There are reports the giant social network is taking another run at building a dedicated “Facebook phone.” But is this a clever strategic gamble on the future or an expensive bet that takes the company beyond its core competencies and is doomed to fail? Read More »
What if Facebook is nothing more than a digital drug dealer and we’re all just junkies? As we head toward a future where technology is not just something we do, but a part of our biology, the answer to that question might take on grave importance. Read More »
The hype surrounding Facebook has rapidly turned sour since the company went public in a media frenzy last Friday. 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 »
Not aggressively creating a social strategy years ago with a site like Facebook was one of the biggest mistakes of my career, says Daniel Rabinovich, CTO of Latin American e-commerce pioneer MercadoLibre, in a talk with the Geeks on a Plane group, in Buenos Aires last … Read More »
At the close of its second day of trading in the public markets, the Wall Street consensus is that Facebook’s IPO was a flop. But it’s actually par for the course to see Wall Street and the tech media hype something and then tear it … Read More »
Speaking to Boston University’s graduating class of 2012 on Sunday afternoon, Google’s Eric Schmidt took some veiled potshots at archrival and newly public Facebook. Schmidt didn’t drop any F-bombs, but everyone got the message. Read More »
Pakistan has blocked Twitter because the microblogging site has refused to block potentially offensive images of the Prophet Mohammed. Facebook apparently has agreed to take down the offending images while Twitter has not, according to a Packistani official quoted by the Associated Press. Read More »
As part of paidContent 2012: At The Crossroads on May 23 in New York, I’ll be talking with venture capitalist Fred Wilson about the future of media and with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Vivian Schiller of NBC News about real-time politics. Read More »
Lawyers tried to ruin Mark Zuckerberg’s big day with a sprawling lawsuit that portrays the Facebook founder as a rogue hacker, and accuses the company of tracking users on their computers and iPhones. We have a plain english Q&A. Read More »
Once protected by the hype bubble, Facebook is getting a hard lesson in the realities of the public markets. Despite the massive build-up to its IPO today, the market response has been more tepid than expected. Read More »
Newly public Facebook says it is buying Karma, a mobile social gifting app. The news was released via Karma’s blog. The deal terms were not announced. Facebook plans to keep the service alive. A Facebook spokesperson says it is an acquisition & not an acquhire. Read More »
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Feeling overwhelmed with all the Facebook chatter? Is all this talk of the IPO making you yearn for the weekend already? Well, we are going to make life a little easier for you and find you best stuff for you to read. Keep checking often. Read More »
With the rise of social platforms and emergence of new mobile and connected devices, we have entered the post-search world and companies are finding ways to organize information around “knowledge” and “interests.” Today, Twitter is introducing a way to follow others based on interests. Read More »
Facebook has been criticized recently for its lackluster performance as an advertising platform, but the giant social network has other ways of monetizing its vast user base that could have even more growth potential — including Facebook Credits. Could it become a networked version of PayPal? Read More »
Following the jaw-dropping $50 million funding of Quora, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based knowledge community, folks from New York-based research firm, CB Insights crunched some data and came up with these following stats about the Facebook mafia – aka people who left Facebook to start their own … 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 »
Facebook’s advertising woes, including the highly publicized departure of General Motors, reinforce the fact that while Facebook may function like a social network, on the business side it looks almost exactly like a media company — and that is going to be a major challenge. Read More »
With Facebook’s IPO scheduled for later this week, we decided to poll GigaOM readers and other technology watchers on the company’s longer-term prospects. So put the immediate future out of your mind, and think about how Facebook might evolve in the next 2 to 5 years. 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 »
The appointment of Ross Levinsohn as CEO is a sign Yahoo wants to focus on media as the core of its rebirth, but does the company have what it takes to succeed as a new-media entity? There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Read More »
More than nine million apps and services use Facebook Connect, the Open Graph developer platform, which gives company powers to predict the future. It can turn on the traffic spigot for some apps such as Socialcam. But it can turn off the spigot, equally fast. Read More »
What Billy Beane is to baseball, Dave McClure wants to be technology startups. And like Beane, he is willing to go anywhere in the world to find a slight edge to beat his richer, bigger and fancier rivals on Sand Hill Road. Read More »
If Facebook really is overvalued leading up to its IPO, privacy might be the underlying cause of the company’s missed expectations. As it turns out, pleasing both investors and users isn’t easy for a company that relies heavily on advertising and personal data. Read More »
I had no idea that Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie would be such a big deal. I bet you even he didn’t think it would be such a big deal. The hoodie, by now is as much part of Zuckerberg’s persona as black turtleneck was for Steve Jobs. … Read More »
A former Justice lawyer and antitrust expert says Facebook’s purchase of photo-sharing site Instagram will take between 4 months and one year to clear regulatory hurdles. In the meantime, the deal is effectively on hold. Read More »
The real opportunity is when we are able to marry the physical and online worlds seamlessly. Slowly and surely we are seeing signs of that marriage happen around us. New Zealand clothing maker Icebreaker and Brazilian retailer C&A are taking the lead in building the bridge. … Read More »
Microsoft’s top search guy took to the Web Thursday to show off a refreshed interface for Microsoft’s Bing search engine, that he said better incorporates the user’s social media contacts in a new sidebar which brings in their Facebook and Twitter contacts input. Read More »
Instead of focusing on Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie, investors and analysts should pay more attention to what Facebook flagged in its latest securities filing: that its mobile business is underperforming on the ad-revenue front and it doesn’t really know whether it can fix it. Read More »
Is the web run by large corporations, or is it powered primarily by peer-to-peer networks? That’s the question behind one of the longest-running wagers of the modern web era — a six-year-old bet between author and web sceptic Nick Carr and Harvard professor Yochai Benkler. Read More »
Facebook says it is launching an app store that will allow people to get access to social apps on the network, without much heavy lifting. The company made the announcement in a blog post today. The company is hoping that the new app store will make … Read More »
Brands may put plenty of time and money behind the content they share on social networks, but only a small percentage of their intended audience may actually ever see it. New York-based startup Adaptly believes it has a solution. Read More »
Apparently Pinterest users drop cash, then run. Jewelry and accessories website Boticca.com compared 50,000 shoppers referred from Pinterest to 50,000 shoppers referred from Facebook and says the Pinterest users spend way more money — $180 vs. $85 — but less time browsing the site. Read More »
The recent dramatic declines in users of some Facebook social-reading apps from newspapers like the Washington Post reinforces a lesson that media companies need to keep in mind at all times — namely, that Facebook is the information gatekeeper now, and you are just a provider. Read More »
The investment team at the Kauffman Foundation believes the venture capital industry is broken and they — or rather investors in VC funds — are partially to blame. The report condemns venture firms for being to big, not delivering returns and not adjusting to the times. Read More »
Facebook confirmed on Friday night that it had purchased Glancee, a mobile app that uses your location and Facebook log in to connect you with like-minded individuals in real life. It’s pre-IPO shopping spree in the mobile arena continues. Read More »
Facebook set out more details about its long-awaited IPO in a new filing that reveals that an initial share of the company’s stock will sell for between $28 and $36. Read More »
Google is doing everything it can to integrate the Google+ social network into all of its properties, so that it can become a “social layer” across the entire company. But that same behavior is irritating users like actor — and prominent Google+ user — Wil Wheaton. Read More »
As it gets closer to what could be a $100 billion stock offering, Facebook faces increasing pressure to prove it is a powerful advertising platform. But some advertisers still appear to be skeptical about how much value they are getting from the giant social network. Read More »
When Instagram launched its Android app in early April, we said that it would only be a couple of weeks before the company crossed the 50 million mark. Well, it took three weeks (interrupted by its $1 billion dollar acquisition by Facebook) to cross that milestone. Read More »
Microsoft”s $300 million investment in Barnes & Noble’s Nook business gives it a piece of an ebook reader also-ran. But this is far from the first time Microsoft enlisted a B list ally to attack a recalcitrant market. Read More »
With deals like Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of the relatively tiny startup Instagram, some argue we are in another tech-stock bubble. But others in the venture industry say that while there is some froth in parts of the startup ecosystem, there are few signs of 1990s-style … Read More »
Critics say that a bill called CISPA, which has been passed by the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate, is just as bad as SOPA — but others, including Facebook, support the legislation. Should you be concerned about it? Read More »
Facebook’s $1 billion blockbuster deal for Instagram may have been motivated by a desire to keep Instagram out of Twitter’s hands. Twitter reportedly offered hundreds of million dollars for Instagram, which prompted Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to offer a better deal. Read More »
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