EBay is putting down roots in New York and has bought up a 35,000 square foot space. The retailer is announcing that it has purchased an entire floor in the Flat Iron district where it will house 200 people in a new technology center of excellence. Read more »
Caterina Fake has launched a new startup called Pinwheel, a sort of “Flickr for places.” The startup has raised a $7.5 million Series A Round from Redpoint Ventures, in addition to funding from True Ventures, Betaworks, Founder Collective, SV Angel, Obvious Corp and other angels. Read more »
If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Caterina Fake plans to launch her new company to the public in 2012. She says while 2011 has been about being heads down and working with the team, 2012 will be much more about going out and interacting with users. 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 »
EBay has announced it’s buying New York startup Hunch, the recommendation engine, to help improve its recommendation services. The purchase helps eBay improve its technology base, compete better with Amazon and it might also be another asset in eBay’s X.commerce platform. Read more »
As our demand for data increases, so too do the number of mobile devices and services. Add to that the infrastructure needed to support such connectivity, and a wide, complex picture of the mobile industry emerges. This report examines the various sectors of the mobile landscape and what the future holds for each. Hardware, cloud services, mobile search, advertising, location-based services and the growing ubiquity of the Internet of Things will all play an important role in the concept of mobility as it shifts and evolves over the next several years. With the help of more than a dozen contributors, GigaOM Pro presents a comprehensive analysis of the companies and trends that will lead us into the next era of mobile. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the battle heats up among social recommendation websites, British newcomer Top10.com thinks it can make an impact. But with Facebook cranking up to launch new features, do independent sites have a fight on their hands? Read more »
This is cool: Forage.com generates YouTube music video playlists based on the people you follow on Twitter. The site is a mashup cooked up by Chris Dixon, the co-founder of Hunch, and it demonstrates how Hunch uses its own data sets to predict new taste preferences. Read more »
Hunch, a startup trying to build a “taste graph” of people’s like and dislikes that can act as a recommendation engine, has partnered with Gifts.com to make suggestions about what kinds of presents your Facebook friends might like, based on their Facebook profiles. Read more »
Gravity, a Los Angeles-based startup, says it’s developing an "interest graph" that will let it recommend content to users based on their preferences, but the initial offering from the company — a service called Twinterests, which pulls your interests from your Twitter feed — is unimpressive. Read more »
Now that social is becoming the new norm, the next big battle for companies will be personalization. The company that can get inside my head and deliver tailored recommendations or know what I want without being too stalkerish can walk away with a lot of money. Read more »
Wireless carriers, which have been sitting on a largely untouched goldmine of data, may be poised to start tapping into their mother lode. Chris Dixon of recommendation and personalization site Hunch said he’s meeting with operators looking at deploying Hunch for recommendations and personalization. Read more »
As Facebook tries to take the idea of location-based services mainstream with the launch of Places, other services are looking to add value by using location data to make recommendations for users. Two startups who have their eye on this prize are The Hotlist and Hunch. Read more »
Hunch, the hot startup from Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake and angel investor Chris Dixon, has redesigned the service to focus on recommending products such as magazines and books, rather than answering questions about specific topics. But the new focus could put it squarely in Facebook’s sights. Read more »
