Blockbuster and Netflix Win a Patent Suit; a judge found that the DVD-by-mail services do not infringe on a patent owned by Oklahoma-based Media Queue. (Video Business) Next New Networks’ Bobby Miller Headed to Sundance; the Indy Mogul host’s short film TUB was accepted to the […] Read more »
Time for our Wednesday feature that highlights some of the latest iPhone news! The holidays are approaching and that means the college kids are nearly done with this semester’s studies. Since they’re nearly done with their textbooks as well, the timing of an iPhone app to […] Read more »
It’s WebWorkerDaily’s fault that I’ve bought an iPod touch . (That’s my excuse, anyway.) As I looked at potential subjects to write about, I kept seeing cool apps, and I need to be able to test them, right? But why not buy an iPhone, or a […] Read more »
This morning news broke that MySpace, the second-largest social network that’s currently reinventing itself as a music destination, was buying imeem, a free online music service that has been remixed (and remade) more times that ’90s dance anthem “Keep on Moving.” TechCrunch, which reported on the […] Read more »
Storage — it’s the unsexy work horse behind social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter that require hundreds of thousands of servers to handle the data of millions of users. Traditionally taking the form of spinning disks, data storage also sucks a whole lot of […] Read more »
Social networking and the real-time web are changing how information on the Internet is consumed, as the ability to disperse and share information through social platforms and do it using real-time tools is shifting the focus of content from “historical” news to real-time events. Such a […] Read more »
When Mike reviewed social bookmarking, research and collaboration service Diigo last year, he liked its simplicity, its connections with other services, and its wealth of features. Since then, the social bookmarking field has continued to mature; witness the recent purchase of Friendfeed by Facebook, and the […] Read more »
What happens when you promise end-users a persistent connection to data, applications and services regardless of the device they’re using? Mobile cloud computing aims to deliver just such a promise. Mobile access to popular web-based services such as Facebook and Gmail, combined with next-generation smartphones like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android devices, is driving broad adoption of mobile data. However, the center of economic gravity is shifting. Historically, access to the mobile network was the service. But as users have expanded the uses for those bits, what the user does in a given session becomes fundamental to how much the service provider can charge the user or a third party (e.g. an advertiser). Thus, it’s likely that the mobile, IT and MCC sectors will continue their current marriage of convenience to attack a rare convergence of both short-term and longer term opportunity. However, in the process of adapting to an Internet that’s becoming more global, mobile and web-based by the day, the mobile and IT industries will be forced into new ways of doing business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
CBS Launching Katie Couric Web Show; weekly “online conversations” with the CBS news anchor to feature big names and run for 20-30 minutes each. (Media Decoder) Report: MySpace Plans to Launch New Vid Service; with some help from Hulu, the site will supposedly offer more feature […] Read more »
MySpace, meet the new new MySpace. It’s called Twitter. According to Hitwise, a web traffic intelligence company, Twitter has overtaken MySpace in the UK. In August, Twitter.com became the 27th most-visited web site in the UK, one position ahead of MySpace. The Twitter service itself must […] Read more »
AppleInsider’s Kasper Jade today reports that Apple has new plans for its workhorse laptop, the MacBook. This will be the first time since the product’s launch in 2006 that the company’s entry-level Mac has received a complete design update. The MacBook is the best-selling computer in […] Read more »
[qi:109] While social web content has been stereotyped as a teen fad, it looks like adults are crashing the young folks’ party. More than four out of five U.S. adults (ages 18 and up) use social media at least once a month, according to a Forrester […] Read more »
MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta has confirmed that the social network will acquire popular music discovery application iLike, marking the beleaguered company’s first big move towards reverting back to its roots as a niche site for music and entertainment. On his first conference call as CEO […] Read more »
Updated with comment from Cisco: Cisco and Warner Music Group announced today that the music company will roll out a dozen new sites dedicated to its artists using Cisco’s Eos SaaS social entertainment platform by the end of this year, adding to the five existing Warner […] Read more »
The term “digital home” has been tossed around for a number of years with few indications of how big the market actually is. Small startup companies and potentially-disruptive technologies are regularly identified as the key players in what was, in 2008, a $553 billion U.S. market. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The emergence of a commercially significant electronic book (e-book) market in the past three years has been the result of two quite-recent technological developments. The first, and most critical, has been a breakthrough in the technology for manufacturing reflective electronic paper displays (EPDs), allowing for the introduction of affordable, lightweight and portable e-book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader.
The second has been the rollout of reliable “3G” wireless broadband networks, which have made it possible to deliver digital books directly to reading devices without the intermediate steps of downloading files to a PC and then transferring them to a reader. Direct-to-device sampling and delivery, particularly with Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPhone, have enabled impulse-driven e-commerce, which has been critical to early consumer adoption of e-books.
The technology for e-books, however, remains nascent. The Kindle and its ilk are very much first-generation devices that deliver the minimally acceptable experience. Further development of the business will be closely tied to future technological developments, including flexible and color displays, format standardization and rich-media applications. As the market grows, there are numerous opportunities for other technology players, from social networks to cloud service providers and more. This report examines the trends and opportunities ahead. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In our era of immediate gratification, creating a quick and responsive web experience is often as important as the product or service you’re trying to sell. Poor performance can frustrate users to the point that they will leave your site. Recent studies show that on average, […] Read more »
MySpace rolled out a new email service in beta today, symbolizing the beleaguered social network’s first step towards redeeming its fallen status. The new service, called MySpace Mail, is gradually being rolled out over the next two weeks to the social network’s 130 million users worldwide. […] Read more »
News Corp head Rupert Murdoch has, via an aside to the Wall Street Journal, let it be known that his new agenda for MySpace is for it to be an “entertainment portal,” rather than “a place for friends.” But while the site has put significant resources […] Read more »
