There are enough signs that Apple’s iPhone, the fast-growing mobile device from the Cupertino-based consumer electronics and computing giant, will give the still-emerging business of mobile video a turbo boost. Here’s why: Continue Reading
The casual games space keeps getting more interesting. Digital media company RealNetworks said today that revenue from its games division rose 33 percent in the first quarter, to $31.8 million; the company also announced it will spin off its games properties, which primarily consists of cellphone titles and its RealArcade casual game site, into a separate company (see CEO Rob Glaser’s appearance on the GigaOM Show last summer). “[T]he spin off will create a pure-play casual games business with increased transparency,” CFO Michael Eggers told MarketWatch, “[and that will] result in lower complexity in understanding and tracking RealNetworks’ performance.”
If the Alexa rankings are any indication, the new company will have a long way to go before they catch up with the likes of Electronic Arts’ (ERTS) Pogo.com. The real question, however, is how does this relate to RealNetworks’ stated intent to buy Scrabulous?
My favorite post of the day comes from Mathew Ingram, who gives a really fun spin on the news that SlideShare raised $3 million in VC funding, reminding me that this is what blogging is all about.
New York-based cloud computing startup 10gen launched today with backing from CEO Kevin Ryan’s startup network, Alleycorp. It makes sense, since with several ventures already under his belt, Ryan probably has enough customers to both justify the buildout and break even right away. And the founders know scaling, having built out ad network DoubleClick.
But is it always a good idea to build your own cloud when you get big enough to do so?
Yesterday, for example, I had a great chat with Lana Holmes, a Bay area startup maven, about product management and how to focus on doing the one thing that matters to your company. “The example I use is Amazon,” she said. “They just focused on selling books. And look at them now.”
At their root, Amazon’s EC2 and S3 offerings are the result of excess capacity from sales. The offerings have paved the way for an online world in which compute power is a commodity. The company has subsequently built, on top of those offerings, a layer of billing, services and support for them.
HP Labs is asking academic and research institutions for research proposals that focus on cloud computing, sustainable IT, transferring data seamlessly across a variety of media, dealing with the information explosion and dynamic computing. The computer company will offer $50,000 or $75,000 for selected proposals — primarily to pay a graduate student to help. While it’s nice to get a graduate student, an academic who really finds compelling solutions to these infrastructure problems might be able to get more money out of a VC searching for the next hot startup.
MySpace today launched announced a data availability initiative that will allow users to opt in to sharing their MySpace information on a variety of partner sites. While not exactly complete data portability (the social networking company also said it was joining the Data Portability Project), it’s a start.
MySpace is launching its data availability efforts with Yahoo, eBay, Twitter and Photobucket some time within the next several weeks. Steve Pearman, SVP of product strategy at MySpace, says other partners will be able to join “in a few weeks,” after agreeing to some basic terms and conditions aimed at preventing user data from being abused. I asked if someone could port their MySpace info onto their Facebook page if Facebook asked to join, to which Pearman responded by saying he wouldn’t want to tell anyone where they could or could not port their data. Continue Reading
Mobilkom austria recently made the fastest data call with a mobile device using the pioneering Internet High Speed Packet Access (I-HSPA) technology from Nokia Siemens Networks. Stelera Wireless, a small U.S. operator, launched data services in rural Texas using this technology as well.
During the trial, the data transmission downlink speed reached 10.1 Mbps. I-HSPA will be capable of data transmission rates over 10.1 Mbps, NSN claims. The I-HSPA functionality is designed for heavy data and rich multimedia usage over the wireless network. I-HSPA connects 3G base stations directly to the Internet, enables cost-efficient scaling of the network, works with all HSPA devices and improves end user experience by reducing latency. I-HSPA flat network architecture also enables smooth migration to LTE.
After a really rough 2007, Vonage (VG), the independent voice-over-IP service provider, seems to be having a better 2008. This morning the company reported its first-quarter 2008 financial results, and well, things are not bad. Not spectacular, but not bad, either.
More importantly, the company announced plans to sell Covad DSL services, rebranded as Vonage Broadband and tightly coupled with its VoIP service. Continue Reading
