Twitter’s ongoing moves to control more of its network — in order to monetize it — is an attempt to turn back the clock and undo some of the openness it started out with. But will it also rob the service of what made it so powerful? Read more »
Twitter’s ongoing evolution from open platform to global media company has all kinds of ramifications for the social-media industry and for businesses, but it also has implications for users. This is my attempt to look at why I have a love-hate relationship with the service. Read more »
As Twitter shuts off the access that services like Instagram and Tumblr used to have to its valuable “follower graph,” it is also promoting the new relationships it has with media players like NBC. Between them, those two moves speak volumes about the company’s future. Read more »
Twitter is reportedly in talks with Hollywood producers and network executives about creating one or more reality-style TV shows that would be integrated into the network — but if it does decide to do this, the company risks alienating its core users and diluting its fundamental value. Read more »
Facebook’s shutdown of the Face.com API and Twitter’s increasing clampdown on its API reinforce the lesson that “open” APIs can be very appealing, but they can also become a lot less open over time — and developers and users can get trapped in the middle. Read more »
It has become increasingly clear to corporations that their networks can’t handle the many devices that employees are bringing into their offices. And this iPad has more elements that could make it a hit in the enterprise, such as a higher-resolution screen for video. Read more »
The fourth quarter may have lacked a dominating big-event product announcement like Q3’s Facebook platform extension or Q2’s unveiling of Google+, but the NewNet world continued to buzz along. In the battle for mind share, everyone wanted to be a platform. Meanwhile, consumer and social technologies continued to gain momentum, and new vehicles for content and service discovery presented both challenges and opportunities for NewNet companies. And it is hard to ignore the overcrowded but growing world of daily deals. This quarterly report analyzes these trends and others, and it also provides a near-term outlook of trends, technologies and companies to watch in 2012. Companies mentioned in the report include Amazon, Facebook and Socialcast. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Mark Gilbreath of LiquidSpace predicts that the driving force of the sharing economy will become time, and the companies that can do business in real-time will occupy a more strategic, and profitable, place in the ecosystem. Read more »
Embrane, the not-so-stealthy startup that’s one of several hoping to make it big on the concept of virtualizing the network, launched Sunday. The company, founded in 2010 by Dante Malagrinò, has raised $27 million to provide firewalls, load balancers and more via distributed software. Read more »
When it comes to users, transparency is important for taking reputation with them across sites. Being chattygirl32 in the New York Times comments section isn’t so helpful when you try to leverage online reputation elsewhere. A real name, however, might stick. Read more »
A simple emoticon can tell you wonders about the emotional state of your company. Socialcast experimented with such a test in a Japanese factory asking employees to rate their work day with a happy, average, or sad face. The simple question gleaned enormous insight. Read more »
The growing global remote workforce has had a big impact on business, giving employees more flexibility to manage their personal and business lives and make the most efficient use of time. But there’s a dark side to detached workforce as employees remain constantly ‘on the job’. Read more »
Today at Net:Work 2011, we’ll look at how many things once considered the future of work are already here, and what changes are headed our way in years to come. If you can’t attend in person, watch our live video coverage of the event here. Read more »
Gene Zaino, of MBO Partners, believes that by 2020 more than half of U.S. workers will be independent, leading to a new independent majority. But for this to happen, we’ll have to see some significant legislative and structural changes. Read more »
New scientific evidence is emerging about the benefits of telework, supporting workers’ desire to work out of the office. Stowe Boyd discusses the implications involved in the increasingly popular post-industrial adoption of telecommuting, and explains why coworking may be the missing link. Read more »
Clearwire has to decide if it will make a $237 million interest payment on Thursday, a decision with big repercussions for the rest of the industry. If it skips the payment, it can build its LTE network, but if it defaults, it threatens its benefactor Sprint. Read more »
It’s no secret now that Apple is working hard on getting a fix for iOS 5 battery issues out the door. But battery life isn’t the only problem new iPhone 4S owners are having with their devices. Here are three other common complaints. Read more »
Updated: The big story around today’s iPhone launch is the phone, but Sprint’s $20 billion bet on the iPhone and its plans for growth in a consolidating wireless industry make a compelling backstory for telecom industry watchers and for Sprint customers. Read more »
At the end of last month Verizon acquired CloudSwitch, adding value to Verizon’s January acquisition of cloud data center provider Terremark. Around the world, big telecommunications providers such as AT&T, BT, Telstra and Verizon have been hard at work, diversifying and seeking new business opportunities as ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Verizon is buying cloud computing startup CloudSwitch in a move that will give Verizon, as well as its subsidiary Terremark, a software-development edge to complement its service-provider expertise. CloudSwitch will lead software development beyond its core product, which will give Verizon additional cloud intellectual property. Read more »
Amazon Web Services announced a trio of features designed to lure in enterprise users, including dedicated 1- or 10-Gigabit links to its cloud data centers. AWS is doing everything it can to make its services as flexible, reliable and secure as possible for enterprise users. Read more »
AT&T activated 3.6 million iPhones during the second quarter, with Android and BlackBerry devices making up the remaining 40 percent of Ma Bell’s smartphone sales. Those high-end handsets are generating more money for AT&T in other ways — such as increasing texting and MMS revenue and usage. Read more »
The efforts to convert corporations to the next-generation Internet addressing scheme are falling on deaf ears. According to Ovum, a mere 3 percent of web traffic is IPv6-enabled and enterprises either aren’t convinced of the need to switch, or think they already have. Read more »
Behind the cloud are thousands of servers, switches, appliances both physical and virtual, and any number of complicating bits of machinery and software all just waiting to cause a problem. Understanding and monitoring that massive infrastructure is the world of LaunchPad finalist Real-Status. Read more »
WAN-optimization startup Infineta has raised $15 million for its product that speeds traffic flows between data centers. Unlike many WAN-optimization products that speed traffic between user sites and a data center, Infineta targets data moving between data centers at up to 10 GbE speeds. Read more »
The mobile space is all about a tug-of-war of control between network operators, device manufacturers and software developers. But rarely do the players involved make the power play so obvious as did France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard during a recent interview. Read more »
UberMedia is said to be working on developing a social network that would compete with Twitter. But while the company is arguably the most well-funded of all those who have tried, and there would be benefits to having multiple players, the odds are stacked against it. Read more »
Bandwidth caps seem like not a bad idea, until you find yourself struggling to figure out how your home network suddenly started downloading hundreds of gigabytes of data in a matter of days, and you have blown through your monthly limit in less than a week. Read more »
Yesterday, we held our inaugural Net:Work conference at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. While we discussed technology at length, what it really all boiled down to was people: how we can better connect, communicate and collaborate with each other. Read more »
Social tools such as Skype and instant messaging, along with social networks that help workers connect with each other, can make it much easier to manage remote teams than it used to be before the web came along — and doing so has become even more necessary. Read more »
Collaboration tools are reshaping organizations, John Hagel III and John Seely Brown of Deloitte Center for the Edge told attendees at GigaOM’s Net:Work conference in San Francisco. The edges of an enterprise — as opposed to its core — now have access to the power tools. Read more »
Today marks the introduction of GigaOm’s first Net:Work conference. The conference will examine the future of work, with topics ranging from the human cloud to new collaboration tools to the management of a remote workforce. Can’t join us in person? Then check out the live stream. Read more »
ProofHQ has worked as a remote team since the company was founded two years ago. It’s a topic that we have much experience of and feel passionately about, so we wanted to share some of the lessons that we’ve learned along the way. Read more »
We interviewed some of our Net:Work speakers and attendees to give us their thoughts on some of the topics being covered at Net:Work from collaboration and social technology to what work will look like in 10 years. Read more. Read more »
Rebecca Jacoby, chief information officer at Cisco, says if it wasn’t for new collaboration tools such as video telepresence, blogs and wikis, the networking-equipment maker would never have been able to grow as large or move quickly into as many new markets as it has. Read more »
While communication tools like Skype have succeeded in mobilizing an entire generation of workers, collaboration tools are now driving change within businesses. The enterprise is no longer dictated to by legacy technology, but shaped by collaboration tools that let groups form naturally and enable participation. Read more »
It isn’t just the nature of work that is changing thanks to the web and a generation of increasingly mobile and inter-connected workers, says John Hagel, co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge — it’s the entire way in which many companies operate. Read more »
Congratulations to Phil Wolff, the winner of our Net:Work ticket giveaway from earlier this week. Don’t be too disappointed if you didn’t win, though, because I’ve managed to secure a special $100 discount for WWD readers. The event’s just one week away, so register today! Read more »
We are all connected in business. It’s through the cloud that we collaborate and connect with our colleagues, employees and customers around the globe, no matter their time zone. Here are some tips and strategies getting the most out of the cloud: Read more »
As companies add social software to help employees work together more efficiently, and software makers add more and more social features to their products, there is a growing risk that workers could get overloaded, says Jive Software chairman and former CEO Dave Hersh. Read more »
