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Former Twitter CEO Evan Williams

With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and countless other options, blogging isn’t quite what it used to be. I wanted to know what the future of blogging is so I emailed Twitter’s Evan Williams. Here are some of the things he told me. Read More »

Everyone’s been trying to understand whether the newly-launched Google+ can really challenge Facebook for the Web’s social crown. So what can you learn when take one of the crucial moments in anyone’s life and compare the social networking contenders head-to-head? I decided to find out. Read More »

 
 

On this new Alive Web, what we miss doesn’t matter. What matters is the connection and the interactions. And Google Hangouts, one of the features in Google+, is the killer app of the Alive Web. Read More »

GigaOM conducted a survey over the Fourth of July weekend of GigaOM readers regarding Google+’s chances for success, its competitive weapons and its likely impact on the competitive social media environment. Here’s a snippet of what we discovered about the prospects for Google’s latest social venture. Read More »

A report shows that by 2018, the traditional phone system is going to be reaching less than 6 percent of U.S. residents. It’s perhaps time to rethink the very notion of what a phone is and what defines the classic phone network. Read More »

Facebook’s Skype integration involved a lot of slimming down of Skype’s native client and making it work in a browser, creating the back-end integration between Facebook and Skype and scaling up Skype’s network to handle the expected flood of traffic. Read More »

Google said Android is a $1 billion business. Microsoft, with its barrage of patent licensing agreements with Android manufacturers, could be on its way to making $1 billion off Android if its licensing deals pan out. That could make Android way more lucrative than WP7. Read More »

Facebook’s blocking of a Chrome extension that allowed users to export their friends’ email addresses has reignited a debate over who should control that kind of data — should you have the right to export it, or is Facebook right to prevent you from doing so? Read More »

The new Google+ social product includes a group chat application named “Huddle.” At least one company is particularly nonplussed with the app: Huddle, a London-based startup that provides cloud-based communication software. But this is not the first time Google has stepped on Huddle’s brand name turf. Read More »

An Android developer is pulling its game app from the Amazon Appstore for Android, calling it a “disaster” because of a number of shortcomings. It’s the complaint of one developer, but it highlights some of the challenges in building a mature market for apps. Read More »

A Wall Street Journal article argues that the proliferation of “like” buttons, retweets and other online voting encourages conformity in online behavior, and that we don’t reveal our “true selves” online because we are afraid of being voted down by the crowd. But is this true? Read More »

It looks like that “awesome” announcement next week by Facebook won’t be about an iPad app or an HTML5 platform. TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook will announce next week that it will be partnering with Skype to bring video chat to its users. Read More »

More Must Reads

This week Google launched their new social offering, Google+, and we’d like to hear your views on it. While many of you haven’t gotten your invites yet, we still think it’s worth asking — invite or not — what you think Google’s chances are. Read More »

A consortium led by Apple, Research In Motion and Microsoft has bought up Nortel’s 6,000 patents for $4.5 billion in an auction that could lead to further trouble for Google, who was outbid for the trove of intellectual property. Read More »

Skype just announced that video chat is finally coming to Android devices, though only to a few so far. The feature is part of a big update for the Android app that includes a UI redesign that adds usability to the app. Read More »

This week’s news from Google was the most exciting thing I’ve heard from the company in years. After languishing with social and its utter failures with both Google Wave and Google Buzz, the company is putting an intriguing product to market: a social network. Read More »

Google’s new social network offers a nice collection of features and a great design, but none of these things is enough to create a social network that people want to keep using — that requires a critical mass of users, and Facebook is leading that particular … Read More »

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is stepping away from the site’s day-to-day operations. While many folks in the industry have seen this coming for months, the news has still raised eyebrows. But Stone is not the first person to step away from a company he helped start. Read More »

Another month, another summit in Paris to discuss the future of the Internet — and another debate that ends up in the same old arguments about copyright infringement and law enforcement. Are we doomed to keep repeating our mistakes, or can we ever move on? Read More »

Apple’s iPhone debuted four years ago today. The phone has altered the smartphone landscape and ushered in the modern era of intelligent, connected devices. And it’s forced the industry to react. Here’s a look at the effect the iPhone has had. Read More »

One thing is clear: Investors love Square, the payments company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, the co-creator of Twitter. The veteran venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is leading the $100 million investment in the company that is said to be valued at $1 … Read More »

Google launched its much awaited and highly anticipated social networking platform today. Dubbed Google+, the service may take its cue from social networking giant Facebook, but in reality it is about the harsh reality of Google saving and enhancing its core franchise — Google Search. Read More »

Facebook has come under fire for implementing an anti-spam system that mistakenly shut off a number of legitimate third-party applications. For all the impressive growth Facebook has displayed, it looks like the company still has a ways to go when it comes to managing public perception. Read More »

ViVOtech, an end-to-end provider of near field communication hardware and software, has raised $24 million in a Series C round of funding. The funding highlights the growing momentum behind NFC, which is finally coming together as a rising mobile payment and communications platform. Read More »

Google says it has received a letter from the FTC about an investigation, but maintains in a blog post that it’s just trying to serve users the best way it knows how. Will this Little Orphan Annie act fly with the feds? Unlikely. Read More »

GetJar has beat out budding rival Amazon in snagging the Android exclusive on Cut the Rope, a previous iOS game with Angry Birds–like appeal. The game illustrates the growing competition between the 2 third-party Android app stores as they compete for developers and consumers. Read More »

The FTC is said to be close to opening an official antitrust inquiry into Google, which would put the search giant right where Microsoft was in the late 1990s — and even if it ultimately wins, the fight could have long-term effects on its ability to … Read More »

The Android smartphone onslaught may have hit its peak, at least in the U.S., according to an analyst who thinks that the expanded rollout of the iPhone to other carriers will check the rise of Google’s OS. Cheaper iPhones will also help eat into Android’s lead. … Read More »

It looks like rumors of display advertising’s death were greatly exaggerated. Nearly all the tech industry’s largest players are expected to report growth in their display ad businesses for 2011, with Facebook leading the pack. Why are display and banner ads on the upswing? Read More »

Pandora finally went public last week, and with its focus on radio, the company has a better chance for mass adoption than most other digital music services. While it may be losing money now, here are a few steps it could take to raise revenues. Read More »

Twitter has filled out its European team with another two executive positions based in London, but its focus on sales and marketing prompts the question: can foreign markets be anything more than just another chance to score big advertising dollars? Read More »

Now that modern web browsers can make greater use of more fonts, dozens of companies are springing up to service growing demand. But turning print typefaces into web fonts is no easy task, as one of the industry’s leading figures explained at the Ampersand conference. Read More »

As millions of consumers gained access to the Internet, new market opportunities emerged. But today, content is so heavy, and networks so overburdened, that more efficient use of the network is a critical behavior. This provides a new market opportunity for content optimization and CDNs. Read More »

E-book lending is on the rise, thanks to the continued growth of the e-book market and programs from online retail giants like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Two distinct business models have emerged to serve the ever-expanding number of users and address challenges that arise. Read More »

With patent lawsuits flying around the mobile business like never before, it’s easy to get lost in exciting headlines about billion dollar settlements. But the reality is that the industry is playing a game of mutually assured destruction that could strangle the world’s most exciting technologies. Read More »

The web may have revolutionized video and audio, but the humble still image hasn’t altered much over the years. That could change thanks to Finland’s Thinglink, which has unveiled the latest part of its plan to turn photographs into a true multimedia platform. Read More »

Some media outlets are hoping that launching iPad subscriptions and paywalls will supplement the meager revenue they get from traditional online banner advertising, but AOL’s Patch and Hearst Magazines’ digital media are experimenting with some more innovative ways of monetizing their content as well. Read More »

The power balance between desktop computers and mobile devices has finally shifted. Google debuted improvements to its web search that show an increased prioritization of the mobile experience. Two of the three features make desktop search like mobile and the other is made for mobile. Read More »

After nearly two years of accusations over patent infringement, Nokia and Apple have signed a peace accord. But rather than end the rash of patent lawsuits across the mobile industry, the deal could send the Finnish company on the warpath. Read More »

Though they’re still emerging, location-based services are expected to bring in $10 billion in revenue from consumers and advertisers by 2016, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. The biggest chunk, just over 50 percent, will come from location-based search advertising. Read More »

Appsfire and others have helped tackle the issue of app discovery by bringing new social and sharing tools to bear on the task. Now, Zwapp, a new start-up is trying to go one step further by building essentially a social network around app discovery. Read More »

Another week, another Facebook privacy firestorm. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based social networking giant has come under fire for potentially violating user privacy by turning on facial recognition technology worldwide. Here’s a look at some of the things people around the web are saying about the issue. Read More »

While Android Market is growing fast, it has an attrition rate that is twice as high as Apple’s App Store. That explains why, contrary to previous reports, Android Market is not on pace to overtake Apple’s App Store in overall apps. Read More »

Steve Rubel, a VP of digital strategy at Edelman, recently moved his blog to Tumblr and deleted all of his old posts. He says Google is paying more attention to social signals now, and so a social platform is more important than just having a blog. Read More »

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