Stories for May. 19, 2013
What Tumblr’s sale means for New York startup ecosystem
photo: Om Malik
New York startup ecosystem will get a big boost from the $1.1 billion sale of Tumblr to Yahoo. The exit, one of the biggest New York has seen shows that with content becoming important, New York is finding its footing on the startup stage. Read more »
Pinterest takes a “first step” toward working with big brands
Pinterest is unveiling a new pin structure for different types of products and an integration with a large number of retail brands, as it continues buildng up the platform and paving the way for growth. Read more »
What Nikola Tesla vs. VCs video says about the state of Silicon Valley
Imagine if Nikola Tesla had to pitch venture capitalists to fund his idea. The reaction to his crazy ideas would be precisely what you see on this video. Sadly, the video also says a lot about the skewed risk and investment system in Silicon Valley these days. Read more »
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Report: Yahoo’s board agrees to pay $1.1 billion for Tumblr
photo: Albert Chau
Yahoo’s board has agreed to pay $1.1 billion for Tumblr, according to reports. Read more »
For developers, the cloud means having to rethink everything they know about making software
photo: Mike Flippo/Shutterstock
It’s not often the software world goes through a revolutionary change. But the advent of the cloud will force software developers to reevaluate – and discard – many of their most basic assumptions. Read more »
The week in cloud: Google and Microsoft spar while IBM and SAP play hot hands
photo: Shutterstock / Alexey Repka
Google and Microsoft slapfest continues; IBM pushes Watson for third-party apps; SAP bets big on HANA for ERP. Read more »
Why we can’t quite seem to make up our minds about Google
photo: google
We admire Google. We’re impressed by Google’s accomplishments. But we’re wary of Google’s relentless ambition and its at-times curious thoughts about our world. Read more »
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ICYMI Podcasts: Real Chrome apps, a history of IoT and Google I/O 2013
In case you missed the GigaOm weekly podcasts, here’s a second chance. Two of our shows had special guests to explain new technologies and our wrap-up show is fully dedicated to understanding all of the news out of Google I/O. Read more »
Last week on Pro: a guide for the cloud curious and social at work (literally)
For a deeper dive into the topics and technologies covered on GigaOM, check out the latest in-depth analyses on GigaOM Pro, our subscription-based research service. This week: a guide to cloud implementation and social networks in business. Read more »
Stories for May. 18, 2013
How cloud, big data and mobile will make the CMO the BMOC
photo: Pressmaster/Shutterstock
The rise of cloud and big data is altering business models, and in the process shifting corporate hierarchies, too. The chief marketing officer could be a big beneficiary of all this change. Read more »
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How to make Twitter the ultimate news ticker
Recent events, tragic and triumphant, emphasize the social web’s role as a central source for disseminating breaking news. But getting the facts right continues to be a challenge, and a solution requires cooperation and technical innovation. Read more at paidContent »
How iPads, apps and YouTube can be a band’s best practice tools
While OS X continues to be a starting point for my music, I find now when it comes to rehearsals, everything I need is on my iPad. Read more »
Must read
Why Yahoo acquiring Tumblr for $1 billion makes a certain horrible kind of sense
Fans of the social-blogging network might not like the idea much, but a $1-billion acquisition of Tumblr would arguably solve a number of problems for Yahoo — and do the same for Tumblr CEO David Karp. Read more »
We’ve entered the age of emotional, design-centric, e-commerce
Everlane and True & Co are part of a new wave of e-commerce startups that are using emotion and design to sell goods. Read more »
Must read
Android this week: Google I/O recapped; Better Bluetooth; Galaxy S 4 Google Edition
No new hardware appeared at Google I/O, but a recently released phone debuts as a Nexus-like device. Meanwhile, Google updated Android, without adding further fragmentation issues, through dozens of new services, apps and APIs. Read more »
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7 stories to read this weekend
Costa Rica’s killer bull, fear in Cyprus, crimes of Ranbaxy and BitCoin bubble — that along with basketball uber coach Phil Jackson are part of this week’s reading material. Of course, question to ponder: briefs or boxers, how did they get into men’s pants. Read more »
Stories for May. 17, 2013
Report: Yahoo eager to close $1.1 billion cash deal for Tumblr by Sunday evening
photo: Albert Chau
Tumblr might become part of Yahoo as early as Sunday night, according to a report that suggests Yahoo’s board of directors is set to consider a $1.1 billion offer for the startup. Read more »
New networking features make hybrid clouds possible on Google Compute Engine
photo: Jordan Novet
The Google Cloud Platform gets a little stronger with the coming of new networking features, such as load balancing, on the Google Compute Engine, which could help enterprises get on board. Read more »
Redbox Instant is coming to Google TV soon, Roku up next
Redbox Instant is coming to Google TV devices soon, and the company plans to launch a channel on Roku streaming media players soon after. Read more »
Tableau closes Day 1 as a $2.9B public company, up 64 percent
photo: Yahoo Finance
Tableau had a successful IPO, closing the trading day up 64 percent and raking in $254 million. CEO Christian Chabot says the company is now set to make itself known around the world. Read more »
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With VentureHealth, InCube Ventures thinks crowdfunding can blend with traditional VCs
photo: JCD
Life sciences venture firm InCube Ventures has launched an equity crowdfunding site for biomedical technology companies at all stages. Read more »
Underwater batteries are making a splash for energy storage
Companies are looking to harness underwater pressure for energy generation and storage. Read more »
Must read
A sneak peek at YouTube’s future as it rolls out new channel design for everyone
YouTube’s new channel design will roll out to everyone in early June, and the site’s designers are already busy working on big things to come. Read more »
Database startup Drawn to Scale is closing down
Database startup Drawn to Scale, creator of the SQL-on-Hadoop technology called Spire, is closing down. The company’s product, Spire, was one of the first SQL-on-Hadoop technologies. Read more »
Crowdfunding a crack scandal — did Gawker go too far?
photo: Chris Howey
Gawker has just taken checkbook journalism to a whole new level — asking the public to help buy a video tape that is likely to bring down the mayor of a major city. Read more at paidContent »
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Some of the best articles you need to read about Google I/O
photo: Janko Roettgers
Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O has been center stage in technology world for past few days. The news coming out of the event can be overwhelming. Here are a handful of articles that I find worth of your time and attention. Read more »
WebRTC is growing fast: soon to surpass one billion devices
Plugin-free video chat in the browser is becoming a reality quickly: Developers can soon reach more than one billion browsers and devices with the protocol, according to Google’s Justin Uberti. Read more »
Must read
The future of Bitcoin: 3 predictions from experts
Bitcoin is being treated as a serious currency by investors, entrepreneurs and the government. GigaOM convened experts to hear what they say about what will happen next — here’s three highlights. Read more »
Games for the weekend: Skylanders Cloud Patrol
A carnival-style shooting game that resembles Fruit Ninja — except the targets are trolls, not fruit. Read more »
MOOCs aren’t the only kind of online course stirring debate on college campuses
photo: mtkang
On the heels of faculty backlashes to massive open online courses, three universities have pulled out of an online learning program with education company 2U. Read more »
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Surprise: Yahoo’s mobile push is working better than you think
… according to new statistics from Onavo, which tracks actual use of mobile apps and games by “millions” of iOS users. Read more »
420,000 U.S. Cellular customers soon must make a choice: Join Sprint or find a new provider
Sprint buyout of U.S. Cellular in Chicago and St. Louis closed Friday, and it won’t keep its networks running for long. Customers can either trade in their U.S. Cellular devices with Sprint or look for a new carrier. Read more »
RapidShare lays off most of its staff as it struggles to find new business model
RapidShare used to be the world’s most popular one-click hoster, used by millions to store and share files. Now, it has to lay off 75 percent of its staff. Read more »
Apple may not have answer for Google’s music service at WWDC
Reports indicate Apple is still working out the licensing details with music publishers for its “iRadio” service. Read more »
Binge-watching forces “One Life to Live,” “All My Children” to cut back on new episodes
When soap operas “One Life to Live” and “All My Children” moved online, it wasn’t clear how fans would watch them. It turns out that most viewers are binge-watching — so the soaps’ production company is cutting back on the number of new episodes each week. Read more at paidContent »
Parakweet uses natural language processing to find value in your tweets
photo: Rani Molla
Looking for a book suggestion? Culling information from your Twitter feed and turning that into accurate recommendations is harder than it looks, but Parakweet is looking to use natural language procesing to do just that. Read more »
Aruba buys indoor-location startup Meridian. Here’s why
photo: Meridian Apps
Meridian works with companies that want to bring detailed location awareness to their mobile apps using their Wi-Fi networks as guideposts. If you’re Aruba, that’s not a bad feature to have in your access points. Read more »
Must read
AWS is the McDonald’s of the cloud. Who’s the Burger King?
photo: Wikipedia Commons
It’s easy to characterize the cloud computing market as being Amazon Web Services’ to lose, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. McDonald’s dominates the fast food world, but life isn’t exactly bad for its dozens of competitors. Read more »
Apple CEO will detail his corporate tax policy ideas to Congress next week
photo: Credit: Asa Mathat | All Things Digital
It’s an unfamiliar role for an Apple executive to be in. But Tim Cook will say that while he believes 35 percent is too high of a corporate tax, he also doesn’t think “zero” taxes on that money is reasonable. Read more »
The future, according to Google
photo: Jordan Novet
In response to a question at a Google I/O talk on Thursday, luminaries from Google Research took a stab at predicting life 10 years from now. Here’s what they had to say. Read more »
