YouTube Launches "Cosmic Panda"

YouTube is launching a beta test of Cosmic Panda, a new format for displaying videos, managing playlists and channels. TestTube experiments: Cosmic Panda. To take this experiment for a test drive go to http://www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda and click “Try it out!”

YouTube Cosmic Panda

Google+ Fastest-Growing Social Network, Ever?

"I predict that Google will go from 0 to 100,000,000 users faster than any other service in history," says Bill Gross, founder and CEO of Technology Incubator Idealab.

Gross thinks Google+ already could be the fastest-growing social network, ever.

Bill Gross on Google+

Google+ for Business is Coming

Google recommends businesses hold off creating Google+ accounts now, as a business-focused version is coming.

Why Google Circles Will Succeed

Google's Google+ might succeed, in part, for reasons that have nothing to do with features. Google has created the opportunity for people to get a social network "do over."

Where on Facebook a user has to "de-friend" a contact, something people might be reluctant to do, Google+ handles such actions gracefully.

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn, or most other social networks, there's no such thing as a "friend request," in one sense.  


Users can create groups of friends, called Circles, including both other Google+ users and nonusers who receive status updates by e-mail rather than from the site. But that's not the key feature.



As a Google+ user, you never are in the awkward situation of receiving a friend request from someone you don't really want to be Google+ friends with.

Nor will you have to face the awkward decision of whether or not to de-friend a former contact. Just remove them from your circles, which are never revealed to other users. Other than that, Google+ looks and behaves a lot like Facebook.

Read more.

Mobile Execs Move to Banks

Omar Khan, head of strategy and product management, is joining Citigroup. Khan, who was the head of products and technology for Samsung's U.S. mobile division, will help develop Citigroup's global mobile services.

In 2010, Dan Schulman, who previously ran Virgin Mobile, moved to run American Express' mobile business. If you wanted more evidence that the mobile business and banking are "converging" at an important level, both moves are illustrative data points.

Samsung loses key mobile executive to Citigroup

Why Tech Companies Don't Want to be Called "Media" Companies

Advertisers and other publishers have pointed out for years now that assembling audiences, and selling advertising against them, makes some significant "technology" companies media businesses. Google, for example, constantly says it is a technology company, not a media company, despite the fact that its revenue stream is overwhelmingly based on advertising revenue.

Some might suggest that hesitance to embrace the "media" appellation is more than a cultural issue. One might argue that engineers and software developers just prefer to think of themselves as technologists, not publishers. It might be more simple than that.

Valuations of media companies are not as rich as those of technology companies. That alone would be reason to emphasize "technology leadership," rather than media operations.

Why Silicon Valley Can't Sell | Adweek

Smart Phone Sensor Apps Will be Key for Marketing

Mobile phones are sensors. Today that is true mostly for location apps. In the future, there will be other ways to use the sensor functions, Forrester Research believes.

"When a phone knows where you are, what you're doing, your identity and history, and even potentially your attitudes, based on what you've done in the past year and the past five minutes, it can help predict and deliver what you want right now," says Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research analyst.  "This is the context that makes mobile devices more intimate and completely different from traditional Web experiences."