Archives: February 2006

Why Carriers Will Love Place-Shifting

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 28, Categories: TV

A slew of recent articles seems to suggest that wireless and wired broadband service providers will do all in their power to fight so-called place-shifting technology, allowing users to watch their home TVs remotely. But I think that the opposite will be true: Carriers will jump onto the place-shifting bandwagon, pronto.

Edgeio Launches

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 27, Categories: Web 2.0, craigslist, eBay

Edgeio, the new classified-ad service of entrepreneurs and bloggers Keith Teare and Mike Arrington, has just launched publicly. Here's how it works, but essentially, the site vacuums up items tagged...

Is Google's Gbuy Almost Here?

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 24, Categories: Google, PayPal, eBay

So it seems from a post on the Google Base blog, plus some background on Google's main blog. According to Google: For buyers, this feature will provide a convenient and...

eBay Adds More Ads

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 24, Categories: advertising, eBay

No doubt eyeing the boom in online advertising, eBay is now trying out an ad format it has used in its real estate listings on a new swath of products,...

Salesforce.com's Latest Outage...

Posted by: Sarah Lacy on February 22, Categories: software as service

Midway through its fourth quarter earnings conference call, Marc Benioff had just finished his impassioned remarks about how seriously the company is taking recent service outages and how much better...

Indie Cafes as Startup Offices? Nooooooooo!

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 22, Categories: Entrepreneurship, wireless

Fed up with the loud music at Starbucks, Om Malik is looking for new cafes where he can get work done. His post has spurred a flurry of suggestions by...

On Gaming and Hypnosis....

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 22, Categories: gaming

One gaming reviews editor allowed himself to be hypnotized so as to review a game as a 10 year old. The editor says he's emerged from the experience unscathed.

NetZero Voice: Another Skype Rival

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 21, Categories: VOIP

I just trialed a new VoIP service called NetZero Voice, which is competing with Skype. The service's quality was pretty good, and its features impressive. But it might end up being more expensive to use than Skype.

Another Take on Amazon Music: High-Stakes Chess?

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 20, Categories: Amazon.com, Apple Computer, Digital Music, copyright

When record labels leaked Amazon's apparent plans for a digital music store last week, I wondered if the store would be mostly a way for Amazon to get more people...

One Person's Garbage...

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 20, Categories: Web 2.0, eBay

... is another person's treasure, or at least maybe something to sell on eBay. GarbageScout is a new site, still in early test mode, lets you post useful items...

Web Mashups: Parlor Tricks or Real Businesses?

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 17, Categories: Power of Us, Web 2.0, mash-ups

VC Peter Rip loves Web mashups, but he wonders if too many of them will find it difficult to transform themselves from cool combinations of sites to sustainable businesses. It's...

Should XM and Sirius Lower Their Prices?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 17, Categories: satellite radio

Many Wall Street analysts expect satellite radio companies to keep increasing their prices. But a new Forrester Research report indicates that XM and Sirius might actually want to start thinking about cutting subscription price tags, instead.

Is PlayStation 3 in Trouble?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on February 17, Categories: gaming

Merrill Lynch in a report today says Sony's launch date for Playstation 3 continues to slip. Its analysts suggest PS3 may not launch until the fall in Japan, and only...

The Plot Thickens at Brocade

Posted by: Peter Burrows on February 17, Categories: storage

There's some very interesting developments over at Brocade Communications, the once high-flying storage networking company. And I'm not talking about its promising financial performance, announced on Feb. 17. Rather, I'm...

Amazon Music: Is It Really About the Music?

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 17, Categories: Amazon.com, Apple Computer, Digital Music, iPod

Much of the blogosphere is in a dither over why Amazon.com is bothering to join the appallingly unprofitable online music business--late, to boot. I don't doubt that for the long...

Campfire: Group Chat for Businesses

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 16, Categories: Social Software

The keep-it-simple folks from 37Signals are at it again with their latest offering: Campfire, a hosted group chat service starting at $12 a month. Some interesting business features: Chats are...

VoIP review: SunRocket

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 14, Categories: VOIP

I'd just trialed SunRocket's service, one of the cheapest Web-calling services out there. Overall, the experience was pretty good.

Forget Your Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on February 14, Categories: gaming

Is Xbox 360 oh, so last year? And PlayStation 3 just another notch in Sony's tech-prowess belt? There's no quicker way to ignite a debate among gamers than to proclaim...

Buying Safely on eBay

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 14, Categories: eBay

I had a very uncharacteristic experience on eBay recently, as I wrote recently here. For the first time in literally hundreds of transactions on eBay, I was stiffed. One of...

MovieBeam Redux

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on February 14, Categories: digital media

If at first you don't succeed... A lot of people who thought the MovieBeam video service had been left in a pile of dead tech ventures apparently guessed wrong. The...

Bayosphere and Beyond

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 14, Categories: Social Media, citizen media

My colleague Heather Green's story on why Dan Gillmor's citizen journalism project Bayosphere never caught fire has escaped our subscription firewall. Dan himself had listed plenty of his own reasons,...

Is Firefox Slipping?

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 13, Categories: Firefox, Microsoft, Web browser

Richard McManus at the Web 2.0 Explorer blog has been seeing more complaints about the up-and-coming Web browser Firefox crashing a lot, just as I've noticed personally lately. He wonders...

MySQL Answers Back With $18.5 Million

Posted by: Sarah Lacy on February 13, Categories: open source

On Thursday we reported that Oracle was in serious talks to buy several open source companies and a natural question was: What does this mean for MySQL? The database seems...

Who Is Afraid of Blogs?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 09, Categories: blogging

Corporations and universities are increasingly snooping around blogs. A number of bloggers have been fired. Some college students have had college police bust into their apartments because of notes the police read on blogging and social-networking sites. Do all these happenings make bloggers afraid to blog?

Edgeio Edges Toward Launch--and a Clash with E-Commerce Giants?

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 09, Categories: Search SIG, Web 2.0, advertising, blogs, craigslist, e-commerce, eBay

Edgeio, the much-anticipated, secretive startup by onetime RealNames founder Keith Teare and TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington, suddenly isn't so secret anymore. Although its "official" launch is weeks away, possibly Feb....

Help! My Home Page Has Fallen and Can't Get Up!

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 08, Categories: RSS, Web browser, Yahoo, blogs

OK, I think my feed reading habits have finally broken my browsers. When I go to my MyYahoo page (and even more, when I click on a link to leave...

Google Steals CEO at Amazon's A9

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 07, Categories: Amazon.com, Google, Search

Via a post from John Battelle, I see that Udi Manber has left as CEO of Amazon.com's A9 search operation in Palo Alto to join Google. Amazon just put out...

Mobile TV: A Traditional TV Rival?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 07, Categories: wireless

For a long time, mobile TV hasn't been considered to be a competitor to cable and satellite TV. But that could change soon, as mobile TV quality improves and people start using stand-alone, large cell phone screens.

Big eBay Seller Vanishes

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 06, Categories: eBay

Just a few months ago, Glacier Bay DVD was crowing about becoming one of eBay's very top sellers, with the highest positive customer feedback rating of any merchant on the...

California Mulls Open Source

Posted by: Sarah Lacy on February 06, Categories: open source software

In some ways, it's not quite as bold as Massachusetts plan to replace parts of Microsoft Office with OpenDocument by 2007, but this Wednesday, the State of California is holding...

Google and Skype Are Friends?!

Posted by: Olga Kharif on February 06, Categories: Skype

Google, Skype and two vc firms have just announced they'd invested into FON, a worldwide Wi-Fi network with ambitious plans. What's surprising about this announcement is that Google and Skype (and its owner, eBay) -- who increasingly clash on everything from VoIP to classifieds, are banding together. Could this be indicative of a closer relationship between the two companies?

Social Lending Marketplace Prosper Launches

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 05, Categories: Power of Us, Web 2.0, eBay

Mike Arrington has the news: Prosper (formerly known as CircleOne), founded by E-Loan cofounder Chris Larsen, has launched--very softly. According to the site: People who need money request it, and...

Google to Get AdSense Competition From Amazon?

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 05, Categories: Amazon.com, Google, advertising, eBay

Chris Beasley says it looks like Amazon is considering an ad network to compete with Google's AdSense. Beasley, who's an Amazon Associate--meaning he gets commissions for referring his Web site...

Accel's Book Club Selections

Posted by: Steve Hamm on February 03, Categories: venture capital

Oprah isn't the only one who gets into hot water now and then for her book club selections. Accel Partners, the venture capital firm, is getting a little static for...

SAP vs Salesforce.com

Posted by: Steve Hamm on February 02, Categories: software as service

SAP is expected to soon announce its entry into the software-as-service fray with a CRM offering. Click to the next page to see what Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, had...

IE7 Beta: Never Count Microsoft Out

Posted by: Rob Hof on February 02, Categories: Firefox, Microsoft, Web browser

Apparently, Microsoft's browser-in-beta, Internet Explorer 7, looks pretty promising, according to early reports. Got the same impression from SimpleFeed's Mark Carlson, who stopped by today. I'm not yet daring enough...