Groupon Buys Social Shopping Start Up Mertado

by Kyle in , Startups
1 Comment 0 Like 1,910

After a bumpy road in IPO land Groupon is back to acquiring companies and expanding the base of their product line. Groupon is far and away the largest group deals site on the net. Groupon started as a local deals buy in site and since then has grown to a user base of 155 million users, 23 million of which are active participants.

Groupon recently launched a new concept called Groupon Goods that sells cameras, electronic and other goods to their user base. Now it looks like they are looking to expand their social presence.

Mertado lets consumers find and buy products through social networks like Facebook.

“Mertado has shown a great level of innovation in the social commerce space — for example, the launch of Mertado TV, combining lifestyle video content and product selection,” a Groupon spokeswoman told the Chicago Tribune. “We’re looking forward to leveraging the team’s expertise.”

“Groupon has been a pioneer in social commerce in many ways, and when we started talking with them, it became extremely clear that they shared the same set of values as us,” Mertado told users and investors on their website.

source: Chicago Tribune

Twitter Acquires Summify To Boost Content

by Kyle in , Startups, Tech,
Comments Off on Twitter Acquires Summify To Boost Content 0 Like 1,915
Screen Shot 2012-01-19 at 8.52.16 PM

Twitter has acquired news aggregator Summify. Summify is a Canadian based start-up that aggregates stories across social media based on the amount of shares. The more a story is shared across Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader the higher it ranks on Summify.

Summify has an iPhone app and began service as an email delivered summary of news.

Twitter’s acquisition will eventually result in the Summify website getting shut down and Summify employees relocating to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. Twitter hasn’t made a statement on how it will merge Summify into their current technology, but reports around the internet suggest it has something to do with Twitter’s new Discover tab.

More after the break
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Zuckerberg Admits To Making Mistakes While Settling US Regulator Privacy Complaint

by Kyle in Security,
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“I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes,”, Mark Zuckeberg said today in regards to settling a privacy complaint by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Facebook today agreed to settle complaints by the Federal Trade Commission that they knowingly failed to protect users privacy. They are now subject to a 20 year agreement that requires Facebook to clearly get user consent before sharing material that was previously protected by more restrictive measures.  Facebook also agreed to independent reviews of the companies privacy policies.

“Companies must live up to their promises about privacy,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said on a conference call with reporters. The settlement “will protect consumer choices and ensure they have full and truthful information about their data.”

More after the break
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Report: 20% Of Women Would Give Up Sex For Facebook

by Kyle in Mobile,
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A study recently conducted and published by Cosmopolitan magazine revealed some startling information. According to the study of over 2,000 women one in five would rather give up sex for a week than go without Facebook.  In addition to the Facebook figure 57 women said they wouldn’t give up their computer for sex and 50 percent wouldn’t give up their smartphone for sex.

Conversely 80% of the women respondents would take sex over their favorite shows and would also give up texting in order to have sex. This definitely shows the mobile and social effect on the world.

The Cosmopolitan study echoes the results of a study by Telenav back in August that declared American’s prefer smartphones to sex.  In that study a third of the respondents said they wouldn’t give up their smartphones for a week to continue to have sex.

In a related study a group called Kelton found that 25% of college students would give up both dating and sex, in order to not have to purchase and lug around textbooks.

Source: DigitalTrends

Innovation is a dying art form

by Nick Tippmann in Gadgets, Gear, Mobile, , Tech
2 Comments 0 Like 1,763

This post was originally post on my Google+ and thus copied over here after being asked to. Post

 

More and more we see companies/sites instead of creating new products, ideas just “steal” or borrow them from others. Facebook was a knockoff of MySpace and Friendster. Apple iPhone was a knockoff of the LG Prada. Samsung Galaxy devices are like the iPhone. With Facebook about to announce that you can now post status up to 5000 characters since they saw how much greater it worked on Google+ they choice to use the idea. Facebook had the like button so Google said you may like something but we’ll +1 it.

This isn’t just about “using” other peoples ideas as your own, this is also about the lack of building something new and instead buying others out. Google wanted to get into phones so it bought Android to compete with Apple. Google Videos wasn’t going anywhere and bought YouTube, same with Google Earth, Pool Party, Slide, Wave, Picasa, and so on. While they didn’t create email, they sure as hell revolutioned how it was used with GMail. Thus innovation happened, wasn’t something that had to be one of a kind, but a new way in doing something.
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Is Microsoft Considering A Yahoo Purchase? Insider Says AOL To Come Apart

by Kyle in , Tech
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The word on the proverbial street is that by 2012 one of the internet giants either AOL or Yahoo will no longer be around. For a while it looked like Yahoo may be that company, however Yahoo’s chairman Roy Bostick put a brief end to those rumors by firing CEO Carol Bartz.  Immediately co-founder and board member Jerry Yang took the definitive saying that Yahoo was not for sale. Right after that announcement the Yahoo sale rumors heated up.

Nibble on after the break
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Angry Birds Costing Companies $1.5 Billion In Lost Wages

by Kyle in , Startups
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    You know every year during March Madness, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, analysts come out with the numbers of how distraction from the tournament and office pools, racks up costs for employers?

Well Angry Birds is no different. According to Alexis Madrigal of the Atlantic, the game Angry Birds is costing employers over $1.5 billion dollars in lost wages. Madrigal contends that these numbers, while they could be a smigeon off, show the cost of lost productivity due to Angry Birds.  It’s also important to point out that Rovio Mobile (Angry Birds developer) has a valuation of 1.2 billion. Wow!

What do you think? Tell us in the comments

Source: SAI

Capital Hill Has Their Eyes On Facebook Over Privacy For Kids

by Kyle in Mobile, , Tech
2 Comments 0 Like 1,540

Facebook representatives are to appear before a congressional committee in Washington DC today over the issue of online privacy for kids.  This is a week after Google representatives were in the congressional hot seat for the exact same reasons.

Both companies are testifying before the congressional privacy caucus headed by Representative Ed Markey (D Mass).  Markey told CBS News “We shouldn’t be debating this,”  he went on to say “It’s just about making sure kids get to grow up in an electronic oasis that does not come back to haunt them and their families,”

On the other side of the debate, former Clinton White House adviser Peter Swire tells CBS 

 

 

More after the break
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