Ubiquitous cameras: It is getting ever easier to record anything, or everything, that you see. This opens fascinating possibilities—and alarming ones

Ubiquitous cameras: It is getting ever easier to record anything, or everything, that you see. This opens fascinating possibilities—and alarming ones

Nov 16th 2013 | SAN FRANCISCO |From the print edition

ABOUT halfway through Dave Eggers’s bestselling dystopian satire on Silicon Valley, “The Circle”, the reader meets Stewart, a bald, silent, stooped 60-year-old who has “been filming, recording, every moment of his life now for five years”. Stewart is the first of the novel’s characters to make all his actions visible to anyone with a computer who cares to look—the first “transparent man”. Read more of this post

The Year of the Paywall

The Year of the Paywall

By Edmund Lee November 14, 2013

In the early days of the Internet, digital libertarians scolded anyone trying to make a buck on the Web, and traditional newspaper publishers essentially gave away their expensive-to-create content for free. Today, the weakened industry’s survivors seem determined to get readers to pay up, and they’re busily erecting electronic paywalls around their news and entertainment to make sure that happens. Read more of this post

The Social Media “Bubble”: Six Important Points by Brad Cornell, Professor of Finance at Caltech

The Social Media “Bubble”: Five Important Points

by Global PostNovember 16, 2013

The Social Media “Bubble”: Six Important Points by Brad Cornell, Professor of Finance at Caltech

In a post on valuing social media companies, Aswath Damodaran, properly warns not to be misled by the fallacy of aggregation (http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-pieces-dont-add-up-micro-dreams.html).  More specifically, with regard to these companies relying on advertising as a source of revenue he notes that the total advertising revenues of the companies cannot exceed total online advertising.  His calculations suggest that the valuations of social media companies are inconsistent with this constraint – implied total advertising revenues of even a relatively small sample of companies exceeds total projected on-line advertising expenditure. Read more of this post

SurveyMonkey aims new product at businesses, hires first sales team

SurveyMonkey aims new product at businesses, hires first sales team

11:10am EST

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Online company SurveyMonkey rolled out on Monday its new polling product aimed at business customers, the company said. The company also is hiring its first sales people to pitch the new SurveyMonkey Enterprise product directly to corporations and other large organizations. The product will also be available internationally. Read more of this post

Spotlight on video streaming service Vimeo with 100mil unique users

Updated: Monday November 18, 2013 MYT 12:36:39 PM

Spotlight on video streaming service Vimeo with 100mil unique users

As one of the media properties tucked away within IAC/Interactive Corp’s vast group of online holdings, executives are putting the spotlight on Vimeo, breaking out the number of users and revenue for the first time. IAC revealed that Vimeo has an audience of more than 100 million unique users, 400,000 paying subscribers and about $40 million in revenue over the past 12 months ending October. Read more of this post

Software Makers’ Subscription Drive

Software Makers’ Subscription Drive

By Sam Grobart November 14, 2013

In 2013 consumer software companies proved they could pull off the switch from one-time software purchases to an online subscriber model that costs customers more long term. Market researcher IDC estimates software subscription revenue has risen about 16 percent, to roughly $65 billion this year from $56 billion in 2012, and will approach $78 billion next year. IDC analyst Amy Konary says it’s too soon for those software makers to declare victory, “but what they consider a success is having a [subscription] model out there, having customers choosing that approach.” Read more of this post

Snap Out of It: Kids Aren’t Reliable Tech Predictors; As Much as We Think Youth Know ‘the Next Big Thing,’ They Are Often Wrong

Snap Out of It: Kids Aren’t Reliable Tech Predictors

As Much as We Think Youth Know ‘the Next Big Thing,’ They Are Often Wrong

FARHAD MANJOO

Nov. 17, 2013 4:46 p.m. ET

I believe the children aren’t our future. Teach them well, but when it comes to determining the next big thing in tech, let’s not fall victim to the ridiculous idea that they lead the way. Yes, I’m talking about Snapchat. Last week my colleagues reported that Facebook FB -2.60% recently offered $3 billion to acquire the company behind the hyper-popular messaging app. Stunningly, Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s 23-year-old co-founder and CEO, rebuffed the offer. Read more of this post

Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff To Steve Ballmer: Yes, You’re ‘An Emblem Of An Old Era’ And It’s Time To Leave Microsoft

Marc Benioff To Steve Ballmer: Yes, You’re ‘An Emblem Of An Old Era’ And It’s Time To Leave Microsoft

JULIE BORT NOV. 18, 2013, 8:53 PM 6,286 5

Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff has something to say about Steve Ballmer’s decision to leave Microsoft: You’re right, Steve. Time to go. Benioff was commenting on an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, where Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, described his decision to retire: Read more of this post

PayPal Nabs Uber Partnership in Pursuit of Mobile Growth

PayPal Nabs Uber Partnership in Pursuit of Mobile Growth

PayPal, the online payment service that succeeded by wedding itself to EBay Inc. (EBAY), is moving into more modern marketplaces through a deal with car-service company Uber Technologies Inc. Users of Uber’s popular mobile-booking application will be able to pay with PayPal starting today in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, David Marcus, president of PayPal, said in an interview. Riders who use PayPal before Nov. 28 will receive $15 or 15 euros toward their next trip. Read more of this post

New apps allow music fans to interact with records

New apps allow music fans to interact with records

12:04pm EST

By Natasha Baker

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Musicians in the digital age are turning to apps to woo fans and also engage them in the creative process to create new music and art. Apps featuring indie rock band Metric, pop sensation Lady Gaga and the late John Lennon were released last week that allow fans to re-mix tracks, create music-inspired art or access rare recordings. Read more of this post

Is It Game Over for Video Game Consoles?

Is It Game Over for Video Game Consoles?

By Cliff Edwards and Takashi Amano November 14, 2013

As a kid, Jared Cate spent long hours playing Nintendo’s (7974:JP) Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda video games. So when the company released its Wii U console before Christmas last year, Cate, 23, rushed to a local GameStop (GME) store in Atlanta to buy one. “I was about to move to San Francisco and figured it’d be a great thing to play with my family in my last few days at home,” he recalls. Read more of this post

Google Fosters South Korean Startups

Google Fosters South Korean Startups

U.S. Search Company Provides Links to Venture Capitalists, Helping Tech Firms Build Global Profiles

JONATHAN CHENG

Updated Nov. 17, 2013 6:04 p.m. ET

Dave Cho co-created Classting, a social-media app for South Korean schools that allows teachers to interact with students and parents. Jonathan Cheng/The Wall Street Journal

SEOUL—Until about nine months ago, Dave Cho woke up every morning to teach fifth-graders math, history and science at a school in the South Korean port city of Incheon. But Mr. Cho’s audience has changed. These days, the 28-year-old Mr. Cho is busy pitching his young technology startup to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, Asia and the U.K., with assistance from Google Inc. GOOG +0.96% Read more of this post

Facebook, Still Dominant, Strives to Keep Cachet

November 17, 2013

Facebook, Still Dominant, Strives to Keep Cachet

By JENNA WORTHAM, VINDU GOEL and NICOLE PERLROTH

When Evan Spiegel peered into a crystal ball to divine a future for his company, Snapchat, he did not see Facebook. He saw something else, something much bigger — a social network that could exist on its own, outside Facebook. Facebook is still the dominant social media service, and has been an attractive suitor for many start-ups. And Snapchat most likely spurned Facebook partly because it thought it could fetch much more than the billions Facebook was willing to pay. Read more of this post

Easy Mobile Payments Are Almost Here

Easy Mobile Payments Are Almost Here

By Brad Stone and Olga Kharif November 14, 2013

It’s noon at the crowded Steins Beer Garden in Mountain View, Calif., and executives from EBay’s(EBAY) PayPal are discussing the future of the massive market for retail and restaurant payments with a reporter who’s paying for lunch. Without ever opening his wallet, the reporter enters a four-digit number printed at the bottom of the check into a PayPal app on his smartphone. An itemized bill for three smoked chicken salads, a tomato bisque, and two Diet Cokes appears on the screen. One click later, without ever needing to flag down a waiter, the check is paid. Read more of this post

Disney Struggles to Make Its Free Gaming Apps Pay

November 17, 2013

Disney Struggles to Make Its Free Gaming Apps Pay

By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — Two months ago, Disney released a sequel to Where’s My Water?, a hit smartphone game about a showering alligator. Hopes were high: Disney had pointed to the original game as evidence of overdue traction in mobile gaming. It flopped. For the Walt Disney Company — where theme parks, TV, merchandise and films deliver more than $6 billion in annual profit — the failure of one smartphone game, even an important one, has no financial consequence. But mobile games are a major growth opportunity, and analysts say Where’s My Water? 2 underscores the degree to which Disney is encountering new challenges in a shifting marketplace. Read more of this post

Ears Follow Eyes as Target in $1.84 Billion Wearable Boom

Ears Follow Eyes as Target in $1.84 Billion Wearable Boom

Google Inc. is going after consumers’ eyes with its Glass Internet spectacles, and Samsung Electronics Co. went for the wrist with its Galaxy Gear smartwatch. Iriver Inc. is seeking to connect another body part: the ear. Last month, Iriver released a headset in the U.S. with a Tic-Tac-sized sensor that shines light into the ear to track a user’s heart rate, distance and speed traveled, and calories burned. Startup Looxcie Inc. sells an ear-mounted camera, and other ear-based devices have been patented by the likes of Intel Corp. and Samsung, or developed by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Keio University. Read more of this post

Developing a Fax Machine to Copy Life on Mars; DNA sequencing and DNA synthesis are becoming faster and cheaper, and J. Craig Venter wants to use the technology to bring Martian life to Earth

November 17, 2013

Developing a Fax Machine to Copy Life on Mars

By ANDREW POLLACK

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. — J. Craig Venter, the maverick scientist, is looking for a new world to conquer — Mars. He wants to detect life on Mars and bring it to Earth using a device called a digital biological converter, or biological teleporter. Although the idea conjures up “Star Trek,” the analogy is not exact. The transporter on that program actually moves Captain Kirk from one location to another. Dr. Venter’s machine would merely create a copy of an organism from a distant location — more like a biological fax machine. Read more of this post

Console Bet Is Played Out at AMD

Console Bet Is Played Out at AMD

DAN GALLAGHER

Nov. 18, 2013 3:49 p.m. ET

Prospects for Advanced Micro Devices AMD -0.86% have become closely tied to new videogame consoles hitting the market this month. But the chip maker remains tethered to the personal-computer market. Sony said it sold one million units of its PlayStation 4 console in the U.S. and Canada in the first 24 hours following its launch late last week. Microsoft‘s MSFT -1.69% Xbox One goes on sale Friday. Both use a customized version of AMD’s Jaguar chip family. Read more of this post

Bundled Cable TV Withstands Consumer Opposition

Bundled Cable TV Withstands Consumer Opposition

By Alex Sherman November 14, 2013

Many Americans don’t understand why they’re paying about $80 a month on average for cable or satellite television when they only watch a few of the networks. But their anger toward their pay-TV operator may be misplaced. Sure, Comcast (CMCSA),DirecTV (DTV), and Time Warner Cable (TWC), who charge their customers nearly double the cost they pay for programming, make a healthy profit margin on their cable bundles. But they’d likely be willing to get that same hefty return on smaller bundles of channels and charge less for the package. The challenge comes in convincing programmers—the companies that crank out must-see shows such as Duck Dynasty orThe Walking Dead—to let them offer some but not all of their channels. Read more of this post

Apple’s Decline in China’s Smartphone Market

Apple’s Decline in China’s Smartphone Market

By John Butler November 14, 2013

Apple’s (AAPL) share of the smartphone business in China is shrinking as a half-dozen local vendors emerge to take a bite out of the market. They’re using social media and tapping into local brand loyalty to build share. Lenovo (992:HK) and Xiaomi have had success selling cheap, feature-loaded smartphones priced well below the iPhone.

Amazon’s Toys Cheaper Than Wal-Mart Online

Amazon’s Toys Cheaper Than Wal-Mart Online

Amazon.com Inc.’s toy prices were lower than those available online from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. last week as retailers seek to attract shoppers heading into the crucial holiday selling season. Amazon’s prices, excluding those from its third-party sellers, were 3 percent lower on average than Wal-Mart’s on a basket of 87 toys, according to a study conducted by Bloomberg Industries on Nov. 14. Including the Marketplace vendors, which use Amazon’s platform to sell their own products, the pool of comparable goods expanded to 115, and Wal-Mart was cheaper by 1.2 percent, on average. Read more of this post

Amazon and Twitter: #hatchingwinners; Two very different leadership sagas have produced titans of tech

Amazon and Twitter: #hatchingwinners; Two very different leadership sagas have produced titans of tech

Nov 16th 2013 |From the print edition

Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. By Nick Bilton. Penguin Portfolio; 304 pages; $28.95. Sceptre; £14.99. Buy fromAmazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. By Brad Stone. Little Brown; 384 pages; $28. Bantam Press; £18.99. Buy from Amazon.com,Amazon.co.uk

THESE are heady times in the world of high technology. Twitter’s recent stockmarket debut has been a success, earning it a market capitalisation of about $25 billion after its first day of trading. Ambitious students are shunning Wall Street and joining obscure tech startups. URL strategies—Silicon Valley shorthand for “Ubiquity first, worry about Revenue Later”—are all the rage again. And venture capitalists are bestowing multi-billion-dollar valuations on fledgling firms bleeding red ink. The hope is that these nascent companies will one day become as wildly successful as firms such as Twitter and Amazon. Read more of this post

IAC/InterActiveCorp Chairman Barry Diller’s Media Industry Outlook for 2014

IAC/InterActiveCorp Chairman Barry Diller’s Media Industry Outlook for 2014

By Diane Brady November 14, 2013

What will we be talking about this time next year? 
In the short sweep of time—say, three to five years—this digital revolution we’ve been undergoing for 18 years is becoming the way of our lives. We now have Internet fluency among more people, and you have the kind of innovation that is the mandate of digital life. So the result is an ever-increasing velocity. Read more of this post