12 reasons Chrome OS will fail

Yesterday, Google held a press conference at its Mountain View headquarters to provide the world with an update on its new operating system, Chrome OS.

A lot of new details were forthcoming, which have have been well-covered by others. The questions on everyone's mind: is Chrome OS the real deal? Where does it fit in? How will it impact the OS market. My answers: it isn't, nowhere, it won't. Here are 12 reasons why Chrome OS is going to fail.

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Posted 20 November 2009 10:33am by Patricio Robles with 13 comments

Ad wars: AT&T forced to fight Verizon on its own

When Verizon went after wireless competitor AT&T with a "There's a Map for That" commercial showing AT&T's inferior nationwide 3G coverage in the United States, AT&T was caught off guard.

Its response: file a lawsuit. The justification: AT&T believed that the map was deceptive and that consumers would not understand that its map excluded areas where 2G coverage is available.

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Posted 20 November 2009 09:08am by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

Salesforce.com tries to bring social networking to the workplace

Salesforce.com built a billion-dollar company by allowing companies to ditch their CRM software and bringing CRM to the cloud. Now it has its sights set on perhaps an even bigger feat: bringing social media to the enterprise.

Yesterday, the company announced that it will be launching a new service called Salesforce Chatter in 2010. Think of it as Facebook for the enterprise: a social networking service for companies with an application platform to boot.

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Posted 19 November 2009 12:20pm by Patricio Robles with 2 comments

How NOT to be The Social Media Guru

It's a tough time to be a 'social media guru'. Despite the rise of social media in general, there's a lot of skepticism when it comes to high-paid consultants who claim to have mastered it. From where I sit, that skepticism only seems to grow by the day.

That skepticism is reflected well in an amusing NSFW animation called 'The Social Media Guru', which has racked up over 100,000 views on YouTube since being posted at the end of September. It portrays a 'social media guru' as a snake oil salesman who claims to be more skilled than he is and who preys on foolish small businesses.

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Posted 19 November 2009 11:24am by Patricio Robles with 20 comments

Will funding flow to the UK media sector in 2010?

The Great Recession has hit the UK startup scene especially hard. Funding has all but dried up for startups and just a few short months ago Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts said that many startups faced an "unimaginable dilemma" in trying to survive.

But are things looking up for UK companies, especially those in the media sector? According to accounting and business advisory firm Grant Thornton UK LLP, the answer may be yes.

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Posted 18 November 2009 16:37pm by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

Google fights scammers with one strike and you're out policy

Malicious ads are on the rise and just as AdWords is an appealing platform for legitimate advertisers looking for a massive audience, Google's self-serve ad service is a juicy target for scammers looking for the same.

From ads that hawk scammy get-rich-quick products to ads that lead users to web pages infested with malware, malicious ads pose a significant threat to Google. After all, if users come to fear where Google's results (paid or unpaid) might lead them, Google risks losing one of its most valuable assets: the trust and confidence of its users.

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Posted 18 November 2009 09:35am by Patricio Robles with 5 comments

Coremetrics tries to lure Omniture customers post-Adobe acquisition

Adobe's recent $1.8bn purchase of analytics provider Omniture had many people scratching their heads. While Adobe's CEO called the acquisition a "no-brainer" and it just might turn out to be a very wise strategic move, it's certainly possible that some Omniture customers will ask questions about the future of the company now that it's an Adobe company.

So I was interested to come across a Coremetrics ad addressing the Omniture acquisition. It leads to a landing page designed specifically for current Omniture customers and wastes no time in making a sales pitch.

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Posted 18 November 2009 09:06am by Patricio Robles with 3 comments

Time tackles technology with Techland

It's a blogger's world and print publications just live in it. Thanks to the power of internet self-publishing, mini media empires have been built by small companies and passionate individuals working from their homes.  Increasingly, these online mini media empires have complicated the picture for print publications whose online presences have been forced to compete on less favorable terms for a more fragmented online audience.

In an effort to stay relevant, print publications are trying to sup up their internet efforts. The latest example of that: Time's new tech/geek blog, Techland.

 

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Posted 17 November 2009 12:00pm by Patricio Robles with 1 comment

The market for paid news: does size really matter?

How much is the news worth? It's a question that's weighing on the minds of many news media execs these days as they grapple with the challenge of figuring out new business models.

Paid content looks to be a big part of those new business models, but there's one question that still dogs execs: just how big is the market for paid news?

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Posted 17 November 2009 09:09am by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

Are middlemen a luxury, or necessity?

Joe Hewitt is the Facebook employee responsible for the super-popular Facebook iPhone app. But thanks to Apple, he's decided to move on.

On Twitter, he announced that he "handed the Facebook iPhone app off to another engineer". Soon after, he revealed the reason why: the tyranny of Apple.

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Posted 16 November 2009 10:33am by Patricio Robles with 0 comments