Author Archive for Guest Column
By Richard Bennett
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Sunday, November 22, 2009 |
9:00 AM PT |
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The rise of video streaming is dramatically affecting the Internet, according to a two-year study of Internet traffic trends that Arbor Networks recently presented to the North American Network Operators Group. Two years ago, Internet traffic was distributed evenly among a dozen Tier-1 network providers, but today the majority of traffic flows through direct peering agreements among large content providers, content delivery networks and ISPs. Consequently, Tier-1 networks have shifted their business models from simple packet delivery to richer cloud computing and content hosting services, and new players Google and Comcast have joined the top 10 list of Internet traffic producers — and the more traffic they put on the Internet, the more control it gives them over your online experience. Continue »
By Joe Weinman
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Sunday, November 15, 2009 |
9:00 AM PT |
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What are cloud services uniquely good for and why? After all, CIOs aren’t going to leverage online services offered on demand just because they’re available, but for compelling business reasons. There are helpful compilations of use cases (PDF) from a technical viewpoint; here I’ve identified key cloud rationales from a strategic perspective.
Different people have different definitions of the term “cloud,” but I’m referring to common and flexible services, applications, platforms, content and resources delivered from a public provider. The lion’s share of the reasons I list below apply to most of those definitions, as well as other online/web services. Continue »
By Om Malik & Stacey Higginbotham
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009 |
6:45 AM PT |
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Maybe we should chalk it up to the upcoming season of jolly, but lately it seems like everyone wants to give away free Wi-Fi access to travelers. Well, free as long as you watch an ad or a promo for whichever company is sponsoring it, such as Yahoo, Microsoft and now Google. But while we might roll our eyes at what looks like just another way to serve up ads, the idea of free WiFi-based marketing is actually pretty smart. Continue »
By Om Malik & Colin Gibbs
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Monday, November 9, 2009 |
9:32 AM PT |
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By Kate Imbach
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Sunday, November 8, 2009 |
9:00 AM PT |
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Location is a core element in mobile applications and smartphones. We take our mobile devices with us everywhere we go. Their location, and the context in which we use them, changes constantly. In the next two years, location will become central to user experience and performance on hundreds of millions of handsets and applications.
We most commonly think of location within traditional mobile applications. Navigation apps were the first to use it. Local search results and social-networking apps are more relevant when mapped to a person’s current location. But location can do more than simply drive people to places where they can shop, eat or meet friends. Soon, all mobile applications will need to be tied to location if they want to stay relevant. Continue »
By Eric Ries
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009 |
5:00 PM PT |
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I can’t play poker, but I do enjoy watching it on TV. We’re in the middle of the 2009 World Series of Poker, an event that draws thousands of professional and amateur players to Las Vegas every year. The grand finale is the Main Event, a massive Texas Hold ’Em tournament with thousands of players and millions of dollars for the winner.
Tournament poker used to be the province of professionals. But starting a few years ago, a huge wave of amateurs has invaded the game. As a result, of the thousands of entrants into the Main Event, only a few hundred are real pros.
To my surprise, I’ve actually learned a lot about entrepreneurship from watching the World Series of Poker. But it shouldn’t be too surprising. Both rely on acting strategically under conditions of extreme uncertainty. And, in both, small changes in your odds of winning can have a big impact on the final outcome. In fact, I now routinely use the Main Event to help entrepreneurs cope with a frustrating paradox.
Why are some terrible entrepreneurs so successful? Continue »
By Ian Andrew Bell
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Sunday, November 1, 2009 |
6:00 AM PT |
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Global Index, a technology owned by Skype co-creators Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis via their company JoltID, is the fulcrum of leverage in their ongoing dispute with current Skype owner eBay and its potential purchasers. If you were either the buyer or seller in this labyrinthine transaction, you’d likely be tempted to declare, “Let’s just rip out Global Index and use something different.”
Such a move would undoubtedly take the wind out of JoltID’s sails as Skype tries to find a new home outside of eBay. Indeed, many VoIP pundits insist that Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) could be Skype’s savior. But while it’s true that technologies like SIP and its stepchild XMPP achieve a lot of the same goals as Global Index, such an argument ignores the fact that Skype is as successful as it is because it has exponentially better operating economics than the rest of the VoIP industry –- and Global Index is the singular reason why. Continue »
By Stacey Higginbotham & Om Malik
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 |
5:05 PM PT |
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The new Motorola Droid is pretty hot today. It’s a phone! It’s a brand! It’s an iPhone killer! But here at GigaOM we decided to ask a far more important question, “Is it a RAZR killer?” Can today’s Droid phone top the world’s most ubiquitous mobile gadget on its path to crush the iPhone? Can it even get close to the iPhone? Let’s see how the competition stacks up: Continue »
By Om Malik & Kevin Tofel
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 |
3:32 PM PT |
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So the Droid from Verizon just landed and we have an unboxing video. Despite all the hype, I have this to say to the makers of the iPhone: You’ve got nothing to worry about. Go out, have fun and get into the hands of a few more millions. As for the BlackBerry, its makers better be worried. Watch the unboxing video below the fold. Continue »
By Ping Li
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Sunday, October 25, 2009 |
11:00 AM PT |
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