Drew Olanoff

Community Director

Drew Olanoff has over 10 years of marketing, PR, customer service and support, relationship building and management, product management, and technical support experience in multiple verticals. Online, including mobile.

He prides himself on being a connector. Connecting people, stories, information. He has worked under some amazingly talented and gifted PR pros while working for startups as a “Director of Community”, “Community Manager” and “Technology Evangelist”. He has the knack of working stories both mainstream as well as online. Bridging that gap is his passion.

He is a leader AND a team player, and strives for nothing short of success. His life motto is “failure is not an option”.

Disclosure: I currently hold no stock in any company.

posted 58 mins ago

Google Needs To Bring Emerging Markets Online To Grow Its Business Opportunities In The Next 10 years

3404405518_b82b3eec29_o

The WSJ has reported that Google is participating in discussions with emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and Africa about setting up wireless network infrastructure in cities and towns. A source told the WSJ that: “The wireless networks would be available to dwellers outside of major cities where wired Internet connections aren’t available and could be used to improve Internet speeds in urban… → Read More

posted yesterday

With Metrics Up Since Acquisition, Parse Could Get Developers Integrating Facebook And Buying Ads

platformlogo

After being acquired by Facebook, the mobile back-end service Parse has been busy integrating itself into the company, as well as launching new services like web hosting for developers.

The service has built tools to help developers focus on the front-end of their product, while handling all of the messy back-end things like cross-platform compatibility and testing. Naturally, Facebook… → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Twitter Introduces Charts By Genre And Popularity For Its #Music Service

Screenshot_5_22_13_12_05_PM3

We’ve confirmed with Twitter that it has rolled out a new part of its #Music service for the web, charts that we were accustomed to from the company We Are Hunted, that it acquired and now powers the service. → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Photo App Piictu To Join Betaworks Company Kandu, Will Shut Down On May 31st

Screenshot_5_22_13_10_25_AM

Another photo sharing app bites the dust? Or is something with promise getting another chance? Either way you look at it, betaworks is adding more technology and team members to its arsenal, as photo sharing app Piictu has announced that the team will “join forces” with a betaworks company that has yet to launch. → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Foursquare Introduces ‘Super-Specific’ Search And Filter Options For iOS And Android To Help You Find New Venues

4061321303_992c7eafd6_z

As Foursquare evolves, it wants to help you find either new places to check out or lead you to places where your friends have already been. Mixed in with that is recommendation technology to show you places that you might be interested in based on where you’ve been before. Today, Foursquare updated its iOS and Android apps with an advanced search option that lets you control how the service seeks→ Read More

May 21st, 2013

After Months Of Speculation, Microsoft Officially Reveals Skype For The Xbox One

13

Microsoft’s Don Mattrick pulled back the curtain on the Xbox One at a live event at the company’s Redmond campus, and it wasn’t long at all before the talk turned to software. One application in particular has been the subject of speculation for months, and SVP Yusuf Mehdi confirmed that Skype (which, if you recall, Microsoft acquired for $8.5 billion nearly two years ago) is… → Read More

May 21st, 2013

Twitter’s Innovator’s Patent Agreement Goes Into Action For ‘Pull To Refresh,’ Jelly And Lift Will Adopt The Framework

4545850546_012754d0c4_z

Last year, Twitter announced something it called the Innovator’s Patent Agreement (IPA), which would keep patents in the hands of the designers and engineers that came up with the technology behind them. What this agreement serves as is a promise to only act on a patent for “defensive purposes.” Anything outside of that scope would need to be signed off on the creator of the patent itself. → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Square Cash Will Let You Send Money To Your Friends By Email

Screenshot_5_20_13_12_11_PM

Square’s not just for businesses apparently, as an invite-only page for a product called “Square Cash” has popped up. Not many details are known about it, but we’ve reached out to the company for comment. → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Google+ Gets A Refresh For Android To Mirror Its 41 Update Extravaganza From I/O, Adds New Location Section

Screenshot_5_20_13_11_08_AM

Today, Google updated its Google+ app for Android to get up to speed with all of the changes announced during last week’s I/O Developers conference. In all, there were 41 new updates, including a new stream, photos experience and Hangouts.

The Android version has all of that, and one new feature — a new location section. → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Sprint Acquires KC-Based Handmark For Its Mobile App Development And Advertising Shop, OneLouder

logo-1

Sprint has decided to get deeper into the social and mobile space, announcing today that it has acquired Handmark and its subsidiary OneLouder. The acquisition is meant to beef up its Pinsight Media+ advertising group, specifically. Through Handmark, OneLouder has built social apps like Twitter clients Tweetcaster and Slices, and Friendcaster, a Facebook client. The acquisition price hasn’t… → Read More

glassphoto
May 19th, 2013

GoogleGlassYearInReview

It’s been a little over a year since Google started teasing something it called “Project Glass.” The futuristic, wearable computer that would change the way that you interact with the world was nothing more than a series of rumors for months before it was “formally introduced” in April 2012. Not known for hardware and not having a current bonafide physical device that… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Google Says All 2,000 Glass Explorers Have Been Invited To Pick Up Their Device

google glass

Today, Steve Lee of the Google X and Glass Team, announced that as of last week, all 2,000 developers who signed up for the Glass Explorer program at last year’s I/O conference have now been invited to pick up their devices from Google’s offices in Mountain View, New York City or Los Angeles. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Here Are The Commands You Need To Gain Root Access To Your Google Glass

guy-glass

There has been a lot of talk about rooting your Glass device, or if it’s even possible. Well, it is. During a Hacking Google Glass session today, the team shared the steps to go through to gain root access for your Glass device. Only the Fastboot tool for UNIX works, but there have been issues with using the OS X one. An official native dev kit will be available, too, which was announced… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Jen Lamere, The 18-Year-Old Developer Trying To Save Us From TV Spoilers On Twitter, Scores An Internship There

12417f7be5f20b3aa528c537976b233f

Participating in hackathons is nothing new in certain parts of the world, especially Silicon Valley. Once in a blue moon, a small team of people creates something exciting that generates buzz, potentially selling to a larger company.

One developer took on 80 competitors at a hackathon called “TVnext” and won with a solution to save you from reading spoilers on Twitter with an app called… → Read More

May 15th, 2013

Google’s Three-Hour I/O Keynote Boils Down To These Highlights And One Theme: Foundation

img_8412

Today’s three-hour-long Google I/O keynote came with plenty of announcements, but the company mostly assured us that it is focused on building frameworks that can benefit developers and consumers.

We saw a more unified company that needed three hours in one session to get their message across. Breaking today’s keynote up into two days would have disrupted the momentum coming out of a company… → Read More

May 15th, 2013

Google CEO Larry Page Shares His Philosophy At I/O: “We Should Be Building Great Things That Don’t Exist”

img_8702

Today, a day after discussing his voice issues, Google CEO Larry Page took the stage at the I/O keynote. He skipped last year’s conference and a few earnings calls due to those same voice problems, which he has noted are improving. Page even did something a little new for I/O — taking questions at the end of his talk. → Read More

May 15th, 2013

Deep Dive With The New Google Maps For Desktop With Google Earth Integration, It’s More Than Just A Utility

img_8662

Using Google Maps today is great for what it’s supposed to do, get you from point A to point B. But there’s a lot of information that Google collects that you never get a chance to glance it, or don’t have a reason to. Google wants to give you more reasons to explore a map, and it’s obvious with the preview of its latest version. This truly is a re-imagination from the… → Read More

May 15th, 2013

Google Introduces Conversational Search For The Desktop With “Hotwording,” Prompting It With “OK Google”

img_8654

Today, Google announced that its conversational search that is available for its Android and iOS apps would be coming to the desktop within the Chrome browser. Until now, you could search for things using your voice…but you couldn’t ask questions. Now, you’ll be able to keep your mic open without clicking a button, by waking Google up with the prompt “OK Google.” This… → Read More

May 15th, 2013

Google+ Redesigns Its Stream To Include Multi-Column Google Now-Esque Cards, Auto-Hashtags And More

img_8599

Google+, the social layer that Google introduced almost two years ago, has evolved quite a bit since its launch. Today, the company announced a complete redesign, taking cues from the mobile experience that has drawn positive feedback from those who don’t even use the service. In total, Google has launched 41 new features for Google+, including a completely revamped Photo product, Hangouts app and… → Read More

May 15th, 2013

Google Launches Android Studio And New Features For Developer Console, Including Beta Releases And Staged Rollout

img_8515

Today, during Google’s I/O developer conference, the company announced a group of tools for app developers, including a new developer suite called Android Studio. It’s an IDE based on IntelliJ. This was a popular announcement, as the crowd “ooh’d” and “ahh’d” as screenshots were shown on stage. This tool has more options for Android Development… → Read More

May 15th, 2013

Google Announces It Has Reached 900M Android Activations, Sundar Pichai Calls It “Most Popular Mobile OS In The World”

img_8471

Today, Google announced that its Android operating system has reached 900M activations. This is a 500M increase from last year’s announcement. At one point, Google said that it was experiencing 1M Android activations a day. These activations have brought in 48M app installs for developers who have launched on Google Play, which is why the I/O conference exists. As we noted yesterday, Google… → Read More

May 14th, 2013

I/O 2013: One Google, Under Page, With Unification And Usability For All

google-flag1

This is the evening before Google’s I/O developer conference and there’s already been quite a bit of chatter about what the company will announce and share at the conference. One important thing to note is that there will only be one keynote this year, a mega three-hour session where Google will talk to the attendees about all of the important things that have happened over the past year and what… → Read More

May 14th, 2013

Update Your Facebook Status And Comment Using Google Glass And Your Voice With ThroughGlass

Screenshot_5_14_13_12_31_PM

We wrote about an app for Google Glass that let you share photos to Facebook, but another one has come out that has a way more interesting feature, the ability to create status messages or comment on on the social network with the sound of your voice. → Read More

May 14th, 2013

Google CEO Larry Page Reveals He’s Recovering From Vocal Cord Paralysis, Will Fund Research

photo-6

In a post on Google+ today, Google CEO Larry Page discussed for the first time publicly the voice problems he’s been experiencing. It doesn’t sound like Page is experiencing life-threatening medical problems, but it has become a topic of interest every time he speaks publicly. During the last earnings call, Page actually spoke for a long time, albeit a bit labored, and answered questions at the… → Read More

May 13th, 2013

Google Commemorates The 37th Anniversary Of Atari’s Breakout With Image Search Easter Egg

breakout_1

If you’re an old-school gaming nerd, then you might remember a little game released by Atari called Breakout. The idea was simple, just hit a ball around and break things. Don’t let the ball get past you, or you lose. → Read More

May 13th, 2013

At I/O, Google Will Be Tracking Things Like Noise Level And Air Quality With Hundreds Of Arduino-Based Sensors

motes

If you’re attending Google I/O this week, you will be a part of an experiment from the Google Cloud Platform Developer Relations team. On its blog today, the team outlined its plan to gather a bunch of environmental information happening around you as you meander around the Moscone Center. → Read More

May 13th, 2013

Google Unifies Its Free And Paid Storage Options, Gives You 15GB To Share Between Drive, Gmail And Google+ Photos, 30GB For Apps Users

704056791_63f1e492d8_z

Up until now, you’ve had to track your free storage on Google products separately. It was just another thing that Google hadn’t brought together to make it easier on users. Today, the company announced that you’ll now have 15GB of free storage to share between Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos. Google Apps customers are getting a bump for Drive and Gmail, to the tune of 30GB. → Read More

May 12th, 2013

Google Must Not Like Sports, As Google Now Will Crash When You Try To Add Or Remove Teams From The Sports Card

8573211431_4c03edc5e2_z

Google Now is a great feature for Android users, and now those who are on iOS devices. The idea is that the more you use Google products, the more it learns about you and the better information it can spit at you proactively. However, if you try to interact with Google Now, specifically on which sports teams you’d like to follow, the app will crash. Not only will Google Now crash, but… → Read More

May 12th, 2013

If You Can’t Afford $605K For Coffee With Tim Cook, Jack Dorsey’s Charity Auction Is At $5K With Four Days Left

Screenshot_5_12_13_10_44_AM

It’s nice to see people in a power position in the valley give up their time for charitable causes. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, recently offered up his time for probably the most expensive cup of coffee ever, to benefit The RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. The current top bid is a whopping $605K, and the auction ends in two days if you’ve got the cash to donate. → Read More

May 10th, 2013

Through The Looking Glass: What You’ll See Through Google’s Lens

I’ve spent a little over three weeks with Google Glass, and I’ve noted that the utility aspect of the device is strong, but the fun isn’t there yet. It feels a lot like the original iPhone did, before it had the App Store. → Read More