The forces that are driving the disruption in traditional book publishing are the same as those affecting other media as well, whether it’s newspapers and magazines or virtually any other publishing-based business. So what can publishers and content companies learn from what is happening to books? Read more »
Thanks to the rating systems in place on such popular websites as Yelp, Amazon and eBay, many people are comfortable evaluating things in absolute terms: a two-star restaurant, a B movie and so on. But new MIT research says this approach is fundamentally flawed. Read more »
The cautionary tales around broadband caps are trickling in and as I read them I wonder if amid these caps the web ecosystem is failing consumers (and maybe teleworkers) when it comes to broadband and cloud services.Here’s how and where things are breaking down. Read more »
The second quarter of 2011 in mobile was all about smartphones, thanks to Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and mobile data consumption ramping up. In the tablet space, the iPad lacked any real competition, though that dominance will surely fade as more and more alternatives — from Cisco, HP and others — emerge. Elsewhere, location-based marketing finally made some headlines, and the groundwork for near-field communications looks to be finally falling into place. Additional companies in this report include Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Research In Motion. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
For once, the biggest news in social media and real-time technologies didn’t come from Facebook. Rather, it was Google that, at the end of the second quarter, introduced an innovative collection of technologies, under the Google+ label. Another big headline was the return of digital music: Pandora filed a successful IPO, and Google and Apple unrolled cloud-based music offerings. Meanwhile, other social networks generated valuable lessons about technology and business strategies. LinkedIn went public, while Myspace was sold. And Apple essentially appointed Twitter its mobile social network infrastructure supplier. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Skype, Groupon, Turntable.fm and Amazon. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The furor over Michael Stonebraker’s criticism of Facebook’s scaling of its MySQL database we covered last Thursday has continued to generate comments on the post itself and on Twitter. Friday, Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels weighed in with a tweet that seemed to accuse Stonebraker of hubris. Read more »
Hulu has made its first pitch to a number of prospective buyers, but Netflix didn’t come to the party: The popular subscription service apparently has no interest in buying its catch-up TV competitor. However, there are plenty of other well-known suitors still in the game. Read more »
The crowded e-book market has just squeezed in room for one more contender, as iriver has created an eInk reader that works with the Google Books store. Priced at $139.99 and available from Target, the iriver Story HD can access 3 million free titles plus various paid content. Read more »
The search for a Hulu buyer continues, as it’s being pitched to a wide range of media and technology companies. While much of the press has been focused on the possibility of a tech giant buying Hulu, an acquisition by Verizon might be its best bet. Read more »
Amazon’s online music storage and streaming service sounds great on Android devices or a desktop browser. Apple devices have been left in the cold until now however: here’s a first look at Amazon’s Cloud Player for the iPad’s browser, which despite a few shortcomings, shows promise. Read more »
Amazon.com is making what appears to be a big investment in analytic database startup ParAccel. ParAccel today announced the close of a Series E round led by Amazon, bringing the company’s total funding to $73 million. The amount of this round is undisclosed. 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 »
The team behind Diapers.com has made a new e-commerce site aimed at the other baby in the American household: the family pet. Quidsi, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, is announcing Wednesday the launch of Wag.com, an e-commerce site selling pet-related products. 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 »
It is important to understand that our work takes place in a system. To be an effective web worker, it is vital that you think about the whole system that you work in, not just the critical dimension of the moment. Read more »
John Green, whose book for young adults hit the number one spot this week before he was even finished writing it, is the latest example of an author whose use of social media and the web has given him tremendous power within the publishing industry. Read more »
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was not bluffing. On Wednesday evening, Amazon followed through with its threat to terminate its associates program in California after Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that will impose state sales taxes on online purchases made by California residents. Read more »
Amazon is taking its sales tax war to one of the biggest arenas of all: California. Amazon warned that it will shut down its Amazon Associates Program for California-based participants if the state passes a proposed bill that would impose new taxes on online retail sales. Read more »
Have you ever used an Etch-A-Sketch with one hand tied behind your back? That’s what it’s been to use the Boxee Box browser, thanks to a hardly usable mouse pointer. An update to the Boxee iOS remote control app now solves these issues. Read more »
Spurred on by lower prices and by growing acceptance among college graduates and Hispanics, e-reader usage is taking off with 12 percent of adults using an e-reader in May, double the rate from November, according to the Pew Internet Project. 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 »
Can’t remember when your favorite shows are on? Don’t know when Hulu will out up the next episode? Then you’re the right target audience for Yidio’s new alerts, which can be customized to ping you via Facebook, Twitter or email every time content becomes available. Read more »
Cloud computing has grown from a pie-in-the-sky vision to a major IT movement over the past few years. As its promise has grown, though, so too has its scope. This report covers six key sectors in cloud computing: commodity Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), enterprise IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud storage and private clouds. We highlight the current state of each and provide informed insights into where they — and cloud computing in general — are headed. Much like any market in a still-evolving state, the infrastructure of the cloud-computing transition is still being built by startups, practitioners and even a big-name company or two. Companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Amazon, Nasuni, Terremark and Heroku. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Hulu has reportedly been approach by a company that wants to buy the video site, and is now evaluating its options. Little is known about the potential buyer, other than some people saying it isn’t Google. Which is why we’re asking: Who wants Hulu? 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 »
Although dedicated e-readers arrived and became popular before the current tablet trend, multi-purpose connected slates are set to outsell single-purpose devices as early as next year. While some will always prefer an eInk reader over a tablet, software and connectivity are powering tablet sales past e-readers. Read more »
Author John Locke has become the new poster boy for self-publishing via Amazon’s Kindle platform by selling more than a million copies of his e-books. Along with fellow author Amanda Hocking, he is leading a wave of self-publishers who are looking to bypass the traditional industry. Read more »
Lot18, the membership-only daily deals website for high end wine, is set to expand into three new product categories: food, epicurean travel, and spirits. Lot18 will start rolling out the new verticals, starting with food, within the next several weeks, CEO Philip James tells me. 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 »
Apple’s iTunes Match has been accused of opening the door for piracy, but that’s probably not something Apple’s concerned about. Match will still make Apple money, and its other digital content marketplace, the App Store, may quickly become the primary breadwinner anyway. Read more »
All sorts of media have been disrupted by the online world: music, video, news, books and more. But after years of digital revolution, the rarified world of visual art remains largely untouched. Enter one British startup that thinks it can change all that. Read more »
Though some iCloud functionality is already available to iTunes users, the paid iTunes Match service doesn’t launch until fall. But a new report suggests there will be ample demand when it does arrive, and convenience, not a desire to skirt the law, is driving interest. Read more »
Back in February, Apple announced its in-app subscription API, and it provided an ultimatum that would force developers that sell content for use within their apps to also do so via in-app purchase, or face expulsion. Kindle seemed on the chopping block, but now Apple has relented. Read more »
Amazon’s success with its Kindle business is hitting an inflection point as it nears 10 percent of the company’s revenues, according to an analyst report. The success of the Kindle business is at a point where it can affect the overall growth the company. Read more »
The next version of OS X will also be sold only through the Mac App Store. This is yet another step away from traditional media distribution as Apple will effectively be cutting out other means of software distribution like Amazon. Read more »
Just months after raising $950 million, Groupon has filed for an IPO as it looks to stay ahead of a gaggle of competitors in the daily deal market. The company faces challenges in its high user acquisition cost and expansion into local and mobile. Read more »
Last week, investors poured money into ShopIgniter and Milyoni, companies that build Facebook storefronts for merchants and retailers. Many are skeptical about that opportunity, but with thousands of merchants building Facebook stores, it’s worth examining the challenges and what could make those stores effective shopping vehicles. Read more »
After years of hype, the IT industry finally had a rude awakening this spring that reminded us that cloud computing infrastructures are vulnerable to the same genetic IT flaw that plagues traditional data center operations: Everything fails sooner or later. Here’s how to build around that. Read more »
Amazon unveiled its Mac Download Store today: a web-based competitor for the Mac App Store. The store provides direct downloads of Mac software directly from your browser, and ships with some marquee titles that aren’t yet available in Apple’s own marketplace. Read more »
While Google has been at the forefront of cutting-edge green data center technology, with experimental projects like its seawater-cooled data center, Google’s big message at its second data center efficiency summit: There’s no magic involved with greener data centers. Read more »
