AOL offloaded Bebo this week, less than to two years after buying it for $850m (£417m), a huge chunk of cash. It was bought by little known US investment company, Criterion Capital Partners, for a paltry $10m, the monetary equivalent of a smack in the face. But the big question here is, what does the future hold for Bebo? Can a relatively small company like Criterion bring the much-maligned social network back from the brink? Read More
Foursquare, the fast growing social-networking site, is expanding after receiving a second round of private investment in the form of $20m (£13m) from investors including Andreesseen Horowitz. Read More
In the words of Mugatu in comedy flick Zoolander, crowd-sourcing is “so hot right now”. Dell want to launch a new computer – first thing they do is listen to the needs of the crowd across their Ideastorm crowd-sourcing app. President Obama wants ideas on how to develop up his new Recovery.gov project – first thing he does is run an open Dialogue process with the IT community using the Dialogue App. Read More
Picture: David Shankbone
It’s a beautiful day for U2 fans that are into social networking – Bono-backed investment vehicle Elevation Partners has forked out $120m for 5 million Facebook shares, upping its total to 7.5 million shares. Read More
I think I just decoded the secret message that is contained in Apple’s iPhone 4 ad. Read More
Last week I was in Cannes for the International Advertising Festival. We had partnered with Starcom Mediavest Group to bring the fabulous TED Conferences to Cannes for the very first time. I got backstage access to the rehersals and managed to interview the likes of @Naveen, co-founder of Foursquare, Nicholas Christakis and Stefana Broadbent….among others.
TV was (is) the original social media. Whether it’s with a friend down the pub, a colleague in the office or your parents on the phone, a “did you see” conversation is a staple of anyone’s social life. Yet, although TV is naturally a social activity the integration of new social media channels beyond the straight broadcast model has been a fairly slow development for programme makers. Read More
Microsoft is working on an app store and Barnes & Noble forecasts $1bn in online sales. Plus ambitious digital plan from the Democrats and UGC expansion at HuffPo. Read More
A couple of weeks ago I asked if anyone in the world was better at doing marketing than Apple, when the internet was abuzz with news of the new phone that – Holy Innovative Technology, Batman – could do all the things a phone I had four years ago can do. Read More
With Google Buzz having proved more of a bust than a buzz the search giant isn’t hanging around licking its wounds and is instead pushing on and having another stab at social networking called “Google Me”. Read More
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