• Samsung: Near Google TV Production Deal
    Samsung is just about ready to produce Google TVs, reports Reuters, citing comments from the head of Samsung's TV division on Tuesday. “Google TV -- which currently comes built-in on certain Sony Corp television models and on Logitech International set-top boxes -- allows consumers to access online videos and websites on their TVs, as well as specialized apps such as video games,” Reuters explains. If and when Samsung gets around to selling a Google TV -- which will likely be sometime next year -- it will clearly stand apart from rival services, according to Yoon Boo-keun, president of Samsung's TV …
  • Facebook Eroding 'Six Degrees Of Separation'
    Has Facebook, with its great size and social greasing, shattered the old "Six Degrees of Separation" theory? Citing a joint study, Facebook indeed claims to have brought people (only those with Web connections, we assume) just 4.74 steps away from meeting any other Web-connected person in the world. In what reads like a marketing release for mathletes, Facebook says it paired with the University of Milan to approximate the "number of hops," or degrees of separation, between all pairs of individuals on Facebook. “The study found that while 99.6 percent of all pairs of people on Facebook are connected by …
  • Teens Want Smartphones Over First Cars
    How popular have smartphones become to teens? So popular that many are reportedly choosing the Web-ready, feature-rich gadgets over their first cars! Doing his best teen impersonation, The New York Times’ Nick Bilton writes: “A driver’s license? Like, whatever.” Carmakers themselves are well aware of the issue. “The car used to be the signal of adulthood, of freedom,” Sheryl Connelly, Ford Motor Company’s manager of global consumer trends and “futuring,” tells Bilton. “It was the signal into being a grown-up. Now, the signal into adulthood for teenagers is the smartphone.” How is Detroit planning to respond? Perhaps, making cars more …
  • Google Apps Nip At Microsoft's Toes
    What impact are Google’s cloud-based business apps having on Microsoft’s Office division? Anecdotes abound about offices embracing Google over Microsoft, but, as The New York Times explains, “more than 4 1/2 years after Google Apps for business made its debut, the question remains how much of a dent Google is making in Microsoft’s business.” Microsoft claims to barely notice a change to its bottom-line. Google, however, insists that its business services are gaining steam. “Possibly more important to Google is the way that Apps helps Google build social networks inside business,” according to The Times. “If successful, it would be …
  • Will "Freaky Line" Curtail Facebook?
    Despite lingering concerns over privacy and “over-sharing,” Facebook is forging ahead with its grand plan of becoming a highly-personalized “new media company.” So suggests blogger -- and self-described “oversharing social media wanker” -- Robert Scoble. “One where the media comes to us,” he writes, speaking for all consumers. “Compare to boring old Yahoo. There we have to visit the media by going to [Yahoo Sports] or [Yahoo Finance].” Indeed, “The new world is you just open up Facebook and everything you care about will be streaming down the screen.” The problem? (For anyone who doesn’t own Facebook stock, that is.) …
  • Apple Rules Tablet Web Traffic
    From the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to the Blackberry PlayBook, how are Android tablets impacting Apple’s share tablet Web traffic? Just barely, according to new research from Royal Pingdom. In its analysis, iPad accounts for almost 88% of tablet Web traffic, leaving Android devices to fight over the remaining 11% share. According to recent comScore data for October, 95.5% of all tablet Web traffic in the U.S. comes from iPads. Morover, Ooyala recently reported that iPads accounted for the “vast majority of video played on a tablet in Q3 [2011].” In fact, iPads gobbled up 95.7% of all video hours …
  • Newspaper Group Forms Daily Deal Venture
    Life just got more complicated for Groupon. Trying to reclaim the “coupon” market from the deal king, eight national newspaper publishers have reportedly formed a joint venture to promote their individual daily deals. The publishing partners include Advance Digital, A. H. Belo Corporation, Cox Media Group, Gannett, Hearst, MediaNews Group, The McClatchy Company, and The Washington Post Co., paidContent reports.  “This new venture is being created with assets from the new entity’s acquisition of Travidia, the developer of Find n Save,” it writes. The new company is expected to adopt the Find n Save brand. Trying to offset falling ad …
  • Half Of Americans Job Hunt On Facebook
    Nearly half -- 48% -- of all U.S. job seekers have performed at least one social job-hunting activity on Facebook in the last year, reports ZDNet, citing new survey results from the polling company. “If we exclude individuals without a Facebook account, the number jumps to 63 percent,” ZDNet points out. Conducted on behalf of the social recruiting company Jobvite, the survey also found that that over 22 million Americans used a social network to find their most recent job opportunity -- almost three times more than 7.7 million Americans who reported doing so last year. The study, which …
  • Google+'s Incredibly Shrinking Growth
    U.S. traffic to Google+ has dropped in 11 of the 21 weeks since its launch in late June -- typically falling between 10% and 20% week-over-week -- according to new data from Experian Hitwise given exclusively to the Los Angeles Times. “To be fair, Google+ has seen a substantial overall gain in visitors since its launch in late June,” LAT notes. “But the large majority of its growth came in a single week in September, after it opened its doors to the public. Since then, much of that gain has ebbed.” For two months before Google+ opened to the public, …
  • Android Under Malware Siege
    Since this summer, Google’s Android mobile operating system has experienced a staggering 472% increase in malware samples, PCWorld reports, citing new data from Juniper Networks. Such corruption is undoubtedly a sore subject for any company going up against Apple, and its impeccable record of shielding its PCs and gadgets from malware, spam, and similar threats. Alas, “The free-for-all Android Market has seen a striking increase in the volume of attacks since July,” writes PCWorld. Only getting worse, October and November actually saw the fastest growth in Android malware discovery since Google’s OS was launched, the Juniper Global Threat Center found. …
« Previous EntriesNext Entries »