Sunday, October 28, 2012

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The Sad State Of Video Apps Top
HollywoodEditor's Note: Armando Kirwin is a filmmaker and consultant whose previous work has included Paramount Pictures, Microsoft, several startups, thirteen feature films, and a handful of TV shows. Follow him on twitter: @armandokirwin. Most of us remember where we were the moment the world learned about the billion-dollar sale of Instagram, but amidst the pursuing flurry of tweets ("it's too high!,"It's too low!", "We need to integrate filters right now!"), if you happened to browse the AppStore that day you might have noticed that the now-infamous app was actually ranked third. Sitting in the number one spot was a video app. I honestly can't even remember which one it was, like everyone else, all I saw was a placeholder for a 1 followed by nine zeros.
 
Big Data Right Now: Five Trendy Open Source Technologies Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-26 at 11.53.10 PMBig Data is on every CIO's mind this quarter, and for good reason. Companies will have spent $4.3 billion on Big Data technologies by the end of 2012. But here's where it gets interesting. Those initial investments will in turn trigger a domino effect of upgrades and new initiatives that are valued at $34 billion for 2013, per Gartner. Over a 5 year period, spend is estimated at $232 billion.
 
Cinefy Lets You Add CGI Special Effects To Your Awful, Shaky iPhone Video Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-27 at 12.24.14 PMWelcome to the future, where you can essentially make a movie with believable special effects right on your smartphone. Cinefy, an app that just launched on the App Store, makes this possible.
 
Predicta's Co-Founder On Bridging The Startup Scenes In Brazil And Silicon Valley [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-27 at 10.40.39 AMSao Paolo, Brazil and the San Francisco Bay Area are many miles apart, both literally in terms of distance, and figuratively in terms of culture. But one tech startup called Predicta is taking on the challenge of bridging the gap.
 
Tablet First, Mobile Second. Top
heroDevelopers tend to think "mobile first, tablet second" because tablets seem like stretched out mobile devices, and mobiles tend to have much higher install bases. The devs reason that if they design for mobile first and then stretch to fit tablet then that's probably sufficient. Not so much.
 
LinkedIn And The Mutable Rules Of Social Networking Top
4174759451_0066a9d8ffWhen I started using LinkedIn (in 2008) the service put a lot of emphasis on only connecting with people you had indubitably 'done business with'. Which made it pretty straightforward to decide when to click 'accept' and when not to. But in recent years I've been getting increasing numbers of LinkedIn requests from strangers. So the old rules of interaction aren't working anymore.
 
Social Annotation Site Diigo.com Recovering After Domain Hijacking Nightmare Top
Tour_ Collaborate | DiigoDiigo, a social bookmarking and annotation site, is finally back online 50 hours after the domain was first hijacked. It's an incredible story that involves crisis management, blackmail, investigative research, payoffs, a clever thief, and points to potential problems with the domain name registry system that could affect anyone with a website. Diigo's co-founder called it a nightmare and crisis that he'd like to help other companies avoid.
 
Convergence Or Confusion: Comparing Apple's And Microsoft's Approaches To Post-PC Top
mountain-lion-windows-8In a lot of ways, with Windows 8, Microsoft got the jump on what Apple seems intent on doing with OS X and iOS: a convergence of desktop and mobile computing. But the approaches both companies are taking to changing consumer computing habits are very different, and both strategies have their merits and their pitfalls. So who will come out on top as the world figures out new digital paradigms?
 
The EFF Needs Help Keeping 3D Printing Free Top
674x501_736420_624472_1351266457The Electronic Frontier Foundation is planning for a future when 3D printing, thanks to "creative" patents, could no longer be free. Because the technology is so nascent, patenting parts of the process or renewing expiring patents could prevent incremental improvement of the technology out of fear or patent infringement. The EFF wants to head this off at the pass.
 
Lessons for Data Driven Businesses Top
Robert J. Moore is the co-founder of RJMetrics, a company whose software helps online businesses make smarter decisions using their own data. He also previously served on the Investment Team of Insight Venture Partners.  One of the fun things that happens when you start a company is that you get opportunities to share what you've learned with other technology leaders. In past year, I've been fortunate to present "best practices" sessions to a number of groups, including the portfolios of First Round CapitalInsight Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital.
 
Raincheck: Google Cancels NYC Android Event Planned For Monday Due To Hurricane Sandy Top
stormThere may be an app for almost everything, but there still isn't one for controlling Mother Nature. Google this morning officially canceled the Android event that was scheduled to occur on Monday, October 29 in New York City due to Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to hit the city on Sunday evening.
 
Yammer's Cindy Alvarez: Five Types of People I Should Have Fired Sooner Top
failconCindy Alvarez directs user experience at Yammer. At the Failcon conference this week she did an insightful if uncomfortable talk about the five types of people she should have fired sooner.
 
Gillmor Gang: Tommy Can You Hear Me Top
Gillmor Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang — John Borthwick, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — counted their pennies as Apple, Microsoft, and Google weighed in to the Tablet Sweepstakes with new entries. Apple's iPad Mini captured two of the Gang's wallet, while none seemed ready for the Surface or other Windows 8 entries. Google seems challenged to wrangle the carriers and Microsoft may be dividing its partners with the home-grown Surface.
 
How Long Will Programmers Be So Well-Paid? Top
2438005410_6100c23246_zLast week Glassdoor published its most recent software engineering salary report. Short version: it pays to code. Google and Facebook employees earn a base salary of ~$125K, not counting benefits, 401k matching, stock options/grants, etc., and even Yahoo! developers pull in six figures. Everyone knows why: ask anyone in the Valley, or NYC, or, well, practically anywhere, and they'll tell you that good engineers are awfully hard to find. Demand has skyrocketed, supply has stagnated, prices have risen. Basic economics. But why has the supply of good engineers remained so strained? We're talking about work that can, in principle, be performed by anyone anywhere with a half-decent computer and a decent Internet connection. Development tools have never been more accessible than in this era of $100 Android phones, free-tier web services, and industry-standard open-source platforms. Distributed companies with employees scattered all around the world are increasingly normal and acceptable. (I work for one. We're hiring.) And everyone knows that software experts make big bucks. Basic economics would seem to dictate that more and more people will flood into the field, bringing salaries back down to Earth.
 
Arguments About Politics Are Like Arguments About Phones Top
Screen Shot 2012-10-27 at 1.23.43 AMWe've all been inundated with political back and forth over the past few weeks. Curse you, social networks! And you too, Internet! And yet, what's really frustrating isn't the political back and forth, but the content that is being volleyed back and forth. More specifically, the lack of content. Watch 9 seconds of any recent episode of the Daily Show and you'll see that networks, pundits, experts, you-name-its are all happily willing to spend their days blowing an out-of-context sentence completely out of proportion and make said sentence seem like the biggest offense to politics since Watergate.
 
Amazon Web Services Outage Caused By Memory Leak And Failure In Monitoring Alarm Top
aws.amazonA memory leak and a failed monitoring system caused the Amazon Web Services outage on Monday that took out Reddit and other major services. According to a post Friday night, AWS explained that the problem arose after a simple replacement of a data collection server.
 
Here's What Happens When Geeks Who Like Path Get Overly Excited About Halloween Top
5634097791_6cc1d64627_zIt's that time of year to be festive and spooky, carve up some pumpkins and get the candy ready for the neighborhood kids. One uber-geek Ashley Mayer, decided to take festivity to an all new level, tied in with her love of a particular social app -- Path. Yes, it's Halloween, let's get geekily creative.
 
Buyer Beware Top
I very nearly put deal with it glasses on the left guyI've greatly enjoyed watching the petty controversies that erupted this week, controversies having to do with what can only loosely be described as buyer's remorse: indignant iPad owners, a mysteriously banished Amazon customer, and a host of people calling foul on Facebook's promoted posts. One of these is a legitimate and productive complaint, the others are nothing but a froth about the mouth.
 
In-Text Commerce Startup Cemmerce Raises Another $500K Top
cemmerce logoCemmerce, an Israeli startup helping publishers monetize through affiliate linking, has raised $500,000 in new funding. The round comes from digital holding company Navitrio. The firm, which also offers its portfolio companies office space and administrative services, previously invested $500,000 in Cemmerce last year. Navitrio co-founder Dror Liwer is also co-founder and CEO at Cemmerce.
 
How Square Keeps Its Culture Cool And Connected: It's An App. Top
photo 4One of the things that really excited me about coming to TechCrunch is that I have the freedom to explore companies in a deeper, more meaningful, way. I've worked for quite a few startups and the people who make things tend to interest me more than what they actually make, sometimes. Along that line of thinking, I visited the Square folks today and had a great conversation about their stance on keeping a cool, calm, collected and connected culture in the office. As you know, the company is moving to a bigger space in San Francisco, one that dons an actual "square." Also, Square has expanded to Canada (eh?), which is always the first stop for full-on internationalization.
 

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