Thursday, June 30, 2011

News Corp. selling Myspace to Specific Media?

The deal is said to be worth $35 Million, which works out to be $1 per monthly visitor. Rupert paid $580 million for MySpace.

Amplify’d from www.bloomberg.com

News Corp. (NWSA) is closing in on a sale
of its Myspace social-networking website to Specific Media, the
owner of an online advertising network, for about $35 million in
cash and stock, said a person with knowledge of the process.

A sale would rid Rupert Murdoch of a money-losing Web
service that lost its lead in social networking to Facebook Inc.
after being purchased in 2005 in a $580 million deal. News Corp.
had sought about $100 million for Myspace after Chief Operating
Officer Chase Carey said in February that he wanted a sale
completed by the June 30 end of the company’s fiscal year.

Read more at www.bloomberg.com
 

$100 Tablet for Kids

In a little over a year, Apple's iPad has transformed mobile computing. Today it seems like every electronics company has released a tablet. Now this includes Leapfrog, who launched a tablet for kids. In my opinion, its a little expensive,a better price point would in the $50-$60 range. Especially, considering that you can buy an Android-based tablet for $170 on Amazon.

Amplify’d from blogs.ft.com
The big tablet event of the week is Friday’s launch of the HP TouchPad, while the little tablet event is represented by today’s unveiling of the LeapPad, a $100 device for kids aged four to nine

It goes on sale in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland on August 15 and in other countries later this year.

Read more at blogs.ft.com
 

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Wyoming Goes Google

As local governments make the move to the cloud to save a few dollars this will most likely become a trend.

Amplify’d from redmondmag.com

The state governor's office announced this week that Wyoming is the first state to "go Google."

Governor Matt Mead indicated in a released statement that the state of Wyoming will save "over a million dollars per year" in moving to Google Apps for Government, while also adding better storage and security capabilities.

Read more at redmondmag.com
 

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Google Over 1 Billion Served

Yet another milestone.

Amplify’d from mashable.com
Google has become the first company ever to hit the 1 billion uniques landmark, according to comScore.

Despite the latest ranking on uniques, Yahoo still has more monthly visitors in the U.S. than Google. In May, an estimated 188.8 million people visited Yahoo’s sites vs. 180 million for Google and 179.8 million for Microsoft.

Read more at mashable.com
 

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Android US smartphone share drop to continue

It will be interesting to see if this trend continues. It's not clear what caused the sudden drop for Android phones in the US. Who knows, maybe consumers are pairing the OS's of their smartphones and tablets - And Apple has the advantage on the tablet side.

Amplify’d from www.appleinsider.com
After Google's Android experienced its first loss of market share in a region since 2009 during the March quarter, one analyst believes Apple's iPhone will continue to win back share in the U.S. smartphone market.
Smartphone market share
See more at www.appleinsider.com
 

Monday, June 20, 2011

British Library hands 200 years of history to Google

Google will continue to sign with Museums and Libraries to scan their historic books and documents. Having personally managed a number of book scanning projects - it's expensive to digitally preserve the written past.

Amplify’d from www.theregister.co.uk

The British Library is handing 250,000 books to Google for scanning into the Google Books projec




The Google slurp will see 40 million pages scanned and made available on Google's site and through the British Library. All the works are out of copyright - Google's scanning of in-copyright books has caused trouble in the past. The search giant pays the cost of scanning.


Read more at www.theregister.co.uk

Friday, June 17, 2011

Why copy pasting is a brilliant business strategy? Ask Google!

I'm adding this book to reading list. The act of stealing someones intellectual property is a crime that should be punished. But its worth noting that a great business plan in the wrong hands is a useless stack of paper.

Google makes more money than any other website in the world. But at the heart of the search engine's success is a business model that was copied. The interesting story is recounted by John Mummins and Randy Komisar in their book Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through To a Better Business Model
The business model, which led to the success of Google, was copied from a company called Overture, a paid search specialist company, based in South California. As Mummins puts it, "They actually stole from a company called Overture, based in South California."
imitation or copy-pasting what others are doing is a prevalent and successful business strategy.
Read more at economictimes.indiatimes.com