In the aftermath of the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, a long list of organizations have sent a letter to Congress asking members to “take a breath” before they trying to push through new piracy legislation.
The letter argues that the “wide variety of important concerns” that were expressed during the SOPA/PIPA protests cannot be addressed through “hasty revisions” to the bills. Instead, there needs to be more research and transparent discussion about the broader issues: → Read More
At CES, the AOL booth where we worked, did interviews, and ate lunch was just a few short feet from Samsung’s huge Galaxy Note booth, where they were giving out free shirts printed with your caricature, drawn, of course, on a Galaxy Note. There was a line around this thing the entire time we were there, scores of people waiting for hours for their free t-shirt.
Outside CES there were enormous banners in the most prominent and expensive ad spots on the convention center. Phone? Tablet? It’s Galaxy Note™!
And just yesterday, in a grandiose ad rather out of keeping with their well-received “next big thing” campaign, the Note was made out to be the end of all our troubles, ending the tyranny of using our fingers and letting us circle and cross out and all those things you wish you could do on your obviously-now-obsolete iPhone.
But I saw the Note at CES and formed my opinion in about five or six seconds: it’s weak. And that’s why this advertising blitz makes so much sense. → Read More
Sponsored Ads
Yelp built its ad business by attracting users that know what they want, just not who to buy it from — exactly when ads are most effective. That’s why I find today’s VentureBeat piece by Rocky Agrawal titled “Yelp advertising is a rip-off for small advertisers” to be ridiculous. His sources say Yelp charges a $600 CPM, or 1,000-times the standard online CPM rate.
Yes, these ads are expensive, especially for low-end restaurants. But for lawyers, dentists, jewelers and mechanics with a high lifetime average revenue per customer, turning someone searching for their services on Yelp into a loyal customer is no rip-off, it can drive huge ROI. → Read More
There have been whispers in the past of augmented reality goggles or glasses, but generally we have been able to dismiss them as exaggerations or concepts. The technology, while it isn’t unrealistic, simply isn’t quite there yet.
Apparently that hasn’t stopped Google: a new report is appearing corroborating earlier ones that they are working on a pair of augmented reality glasses. They’d piggyback on your phone’s connection and overlay information like directions, news, and so on.
Whether you think it’s a good idea or not, this kind of thing is going to come eventually, so it’s natural that Google would want to start girding itself for the approaching augmented glasses wars of 20XX. → Read More
I love the smell of acquisitions in the morning! We’ve just heard that Groupon has acquired Adku, a stealth startup that uses big data in order to personalize the online shopping experience for people visiting eCommerce sites like eBay, Amazon and Zappos.
The company built their personalized targeting technology in three months, and have basically been in stealth since they launched at the Angelpad Demo day a year and a half ago. Adku is backed by Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures and True Ventures in addition to being an Angelpad startup.
→ Read More
Deep in the skunk works of its Research and Labs divisions, secreted around the Seattle area, Microsoft is working on totally reinventing the way people interact with their computers. Very little is out in the open or in more than a prototype form, but the work is unquestionably being done.
Last week it transpired that Microsoft is working on building Kinect into the bezels of laptops, and after that, presumably, tablets and eventually mobile phones. But it’s not just about building out the install base for Dance Central 3. It’s enabling the next generation of awareness in our electronics. The iPhone ushered in an era where our devices know when we touch them. Microsoft is working on the next one, in which our devices will simply know us. → Read More
Sponsored Ads
A few weeks ago we wrote about Backplane — a platform for creating interactive, highly visual communities — that counts Lady Gaga as one of its backers, along with plenty of the Valley’s most well-known investors.
Now the company is harnessing its star power to hold a unique (and potentially awesome) event at SXSW: the SXSW Managers Hack — a hackathon that will be judged by some of the most accomplished managers in the music industry, including: Scooter Braun, best known for facilitating Justin Bieber’s rise to fame; Jay Brown, President of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation; and Troy Carter, manager of Lady Gaga (Carter is also one of Backplane’s cofounders).
→ Read More
Linux is the world’s largest collaborative software development project. People from all over the world have influenced the Linux kernel code, and it runs on everything from mainframe computers to wristwatches. Linux, and free software development in general, provides some tremendous insights into what makes a successful project. Can today’s startups learn anything from the history of Linux?
The history of Linux proves that collaborative development speeds true innovation. If Linus Torvalds were left to work on Linux alone, there’s no way it would be the success it is today. A great many of the things that Linux does today are a direct result of people scratching their own itches, and then contributing their work back upstream to Linus. Many people focusing on their own little (and not-so-little) problems have made Linux the powerhouse that it is today. → Read More
Israeli startup Appoxee has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage investment firm Cyhawk Ventures.
The company offers a service that helps app developers and publishers increase user engagement through rich push notifications and helps them with things like audience segmentation, targeting, analytics and reporting.
Read more over at TechCrunch Europe. → Read More
As healthcare goes through massive changes, health system CEOs would be well advised to study what newspaper industry leaders did (or perhaps more appropriately, didn’t do) when faced with a similar situation. In the late 90′s, the following dynamics were present:
Owning printing presses was a de facto barrier to entry allowing newspapers unfettered dominance.
Newspaper companies bought up smaller newspaper chains and took on huge debt.
Newspapers were comfortable as oligopoly or monopoly enterprises allowing for slow, plodding decisions. Their IT infrastructure mirrored this with expensive and rigid technology architectures. → Read More
My own views about SOPA and the need to protect online intellectual property are well-known. But even I acknowledge that SOPA was a flawed bill that didn’t represent a viable solution to policing the Internet against intellectual property theft. So is there life after SOPA? How can the technology and content communities carve out a compromise which will simultaneously protect innovation and the rights of the creative community?
In the spirit of compromise, I invited Larry Downes, one of SOPA’s most articulate critics, into our San Francisco studio to talk about what comes next. → Read More
Want to win some extra visibility for your brand on Facebook? Post about current events. Brands grabbed 99.7% higher engagement on their Page posts by talking about the Super Bowl yesterday, and 60% higher engagement over the past 6 weeks compared to the average post.
The data from a Buddy Media study of 1,400 of the world’s largest brands indicates they should make sure to post about holidays, sporting events, breaking news, and other trending topics. Here’s how this strategy works: → Read More
There has been much debate about what the post-PC era is, when it will arrive, or whether it’s already here. But key pieces of new data, emerging last week, are making the case that we crossed the imaginary line from the “PC” era to the “post-PC” era at the end of 2011. According to analysts at Canalys, two major computing milestones were achieved at the end of this year: smartphone shipments outpaced PCs for the first time ever, and Apple became the world’s largest PC maker, if you count iPads as PCs (as well you should).
Combined, what these numbers tell us is that the post-PC era is happening now. Right now. And maybe we need to think about how we define “PC.” → Read More
According to GoodEReader, Amazon is planning to open a retail store in Seattle this year where they will sell Amazon-exclusive books and, more importantly, Kindles of all kinds. While this looks to be more of a pop-up retail presence than a fully-fledged store, if I were in publishing I’d be circling the wagons right now.
To be fair, Amazon’s own publishing offerings are pretty wonky so far. There haven’t been many runaway successes coming out of the house although Clay Shirkey and Tim Ferris will soon be bringing their own brand of publishing success and there are some interesting cross-cultural titles coming out. But that’s not why publishing has to worry.
→ Read More
When Twitter shook up its product leadership in July, it let loose four Silicon Valley veterans into a talent-starved job market. While the three others have become a VC, a cofounder, and an engineering head, the last one left unaccounted for now has a new home. Anamitra Banerji has just joined Foundation Capital as its newest entrepreneur in residence. → Read More
Online video service Brightcove will price its IPO between $10 and $12 per share, according to a new filing with the SEC.
The company first filed for the IPO back in August of last year, saying it wanted to raise up to $50 million. Now, $50 million is at the lower end of its price range. If Brightcove sells the maximum number of shares (it’s set to sell 5 million shares, plus an extra 750,000 if demand is high) at $12, it could raise up to $69 million. → Read More
As the only girl on the Gadgets team, I often get asked to write what I call “lady-rants” about products targeted toward women. I have a problem with most of them, as the products themselves are either being forced into a demographic by marketers (like the HTC Rhyme, which would’ve been a fine phone for anyone if marketed that way) or they’re simply painted pink in the hopes that pink is, in fact, what all women have been looking for in their consumer electronics.
The truth of the matters is, men have spent more money on consumer electronics in the past and, as a result, women have unfortunately been left with ads targeted towards men or pink versions of everything. But no more.
According to a study out of the CEA, the same folks that brought you that over-sized week of madness called CES, more and more women are showing an interest in consumer electronics than they were in the past. → Read More
So in the interest of supporting unique publishing methods and ideas, I thought it might be interesting to talk about Verdant Books and something they’re calling an “interactive novel.” Now my idea of an interactive novel is Choose Your Own Adventure, but this is something fairly unique.
Ok. Here’s the premise:
Kleiner Perkins-backed social commerce network Lockerz is debuting a new Pinterest-like self-expression platform, where members can create and share collections of images and videos from anywhere on the Web. But unlike Pinterest, users can actually receive rewards for sharing content, which can be used to get discounts in the Lockerz store.
As we’ve reported in the past, Lockerz revolves around the idea that influencers within a social network can become brand and content advocates and affect the behavior of their friends. The network, which says it is seeing 45 million monthly uniques, is primarily targeted towards men and women ages 13 to 30, attempting to build a community of trendsetters and tastemakers who love to shop, play and connect on the Web. Users can earn points and discounts on brands by sharing content on the site. Founded by Kathy Savitt, a former Amazon and American Eagle Outfitters exec; Lockerz eventually wants to be the go-to commerce homepage for teens and young adults. → Read More
Google today launched a somewhat mysterious website called “Solve for X,” which will now be the official homepage for a conference by the same name. Solve for X, according to the description provided, seems similar in format to the series of conferences from TED, but with more of a scientific focus.
The invite-only gathering is designed to attract global innovators who present short, technology-focused presentations on topics like low-energy desalination, e-waste mining, crowd-sourced protein folding, stretchable silicon biosensers, climate change, and more.
→ Read More
Sponsored Ads
