It’s been a long time coming, but the worlds of fashion and technology have finally begun to combine in a serious way. A new crop of companies is using the web to make the process more data-driven and social than ever before. Read more »
Exclusive. Gnip is making it very clear it’s not just about Twitter anymore. The company, which provides aggregated API access to a variety of social media streams, has significantly expanded its partnership with Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com. Read more »
After publishing his first print book, photographer Trey Ratcliff started his own e-book publisher, FlatBooks. Why? Because the painful process taught him everything that’s wrong with the old model of publishing and opened his eyes to the near-limitless potential of e-books. Read more »
Online video chat provider Yowie is boosting its social presence, with a Facebook app that will let individual users talk to one another while sharing interesting videos. The app differentiates itself by ranking users based on videos they share and their behavior in chat rooms. Read more »
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how consumers will soon be buying more TVs, and upgrading them ever faster. After seeing the best that CE manufacturers had in store at CES, I’m even more convinced. But not for the reasons you might think. Read more »
With its new “Search plus Your World” personalized results, Google may argue it is enhancing its service, but it’s also coming dangerously close to reneging on the promise it made to users in 2004: to provide unbiased links to those who are searching for information. Read more »
A new report from Bloomberg says Apple’s next iPad has indeed begun production. The new iPad will have a sharper screen, according to the new report, but also “LTE access,” something we’ve yet to hear much about in early iPad rumors. Read more »
Splunk’s IPO has been much anticipated with good reason. Splunk’s machine data search, analytics and visualization technologies address the gap between the reams of big data generated by the second and the ability to parse and display that data in a meaningful way. Read more »
Among the expected rows of new televisions, computers, phones and tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show is a growing number of health gadgets. These vary in form and function, but nearly all of them share some common elements: connectivity, mobile applications and social aspects. Read more »
Many traditional journalists see “citizen journalism” as a negative thing, an untrustworthy source of information that diminishes their role as gatekeepers of the news — but New York Times foreign correspondent and author Nick Kristof says that he sees the value of the phenomenon. Read more »
Google and Twitter are sniping at each other over social search, but the reality is that both sides are being disingenuous. The real issue is about control over social content, and users of both services are the ones who wind up losing in the end. Read more »
Despite many challenges — from disappointing EV sales to the headaches in subsidizing solar — the cleantech sector survived 2011. Where is it headed next? It is clear that early-stage companies and ideas hold the keys to future growth, much like the first wave of Internet ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A common New Year’s resolution is getting more organized, and email is often very much in need of organization. I’ve long been a fan of the “Inbox Zero” philosophy. It’s easier than you think to accomplish, and these simple tips will help you get there. Read more »
IAC-owned video site Vimeo is going mobile in a big way, with the release of apps for Android, the Kindle Fire and Windows Phone marketplaces. Those new apps are designed to let users upload, share and view videos on their mobile devices. Read more »
Instagram’s website is currently receiving 10 million page views each day, adding up to some 300 million page views per month, GigaOM has learned. This is especially interesting given that the Instagram experience is tailored to users of the app, not viewers on the web. Read more »
Dijit’s new iPad app expands on mobile features that were already available by taking advantage of the tablet’s larger screen. Viewers can access local TV listings, get recommendations from their Facebook friends, and gather more information about the cast and crew of the shows they’re watching. Read more »
Big data is often talked about as a phenomenon that lets organizations create narratives from their volumes of data. That is an apt characterization when we are talking about connecting the dots among disparate and possibly disconnected data sets. However, when we are talking about anything ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Writer-turned-venture-capitalist MG Siegler recently reignited a long-standing debate over whether blogs should have comments or not. Critics argue that comments are mostly noise and are a waste of time, but blogs that don’t have them risk being seen as just a soap-box for their authors. Read more »
It may have been simple error that saw Twitter mark a fake account as “verified,” but the fact that the company won’t even say how its verification process works means it still has a lot of work left to do in the trust department. Read more »
With a competitive primary and caucus season upon us for the 2012 Republican Presidential race (the Democratic race is uncontested with President Obama running for re-election), your iPhone could be a handy guide in helping you decide whom to vote for. Read more »
Edward Aten of Swift.fm noticed a shift in priorities this year. Visual experiences are starting to become the gold standard of web success; the successful web companies of 2011 and beyond are just simply better looking. Read more »
Don’t expect the pace of change in web technologies to slow down in 2012. The web is far from dead. Social media may have anointed one huge player in Facebook, but even if there is little room for a start-from-scratch general-purpose social network, there are several companies creating useful alternative social graphs. Companies can leverage key technologies and trends in 2012 to earn revenue and gain share, whether that’s by leveraging HTML5 for rich cross-platform experiences, doing heavy data analysis or integrating collaboration tools across businesses.Companies mentioned in this report include Dropbox, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When Twitter debuted its native photo-sharing feature earlier this year, some people worried that it would harm the existing ecosystem of third-party photo sharing apps. New data indicates that those concerns were well justified: Twitter now powers 45 percent of the photos shared on its site. Read more »
In what purists see as capitulation to attention deficit disorder, several Boston theaters plan to offer special “tweet seats” for cell-phone wielding patrons. Boston is following in the footsteps of venues like the Palm Beach Opera and Norma Terris Theater that already breached the tweet/no-tweet divide. Read more »
Sources have confirmed that work on an iPad app specially designed for British Prime Minister David Cameron has been underway for several months — and that, once completed, officials plan to make it available to the public. Read more »
2011 has been all about personalized mobile apps, and Evernote has benefited handsomely: In the past 12 months, the personal note-taking software company grew its user base from 6 million to 20 million. GigaOM talked to CEO Phil Libin about the growth and Evernote’s 2012 outlook. Read more »
The outsize growth in online spending this holiday season suggests that e-commerce as a sector of the economy has passed some kind of tipping point and that factors beyond simply convenience and price — both long-standing hallmarks of online shopping — are propelling the e-commerce sector ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
LinkedIn has announced that the technology behind IndexTank, the search engine startup it acquired back in October, has been released as open source software. It was pretty clear that IndexTank was bought largely for its talent, so it’s good news that its technology will live on. Read more »
Santa is about to bring us our presents, and kids big and small will once again be able to track him with their iOS and Android mobile phones. QR gift tags, personalized videos from Santa and Elf Yourself also help to geekify your holidays. Read more »
Social startup Allthis found itself under fire this week for a viral marketing approach many people found spammy and invasive. But heinous though it is, its behavior is just part of a trend among new services to appropriate our online identities to power themselves. Read more »
By 2020 it is estimated that 20–50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet. Many of these devices will be collecting health data or will be connected to health and medical devices in the home, the hospital or the wider environment. The Internet of things (IoT), meanwhile, refers to the growth of sensors and things that connect to the Internet via RFID, Bluetooth, ZigBee and satellite. In health care, its growth is likely to open new disruptive business opportunities for services that add value to the data collected. This paper provides a preliminary overview of the landscape of opportunities and drivers in the current health and health care environments and highlights some of the challenges that remain. Companies mentioned in this report include IBM, Arrayent Health, Kaiser Permanente and Ford. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
The recent GigaOM RoadMap conference in San Francisco featured a number of thought-provoking speakers — Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, venture investor Mike Moritz and former Sun Micrososystems founder Andy Bechtolsheim among them — and their views on technology’s future ranged all over the map. But one ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
