Video is becoming more of a casual form of communication, with people leaving video chat services like OoVoo on in the background for hours on end. Video sharing is becoming more immediate with more live broadcasting of your life. Read More »
Bio:Ryan has covered personal technology and wireless for the San Francisco Chronicle before joining GigaOM. He is based in New York and covers a number of topics including mobile development, app economies and East Coast start-ups.
Latest Tweets
- Here's my weekend think piece: Ambient video and the changing face of communication http://t.co/erOg2191 #gom
- I'm at The Jersey Shore (Ortley Beach, New Jersey) http://t.co/C9Jy0DXf
- @the_FJP You caught me. Last time i do that at a conf. @oryankim has a moment of self-reflection at paidContent 2012 #pc2012 #mythology
My Focus
Mobile apps
Gaming
Mobile payments
Personal technology
Recent Posts
PayPal has made headlines about the business arrangements it’s secured for its in-store payment system. But the consumer strategy will be just as important. PayPal told me the marketing campaign for consumers began in the last week and will ramp up as PayPal adds more retailers. Read More »
Groupon is reportedly testing out its own Square-like mobile payment service. It’s a sign that local deals and loyalty providers are increasingly looking at adding mobile payments services to help build out their tool set for merchants and retailers. Read More »
PayPal unveiled 15 national retail partners that will support its in-store payment system, which is set to compete against the likes of credit cards and other emerging payment tools. It also launched a new mid-market payment tool for medium-sized businesses with multiple locations. Read More »
PayPal’s drive to become a major player for in-store payments is getting a huge push thanks to new partnerships with VeriFone, the top point-of-sale terminal maker and Equinox Payments, the No. 3 terminal maker. The deals now give PayPal access 40 million terminals worldwide. Read More »
With each passing elections season, we’re seeing more how social media is changing the political news coverage business. It’s not just sped up the news cycle, but it’s helped kill it, said Josh Marshall, editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com, at paidContent2012. Read More »
The pitched war between content owners and technology companies doesn’t have to persist if media companies would acknowledge and adapt to the new realities of digital distribution, famed venture capitalist Fred Wilson told attendees at paidContent 2012. Read More »
More Must Reads
Qwiki, the start-up known for creating automated multimedia presentations, is launching a new media format that allows publishers, bloggers, web personalities and others to create 60-second video stories that are embedded with other videos, images, maps and links. ABC News is one of the first partners. Read More »
Sense Networks believes it’s got a way to make location-based ads effective by looking not only at place, but matching it to the unique behavioral profile of users. The company is now putting its know how to use with two new products that are debuting Wednesday. … Read More »
While video lovers have gotten more social services that highlight interesting clips, it’s still hard to construct a more comprehensive look at video news. Newslook is trying to fill that gap with an iPad app that allows users to construct channels of their favorite news subjects. Read More »
Internet access is limited by service providers, who act as gatekeepers to the treasures of connectivity. But could crowdsourcing connectivity be the answer to the problem for mobile users? That’s the question startup Open Garden is looking to answer. Read More »
Mirth and Cardify are two of the latest start-ups that are building loyalty programs that tie into credit and debit card accounts. That’s a growing opportunity thanks to enablers like CardSpring but it also means more competition. Read More »
SnipSnap, a new Philadephia start-up, is giving people a way to take a picture of a printed coupon with an iPhone app and display it at check-out. The app help consumer unlock a lot of the value in printed coupons that go to waste over time. Read More »
Geoloqi, a platform for location services, launched in February, offering developers an simple and battery-efficient way to implement background location tracking and geo-fencing. Now, the company is teaming up with Appcelerator, who will make a Geoloqi module available for its Titanium platform. Read More »
Oovoo, the video conferencing service popular with the young set, is helping Facebook get some Google Hangout-like coolness with a new Facebook app that offers 12-person video chats. The Facebook app is part of an overhaul for Oovoo’s product line-up including a redesigned iPad app. Read More »
American Express is teaming with Zynga on a reward program that will link offline spending on its Serve pre-paid cards to in-game rewards in Farmville. It’s an ambitious attempt at boosting the reach of AmEx’s Serve product and tying real-world spending to online virtual rewards. Read More »
Google is offering 22,000 square feet of free space in its New York headquarters to help CornellNYC Tech university get underway. The space will allow CornellNYC Tech to begin offering courses this fall as opposed to waiting for the completion of its school on Roosevelt Island. Read More »
AnchorFree, maker of the Hotspot Shield consumer virtual private network, has raised $52 million in a Series C financing from Goldman Sachs. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has raised $63 million in total since launching in 2005. Read More »
Google has finally received approval from China to complete its purchase of Motorola Mobility, Google said Saturday. That paves the way for Google to integrate Motorola, though it remains to be seen exactly how it wants to use the phone maker. Read More »
Foursquare is getting its revenue story in order and announced it has hired Steven Rosenblatt, the former director of advertising sales and strategy at Apple’s iAd. Rosenblatt will serve as Foursquare’s chief revenue officer and will lead the company’s new ad products coming out this summer. Read More »
Howcast, a New York producer of quality how-to videos, has gotten to 1 billion videos streamed since launching in 2008. The company has leaned heavily on data to inform all its decisions and ensure that its collection of 15,000 videos can keep producing revenue. Read More »
ISwifter is showing how it can create a full-fledged Facebook app that also includes Flash gaming. TheWorx iPad app, a Facebook application that is set to go live next month, will provide users with access to status updates, their news feed and photos and also gaming … Read More »
While VeriFone’s Square rival SAIL looks nothing like Square’s credit-card-swiping dongle, the company veered into flat-out imitation with its legal user agreement, which lifted much of its language directly from Square’s merchant user agreement. Read More »
Appsfire is introducing App Scores, a new way of pinning an iPhone app’s worth to a simple number. The automated system works takes into account dozens of signals and comes up with a number from 1-100 that should help inform people’s download decisions Read More »
Music app maker Smule has been one of the longest Android hold-outs, often citing the way Android devices handle audio as a reason it hasn’t embraced the mobile platform. But the company is finally showing Android some love with the release of Songify. Read More »
Engagio, a social inbox that organizes people’s online conversations, is take a big step toward becoming a social network of its own. The Toronto-based start-up is rolling out a handful of new features including the ability to follow the conversations of other users. Read More »
Social marketing platform operator Buddy Media is rolling out a bunch of updates to its suite of tools including a unified social data API, the ability to track conversions and campaigns across their entire social media efforts, and a new mobile content development platform. Read More »
American Express has been using social channels such as Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter to deliver offers that can be synced to a user’s card account. But up until now, there wasn’t one place to find and get recommendations on all those offers. Read More »
New challenges for Square brought by PayPal Here and VeriFone’s SAIL platform show how competitors are trying to target Square and where the upstart may be vulnerable. What does Square need to do to stay in the game?
After bootstrapping itself for more than five years, New York City-based Behance, an online destination for creative galleries and portfolios, has finally turned to outside funding, securing a $6.5 million investment from Union Square Ventures and a host of investors including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Read More »
PayPal’s years of experience in online payments is one of its biggest assets as it chases mobile and in-store transactions. But the by product of all that experience — mounds of data — could be an even bigger weapon. PayPal’s chief scientist Mok Oh explains the … Read More »
In an attempt to move beyond being a provider of deals, Groupon is launching a loyalty program for U.S. consumers and merchants, part of a bigger effort to become the “operating system for local commerce.” Groupon Rewards gives merchants a way to track and recognize loyalty. Read More »
A team ex-AdMob and Google scientists are launching Drawbridge, which allows advertisers to target consumers across desktop and mobile. The company is coming out of stealth mode with $6.5 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital Read More »
Isis, the mobile payment joint venture of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, has added American Express cards to its wallet. The news helps build more momentum for the Isis payment platform, which now has a broad array of payment cards that will work inside the mobile wallet. … Read More »
Jumio, an online payment and image recognition company from Jajah founder Daniel Mattes, has pulled in a strategic $3.3 million investment from Citi Ventures, just a couple months after raising a $25 million round from Andreessen Horowitz. Read More »
Former Huffington Post CTO Paul Berry is leading a HuffPo reunion at SoHo Tech Labs, an incubator that draw support from half a dozen former fellow execs. The team is trying to apply the best practices of the Huffington Post to help create successful start-ups. Read More »
Saygent is bringing its voice sentiment analysis software to Ingenico’s mobile point of sale devices, giving retailers and merchants a way to solicit almost instant voice feedback. For Saygent, this is the first time it’s moving into retail stores with its technology. Read More »
Foursquare plans to offer personalized coupons through a redesigned app in July, part of a larger effort to start making money through the location-based social network. The Wall Street Journal reported that Foursquare will allow merchants to pay for special placement of personalized local offers. Read More »
PayPal is forming a joint venture with Softbank Corp. to help launch its small business mobile payment product PayPal Here in Japan. The joint venture, called PayPal Japan, will help PayPal target PayPal’s $1.7 trillion dollar retail market, which is made up of mostly small businesses. … Read More »
While credit card rival MasterCard announced its own digital wallet platform, Visa has some news of its own. It’s launching the first beta of its wallet service V.me with online retailer Buy.com as it prepares to go public with the its payment product. Read More »
No one has really emerged as a leader in helping local businesses retire their old punch cards. Andreessen Horowitz is laying down a $10 million bet on Chicago-based Belly, which launched last year as a provider of customized loyalty programs for small and medium sized business. Read More »
MasterCard is expanding its mobile payment service PayPass into a larger platform called PayPass Wallet Services that will enable PayPal-like online payments and will include APIs for developers to integrate their payment apps and services with PayPass. Read More »
Payment provider VeriFone is doubling down on the small and medium sized market with a new payment open platform called SAIL that will look to give merchants a more flexible tool for conducting transactions. SAIL also puts more big name pressure on Square. Read More »
Sahil Lavingia, a 19-year-old app designer behind Pinterest and Turntable.fm, has built a simple service called Gumroad that lets anyone monetize a link without having to set up their own store. The company announced it has raised $7 million three months after launching. Read More »
Verizon Wireless is partnering with Color to highlight the power of its 4G network. The carrier will offer its customers the chance to use an enhanced version of Color, which will enable live video streaming with audio and double the existing frame rate. Read More »
Most Commented
Popular Now
Latest News
- The incredible story of Indie Game: The Movie
- Traversing the Valley
- How many Apple IDs should your family have?
- Maybe it’s time to rethink how we fund broadband
- Ambient video and the changing face of communication
- 7 stories to read this weekend
- With new U.S. presence, Shopcade expands its social commerce business model
