Amazon Cloud Computing Had Nothing to Do With Selling Excess Capacity

There's an urban myth that Amazon.com started Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing business, because it had already built the platform to support its own internal needs, and had extra capacity that it decided to sell.

But Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels says the story is untrue.

"The excess capacity story is a myth," he says. "It was never a matter of selling excess capacity, actually within two months after launch AWS would have already burned through the excess Amazon.com capacity."

Rather, Amazon Web Services always was seen as a business with excellent growth prospects.

How and why did Amazon get into the cloud computing business? - Quora

Voice Apps Beyond Dial Tone: A Discussion

A discussion of custom apps beyond dial tone.

Facebook is 3rd Largest Web Site, by Traffic

Facebook is now the third largest website in the world, taking the number-three spot from Yahoo, according to comScore. Facebook drew an estimated 648 million unique visitors from across the globe in November, 2010, compared to 630 million for Yahoo.

In October the two sites were dead even with 633 million worldwide unique visitors each. The only two Web properties left which are bigger than Facebook are Microsoft (869 million worldwide visitors) and Google (970 million) when you look at all of their sites collectively.

Facebook Overthrows Yahoo To Become The World’s Third Largest Website

Marketers Spending More on Social Media for the Wrong Reasons - The eMarketer Blog

Businesses are adopting social media, but they also are discovering it is no more "free" or "inexpensive." In fact, many seem to be finding that it costs as much money to use social media as any other advertising or marketing channel.

A few years ago, companies could run a few tests and gain some valuable learning without spending much.

But times have changed. Social media sites have matured, and you can’t do much for free anymore, eMarketer argues. A "promoted trend" ad on Twitter can cost $100,000 per day.

Top social media agencies are in demand, and they charge premiums for their work. "Earned" media hasn't been "costless,"either, but as social media "grows up," the costs are climbing as well. Along the way, the historic distinction between earned media and paid media also is blurring.

Marketers Spending More on Social Media for the Wrong Reasons - The eMarketer Blog

Major Smartphone Push in 2011?

In 2010, the cheapest mainstream smartphone cost just below $200, unsubsidized by a carrier contract. But prices could drop by as much as 50 percent in 2011, making a smartphone a viable purchase for many consumers that would have bought a feature phone in the past.

Broadcom's "BCM2157 3G HSDPA 'Android' Baseband" chipset, for example, provides everything a modern smartphone builder needs: a dual core ARM processor, Bluetooth, GPS, support for up to a 5-megapixel camera, support for capacitive HVGA (320x480 like iPhone 3GS) or or WQVGA (~240x400) displays.

The chipset will work on AT&T (T) and T-Mobile's 3G networks in the US and on global GSM providers.

An unsubsidized $100 smartphone will enable more purchases of service plans without contract, and arguably increase competition between mobile service providers. So it is possible that data plan prices could drop as well.

At the very least, m,ore consumers might start using Wi-Fi-only data connections. In one sense that is not a direct driver of data plan sales. On the other hand, use of Wi-Fi connections will create a new habit that indirectly drives more data plan sales.

2011 will be the year Android explodes - Google 24/7 - Fortune Tech

Email, Social Media to Get More Spending by Enterprises

According to a November 2010 survey of business executives around the globe by StrongMail, nearly two-thirds of companies will increase spending on email marketing, and 57% will put more dollars toward social media marketing. Search took a distant third place with 41% of respondents indicating they would spend more.

Email and social will continue to get closer as more marketers integrate the two channels with each other. More than a quarter of respondents said they had already formulated and implemented a strategy for making email and social work together, and another 43% plan to make efforts toward integration in 2011, though some are more prepared than others.

Email, Social Media to See More Marketing Dollars in 2011 - eMarketer

Apple Expects to Ship as Many as 21 Million iPhones, as Early as Q2 2011

Apple is telling component suppliers it wants 20 million gto 21 million iPhones for the first quarter of 2011, DigiTimes reports.

Shipments don't equal sales, so it's not a perfect comparison, but for some context, Apple sold 14.1 million in the third quarter of 2010.

Piper Jaffray has a pretty conservative estimate of 12 million iPhones sold for the first quarter of 2011.

Of the 20-21 million phones Apple is ordering, five million to six million will use CDMA, which means they could run on Verizon's network. That gives you some idea of how many Apple believes Verizon Wireless will sell, possibly as early as the second quarter of 2011.

Apple Puts In Order For 20-21 Million iPhones For Q1 2011