Over the past year the WWE has continued to push the social media envelope by integrating Twitter and Facebook further into its regular broadcasts. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, now a cross-over star in both the WWE and Hollywood, cut a promo on WWE Raw to hype the upcoming pay-per-view “Survivor Series”. During that promo, the Rock quickly coined a new catchphrase “Boots to Asses” and said it was now trending worldwide. Before he mentioned it there was no mention of it on Twitter. Shortly after he said it, not only did it start a new chant throughout the arena, but it proved that Mr. Johnson was prophetic as minutes later the term “Boots to Asses” was trending worldwide. One might say this is a one off, but for anyone observing what the WWE has been up to this can be seen as only a small part of a much larger social media strategy. → Read More
Divorce. It happens to the best of us. As emotionally heart wrenching as it can be, it’s even worse now that we’re living out our lives on the public stages of Facebook, Twitter and the like. If the recent very public separation of Ashton and Demi is any indication, it’s only going to get worse. As a former physician, current internet entrepreneur, and ever-curious observer of the human condition, I’m fascinated by how the internet is broadly shaping our culture, and the day-to-day implications this has on our interpersonal relationships. → Read More
As we heard a few weeks ago, retailers were expecting Thanksgiving Day to be a major online shopping day as more and more consumers are hitting their laptops, tablets and more to get a head start on sales in between Turkey time. It looks like early results point to the day being a profitable one for retailers. According to IBM’s Coremetrics retail data, online Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up 39 percent over Thanksgiving 2010.
Mobile shopping also had a break out day on Turkey Day. The number of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site reached a high of 15.2 percent, up from 6.45 percent in 2010. The number of consumers using their mobile device to make a purchase increased to 11.09 percent, up from 4.25 percent in 2010. → Read More
There’s certainly no shortage of social media monitoring and analytics service providers out there, with companies like Radian6, Visible Technologies, Sysomos, Socialbakers and Buddy Media among those who get most of the attention. But the market remains young, and there are lots of opportunities for small startups still.
This morning, I sat down with Folke Lemaitre, co-founder and CEO of Engagor, to see how their offering stacks up against that of its competitors. A bootstrapped startup, Engagor has managed to deliver a product that can definitely compete on features, pricing and overall user experience. → Read More
No, this isn’t a turkey-induced hallucination: ads for Verizon’s LTE-capable Galaxy Nexus have begun to pop up on a number of Android fan sites, and they clearly state that Samsung and Google’s latest joint effort will retail for $199. → Read More
It’s Black Friday in the United States, but Amazon this morning revealed a couple of deals that it will be running from Cyber Monday and/or the next few days (specifically, starting at midnight on Sunday, November 27, through the end of next week).
The company is selling a $79 Kindle, a $99 Kindle Touch, a $149 Kindle Touch 3G and a $199 Kindle Fire – and reiterates that the latter device is “currently the best-selling item across all of Amazon”. Good thing they’re prepared for the rush. → Read More
Starting today, on the retail shopping holiday known as Black Friday here in the U.S., Walgreens will begin rolling out its new scannable mobile coupons which work at its over 7,700 stores nationwide. The coupons are being made available in the Walgreens mobile applications and to use them, you simply show your phone at checkout where it will be scanned by the cashier.
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Dude I know this happened a month ago but I’ve been staying at my parents’ now for three days and we’ve already had the “You should start thinking seriously about your relationships” conversation because I will soon be no longer in my twenties and if I don’t get married asap I will be sent to the glue factory. So it’s still relevant.
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RjDj’s Michael Breidenbruecker, also a Founder last.fm, has certainly opened up the avenues for sound apps on mobile platforms. The startup’s apps have become platforms for musicians, but are gradually evolving into augmented reality mobile apps.
Most recently the company partnered with screenwriter Christopher Nolan on Inception: The App, which reached 4 million downloads. The amount of “dreamtime” (time spent listening to the app ) was over 94 years. The average listening time per session is over 30 minutes. This was not your average app!
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I’m not convinced these are discounts you’ve really been ‘waiting 364 days for’, but Apple’s Black Friday deals have gone live this morning. The prices leaked earlier, but hey.
If you were looking at buying a new Mac, iPod or the latest iPad, now’s the time, even if the discounts aren’t really that big in terms of percentages. You can also save some cash on a bunch of accessories, ranging from peripherals to iPad Smart Covers and even iTunes Gift Cards.
The iPhone gets no Black Friday love. → Read More
We have covered the one or the other Hello Kitty gadget in the past, but it’s been a while since the last notebook featuring the popular cartoon cat. But now Japan’s Mouse Computer is selling the so-called LuvBook S, [JP], an 11.6-inch laptop with Hello Kitty all over it. It has been co-developed with Hello Kitty maker Sanrio and luxury goods maker Swarovski.
Swarovski designed the body of the laptop (the Hello Kitty face and heart you see below is made of about 1,100 Swarovski stones). → Read More
Yandex, the Russian online search and advertising giant, has teamed up with Microsoft, Nokia, HTC and Samsung to become the default search engine on the latest – and upcoming – Windows Phone smartphones in Russia.
Yandex’s search engine is currently installed on Samsung’s Оmnia W, which is already on sale in Russia, as well as on Nokia’s Windows Phone-powered Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 smartphones, which will hit stores in December. → Read More
Online video is booming and the are tons of small video companies across production, advertising, distribution, and technology. Yet we have yet to see a serious attempt to roll up the industry. The reasons, I submit, boil down to egos and greed.
What is a Rollup?
Historically, large private equity firms have “rolled up” various small companies in a given market through mergers or acquisitions in order to reach economies of scale. A rollup is different than a simple merger in that it involves multiple parties, oftentimes taking place in a mature industry where growth can’t occur organically, but rather, through financial engineering or cost cutting.
This is partially why we haven’t seen that many rollups of Internet companies, because usually a merger is all it takes to reach considerable market dominance. Sometimes rollups make sense because building a product or business would take too long to build internally and grow organically. Ask Jeeves bought Interactive Search Holdings for $343M in March 2004 to double market share and then sold to IAC a year later for $1.8 billion. → Read More
Q: Dad, what browser do you use? A: One that browses well. Q: Okay, what’s it called? A: A browser.
I don’t know about you, but I try to avoid technological discussions with my parents. Even though they are relatively tech aware, they tend to be Team Windows and I am Team Mac. Also: While the “My cool grandma owns an iPad” trope is totally ubiquitous and real, older people tend to be over-sensitive about their level of tech acumen. It’s a fear of mortality thing, I’m thinking. → Read More
I know, I know. Apple totally stole its new Notifications Center for iOS 5 from Android. But let’s be honest, they did a pretty good job with it. (Except for those impossibly small “X” buttons, that is.) As someone who switches between both platforms, one thing I really like about iOS 5′s Notification Center is that it’s available from the phone’s lockscreen, too. On Android, you typically have to unlock your phone in order to view your notifications.
Well, until now. Thanks to app maker FlyScreen and its brand-new “SuperFly API,” Android users may soon get their own lockscreen notifications, too. → Read More
It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of flipping on a television and seeing a commercial for anything Google-related seemed totally implausible. For many years, the company seemed to take a certain pride in not having to resort to traditional marketing channels, and it eschewed TV ads entirely for well over a decade of its existence. Then, in February 2010, the web giant made its TV commercial debut: with a Super Bowl Ad, no less (and a fantastic one at that).
Since then it’s become a bit more common to see Google ads running on TV — the company has started promoting its Chrome browser with ads, for example. And earlier today it ran what appears to be its first TV spot for its social network, Google+.
The ad, which appeared during the Thanksgiving Day Lions/Packers game, focuses heavily on Google+’s Circles feature and Hangouts, telling viewers that it’s “Sharing, but like real life”.
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It’s not always easy to tell when Chrome has been updated, and at any rate the changes aren’t always significant enough to even wonder about it. But a pair of features worth caring about are user-bound come early 2012, according to Google developer advocate Paul Kinlan, who spoke recently at the Develop conference in Liverpool.
The conference is focused on game development, so it’s no surprise that the features are also game-centric. First, there will be plug-and-play gamepad, webcam, and microphone support in Chrome, and second, the nascent real time communication protocol WebRTC will begin to be implemented as well. This opens the door for seamless video chat and conceivably OnLive-like gaming services. → Read More
When it comes to gift-giving, there are a few presents that siimply go above and beyond. Getting a first car on your sixteenth birthday (if you’re so lucky) is one of those moments, and some young couples are even lucky enough to get a house as a wedding present. But after a house and a car, a brand new laptop is probably the best gift you can get. We’ve compiled a list of notebooks ranging in price from $839 to starting points of $1,999, so there should be something here for everyone.
Without any further ado, here are some of our reccomendations if you’re looking to get your loved one a new notebook. → Read More
HTC’s G1, the first Android phone, had a long and interesting life until it was retired last year, and although I loved the phone, I’ll be the first to admit that being limited to Android 1.6 was kind of a disappointment. Naturally modders had their way with it, but development slowed down long ago in favor of newer and more popular phones.
But today, in a feat of nostalgia and hacking skills, XDA-Dev poster Jcarrz1 has made a working AOSP port of the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, for the venerable G1. It may not extend the life of many phones out there (most have been long since abandoned, though not mine), but definitely demonstrates the flexibility of the platform. → Read More
Sex is like driving. In polls, nine out of ten people think they are “above average”. Letʼs say for a second that “average equals median” (I donʼt want to get into basic math arguments in the comments). Clearly, then, itʼs impossible for nine out ten people to be above average.
Itʼs also like sales or negotiating or poker or being “a good judge of people”. Nine out of ten think they are above average.
Most people have overinflated views of their performance in a variety of areas. → Read More
