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Foursquare Outgrows Mobile, Wants To Be Your City Guide

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:40:11 +0000

How many times have you checked in to Foursquare via the web? If you’re like me and I’m willing to bet most people, the answer to that question is “None.” Foursquare, who is likely well aware of this, has just pushed the latest in the series of #New4sq updates , in an effort to improve (and not solely to garner data from) the lives of its web users. One million daily unique visitors is a terrible thing to waste. The Foursquare.com site redesign is the third major product development that aspires to move Foursquare beyond the check in; The company recently launched Explore to derive value from all the checkin data it has accumulated over the past three years, then Radar which allowed users to take advantage of that data with minimum effort. Users visiting Foursquare.com from a computer or a tablet (through the magic of HTML5) will now see a Google map of emblazoned with Icons for all the places of note around them, populated by explore data. Hover over the icons and you get even more data. On your right you can view ever-changing list of Suggested places, which is contingent on time of day. Foursquare is also taking its newly launched Lists feature one step further, allowing you to search, view and follow recommended Lists via web, which will in turn buzz on Radar when you turn it on on your phone. Other changes include the fact that you can now can now comment and view comments directly from the web interface, view photos in a larger, more crisp format, see other people’s Foursquare points on their profiles. There’s also a “Brands on Foursquare” section in the bottom right, just because. Foursquare is making a concerted effort be more than just an app for checkins, as we and every other person who covers this stuff has noted before. The difference here is the mobile-first startup is expanding its horizons way beyond its iOS roots in order to become a location-based city guide and recommendation service, sort of moving towards Yelp while Yelp ironically moves towards Foursquare. And it just might succeed too, with the wealth of more than a billion checkins from which to draw conclusions about the destination predilections of its ten million users, “[We want to do whatever] we can do with this data to make people more aware of the world around them in real-time and geographically relevant way,” Foursquare Head of Product Alex Rainert said as he gave me a tour of the site earlier. Already I’ve learned about two different places in my neighborhood that I never even knew existed.

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Foursquare Outgrows Mobile, Wants To Be Your City Guide

Velti Buys Marketing Company Mobile Interactive Group For As Much As $60M

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:39:02 +0000

Mobile marketing agency Velti has acquired Mobile Interactive Group (‘MIG’), the UK’s largest mobile marketing company. Velti will pay $25 million plus as much as $34 million over time by 2013, for a total of $59 million. MIG offers mobile marketing, mobile commerce and mobile billing services in 44 countries and has operations in the UK, US, Netherlands, Belgium and Australia. The company’s technology platform is used by more than 300 enterprise customers including Skype, Vodafone, O2, PepsiCo, ITV, FIVE, Fremantle, BBC, Sony, Barclaycard, Marks & Spencer and NewLook. MIG’s mobile interactive technology is used by broadcasters in Europe and Asia Pacific for real-time social media interactions through the mobile platform. MIG saw more then $100 million in gross billings and more than $20 million in net revenues in 2010. The company also recently bought mobile payments startup ZayPay. Velti, which is a public company on the London Stock Exchange, offers a SaaS technology platform that allows agencies and brands to plan, manage, and optimize mobile advertising and marketing campaigns in real time.

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Velti Buys Marketing Company Mobile Interactive Group For As Much As $60M

Thomson Reuters Names ‘Top 100 Global Innovators’ – Now Guess Who’s Missing

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:43:59 +0000

Thomson Reuters this morning announced that it has identified “the world’s 100 most innovative organizations today” through a proprietary program. I wouldn’t normally give such a list much attention, but when I was glancing at the top 100 list , I recognized many of the usual suspects on there, such as Apple, Intel, HP, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Sony, Xerox and Alcatel-Lucent. One notable name that I think everyone in this business would expect on the list was missing, though. Did good old Google really lose that much of its edge of late? Here’s the thing. According to Thomson Reuters, its program analyzes patent data and related metrics to identify the world leaders innovation activity. Allow me to quote David Brown, president of the IP Solutions business of Thomson Reuters: “We salute these companies and their leaders for the innovative spirit they foster and their commitment to protecting intellectual assets.” Thomson Reuters looked at all organizations with 100 or more “innovative” patents, and how many of them were granted, over the past three years, and also how often they get cited in other patent filings. They also looked at how many ‘major world markets’ their patents were protected in, ruling out a bunch of innovative companies that don’t have the resources to do this on a global scale (yet). Now, I’m not an expert, but I daresay patent-related metrics should only be part of the methodology one should use to determine who is innovating or not. Put differently, if a company like Google – despite its flaws, easily one of the hallmark hotbeds of innovation the world knows today – is not worthy of this list, then my assumption is the criteria used to get other companies ranked on there are pretty much worthless. Interestingly, Thomson Reuters ranks ‘Motorola Inc.’ as a top 100 global innovator, even if there’s no such company anymore. That company was divided into two separate entities, Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility, so it’s worth questioning the quality of Thomson Reuters’ program some more. Coincidentally, Motorola Mobility is in the process of being swallowed by Google .

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Thomson Reuters Names ‘Top 100 Global Innovators’ – Now Guess Who’s Missing

Google Music Store Screen Shots Surface Ahead of November 16 Announcement [Rumors]

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:18:30 +0000

Rumors that Google may be unveiling its new music service on Wednesday gained a bit of credibility today when Technodroidve reporter Ricardo Romero (somehow) discovered the Music Store on his HTC Inspire 4G. While purchases and downloads weren’t activated, these screeners show that the service may include artist recommendations and a Free Song of the Day. Check out more shots at Technodroidve . [ Android Police ] More »

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Google Music Store Screen Shots Surface Ahead of November 16 Announcement [Rumors]

YouTube Upgrades Its Android App

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:18:11 +0000

YouTube has just updated its Android app to version 2.3.4, and while the changes aren’t exactly groundbreaking, they do add-in some pretty useful new functionality. Regardless of if you’re a big video watcher, or someone who’s more into uploading your own clips, there should be something in this release to catch your interest. The introduction of a “watch later” queue brings that feature from the web-based YouTube to its mobile app. As you discover videos you’re interested in viewing, you can easily add them to your queue, and then watch them later at your leisure. Uploaders should pay attention to the change in clip info editing features, letting you revise the metadata associated with a video while you’re still in the middle of uploading it. Finally, the app gets a Google +1 button, giving you another tool to show your support for your favorite YouTube vids. The updated YouTube 2.3.4 is available in the Android Market now. Image courtesy of Flickr, Rego – d4u.hu More About: android , YouTube

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YouTube Upgrades Its Android App

T-Mobile to headline Google Music event?

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:53:55 +0000

Last week Google sent out invites to a special event that is happening on the 16 th (this Wednesday), and while the invitation hinted at Google Music, it looks like we’ve got more clues to what’s going to happen. Another round of invites just went out, and this time it’s a joint invitation from T-Mobile and Google. While it isn’t clear what role T-Mobile is going to play in the event, the invitation mentions a whole lineup of artistes like Drake, Maroon 5, Busta Rhymes, Dirty South and R3hab; tying in even more to the theme of Google Music. Could T-Mobile be announcing new devices at the launch? Or will Google Music start off as a T-Mobile exclusive? (Let’s hope not.) Perhaps it will be the launch of T-Mobile Galaxy Nexus (which should please a lot of people). Stay tuned, and we’ll keep you posted. T-Mobile to headline Google Music event? , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : iPhone 4S Review ,

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T-Mobile to headline Google Music event?

iTunes Match Has Us on Cloud Nine [REVIEW]

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:30:21 +0000

iTunes Match is now available and ready for sign-ups. Apple introduced the service back at WWDC 2011; it’s a way to access all your iTunes music via the cloud, for a fee. Similar to Amazon’s Cloud Player and Google Music , iTunes Match offers users the ability to access their music libraries — whether tracks were purchased via iTunes or not — from iTunes on a Mac or PC and from iOS 5 devices, including the Apple TV 2. The service is $24.99 a year. For that $25, users can upload up to 25,000 tracks to the iTunes Cloud (past iTunes purchases do not count against that total) and access their tunes on up to 10 devices. We’ve been playing with the service since it first hit beta and have watched it evolve from a promising — if buggy — tool into a well executed consumer-centric music solution. After downloading iTunes 10.5.1, users can opt to enable iTunes Match. After paying the annual fee, iTunes will scan a user’s iTunes library and upload or match the songs that it finds to its servers. Apple has a catalog of more than 20 million songs, which means most users’ existing albums and tracks will already be in Apple’s database, drastically reducing the amount of time it takes to upload a library to the cloud. This is a major advantage over both Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music. Another major advantage is that unlike Amazon, which requires pre-Cloud Player purchases to be uploaded to its servers retroactively, all of your iTunes purchases are accessible, thanks to iTunes in the Cloud . iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud: Perfect Harmony iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud work hand-in-hand. You can use iTunes in the Cloud without iTunes Match, but when the two are working together, the entire process is utterly seamless. Over the course of nearly eight years, I have downloaded several thousand songs from iTunes. Most of them are downloaded onto my iMac or stored on an aging hard-drive based iPod. With iTunes Match/iTunes in the Cloud, I have access to all of my past purchases in my library. Even if I haven’t downloaded those songs to my MacBook Pro, the songs are still viewable and playable. Playing back these songs can take place in two ways. First, I can just stream the song from the web, a la Spotify , MOG or Rdio . I can also opt to download a track to my hard drive. I can also create playlists or smart playlists using tracks from my existing iTunes purchase library. On secondary machines, local uploads are accessible in the same way that my iTunes purchases are. The experience is similar to what subscribers to services like Spotify have long enjoyed, but the difference is that now the songs I actually own (or have acquired in other ways) are included. Playlist Synchronization The iTunes Match/iTunes in the Cloud harmony really comes together with playlist synchronization. You no longer need to manually sync playlists with your iOS device via iTunes — instead it all takes place over the cloud. That means my iPhone can see playlists I’ve created on my laptop or desktop. The process works in reverse too. I can create playlists on my iPad or iPhone and then access those playlists from within iTunes on the desktop or from another iOS device. Matching Songs with iTunes After signing up for iTunes Match, the service will assess your library and upload tracks from your personal library into the iTunes cloud. If Apple can find a song in its own repository, it just matches the song in place. For songs not available in Apple’s servers, your own files are uploaded directly to the cloud. Click here to view this gallery. High Quality Matched Tracks Although most of my personal compressed musical files are stored in LAME V0 (~225-278 bitrate, depending on the file), I have accumulated some lesser quality tracks over the years. By default, if iTunes Match finds a song in its library, it will replace that track with a 256-kbps AAC version. These files are DRM free when downloaded from the cloud — and appear to be the same files users purchase directly from iTunes. For some users, having improved sound quality will be a big deal, though more discerning fans might not hear much of a difference. Keep in mind Amazon also encodes its MP3s at at least 256kbps, so tracks purchased on Amazon.com, uploaded to iTunes, really just wind up changing from one format for another. That’s an important distinction; although the iTunes Match tracks are stored by iTunes, they are in the AAC or *.m4a format. Most MP3 players will play this format, but be sure to check if you want to sideload those tracks to another device. Listening on the Go If you want to listen to tracks from iTunes or an Apple TV 2 device, you can stream songs without local downloads. Listening to songs on the iPad or iPhone, however, will download a track (though it plays it during the download process). It would be nice if there was a way to indicate if you want to save a track for offline listening or if you just want to stream tunes. The advantage of this download upon play method, however, is that if you are suddenly offline (like on the subway), you can still listen to tracks you’ve recently played on your device. Agains the Competition iTunes Match competes directly with Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player. On the whole, iTunes Match stacks up well against the other services. Although Google Music is free during the beta process, we expect the company will charge $20 to $25 a year, just like Amazon and Apple. Amazon charges $20 a year for a 20GB Cloud Drive, but promises unlimited song storage. Google limits users to 20,000 songs and iTunes Match is limited to 25,000 songs, not counting your existing iTunes purchases. Unlike Amazon and Google, Apple does not have a browser-based music player. For some, this may be a deal breaker. For me, it’s actually an advantage. I find web-based music apps to be clunky in execution. It’s why I prefer the designated desktop apps for subscription streaming services. It’s also why I loathe using Amazon Cloud Player, because the process of getting songs into or out of my account is so tedious. iTunes isn’t perfect, but it handles track playback, upload and download with much less friction than a web interface. Of course, the biggest difference between the services is mobile device support. Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music are both available via unofficial iOS apps , but there are native solutions available for Android. iTunes Match is only accessible from iTunes or iOS devices. That means Android users are out of luck when it comes to cloud-based bliss. You can still offload songs to your phone, using programs like DoubleTwist, but the cloud-based options are iOS only. Still, for a person invested in the iTunes ecosystem, iTunes Match is the mature execution of the music cloud concept. For me, paying $24.99 a year was worth it just to have seamless playlist access as well as the ability to upload parts of my collection from multiple machines. What do you think of iTunes Match? Let us know. More About: apple , Cloud Music , Feature , icloud , itunes-match , redesign

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iTunes Match Has Us on Cloud Nine [REVIEW]

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Source Code Is Out Now [Android]

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:49:58 +0000

Ice Cream Sandwich is on its way with the Galaxy Nexus, but now Google’s released its source code through the Android Open Source Project, meaning everyone can dig in and start working on their ports (and bastardizations) for other devices. More »

Sandy Bridge-E Benchmarked: Intel Retains the Performance Crown [Guts]

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:21:53 +0000

Intel’s new Sandy Bridge-E chip reigns supreme—and we have the charts to prove it. More »

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Sandy Bridge-E Benchmarked: Intel Retains the Performance Crown [Guts]

T-Mobile May Headline Google Music Event On Wednesday

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:57:08 +0000

Last week, we got an invite for a mysterious Google press event that’s being held in Los Angeles this Wednesday. The event didn’t give any details as to what we could expect, but it’s widely believed to feature the launch of an improved version of Google Music. And the invitation also contained another clue: an image of a warehouse that includes a small T-Mobile sign, among other things. Now we’ve just received a second invitation — this time to “Experience The World of T-Mobile & Google”, complete with guest appearances by several big-name music artists: Drake, Maroon 5, Busta Rhymes, Dirty South, and R3HAB. This is obviously the after-party (it starts at 9PM, while the other invite is for 2PM). But the fact that T-Mobile is featured so prominently seems to indicate that it will play a major part in the news earlier in the day as well. The other clue from the original invite: the event is going to be livestreamed via the Android YouTube Channel , which isn’t surprising given that tight Google Music integration is a key feature on Android. But perhaps T-Mobile has some more Android-related news on the way as well. A T-Mobile version of the Galaxy Nexus seems like a strong candidate.

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T-Mobile May Headline Google Music Event On Wednesday