It’s Cyber Monday and servers are humming as shoppers head to their PCs, tablets and smartphones to find the best deals available. Scot Wingo from ChannelAdvisor discusses the e-commerce trends that have emerged over the last five days, known as the “Cyber Five.” Read more »
As work media — social media tools designed to get work done — become more ubiquitous, futurist Stowe Boyd sees an even greater need for well-defined standards that would help companies transport their data out of the current silos. Read more »
Brightcove VP Rags Gupta explains why music start-ups should test the waters across the pond before coming to the U.S.: “According to conventional wisdom, consumer start-ups should move to San Francisco for access to capital, talent, and ideas. But if you’re launching an online music company, consider London or Berlin.” Read more »
With Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player and iCloud, there has never been an easier — or more confusing — time to buy music. Avowed music geek Dan Kantor of exfm tells you everything you need to know about how (and where) you should buy your music online. Read more »
In the net neutrality debate, Internet Service Providers talk about charging content providers for prioritization so they can invest in improving infrastructure. But placing a price on prioritizing content creates an inherent disincentive to expand. Professors Hsing Cheng, Shubho Bandyopadhyay and Hong Guo elaborate. Read more »
The iconic office design company sees a trend away from personal space and toward shared space. Don Ball talked to Steelcase about the changing state of the “office” and how it is designing spaces that allow people to be “on” — not “at” — work. Read more »
Bringing mobile apps, the power of data and constant broadband connections together, the connected car just may be the next cool gadget. Daniel Butler found three tech-inspired concept cars that push the connected car concept and serve as some fun eye candy. Read more »
Health care policy analyst John S. Wilson believes that Apple’s recently released voice technology can revolutionize the 911 system. With its natural language processing, contextual search and ability to carry out tasks, Siri has the potential to better equip first responders to save lives. Read more »
The rapid growth in storage and processing power will put a big strain on the capabilities of the cloud and our wireless networks. But Jeff Belk of ICT168 Capital believes that there is opportunity to be found if we look both forward and backward. Read more »
Why would Netflix choose to split itself apart? And why completely change the name and make two different services to interact with their company? SeaWell’s Andy Beach explains how Netflix hurt themselves by playing weak. Read more »
Today’s audiences do not distinguish content as either pure digital or television, and to capture an audience’s attention and loyalty requires major social media skills. MTV and VH1′s Kristin Frank offers a peek behind the curtain of their major-network strategy. Read more »
When Tim Berners-Lee invited newsgroup users to the World Wide Web with the invitation “collaborators welcome,” he never could have expected how completely that concept would fundamentally transform work. Here, Huddle’s Andy McLoughlin shows the timeline of that transformation. Read more »
Broadband analyst Craig Settles looks at how a fight over municipal broadband in Colorado drives home how ISPs can control the democratic process to deny governments and citizens access to better broadband. And they are willing to spend big to do this. Read more »
The cloud is a killer. Other than the microprocessor, OutSystems’ Mike Jones believes we would be hard-pressed to find another technological innovation that has so effectively killed off its predecessors. Though SaaS had once been the savior of businesses, XaaSes are rapidly stealing the spotlight. Read more »
Salary and benefits aren’t enough to guarantee that your best and brightest creatives will remain engaged. Rypple’s Daniel Debow presents some best practices about what does motivate your top employees and how you can keep them from going to the competition. Read more »
For the Internet of Things to achieve its full potential, Alex Salkever of Joyent believes that operators must fundamentally change the way they build and run clouds. In particular, they need to update the decades-old infrastructure technology and create more flexible APIs. Read more »
One of the most popular ways to monetize an app is mobile advertising. But where do you place an ad within an app? When should the app appear? What type of ad generates the most clicks? Hillel Fuld of inneractive shares 5 tips for developers. Read more »
Data is changing computing and the Internet, and centers can combine advances in database architecture with commodity server and storage technology. Dr. John Busch, the founder, Chairman, and CTO of Schooner, explains how to achieve the high availability imperative without sacrificing performance, scalability or cost-effectiveness. Read more »
Tropical storm Irene reminded us how essential reliable cell phone service has become in our lives. Kathy Fosberg of IdaTech discusses the emerging technology of fuel cells and how they power mobile service so we’re free to tweet about the hurricane. Read more »
Steve Jobs was a visionary, instigator, leader, motivator, marketer, pitchman and showman. Gary Morgenthaler of Morgenthaler Ventures recalls Steve’s many contributions that have changed the world as we know it. Read more »
When Josh Quittner, now editorial director of Flipboard, wrote a story on the former Apple CEO for Time, the magazine inadvertently betrayed two of Jobs’s core values: his obsession with controlling every detail and his love of secrecy. Read more »
With his single-minded focus on creating great user experiences, Jobs redefined product design – and design in general – not just for Apple, but for designers like Typekit’s Jeffrey Veen, who found confidence and inspiration in Jobs’ work. Read more »
Mobile experience designer Christian Lindholm believes that great products are born out of deep, relentless dissatisfaction with the present and the status quo. Inside Apple’s walls, Jobs almost seemed to carry the burden of all humanity’s frustration with bad products. Read more »
To glimpse the future of the data stack, Oracle need look no further than its own backyard. Silicon Valley start-ups are embracing Hadoop, NoSQL data stores like MongoDB, and cloud platforms. Michael Driscoll of Metamarkets explains why Oracle should step up its game. Read more »
Call it the enterprise startup conundrum: How do you earn legitimacy if no one will give you an opportunity to become legitimate? Scott Weiss of Andreessen Horowitz recounts how his company IronPort got around this issue by making it seem like a bigger fish. Read more »
John S. Wilson of Policy Diary sees some strong similarities between Google’s mobile operating system Android: They’re both open, free (aside from patent issues), and just a utility. Android means different things to different companies, and ultimately, this could be Android’s downfall into irrelevance. Read more »
While the computing side of history is well known, the storage side remains hidden from common view. Ed Lee, of Tintri, Inc., takes a look at the state of storage today and compares it with the radically different environment that existed back in 1984. Read more »
Where Google goes, people follow. Bruno Perez of Revpar Guru weighs in on Google’s excursion into the travel industry with Google Hotel Finder, seeing the move as a logical part of the company’s strategy to challenge established markets such as Facebook and Groupon. Read more »
Accessing new markets can be daunting. But by understanding the landscape and taking the right approach, it’s easier than ever before. Robert Laing, CEO of myGengo, shares his tips for expanding your business into China, an increasingly emerging player in the online game. Read more »
In the months leading up to the press conference earlier this week, speculation about the prospects for Amazon’s new tablet reached a crescendo. Would the new tablet be a worthy competitor? Dr. Phil Hendrix of immr and R. Paul Singh of SocialNuggets weigh in. Read more »
Enterprises spend $270B on software every year, yet some don’t yet some can’t even calculate the number of employees in their organizations. Rudimentary challenges like this plague every enterprise in the world. When deriving anything beyond enterprise software basics, most corporations are out of luck. Read more »
Many entrepreneurs are in the process of fundraising. However, many are unaware of the most favorable terms for raising money from investors and confused about what terms to focus on in a term sheet. Jay and Yusuf explain how to navigate these sometimes tricky waters. Read more »
QR codes, those tiny 2D codes are big on is hype, with proponents touting them as the bridge between the offline and online world. But that offline to online bridge is structurally flawed and may be keeping many brands from reaching their audience effectively. Read more »
Though the number of iOS and Android apps continues to grow by leaps and bounds, Yaron Galai bets that the trend of developing native apps is a short-term fad. Here’s why he thinks companies should reexamine their app strategy. Read more »
A generational shift is unfolding in the way we consume content. It’s a fundamental change in consumer behavior that will impact businesses across all industries. Will the inevitable disruption of internet TV be similar to the downslide of print media? Read more »
Two weeks ago, Google announced a significant price increase for use of its App Engine Platform-as-a-Service. With vendor lock-in comes vulnerability to price increases. And for developers and app makers, this drastic shift may have been a “bet-the-company” decision without ever realizing it. Read more »
What do Belichick defensive schemes, Tom Clancy novels, Google+ and Facebook have in common? The answer is that all are so byzantine that they leave people scratching their heads to figure them out. Somewhere along the way social media lost sight of keeping things simple. Read more »
Anyone can make a movie, but not everyone will receive distribution. Advances in technology enable individual content creators to make high-quality films at an extremely low cost, but who will watch the content if it is not siphoned through the right distribution channels? Read more »
The current mantra in Web operations is to track, record and monitor everything. Data is valuable and storage is cheap, so this makes sense. Metrics that measure the right thing are incredibly important in the context of getting the best performance from your application. Read more »
For all the head-scratching and chin-pulling over Netflix’s decision to separate its DVD and streaming businesses, one important aspect of the move has gone largely overlooked: the effective separation of its movie and TV content businesses, which splits the company along content lines. While that may ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
