Famous rap star/producer, known for his hatred of Twitter, freestyles on topics from getting laid to heavy chains, among a crowd of Facebook employees in the cafeteria of the FB HQ. Forward to 3:22 mark to hear his “diss” on Twitter.
I’m still scratching my head wondering why he’s at Facebook, or even why this made it to the TechCrunch blog. Props anyway!
The founders of Boku are expected to make it big in mobile payment. The start-up, founded by Ron Hirson and Mark Britto has already secured boku bills; $38 million in funding from high-profile investors like DAG Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Index Ventures.
Focused on social networks and operated on mobile phones, users can make payments for games, apps and a slew of other services – think PayPal, but for your cell.
BOKU’s system doesn’t require users to have a credit card or bank account. Instead, users enter their cell phone number on the site, reply to a Paymo text message and then all virtual charges are automatically charged to the user’s monthly cell phone bill. It’s dangerously easy.
Since its acquisition of competitors, Paymo and Mobillcash, Boku is gaining a significant international base. Paymo is already live in 45 markets around the globe, enabling mobile payments in Europe, Asian, Africa, North and South American and the Middle East. Additionally, they have already struck deals with major mobile carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile.
Paymo has said in the past that 75 percent of the online community worldwide does not have a credit card but 3 billion consumers own a mobile phone. With the market for online payments via mobile for virtual goods and games on social networks and mobile applications expanding, there is huge potential to take off.
Excitement for Twitter in Japan reaches Beatle-mania heights, as evident by Friday night’s tweetup.
In a banquet room in Tokyo’s Ebisu neighborhood, Twitter’s co-founder and CEO, Evan Williams, welcomes 500 attendees to the most successful gathering organized by the micro-blogging platform.
During his speech, he notes how far Twitter has come in Japan, from an attendance of just 40 people two years ago to the packed room on Friday. The service has really taken off in Japan, setting a world record for most tweets per second in the aftermath of Japan’s World Cup victory against Denmark.
Those with a Facebook or Twitter account and without an iPad app managing those networks are with good reason; they’re often annoying.
From the endless Twitter streams to Facebook’s constantly updated News Feed, it’s easier to tune out than tune in; especially given the ephemeral nature of social networks.
Flipboard proposes a better way to follow your friends: turn social networking updates into a personalized magazine by aggregating status updates, tweets, photos and articles and displaying them in nine sections (like a magazine, woah!), which can focus on any topic – whether that’s sneakers, fishing or Mel Gibson – or even Twitter lists.
With the help of semantic data-analysis, it essentially “collects all the ‘good stuff’ your friends are sharing”.
Oh yeah, it’s also free.
This short video really reminds me of the “Get a Mac” commercial spots – I wonder if that was intentional?
You phone is only as smart as its apps and the good news; the average app price, especially for the best selling, is constantly falling. We’re still spending though; the average iPhone user spends $80 on apps (as indicated by this survey).
However, 90% of app developers do not make a sustainable return on investment.
The money making apps? Of the top 20 all time paid apps sold by Apple, 14 of them were games – of the six remaining include the ‘Best Fart app’.
Is there an app that you absolutely can’t live without? In the office, we’ve been discussing the retail experience, both on and offline.  Is there an app produced by a retailer that you will never delete?
Can MySpace be saved? Can the revamp of their UI breathe life into their fleeting online social presence?
Old Spice takes over the interweb. Will 6 million YouTube views, 70,ooo Twitter followers, and the 22,500 comments translate into sales?
After what can be summed up as negligence since the iPhone 4G’s release, Apple has finally publicly and officially recognized the death-grip. Their solution; free iPhone cases/bumper.
BP announces that the oil has stopped flowing from the well for the first time since April 20.
Limited-time deals aren’t new to consumers or retailers, but sites that focus on time-sensetive promotions for extraordinary discounts have exploded with popularity. Check out Slickdeals.net and Groupon.com;Â they rank as the 171st and 249th most visited sites in the United States, respectively.
Deal of the day, hour or minute; the real-time stream of information via social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook has opened new potential to connect consumers and advertisers under time-sensitive conditions.
Then it comes as no surprise that Twitter has recently launched a new account called @Earlybird, channeling these offerings to followers and also, creating another revenue source in addition to promoted tweets and sponsored trends for the four-year old company.
The creation of @Earlybird, which already has 56,186 followers, may complement the demand of both the consumers and advertisers, but will random promotions keep Tweeters following @Earlybird? How do you separate @Earlybird from just another handle spamming promotions?
Twitter has plans to launch more accounts like @EarlyBird, so stay tuned.
