Roundup: Google improves mobile spreadsheets, pirates plunder the App Store and more
Here’s the latest action:
Google improves mobile access to spreadsheets — Now, instead of just viewing Google Docs spreadsheets on your phone, you can add, edit, sort, and filter.
Pirates run rampant in Apple’s App Store — This article profiles Imagenuity New Media, which released its iPhone app Rocky Artue earlier this month, only to have a pirated version become wildly more popular than the paid app. The writer is a bit alarmist for my taste, (he refers to… Continue Reading
Digg beefs up its funding for major expansion plans
With over 30 million monthly unique users, Digg is a juggernaut of a site. Despite perpetual rumors of an imminent acquisition by major players like Google or Microsoft, the social voting site is now gearing up for a major expansion on its own. And it’s just secured a big round of funding to make that expansion possible.
Interestingly, almost half of Digg’s users are outside of the U.S. now, the service claims on its blog. So… Continue Reading
Digg to offer sub-Diggs for niche audiences — sounds like a good match with Facebook Connect
News aggregator site Digg plans to introduce “sub-Diggs” that let small groups of users create their own news aggregators, similar to what smaller rivals Reddit and Mixx already offer, according to The Windy Citizen. It’s not clear if this means sub-sites within Digg.com or if users will be able to use Digg’s software to create completely separate sites — Reddit has notably open-sourced its software code to enable the latter.
Also, this is especially interesting because… Continue Reading
The Recommendation Engine may well make Digg useful again
It’s been a long time coming, but Digg is finally rolling out its “Recommendation Engine” to registered users this week. The basic idea is that the service will look at what stories you have dugg (the term for when you give an ‘up’ vote to an item) and based upon that, find similar users to you, using them to send you new stories.
Flat out: This is the feature that can make Digg useful to me… Continue Reading
Roundup: Virgin Mobile acquires Helio, Starbucks to stop music sales and more
Here’s the latest action:
New partnership brings Helio to Virgin Mobile — Virgin Mobile USA will acquire the U.S. arm of South korea-based SK Telecom, namely, a mobile operator called Helio, according to the Financial Times. Both mobile operators have been struggling to make money by piggybacking on the infrastructure of existing carriers. This announcement doesn’t offer any sense of how they might bounce back; it just seems loaded with more bad news, like the estimate that… Continue Reading
Roundup: MySpace in deals with labels, Tudou raises $53M, and more
MySpace nearing deals with music labels — Before long, MySpace may be offering streaming music and ad-supported downloads from Sony BMG and Warner Music Group, according to a report from the NY Post. A deal with the two music giants might challenge the dominance of Imeem, which has so far held the advantage in its deals with the four music majors.
Tudou.com raises another $53M, maybe — The Chinese video portal Tudou.com may have picked up $53 million,… Continue Reading
Mixx, social news competitor to Digg, raises another $2 million
Many startups have tried to take on social news site Digg. Mixx is one of them, but it has a few additional features that lets users fine-tune what stories they see on the site — and it’s made some deals with big newspapers. The company has shown enough progress since launching in October that it has brought back existing investor Intersouth Partners for a $2 million round.
Similar to Digg and competitors, Mixx lets you submit… Continue Reading
LA Times invests in Mixx, integrates social news site
Updated
The Los Angeles Times has partnered with Mixx, a social news website, to give readers more input in the news they read.
The publication has also said it will start using technology from Aggregrate Knowledge, a Silicon Valley company, to deliver user-driven content suggestions to its web site, starting with its travel section. It lets users see what other users like them have also viewed.
These are the latest moves by a large newspaper to try to… Continue Reading