Today’s launch event for Airtime, the Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning social video chat service, was a good representation of the product it was showcasing: the star-studded event was not well planned and showy without enough depth. Airtime can still succeed but it needs more substance. Read more »
Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker have finally taken the wraps off of Airtime, their social video chat service that is part Skype, part Chatroulette, part SocialCam with Facebook as the layer for matching users by their interests. Read more »
Skobbler until now has been known as the maker of the popular GPS Navigation 2 app, which is built using the crowdsourced OpenStreetMap platform. But the company sees a much bigger opportunity in turning its experience with OSM into a tool for other developers. Read more »
Intuit is taking a key step in its competition with Square and other payment rivals by integrating QuickBooks Point of Sale product with its GoPayment mobile payment product. That means that customers will have an easy way to combine a traditional POS experience with mobile payments. Read more »
A week after after reports surfaced about Salesforce buying social marketing platform Buddy Media, the customer relationship management software company made the transaction official. Salesforce announced it has made its largest buy ever, paying $689 million for Buddy Media. Read more »
Hardeep Walia, former GM of enterprise services at Microsoft was sitting around a few years ago with his friend Tariq Hilaly, a hedge fund analyst, batting around interesting investment ideas. But Walia realized that while he had a lot of thoughts about interesting trends such as cloud […] Read more »
While Apple has welcomed Twitter into iOS, the biggest social network of them all has not been integrated into Apple’s mobile operating system. But it looks like that’s about to change. Apple is reportedly set to announce Facebook integration for iOS 6, said TechCrunch. Read more »
Square, the breakout mobile payment hit, faces more competition from deep-pocketed competitors. But the company is content to craft its own commerce tools without opening up an API or striking big partnerships. Square’s COO Keith Rabois explains how it will win by going solo. Read more »
Google is transforming its formerly free Google Product Search listings into Google Shopping, a new vertical that will only be stocked with products that companies have paid to place there. That’s a big change for Google, which has never shifted an originally free product to all-paid. Read more »
Rebtel, which calls itself the biggest mobile VoIP company after Skype, is expanding its emphasis on mobile with the launch of its first iPad app. The company is looking to ride the growth of tablets and get even more people on to its cost calling service. Read more »
Banjo has been one of the lone successes in the geo-social discovery app market and is now up to 1.5 million downloads since launching last July. I sat down with founder Damien Patton to talk about their strategy. Read more »
After a recent story highlighted how Kickstarter made it harder to find failed projects, Kickstarter’s co-founder Yancey Strickler explains. It’s about showcasing current projects that can be funded. Also, creators were asking for their projects to get de-indexed from web searches because they ranked high. Read more »
EBay’s CEO John Donahoe has called 2012 a year of testing for PayPal’s in-store payments as it gears up for a big push next year. The company is making good on that with the launch of its first barcode-based payments in the UK at four retailers. Read more »
While skeptics still scoff at the term gamification, Badgeville keeps gaining the trust of big companies and investors, who believe in its power. Badgeville announced Wednesday it raised $25 million led by Interwest Partners, bringing its total funding to $40 million to date. Read more »
Salesforce is reportedly close to buying social media marketing platform Buddy Media for $800 million. If true, it shows how Salesforce is adapting to the changing face of customer relationship management, which is increasingly about managing branding, social media interactions and marketing for customers. Read more »
Bitly is building out its service with an eye toward doing more than just shortening links. With a major redesign of its website rolled out Tuesday and its first iPhone app the service is making it easier to save, share and organize content. Read more »
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 »
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 at paidContent »
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 at paidContent »
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 via an App Hub. 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 »
