Exclusive. Gnip is making it very clear it’s not just about Twitter anymore. The company, which provides aggregated API access to a variety of social media streams, has significantly expanded its partnership with Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com. Read more »
The coming era of the “Internet of Things” has many implications for the tech industry. But the shift toward total connectivity could also have lasting impacts on the broader world, making it harder to commit crimes such as theft, and raising awareness about consumer waste. Read more »
The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has drawn the ire of many tech industry leaders for its potential to squash innovation. GigaOM talked to O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly about why SOPA is wrong and what the tech industry can do to stop it. Read more »
Facebook on Thursday debuted a new “listen with” feature that lets groups of people listen to the same song at the same time. The new feature is most directly comparable to turntable.fm, which lets people create music listening rooms and share DJ duties with their friends. Read more »
UPDATED. Posterous encountered “server connectivity issues” that made the blogging site inaccessible to a number of users Wednesday. The apparent outage occurred after at least one Posterous user received a series of email posts from random Posterous groups, some of which were meant to be private. Read more »
Group chat startup Convore had pretty good traction after launching out of Y Combinator last year. But in the competitive world of consumer social apps, “pretty good” isn’t enough. So Convore’s founder Leah Culver built a new, business-focused iteration of the group chat service, called Grove.io. Read more »
Affine Systems, which makes software to scan and sort the content in online video, has raised nearly $5 million in a new funding round, according to a regulatory filing. Affine’s software gives advertisers the tools to analyze online video in a way that’s similar to television. Read more »
Although devices that shoot high-definition video are cheaper and more ubiquitous than ever, amateur videos themselves have not gotten any better to watch. That’s where a new iPhone app called Magisto comes in: It turns any simple iPhone video into a fully edited movie in minutes. Read more »
Employees who are super active on social networking sites have a very different idea of what is appropriate workplace behavior than other workers, and run into on-the-job ethical violations more often, according to a new study published this week by the Ethics Resource Center. Read more »
Instagram’s website is currently receiving 10 million page views each day, adding up to some 300 million page views per month, GigaOM has learned. This is especially interesting given that the Instagram experience is tailored to users of the app, not viewers on the web. Read more »
Piazza, the social network that lets college students and instructors discuss material online, has closed on $6 million in a new Series A funding round. Piazza’s service is meant to counteract study group snobbery and eliminate students’ fear of asking “dumb” questions. Read more »
While 2011 was a busy year for the tech industry, don’t expect things to slow down in 2012. We’ve rounded up some of GigaOM’s biggest stories of the year with a bit of insight on what each will mean for 2012. Read more »
When Twitter debuted its native photo-sharing feature earlier this year, some people worried that it would harm the existing ecosystem of third-party photo sharing apps. New data indicates that those concerns were well justified: Twitter now powers 45 percent of the photos shared on its site. Read more »
In today’s crowded world of e-commerce, it’s not easy to make a name for yourself. That’s why it’s so impressive that Wayfair, a relatively little known website dealing in home furnishings and decor, is set to make more than $500 million in top-line sales for 2011. Read more »
Updated. On Wednesday morning, the New York Times sent a number of emails urging customers to call a toll-free number to renew their subscriptions. They seem to have been sent by Epsilon Data Management, an email marketing firm which had a major data breach in March. Read more »
2011 has been all about personalized mobile apps, and Evernote has benefited handsomely: In the past 12 months, the personal note-taking software company grew its user base from 6 million to 20 million. GigaOM talked to CEO Phil Libin about the growth and Evernote’s 2012 outlook. Read more »
LinkedIn has announced that the technology behind IndexTank, the search engine startup it acquired back in October, has been released as open source software. It was pretty clear that IndexTank was bought largely for its talent, so it’s good news that its technology will live on. Read more »
Sincerely, the company aimed at making it easy to get printed copies of the photos you take on mobile devices, has launched a new app called Dotti meant to replicate the experience of using a disposable camera, cementing the trend of 1990s nostalgia in mobile apps. Read more »
Every day, it seems like there’s another bland press release about startup seed funding. So when Buffer closed on $400,000, it wanted to announce it differently — by explaining exactly how the process happened. It’s a fun read, and a good lesson for other startup founders. Read more »
Twitter has begun to open source the software built by Whisper Systems, the enterprise mobile security startup it acquired just three weeks ago. The open source roll-out began Tuesday, and confirms the, well, whispers that the M&A deal was done mostly for talent acquisition purposes. Read more »
A few months ago, it looked like the tech industry’s IPO window had slammed shut. But thanks to a year-end rally started by Groupon and rounded out by Zynga’s $1 billion IPO, it looks like 2012 could be another big year for the tech IPO market. Read more »
Twitter has received a $300 million investment from Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed, the 26th-richest person in the world — a move that takes outside investment in the microblogging service to nearly $1.5 billion. Read more »
Zynga’s IPO Friday has garnered lots of buzz, as its day-one stock market performance has been much more lackluster than many expected. But there are several important events on the near-term horizon could be even more telling about how investors value the social gaming business. Read more »
This week, Facebook held its 28th official “Hackathon,” an all-night event where the only rule is that employees can’t work on their daytime projects. This was the company’s final Hackathon at its Palo Alto campus, and GigaOM has exclusive photos and video from inside the event. Read more »
Zynga’s stock officially began trading on the NASDAQ market at just after 11:00am Eastern Time Friday morning. Right out the gate, Zynga did not see the “pop” many expected from the IPO day: It opened at $11, but quickly dipped below its $10 IPO price Read more »
Facebook’s new Timeline user interface is now available pretty much everywhere — including on mobile devices.Just a few hours after announcing worldwide availability of the new Timeline profile interface, Facebook on Thursday launched Timeline on its mobile Android app and on its mobile website, m.facebook.com. Read more »
TaskRabbit has raised $17.8 million in a Series B funding round. It’s just been 7 months since the company announced its $5 million Series A, but growth has been fast and furious: TaskRabbit has tripled net revenue and seen a seven-fold increase in customers since May. Read more »
Synthetic, the folks behind the Hipstamatic app (which essentially came out with a filter-enhanced iPhone photo sharing capability before Instagram made it really cool) has come out with a new iOS app aimed at replicating the experience of using a disposable camera. Read more »
Gwyneth Paltrow just became the latest celebrity to toss her cap into the mobile app market. GOOP, the lifestyle-focused email newsletter run by the Oscar-winning actress, announced on Tuesday the debut of a new iPhone and iPad app called “GOOP City,” which costs $3.99. Read more »
It’s the last full week before everyone essentially checks out until January, which means a lot of us are scrambling to get things done. For a number of companies, an IPO is an item on this year’s pre-Christmas to-do list, including Jive Software, Zynga and others. Read more »
Xamarin, the company born earlier this year when Novell laid off the entire workforce dedicated to maintaining Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET development framework, was up against big odds. But at just seven months old, Xamarin is now profitable without VC backing. Read more »
Today, things tend to trickle up as far as enterprise software selection goes: Businesses are increasingly taking cues from their employees when it comes to choosing enterprise software. Many employees, now, prefer software that incorporates the social and collaborative aspects they use in their personal lives. Read more »
With its dramatic new redesign, Twitter is now trumpeting itself as a better option than Facebook or Google+ when it comes to showing the world who you are via an online profile. “This is the best place to represent yourself on the Internet,” Jack Dorsey said. Read more »
Twitter on Thursday debuted a dramatic new user interface for all versions of the micro-blogging service. The new version of Twitter reveals the fruits of a top-to-bottom redesign that makes the site more accessible to mainstream users and companies. Read more »
The latest attack on the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) shows that the tech industry is getting smarter about talking to Washington. Industry groups are now stressing how crucial the Internet is to job creation, a hot topic in the current political climate. Read more »
Right now, some of the most reputable names in Silicon Valley, including Y Combinator and Wired magazine are offering up their attention to a startup pitch from the highest monetary bidder. It’s not as shady as it sounds, though: It’s all in the name of charity. Read more »
UPDATED. Facebook has officially started rolling out the new Timeline user interface in earnest, some 10 weeks after announcing its imminent release. But users in the company’s native United States will still have to wait for Facebook’s new look: The roll-out is starting in New Zealand. Read more »
Can’t bear to hear “All I Want for Christmas is You” again at a holiday house party? You may be in luck. TuneTug is a mobile app that works with iTunes and Spotify to let party guests vote for the songs they want to hear next. Read more »
Got Facebook privacy worries? You may be in the minority. Seventy percent of Facebook users polled in a recent survey said they were comfortable with the personal information they have on the site. Younger people were more OK with their data on Facebook than older people. Read more »
StumbleUpon has undergone a major makeover. On Tuesday the company will unveil a totally redesigned website, a complete rebrand, and a new “channels” feature. It’s the most comprehensive redesign the company’s ever undertaken, CEO Garrett Camp said: “Finally, our front-end is as good as our back-end.” Read more »
