Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

16 Dec 2011 11:58

tags

Tech: A poorly-tended farm? Zynga IPO flops in first day of trading

  • Yet another reason we wish the internet was the real world. Remember when Facebook announced that it might, maybe, potentially, could see itself having an IPO in 2012? Well, Zynga, perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the Facebook ecosystem, has beaten them to the punch. The popular social gaming company’s shares are now available for the public to purchase. The “Farmville” company’s stock, listed as “ZNGA” and priced at $10 a share by the company, hasn’t had a particularly good morning, falling below its IPO price at one point. Currently, it sits at just over $10. Will the stock begin to lean in Groupon’s downward direction, or will it aim for Facebook status? source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Dec 2011 23:14

tags

U.S.: Texas food stamp tragedy: Awful in more ways than one

  • tragic On Monday, a mother in Texas shot her two children before killing herself. She died at the scene of the shooting. The children later died in the hospital — the daughter on Wednesday, the son Thursday. Just two hours before the shooting, daughter Ramie Grimmer updated her Facebook status to say: “may die 2day.”
  • more tragic Rachelle Grimmer killed her children in a food stamp office, after being denied food stamps on multiple occasions. She had been trying to apply since July but had been unable to do so, due to paperwork issues. The family was extremely poor and had been visited by Child Protective Services twice over neglect issues. source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Dec 2011 19:59

tags

Tech: Pinboard founder: Free Web apps suck because they get acquired

  • What if a little site you love doesn’t have a business model? Yell at the developers! Explain that you are tired of good projects folding and are willing to pay cash American dollar to prevent that from happening. It doesn’t take prohibitive per-user revenue to put a project in the black. It just requires a number greater than zero.
  • Pinboard founder Maciej Ceglowski • Offering a rarely-heard take on the free-Web-app movement — that startups without business models are only hurting end-users, an argument that’s fresh in the minds of some after Gowalla’s staff got acquired by Facebook, but not its product. (This is a pain we know all too well, thanks to the pending death-by-acquisition of Apture and our scramble to replace it.) And in case you’re wondering, Ceglowski follows his own advice — he charges a one-time $9.55 fee to join his Delicious competitor. We’re with him (though we’re not opposed to the freemium idea that sites like Reddit use). We’ll gladly pay a $10 one-time fee to use a product if it means the product’s still going to exist in three years. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Dec 2011 21:44

tags

Tech: Facebook’s Gowalla buyout was for the talent, not the company

  • While Facebook isn’t acquiring the Gowalla service or technology, we’re sure that the inspiration behind Gowalla will make its way into Facebook over time.
  • A statement from Facebook • Basically emphasizing that they bought out Gowalla’s staff, not its service. It apparently was a marriage of mutual ambition: “It became clear that the way for our team to have the biggest impact was to work together,” said Gowalla CEO Josh Williams. The statements effectively play into what many have figured about the Gowalla team — they’re a very good company at design, but ultimately, their product was an also-ran in the market, one increasingly surpassed by Foursquare. They shouldn’t feel bad, though — Facebook was an also-ran at location-sharing, too. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Dec 2011 20:22

tags

Tech: Gonewalla? Facebook buys location-sharing service Gowalla

  • The sum? Undisclosed. In what’s probably Facebook’s highest-profile acquisition since it scooped up FriendFeed in 2009, the social network bought Gowalla, a popular location check-in service that’s probably the most notable competitor to market leader Foursquare. Facebook had a location check-in service of its own called Facebook Places, which it discontinued back in August after it flopped in the market. So, two questions: With Facebook’s backing, can Gowalla get a kick in the pants? Or is it dead entirely? (For what it’s worth: FriendFeed is still online, though it hasn’t been actively developed in years.) Either way, if you don’t want Facebook to have your Gowalla data, location check-in fans, check out TheNextWeb’s guide. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Nov 2011 00:37

tags

Tech: Aw, Zucks. We’re hoping this won’t “poke” our portfolios too badly.

  • Want to own a piece of Facebook? You might be able to in the spring of 2012. It looks like, despite founder Mark Zuckerberg’s well-known resistance to the idea over the years, the company is on its way to its “initial public offering” — the sale of stock that a private company makes available to the public. (Groupon just had an IPO, and it hasn’t been going quite so well for them.) The social media trailblazers could raise as much as $10 billion from first-day stock sales; that would put the company’s total value at $100 billion. Not bad for a guy who screwed over most of his friends from Harvard (and a couple of Winklevi) to get there. source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Oct 2011 11:26

tags

Tech: The Winklevi’s cost of suing Facebook? Possibly not worth it

  • $65 million the amount Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss earned from their original settlement with Facebook
  • $13 million the amount the Winklevi have spent on lawyer fees in that case and a couple of others source
  • » Twenty percent of their settlement, down the toilet: Sure, the prize that the Winklevi could win from Mark Zuckerberg and company could possibly be massive — in the billions, even — but the thing is, they’re already rich and they’ve wasted much of their “I’m rich” money on courtrooms and lawsuits. Perhaps not the most efficient way of spending the money? Maybe.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

27 Sep 2011 01:38

tags

Tech: Too social? Spotify and Facebook get too friendly for some users’ taste

  • Not cool. My Spotify account isn’t linked to Facebook, and it’ll stay that way, thankyouverymuch. If I didn’t have an account already, this would prevent me from signing up.
  • A Get Satisfaction user • Venting about Spotify’s Facebook-only signup option for new users. On top of that, Spotify recently started cross-posting what songs users are listening to on Facebook, which might be a little to personal for some people. Whistling Britney Spears while you work? Have a soft spot for Depeche Mode? Now all your friends will know, too. Follow these steps to stop or limit Spotify oversharing. source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Jun 2011 14:39

tags

Tech: Google tries to expand its reach with social media

  • Google takes another shot at social networking. Google+ seems more serious than previous attempts, though, and they’re gunning straight at the Facebook market. They’re championing privacy as a way to get users to use their site — you can choose who you share with, rather than sharing what you’re up to with every one of your friends. There’s a few other cool things, too — we’re looking forward to the Hangout feature, which will let you video chat with up to 10 friends at one time — coming and going as they please. Don’t expect to go make your Google+ profile right now, though. They’re testing it right now and it’s invite-only. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Jun 2011 14:27

tags

Tech, World: Fun fact: Chinese Twitter clone nearly as big as Twitter itself

  • 57% the share of China’s microbloggers that use Sina Weibo — a Chinese Twitter clone; that’s roughly 140 million users (compared to Twitter’s roughly 200 million worldwide)
  • 87% the share of China’s total microblogging activity that goes through Sina Weibo; not bad for a former Yahoo-like portal site that’s stretching its wings source
  • » This is pretty huge. China has more internet users than any other country, and Sina is dominating their microblogging market. They’re trying to make themselves more than just China’s Twitter, though; they want to add more Facebook-like features as well. But that won’t be easy. Competition is fierce, because no single social media site dominates and the company faces strong competition from RenRen and Tencent. On top of that, though, Sina has to police its users and censor them if they’re talking against the government — something Twitter doesn’t have to do. Regardless, this sort of outside-in social media cloning is pretty fascinating to us.
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>