Announcing DiscoveryBeat: an event on how to get your apps noticed in an age of noise
VentureBeat is throwing a new mini-conference and networking event, DiscoveryBeat.
DiscoveryBeat addresses one of the biggest conundrums for Silicon Valley’s most dynamic startups and developers: How to get your social game or mobile application noticed in an age of noise?
It will be held in the afternoon… Continue Reading
MSN changes the butterfly
MSN’s new home page, which you can see at preview.msn.com, is the first one that doesn’t look like it was designed by Microsoft. The new page has the same cheery look and feel as the Bing search box that perches at its top, waiting to… Continue Reading
Broadband chip maker MaxLinear files for IPO
Broadband communications chip maker MaxLinear has filed to go public in another indicator that the good times are back for tech stocks and exits.
Carlsbad, Calif.-based MaxLinear makes analog or mixed-signal radio chips that can be manufactured in standard chip factories. The chips enable devices to… Continue Reading
Brizzly steps up to be the next client supporting Twitter lists
Brizzly, the status update client from the makers of Google Reader, has stepped up to become the second big app to support Twitter lists. (Seesmic was the first earlier this week.)
Lists are what they sound like — groups of Twitter accounts that people can recommend… Continue Reading
Max Levchin on Slide’s big virtual goods bet, scams and — mating
Slide, which started in photo-sharing, moved into Facebook widgets and then raised funding at a reported $550 million valuation last year, shifted gears this year and went aggressively into virtual goods. The company’s looking to become a mainstream version of Second Life, where there’s a… Continue Reading
Facebook restates its zero tolerance for scam offers and ads
Faced with media scrutiny, Facebook reiterated in a blog post that it is taking action to improve the quality of third-party ads in its apps. The post was inspired by the controversy that began last Friday when Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington confronted Offerpal chief executive… Continue Reading
Twitter cleans up trending topics to make search results more relevant
Twitter is cleaning up trending topics by returning more relevant results when you look up popular keywords people are tweeting about.
One of the neatest little features that grew out of the Twitter phenomenon last year were these trending topics. The company adopted them after acquiring… Continue Reading
New retweet feature on Twitter begins limited roll-out
Retweets, a way of sharing content on Twitter, are coming into their own.
Twitter’s testing a new official retweet feature after announcing they were going to incorporate the informal practice earlier this year.
As you can see in mock-ups above, there will be a link to retweet… Continue Reading
Google Dashboard: All Your Data That Are Belong To Us
OK, so all that personal data doesn’t really belong to Google, but it would be nice to know how much the search giant has on us — embarrassing e-mails, search histories and all.
The company released a dashboard today that shows all the data it has from… Continue Reading
Roundup: Les Moonves rocks it for CBS, Google’s privacy dashboard gets hated on
CBS beats analysts with $207 million profit for Q3 — Bloomberg reports that CEO Les Moonves “is leading the industry” in getting satellite and cable TV systems to pay retransmission fees that may bring CBS $200 million by 2012 or 2013. Audience members heckled Moonves… Continue Reading
iTunes turned the music market on its head. Could iTunes TV do the same for TV?
Rumors surfaced this week that Apple is in the process of putting together a $30-a-month iTunes TV offering. This rumored iTunes TV is supposedly something altogether different from the currently available Apple TV.
Apple TV is a piece of hardware that makes it easy to watch… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: FTC vs Intel, EMI vs BlueBeat, eBay vs common sense
The FTC may sue Intel, too – FTC Chairman Jon Liebowitz and Commissioners Pamela Jones Harbour and Thomas Rosch are, according to Reuters, in favor of filing a complaint.
“The basic allegation is that Intel entered into relationships with IBM and Dell and H-P designed to… Continue Reading
Blogger gives Google Friend Connect a 9-million site lead on Facebook
Google released some interesting statistics today about Friend Connect, which is part of the search giant’s push to build a social layer across the web where visitors can get tailored experiences depending on their interests and friend network. So how has Friend Connect done since… Continue Reading
Google Friend Connect sites start offering tailored web content, ads
More than a year ago Google and Facebook started a head-to-head race to build a social layer across the web with Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect. The vision was, if you visited a web site, you’d get a custom experience based on your own… Continue Reading
With 100,000 apps, is Apple’s iPhone unstoppable?
Apple announced today that the number of apps in the AppStore has now crossed 100,000. That’s a remarkable achievement for a platform that launched just 15 months ago.
As we’ve said before, the momentum behind Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch seems unstoppable. The 100,000 number should… Continue Reading
Funambol acquires Zapatec for an age of “sync and push” mobile apps
In hopes of creating a new kind of mobile business, Funambol is announcing today that it has acquired Zapatec, a maker of web-based application technology. The combined companies hope to launch what they call a new generation of “sync and push” apps for mobile devices.
Redwood… Continue Reading
Share button madness: Real-time search startup Topsy launches one of its own
Real-time search startup Topsy launched its own variation on the retweet button today to compete with Tweetmeme’s leading version.
It’s important because the retweet button was one of the distinguishing features that allowed Tweetmeme to break out from the pack of real-time search startups that launched… Continue Reading
Omidyar Network puts $2.4 million into government transparency abroad
Omidyar Network, the philanthropic fund created by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, just invested $2.4 million in Global Integrity, a non-profit firm that researches corruption and transparency in developing countries.
Global Integrity has academics, journalists and local contacts on the ground in about 100 countries feeding information… Continue Reading
¡Fue muy rápido! Twitter is now in Spanish
That was fast. About a month after Twitter launched a crowdsourced translations program to tap its burgeoning user base for help, the site’s now available in Spanish, according to co-founder Biz Stone.
The microblogging network has some prominent Twitter users including the Spanish government, basketball player… Continue Reading
Loopt aims for that mobile, social and real-time sweet spot with Pulse
Mobile social network Loopt is getting into the real-time game with Pulse, which will bring recommendations for things to do to depending on where you are and what’s popular at the moment.
It pulls in data from content partners like Zagat, Daily Candy and Thrillist along… Continue Reading