Featured's archive
America’s Secret Innovation Weapon: Immigration
On this 233rd celebration of U.S. Independence Day, in the midst of the worst economic recession in at least a lifetime, there is a national debate taking place as to the direction of the country. And while I’m confident that we will preserve our democracy and capitalism, I’m concerned about the tone and tenure of the discussion around immigration. Smart immigration policies will do more for American innovation and productivity than better math and science education, more spending on basic research and additional venture capital combined. If we get strategic about immigration, I believe the U.S. can preserve its economic leadership position in the world far longer than anyone currently expects.
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Maybe “Paid” Is the Future of Online Business
Despite a knee-deep recession, the idea of giving away something for free and charging for something else later is bigger than ever. But is “free” selling? Or does “paid” have an online future?
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TV Everywhere to Spark Antitrust Concerns?
NBC Universal General Counsel Rick Cotton, speaking at the Digital Media Conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, brushed off concerns that the deal between Comcast and Time Warner to test the feasibility of TV Everywhere was a first step toward bringing TV on the Internet under the control of Big Media. He also shrugged off fears that the collaboration between programmers like Time Warner and ISPs like Comcast represented some sort of unholy cabal worthy of antitrust scrutiny from the government.
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Can Twitter Become the New Casual Gaming Hub?
If the growing number of games being played on it are any indication, then San Francisco-based micro-messaging service
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The Browser Is Dead — Long Live the Browser
Last summer, when I got my first iPhone, I found myself spending an equal amount of time downloading and installing various applications — some paid, some free — and using the excellent Safari browser to surf the web. Over the past few months, I realized that I was barely using my browser anymore, […]
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How Clouds Can Complement Consolidation
As businesses try to grow and remain viable, they need to know that money isn’t everything. CIOs need to take advantage of cloud services to balance flexibility, availability, cost, experience, timeliness and security.
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How iPhone 3.0 Will Impact Wireless Networks
Nowhere has the impact of the iPhone been more evident than in the rise of mobile data usage, and with the release of version 3.0, such usage is set to spike even further upward. An improved user experience, new multimedia features and push notifications will see networks come under and even heavier load.
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IBM Tries to Sell Enterprises on Workload-Specific Clouds
IBM’s first true cloud computing products, announced today, consists of workload-specific clouds that can be run by an enterprise on special-purpose IBM gear, Big Blue building that same cloud on its special-purpose gear running inside a firewall, or running the workload on IBM’s hosted cloud. The offering seems like a crippled compromise between the scalability […]
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One Size Doesn’t Fit All When It Comes To Online Recommendations
Online product recommendation systems take a wide variety of approaches, but they can be shuffled into four main categories. Sites can boost sales and user loyalty by combining these categories to create the best overall experience.
The GigaOM Interview: Cole Brodman, CTO, T-Mobile USA
T-Mobile USA is feeling optimistic about Android and the future of mobile apps — and cautious when it comes to Symbian. In this interview, I chat with Cole Brodman, chief technology officer of T-Mobile USA, about innovation in the mobile industry and why his company is confident that its new HSPA+ network should be enough to compete with Verizon’s LTE network.
Why Email Clients Need to Change
With every birthday reminder, bill confirmation, new friend, direct message, password recovery, and mailing list, the content of our inboxes becomes less and less a means of communication and more and more a record of all we do online. But if inboxes don’t fundamentally change in order to adapt to their new role as the keeper of myriad transactions across the entire web, they’ll be obsolete.
Our Full Analysis of the $7.4B Oracle-Sun Deal
Oracle’s decision to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion is not only going to shake up the database business — it’s likely to energize the Java community, too. And of course, the deal puts the insurgent MySQL database in the hands of incumbent Oracle. Whatever the long-term implications, in the short term expect massive layoffs as Oracle tries to squeeze profits out of Sun. 
Metered Broadband Can Make Online Rentals Pricier than Buying the DVD
When it comes metered broadband, most consumers don’t understand how its implementation could affect what it costs them to download content. So I decided to compare how much, depending on which of the nation’s top ISPs’ metered bandwidth plans you choose, it would cost to rent the teen vampire flick “Twilight.” And I discovered that in almost all cases, the decision to download the movie will cost more than just the $3.99 rental fee — sometimes much more.
Facebook: Population 200M, Faces an Identity Crisis
Facebook is facing an identity crisis. Zuckerberg & Co. have let themselves turn green with envy over the latest Silicon Valley phenomenon, Twitter — and in the process, have set out to mutate Facebook’s own DNA.
Google May Buy Twitter. Or Not. But Why is Twitter So Hot?
Google may buy Twitter, or it may not, but one way or another, Twitter is hot. Why? Because it embodies three macro trends taking place on the web right now — in just 140 characters a tweet.
Why Bit.ly Will Upstage Digg
Yesterday, New York-based startup incubator Betaworks raised $2 million in funding for its URL-shortener project, Bit.ly, and spun it out as an independent company. The funding raised some eyebrows, with some speculating if Bit.ly, one of the dozens of link-shortening services, was worth a rumored $8 million. I fall in the camp of those who […]
Review: Skype for iPhone. Verdict: Awesome.
I got my hands on an early version of the Skype app for the iPhone a few hours ago. I simply installed it on a borrowed iPhone, signed in using my existing Skype username and password, and I was able to start using it within seconds. It’s an attractive and almost perfect adaptation of the desktop version of Skype; the user interface is intuitive, simple and easy to navigate.
How to Build a Free (or Almost Free) Phone System for Your Business
In today’s horrible economic environment, small businesses need to save wherever they can. But there are a handful of phone services out there that can help businesses easily eliminate $50-$100 per month, per employee. The recipe is simple: Cobble together services from several companies to create something that works a lot like a traditional business […]
Cisco’s Data Center Moves: Who Wins, Who Loses?
Cisco Systems today announced its new blade server, first reported by us in March 2008, along with a Unified Computing strategy that converges storage, compute and networking into a single layer (thanks to virtualization technologies) that is managed by a specialized piece of software. Stacey has captured the intricate details of the news, while […]
Will a Shift to Cloud Computing Create or Cut Jobs?
Will cloud computing, as some predict, be to information technology today what automation was to the assembly line in the ’80s? If so, what happens to those jobs — and to the people who used to do them?
The GigaOM Interview: MetroPCS COO Tom Keys
The broken economy, consumer acceptance of unlimited wireless plans and a series of business decisions have positioned MetroPCS for growth, according to the company’s COO, Tom Keys. In this GigaOM interview, Keys talks about the business opportunity for MetroPCS, and its plans to transition to the LTE fourth generation wireless network.
John Chambers: Broadband Speeds Our Economy
In this guest post, Cisco Systems Chairman and CEO John T. Chambers states his case as to why he believes broadband was such a crucial part of the stimulus package — and how faster broadband speeds will not only transform our economy, but our society.
Browser Wars: Opera Says It’s Not Down or Out
Economic malaise aside, consumers increasingly want to surf the Net on phones, according to Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO of the Opera Software. “There is a mega-trend of increased Internet usage,” he told me over breakfast this morning, “and we are in the middle of it, regardless of the economic downturn.” 
Why Amazon Is Bucking the Trend
Jeff Bezos, when he was peddling the new Kindle on Charlie Rose the other night, kept using the word “seamless.” He wasn’t talking about the device itself, of course, but the experience of the customer that uses it.
Whatever you think about the Kindle, Bezos’ choice of that word goes right to the heart of Amazon’s […]
Microsoft + Yahoo Still Doesn’t Make Sense
Microsoft and Yahoo are starting to once again shoot coy glances at each other, with suggestions that Yahoo may either outsource or sell outright its search business to Microsoft. But no matter how much either company may hint that such a deal would make sense, the fact is that it’s the kind of deal that’s only going to happen because neither one of them had any better ideas.
iPod, Kindle, Facebook — and a Nomad Called Me
These days, we want to carry the contents of our homes with us wherever we go. Books, music, videos…they all represent the proverbial hearth. Of course, thanks to the availability of cheap wireless connections, we are getting rid of another fixture in our homes: the landline phone. Every quarter, there are roughly 3 million fewer landline phones. Now, a few changes of clothes and a computer, and suddenly home is not where the heart is, but where there’s a connection.
7 Questions to Evaluate SaaS
Back in the desktop software era, magazines ran software reviews in which the side-by-side comparisons of features took up an entire page. Buyers used these reviews to shortlist vendors, trying to anticipate which features they’d need over the next five years. Typically, the software with the most features won. Feature-itis ruled. But with software as a service, the focus has become whether the tool is good enough on day one and how well it will adapt over time. Indeed, in order to evaluate SaaS, those page-long feature comparisons can be whittled down to just seven critical questions.
Android vs. iPhone: Why Openness May Not Be Best
Open or perish. It’s a meme that’s been embraced as fact ever since Eric Raymond published his seminal essay, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.” If you are not “open,” (i.e., open source or open APIs), you don’t get it, and you’re destined for obsolescence. But while there is an appealing logic to this premise, the […]
Maybe Google Should Pay a Dividend
Five years ago this April, Google filed to list its stock publicly. The founders let potential investors know it wouldn’t play by some of Wall Street’s rules, including paying them a cash dividend — which, the prospectus boasted, Google had never done. And as of today, it still never has.
But maybe it should — at […]
What the Taj Mahal and Apple Have in Common
Today, for the first time in more than 30 years, I visited the Taj Mahal, India’s heritage site and truly a wonder of our world. I was spellbound, for the Taj is a collection of small perfections that add up to one large perfection. If you had to pick a modern, and technology-specific, analogy of this high ideal, it would be Apple.
When It Comes to Social Networks, Uptime Doesn’t Matter
Users of social networks choose where to spend their time based on factors entirely outside of those such as uptime and reliability, according to a new report from Pingdom. It’s not that such things aren’t important — after all, a social network isn’t going to be of much use if people can’t log in or use the features. But the report shows that when it comes right down to it, those things don’t matter nearly as much as one might think.
Social Atoms and the Twitter Ecosystem
When Twitter first hit my radar screen sometime back in 2007, I (like many others) immediately dismissed it as a gimmicky little time-waster with no real value. I mean, a message limit of 140 characters? Lame. And what was it for? Nothing, apparently. It was like the Facebook status message, but all by itself, with […]
Stop Looking for a WoW Killer
Ever since World of Warcraft started showing signs of cancer-like growth — ravenously consuming massively multiplayer online game subscribers — video game industry entrepreneurs and investors have hunted for a WoW killer, the next big game capable of toppling the 11.5 million subscribers developer Blizzard has amassed worldwide. They need to stop looking.
Why eBay Should Consider Breaking Itself Up
eBay CEO John Donahoe said last month, “We have a powerful portfolio; one that, I frankly believe, is not fully credited in the value of the company.” He’s absolutely right. In fact, the value of the portfolio pieces would be more apparent if the portfolio was broken up.
Will Google’s Android Power the New Fourth Screen?
We’ve already heard of efforts to port Android to netbooks — but today it appears another, more important milestone has been reached. Motorola says its Moto Labs has succeeded in porting Android to E Ink display screens. E Ink is an electronic paper display technology with a paper-like, high-contrast appearance, ultra-low-power consumption and a thin, light form; Moto Labs has developed a way to marry Android to the E Ink development kit. And while the fruits of this labor won’t show up in a commercial product for some 12-18 months, it’s still big, big news. 
My Big iPhone Break-up
Earlier this morning, after enduring days and days of dropped calls and errant network behavior, I quit on my iPhone. It wasn’t an easy decision, but it had to be done. I love my iPhone — but AT&T’s network failed me.
Why Facebook’s Future Is Mobile
With the rise of superphones such as Apple’s iPhone, the BlackBerry Bold and Nokia’s E71 and N96 devices, we are at the cusp of a new era in which the mobile and the wired web converge. This convergence, when married to location-based services, would create a new real-time and highly contextual Internet experience. And it’s why for Facebook, which by merging the social network with your phone’s address book, integrates the mobile with the web seamlessly to provide a mobile experience with a higher degree of social relevance, the future is mobile.
How Mobile Will Reach the Exabyte Age By 2012
Cisco today released the latest iteration of its Visual Networking Index, and forecast that mobile traffic worldwide would reach more than one exabyte per month by 2012. But while Cisco’s numbers validate my theory that the next big revolution in computing will be comprised of a combination of mobility, processing power and interactivity, it doesn’t get into what needs to happen in order for the Exabyte Age to commence. Currently the biggest roadblocks to the Exabyte Age are the carriers’ business models. 
What If It’s Worse Than We Think?
When the financial crisis reached full bloom last fall, it took many technology companies some time before they were able to appreciate the impact it would have on them. This year, we’re seeing the fallout in the form big losses or shrunken profits, layoffs and other signs of retrenchment.
Alongside the pain, however, there’s a […]
How HP Can Fight Cisco And Win
When Cisco Systems announced plans to enter the enterprise server market, no company stood up and took notice more than Hewlett-Packard — the HP ProLiant line of servers, after all, is a force in the enterprise market; Cisco’s entrance was essentially a declaration of war on its former partner. To paraphrase one of my favorite […]
Why Does Everyone Heart Boxee?
The buzz has been building for Boxee lately. Mainstream news outlets like The New York Times, BusinessWeek and NPR are getting hip to the little open-source media center that could quite possibly change the way you experience TV.
I first met Boxee CEO and co-founder Avner Ronen at a NewTeeVee meetup in New York roughly […]
With Latitude, Google Fires Another Shot at Mobile Operators
Earlier today, Google unveiled Latitude, a nifty little application for your smartphone (as long as it’s not an iPhone) that lets your friends locate you, and you them, on a map. But Latitude is actually the result of a much bigger battle between Google and the mobile operators, of which location-based services are but one small part.
Google Is Not Your Sugar Daddy
Everyone seems convinced that the Internet owes them a living, and that Google (being synonymous with the Internet the way it is for so many) is the best one to settle the bill, especially since it has billions of dollars just lying around, like Scrooge McDuck. Let’s call this the “Google as sugar daddy” argument. But why should Google pay? Especially when the main argument as to why it should seems to be because it can?
Why Network Virtualization Is Important
As part of its ongoing (and seemingly endless) battle with Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks has announced a new box — the TX Matrix Plus, which makes a multichassis router out of 16 Juniper T1600 routers. Juniper first rolled out the T1600 in June of 2007; each T1600 had the ability to handle 1.6 terabits per […]
Has the U.S. Wireless Data Boom Stalled?
While the U.S. wireless industry has been ravaged by brutal price wars when it comes to plain-vanilla voice minutes, carriers big and small have managed to turn in profits and show hefty growth, thanks to growing demand for wireless data services. In the fourth quarter, Verizon and AT&T raked in about $6 billion just on […]
Why Google Needs the GDrive to Fight Microsoft
The Internet is abuzz these days with speculation over the launch of a new online storage offering from Google said to be dubbed GDrive. The service would apparently be bundled with Google Pack, the company’s software download offering that includes products such as Picasa and Google Earth. With no official word, many questions […]
What Sony Ericsson Must Do To Stage a Comeback
Sony Ericsson recently reported huge losses for the second straight quarter, for which it blamed the struggling economy. The results included a $240 million quarter loss and a 21 percent drop in phone shipments, garnering a vote of low confidence among analysts. And as Dick Komiyama, president of the joint venture between Sony and Ericsson, […]
Why for AOL, the Future Is Content
AOL over the past few days has been making the wrong sort of news. Today, Kara Swisher reported that the company is going to slash 700 jobs (10 percent of the total employee base), pare down its operations and essentially shrink itself into a much smaller entity. Kara also obtained the layoff memo sent out […]
5 Resources for Netbook Helps, Hacks and How-To’s
Apple’s iPhone may enjoy a cult-like following with blogs, forums and commenters galore, but it’s not the only product to enjoy such adulation. Another highly successful product of the past year, the lowly netbook, has its share of support groups, blogs and fans as well. Below is a short list highlighting some of the many […]
Maybe Yahoo Was Destined to Flounder
Come Tuesday, Yahoo will step up to deliver its most recently quarterly results, which I doubt will be very much fun. Still, it will be the first time recently appointed CEO Carol Bartz will have a chance to publicly address the most significant question facing the company: When is it finally going to take […]
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