While it’s certainly premature to declare email “dead” as a technology, it’s fair to acknowledge that a new generation of communication tools is gaining traction as a more effective means of communication for the enterprise. Miguel Valdés Faures of BonitaSoft offers some alternatives. Read more »
More mobile movements from Facebook today: it has bought the check-in social media service Gowalla, according to a report in CNN. Read more at paidContent »
The compute and server world is changing rapidly, with webscale companies such as Facebook and Amazon dominating the web and creating new lines of business. With that comes change to the value chain of server and silicon companies, and we now stand at an inflection point ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Facebook games maker Zynga plans to raise $1 billion (£630 million) in its initial public offering, valuing the fledgling internet firm at… Read more at paidContent »
If you had any doubt about Facebook’s ambitions in mobile, here’s another move that underscores the social network’s priorities. It has hire… Read more at paidContent »
Facebook announced Friday it will establish engineering operations in New York City in 2012. This will be the social networking company’s first engineering office outside of the west coast. “We want the next Facebook to start here in New York City,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Read more »
Online games powerhouse Zynga is shooting to reap $1billion in its IPO, according to an amended prospectus filed on Friday. The company behind Farmville, Mafia Wars and other games expects to offer 100 million shares of common stock at $8.50 to $10.00 per share. Read more »
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, said the social network and Google are nothing alike. Sandberg, a former Google VP, laid out some of the differences at a conference on Thursday, noting the focus and priorities of the two companies and how they go about developing products. Read more »
Google, Apple, Twitter and Facebook have all been in the news recently because of their control over our access to certain information, and the ways in which they could potentially restrict it. How much does that affect the way we perceive the world around us? Read more »
The newfound popularity of the e-book is now raising questions over what exactly it will look like in the future, since digital formats allow authors and artists to offer much more than what was possible with the printed page. Social and interactive experiences within the e-book can include not only text but also audio, video or even a combination of all three, and these factors have a direct effect on the evolution of the overall e-book market. In this analysis, we identify six competitive areas of that market that will see large-scale shifts in the near future. Such rapid change will mean that in just four to five years, what a book is and what publishing is will — to many — mean something radically different than it does today. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google and Open Road. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek took the stage at Spotify’s first-ever press conference to expand the music streaming service’s Facebook integration t… Read more at paidContent »
Silk, the browser for Amazon’s new Kindle Fire, utilizes Amazon’s cloud. But don’t think AWS is the Kindle Fire’s only cloud connection. In a post on Tuesday, Pulse’s Greg Bayer explained how his company’s news-reading app actually runs atop Google’s App Engine Platform-as-a-Service offering. Read more »
» FTC Announces 20 Year Privacy Deal With Facebook, Asks To Be ‘Liked’ (paidContent)
» Bets on Spotify’s news – radio… Read more at paidContent »
Path has enacted a dramatic redesign with the newest version of its app, “Path 2.” Path has expanded beyond photo sharing and now aims to be a “smart journal” that helps users catalog their lives — putting it more squarely in competition with Evernote and Facebook. Read more »
The Federal Trade Commission today released a much-anticipated settlement with Facebook over a series of privacy breaches. The deal has some… Read more at paidContent »
When will we stop talking about the cloud? If history is any guide, eventually the idea of the cloud as something that is separate from the web will disappear as more people get used to it — although when that will happen is anyone’s guess. Read more »
Facebook has settled with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it has been deceptive about the amount of privacy users have on the social networking site. The company has also given two executives the title of “Chief Privacy Officer” to oversee its privacy commitments. Read more »
The news that Facebook is planning an initial public offering that could value the company at $100 billion just reinforces how it has become a kind of social utility. How does that change the way we look at the network and what it does? Read more »
Facebook expects to become a public company over the next six to eight months, according to a report Monday. And the first step down that pa… Read more at paidContent »
Facebook is said to be making concrete steps toward its planned initial public offering, talking to bankers and getting regulatory filings in order for a spring 2012 IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal. This news is in line with previous reports about Facebook’s IPO plans. Read more »
Ebay’s recent purchase of Hunch illustrates how social media has leveled the playing field for e-commerce recommendations engines. Mixing human-powered reviews with algorithm-powered recommendations will be a key driver of social ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Last week’s news of a potential Facebook phone built by HTC certainly got people talking. Regardless of who builds it and when that happens, the real question without an answer is: Do we really need a Facebook phone? We sound off in a GigaOM debate! Read more »
Reports this weekend suggest that Facebook is about to face a new crackdown from European authorities over the way it collects data on users — but closer inspection suggests that it is just the latest episode in an ongoing struggle between EU officials and technology companies. Read more »
Internet users who want to remain anonymous online have been pushing back against media companies’ efforts to strip them of their pseudonyms… Read more at paidContent »
Call it M2M, the Internet of Things, or a web that talks back, but once we start connecting devices and sensors we’re adding complexity to a system that’s already highly complex. Axeda wants to deliver a cloud with the intelligence capable of managing the connected world. Read more »
As work media — social media tools designed to get work done — become more ubiquitous, futurist Stowe Boyd sees an even greater need for well-defined standards that would help companies transport their data out of the current silos. Read more »
Facebook has not approached anything resembling a confirmation of the reports that it is developing its own phone with HTC, code-named “Buff… Read more at paidContent »
The web has been abuzz with speculations about a mystery Spotify event next week, with many arguing the service will launch a download store. But given its recent growth spurred by Facebook, I’d argue a web-based player would make more sense. Read more »
Google says it’s adding +1 recommendations to Google News. But has the web giant lost the social news market to Twitter and Facebook, or could the integration of recommendations with the Google+ network allow it to catch up and become a strong competitor? Read more »
» Penguin pulls e-books from libraries across the land, citing “security concerns” (paidContent)
» Oh, HP: Firm’s Q4… Read more at paidContent »
Loytr, the company that makes the popular MyPad app, has once again beaten Facebook to the iPad. The company debuted Timelines for Facebook on Tuesday, a native app that brings the social network’s new Timeline user interface to the iPad. Read more »
A research study looking at over 60 billion connections between Facebook users found the degrees of separation between any two is closer to four than six. But what do we mean when we friend someone on Facebook, and how does that translate to the “real world”? Read more »
Facebook really is working on its own mobile phone, according to a report from AllThingsD, after years of speculation about such a project.… Read more at paidContent »
As is usually the case when Facebook adds new features, the rollout of its “frictionless sharing” has caused controversy because of privacy and oversharing issues. But more than anything, what Facebook’s changes illustrate is that we still need better filters for our growing signal-to-noise problem. Read more »
The likelihood of Facebook’s new Timeline feature going live before the end of the year are looking increasingly slim. Read more at paidContent »
Bosses may be worried that their mobile employees are wasting vast amounts of time updating their wall or emailing friends, but a new report from iPass reveals we lose relatively little time on technology distractions. But our gadgets are harming us in other ways. Read more »
Facebook unveiled its green data center in Oregon this Spring, but now the social network giant has achieved another milestone: it’s been granted a LEED gold certification for the Oregon data center, which uses 52 percent less energy to operate than a standard data center. Read more »
PayPal began as a way to help people pay their friends easily online. Now, it’s taking the logical step of enabling Facebook users to pay their friends using a new Send Money Facebook app. Users can send free payments to each other accompanied by an e-card. Read more »
The digital music market is not in a great place right now and is in need of some major change: CD sales are still shrinking more quickly th… Read more at paidContent »
Skype released new beta clients for both Windows and Mac on Thursday that introduce the ability to make video calls to your Facebook friends from within Skype itself. We went hands-on with the new feature using Skype for Mac 5.4 Beta to see how it handles. Read more »
