Monday, October 11, 2010

Best Buy App Store?

Now that Amazon is launching its own Android app store, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn says Best Buy itself is open to the idea of entering the mobile apps space. It is conceptual at this point, but Google's willingness to go ahead would be crucial, Best Buy executives say.

Twitter: Advertising Could be the Business Model

Twitter started with just six advertisers and now has about 40, including Starbucks, Ford and Microsoft, says Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. Twitter expects to have more than 100 advertisers by the end of the year.

Last week, Twitter added three avenues of advertising. Promoted Accounts, which began immediately with Xbox and HBO, allows companies to pay Twitter to suggest that people follow their free Twitter accounts, based on shared interests.

Twitter also began publishing ads on Twitter apps, starting with HootSuite; before, ads had appeared only on Twitter’s Web site. Twitter will split the ad revenue evenly with HootSuite and the other companies that make apps.

Microsoft Plans Windows Mobile Ad Blitz

Microsoft might spend as much as $100 million to market its new Windows Mobile operating system.

Microsoft says the effort will be 'competitive' with Verizon's $100 million saturation campaign for Droid phones last year.

What is Different About the Past 2 Decades of Job Recovery?

Looking back several decades at job recovery from a recession, you would note that job growth, particularly in the foundational private sector, was robust in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, private sector job growth has been anemic in recoveries. When you have a two-decade pattern such as that developing, one has to ask structural questions. What has changed in the last two decades, compared to the previous decades?

And, oh by the way, since we are looking at a two-decade sort of problem, it would be naive to suggest we can magically remedy the underlying problem or problems in a short period of time. Something other than "just a recession" seems to be happening. The issue is "what is happening?"

When "Free Public WiFi" is an XP Bug

When a computer running an older version of XP can't find any of its "favorite" wireless networks, it will automatically create an ad hoc network with the same name as the last one it connected to, including "Free Public WiFi."

Other XP ccomputers within range of that new ad hoc network can see it, and will remember the ad hoc connection, in turn.

Microsoft has eliminated the network in more recent versions of Windows. It also created a fix to the problem for the older version of Windows XP — Windows XP Service Pack 3 — but many people still haven't updated their computers.

The point is that there isn't quite so much "free public Wi-Fi" available as some might think, but that is just a bug that requires a patch.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Orange Mobile Exposure 2010 Study Reveals European Mobile Media Users Choose Browsers Over Apps

Users seem to prefer browser apps over mobile apps about 70 percent of the time, a survey suggests.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Orange-Mobile-Exposure-2010-prnews-968643210.html?x=0&.v=1

Android OS Now Number One for Sales Share

Android now appears to be the top operating system for new buyers of smartphones, according to Nielsen.

Net AI Sustainability Footprint Might be Lower, Even if Data Center Footprint is Higher

Nobody knows yet whether higher energy consumption to support artificial intelligence compute operations will ultimately be offset by lower ...