The Smart TV App Revolution Is Coming: Here’s What You Need To Know
The app store phenomenon, centered on smartphones and tablets, has been the biggest story in software for the past five years. Its next logical destination: the living room, via smart TVs and set-top boxes connected to the Internet. Smart TV apps would represent yet another threat to the struggling pay TV industry. In a new report, BI Intelligence looks at the data and trends behind the TV app market, explains why it’s still nascent and messy, and why significant growth seems inevitable. A successful TV app platform could significantly shift the balance of power in entertainment, and allow for much greater ... → Read More
Silicon Alley Insider - Friday, October 4, 2013
Being a communication backbone of the web has its pluses and minuses. Twitter gets lots of content syndicated from other sites, but those contributors don’t necessarily visit Twitter or see its ads. That last part is a problem, especially since these blindtweeters count as some of Twitter’s 218.3 million active users. Twitter explains on page 61 of S-1 that an “active user” includes not only people that actually visit its site and mobile apps, but also “Twitter users who logged in and accessed Twitter through…registered third-party applications or websites.” Those users do push content to Twitter that draws people to ... 
Twitter’s IPO filing contains a lot of bad news for people who might be interested in buying the stock when it goes public. User growth is slowing. Revenue growth will slow in the future, the company warns. And employee costs are out of control. Clearly, the company is going public despite its problems, not because it has overcome them. Management at Facebook, Twitter’s main competitor, are likely to read this S-1 and breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not saying the company is screwed, or that the IPO will fail. Twitter has likely learned a lesson from the Facebook IPO, ... 
Apple and Google used to be pretty good partners. But ever since Google started working on its own smartphone operating system Android, the relationship between the two companies has been rocky at best. Now, Google and Apple are bitter rivals in just about everything. But while Apple often sets the tone for what’s big in tech, Google can do a lot better. Google’s voice assistant for Android, Google Now, is more useful and accurate than Apple’s Siri. Google Maps is better than Apple maps. It has more accurate data and includes public transportation directions. Google sells its Nexus smartphones unlocked ... 
Thirteen alleged members of the loosely organized hacker collective known as Anonymous were indicted Thursday in connection with a series of online attacks on US companies and trade groups. The indictment unsealed in Alexandria, Virginia, charged the 13 with attacks between September 2010 and January 2011 on the Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America, Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America and others. The defendants were charged with organizing denial of service attacks aimed at shutting down the websites of the targets known as “Operation Payback.” The targets were chosen for their stand on piracy and copyright enforcement ... 
Porn on there? (Photo: Sprint) When you buy a new phone, it typically comes with a lot of bloatware. However, a kid in California found a lot of junk too. Arsen Garibyan filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Sprint because he claims that his young son saw pornographic images on a phone that the store claimed to be new. The suit, which was filed in a Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges a breach of contract, fraud and negligent infliction of emotional distress, according to KCBS-TV. The phone was purchased two years from a Sprint-affiliated outlet–not a company owned store–in Pasadena. Mr. Garibyan claims that ... 
Compared to other major tech companies, Twitter is pretty small. The company’s IPO filing reveals that it lost $ 69 million on $ 254 million in revenue through the first six months of the year. Facebook earned $ 1 billion on $ 3.3 billion in revenue for the same period. Twitter is growing faster, though. Its revenue was up 107% on a year-over-year basis, compared to Facebook which grew 46%. In this chart, you can see how Twitter’s revenue, and losses have been growing through the years on a quarterly basis. As you can see, Twitter just started getting aggressive on ... 
Twitter’s international revenue is up massively year over year, with the company earning more in the first half of 2013 from outside the United States than it did in all of 2012. Twitter’s full-year 2012 international revenue totaled $ 53 million, while its first two quarters of 2013 saw $ 62.8 million in international incomes. According to its S-1 filing, Twitter has sold its “Promoted Products” services in more than 20 countries. That implies that Twitter is able to monetize its service in more than its home market. Users around the world are therefore valuable to the company, and not ... 
Investors have put $ 1.16 billion into Twitter since it was founded by Ev Williams and Biz Stone back in 2006. The company has also shelled out $ 640 million in cash and stock for acquisitions. With the IPO set to roll, Twitter’s employees, venture capital investors, longtime employees and other stockholders are about to see all their paper equity turned into actual liquid stock and/or cash. Some of them are going to be suddenly very, very rich. Here’s a look at who got what, per the S-1. For argument’s sake, we’re assuming an opening price of $ 29 per ... 
