There are plenty of reasons why the announced Yahoo Tumblr deal makes sense for those companies. But Marissa Mayer might have seen a much greater payoff from acquiring Pinterest instead. Here’s why. Read more »
Fans of the social-blogging network might not like the idea much, but a $1-billion acquisition of Tumblr would arguably solve a number of problems for Yahoo — and do the same for Tumblr CEO David Karp. Read more »
… according to new statistics from Onavo, which tracks actual use of mobile apps and games by “millions” of iOS users. Read more »
My post about the Google+ redesign and the shift in direction from Facebook design has met with some well reasoned argument. Here I present my own arguments, and reason why I think the two design philosophies are moving in different direction. Read more »
Google’s reworking of its social network, Google+ shows that the company has started to marry data with design and craft new experiences. Will that be enough to turn you and I into active participants? Who, knows, I am just happy it doesn’t look like Facebook. Read more »
We are used to thinking of a “mass media” market made up of large newspapers and TV networks as the normal state of affairs in media, but what if that was just a historical anomaly? Read more at paidContent »
Reality TV, Raymond Chandler, Miami cold case, a dead hedge fund manager and privacy in the age of Facebook, circa 1985 — here are some of the the stories on the menu for this weekend. Enjoy! Read more »
Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration reform group Fwd.us is losing two big players this week: Elon Musk and David Sacks. A bad sign for the Valley’s latest political group? Read more »
Facebook has responded to some low reviews of the Facebook Home app, announcing a few planned changes to the app in the coming months to address user concerns. Read more »
News reports out of Israel say Facebook is in talks to acquire traffic-information service Waze for as much as $1 billion, but Google will be making a big mistake if it doesn’t try to top that offer. Read more »
While it’s just a promotion that could end at any time, AT&T is now discounting the HTC First to under a buck with contract. Something tells me that Facebook’s phone is a solution in search of a problem. Read more »
Not content with open sourcing the server and storage hardware inside data centers, Facebook’s Open Compute Project has teamed up with others to build an open source top of rack switch. Here’s why it matters. Read more »
What does the future look like for Hipstamatic, the original darling of mobile photo shutterbugs eclipsed by Instagram? It’s embracing the social nature of the photo wars with Oggl, a new app. Read more »
It’s fun to compare the different ways of sending a digital message, but is there a point to doing so? According to one irate analyst, the debate – as currently framed – is futile. Read more »
As the issue of password security and online identity becomes more important than ever, Facebook has re-vamped its password security measures, allowing you to contact friends in case of trouble. Read more »
Facebook announced its first quarter earnings on Wednesday, with investors looking to see growth in the company’s mobile ad revenues. Read more »
In a post on Facebook’s engineering blog, engineers discuss the ways in which natural-language processing helps interpret what users plug in to suggest the best possible queries. Read more »
According to analysts at Informa, IP-based platforms such as WhatsApp now carry more messages than SMS infrastructure does. However, we should be cautious about how we interpret the figures. Read more »
Accurate timing has grown more important in distributed systems, not just for mobile networks, but also for tracking data between data centers. Our love of digital junk is pushing storage to the edge. Read more »
Amazon and Facebook are looking for engineers to work on deploying next-generation software-defined networks. Amazon’s project could bring new services for its cloud customers. Read more »
Facebook has acquired Parse, the company that helps developers write mobile apps in the cloud. Read more »
LinkedIn is launching a standalone Contacts app that will roll out slowly to users in the U.S. But do you really need a second LinkedIn app with only limited professional contacts in it? Read more »
Facebook confirmed a data center in Altoona, Iowa, the same day Google said it would also expand its data center operations in the state. As Facebook pushes transparency, it’s also pushing the notoriously secretive Google. Read more »
To help businesses focus their ad spending on specific social-media users, Salesforce.com is adding the ability to combine existing customer-relationship management lists with social monitoring and publishing tools. Read more »
As the web giants, co-lo providers and cloud companies add millions of square feet of data center space we need to start getting more sophisticated in how we view these rooms full of servers. Read more »
When it comes to mobile design, a number of features launched recently at bigger companies like Facebook and Tumblr have already been seen elsewhere — at Path. Take a look. Read more »
When you’re in official lock-down, piecing together what’s going on a mile from your house requires triangulation — police scanners, Twitter, Facebook, radio and TV — all come into play. Read more »
Google spent $1.2 billion on property and equipment in the first quarter of 2013, nearly doubling last year’s first quarter. Read more »
Congress and even some tech companies are promising to get serious about “Do Not Track” legislation, which will let consumers tell companies not to collect their personal information. But any meaningful change is unlikely. Read more at paidContent »
Following on previous quarterly disclosures on energy and water efficiency, Facebook is unveiling dashboards showing its data centers’ near-real-time performance. Read more »
In the push to keep developers building for Facebook and keeping users on its apps and products, Facebook launched updates to its developer set of tools on Thursday. Read more »
Facebook’s CTO said Tuesday the update should arrive in the App Store this week. Read more »
Facebook Home arrived in the Google Play store as planned. What wasn’t planned however, was the surprisingly good experience and well designed software. Here’s my first look and impressions. Read more »
Good news for those that want a better Facebook experience on their Android, but don’t want to give Facebook full control of their home screen. Chat Heads is available in Messenger for devices Android 2.2 and up. Read more »
Is Facebook serious with its new partner categories advertising program? Somehow, using offline data to target ads seems like a stretch for a company already facing a privacy backlash and that has such rich data to mine from inside its own platform. Read more »
People wondered why Google sold Frommer’s Travel barely nine months after acquiring it in the first place. The answer is that it’s keeping a huge number social media followers from sites like Facebook. Read more at paidContent »
Launchers are nothing new to Android, having been around for a few years now. That’s why I’m not surprised a Facebook Home style launcher is already available in the Google Play store. Read more »
Ron Johnson, former retail chief of Apple was hired by JC Penney as a man with the silver bullet. Both didn’t realize: winning comes from team (and timing). Read more »
For a deeper dive into the topics and technologies covered on GigaOM, check out the latest in-depth analyses on GigaOM Pro, our subscription-based research service. This week: the future of the smart watch, investing in smart grid technology, and more. Read more »
This week Facebook became the next tech giant to build upon Google Android. That raises quite a few questions — and some potential answers — about privacy, control over Android and who might use Facebook Home as their full-time Android launcher. Read more »
