Cloud video editing startup Magisto is coming to market with a new service that will take raw video files and make them worth sharing with friends and posting on Facebook. The company is also announcing $5.5 million in financing from Horizons Ventures and Magma Venture Partners. Read more »
Facebook has added a new feature that allows users to “subscribe” to updates from people they aren’t actually friends with, which brings an asymmetrical aspect to the giant social network. So should Twitter be concerned about this Twitter-fication of Facebook? I don’t think so. Read more »
Virgin America was the first U.S. airline to add in-flight Wi-Fi. Now the tech-savvy Bay Area–based airline is taking it up a notch by announcing it plans to make some Wi-Fi connectivity available through its soon-to-be-upgraded seat-back entertainment system, starting sometime in 2012. Read more »
Fanhattan has integrated with social networks, which will not only provide more interesting content for users to watch but will also allow them to share their interests with friends. Users can now get recommendations from their social graph, including movies and TV shows their friends like. Read more »
The number of connected devices is steadily on the rise, but it’s not smartphones or computers that will lead us to the 50 billion connected devices expected by the year 2020. Rather, the Internet of Things — numerous smart objects that speak to the web and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Badgeville is introducing Social Fabric, a technology allows a website to quickly add a host of real-time social features on their site that charts user behavior, updates users on their on-site activities and allows people to follow any piece of content or fellow users. Read more »
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo lifted the veil on Twitter user statistics Thursday morning. Besides revealing the company’s active users, he talked about features it’s working on, the expansion of promoted tweets, and why he’s “excited” that 4 out of 10 active users don’t tweet. Read more »
Ever since it emerged from Chicago’s small startup community in 2008, Groupon has had nothing short of a spectacular story in terms of its growth: With estimated annual revenues of more than $4 billion after just three years of existence, the poster child for the “group ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Social media is playing an increasing role in enterprise IT, with companies like Jive Software and Telligent jockeying with IBM, Microsoft and Cisco to tap into corporate IT spending. Today, they build social platforms customers use for both employee collaboration and consumer marketing objectives. Vendors need ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Seesmic, the company best known for making consumer-facing social networking apps, has shifted its strategy for the second time in its four-year history, this time to focus on building mobile apps for the enterprise. Can the third iteration of Seesmic finally bring the company success? Read more »
Skype’s acquisition of GroupMe and Facebook’s Beluga-based Messenger are part of something much bigger than group text messaging: The landscape of personal online communication is changing. In the next generation of social media interaction, users will communicate in ways that mirror their real-life interactions. Read more »
Proposals to give police the power to shut down social networks in Britain — proposed as a dramatic reaction to the riots that spread across the country this month — appear to have been dumped by the government. A victory for sensible people everywhere, or a warning sign? Read more »
With the stock market in flux, do tech startups stand a chance when it comes to luring investors? To find out, we polled GigaOM readers on what’s hot, what’s not, which sectors might favor buyouts versus IPOs and how it all will change in the near ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If Google wants Google+ to succeed, it needs to get better at communicating clearly with the users of its new community. But the company has consistently failed to do this, and in fact has made things worse. Is being transparent something Google is incapable of? Read more »
Obvious Corp, a new venture launched by Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, has announced its first partnership with Lift, a startup founded by entrepreneurs Tony Stubblebine and Jon Crosby, who are looking to encourage human potential through positive reinforcement. Read more »
Facebook is making changes that are designed to give users more control over how they share information, and to compete with Google+. But will these changes make people less likely to share content on these networks — and how will that affect the social web? Read more »
Google’s requirement that users of Google+ be known by their real names has been the source of a firestorm of criticism since the launch of the network. But the recent launch of “verified” user accounts shows what could be a way out for the web giant. Read more »
We surveyed 400 of the newest generation, the Millennials, ages 20 through 29, on their attitudes and behavior around at-work technology and tech support, communications preferences and problem-solving styles. Here are the trends IT needs to address to make these workers productive and avoid potential problems. Read more »
Now closing on its second month, the Google+ social networking platform has seen rapid growth — and lots of attention — in its short lifetime. But new research indicates that the majority of Google+ users do not actually pitch in on the site very often, if at all. Read more »
GroupMe, a top contender in the group messaging app space, was born out of a hackathon but managed to find success by executing on its vision. The founders sat down with me and looked back at how the first year has gone since the service launched. Read more »
Google wants to eat everyone’s cake. Photovine, the photo-sharing app built by Google’s Slide team, is now open to public use after an initial beta period, and is gunning for Instagram’s iOS App Store crown. How does it stack up against the champ? Read more »
Fab.com, which began as Fabulis, a gay social networking site, has managed to find success by pushing a funky curated catalog of unique design products and trying to be as social as it can. The startup is now revamping a core feature called its inspiration wall. Read more »
Feed-based UIs are powerful because they encourage frequent usage and participation. They’re becoming one of the most important ways to present information, and are critical areas of competition in social networking and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When Britain’s teenagers aren’t rioting, they’re spending their time ogling each other on a hot website that’s just scored significant investment from a Canadian web mogul. But can Snog.com turn itself into something useful — or will it fade into obscurity? Read more »
Twitter has rolled out two new features to help users know which of their tweets resonate with their social graph, and to get a better look at the activity of the people they follow. The new features appear to be designed to boost Twitter’s “stickiness” factor. Read more »
The recently rolled out Google+ is Google’s latest effort to get a handle on something that so far has eluded the company: gaining access to the data users generate when they post status updates, share photos and comment on friends’ activities. More and more, these social ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It’s become clear in recent years that smartphones are going to be increasingly ubiquitous for the foreseeable future. And a recent study indicates that many people are using those devices to access Facebook more often than for, really, anything else. Read more »
Everyone seems to be looking to blame Twitter, Facebook or BlackBerry for the recent London riots, but these tools are just aspects of our increasingly real-time, mobile and connected digital lives — and that can be an incredibly powerful force for both good and bad. Read more »
UPDATED. LinkedIn on Thursday announced the financial results from its three months operating as a public company. The company showed off impressive user growth, but that has not started to translate into significantly higher profits. LinkedIn says it’s spending its revenue to reinvest for future growth. Read more »
The market for photography apps and photo sharing services is crowded beyond belief, ranging from trendy startups like Instagram to heavily-funded monsters such as Color. So why does Berlin-based EyeEm think it can make an impact? And can it succeed? Read more »
With any startup, fast growth requires investment, starting first and foremost with good people. With that in mind, I’d like to welcome the newest member of the GigaOM Pro family, David Card, who will serve as the research director of GigaOM Pro Read more »
Facebook has launched Facebook for Business, a step-by-step online guide aimed at helping small businesses use the social networking site. The timing is interesting, as it comes just a week after Google began shutting off all company profiles on its Google+ social network. Read more »
A young woman held against her will, a mysterious Chinese takeout receipt, a laptop that offers access to YouTube and Facebook but not Google Earth: Those are some of the puzzle pieces of a new interactive movie called The Inside Experience, unveiled by Intel Monday. Read more »
For years, the world of venture capital was largely shrouded in a veil of secrecy. But in the past 18 months, AngelList has started to change that in a big way. The social network for VCs and startups has grown impressively since its February 2010 debut. Read more »
There’s been a lot of sound and fury about Google and its handling of Google+ branded pages, but there is a serious issue underneath the griping, namely that Google can make or break a company’s presence online by virtue of its control over the web-search market. Read more »
Maybe it’s the influence of Google+, but suddenly everyone seems to be talking about what’s wrong with Twitter. First, blogger Robert Scoble said it was “boring,” and now Slate columnist Farhad Manjoo says it needs to lose the 140-character limit. Both are missing the point. Read more »
Apple put away $10.4 billion in cash during the most recent quarter, bringing its total cash and securities to $76.2 billion. Apple is extremely conservative about what it does with its money, which has become a little controversial. Here’s what people are saying. Read more »
Russian social network VKontakte has built a billion dollar business by cloning almost every aspect of Facebook for the local market. It seems a little rich, then, that founder Pavel Durov says his long-term ambition is to prove that Russian products can be global leaders. Read more »
We just wrote about the growth of social network MyYearbook, who has been on a tear as it emphasizes mobile, engagement and games. Well, the company got the attention of Latino social network Quepasa, which is buying MyYearbook for $100 million. Read more »
Even in these days of social networking over-sharing, some of the most important details of our lives remain in completely unwritten form. Proust, a startup that bills itself as a private place for families and friends to share memories, is trying to change exactly that. Read more »
