship ecosystem is paying very little attention to: Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected. Yet, the entire world is focused on the 1% that is “fundable.”
The media, when pitched a startup story, is interested in who funded the venture. They seldom ask how much revenue the company has or if it is profitable. (more)
Surprise, Surprise: Amazon Doesn’t Say How Many Kindle Fires It Sold
Amazon is notorious for sharing very little information about how its products and business units perform. Its new Kindle Fire tablet is no different.
Amazon just reported its fourth quarter financial results, and, shocking no one, it doesn’t disclose how many Kindle Fire tablets it sold. Or even how many total Kindles it sold. (more)
Blogger.com’s New Takedown Policy Thwarts Censorship
Google’s Blogger has found a way to handle local government takedown requests similar to the way Twitter now does. It will now start redirecting readers to country-specific top-level domains (TLD) instead of the usual blogspot.com domain. It does so based on the location of the user’s IP address, just as many other Google services do. This gives Google the “flexibility” to comply with removal requests according to local laws. (more)
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Daily Wrap: How Pinterest Impacts Purchases and More
Jan 30th
Alicia Eler looks at how Pinterest is impacting purchases. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch every story that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
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What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn’t
Facebook drives traffic. Pinterest drives traffic. The big difference is that Pinterest is driving target-market traffic and impacting purchases. How is Pinterest perfecting what Facebook has been trying to do for some time? Alicia Eler says Facebook confuses the social graph with the interest graph. To learn more about how Pinterest is knocking it out of the park, read, What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn’t.
More Must Read Stories:
Google Fires Kenya Lead Over Mocality
Google has reportedly fired its Kenya country manager, Olga Arara-Kimani, over a fraudulent use of Mocality’s data.
Nairobitech reported:
“The Google Mocality saga has drawn its first casualties. Kenya country lead for Google, Olga Arara-Kimani formerly of Safaricom has been let go by the company. Also axed is a technical guy in Zurich… It is not clear how Olga was picked for the fall but as one observer noted, sometimes a sacrificial lamb has to be found for the brand name to weather the storm.” (more)
Feds to Megaupload Users: Tough Luck
Well, now we know what happens to our data if federal authorities ever seize a website we were using, arrest its owners and shut the whole thing down. For former users of Megaupload, the prospect of losing their data forever is now a very real one. The companies that host all of that data could start deleting it later this week, according to prosecutors. (more)
Why Goodreads Gave Up on Amazon
Goodreads, the social network for reading and reviewing books, had to make a change this month. It moved away from its main source of book data, the Amazon Product Advertising API, citing its “many restrictions.” It completed the transition to Ingram Book Company’s data today, and it also draws from other open data sources such as libraries. The transition went smoothly, but Goodreads did lose some data. “Fewer than 2% of our 7 million users have books currently affected,” Goodreads says. (more)
What Does Siri’s Future Look Like?
It’s only been three months since Apple unveiled Siri, the voice-controlled personal assistant built into the iPhone 4S. Although the product is technically in beta, it has already spawned imitations and Web video parodies. What is perhaps most exciting about Siri is not what it does now, but in its potential future uses. (more)
Hollywood Isn’t Ruining DVD Rentals On Its Own: Netflix is Happy to Help
It’s easy to slam Hollywood for not understanding how technology works, or for putting its legacy business models ahead of user experience. Especially when big media companies do things like restrict digital access to movies and then cry about piracy.
But Hollywood isn’t always acting alone. Sometimes, the savviest Web companies around – Netflix, for instance – are playing along, with their own agendas. (more)
Forrester Ranks Mobile Marketing Companies, Ignores the Brightest Startups
The necessity of having a clear and cohesive mobile marketing strategy has never been greater. Companies that do not have a mobile marketing strategy now are light years behind the curve in the face of booming smartphone adoption and changing consumer behavior. Research firm Forrester took a look at some of the biggest and best mobile marketing companies to see how they stack up and what benefits they can add for companies. (more)
![[Research] Half of U.S. Cellphone Owners Research In-Store Goods With Their Devices](http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/pew-internet-150x150.png)
[Research] Half of U.S. Cellphone Owners Research In-Store Goods With Their Devices
The rise of mobile commerce is going to give traditional retail stores a headache. Results from a survey done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that 25% of cellphone owners used their phone to look up the price of a product before buying it at a store. More than half of cellphone owners used their phones to determine what product to buy while in a retail store. (more)
Study: 91% of Gen-Ys Use Their Phones in the Bathroom
Some people won’t go anywhere without their smartphones. Not even the pot.
A new study from 11mark surveyed 1,000 Americans about their smartphone usage, and found that a whopping 75% of American smartphone owners have used their phones in the bathroom. More women have used their phones in the bathroom than men (76% vs. 74%), but men are actually more attached to their mobile devices than women. Thirty percent of men surveyed said they won’t go to the bathroom without their phone versus 25% of women.(more)
Select Testers Get First Office 15 Preview, New Cloud Services Emphasized
Whether Windows 8′s radically re-imagined usage model catches on with tablet and PC users will depend in large part upon the role Microsoft Office apps will play. If it looks too much like Office 2010, then having Windows 8 relegate Office to the “Desktop” side while mobile-style apps take over the “Metro” side, won’t make much sense. (more)
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