LinkedIn “alert” shows users still on edge about privacy
By Gerry Shih and Himank Sharma
Looks like social media users are getting twitchy about their online privacy rights.
Days after Google made known its decision to establish a common privacy policy across its scores of products, a chain-message of uncertain origin began circling on the Internet, claiming LinkedIn had quietly changed its own policy on the treatment of user data.
The chain message — which contained step-by-step instructions on how to opt out of this supposed new policy — took on a life of its own, ricocheting across Twitter and spawning numerous discussion and email threads. It suggested LinkedIn had given itself the right to use personal information and photos in ads — without notification .
The catch is, LinkedIn had indeed made the changes last year — only to partially roll them back after users complained.
“Without attracting too much publicity, LinkedIn has updated their privacy conditions,” the message read. “Without any action from your side, LinkedIn is now permitted to use your name and picture in any of their advertisements.“
Hani Durzy, a spokesman for LinkedIn, said the company was surprised when it suddenly began getting questions on Monday about a six-month-old kerfuffle it had considered long dead.
Despite tough economy, Wikimedia raises $20 million in donations
Wikimedia Foundation is marking the new year with a hefty deposit into its coffers.
The San Francisco-based non-profit group that maintains Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, officially closed its annual fundraising drive on Tuesday. The total amount raised: $20 million.
That’s a record, and a step up from the $16 million Wikimedia raised last year during a nearly two-month-long fundraising effort.
Raising $20 million may seem commonplace by the standards of today’s super-heated venture capital start-up world. But given the difficult economic environment, and some of the struggles that other non-profits have experienced raising money, Wikimedia’s result is notable.
The drive garnered some big-ticket donations, such as $500,000 from Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife’s foundation. But according to Wikimedia, the majority of the pledges came from more than a million ordinary folks coughing up donations in the $20 range.
The money will help Wikimedia — whose more than 20 million Wikipedia articles are written and edited for free by volunteers — pay for the technology and infrastructure necessary to keep the service growing, develop new features for the website and bolster its legal defense fund.
Wikimedia’s record-breaking fundraising drive still isn’t enough to cover the 90-employee organization’s operating budget. According to Wikimedia communications head Jay Walsh, the operating budget for the 2011 fiscal year ending June 30 is $28 million.
Groupon’s Andrew Mason demonstrates how to stonewall
By Sarah McBride in Palos Verdes
Once he got entrepreneurial, Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason had to change his stance on copycatting. What he once considered plagiarism – after a few years in the wild and woolly world of business – he now considers fair game. Sorta.
“They call it competition,” he told conference-goers at All Things Digital in Rancho Palos Verdes.
These days, “I’m used to it. I’m on board,” he said without enthusiasm, while the audience laughed. (Groupon’s online-deal competitors include Living Social.)
The music student-turned-Web entrepreneur also shot interviewer Kara Swisher a series of increasingly stoney looks as she probed insistently about a possible IPO for Groupon, before finally warning her off with the deadpan comment “awkward”.
Mason can afford to be cavalier about many things these days. A Web and consumer phenom, Groupon has the wherewithal to continue growing at a breakneck pace while fending off suitors — it reportedly told Google and its $6 billion takeover offer to shove off. The company is now rocketing toward what would be, when it finally comes to pass, one of the Internet world’s most-anticipated IPOs.
from Commentaries:
Humbled giants eye business phone market
LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Once they were warriors battling one another on the digital battlefield. Nowadays, Microsoft and Nokia are worriers, huddling together for comfort.
The world's top phone and software companies need each other to compete with Apple, Google and Blackberry-maker Research in Motion (RIM), whose products increasingly define what users expect from phones and charge premium prices in consequence.
In the market for so-called "smartphones", Deutsche Bank estimates Apple and RIM now take home more than half of all profits, despite producing less than a third of high-end mobile phones. Nokia held a 45 percent share of the smartphone market in June, according to Gartner Inc. (Table 2 in Gartner release)
The news this week that Nokia will feature Microsoft's office software -- features such as Word and Excel -- on phones aimed at business users is symbolic of what is possible rather than significant in itself. It fell short of predictions in the gadget trade press that Nokia might introduce phones running on Microsoft's own Windows Mobile software.
But that doesn't mean their collaboration should be dismissed. There's more to this budding relationship than meets the eye.
First and foremost, Microsoft and Nokia say they are taking on the Blackberry email-phone, a must have among corporate professionals. So far the they haven't done very much, for all the big talk. But they have pledged to make Microsoft Outlook work smoothly on Nokia phones.
This is crucial in overcoming Blackberry's key advantage -- the underlying software that companies rely on to securely manage corporate e-mail.
Nice article, Eric. Also in terms of what it elegantly understates – that nobody in the lucrative U.S. phone market is remotely satisfied with their phones or the cost of ancillary services the subscriber has to come up with.
There’s a lot of room for growth, if somebody would just listen to what the customer wants and deliver something like that instead of slowly bleeding users to death with costly add-ons and phony rebates instead of decent service at a fair price on a not-too ugly handheld device series.
Apple’s iPhone is a promiscuous lifestyle product unhappily married to the ogres of AT&T while flirting with the enterprise user market. Microsoft has Windows and Outhouse to contend with, tripping over its own necrotic brand software in the process of whatever they might try to do next. The Windows decal on any phone is a deterrent to buying it, at this point. I mean, what size of chip would one really need to store all the viruses and spam you’d be getting if one went down the MS route? That one hasn’t been invented yet.
At times like these, one might expect your last sentence to ring true with the makers and sellers of such devices. Hopefully, they’ll get the message soon.
Schmidt quits Apple board, no surprise there
Few observers expressed much surprise over Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s decision Monday to step down from Apple’s board. Analysts said the writing was on the wall, as Google’s Android smartphone software competes in the same market at Apple’s iPhone, and Google’s forthcoming Chrome operating system prepares to enter a market against Apple’s Mac OS.
Schmidt said earlier this month he expected to chat with Apple about his role on its board, and what with increased regulatory scrutiny about the company’s ties, many say it was only a matter of time.
“It’s the collision course that they’ve been on for a while, I think they’ve managed it well up to until now,” said Todd Dagres, a venture capitalist whose firm Spark Capital funded Twitter. “I think Eric getting off the board may be an indication of sort of the last straw here.”
The ties between the two companies do run deep, he said, noting that current Google director Ann Mather was CFO at Pixar while Apple’s Steve Jobs was CEO. But he said competitive juices among folks at both companies will start to flow as their empires bump into one another and “it affects your performance, your bonus and your market share.”
This is not the first time a CEO has stepped down as a director of another Silicon Valley company against a backdrop of competitive concerns, noted JMP Securities analyst Sam Wilson, who mentioned Carly Fiorina — then CEO of Hewlett-Packard — who left the board of Cisco Systems in 2003. The two companies partner in some areas but are increasingly competitors in others.
Wilson said technology companies are always looking to branch into new markets, meaning today’s allies are tomorrow’s rivals. “Tech overall isn’t growing that fast, the pie isn’t growing that fast, so everybody is looking at everybody else’s piece of the pie.”
He said Apple’s recent rejection of the Google Voice app for the iPhone should be read as a sign. “They’re no longer friends. I think when Apple turned off Google Voice it was clear they’re no longer friends.”
Microsoft and Yahoo: The morning after
Microsoft and Yahoo have finally come to an understanding, putting to rest what seemed like an endless back-and-forth (As Barry Diller said yesterday, “We’re not going to have to talk about whether or not it’s going to happen anymore).
In case you were at the beach, on the golf course, riding your bike, or hiding out in a cave yesterday, here are the very basics: It’s a 10-year Web search deal; doesn’t include display; Microsoft will the guarantee revenue per search for the first 18 months; Yahoo expects deal to boost income by $500 million and save about $200 million in capex; Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition at an initial rate of 88 percent; Yahoo will act as the global sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers; etc. etc.
Just about everyone has weighed in on the deal, and more analysis is certain to come in the days ahead. In the meantime, here’s what we see as a few key questions about the deal.
Will it get regulatory approval? Tough call. It certainly will get a close look, given the high-profile names of the companies involved. And, remember, it leaves really only two major search engines rather than three. On the other hand, is the market really competitive at the moment? And won’t Google just keep extending its lead — and hurting competition — if Yahoo and Microsoft don’t get together? “Without this deal, I think it would be really unlikely that you’d have a market with three robust search providers in 10 years,” said Beau Buffier, an attorney with Shearman & Sterling LLP. (More here from Reuters)
What do advertisers and media buyers think? Most appear, at first blush, to be happy with the deal. Having one dominant search player — Google — makes it tough for the advertising community. So they seem to welcome the idea of some competition. Plus, it simplifies life for media agencies. “”This is extremely encouraging and introduces more balance into the search and display markets,” said Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of British advertising group WPP. “It is good for our clients and our agencies and for regulators.” (More here from Reuters)
Can Yahoo and Microsoft put their differences aside? This is always a major hurdle in joint-ventures, partnerships and mergers. It could be especially difficult in this case, given the fiercely competitive nature of both companies. What’s more, in the case nobody is fully in control, unlike a takeover, where, it may be ugly, but one company can impose its will on another. “It ties them together but in a complicated way with no long-term certainty and limited control,” said Ryan Jacob, chief investment officer of Jacob Asset Management, which owns Yahoo shares. (More here from Reuters)
Great article again. Ever since I read the first article in your blog I have been looking forward to reading more and more of your articles.
Updated-Apple boasts 1.5 billion App downloads
(Updated to reflect that Apple was referring to application downloads, not application sales. Many iPhone apps are free.) Apple Inc impressed the tech world with the rapid take off of its applications store, announcing on April 24th that it had sold 1 billion apps downloads in just 9 months to users of its iPhone and its iPod Touch.
That was just for starters. Now it says it has sold seen another half a billion apps downloaded in around a third of that time, showing that its growth is speeding up despite the fact that its rivals have all opened their own apps stores.
App developers appear to be taking notice too as Apple says it now has 65,000 apps available in its store ready for download to the 40 million iPod Touch and iPhone devices it has sold.
How will its rivals — Android from Google, BlackBerry from Rim, Windows Marketplace from Microsoft and Ovi from Nokia – ever get a break with that kind of competition?
But could it really be just a coincidence that Apple revealed its numbers on the same day that Techcruch notes Microsoft is expected to kick off its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans with an announcement of the opening of its mobile app developmer program?
Keep an eye on:
- NY Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman describes an analyst’s prediction — that Rupert Murdoch could buy the paper instead of New York Times — as “total fiction” (DailyFinance)
- FT Tweets that it has an iPhone App (Techcruch)
- Michael Jackson family says concert plans were too much for him (Reuters)
- Netbook shipments to double this year (PCWorld)
Whether or not the downloaded apps were purchased or not, it still represents a significant phenomenon. Mike’s comment that 99% are free is far from the truth. Only about 25% are free. It could still be, of course, that the 25% represents 90-odd percent of the downloads.
Also, while a lot of apps get downloaded and tossed, I now have a core set of apps that I use pretty regularly. If you just use the phone to call and text, you shouldn’t be wasting cash on an iPhone. For me, it replaces a laptop for a lot of purposes.
Twitter, from poor man’s email to innovation leader
He once called Twitter the poor man’s email. But to hear Google CEO Eric Schmidt today, one would be forgiven for thinking it’s the next big thing.
Schmidt’s comments on the microblogging site are picked over with the kind of meticulous care often associated with neurosurgery, simply because Twitter is often rumored to be a Google acquisition target.
On Thursday, In an apparent reversal of his earlier pooh-poohing, Schmidt declared Google to be open to some sort of advertising partnership with Twitter.
“Twitter proves innovation is alive and well in Silicon Valley, and it’s really come on-board very strong in the last year,” Schmidt told investors and analysts on a conference call after unveiling better-than-expected first-quarter earnings.
“To the degree they become successful, it could become a channel for real-time information, for which you can hang advertising products, whether it’s a text ad or video ad, off of it. I don’t know personally their strategy, but it strikes me that’s a logical strategy for them to pursue and something we would be happy to pursue.”
If not Twitter, anyone else?
“Well, I think the most important thing to say, that it (cash) is not burning a hole in our pocket. $2.2 billion of incremental cash will sit in nice space, low interest bearing accounts while the economic system works its way through the banking system and all of that,” Schmidt said.
Just wait for the first wave of Twitter users’ “burnout”. Web 2.0 is great for many reasons and sometimes things are just a heavily invested “fad 2.0″, so it will be interesting to see what Twitter does next to evolve and keep its edge.
Twitter has journalists chirping
News organizations are all a-twitter about Twitter: Is it a friend or a foe? Should it be embraced or eschewed? Will Twitter kill journalism or revive it?
As journalists learn about Twitter and how they can use it, they also write more about it. In the past day alone, there have been a handful of stories about Twitter.
The Miami Herald wrote about CNN’s Washington bureau chief David Bohrman talking about the importance of newer technologies like Twitter and YouTube. Bohrman said CNN has been using YouTube and Twitter to attract the more elusive younger audience, and had great success with the presidential-primary debates.
The Financial Times, meanwhile, writes a novella-length piece on Twitter that asks whether the “trendy little short-message service really be the next YouTube or Facebook?”
And then, as search giant Google sent out its first official Tweet yesterday, bloggers and reporters began speculating madly about whether Google might buy the micro-blogging site. PC World wondered if Google will pull a YouTube on Twitter, while San Jose Mercury News’s Chris O’Brien discussed whether Twitter could actually become a threat to Google.
Meanwhile, guess who’s on Twitter now?
Keep an eye on:
If journalists sense something more here than the latest geek or celeb-spotting fad, they’d be right. Twitter is the glue that sticks all the conversations and bits of information and media on the Internet together, ensuring they reach the people who might be interested in them, at the time they’re needed, on whatever device they’re using. I’ve been using the service since June 2007 and so a lot of newly Twittering business and journalistic associates have been asking me what all the fuss is about. I couldn’t fit the answer in a 140-character tweet. Indeed, it took me a whopping 3000 words to explain what the service is and why it’s important. My response, “Twitter without the twaddle” is at:http://mortleman.net/?p=31It's irrelevent whether Twitter ends up the dominant ‘market player’ – the fact is a system (or set of interconnecting systems) that does what Twitter does, and builds on it, will now always exist – the public will demand it – and it’s going to change fundamentally the way we connect, communicate, collaborate, organise and work.
Tech earnings: Up, down and all around
This is turning out to be an earnings season when all bets are off on how technology giants will perform. With tech earnings taking the market on a roller-coaster ride, it wouldn’t be surprising if investors are a little sick in the stomach already.
The hits and misses so far among the biggest and brightest:
Intel: Missed expectations, profit fell 90 percent and they said they wouldn’t give a detailed quarterly forecast due to the economic uncertainty.
IBM: Beat expectations and gave an outlook above Wall Street estimates. Not only did IBM shares surge on the news, it even lifted major U.S. indexes.
Apple: Record quarterly earnings made Wall Street delirious. Can’t blame investors for feeling relief after all the worry about CEO Steve Jobs.
Microsoft: Didn’t want to hold on to the bad news until the appointed time, so the it reported earlier than expected on Thursday. Said revenue and profit would almost certainly drop over the next quarter or two.
Google: Saved the day, kind of, by balancing Microsoft’s disappointing results with news of a quarterly profit that topped Wall Street expectations.
