Dropbox Raising Massive Round at a $5B-Plus Valuation | TechCrunch

Let’s see – Apple iCloud is coming soon, to address iPad/iPhone/Mac/PC file sync challenges, and vendors including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are all relentlessly competing to manage your digital stuff; I wonder how this will all work out, for Dropbox investors…

The real news are the numbers we’re hearing from multiple sources close to the company. Dropbox is looking to raise between $200 million and $300 million according to these sources. In terms of valuation, the company has already had multiple offers at a valuation north of $2 billion range, and recently more informal discussions in the $8 billion-valuation range. Our sources expect the valuation to end up in the $5 billion to $10 billion range.

That’s quite a step up from its previous funding rounds which have totalled a tiny $7.2 million.

Dropbox Raising Massive Round at a $5B-Plus Valuation | TechCrunch

Facebook for Every Phone [Facebook Mobile]

Facebook aims for mobile device ubiquity

At Facebook, we work to ensure people around the world have a great Facebook experience no matter where they are or how they access our site.

Today, we're launching the new Facebook for Every Phone app, which offers a fast and comprehensive Facebook experience on over 2,500 different phones. This app not only includes Facebook’s most popular features, such as News Feed, Inbox, and Photos, but also enables you to upload photos and find friends from your phone’s contacts.  People all over the world can download the app by visiting m.facebook.com and scrolling down to the download link, or by entering d.facebook.com/install directly into their mobile browser. You can also find it in leading app stores, including GetJar, Appia, and Mobile Weaver.

Facebook for Every Phone

Unfriendly: Google Blocking Ex-Employee’s “Social Circles” Book (Oh Yeah, He Now Works At Facebook) | TechCrunch

Google helps a former employee promote his new book… (p.s. this and the next post were both via my LinkedIn Today home page)

Anyway, there’s been a lot of interest recently in Adams given his history and he took some time today to write a blog post to clear some things up. Why he left Google, what he does at Facebook — it’s good stuff. But the real meat is one little nugget of information he drops: Google is blocking him from releasing a book he wrote about his social research called, what else, Social Circles. And Adams is not happy about this at all.

Specifically, Adams says he received permission in June 2010 from Google to publish Social Circles. As he notes the content, title, and cover (circles!) all existed before the Emerald Sea project (Google+). But after word of the project started leaking out that summer, Google rescinded their permission and asked Adams to wait to publish until Google+ launched. Adams understood, and was perfectly fine with that. But now that G+ is out there, he says Google is still blocking him from publishing the book, and he doesn’t know why.

[…]

But rather than wait for Google’s permission, Adams is hard at work on a new book, called Grouped, which will be out in a few months, he says.

Unfriendly: Google Blocking Ex-Employee’s “Social Circles” Book (Oh Yeah, He Now Works At Facebook) | TechCrunch

A Call to Take Back the Internet From Corporations - NYTimes.com

Excerpt from a timely Internet capitalism + democracy snapshot

Companies should start thinking of their users more as constituents who have a voice in the policy making, she said. Also, good corporate governance policies, like the ones that have become standard for clothing manufacturing companies, could become more widespread. Google, for example, regularly releases a transparency report, which lists how many requests for information it receives from each government. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have helped develop a code of conduct around Internet freedom through the Global Network Initiative. However, Twitter and Facebook have not joined in, limiting the impact of the code.

A Call to Take Back the Internet From Corporations - NYTimes.com

Research in Motion Courts Carriers in Hopes of Rebound - NYTimes.com

RIM’s new strategy: hope that Apple and the Android ecosystem are more difficult for carriers to work with

Many wireless carriers are starting to feel threatened by the growing prominence of Apple and Google, especially as phones take on a variety of new tasks like replacing credit cards. Nor are the carriers keen about having just two companies controlling a major part of their businesses. As a result, many carriers want a revitalized RIM to serve as a counterbalance, analysts and telecommunications consultants say.

“The carriers are looking for guard dogs to keep Apple down and keep Google down,” said John Strand, a telecommunications consultant in Copenhagen. “BlackBerry has had very good relationships with carriers.”

Research in Motion Courts Carriers in Hopes of Rebound - NYTimes.com

Going in Google+ Circles. Review of Google+ - Katherine Boehret - The Digital Solution - AllThingsD

A handy Facebook tip in a Google+ review

The Sparks feature of Google+ encourages a person to choose things that “spark” an interest for them, whether that’s tennis or “The Closer,” and this automatically retrieves news about these subjects to one’s Google+ page.

Sparks is another example of something that exists in a different capacity on Facebook. You can type anything into the Search box at the top of the Facebook site and find information about that thing and then opt to “Like” it, which adds information about it to your news feed. Many people don’t know that searches for things other than people are possible in Facebook.

Going in Google+ Circles. Review of Google+ - Katherine Boehret - The Digital Solution - AllThingsD

Netflix raises mail, Internet video rates - The Boston Globe

Steep price increases for Netflix customers (except for the streaming-only option)

Netflix isn’t changing the $8 monthly price for an Internet streaming-only option, which the company began offering late last year. But instead of charging $2 more for a plan that also offers one DVD at a time by mail, the company will charge $8 for a comparable DVD-only plan. That brings the total to $16.

Those who want to rent up to two DVDs of a time with streaming will pay $20 per month, or 33 percent more. Those wanting three DVDs at a time with streaming will pay $24 per month, or 20 percent more.

Netflix raises mail, Internet video rates - The Boston Globe

(Via Google+) All aboard…

Okay, I clearly need to refine my decision criteria for what gets posted where (e.g., using channels such as Blogger and Google+); stay tuned…  For now, in any case, as Volker shared below, it appears Google+ is wide-open

Peter O'Kelly  -  1:16 PM  -  Public

All aboard...Edit

Volker Weber originally shared this post:

The invitation process now seems to be permanently open. Which means that Google now has sufficient data about the system and knows how it performs. The initial wave has come ashore and they can grow the user base.

Post by Peter O'Kelly

BBC News - The web strikes back

“WORA” is finally coming to fruition, but without the Java part of the story; check the full BBC article for a detailed market snapshot

But after a period of rapid growth, native smartphone apps are facing a fight for survival.

That threat comes from web apps - software that runs in a browser rather than being downloaded and installed on the device's operating system.

Mubaloo, one of the UK's biggest mobile app developers, estimates that requests from clients for web apps has doubled in recent months - enough to make them the third big player in app development.

"We're probably doing iPhone, Android and web apps all about the same at the moment," said the company's founder Mark Mason.

"Those are the three platforms. We see Blackberry slowly dying a death, and we see Windows probably growing to be the fourth player."

The reason for that is simple - developing web apps solves several headaches.

BBC News - The web strikes back

140+ SharePoint People to Follow on Google+ - SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land

A SharePoint product team alumnus managing a list of SharePoint ecosystem influencers/etc. active on Google+

In the past I’ve put together lists of SharePoint blogs, and lists of people in the early days of twitter.  Now I give you over 150 SharePoint people on Google plus.  Note some are more SharePoint than others.  Compiling this list was pretty time consuming, and while this pretty closely matches my now “SharePoint” circle of friends on g+ it took some trimming to get it to this quality bar.  I didn’t ask these people if they wanted to be included in this blog, so not all of them will add you back, but this is a pretty good list.

Note: I’m not in this list cause I’m the one who’s circle it is.  If you want to find me, you can find me here:

Joel Oleson g+ Profile

140+ SharePoint People to Follow on Google+ - SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land

If Apple Television Is Next, Then So Is A "Genius Squad," Says UBS [Business Insider]

An Apple television product line and “Genius Squad” would further relegate big boxes such as Best Buy to the K-Mart zone of consumer tech retailing; check the article link below for more analysis/speculation

When (if?) Apple releases a television, it will also send its "Genius" employees out on the road to install the televisions, says UBS analyst Maynard Um in a big note this morning.

Um's note is mostly on how Apple's market cap can expand by another $100 billion in the coming years.

If Apple Television Is Next, Then So Is A "Genius Squad," Says UBS

The Internet Is Filling Up with Dead People and There's Nothing We Can Do About It - Technology Review

Gone but not defriended; check the article link for some potential solutions (e.g., creating and blocking a “zombie” Google+ circle)

Aside from the feeling that I'm giving up yet more of my privacy out of fear of becoming techno-socially irrelevant, the worst part of signing up for a new social network like Google+ is having the service recommend that I invite or classify a dead friend.

The Internet Is Filling Up with Dead People and There's Nothing We Can Do About It - Technology Review

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Technology Journalist » Why I’ll Never Redirect my Personal Blog to Google Plus

A timely blogging reality check (via Louis Gray, via Google Buzz); check the post link below for more details

A number of prominent web personalities have announced that they are going to redirect their personal blogs to their Google Plus pages – because they get so much more interaction with readers when they post there. I can understand that, but I’ll never do that with my blog. I have 3 times as many connections on Circles as I have RSS and email subscribers here (in 2 weeks, vs 5 or 6 years!) – but I’m not tempted in the slightest to give up what I have here. Perhaps it’s just about trade-offs and I’m not willing to give up the control I have over the way my personal site communicates with visitors.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Technology Journalist » Why I’ll Never Redirect my Personal Blog to Google Plus

Automating the Culling of Facebook Friends - NYTimes.com

A social circle inference system

Sharing on Facebook can get complicated if you only want to do so with college friends, colleagues or golf buddies. You have to manually sort potentially hundreds of people into separate groups.

Katango, a free iPhone app introduced on Tuesday, intends to alleviate the hassle by automatically organizing Facebook friends. In theory, its technology will detect who is a family member, who attended the same high school or who lives in the same city and place them in the relevant group.

Users of the app can then reach out to people in a particular group with a message or photo, without spamming or over sharing with everyone one else.

Automating the Culling of Facebook Friends - NYTimes.com

HTC Flyer Tablet, Droid Accused of Infringing Apple Patents - Businessweek

Perhaps all Android device manufacturers will end up paying both Apple and Microsoft (but not Google…)

HTC Corp., Asia’s second-largest maker of smartphones, was accused of infringing Apple Inc. patents in a case that may halt U.S. imports of the Taiwanese company’s phones and its new Flyer tablet computers.

Apple claims HTC is infringing five patents related to software architecture and user interfaces in portable electronic devices, hardware for touch screens and movement sensors, according to a complaint filed July 8 with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. The complaint is the second Apple has filed against Taoyuan, Taiwan-based HTC.

HTC Flyer Tablet, Droid Accused of Infringing Apple Patents - Businessweek

Is Google+ a bigger threat to Twitter than it is to Facebook? — Tech News and Analysis

I believe the expanding and accelerating competition between Facebook and Google will be disruptive to many other social players, especially Twitter, Foursquare, and the leading blogging services

Since Google+ came out, there’s been a lot of focus on whether it’s a “Facebook-killer,” in part because it has a lot of similar features such as photo-sharing and status updates, but also because Google+ “Circles” seem like such a big improvement on what Facebook offers. But there’s just as much — if not more — reason to see Google’s offering as a Twitter competitor, and some users are already talking about how they are using Twitter less and Google+ more. Is the Google network just benefitting from “shiny new object” syndrome, or is it a real threat?

Is Google+ a bigger threat to Twitter than it is to Facebook? — Tech News and Analysis

HP realigns PC unit with eye toward WebOS sales - The Boston Globe

Going double-or-nothing on the HP/Palm acquisition

Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s former chief executive, will take charge of product development and innovation for the personal systems group, which encompasses PCs, tablets, and smartphones. Senior vice president Stephen DeWitt will run a new unit responsible for developing and promoting the WebOS computer operating system. Both will report to Todd Bradley, who runs PSG. DeWitt discussed the changes in an interview yesterday.

HP realigns PC unit with eye toward WebOS sales - The Boston Globe

Cisco may cut up to 10,000 jobs - The Boston Globe

Big changes ahead for Cisco

Cisco chief executive John Chambers is slashing jobs and exiting less profitable businesses as competitors such as Juniper Networks Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. take market share in Cisco’s main businesses with lower-priced, simpler products. Sales of Cisco’s switches and routers, which made up more than half of revenue last year, will continue to slip, said Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co.

Cisco may cut up to 10,000 jobs - The Boston Globe

Philly papers to sell Android tablets with content - The Boston Globe

Razors and blades…

The owner of the city’s two major newspapers planned to disclose that it will begin selling Android tablet computers preloaded with their content in a digital venture designed to shore up readership and finances nearly a year after the publications emerged from bankruptcy.

Philly papers to sell Android tablets with content - The Boston Globe

Facebook blocks Open-Xchange contact exporter tool | ZDNet

This is a complex and contextual debate – e.g., if I agree to friend someone in Facebook, that does not necessarily mean I agree to share that friendship or other parts of my social network with other tool/service providers my friend may elect to authorize (to access their Facebook profile/network info).  It might be “my” personal network, managed by Facebook, but I and others have contextual assumptions about what is allowed to be done with the relationship info, upon accepting a friend request.

Perhaps Facebook will eventually add yet another security/privacy sharing option, e.g., to specify that the scope of friendship is exclusively intra-Facebook or can be known more broadly, but in the meantime I believe Facebook is right to be conservative with sharing scope expansion for social networks, especially since many people tend to be unduly trusting when it comes to authorizing applications to use their Facebook profiles/network details/etc. 

This Facebook policy excerpt quote (from the source article linked at the end of this post) seems completely reasonable to me: “You cannot use a user’s friend list outside of your application, even if a user consents to such use, but you can use connections between users who have both connected to your application. (FPP II.11)”

Here’s the Open-Xchange response:

“If you want to see what a future looks like where a single company controls YOUR personal data for its own profit, this is a glimpse,” Open-Xchange CEO Rafael Laguna said in a statement. “Clearly, Facebook management does not want you to have the ability to take your personal information outside their walls to, say, Google+ and will do everything in their power to stop you, including violating their own terms and conditions. From a technical standpoint, Facebook’s claim of violation of terms is preposterous. All we are doing is using the Facebook API to extract the last name and first name fields. We are not parsing or scraping the email address. That same data is available on Facebook under Account->Account Settings->Download Your Information in the resulting friends.html file. This is not about user experience. It is about Facebook NOT wanting anyone to control their personal information - except Facebook.”

Facebook blocks Open-Xchange contact exporter tool | ZDNet

Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check: Get Google+Facebook

If you are considering the Google+ add-in I referenced this morning, please review the “this page” link below first; there’s a lively and important discussion thread therein on the extent to which the way the add-in was handled should be considered malware

IMPORTANT UPDATE: read this page first; some consider the add-in to be malware

Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check: Get Google+Facebook

HP’s Tortured WebOS Positioning | Monday Note

Concluding paragraphs of a Jean-Louis Gassée HP WebOS reality check

The reality is simpler — and harder: HP decided to enter the smartphone/tablet fray. It thus competes with Android and iOS. The consumerization of IT renders the “enterprise-only” pivot null and void. In this new world, Google and Apple wage an ecosystem war: devices + apps + distribution. Add marketing, if you want, but Word Of Mouth is still more potent than ad dollars. Or merely reinforces it.

This is the war HP is in. Bragging, pivoting or denying will only hurt.

HP’s Tortured WebOS Positioning | Monday Note

Is Facebook worth more than Google? • The Register

Some intriguing perspectives

As web traffic soars, driven increasingly by mobile, Facebook is gaining disproportionately to its peers, including Google. Facebook is the first website to top one trillion page views per month, leading some to speculate that Facebook could be the first company valued at over $1tb.

That number may be high, but Facebook's current valuation of roughly $75bn is almost certainly too low. Google is currently valued at roughly $175bn, essentially for its search/ad business. Facebook's own ad revenue doesn't yet approach Google's, but its potential is arguably bigger.

"Social", not algorithms, is the basis for all human commerce. Facebook owns social. That's got to be really, really big. At least as big as Google, and arguably bigger.

Is Facebook worth more than Google? • The Register

Get Google+Facebook

IMPORTANT UPDATE: read this page first; some consider the add-in to be malware

Will Facebook and/or Google block this type of integration and/or offer their own?  (Via Tad Staley)

Google+Facebook allows you to see your Facebook stream inside Google+.

Simply Connect to Facebook, and get all the updates on your Google+ Facebook tab.

[…]

Here is a preview screenshot:

Get Google+Facebook

Google Buzz Started Off Really Hot, Too (GOOG) [SFGate]

A timely Google+ reality check.  Worst-case scenario (for Google): Google+ becomes a training vehicle to help people get more value from Facebook, by introducing conceptual models for capabilities Facebook users might have otherwise not considered…

Google+ seems to be an early hit: it already has "millions" of users, and Google has added $20 billion to its market cap since the service began testing.

But as former Googler Sam Johnston pointed out on Twitter this morning, Google Buzz had a lot of early interest too.

Google Buzz Started Off Really Hot, Too (GOOG)

Google's Eric Schmidt Feels Pressure of His Book Deadline - WSJ.com

Some serious diplomacy likely involved

Mr. Schmidt is co-writing the work, "Empire of the Mind: The Dawn of the Techno-Political Age," with Jared Cohen, director of Google's think tank, Google Ideas. It will be published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Bertelsmann AG's Random House Inc.

[…]

His thoughts on the tension between government and technology are particularly timely, as Google faces antitrust investigations by the European Commission and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Google's Eric Schmidt Feels Pressure of His Book Deadline - WSJ.com

Radar tracks e-clues of likely job changers - The Boston Globe

Employee analytics

Are there things you do on LinkedIn and Facebook that might be clues you’re about to leap into the job market? Bullhorn, which makes software used by recruiters and human resources executives, thinks so. The Boston company has created a feature called Radar, part of a free software offering, that tries to identify talent before that talent is actively out looking for a new gig.

“It’s career suicide if your boss catches you putting your résumé on a job site,’’ said Art Papas, Bullhorn’s chief executive and cofounder.

Radar tracks e-clues of likely job changers - The Boston Globe

Solving The Scoble Problem In Social Networks - The Washington Post

Check the full post for a timely reality check on social networking dilemmas

I finally blocked Robert Scoble in Google+. I have absolutely nothing against Scoble. I quite admire him, actually. He’s a great asset to the startup scene and he works damn hard. I’ve met him a few times and I’m sure we’ll meet again. But he was just getting to be way too much.

My Google+ feed was dominated by him. I tried to take a half-step and just remove Scoble from my circles. But then he became Google’s perpetual #1 suggestion for a new friend.

Solving The Scoble Problem In Social Networks - The Washington Post

Shame on Business Insider, Gizmodo, et al. for quoting anonymous Quora answer as fact for pageviews! « The Quora Review

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, where does that leave plagiarism?

This blog has discussed Quora’s transformative effect on journalism before, bringing to light its disruptive potential on content commoditization and branding.

But over the fourth of July, a lot of this “news innovation” was effectively tossed out the window. The transgression? Prominent tech blog Silicon Alley Insider ran a story that was entirely derived from an anonymous Quora answer with no attribution what so ever.

Shame on Business Insider, Gizmodo, et al. for quoting anonymous Quora answer as fact for pageviews! « The Quora Review

The future of news: Back to the coffee house | The Economist

Final paragraph of an Economist leader/special report introduction

What is to be done? At a societal level, not much. The transformation of the news business is unstoppable, and attempts to reverse it are doomed to failure. But there are steps individuals can take to mitigate these worries. As producers of new journalism, they can be scrupulous with facts and transparent with their sources. As consumers, they can be catholic in their tastes and demanding in their standards. And although this transformation does raise concerns, there is much to celebrate in the noisy, diverse, vociferous, argumentative and stridently alive environment of the news business in the age of the internet. The coffee house is back. Enjoy it.

The future of news: Back to the coffee house | The Economist

Apps Bring Past, Present and Future Into Focus - NYTimes.com

This may be a killer app in New England, where local natives have a tendency to share directions such as “… and then take a left at the corner where [insert arcane business/other location name here] used to be”…

Perhaps the most obvious use of a smartphone app is to tell you what is nearby. But a number of apps will also tell you what used to be nearby, or even what might have been nearby — less practical but often thoroughly satisfying experiences.

WhatWasThere, a project that includes a Web site and a free iPhone app, allows people to post historical photographs, along with their location and date, and then browse what other people have posted on city maps.

Apps Bring Past, Present and Future Into Focus - NYTimes.com

Oracle and Microsoft could cash in big on Android | Wireless - CNET News

A timely Android reality check – but if there aren’t price elasticity-related consequences (e.g., device manufacturer licensing fees driving Android device prices significantly higher than iOS device prices), Google still ultimately wins, even if both Microsoft and Oracle generate more directly Android-related revenue than Google does

Of course, there are differences between the strategies of Oracle and Microsoft. Oracle, which acquired the Java patents that it claims Google is infringing when it bought Sun last year, is merely looking to tap that patent portfolio for more income.

"They see this as a revenue stream," Goldberg said. "They want to see Android do well and make millions off it."

While Microsoft is happy enough to skim money from each Android sale, it's really trying to create uncertainty among device makers in order to better position Windows Phone 7. For more than a year, Microsoft has argued that Android isn't really free. Clearly, one of the costs, Microsoft believes, are patent licensing fees.

Oracle and Microsoft could cash in big on Android | Wireless - CNET News

Google+ accounted for 35% of Tweeted news links for the week - TNW Google

Signs of the times (via Techmeme)

According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s New Media Index for the week of June 27-July 1, Google+ accounted for 35% of tweeted news links for the week, followed by a few global warming stories from British publications, the British government hacking an al Qaeda website and replacing bomb-making instructions with cupcake recipes and the British economy and finally presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s husband receiving $137,000 in Medicaid funds.

Also in this post/article: the first instance I’ve seen of

… which links to this Google+ page (and which I assume will be replaced when Google unveils its business page model)

Google+ accounted for 35% of Tweeted news links for the week - TNW Google

Eric Schmidt On Gauging Google+’s Success [TechCrunch]

This looks like a truthiness campaign; I don’t see how Google+ is poised to disrupt Facebook as a de facto standard identity, authentication, and authorization service

Schmidt also seemed pleased that people seemed to understand that Google+ was different than Facebook.

“Circles is particularly well suited to the contact list you have in your phone, we have a somewhat different view of privacy. We tried to build a system that you could use for the relationships over time. The people who built the Internet did not get a stable version of identity; You need identity, in the sense that you are a person, this is who you are these are your friends and so on … The issue on the Internet is not the lack of Facebook, the issue on the Internet is the lack of identity. “

Eric Schmidt On Gauging Google+’s Success

EMC Search for New CEO Is Said to Pit Goulden Against Gelsinger - Businessweek

Or, EMC could merge with Cisco…

Tucci, 63, who plans to step down as CEO of the storage provider after next year, has considered at least four candidates, Gelsinger, an EMC president, said in an interview last month. Those are Gelsinger, Goulden, Howard Elias, president of EMC’s services unit, and Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware Inc., majority owned by EMC. Maritz wants to stay at VMware, and Elias isn’t a serious contender, said the people, who asked for anonymity because the search is private.

EMC Search for New CEO Is Said to Pit Goulden Against Gelsinger - Businessweek

Now You Can Use LinkedIn To Stay Up To Date On Who’s Getting Hired (And Fired) [TechCrunch]

More radical transparency

Today, LinkedIn passed Myspace to become the second largest social network in the U.S. LinkedIn has seen a surge in traffic since it went public in May and reached an all-time high of 33.9 million unique visitors in June.

Taking advantage of the professional social network’s continuing growth, Roger Lee, the co-founder of PaperG, has built a cool little service called, aptly, Job Change Notifier. As you may have already guessed, Lee’s service enables you to track and receive notifications when one of your LinkedIn contacts changes jobs.

[…]

Update: It seems a similar service was also covered today on Boston.com that is like Job Change Notifier, but for recruiters. The company is called Bullhorn (as is the software they make), and the feature is called Radar, which “tries to identify talent before that talent is actively out looking for a new gig”. Interesting. Worth a look as well.

Now You Can Use LinkedIn To Stay Up To Date On Who’s Getting Hired (And Fired)

Does LinkedIn Indicate a Social Networking Bubble? - NYTimes.com

A stark assessment of LinkedIn and related market speculation

After living through two destructive financial bubbles in the last decade, what explains the frenzy? LinkedIn, the professional networking concern, rekindled memories of the late-’90s technology boom and bust when its stock leaped from the offering price of $45 to $122.70 a share on its first day of trading on May 19. “Our mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful,” its prospectus proclaims. “Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every professional in the world. ...We believe we are transforming the way people work by connecting talent with opportunity at massive scale.”

Does LinkedIn Indicate a Social Networking Bubble? - NYTimes.com

EXCLUSIVE: Apple Store Sets Secret Service on Spy Camera Artist [Mashable]

A sign-of-the-times sequence of events; also interesting to learn that Apple stores wipe their showroom floor devices every night

On three days in June, McDonald’s program documented people staring at computers in Apple stores. Since the stores wiped their computers every night, he had to go back in and reinstall the program each day he took photos. He uploaded a collection of the photos to a Tumblr blog, and last Sunday he set up “an exhibition” at the Apple stores. During the unauthorized event at the Apple stores on West 14th Street and in Soho, when people looked at an Apple store machine, they saw a picture of themselves. Then they saw photos of other people staring at computers. Amazingly, nobody made a fuss.

My favorite from the blog referenced above:

EXCLUSIVE: Apple Store Sets Secret Service on Spy Camera Artist

Google to push Plus across its services - FT.com

Google+ optimized to solve Google’s identity crisis?…

Mr Schmidt said Plus will bring a new level of personalisation to the company’s diverse web offerings, working across Google products. “The assumption is that everything will move over to using the Plus infrastructure over time,” Mr Schmidt said.

Product improvements in core search, core YouTube, and maps should help drive adoption. “We’re trying to use the identity infrastructure to make the Google products really interesting,” he said.

[…]

“The issue on the internet ... is a lack of identity,” he said. “And if you had a strong and clear identity there’s a lot of things you could do, again with people’s permission.”

Google to push Plus across its services - FT.com

Business & Technology | Is Android Microsoft's next cash cow? | Seattle Times Newspaper

Check the article link below for additional Microsoft/Android perspectives

In the hunt for the next billion-dollar business, Microsoft may have discovered one in mobile software. It costs Microsoft nothing to produce and sell, and it's not Windows Phone.

It's Android, the wildly popular — and free — mobile-phone software made by competitor Google.

Business & Technology | Is Android Microsoft's next cash cow? | Seattle Times Newspaper

Microsoft’s Android Shakedown - Timothy Lee - Disruptive Economics - Forbes

Excerpt from a timely intellectual property reality check

This story sheds light on the recent Microsoft-inks-android-ip-deals-with-velocity-micro-and-onkyo.aspx”>string of stories about Microsoft demanding royalty payments from various companies that produce smart phones built on Google‘s Android operating system. Intuitively, this doesn’t make much sense. Most people would say that Google has been more innovative than Microsoft in recent years—especially in the mobile phone market—so why is Microsoft the one collecting royalties?

The reason is that Microsoft has more patents than Google. A lot more. The patent office has awarded Google about 700 patents in its 13-year lifetime. Microsoft has received 700 patents in the last four months. Microsoft’s total portfolio is around 18,000 patents, and most of those were granted within the last decade.

Microsoft’s Android Shakedown - Timothy Lee - Disruptive Economics - Forbes

Facebook trapped in MySQL ‘fate worse than death’ — Cloud Computing News

Michael Stonebraker again fans the NoSQL/NewSQL/etc. flames; I suspect he and/or the people quoting him are being deliberately and unhelpfully ambiguous (e.g., failing to clearly distinguish between implementations of SQL and SQL the language, which is included even in “modern” DBMSs such as Stonebraker’s VoltDB).  Review the comment thread at the article link below for some insightful data integrity checks.

In Stonebraker’s opinion, “old SQL (as he calls it) is good for nothing” and needs to be “sent to the home for retired software.” After all, he explained, SQL was created decades ago before the web, mobile devices and sensors forever changed how and how often databases are accessed.

But products such as MySQL are also open-source and free, and SQL skills aren’t hard to come by. This means, Stonebraker says, that when web startups decide they need to build a product in a hurry, MySQL is natural choice. But then they hit that hockey-stick-like growth rate like Facebook did, and they don’t really have the time to re-engineer the service from the database up. Instead, he said, they end up applying Band-Aid fixes that solve problems as they occur, but that never really fix the underlying problem of an inadequate data-management strategy.

Facebook trapped in MySQL ‘fate worse than death’ — Cloud Computing News

Now available: Co-author documents in the Word Web App - Microsoft Office Web Apps - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Locking and isolation levels in productivity apps

Building on the collaboration features already available in Word 2010 and Word for Mac 2011, co-authoring in the Word Web App on SkyDrive helps you collaborate with others on polished content without having to leave your web browser.  Just sign into SkyDrive and you’re ready to get started!

Our approach to co-authoring in the Word Web App on SkyDrive reflects our team’s deep understanding of how our customers prefer to collaborate and get things done, based on  what you’ve told us and how we’ve observed the use of Office. To help us design co-authoring, we read a lot of your comments, and watched, asked, and listened to how customers said they wanted to work together when working on Office documents. We discovered that expectations change based on the type of document and style of collaboration in play.

Now available: Co-author documents in the Word Web App - Microsoft Office Web Apps - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Nickelodeon Creates Made-for-Twitter Story to Promote SpongeBob - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

Anyone else sensing lately that perhaps Twitter has jumped the shark?

Nickelodeon is creating a made-for-Twitter story to promote a new episode of “SpongeBob SquarePants” next week.

“The Ice Race Cometh: A Twitter-Tale” will be a series of trash-talking tweets and photos from various SpongeBob characters preparing to compete in “The Bikini Bottom Great Sleigh Race.” The Twitter promotion will run July 12-15 in preparation for the premiere of the new SpongeBob episode called “Frozen Face Off” on the 15th.

Nickelodeon Creates Made-for-Twitter Story to Promote SpongeBob - Liz Gannes - Social - AllThingsD

Number of teens with smartphones surge - The Boston Globe

Another market segment in which RIM is losing share

As smartphones become ubiquitous and more affordable, they are leaping into the hands of teens, and mobile makers have taken notice. The number of teens with smartphones nearly tripled to 4.8 million in April from 1.7 million during the same period in 2009, according to market research firm ComScore.

Currently 28.7 percent of teen cellphone users carry smartphones, and analysts expect that more than 50 percent will have one next year.

Number of teens with smartphones surge - The Boston Globe

CBS broadcasts altered views of Boston’s Fourth of July fireworks - The Boston Globe

Actual results may vary…

David Mugar, the Boston-area businessman and philanthropist who has executive produced the show for nine years, confirmed yesterday that the footage was altered. He said this was the first year such alterations were made.

Mugar said the added images were above board because the show was entertainment and not news. He said it was no different than TV drama producer David E. Kelley using scenes from his native Boston in his show “Boston Legal’’ but shooting the bulk of each episode on a studio set in Hollywood.

CBS broadcasts altered views of Boston’s Fourth of July fireworks - The Boston Globe

SlideShare: Visual Guide to Circles in Google+ by @ross

A timely perspective from social software pioneer Ross Mayfield (see slides 15 – 16 for asymmetric sharing + and – summaries)

Visual Guide to Circles in Google+ by @ross

View more presentations from Ross Mayfield

Upload & Share PowerPoint presentations and documents

Remarks by the President in Twitter Town Hall | The White House

A Twitter usage consideration for Speaker of the House John Boehner: it’s not optimal to ask blatantly biased and open-ended questions when you’re limited to 140 characters and your debate partner, in this instance the President of the United States, has an open microphone and can respond in paragraphs (check the link below for the full transcript)

MR. DORSEY:  And our next question comes from someone you may know.  This is Speaker Boehner.

        THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, there you go.  (Laughter.)

        MR. DORSEY:  “After embarking on a record spending binge that left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs?”  And I want to note that these characters are his fault.  (Laughter.)

        THE PRESIDENT:  First of all --

        MR. DORSEY:  Not his fault, not his fault.

        THE PRESIDENT:  -- John obviously needs to work on his typing skills.  (Laughter.)  Well, look, obviously John is the Speaker of the House, he’s a Republican, and so this is a slightly skewed question.  (Laughter.)  But what he’s right about is that we have not seen fast enough job growth relative to the need.  I mean, we lost, as I said, 4 million jobs before I took office, before I was sworn in.  About 4 million jobs were lost in the few months right after I took office before our economic policies had a chance to take any effect. 

Remarks by the President in Twitter Town Hall | The White House

louisgray.com: Billions of Awesome Pieces of Content Served Daily?

Check the full post for some timely insights about how vendors such as my6sense (where Louis Gray is marketing VP) can add value

Zuckerberg, possibly feeling a little defensive after a week-plus of early adopters fawning over Google+, possibly the biggest and most direct alternative to Facebook since the network started, focused primarily on the introduction of group chat, anticipated since the Beluga acquisition earlier this year, and the integration of video calling, powered by Skype, also expected. While that particular awesomeness could be debated, more important was the company's shift away from measuring raw user counts - which is mind-boggling at 750 million active accounts, far and away the leader, but pushing more attention on the amount of content shared on the network. Zuckerberg said that number, growing exponentially, ahead of user growth, is now at 4 billion unique items per day.

4 billion. Per day. Just on Facebook.

louisgray.com: Billions of Awesome Pieces of Content Served Daily?

Amazon.com Beefs Up Music-Storage Service, Adds Player for IPad - Businessweek

Rapid evolution for Amazon’s music services

Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest online retailer, increased the amount of space available to users of its music-storage service and introduced an application that plays songs on Apple Inc.’s iPad.

For $20 a year, customers of Cloud Drive now can get unlimited space for their downloaded music files, the Seattle- based company said today in a statement. Purchases made through Amazon’s online store are stored for free.

Amazon.com Beefs Up Music-Storage Service, Adds Player for IPad - Businessweek

Google to Businesses: Don't Create Google+ Profiles Yet [Mashable]

As Google made clear during the Google+ introduction, it is, in many ways, just getting started

Google has revealed that it is working on a Google+ experience for businesses and is asking brands not to create Google+ profiles just yet.

In a post and accompanying YouTube video on Google+, Product Manager Christian Oestlien says that the Google+ team is working on creating a unique experience for businesses that includes deep analytics and the ability to connect to products like AdWords. “How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands,” Oestlien argues.

As a result, Google is asking businesses to put their Google+ ambitions on hold.

Google to Businesses: Don't Create Google+ Profiles Yet

HEARD ON THE STREET: Google Makes Facebook Look Socially Awkward - WSJ.com

The press and punditry are having a field day with Facebook-versus-Google this week, but in reality it’s Google chasing Facebook, and Facebook paying more attention to its users and customers than to competitors seeking to leapfrog it by exploiting outlier capabilities such as multi-party desktop video.  imho Mark Zuckerberg et al are probably correct in their assertions that 1) most people don’t care to organize their friends/contacts into groups for info item sharing purposes, and 2) to the extent people are using desktop video today, most of it is 1:1, and not just because many of the current (especially free) video services are limited to 1:1; multi-party desktop video, possible with products/services such as Microsoft Lync, simply is not a mainstream usage pattern today – in part because it’s socially awkward.

Mark Zuckerberg might want to fast-track Facebook's initial public offering.

In what appeared to be a hasty response to the launch of Google's rival social-networking product, called Google+, Mr. Zuckerberg on Wednesday unveiled Facebook's new video-chatting feature. He called it "super awesome." Too bad Google made the same feature available in 2008. Indeed, Facebook suddenly looks vulnerable. This could be bad news for investors who have recently paid top dollar for stock in Facebook in private sales.

HEARD ON THE STREET: Google Makes Facebook Look Socially Awkward - WSJ.com

Facebook Introduces Video Chat in a Partnership With Skype - NYTimes.com

A timely Facebook/Google+ reality check.  However, it’s tbd if multi-party desktop video a la Google hangouts is going to be a near-term mainstream hit.

Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, an industry blog, said Facebook’s new service at least lets the company counter Google’s move with its video chat. But in the end, he said, video chatting has been widely available for years in a variety of ways, like through instant messaging services, Skype and Apple’s FaceTime.

“I didn’t get the impression that people were finding it difficult to find one-to-one video chatting if they wanted to,” Mr. Sullivan said. “This potentially makes it easier for more people to get going, but I don’t see it as that hard to begin with.”

Facebook Introduces Video Chat in a Partnership With Skype - NYTimes.com

Apple Seeks ITC Ban on Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab 10.1 - John Paczkowski - News - AllThingsD

Perhaps Apple and Samsung will find a way to increase HP TouchPad sales…

Last week Samsung filed a complaint against Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission. And now Apple has responded in kind.

Cupertino this week filed an ITC complaint against Samsung, asking the agency to bar the U.S. importation of Samsung smartphones and tablets, which Apple argues have been “slavishly” copied from its iPhone and iPad designs.

Apple Seeks ITC Ban on Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab 10.1 - John Paczkowski - News - AllThingsD

Seagate Technology's GoFlex Satellite Wi-Fi Hard Disk Review - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

Check the article link below for more details and a video

Now, two companies are coming out with small, portable, companion hard disks that massively increase the storage capacity of tablets. And because most tablets lack USB connectors, these external hard disks stream their content to the tablets over a special, local Wi-Fi network they create. No Internet access is required. The content remains on the external device, though you can download files to the tablet’s own memory for permanent storage there.

I’ve been testing the first of these gadgets to emerge. It’s from Seagate Technology, the big hard-disk company, and is called the GoFlex Satellite. It costs $200, and holds 500 gigabytes of data, far more than the 64 gigabytes that is the maximum on typical current tablets.

Seagate Technology's GoFlex Satellite Wi-Fi Hard Disk Review - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD

HP’s TouchPad is good, but it’s no iPad 2 - The Boston Globe

Another TouchPad review/anticipatory eulogy

Well, the news from HP is pretty good. The TouchPad is the best iPad alternative so far, combining decent performance with an excellent user interface. It’s price-competitive with the iPad 2 as well - $499 with Wi-Fi Internet access and 16 gigabytes of memory, or $599 with 32 gigs. But as a new product, the TouchPad can’t begin to match the iPad’s huge library of apps and accessories, and there’s no reason to think the TouchPad will ever catch up.

HP’s TouchPad is good, but it’s no iPad 2 - The Boston Globe

Microsoft wants $15 for every Samsung Android device [TechFlash]

Another Microsoft Android business snapshot

Microsoft has named its price to Samsung: $15 for each smartphone Samsung makes using the Android platform.

Samsung is likely to try to get the price down to about $10 by striking a deal with Microsoft to use the company’s Windows platform, according to a report in The Financial Times.

Microsoft wants $15 for every Samsung Android device

Call Your Friends Right From Facebook [Facebook blog]

That humming you may hear in the background is likely the sound of business plans being shredded, by vendors previously focused on multi-party chat and/or video; Facebook (partnering with Skype) and Google (through Google+ hangouts) just subsumed what might have otherwise been sustainable product/service categories into (free) features of consumer social service platforms

Over the last year, the messages team has been working to make it easier to have one on one conversations with your friends. In November, we launched the new messages, which brings together your chats, texts, emails and messages all in one place.

Today I'm excited to introduce video calling and other improvements to chat.

Call Your Friends Right From Facebook

EnterpriseDB comforts HP-UX shops with PostgreSQL • The Register

The article later suggests HP should acquire both EnterpriseDB and Red Hat

EnterpriseDB – the entity that sells an extended version of the open source PostgreSQL database as well as commercial-grade support for that software – is sitting pretty.

At just the moment that Hewlett-Packard is embroiled in a lawsuit concerning Oracle's cessation of development of its database, middleware, and applications on future Itanium processors – and therefore on current and future releases of the HP-UX variant of Unix from HP – EnterpriseDB is for the first time rolling out support for HP-UX with its PostgreSQL Plus Advanced Server 9.0 database.

EnterpriseDB comforts HP-UX shops with PostgreSQL • The Register

Ex-Flextronics executive admits iPad leaks - FT.com

Check the story link below for more details

A former Flextronics International executive who passed secret information about Apple’s iPad to a securities analyst before its launch has pleaded guilty to insider trading, making him the latest expert networking consultant to admit wrongdoing in the US government’s expansive probe.

Ex-Flextronics executive admits iPad leaks - FT.com

Microsoft Pri0 | Electronics company Wistron pays Microsoft for Google Android | Seattle Times Newspaper

Android is “free” as in “vendors are free to pay Microsoft rather than Google”

Microsoft and Wistron, an original design manufacturer in Taiwan, said Tuesday they have signed a license agreement where Wistron will pay Microsoft royalties for using software made by Microsoft's competitor Google on Wistron's designs for tablets, e-readers and mobile phones.

Last week, three other companies that use Android said they would pay Microsoft royalty fees: Onkyo, General Dynamics Itronix and Velocity Micro.

Microsoft Pri0 | Electronics company Wistron pays Microsoft for Google Android | Seattle Times Newspaper

WebOS chief: Don't fret over TouchPad reviews | Circuit Breaker - CNET News

Apparently attempting to port the reality distortion field model to HP

Hewlett-Packard Senior Vice President Jon Rubinstein attempted to cheer up his staff following some less-than-stellar TouchPad reviews by comparing them to initial complaints about Apple's desktop operating system, according to memo published today by PreCentral.

WebOS chief: Don't fret over TouchPad reviews | Circuit Breaker - CNET News

Free Oracle, IBM and Microsoft LITE eBooks Available for a Limited Time Only! | Packt Publishing Technical & IT Book and eBook Store

Books for tweets (or Facebook plugs)…

Download Packt's brand new Lite eBooks absolutely free!

There's no catches, and no SPAM involved, simply Pay with a Tweet letting others know about this book and you can download a copy of the eBook for free

Free Oracle, IBM and Microsoft LITE eBooks Available for a Limited Time Only! | Packt Publishing Technical & IT Book and eBook Store

EXCLUSIVE: Google To Retire Blogger & Picasa Brands in Google+ Push [Mashable]

The Google+ wave expands…

Blogger and Picasa aren’t going away, of course — they’re two of Google’s most popular products. Instead, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs.” Several other Google brands are likely to be affected, though our sources made it clear that YouTube would not be rebranded. The technology giant shut down Google Video, its failed web video service, in May.

[…]

The transition from Picasa and Blogger to Google Photos and Google Blogs will occur “in a month to a month and a half,” we’ve been told. The date aligns with the likely public launch of Google+. Mashable has been told to expect the public debut of Google+ on or before July 31. The date is important because it’s the day all private Google Profiles will be deleted.

EXCLUSIVE: Google To Retire Blogger & Picasa Brands in Google+ Push

New Financing Values Twitter as High as $7 Billion - Amir Efrati and Spencer E. Ante - Social - AllThingsD

Not bad for a non-profit public service

Even as Internet companies such as Zynga Inc. and Groupon Inc. file to go public, Twitter Inc. is taking a different route: It is continuing to tap private investors.

The fast-growing Internet messaging service is currently in discussions to raise a new round of private financing, said people familiar with the matter. The move is set to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a round valuing Twitter as high as $7 billion, said one of the people. It is unclear which investors are participating in the new round.

New Financing Values Twitter as High as $7 Billion - Amir Efrati and Spencer E. Ante - Social - AllThingsD

Microsoft, Baidu to collaborate - The Boston Globe

Controversial collaboration

Microsoft said in a statement that Bing will use “certain filtering technologies and processes to ensure that we are in compliance with local laws.’’

There is “obviously no legal obligation’’ for Microsoft to stay out of China, said Jillian York, director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civilliberties group in San Francisco.

But she called the decision a mistake, adding that if the price of entering China is to censor search results, then Bing should have stayed out of the country.

Microsoft, Baidu to collaborate - The Boston Globe

Campaign Twitter trail - The Boston Globe

A multifaceted sign of the times

BY CONDUCTING what it calls the “first Twitter Town Hall’’ at the White House today, the Obama administration will confirm two things about the 2012 campaign.

First, social media are increasingly powerful tools in promoting candidates and raising money. Second, there’s more to what ails the nation than can be meaningfully communicated in 140 characters. The White House “Tweetup’’ will be moderated by Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, and follows a similar event in California earlier this year at which Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook presented Obama with questions posted online.

Campaign Twitter trail - The Boston Globe

Google+ no invitation required?

Check the main Google+ page to see if it’s still open

iPads Replacing Pilots’ Paper Manuals - NYTimes.com

I hope they have iPad battery-charging on their pre-flight checklists

The Federal Aviation Administration has authorized a handful of commercial and charter carriers to use the tablet computer as a so-called electronic flight bag. Private pilots, too, are now carrying iPads, which support hundreds of general aviation apps that simplify preflight planning and assist with in-flight operations.

“The iPad allows pilots to quickly and nimbly access information,” said Jim Freeman, a pilot and director of flight standards at Alaska Airlines, which has given iPads to all its pilots. “When you need to a make a decision in the cockpit, three to four minutes fumbling with paper is an eternity.”

iPads Replacing Pilots’ Paper Manuals - NYTimes.com

Mark Zuckerberg Is The Most Followed User On Google+ [TechCrunch]

Google+ is great PR so far – for Mark Zuckerberg

In what has to be somewhat embarrassing for Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the most followed user on Google+, according to the Google+ Statistics counter.

The Facebook CEO has 21,213 followers, compared to the Google CEO at 14,798, Google social czar Vic Gundotra at 13,783, Google co-founder Sergey Brin at 11,629, blogger Robert Scoble at 11,389, Google spam avenger Matt Cutts at 9,153, TWIT founder Leo Laporte at 7,566, Google’s Bradley Horowitz at 7,187, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler at 6,579 and blogger Gina Trapani at 5,649.

Mark Zuckerberg Is The Most Followed User On Google+

Google Loses Access to Twitter Stream, Suspends Realtime Search [Mashable]

More ecosystem shifts for Twitter

Realtime search was suspended after Google’s contract with Twitter for access to the full feed of public updates passed its expiration date on July 2, 2011, according to information Google shared with Search Engine Land. The original Twitter search agreement dates back to October 2009.

“While we will not have access to this special feed from Twitter, information on Twitter that’s publicly available to our crawlers will still be searchable and discoverable on Google,” the company said Monday. “Our vision is to have google.com/realtime include Google+ information along with other realtime data from a variety of sources.”

It’s not yet known if Google is negotiating with Twitter on an extension to the original agreement, although a reworked Google Realtime Search product is in the works.

Google Loses Access to Twitter Stream, Suspends Realtime Search

Microsoft to Partner With China’s Leading Search Engine - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

Google declined to comment on the partnership between Baidu and Microsoft. But Google says that search is not its biggest business opportunity in China. Instead, it is betting on selling ads to Chinese companies to show users outside China and selling display ads to run on non-Google Web sites, neither of which is dependent on search. Chinese advertisers spent $1.7 billion on display ads last year, one of the highest such spends in the world, according to Google. The company continues to employ 500 people in China and says revenue there is growing year over year.

Microsoft to Partner With China’s Leading Search Engine - NYTimes.com

In War of Egos, It’s One Hacker vs. Another - NYTimes.com

Strange days indeed

The hackers, calling themselves the A-Team, assembled a trove of private information and put it online for all to see: names, aliases, addresses, phone numbers, even details about family members and girlfriends.

But their targets were not corporate executives, government officials or clueless bank customers. They were other hackers.

And in trying to unmask the identities of the members of a group known as Lulz Security, the A-Team was aiming to take them down a peg — and, indirectly, to help law enforcement officials lock them up.

In War of Egos, It’s One Hacker vs. Another - NYTimes.com

Smartphones Could Make Keys Obsolete - NYTimes.com

A timely physical security reality check

New technology lets smartphones unlock hotel, office and house doors and open garages and even car doors.  

It’s a not-too-distant cousin of the technology that allows key fobs to remotely unlock automobiles or key cards to be waved beside electronic pads at office entrances. What’s new is that it is on the device more people are using as the Swiss Army knife of electronics — in equal parts phone, memo pad, stereo, map, GPS unit, camera and game machine.

Smartphones Could Make Keys Obsolete - NYTimes.com

Sheryl Sandberg & Male-Dominated Silicon Valley : The New Yorker

Excerpt from an extensive Ken Auletta profile of Sheryl Sandberg

That winter, Sandberg met with Eric Schmidt, who was then the C.E.O. of Google, about her desire to do something else at the company. He proposed promoting her to chief financial officer, a job she rejected because she didn’t think it gave her enough management responsibility. She asked about becoming the chief operating officer, but Google already had a troika making decisions—Schmidt and the two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin—and they didn’t want to further complicate things.

By February of 2008, Zuckerberg had concluded that Sandberg would be a perfect fit. “There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization,” he says. “And then there are people who are very analytic or focussed on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.” Zuckerberg offered her the job of chief operating officer.

Sheryl Sandberg & Male-Dominated Silicon Valley : The New Yorker

On Its Fourth Birthday, the iPhone's Past and Future Impact - Ina Fried - Mobile - AllThingsD

The iPhone was perhaps the best “think different” success story case study in the history of information technology

The iPhone that went on sale at 6 p.m. on June 29, 2007, changed the definition of a smartphone, adding the best Web browser a phone had ever seen, an exciting multitouch interface, and a world-class music and video player.

That first model was a far cry from today’s iPhone. Most notably, the original iPhone supported only those applications provided by Apple, namely things like stock quotes, weather forecasts and YouTube. It didn’t copy and paste, and couldn’t record video or run more than one third-party application at a time. It was also extremely pricey, starting at $499.

On Its Fourth Birthday, the iPhone's Past and Future Impact - Ina Fried - Mobile - AllThingsD

World Bank Is Opening Its Treasure Chest of Data - NYTimes.com

Another open data milestone

And so Mr. Zoellick, 57, is wielding knowledge — lots of it. For more than a year, the bank has been releasing its prized data sets, currently giving public access to more than 7,000 that were previously available only to some 140,000 subscribers — mostly governments and researchers, who pay to gain access to it.

Those data sets contain all sorts of information about the developing world, whether workaday economic statistics — gross domestic product, consumer price inflation and the like — or arcana like how many women are breast-feeding their children in rural Peru.

It is a trove unlike anything else in the world, and, it turns out, highly valuable. For whatever its accuracy or biases, this data essentially defines the economic reality of billions of people and is used in making policies and decisions that have an enormous impact on their lives.

World Bank Is Opening Its Treasure Chest of Data - NYTimes.com

Outside Innovation: Apple’s iCloud: Misunderstood and Underrated

Excerpt from a new Patty Seybold report

Apple’s iCloud service won’t formally debut until the Fall of 2011, yet it has attracted many criticisms. We think that Apple’s iCloud actually raises the customer experience bar, yet again. With iCloud, Apple is redefining the experience of mobile offline and online computing by automagically synching and backing up all of your applications, files, and preferences across devices. If you lose your phone or your computer dies, you’ll be able to restore everything to exactly the way it was before. If you take a picture on one device, it will magically appear in your photo library on all your other devices. If you are working on a document or a spreadsheet on your iPad, it will magically appear with your cursor in the same spot on your MacBook. And, if you don’t have connectivity, you can keep on working, using your applications, and enjoying your music, etc. until you’re able to re-synch.

Apple uses its “cloud” service with tight integration into its operating systems to deliver this seamless peripatetic computing experience. Application developers who want their applications to conform to that experience will need to write to a new set of application programming interfaces (APIs). If developers want their applications to behave consistently across other operating system platforms and ecosystems (e.g., Windows, RIM, Android, and so on), they’ll need to do more work in order to provide an equivalent cross-platform seamless experience.

Outside Innovation: Apple’s iCloud: Misunderstood and Underrated

Google+ contributor and Mac pioneer talks with CNET (Q&A) | Digital Media - CNET News

Excerpt from an extensive Andy Hertzfeld interview

I'll come back to Circles in a second, but can you just give me kind of a high-level view of what G+ is? What was the intent for Google+, and what are you hoping to do with it?
Hertzfeld: Sure. Everything on the Web can be improved by knowledge of your social connections, so Google+ is an effort to...add a social layer to Google, to YouTube, to Google Search, to every Google property. And so the core of Google+ are some APIs and applications that let you organize [and] maintain your identity through a profile and organize the people you know. Really, one of the main contributions we're making compared to the status quo is giving you much finer grain control over your sharing. You know, instead of just having an undifferentiated mass of people, we make it really easy and at the forefront of the UI to send some things to some people, other things to others.

Google+ contributor and Mac pioneer talks with CNET (Q&A) | Digital Media - CNET News

Google+ To Have Business Profile Pages | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

I think it’s safe to assume that any popular and/or productive Facebook feature will eventually appear in Google+

Jeff Huber, Google VP of Local and Commerce, has indicated that Google+, at some point in the near future will include the option for business profile page. Here is his comment:

And pre-emptively answering a question — yes, we will have (smb) business profile pages on Google+. I can’t announce a launch date yet, but we want to make them *great*, and we’re coding as fast as we can.

Google+ To Have Business Profile Pages | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Facebook Engineers Build Google+ Inspired Facebook Hack [TechCrunch]

That didn’t take long

With many asserting that Google+ is heavily Facebook influenced, Facebook engineers Vladimir Kolesnikov, Peng Fan, Zahan Malkani, Brian Rosenthal have flipped the switch and taken inspiration from the novel Google Circles design with Circlehack, a much simpler tool to build Facebook Friend lists.

Right now the only way you can create lists on Facebook is by going to the Friends page, clicking on the Account drop down menu, then clicking on “Edit Friends” and then again on “Create a List” and a bunch of other cumbersome stuff.

Facebook Engineers Build Google+ Inspired Facebook Hack

Facebook Will Launch In-Browser Video Chat Next Week In Partnership With Skype [TechCrunch]

I suspect most people will be able to use Facebook + Skype before they receive invitations to Google’s pre-beta Google+

The product has been built on Skype and will include a desktop component. It’s not clear to me whether that means it will just work if a user has Skype already installed on the computer, or if additional software will need to be downloaded even if the user already uses Skype. But it’s clear that there’s very deep integration between the products, and from the user’s perspective, the product will be an in browser experience.

Facebook and Skype have already been working together, including integration of various Facebook features into the Skype service.

[…]

And this also brings Facebook even closer to Microsoft, which is a Facebook shareholder and has a pending acquisition of Skype. The guys in Redmond must be smiling today, something that happens far too infrequently at Microsoft HQ.

Facebook Will Launch In-Browser Video Chat Next Week In Partnership With Skype

Zynga Files for IPO - WSJ.com

A potential ~$20B valuation for a company that’s selling 94% virtual stuff

During the first quarter of 2011, 94% of Zynga's $235 million in revenue came from virtual goods, while the remainder was generated by advertising, according to the company's IPO filing.

Zynga's filing also shows how it accounts differently for its revenue, depending on the type of virtual goods sold. Revenue from "consumable" virtual goods like energy is recognized by the company immediately after a player's game avatar consumes it.

Zynga Files for IPO - WSJ.com

More Like Google Minus: Google's social network is the online equivalent of arranging wedding seating charts. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

A pivotal paragraph from a skeptical Google+ review; check the link below for more analysis

There are three basic ways to share stuff online these days: You can do so publicly, for everyone to see; semi-publicly, for only your "friends" to see; and privately, for only designated people to see. Each of these modes is well-served by existing technologies: Twitter lets you share stuff with the public at large. Facebook lets you share stuff with your friends. And for private sharing, there's e-mail, texting, IM, Google Docs, the phone, and, from what I've been told, something known as "face-to-face conversation."

Google's social network is the online equivalent of arranging wedding seating charts. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

UPDATE: Microsoft Continues To Lose Browser Share To Google [Dow Jones]

Excerpts from a snapshot of another front in the Google/Microsoft competitive scene follow below.  Google’s assorted services (e.g., Gmail, Google Reader, and Google+) are optimized to work best in Chrome, and Google is unlikely to implode as Netscape did, so Microsoft IE faces several strategic challenges, especially considering the relative mobile device momentum levels of Android and Windows Phone.  Meanwhile, Mozilla is apparently doing its best to alienate corporate Firefox users.

According to NetApplications.com, which tracks Web usage, Internet Explorer's share was 54% in June, down from 60% a year ago and about flat from May. Another data tracker, StatCounter, had Internet Explorer at just 44% in June, down from 53% a year ago and about flat from May.

Most of Microsoft's recent decline appears due to Chrome, which has seen its usage basically double over the past year. Google, long dominant in the Internet-search engine market, originally built Chrome in part because of concerns that existing browsers would fail to support its Web services or steer users away from its search engine.

According to NetApplications.com, Chrome's June 2011 share was 13%, up from 7.2% a year earlier and a slight gain from May; StatCounter, meanwhile, says Chrome has 21% of the browser market share, up from 9.2% a year ago, 19% in May and 2.8% in June 2009.

UPDATE: Microsoft Continues To Lose Browser Share To Google

Larry Summers Answers 3 Questions About The Economy On Quora [Business Insider]

Hmm – I’m not seeing Quora on the Andreessen Horowitz portfolio company list, but I wonder if Larry Summers is using RockMelt yet, as part of his experimentation with technology…

Larry Summers has an account on Quora, the online question and answer site founded by Facebook employees, and he's answered a few questions about the economy.

His key points:

-- The U.S. needs to replicate the decision to cut payroll taxes next year, and stimulate demand

-- Japan erred on the side of keeping banks healthy and that's an important lesson for the U.S.

-- Recovery from the real estate bubble will take a long time to wear off

[…]

And in case you were wondering what Larry Summers is doing on Quora, when he was asked why he has an account on the site, he said, "Desire to be part of thoughtful conversation and experimentation with technology. Also friendly with some early users."

Larry Summers Answers 3 Questions About The Economy On Quora

Turn Google+ Into Facebook [TechCrunch]

An intriguing example of the power of CSS, but I’m holding out for the Prodigy style kit for Google+ (and a Google+ invitation, of course…)

The resemblance between the two social networks is uncanny — my Tweet-length opinion is that Google+ is like Facebook with a more usable, streamlined Photos and Groups interface (and that might be enough to win). Only time will tell.

In the meantime, for those of you who have the decidedly middle class problem of social network fatigue, there is a solution. Thanks to the unlimited creativity of  humans, you can now actually make your Google+ look like Facebook, with the Google+ : Facebook Stylish extension or this CSS code.

Turn Google+ Into Facebook

Celebrity Google+ Account of the Day - TDW Geeks

Of course, since Google+ doesn’t share Facebook’s identity integrity policy, it’s impossible to determine if the account is authentic (via Quora)

Celebrity Google+ Account of the Day: Since everyone’s comparing Google+ to Facebook, it only makes sense that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would join The (Other) Social Network to see how it measures up. There’s not much on his account yet, but he’s started filling out his circles

Celebrity Google+ Account of the Day - TDW Geeks

The Six Stages of Google+ Grief - Digits - WSJ

Artificial scarcity as “viral marketing?”…

What? Google is having a party and we’re not invited? Cue denial in the form of Tweets, blog posts, and pathetic cries to Google’s help forums: “I’m just adding my sadness to the lack of profile support (thus google+) for loyal apps users to the thread,” read one such comment on the Google Apps forum.

Time to bargain. Non-invitees reached out to Google+ members who seemed to have a limited number of invites to share.

The Six Stages of Google+ Grief - Digits - WSJ

Hackers to the Rescue: Google Considers Disaster App - Digits - WSJ

Check the article link below for the Google dimension

But an organization called Random Hacks of Kindness is attempting to take hacking’s traditional 1960s-era MIT definition of computer technology prowess and combine it with the idea of coding for the greater good.

Earlier this month in a Random Hacks of Kindness event, coders holed up in hotels, offices and schools from Philadelphia to Jakarta, Indonesia, for a “hackathon” to build apps that addressed humanitarian problems.

Hackers to the Rescue: Google Considers Disaster App - Digits - WSJ

What's Next for Google+, Maybe A Social Game Network? - Tricia Duryee - Commerce - AllThingsD

Interesting speculation

Over the past three years, Facebook has helped spawn a whole new category of games that allow you to play with your friends online.

Along the way, it has also helped build several million-dollar companies. Zynga, which is reportedly going to file for an IPO any second, is the largest. Others, such as Playfish and Playdom, have been acquired by Electronic Arts and Disney respectively.

The Google+ project is the company’s most cohesive social strategy yet, so it would be the most likely candidate for more services and features to be layered on top over time, including a social game network.

What's Next for Google+, Maybe A Social Game Network? - Tricia Duryee - Commerce - AllThingsD

Antitrust Regulator Makes Twitter Inquiries - WSJ.com

More on Twitter’s ecosystem strategy shift

Twitter has allowed those companies to access "tweets" generated by Twitter users, and those programs were vital to Twitter's growth because they helped people sort through, organize, and search for "tweets" in a way that Twitter couldn't.

But over the past year or so Twitter has looked to exert greater control over its user base as it has introduced advertising on its site. Twitter acquired some of those application companies, including TweetDeck, and developed its own services that rendered some other third-party companies obsolete.

UberMedia also tried to purchase TweetDeck, people familiar with the matter have said.

Antitrust Regulator Makes Twitter Inquiries - WSJ.com

Reports say FTC investigating Twitter - The Boston Globe

This could turn into an interesting coopetition dynamics case study

The Federal Trade Commission inquiry is still at a preliminary stage and the focus remains unclear, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The Business Insider blog, which first reported the inquiry, said FTC antitrust investigators are studying how Twitter deals with outside companies that build applications for its messaging platform - such as photo-sharing and ad services - and whether it is trying to bring more of those services in house by buying or banning outside developers.

Reports say FTC investigating Twitter - The Boston Globe