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Tech News Review: April 2011
Matthew Burr | April 6th, 2011
March started out hot on the tech news front. On the first day of the month, Charlie Sheen opened his infamous Twitter account, and the next day, Apple debuted the iPad 2. However, a month later, Charlie Sheen was getting booed off stage by the same adoring fans who got him to one million followers in record time, and I was left wondering what the big deal was about the iPad 2. Sheen’s stage shows and Apple’s latest gadgets both sold out almost instantaneously, but both were disappointing. The Ides of March indeed. You can read an in-depth (and more positive) review of the iPad 2 here, but all I see is a fancy cover (not included) and a camera that should have been there in the first place. Apple, feel free to send me a demo, and maybe I’ll change my tune. Influence that. More recently, we heard about a new company called Color Labs which made waves for raising $41 million from a notable lineup of investors… before its product even launched. Please refer back to my earlier post where I talked about soaring valuations. Now, I have only been able to play with the application a little bit and haven’t gotten much use or utility out of it. It seems to depend on others in your vicinity being active users as well, and so I just get left playing with myself… Still, I want to give these guys the benefit of the doubt after reading this story. Continue reading…
Tech News Review – March 2011: Google’s New Algorithm
Matthew Burr | March 2nd, 2011
Google has been quite busy this past month, giving me enough material to devote an entire entry to the SEARCH GIANT’s updates, controversies, and soap operas. Plus, these fall right into Wpromote’s backyard… or are we in Google’s backyard? I forget sometimes. Anyway, the first and most important story of the month is Google’s recent update to its search algorithm. While the company is always improving upon its secret formula, this is the first time I can remember such a public announcement of an overhaul, and it will aim to “reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful” and “provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on”. The impact will be far-reaching, and the changes so far have been met with mixed reviews. This is an obvious, and necessary, move against the content farms, which I touched upon in last month’s article, and the effects are already being felt by some like Mahalo, which laid off 10% of its workforce as a result. The public nature of these events is also probably related to the two recent controversies involving major corporations trying to game the system. The first of these was J.C. Penney, which the New York Times exposed several weeks ago for a series of black-hat SEO techniques that inflated the retailer’s organic rankings for dozens of key search terms. Continue reading…
Tech News Review – January/February 2011
Matthew Burr | February 15th, 2011
So far in 2011, there has been a variety of IPO-related news surrounding the Internet and social media industries. We’ll first look at Groupon, which last month, fresh off turning down Google’s $6 billion acquisition offer raised $950 million, the largest investment round for a startup in history. This news came alongside rumors of an IPO as early as this Spring at a whopping $15 billion valuation. Maybe they’re not crazy after all for passing on Google’s attempted takeover. Still, I’m left to ask, “what’s the rush?” Again, this company is just over two years old and has continued to grow at a remarkable rate. Running to the public markets now raises questions around whether internally the company might feel its valuation has peaked and is looking to take advantage of that bubble. There are a number of well-funded and established competitors, and the barriers to entry are small for other large players like Google and Facebook. Further, considering the average quality of businesses coming through the pipeline these days, the miscalculated Super Bowl ads, and the recent Valentine’s Day FTD PR gaffe, I have concerns about Groupon’s ability to maintain its brand image long-term. Next, we’ll turn to Demand Media’s IPO in the last week of January. On its first day of trading, the company’s stock shot up more than 30%, but while that was lauded as a sign of success for the company, most people failed to realize that means the investment bankers responsible for taking the company Continue reading…
Tech News Review – November 2010
Matthew Burr | December 2nd, 2010
The week before Thanksgiving, we started hearing rumors that Google was looking to acquire local deals sensation, Groupon, and at this point, the main question just seems to be at what price this is going to happen. Recent reports have valuations creeping towards $6 billion, which would represent quite a coup for the two-year-old company. Keep in mind that 12 months ago, Groupon was valued at $250 million and in April, that number had grown to $1.35 billion. A decision one way or the other seems imminent, but no matter how it turns out, this is an amazing success story. Why didn’t I think of that? On November 10, Facebook announced it would hold an invite-only event the following week in advance of the Web 2.0 Summit. People put together pretty quickly that this would be the debut of the company’s new messaging platform, codenamed Project Titan and rumored about for almost a year, and Facebook did not disappoint. The new system aims to turn digital communication into a platform- and device-agnostic conversation, and Mr. Zuckerberg himself used the adjectives seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal and short to describe it during the presentation. Time will tell how impactful this “modern messaging system” is. I’d love to offer some insight myself, but Facebook still hasn’t given me a stupid invitation. You can read my colleague Kevin Burns’ thoughts on the news here. Now, one invite I did get was to Rockmelt, a new browser dedicated to integrating disparate functionalities across Continue reading…
If I had my way… Pt. 5
Matthew Burr | May 12th, 2010
If I had my way… cell phones would be banished. I avoided getting one as long as was realistically possible, and I’ve hated this glorified walkie-talkie ever since. Cell phones seem to have become everyone’s universal security blanket, and I’m just left to wonder how anyone managed 20 years ago. I mean, remember when waiting somewhere, you would have to sit in silence with your own thoughts or even make conversation with someone else in the same boat? Now, if left with a moment of idle time, people instinctively reach for the crutch in their pocket to drown out the agonizing void of being by yourself. Granted, I wouldn’t want to listen to most people’s thoughts either, but cell phones seem to have killed our abilities to be alone. Remember when you set plans with someone a day in advance and showed up to the designated place at the designated time because if you didn’t, the other person would be left waiting with no idea if or when you’d ever arrive? Now, people feel at liberty to cancel plans or change times or locations at any point because it’s just a quick cell phone call and their accountability is instantly relieved, or one can run 20 minutes late everywhere, but with just a quick cell phone call, he or she can be stripped of any guilt because they let you know. Cell phones have made way for a generation of flakes. Remember when you drove somewhere and had to know Continue reading…
If I had my way… Part 4
Matthew Burr | April 15th, 2010
If I had my way… people would use acronyms more often. Not only do they increase efficiency, but they brighten my day. I don’t know why, but they do. In just a few simple letters, acronyms can capture a lifetime’s worth of nuanced innuendoes, subtle intricacies and jaded cynicism that I would only otherwise be able to express through an exaggerated eye roll or a blank stare. With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of my five favorite acronyms and how I prefer to employ them because you’re dying to know. 5. gtk – ‘good to know’ My general response when someone incorrectly assumes I am interested and tells me something about which I could not care less. It’s meant to be dismissive, but again, that fact often escapes the party who is guilty of wasting my time. Example: “Oh, Brad and Angelina adopted another orphan? GTK.” 4. g2g – ‘good to go’ I have to admit that I stole this from Taco Bell and its Crunchwrap Supreme advertising campaign. However, I heart Taco Bell, and the Crunchwrap Supreme in particular, so I actually get an added happy thought every time I use it. I also prefer to take liberty and slot in a ’2′ where there should be a ‘t,’ just FYI BTW. Example: “Like the Crunchwrap Supreme, I am g2g.” 3. gfy – ‘good for you’ and/or ‘go f*** yourself’ I apologize for the implication of an expletive, but the beauty of ‘gfy’ is in its Continue reading…
