How did a Japanese anime film set a Twitter record for the largest number of tweets per second?

How did a Japanese anime film set a Twitter record?

Aug 20th 2013, 23:50 by T.S. & E.S.

STUDIO Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio renowned for its hugely successful anime films, the best known of which is “Spirited Away”, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, which won the Oscar for best animated feature in 2003. Earlier this month the studio won an accolade of a rather different kind, when the airing of another of its films, “Castle in the Sky” (pictured), set a new record for the largest number of tweets per second. How did the film set this record, and why is Twitter so keen to explain how it coped? Read more of this post

Now Vietnam wants to “manage” chat apps, and media says ban possible

Now Vietnam wants to “manage” chat apps, and media says ban possible

10:07am EDT

HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam’s government is to decide policy in managing free internet-based telecom tools like Viber, Line and Whatsapp, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said on Friday, a move bound to increase concerns about Communist Party censorship. State media said the government might “ban” free messaging services because of the harm done to network providers. Vietnam has repeatedly come under fire for curbs on free speech and harsh treatment for bloggers who dare to criticize the one-party regime. Read more of this post

Twitter’s Video App Vine hits 40m users despite Instagram’s challenge

Vine hits 40m users despite Instagram’s challenge

August 20, 2013 11:02 pmby Tim Bradshaw

Many thought that Instagram’s addition of 15-second videos to its photo-sharing app would kill Vine, Twitter’s fledgling video app. Apparently not. Twitter on Tuesday said that 40m people have signed up to watch and share six-second videos on Vine. That’s up from 13m at the beginning of June, a figure announced as Vine launched on Android, a couple of weeks before Instagram launched its competitor. Read more of this post

StreetEasy $50 Million Buyout by Zillow Shows NYC’s Addiction to Site

StreetEasy Buyout by Zillow Shows NYC’s Addiction to Site

Zillow Inc. (Z)’s purchase of StreetEasy for $50 million shows how dominant the listings website has become in the New York City real estate market seven years after it was founded.

StreetEasy allows users to view apartments for sale as well as all units that have sold in a given building, how long they were on the market, and what kind of discount their owners had to offer to strike a deal. If someone in your building had a federal tax lien filed against their apartment, you can find that on StreetEasy. Want to know when a unit is listed for sale at an exclusive Park Avenue co-op? That’s possible too. Read more of this post

Problem for Bezos: Mall Becoming Cheaper Than Amazon

August 19, 2013, 12:21 PM

Problem for Bezos: Mall Becoming Cheaper Than Amazon

By Tom Gara

You might think the biggest challenge for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is figuring out how to make money running a print newspaper, but here is a risk hitting much closer to home: Brick-and-mortar retail stores are becoming cheaper than AmazonAMZN +1.10%. At least one store, that is. Prices at Bed Bath & BeyondBBBY +1.79% were on average 6.5% less than at Amazon for a basket of 30 items chosen by analysts atBB&TBBT +0.90% for one of their periodic pricing studies comparing the retailers. “We are becoming increasingly concerned Bed Bath & Beyond is sacrificing gross margin in order to drive top-line growth,” BB&T said — that is, increasingly concerned that Bed Bath & Beyond is starting to behave more like Amazon. Read more of this post

New York State Comptroller to Promote Investments in Silicon Alley

AUGUST 20, 2013, 10:17 AM

New York State Comptroller to Promote Investments in Silicon Alley

By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED

As New York City continues to promote the rise of Silicon Alley start-ups, the state comptroller’s office is doing its part for the cause. On Tuesday, the office of Thomas P. DiNapoli plans to promote its investments in two technology companies, RebelMouse and CoopKanics, as part of its initiative to invest in New York businesses. (The two transactions were previously disclosed by the companies themselves.) The investments were made as part of the comptroller’s In-State Private Equity Program, which meant to support native New York businesses while also generating hopefully solid returns. Last year, the comptroller’s office boasted that the program over all had yielded an internal rate of return exceeding 30 percent. Read more of this post

New Roamio: New Version of TiVo Lets Users Watch TV Content on Mobile Devices

August 20, 2013, 9:00 p.m. ET

New Roamio: TiVo on the Go

New Version of TiVo Lets Users Watch TV Content on Mobile Devices

WALTER S. MOSSBERG

It is popular to beam video from a mobile device to a TV, but how can you do the opposite? Walt Mossberg reviews the TiVo Roamio which allows you to stream TV and DVR to your iOS device and could be “the holy grail of set-top boxes.” (Photo: TiVo)

Last week, I wrote about the many ways to get Internet video on your TV. Several readers asked how to do the opposite—how to view standard cable TV content, in real time, on a smartphone and tablet. So this week, I’m reviewing a new version of a familiar product that does just that. Read more of this post

Advertisers Can’t Stop Thinking About The Google Glass ‘Pay Per Gaze’ Patent

Advertisers Can’t Stop Thinking About The Google Glass ‘Pay Per Gaze’ Patent

LAURA STAMPLER AUG. 19, 2013, 8:46 AM 2,671

Good morning, AdLand. Here’s what you need to know today: While Google said that it wouldn’t allow ads to be displayed on Google Glass, the tech giant put in a patent for “pay per gaze” technology for ads, which would track how many times a consumer looked at the branded content. And the ad industry can’t stop wondering what this means. Ad Age notes that this technology could be used to measure how people react to ads they view in their surroundings — tracking how dilated pupils get after seeing a particular billboard, for example. Radio ad growth might be stagnant, but digital radio ads grew 16% between Q2 2012 and Q2 2013. Digital marketing company Kenshoo Social released a report saying that users are engaging more frequently with Facebook ads. Apparently there is hope for the banner ad, says Digiday. Michael Kors made a Facebook app that allows users to choose their own adventure. Just as people were starting to quiet down about the Omnicom-Publicis merger, Atlanta-based ad agency Ames Scullin O’Haire made a video that parodies the event. Pizza Hut’s creative review rages on. Mullen, mcgarrybowen, Havas Worldwide, and current shop The Martin Agency are all in the running.  Ad Age identifies the women to watch in China.

AUGUST 20, 2013, 3:38 PM

How Pay-Per-Gaze Advertising Could Work With Google Glass

By NICK BILTON and CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Google wants to see what you see. And then, of course, make money from those images. The company was recently awarded a patent that puts forth an idea for pay-per-gaze advertising — a way in which people interacting with ads in the real world could be analyzed in the digital world. Read more of this post

Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access

August 20, 2013

Facebook Leads an Effort to Lower Barriers to Internet Access

By VINDU GOEL

MENLO PARK, Calif. — About one of every seven people in the world uses Facebook. Now, Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder and chief executive, wants to make a play for the rest — including the four billion or so who lack Internet access.

On Wednesday, Facebook plans to announce an effort aimed at drastically cutting the cost of delivering basic Internet services on mobile phones, particularly in developing countries, where Facebook and other tech companies need to find new users. Half a dozen of the world’s tech giants, including Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ericsson, have agreed to work with the company as partners on the initiative, which they call Internet.org. Read more of this post

Epic and Medium step together into longform experiment

Epic and Medium step together into longform experiment

BY HAMISH MCKENZIE 
ON AUGUST 20, 2013

On two occasions, Joshua Davis spent seven years working on a story that lived a brief, bright life in the pages of a glossy magazine, only to be ultimately confined to a dark corner of the Internet. A national magazine will go to great lengths to give a longform story first-class treatment. Designers and editors shine that thing up until it’s a glistening specimen of journalism. But the paper version of the product only get serious attention for the four weeks that the magazine sits on a newstand. Chances are high that the story will then go on to live a neglected digital life. Read more of this post

Birthday Greetings, Now Sent by Text and Twitter; Hallmark’s card sales dropped to 5 billion cards a year in 2012, down from 6 billion in 2011. American Greerings went private this year after rapid declines in sales

AUGUST 20, 2013, 9:00 AM

Birthday Greetings, Now Sent by Text and Twitter

By NICK BILTON

On my birthday, I received a slew of lovely birthday greetings.

By early morning I had stacked up 93 birthday wishes on Facebook — one even included a $5 Starbucks gift card! About 20 strangers digitally congratulated me on Google Plus. A dozen people chirped “happy birthday” to me on Twitter. Fifteen friends and family members sent me emoji-filled birthday wishes over text message. Eight over e-mail. Two voicemails. And one person yelled Happy Birthday on SnapChat. Read more of this post

Big Data poses questions for investors: How should investors in companies operating in a hyped-up technology field feel?

How should investors in companies operating in a hyped-up technology field feel?

20 August 13 10:15, Shmulik Shelach

Over-enthusiasm about a technology trend is part of the lifestyle of the enterprise computing world. The reason is clear: $2.2 trillion will be spent this year along the enterprise computing food chain, from PC components through hardware for infrastructures at server farms worldwide. This is big money, and any fluctuation in a technology trend can result in vendors of new solutions to painful problems of IT systems managers winning big budgets. Read more of this post

Big Box retail is watching you; New technology is allowing brick-and-mortar stores to invade their shoppers’ Levis for personal information like never before.

Big Box retail is watching you

August 20, 2013: 10:51 AM ET

New technology is allowing brick-and-mortar stores to invade their shoppers’ Levis for personal information like never before.

By Ethan Rouen

FORTUNE — Just about everyone knows that feeling of violation when a company digs deeper into your pocket than you want, but new technology is allowing brick-and-mortar stores to invade their shoppers’ Levis for personal information like never before. With the ability to track customer cell phones, retailers have unprecedented access to shoppers’ habits, from how frequently a customer visits a store to how long he stands at a window display before deciding whether or not to enter the shop. Read more of this post

Peter Chou – Is he HTC’s savior or obstacle to revival?

Peter Chou – Is he HTC’s savior or obstacle to revival?

5:09pm EDT

By Jeremy Wagstaff and Clare Jim

SINGAPORE/TAIPEI (Reuters) – Now in his tenth year as CEO of HTC Corp, Peter Chou is lauded as the architect of the Taiwanese firm’s award-winning smartphones. But as the company’s fortunes have dived, some insiders say he’s now an obstacle to any revival.

Rocked by internal feuding and executive exits, and positioned at the high-end of a smartphone market that is close to saturation, HTC has seen its market share slump to below 5 percent from around a quarter five years ago; its stock price is at 8-year lows, and it has warned it could make a first operating loss this quarter. Read more of this post

Malaysian price-comparison startup iMoney is taking over Asia one country at a time, and its next target is Thailand

iMoney is taking over Asia one country at a time, and its next target is Thailand

August 20, 2013

by Saiyai Sakawee

iMoney, a Malaysian startup, is a free online personal finance platform that helps users make comparisons between loans, credit cards, savings, and other banking services. It aims to make these complex products simpler and easier to choose between, and promises users a neutral, unbiased viewpoint from which to judge different banks’ services. In June, it raised funds from Asia Venture Group (AVG). Since then, it has expanded beyond Malaysia to five other countries; Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Hongkong, and Indonesia. According to Lee Ching Wei, iMoney’s co-founder and group CEO, these expansions all happened within a week. Thailand is the first iMoney office outside of Malaysia Read more of this post