Amazon expands its database products with the Relational Database Service
Amazon continues to expand the services and infrastructure it provides online. Early this morning, it announced that you can run a powerful database in Amazon’s cloud with its Relational Database Service (RDS).
The RDS should serve as an online alternative to buying and maintaining a database server such as those offered by Sun (which owns database company mySQL). The new service uses mySQL technology, so Amazon says it should be easy for developers to make the switch.
This isn’t Amazon’s first… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: Amazon’s all-time high, Microsoft’s ignorable low, the Windows 7 questions no one but David Pogue wants to be seen answering
Amazon shares hit an all-time record -- Today’s $118.49 price is higher than the $400-plus days of 1999, because of splits in the years since. Today’s share price would be about $700 without the splits, says the Wall Street Journal. The Journal hauled out Mary Meeker, a big booster of Amazon and other dot-com stocks in the late 1990s who still follows the sector:
Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker attributed Amazon’s recent surge to “continued success… Continue Reading
Amazon debuts payment system for mobile phones
Amazon Mobile Payments Service, or Amazon MPS as they’d prefer you call it, brings the comforting yellow Amazon button to mobile phone screens.
The key selling point of the Amazon MPS is familiarity to mobile shoppers. Instead of chasing them off with yet another system they need to sign up for, MPS lets Amazon fans sign up to pay via phone. Shoppers can even enable Amazon’s 1-Click function. I worry about what I might accidentally buy… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: TiVo gets $200M judgement, Amazon restores 1984, Tim O’Reilly preaches government as a platform
VentureBeat launches 5 O’Clock Roundup — Roundup, our end-of-workday mix of high-level business stories and tech items that we didn’t post on but think you should know about, has been renamed 5 O’Clock Roundup.
5 O’Clock Roundup will post every weekday at 5:00 pm Pacific time. It will almost always be written by me, with contributions from our readers and from the rest of the VentureBeat team. PR people, you’re welcome to pitch me at paul@venturebeat.com.
I’ve… Continue Reading
Tweetmeme experiments with commenting features
Tweetmeme, a content aggregator and sharing service fueled by tweets, is experimenting with commenting features to bolster its position as a leading Twitter-tracking service.
The U.K.-based site tracks retweets, a way of sharing content on the microblogging network, to fuel its main page of popular links and its real-time search results. Tweetmeme’s traffic soared to near 12 million unique visitors last month from 6,000 at the beginning of the year, according to Compete.
With Tweetmeme’s update, you… Continue Reading
Amazon / Netflix deal makes perfect sense
Amazon’s rumored pending purchase of Netflix sent the price of Netflix shares up instantly Monday. The mainstream press, unable to get any inside info so far, have been making up lists of why the deal would be good or bad. PC World’s Brandon Slattery has the best — well, ok, the longest one so far.
I don’t buy Slattery’s claim that “you can expect subscription prices to soar” for Netflix subcribers. I expect Netflix subscription prices… Continue Reading
States struggle to collect taxes from e-commerce
Lawmakers in New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Hawaii have all introduced legislation in the past month that requires e-commerce companies to collect sales tax if they have marketing affiliates based in those states. This week, Hawaii governor Linda Lingle vetoed her state’s bill. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to do the same.
Affiliates are website operators who get a commission for routing buyers from their own site to, say, Amazon. Last Sunday, Amazon notified its affiliates… Continue Reading
Scribd to sell 5,000 e-books from Simon & Schuster
Scribd, the site that lets users upload, share and embed documents, first launched its e-books store back in May as a potential competitor to Amazon. Now it has inched closer to its goal with a deal to sell 5,000 titles from major publishing house Simon & Schuster in the form of digital e-books.
Many publishing houses are shopping around for new online distribution opportunities. E-books may have only generated $100 million in revenue last year, but… Continue Reading
Can eBay rebrand itself as the Web’s Wal-Mart?
Ebay has a problem: It’s viewed as a quirky second-hand bazaar. That has stunted the company’s growth, as shoppers in search of instant bargains bypass eBay in favor of Amazon or Google.
eBay’s Buy It Now button, in theory, lets shoppers instantly consummate a purchase. In practice, the Buy It Now button often looks like Click Here to Pay Too Much.
That’s important, because CEO John Donahoe aims to revive the pioneer auction firm’s stalled growth by… Continue Reading
Roundup: Apple Tablet coming? Facebook book definitely is, and more
Here’s the latest action
Apple Tablet looking even more real — More here and here.
Tokyo park keeps teen vandals out using high-pitched noisemaker — Wow. And is this a civil rights issue?
“The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal” — The title says it all. Facebook’s early days were mild compared to, say, the average fraternity — c’mon it was mostly dudes working on computers. But facts can’t stop a sensational story,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Twitter’s inventor readies next big thing, Verizon supports texting bans, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Twitter co-founder to launch iphone payment service — The project, code-named Squirrel, will allow your iPhone to take credit card payments (though it won’t be the first service to do this), TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reports.
Verizon will support bans on text messaging while driving — One such law recently took effect in California.
European Commission fine against Intel expected Wednesday — IDG calls the case, which has been under investigation since 2000, “one of the most significant… Continue Reading
The new Kindle’s big innovation: A higher price
As expected, Amazon announced a new version of its Kindle eBook reader today, with a larger screen for reading newspapers and textbooks. It’s also not surprising that the larger device carries a bigger price tag, but that didn’t stop my eyes from widening a bit when I saw the Kindle DX will cost $489.
That’s right, the new Kindle will cost almost $500. That’s about $200 more than an Xbox 360 with a hard drive. Granted,… Continue Reading
Does anyone really think a big-screen Kindle can save newspapers?
Here comes another possible savior for the desperate newspaper industry. Amazon is set to announce a new version of its popular Kindle eBook reader with a larger screen customized for reading newspapers, magazines, and textbooks on Wednesday, according to The New York Times.
The argument about why these devices could be a boon for newspapers is a familiar one: They could provide an environment for richer, more lucrative advertising, as well as a way for publications… Continue Reading
Roundup: Facebook’s election, Google’s new toolbar, and more
Facebook users vote on site’s governing documents — An overwhelming majority of votes supported the new terms of use (which were rather controversial) over the old ones.
Google adds new features to Toolbar — New features include a search using your current location and a simplified Chinese toolbar.
Amazon earnings jump – The online retailer handily beat analysts estimates during the first quarter of the year.
Twitter gets 19 million global users – That’s according to comScore, a firm whose… Continue Reading
Roundup: Wright sticks with Spore, Zango folds, Texas gives solar a boost and more
Wright still on board with Spore — Despite his departure from Electronic Arts, the Sims creator says he will still pitch in on Spore’s sequels.
Game runs apocalypse drills — A report on crisis response has been released based on the game Superstruct, a program that crowdsources people’s reactions to disaster scenarios. CNet has more.
Cybersecurity no easy fix — A study conducted on cybersecurity for president Barack Obama suggests that U.S. networks are vulnerable to external threats, but that… Continue Reading
Roundup: Amazon’s ‘ham-fisted’ error, Facebook’s baseball surge and more
Here’s the latest action:
Gay books disappear from Amazon’s sales rankings — What caused the incident now known as “amazonfail”? The online retailer first blamed a glitch, and is now saying a “ham-fisted” cataloging error is at fault. Meanwhile, a hacker claims to be responsible.
With the start of baseball season, teams see a surge in Facebook fans — The Boston Red Sox’s page grew from 1,173 fans to more than 46,000 in under a week.
Banner advertising isn’t dead… Continue Reading
Roundup: Blind advocates want audio Kindle, Google CEO speaks to newspapers, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Advocates for the blind protest loss of text-to-speech on Kindle — Amazon gave publishers the option to disable the feature after the Authors Guild complained it would cut into audio book sales. In response, a group advocating for the blind protested outside the Authors Guild office in Manhattan today.
Google CEO tells newspapers not to piss consumers off — Eric Schmidt gave the closing keynote at the Newspaper Association of America’s conference, where he said:… Continue Reading
Amazon wants your data in Elastic Map Reduce
Amazon has announced a new way to process large amounts of data, dubbed Amazon Elastic Map Reduce, that combines the company’s cloud computing infrastructure with the Hadoop open source framework.
Hadoop is based on the MapReduce programming model made famous by Google, and it basically involves breaking down large chunks of data and distributing them across multiple processors. For example, Yahoo runs Hadoop across 10,000 Linux clusters to produce data that’s used in its web search…. Continue Reading
Obopay scores $70M from Nokia for mobile payments
Obopay, provider of a mobile service that lets people transfer money to one another through text messages, just received an investment from Nokia, estimated at $70 million. [Update: It turns out that not all of this money came from Nokia, as most people reported. There were other undisclosed investors involved. TechCrunch suggests that several of Obopay's old-faithful firms also chipped in, including Qualcomm, Redpoint Ventures, Onset Ventures and Richmond Management, but nothing has been confirmed.]… Continue Reading
Blockbuster wants to be on Apple products. Apple may have something to say about that.
I’ve already broken down why Blockbuster’s latest attempt to spread its content is a bit sad. It simply always seems to be one step behind in a fast evolving landscape. For example, it has said in the past that it wants to be on portable devices but wanted to use a system (kiosks) that would likely leave out the most popular portable media products by Apple. Well, now Blockbuster is changing its tune.
Blockbuster’s senior VP… Continue Reading