Author Archive for Om Malik
By Om Malik
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009 |
3:00 PM PT |
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The Crunchies, after two successful years, are back to celebrate the entrepreneurs and startups that make technology such an exciting industry. As always, we will be co-hosting the awards — for which nominations are now being accepted — with VentureBeat and TechCrunch. (Check out the photos from last year.)
Details of the event can be found here. The awards ceremony will be held Friday, Jan. 8 at 7:30 pm at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco and will be followed by an after-party across the street in City Hall’s Grand Rotunda. The nominations for the third annual awards ceremony honoring the best technology achievements of 2009 will remain open through midnight PST on Friday, Dec. 4th. The Crunchies Committee will select five finalists for each of the 18 award categories; final votes will be cast between Dec. 12th and midnight PST on Jan. 6th.
By Om Malik
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009 |
10:55 AM PT |
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It’s been an exciting week here at GigaOM HQ. We’ve been busy putting the final touches on the third edition of NewTeeVee Live, our annual online video industry conference that we’re holding in San Francisco tomorrow, Nov. 12th. I’ve been preparing for my conversations with Quincy Smith, the outgoing CEO of CBS Interactive, and Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix. Adobe Systems’ CTO Kevin Lynch is going to chat with Sebastian Rupley, our editor in chief. Expect some fireworks during our conversations about the future of video and video delivery. Continue »
By Om Malik
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009 |
8:12 AM PT |
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By Om Malik
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009 |
8:06 PM PT |
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Twitter, the San Francisco-based micro-messaging startup, recently raised about $98 million dollars from T. Rowe Price, Insight Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, valuing the company at a whopping $1.1 billion. NeXt Up Research, the firm founded by veteran financial analyst Michael Moe, disagrees with that post-money valuation, and instead values Twitter at about $526-$674 million. NeXt Up’s research report is offered to users of SharesPost, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based private online exchange that allows the sale of shares of private companies to willing buyers. Most of their concern is coming from the lack of revenues and worries that any diversification into money-making services could alienate the Twitter user base. According to the report, Twitter has over 70 million users. Continue »
By Om Malik
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009 |
5:14 PM PT |
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Meg Whitman, former chief executive officer of eBay, defended her decision to buy Skype in a radio interview with KTKZ’s Capitol Hour featuring Eric Hogue. Whitman is running for the office of the Governor of California on a Republican ticket, and is currently leading in the Republican primaries. Here is what she had to say on the show.
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By Om Malik
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009 |
2:58 PM PT |
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Logitech, a Swiss maker of peripherals for computers and digital consumer devices, is buying 6-year-old Austin, Texas-based video conferencing device maker LifeSize Communications for $405 million in cash. LifeSize has raised $80 million in funding from Norwest, Austin Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Pinnacle Ventures. It makes high-definition video conferencing systems that use standard broadband connections and IP technologies to connect distributed offices and locations. The deal will put Logitech in direct competition with Cisco Systems in the hotly contested video conferencing equipment market. Continue »
By Om Malik
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Monday, November 9, 2009 |
3:56 PM PT |
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Social games — a subset of the gaming industry that offers simple games that run across various social networks — today received what is the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from Electronic Arts, the $4.2 billion-a-year gaming giant. EA today snapped up Playfish, a London-based company which is well-known for social gaming titles such as Restaurant City and Pet Society, for $400 million. Here is my take on the winners and losers in this deal, including its ramifications for the overall industry. Continue »
By Om Malik
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Monday, November 9, 2009 |
3:11 PM PT |
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Over the past three years, the Internet has become a major secondary distribution platform for free-to-air broadcast programming. Whether through network programmers’ own sites, such as ABC.com, or through aggregators like Hulu and TV.com, ad-supported broadcast programming today is generally available online shortly after its initial airing at no cost to the user. However, programming such as ESPN, TNT and the Discovery Channel, which originates on pay-TV platforms (i.e. cable, satellite and telco TV services) has been a different story. Read more over on GigaOM Pro, our subscription only research service. (Subscription required and costs $79 a year.)
By Om Malik
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Monday, November 9, 2009 |
10:27 AM PT |
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Gizmo5 founder Michael Robertson
Google is rumored
to have bought Gizmo5, provider of a SIP-based service, for an undisclosed amount of money, according to a report on TechCrunch. If true, the deal would add another arrow to Google’s quiver as it takes on incumbents Microsoft and Cisco Systems in the hotly contested collaboration market. While it does have Google Voice, the search engine giant lacks a truly enterprise-quality VoIP offering.
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By Om Malik
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Monday, November 9, 2009 |
9:27 AM PT |
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Rupert Murdoch, founder and head honcho of News Corp., the largest media company in the world, wants to block access to his content and set up pay walls around it. News Corp. already does it at The Wall Street Journal.
“The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it — steal our stories, we say they steal our stories — they just take them,” Murdoch says in an interview with David Speers of Sky News Australia, which is one-third owned by News Corp. “That’s Google, that’s Microsoft, that’s Ask.com, a whole lot of people…They shouldn’t have had it free all the time, and I think we’ve been asleep.”
The move is aimed at Google, as outlined in this conversation: