The massive amount of data that is emerging from connected, digital systems, is fundamentally changing everything, from Internet search to entertainment, to disease management, to energy consumption. Here’s 10 case studies that highlight the power of big data. Read more »
Chris Hughes, the 28-year-old Facebook co-founder and the founder of social action site Jumo, is moving from social networking to media with… Read more at paidContent »
It all seems so easy: You log into Facebook, update your status, tell everyone where you are and — voila! — your Timeline is geospatial. Only, while it’s just one extra step for you to add location, building that capability was a tad more complicated for Facebook. Read more »
Facebook’s value has risen to $100 billion since its IPO announcement, based on private trades of its stock. But could Mark Zuckerberg justi… Read more at paidContent »
Facebook has been slapped down again by the German authorities over privacy problems with its Friend Finder feature — but while reports suggest the social network has fixed the problem, the consumer group that launched the complaint says it is still not happy. Read more »
A new patent troll last week fired a shot at Facebook, Zynga and others with a lawsuit that claims rights to in-game payments — the process… Read more at paidContent »
Growth phases at Web startups are invariably accompanied by attacks, as we’ve seen with sites like Facebook, Twitter and many other web-based companies. Here we look at which are the most brutal attacks and how companies and developers can guard against them in the future. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
We have Facebook. Daily deal sites. Racks of computers learning our preferences and countless apps to connect us. And yet, the pinnacle of advertising appears to be the 21st-century equivalent of the Tupperware party. That’s right, pitch your friends and get a discount. Read more »
AMD acquired low-power server maker SeaMicro in a move that says a lot about how low power is the new black and how the relationships and market dynamics between chip makers and server OEMs is transforming. Read more »
BonaYou, which lets people send prepaid Mastercards as gifts to their Facebook friends, has just received cash to help it expand across Europe this year Read more »
The ongoing imperative to lower power consumption in the data center drove another key acquisition last week. AMD, a company that has fought a decades-long losing war with Intel over building the best CPU, acquired low-power server maker SeaMicro in a move that says a lot ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The UK’s media regulator will consider the reliability of social networks as premium-rate TV interaction mechanisms, after Britain’s first e… Read more at paidContent »
In 2012, the next big thing will be what we do with iPads in the office. Here are a few interesting iPad apps that give us new ways to gather, absorb and manipulate data necessary to get our jobs done. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Zynga is in a tricky position technologically thanks to its new frenemy status with Facebook. Zynga claims 240 million active users, and it wants a lot more, but scaling to those heights might require one heck of a computing infrastructure. Read more »
Facebook needed to change the way it sold advertising inventory and add some glitzier formats. Last week, at its fMC event for marketers, it made some progress towards addressing those needs. Let’s see what Facebook is doing right and where it still has ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
From Apple to Amazon, everyone is on a data center building binge. Utah-based NSA Data Center and the Building 2 (second phase) of Facebook’s Prineville, Oregon data center were two of the five largest construction projects in the United States during 2011, according to Construction.com. Read more »
Prior to the digital age, there were three companies that, acting like undersea currents, steered all news. Namely, I am referring to the bi… Read more at paidContent »
Twitter and Facebook are both trying hard to show that they are powerful advertising vehicles, in part to justify their multibillion-dollar market valuations. But while each company has shown some growth, there is still skepticism among advertisers about the ultimate value of social advertising. Read more »
There has been a lot of outrage — bordering on hysteria — about Google’s new privacy policy, with some critics advising users to delete their search histories. But is there that much to fear from Google’s tracking? Not really. In fact, in many ways it is beneficial. Read more »
With its newly launched iPhone app, News.me wants to become a “purpose-built” social network for sharing — and discussing — the news. One of the big hurdles for the New York-based startup is that this is pretty much what Twitter wants to be as well. Read more »
For ad-supported web platforms such as Facebook, every dollar spent on infrastructure means even more money brought in by advertising — the culprit of many privacy issues. That has big implications for a company’s bottom line. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A new patent troll announced its arrival this week by suing companies like Facebook, Zynga and Playfish. Its weapon is a patent that it clai… Read more at paidContent »
Facebook may have figured out a way to get advertising in front of mobile users of its products, but that doesn’t mean it has a mobile advertising strategy. Instead, Facebook is taking a product designed for the desktop and hoping it won’t freak out mobile users. Read more »
Facebook showed off a new suite of premium ads that enables brands to create more engaging stories for users and finally brings marketing to Facebook’s mobile properties. It’s part of a broad effort to generate revenue for the social network as it prepares to go public. Read more »
This week AT&T floated a plan to enable app developers to pay for the data that subscribers use in their apps. The model might resonate with some developers and subscribers, but it is likely to create more problems than it ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Mobile deals combine location-aware discounts with mobile marketing campaigns. What are the largest pitfalls in this promising space, though? Privacy and security issues must be addressed to assure consumers their purchases are secure and their location is being closely guarded. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
American Express last year launched its Serve payment system taking on PayPal head on. Now, it’s following PayPal’s move to enable personal payments through Facebook with the launch of a Serve Facebook app, that allows users to pay each other back for free without leaving Facebook. Read more »
At MWC executives of two prominent operators said the industry has significant challenges in the form of over the top providers commoditizing their revenue streams without those companies putting any significant investment of their own into the network. Here’s what operators should do. Read more »
Being a billionaire means Warren Buffett’s views on all kinds of things get a lot of attention — but his comments about the benefits of newspaper paywalls suggest the octagenarian investor misunderstands what the business of content looks like in our digital and hyper-connected age. Read more »
A new app from the founders of Tapjoy is emerging to combine mobile and social commerce on iOS and Android devices. The app, called Karma, makes gifting to friends a breeze, by integrating with a user’s social graph on Facebook and suggesting gifts for them. Read more »
With Facebook’s advertising fortunes taking off, one cog in that machine has become an M&A target. Social marketing platform operator Buddy… Read more at paidContent »
Facebook is gearing up to take advantage of the mobile web and put itself at the head of a growing web app ecosystem. Today, it announced a set of initiatives that should help standardize mobile web browsers and enable better payments in mobile web apps. Read more »
With close to a billion active users, Facebook is already the world’s largest social network, and it is already generating billions from advertising directed at those users. So the bottom line for investors and analysts is, Can this company really get any bigger? Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A new survey has revived the fear that digital ad spending will shrink the overall pie. While newspapers have it tough, other big ad markets are still pretty healthy, and technologies like targeting and social media advertising could still increase the value of — and thus ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Rapid adoption of OS X Mountain Lion would clearly threaten Microsoft. But after digging into Apple’s new operating system, Edward Aten of Swift.fm thinks it poses a threat to another, less obvious, company — the current leader in the consumer cloud, Facebook. Read more »
Jonathan Mayer is the grad student whose research on internet tracking set off an explosive series of media reports and a flurry of privacy… Read more at paidContent »
Finding what you want in a sea of mobile applications can be a frustrating and exhausting process. Facebook wants to remind mobile developers that it has a lot of users and that discovering new things is a huge part of the Facebook experience. Read more »
By the end of 2010, about 50 percent of all Facebook monthly active users were gamers. But that fell to about 25 percent in 2011, as Facebook aggressively added new users. The result is that game makers need to work harder to find and retain users. Read more »
Facebook, the social networking giant that’s already made big waves with its open-source server plans, is now taking on storage in a very big way, according to a published report. The hardware will help Facebook keep up with the exploding demand of its 840 million users. Read more »
With new products from a variety of players like Google and Isis comes a potentially confusing year as the term “mobile wallet” gets thrown around repeatedly. What exactly is the “mobile wallet”? Here are some important definitions for those looking to make a move in the space. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
