LinkedIn has likely ended with a bang its run as an independent company built upon a network of professionals, clearly beating out what Wall Street sought. Of course, this report is largely moot. Earlier this year, LinkedIn announced it would be acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion. Microsoft beat out several bidders in the process, including Salesforce, and that price largely reset… Read More
Zeta Interactive, the marketing-focused big data and analytics firm that recently acquired the CRM division of eBay Enterprise, today announced it has bought Acxiom Impact, Acxiom‘s marketing automation solution for enterprise marketers. Sources close to the companies tell me the acquisition price was just north of $50 million. Zeta Interactive, which was co-founded by David Steinberg… Read More
At the beginning of the year, Amazon flipped the switch on Dash Replenishment, a service aimed at bringing the instant reordering of its devoted product buttons directly to connected devices. The idea being that you don’t have to, say, order ink for your printer or batteries for your smart lock — the devices will do it for you.
The retail giant has already announced a slew of… Read More
The Olympics Committee has always been restrictive in who can use what footage and when, but a couple of new rules introduced for the 2016 games take things even further. The official social media guidelines now prohibit streaming apps, Vines and even the lowly GIF. Read More
With plans for a new brewery and aggressive expansion in the biggest craft beer market in the world, Scottish brewery BrewDog* turned to BankRoll to raise investment to, er, bankroll its U.S. expansion plans, with a hefty $50 million round of equity crowdfunding. The brewery has secured 42 acres of land in Winchester, Ohio (don’t worry, I had to look it up, too), where it is building… Read More
Google announced an interesting little tweak to its search results today that will highlight reviews from reputable critics and best-of list inclusions for bars and restaurants when you search in the Google app. Say you are looking for a fancy place to eat in New York. Google already gives you plenty of information about any given restaurant, including when it’s the busiest and what… Read More
Connected bikes could be huge assets to the future of urban transit, especially as cities and cars grow more connected, too. But smart cycles can be very expensive, and cyclists also tend to be very particular about, and attached to, their bikes. Shoka’s new Shoka Bell is an accessory that adds a heavy helping of intelligence to your bike without requiring the purchase of an entirely… Read More
Insert is the new startup from the team behind app development company Worklight (which was acquired by IBM for $70 million). Today it’s announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Insert CEO Shahar Kaminitz said that where Worklight (where he was founder and former CEO) was focused on “the core development of the application,” he’s come to realize… Read More
It seems there’s no limit to the perils being faced by athletes at the Rio 2016 Olympics: not just their competitors, but toxic water, poor accommodations and impressive mobile bills. Add malicious pandas to the menu — virtual ones, at least. A nasty Trojan known as Zeus Panda has made its way to the Olympic host just in time for an influx of visitors. Read More
Disney today is wading into the mobile messaging market with a new chat application called Disney Mix, aimed at kids, tweens and families. While the app will compete to some extent with popular messaging clients like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and others, the goal with Disney Mix is to provide a safer alternative that’s built with the needs of kids in mind. That means the… Read More
Buying a couch sucks. Not unlike when buying a mattress, most people find themselves picking one of two* options: heading to a chain couch store and haggling with someone who needs to keep the price up for the sake of commissions, or saying “screw that” and heading for IKEA. Then you’ve gotta deal with getting the thing to — and in — your house. (* or, of… Read More
Forget food delivery. Just the organic slice of the grocery delivery business remains competitive in the U.S. with giants from the brick and mortar world, tech titans and upstarts all muscling in for a piece of an annual market that sees more than $40 billion in sales domestically. Some have flamed out, like Farmigo, which recently closed shop. And others done some belt-tightening, like… Read More
Regardless of whether you’ve seen Netflix’s original show Stranger Things (you should go start after you read this post if you haven’t), watching the video above with any kind of 360 VR viewer, like Google Cardboard or Gear VR, is quite the experience. Stranger Things is a perfect starting point for Netflix to dabble in VR, given how atmospheric, immersive and spooky the… Read More
Popular password manager 1Password is trying a new distribution model. Instead of letting you pay for the 1Password app on your Mac or PC and pay again to upgrade to a new major version, AgileBits now has a new plan — for $2.99 per month, you can download and use all the 1Password apps for as long as you subscribe. Read More
Jim Prosser, Twitter’s head of corporate, revenue, and policy communications, is leaving the company. He’s headed over to SoFi to run communications and policy, he said on Twitter. It’s noteworthy that three of Twitter’s top communications executives have left in the past month. The highest profile departure in the past few weeks was longtime Apple veteran PR… Read More
Facebook Pages and websites that frequently withhold, exaggerate or distort information in their link headlines will disappear from News Feed thanks to a new anti-clickbait algorithm that’s now rolling out. Facebook manually classified tens of thousands of headlines with a clickbaitiness score to train the new algorithm. Now it can detect headlines like “When She Looked Under… Read More
Video has generally been available — and is often shared — on Pinterest, but it hasn’t quite received the same treatment that the company’s traditional content has seen.
Over the next few months, however, that will be changing. Pinterest is starting to test ways to get video running directly on its services, including building a native video player. And beyond that… Read More
LinkedIn announced today that it is open sourcing a tool called Test Butler, which was developed in-house to overcome limitations on Android app test emulators. As LinkedIn was developing its latest Android app, it decided to completely overhaul the way it develops and tests apps. But it ran into a huge testing limitation that was slowing it down in an unacceptable way. “We are… Read More
Say what you will about OnePlus’ now-defunct invite system – it certainly helped the company control its supplies and gauge demand. The launch of the OnePlus 3 marked a brave new, invite-free world – one that’s apparently come with a few growing pains as the company works to meet demand. Co-founder Carl Pei took to the company’s forums to announce that it will… Read More
Apple’s forthcoming reality TV show just scored itself some big-time Hollywood star power: according to a report out this morning from Variety, actress and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow will serve as a mentor to the contestants on the new series, “Planet of the Apps.” The show, which is debuting next year, will also have Gary Vaynerchuk and will.iam as advisers, the report says. Read More
