The second quarter of 2010 was an especially eventful one for mobile, where the landscape shifted dramatically: Android continued closing the gap with iPhone, AT&T dumped all-you-can-eat data plans in favor of metered billing, HP acquired the beleaguered Palm and the race towards 4G is ramping ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The quest for the Twitter app that has no shortcomings, or the one that has a special feature is never-ending. There is no shortage of Twitter apps in the Android Market. I’ve tried many of them, and these are my top 5 Android Twitter apps. Read more »
Facebook is playing host to half-a-billion people. And one of the main (and unsaid) reasons it has been able to get there — its technical underpinnings. From thousands of servers to its own datacenter, Facebook knowns social web needs big beefy and superfast web infrastructure. Read more »
General Motors plans to roll out its OnStar smartphone app for vehicles in its 2011 Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC lineups, the automaker said today. GM has positioned the plug-in Chevy Volt as a “halo car” for showcasing this tech. Read more »
In the second quarter of 2010, greentech startups scored record venture capital and increased spending despite a weak economy. Solar power retained its lead in greentech venture financing, while global investment for clean energy asset financing fell. China, meanwhile, underscored its rising might in the greentech industry, raising billions of dollars in green energy financing. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Twitter has decided to put the millions it has raised to use building its own data center, according to a blog posted this evening by the messaging service. The data center will be located around Salt Lake City, Utah and should come online in the fall. Read more »
When Google released App Inventor last week, concerns were raised about a flood of junk apps in the Android Market. After some hands-on time with it, I think those concerns are relatively unwarranted. For now, the App Inventor looks to serve another useful purpose — education. Read more »
It’s always fun (if a little bit stalker) to follow someone on Foursquare, and even better to see where they’ve been. Using a method shared by Fred Wilson, Kevin Tofel was able to use Foursquare and Google Maps to generate an overview of a recent trip. Read more »
Sorry, folks … The Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly from Google. For more information on how to purchase the Nexus One, check out our help center. It’s the end of the road for sales of Google’s Nexus One handset, after the search […] Read more »
Android fragmentation appears to be diminishing, as 58.8 percent of devices that accessed the Android Market in the last two weeks are running either Android 2.1 or 2.2. But there’s another type of Android fragmentation that’s beyond Google’s control: the custom user interfaces from handset makers. Read more »
The media industry may be in upheaval as a result of the web, but having the government step in isn’t the right response, Google has told the Federal Trade Commission. The search company’s comments are a response to the FTC’s proposed policy changes to support journalism Read more »
The second quarter of 2010 belonged to the little guys and the new guys. Almost across the board, from processors to virtualization to cloud services, relatively small vendors and startups had the market cornered on innovation and mindshare. And where there’s tinder in the forms of customer demand, products, funding and a greater societal movement toward environmentalism, something is bound to catch fire. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Android has become the saving grace for Motorola, which until recently, hasn’t had a “hit” device since the RAZR over five years ago. With the original Droid, and now the Droid X, Motorola is back in the game, but is Android a short-term or long-term solution? Read more »
Google launched a redesign of Google Images that includes “infinite scroll” and image-based advertising today. Though Google Images currently contains more than 10 billion images and sees more than 1 billion page views every day, it had been largely untouched since launching in 2001. Read more »
WebM, Google’s new royalty-free, open source video codec, launched with a formidable list of partners — but support for the format continues to grow as new partners come on board. The latest to join is Winamp, which added support for WebM in its latest media player. Read more »
Several significant events set the tone for the digital media ecosystem during in the second quarter. First among these was the release of the iPad, the impact of which went far beyond device uptake; among other things it does not support Adobe Flash, which has impacted the entire chain of web-based video production from content sites re-encoding video to new tools being developed for HTML5-based advertising.
Another principal event in the quarter was the announcement of Google TV, a software platform built on Android 2.1, Google Chrome and Flash 10.1 that will be incorporated into a variety of companion devices including TV sets, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes. The platform offers significant advancements in merging TV and the web experience (although TiVo says it has done just that for years). Sony and Logitech have both announced plans to launch Google TV products in fall 2010.
Also in the second quarter, both YouTube and Hulu refreshed their sites, reflecting the market’s growing maturity. But while YouTube spent the quarter on the defensive in its ongoing legal battle with Viacom over copyright infringement, Hulu was on the offensive, introducing new services and preparing a paid subscription service launch. A paid service would bring new revenue streams to the video site, and would put Hulu in more direction competion with Netflix, which is increasingly shifting toward its streaming video service, away from its former mainstay of DVDs by mail. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The second quarter of 2010 saw social networking companies wrestle with the next phase of their development as well as the fallout from the success they’ve had thus far. Meanwhile, the advance of location-based services, one of the hottest topics in the sector, seemed to pause ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Google is in the process of acquiring ITA Software, an airfare information provider. But travel isn’t the only thing ITA does; a few years ago, a research division of the company started a build-your-own-database tool for web data called Needlebase, which beta-launched in January. Read more »
Foursquare is in talks with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft about deals involving the service’s location-based checkin data, CEO Dennis Crowley told The Telegraph. None of the search providers have confirmed this, but such deals would make sense given their interest in making their results more real-time. Read more »
Mobile music has long failed to gain traction despite a tremendous amount of hype, but a slew of recent announcements about cloud-based services have reinvigorated the space. But as carriers and record labels should know by now, the only certainty in mobile music is that the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Mobile music has long failed to gain traction despite a tremendous amount of hype, but recent announcements about cloud-based services have reinvigorated the space. But as carriers and record labels should know, the only certainty in mobile music is that old business models don’t apply. Read more »
Google’s flagship Android phone, the Nexus One, is nearing its end of life point; the company now says it has received the last shipment from manufacturer HTC. Those wanting the only phone currently running Android 2.2 better grab one soon before supplies run out. Read more »
Google today announced it had acquired Metaweb Technologies, the ambitious startup building a database of all the web’s information called Freebase. Metaweb was yet another semantic web startup before its time, but with the help of Google it can potentially make a much bigger impact. Read more »
Google’s new App Inventor could create a wave of new apps to serve as vehicles for mobile advertisements. But with Android Market already developing a Wal-Mart-like reputation, the do-it-yourself developer kit needs to produce apps people really use — and ones advertisers will really pay for. Read more »
Google has put up a guide and case study regarding video sitemaps, which enable creators to index their content with the search engine via Google’s Webmaster Tools. Case studies have shown that using these sitemaps can more than double a website’s video traffic. Read more »
Google’s new App Inventor could create a wave of new apps to serve as vehicles for mobile advertisements. But with Android Market already developing a Wal-Mart-like reputation, the new do-it-yourself developer kit needs to produce apps people really use — and ones advertisers will really pay ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
On today’s investor relations call, Google CFO Patrick Pichette said that Google’s years-long legal battle with Viacom cost a total of $100 million in legal fees. And the case never even went to trial. Read more »
In a surprising move, the New York Times has thrown its weight behind calls for a government inquiry into Google and its search algorithm, raising the prospect of a government investigation into and/or regulation of the company in an editorial published in the newspaper on Thursday. Read more »
One of the features that draws me to Android is the ability to install apps that add to the enjoyment of the phone. It’s getting harder to find those gems in the Market, so I asked the Twitterverse for recommendations. These 20 topped the list. Read more »
HP is reportedly shelving plans to deliver an Android tablet this year, which makes sense. By purchasing Palm, HP can emulate Apple by controlling tablet hardware and software. But more importantly — Android isn’t ready to power a successful tablet, not from HP or anyone else. Read more »
Apple has a go-to-market problem with respect to the digital living room, but we believe an eventual push into the living room by Apple is both inevitable and necessary. The question for Apple is how to get ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The Microsoft Tablet PC may have been around for a decade, but the newly released iPad has defined a new market for slates. Sales numbers have been good and tablet makers are racing to get their models to market late this year and early next year. Read more »
The app store has provided a good outlet to get developers products to market, one that is faster than other methods. The problem: the bigger the app store, and thus the biggest potential market, the more difficult for an app to get noticed by the buying public. Read more »
Google today launched a site that has the effect of creating a community action network around better broadband, starting with the more than 200,000 people who have already weighed in hoping to convince the search giant to build its planned experimental fiber-to-the-home network in their towns. Read more »
Google has a lock on the web habits of millions of users, but has failed to translate that into anything approaching a social network. Why does being social elude the web giant? Writer Adam Rifkin says it is because Google caters to pandas instead of lobsters. Read more »
“It’s not technically possible” to serve mobile ads without analytics, said Omar Hamoui, the former CEO of AdMob, appearing on stage for the first time since his company passed through regulatory scrutiny to be acquired by Google (where he’s now VP of mobile ads). Read more »
Google’s been busy recently adding HTML5-powered features to Gmail, but they’ve only been offered to users running the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome. Now those features are becoming more widely available, with the news that Google has extended support to Safari 5. Read more »
HTML5 isn’t yet fully ratified, but browser vendors are nonetheless starting to implement some of its features. This presents a huge opportunity for forward-thinking web app developers, which in turn will spell good news for ever-growing number people who uses web ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The media gives credit to Google for coining the phrase “superphone,” but that is factually not correct. The phrase has been in use since 2007. In 2008, a GigaOM guest columnist described the superphone at our Mobilize conference and we have often used the term as a descriptor. Read more »
As if Google didn’t have enough on it plate already, this week saw the web giant fighting hard to keep its head above water on two unrelated fronts — privacy issues and China. Despite small victories on both fronts, neither battle is close to being over. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
