Archives: July 2006

Has Symantec Turned a Corner?

Posted by: Sarah Lacy on July 28, Categories: security

Finally, Symantec had some undeniably good news when it reported earnings on July 26. Ok the profit numbers looked bad thanks to some merger related expenses. But revenue for the...

Innovation overload

Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 27, Categories: Innovation

Innovation is in grave danger of becoming the latest overused buzzword. We're doing our part at Businessweek. And so is IBM with its big innovation marketing campaign. The danger is...

A big shift coming for mobile applications

Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 26, Categories: software

New uses for smart phones seem to be popping out of the woodwork. I know this because my 18-year-old son, Daniel, is one of zillions of teen-agers who are lining...

JotSpot Intros Wiki 2.0

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 24, Categories: Wiki

JotSpot today is introducing what it calls Wiki 2.0, which is doing its darnedest not to look like a wiki. CEO Joe Kraus told me that wikis, or Web sites...

Yet Another Venture for the Skype Guys

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 23, Categories: Skype, eBay, file-sharing

My colleague Steve Rosenbush has the scoop: Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who previously started the file-sharing software Kazaa, apparently are working on yet another venture, this time...

Where the Long Tail Points

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 21, Categories: long tail

John Hagel has a well-thought-out post on the upshot of the Long Tail for media. The Long Tail, of course, is Wired Editor in Chief Chris Anderson's name for growing...

37Signals, 1 Big New Investor: Jeff Bezos

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 20, Categories: Amazon.com, Best of the Web, Power of Us, Social Software, Web 2.0

37signals, the little-software-outfit-that-could and prolific producer of popular collaborative services such as Basecamp and Backpack, has its first venture investor: Bezos Expeditions, the personal investing firm of Amazon.com founder and...

Oracle Rising

Posted by: Sarah Lacy on July 19, Categories: Enterprise Software

Well, look who’s the new belle of the software ball. Oracle Corp. held an investor luncheon in New York yesterday and the timing couldn’t be better for Chuck Phillips &...

Will eBay Fee Hikes Recharge Growth--or Drive Away More Merchants?

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 19, Categories: eBay

A lot of people, especially eBay sellers, assume that the online marketplace raises fees largely to extract more money. But the bigger reason is usually an attempt to alter seller...

Apple to Debut Movie Rentals?

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 18, Categories: Apple Computer, Digital Music, digital media, video

ThinkSecret says Apple will introduce a movie rental service in three weeks at its developer conference. I have no inside knowledge to know if this will actually pan out, but...

Best Web 2.0 Definition Yet

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 18, Categories: Power of Us, Web, Web 2.0

Paul Kedrosky, who's becoming one of my don't-miss bloggers, has the best definition I've yet seen of the vaporous term Web 2.0. After reading James Fallows' recent Web 2.0 article...

Virtualization Gets Even Hotter

Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 18, Categories: utility computing

When VMware introduced virtualization software for the PC in the late 1990s, it occupied a small, arcane corner of the computing world. Now, a lot of people/companies are getting into...

YouTube: 100 Million Videos a Day

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 14, Categories: Power of Us, Social Media, TV, Web 2.0, YouTube, video

Back in March at PC Forum, when someone from YouTube stepped up at a session and mentioned that the video service was streaming 30 million videos a day, I thought...

Fighting Attention Deficit with Engagement

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 14, Categories: Power of Us, Web 2.0, advertising, attention

Heather Green and I just published a story, with the help of colleagues Stanley Holmes and Kerry Capell, on how some companies are managing to fight media attention deficit disorder....

Dailies Strike Back: Too Little Too Late?

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 14, Categories: Google, Search, Yahoo, digital media, media

My colleague Jon Fine has an interesting column this week that breaks news about discussions between Yahoo! and newspaper publishers MediaNews (owner of the San Jose Mercury News) and Hearst...

Good Goes Global?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on July 13, Categories: mobile computing

It's hard to say anyone's putting a dent in RIM's gi-normous Blackberry mobile email business, but rival Good Technology appears intent to give the company a run for the money....

Rocketboom 2.0

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 12, Categories: Rocketboom

The first Rocketboom with former MTV host Joann Colan--and sans Amanda Congdon--is up (if slow). As Heather and Dave note, it's pretty funny. Funny enough? Not sure. But I'll stay...

A Billion for Bebo? Bubble, Bubble, Double Trouble

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 11, Categories: Facebook, MySpace, Power of Us, Social Media, TechCrunch, Web 2.0, bubble

Mike Arrington at TechCrunch says the social-networking service Bebo has turned down a $550 million buyout offer--not far off from what News Corp. paid for MySpace. Bebo's asking price: north...

A Ray of Hope for Desktop Linux

Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 10, Categories: linux

Linux has had a major impact on the server end of corporate computing, but, so, far not too much action on the desktop. The reasons are clear: Microsoft's Windows and...

eBay's Google Checkout Ban: Hold the Rotten Tomatoes

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 07, Categories: Google, PayPal, eBay

eBay has come in for a lot of criticism for its decision to exclude Google Checkout from the online marketplace's list of accepted payment methods. But a number of folks...

Not Your Dad's Mainframe: Little Iron

Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 06, Categories: mainframes

Mainframe computers have long been the province of IT druids in huge corporate data centers and goverment agencies like NASA and the CIA. Now, though, the mainframe is heading towards...

Rocketboom: What a Mess

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 06, Categories: videoblogging

My colleague Heather Green has the story behind the breakup of the video blog Rocketboom's Amanda Congdon and Andrew Baron, though Congdon herself has posted her own take. Yeesh, too...

Microsoft Gives Ground on OpenDoc

Posted by: Steve Hamm on July 06, Categories: open standards

When I was reporting for my story and blog item on the future of desktop productivity applications, the folks at Microsoft hinted that something big was coming--but it wouldn't be...

Investors: Thumbs Down on eBay Management Shuffle

Posted by: Rob Hof on July 06, Categories: Google, eBay

eBay investors apparently don't like the just-announced departure of Jeff Jordan, president of eBay's PayPal unit. The stock's down almost 5% this morning. Given the relative success of PayPal--as well...

eBay's Management Shakeup

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

eBay just announced a pretty big reshuffling of its management deck--and most important, the departure this fall of longtime exec Jeff Jordan, who had been president of eBay's PayPal unit...