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  • Data Use Now Beating Talk Time on Smartphones

    Apple’s original iPhone was transformational in the sense that it brought handheld computing to the masses. However, the promise of on-the-go pocket computers is still slightly hampered (especially in the U.S.) by the need for a phone subscription. Now new research has shown that we may be headed toward a future where talking on a smartphone might be as rare and antiquated as faxing.

    The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) today released the results of a tracking study showing that consumers now spend more combined time using data-dependent apps on smartphones than talking on them. Of the average 114 minutes smartphone users spend on their devices each day, talking still remains the number one activity with 23 average minutes. However, texting, emailing, social networking, and web browsing now combine for an average of 65 minutes spent each day.

    “The degree to which consumers use their smartphones primarily as data information hubs, mostly forgoing devices’ traditional purpose, is significant,” said Shawn DuBravac, chief economist at CEA. “Smartphones have become the viewfinder of our digital life. How smartphone utilization evolves has incredible implications moving forward.”

    The CEA points to rising smartphone adoption in the U.S. as one of the factors underpinning these statistics. The group also predicts that smartphone market saturation in the U.S. will be seen in just a couple years’ time, matching analyst predictions that smartphone market growth in the coming years will center on emerging markets such as China and Brazil. For now, though, 45% of U.S. consumers intend to buy a new smartphone within the next 12 months.

  • Big Data Industry to Hit $114 Billion by 2018

    Big Data Industry to Hit $114 Billion by 2018

    As billions of people around the world pump massive amounts of information through the internet every day, business (and the NSA) are going to need solutions to parse their data. Some of the smartest people in the world are now working on so-called “big data” problems, and the market for such technology is now expected to skyrocket in the coming years.

    Market research firm ABI Research today estimated that worldwide spending on big data will hit $114 billion by the year 2018. That’s up from an estimated $31 billion that will be spent on the industry this year.

    “We estimate that in big data initiatives salaries account for about half of the current spending, with the other half allocated to vendors’ products and services,” said Aapo Markkanen, senior analyst at ABI. “What we’re now seeing is quite significant overspending on salaries, as organizations turn to data scientists and other specialists in order to leverage big data in the first place. Similarly, a good share of the money is spent on the associated professional services, which have sprung up to assist firms that are data-rich but skills-poor.”

    According to ABI, that $100 billion won’t be going to waste. The firm predicts that data innovation will come quickly over the next few years. Database analysis improvements will, ABI says, improve efficiency, while machine learning will improve analytics overall.

    “Machine learning and its application in advanced analytics is one area that will make both the public and private sectors data-savvier than anything we’ve seen so far,” said Dan Shey, practice director at ABI. “Big players such as IBM and HP are understandably moving to this direction, but at the same time we can also see analytics startups, like Ayasdi and Skytree, that have machine learning in their very DNA. Eventually, such innovations will put analytics within any domain expert’s reach. At that point, data will stop being ‘big’ again.”

  • Kindle Fire Being Doused, Says Analyst

    For Amazon, the Kindle Fire has been a huge success in the 7-inch tablet category. For the past two years Amazon’s device has competed with the largest mobile industry players – Apple and Samsung. Now, with Amazon preparing to announce its updated Kindle Fire lineup, news has come that Amazon’s hold on the tablet market may be slipping.

    Analyst firm Jumptap this week released data showing that the Kindle Fire has lost 11.4% of its tablet market share over the past year. This is at the same time Samsung has begun to roll into the tablet market in a big way, with its Galaxy Tab devices rising 5.8% in tablet market share year-over-year.

    “Previously, the iOS vs. Android battle could not crown a standing victor for Android,” said Matt Duffy, VP of marketing at Jumptap. “Yet in the past year, we’ve seen Samsung rise above the pack in both tablet and smartphone share.”

    Jumptap’s new report also held other surprising (and some not-so-surprising) findings from the mobile world. The iPhone is still the world’s top smartphone, at the expense of HTC, Blackberry, and Apple’s own iPod Touch devices, though Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone lineup is gaining traction. Also, apps are now a larger part of the mobile experience than ever before. Jumptap estimates that 84% of mobile traffic is now from apps, up from just 50% two years ago.

    (Image courtesy Amazon)

  • Mobile Shipments Are Still Growing, Says Analyst

    Mobile Shipments Are Still Growing, Says Analyst

    Earlier this week, analyst firm TrendForce estimated that smartphone shipments for the second quarter of 2013 were up 6.6% year-over-year. Today another analyst firm has chimed in with similar numbers and a stark look at how Samsung is beginning to dominate the market.

    IDC’s numbers show that 432.1 million total mobile phones were shipped during the second quarter of 2013, a 6% increase over the 407.7 million units shipped during the second quarter of 2012. Much of the markets growth was shown to come from smaller manufacturers, who are making inroads into emerging smartphone markets such as China, India, and Brazil.

    “The smartphone market is still a rising tide that’s lifting many ships,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst at IDC. “Though Samsung and Apple are the dominant players, the market is as fragmented as ever. There is ample opportunity for smartphone vendors with differentiated offerings.”

    Samsung, which released its new flagship Android smartphone the Galaxy S4 this quarter, now accounts for over 26%of the total mobile phone market and over 30% of the smartphone market. The Korean manufacturer shipped 72.4 million smartphone units during the quarter, a 43.9% increase over the second quarter of 2012.

    Apple, which had no new product launches during the past quarter, saw only a 20% increase in its shipments over the second quarter of 2012. The company’s share of the smartphone market dropped to 13.1% from 16.6% one year ago.

    LG was one of the big winners during the past quarter, shipping 11.3 million smartphones – a 108% increase from the 5.8 million it shipped during the second quarter 2012.

    Chinese manufacturers Lenovo and ZTE also saw huge shipment increases and market share gains. Lenovo in particular shipped 11.3 million smartphone units, a 130% increase from the second quarter of 2012.

    “Market opportunities exist at all levels, including the high end,” said Ramon Llamas, research manager at IDC. “While Samsung and Apple accounted for significant share of the overall market, they were not the only vendors active in the high end of the market, and recent device introductions and upcoming launches signal more vendors targeting this space. Comparisons will certainly be made to the flagship Galaxy and iPhone models, but clearly the competition refuses to be shut out altogether.”

  • PlayStation 4 Has Huge Lead on Xbox One, Shows Analyst Survey

    Sony dominated this year’s E3, at least when it came to messaging. The company gained praise from gamers for the PlayStation 4‘s $400 price – $100 less than Microsoft’s Xbox One. Sony also got a positive response for simply not implementing DRM in its new console or restricting used game sales – both “features” that Microsoft had announced for the Xbox One.

    Though Microsoft later backed off from implementing hardware-level DRM and restricting used games, the damage to the Xbox One’s reputation had already been done – and not just for hardcore gamers. Anecdotally, the PlayStation 4 has gained a lead on the Xbox One. The PS4 sits at number three in Amazon’s 2013 best-seller list for video games, with the Xbox One trailing behind at number six. Now, one analyst firm has released some actual data about the public’s perception of the two consoles.

    A new report out from Strategy Analytics shows that negative perceptions of Microsoft’s next-generation video game console seem to have reached average consumers. The analyst firm’s latest “ConsumerMetrix” survey gathered data on consumers’ intentions of purchasing next-generation consoles. The survey found that 14.2% of more than 6,000 consumers surveyed in the U.S. and Europe were “very or somewhat likely” to purchase a PlayStation 4 within the next year. Only 9.5 of consumers could say the same about the Xbox One. The firm believes this consumer sentiment could predict 50% higher sales of the PlayStation 4 over the Xbox One.

    “Our survey suggests that consumers believe the PS4 will win the early phase of the next generation console war,” said Jia Wu, director of Connected Home Devices at Strategy Analytics. “Sony’s performance at E3 was widely accepted as superior to Microsoft’s, and the survey evidence suggests this has already fed through to the wider consumer market.”

  • Another Analyst Predicts Declining PC Sales

    Another Analyst Predicts Declining PC Sales

    Following a disappointing 2012 holiday season that saw PC sales decline despite the launch of Windows 8, industry analysts began predicting further declines for PC shipments throughout 2013. Last week, a Digitimes report raised hopes, stating that PC shipments could pick up in the third quarter 2013 due to a combination of new Intel Haswell processors and the release of Windows 8.1.

    Now, yet another analyst firm is cautioning investors against optimism in the PC market. IDC has released its monthly PC Tracker numbers, showing that PC shipments have not grown significantly in Europe and emerging markets throughout the first half of 2013. Though the firm predicts declines to slow throughout the rest of the year, it predicts an overall 7.8% decline in the PC shipments for the year.

    “The expectation for the second quarter was not all that high, showing only minor improvement from the first quarter,” said Loren Loverde, VP of Worldwide PC Trackers at IDC. “But the May results reflect deteriorating conditions rather than improvement and the market will probably fall short of projections. We still expect an improvement in the second half of the year as more new products are launched and we get into the back-to-school and holiday seasons. But the market will likely remain cautious about the second half of 2013.”

  • New PRISM Slides Reveal How The NSA Collects And Analyzes Data

    When the NSA spy programs were leaked in early June, President Obama and his administration assured Americans that the programs were subject to rigorous oversight. We already knew that wasn’t exactly true, but new slides published by the Washington Post further confirm this.

    In four new slides published over the weekend, we have been given a better look at how PRISM operates. All we knew before was that it collected data from major Internet companies, and even then, those same companies claimed that the NSA couldn’t pull data directly from them. Well, they were kind of telling the truth as the first slide reveals the FBI puts “government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information from a participating company.” The worst part about all this, however, is that the information collected by the FBI is sent to the NSA “without further review.” In other words, there’s very little oversight.

    New PRISM Slides Reveal NSA's Lack Of Oversight

    To be fair, there is some oversight. The above slide details how an analyst for the NSA submits a request for information about a new surveillance target. That request goes to a supervisor who will either endorse or deny the request based on a reasonable belief that the target is a “foreign national who is overseas.” The fun part is that “reasonable belief” is defined by 51 percent confidence on the part of the analyst. Good to know that NSA analysts must at least be a little over half confident.

    The next slide reveals how the information from private companies is analyzed. It shows an automated process that replaces oversight from human analysts with that of a computer. Data, upon arriving at the NSA, is filtered through a number of systems with code names like PRINTAURA, SCISSORS, NUCLEON, PINWALE, MAINWAY and MARINA. These systems filter data based upon type. For example, voice data is sent to NUCLEON and video data is sent to PINWALE.

    The NSA does employ two systems called FALLOUT and CONVEYANCE that try to automatically reduce the amount of information on Americans that’s collected by everything else. It’s something, but the reliability of computer systems to sort out data belonging to Americans from data belonging to foreign nationals isn’t exactly trustworthy.

    New PRISM Slides Reveal NSA's Lack Of Oversight

    The third slide shows how each target being surveilled is assigned a case notation. This allows the NSA to follow the movement of targets, and in some cases, perform real-time surveillance. The Washington Post explains that “the NSA may receive live notifications when a target logs on or sends an e-mail, or may monitor a voice, text or voice chat as it happens.” It’s noted that the availability of real-time surveillance depends on the provider so not every company allows it.

    New PRISM Slides Reveal NSA's Lack Of Oversight

    Finally, the fourth slide reveals the database that the NSA uses to look up information on targets. Besides looking like a badly built Web site from the mid-90s, the slide also reveals that there were 117,675 active surveillance targets in the database as of April 5. The good news is that not everybody is being watched, but the bad news is that information belonging to innocent Americans is still being picked up as “incidental data” as part of the surveillance on these targets.

    New PRISM Slides Reveals NSA's Lack Of Oversight

    As far as leaks go, this has been one of the more interesting ones, but there have been damaging leaks as well. It was recently revealed that the U.S. spies on not only its enemies, but its friends as well. Germany and France have both demanded that the U.S. come clean on claims that it has spied on its leaders and people. The two countries are even threatening to block trade negotiations over the spy program revelations.

    We’re not done with the leaks either as the government believes Edward Snowden was able to get away with pretty much everything related to the NSA and its spy programs. It’s only a matter of time before more of it is published, and all of it may be leaked if something were to happen to Snowden.

  • The NSA Can Use Incidental Data Under Certain Conditions

    One of the scariest parts about the NSA’s spying program is its collection of incidental data – information that may or may not be about American citizens that just so happens to be picked up with information on non-U.S. targets. It’s been said that the NSA can’t use this data, but a new report says they can under certain conditions.

    The Guardian released another two documents today that detail how the NSA can use information it inadvertently collects on Americans. Both documents were submitted to the secretive FISA court by Attorney General Eric Holder as they bear his signature.

    So, without further ado, here’s what the NSA can do with the data it may or may not have collected on Americans:

  • Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;
  • Retain and make use of “inadvertently acquired” domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;
  • Preserve “foreign intelligence information” contained within attorney-client communications;
  • Access the content of communications gathered from “U.S. based machine[s]” or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.

    • What makes the above especially worrisome is that the documents reveal there is not a lot of oversight in regards to who the NSA actually targets. NSA analysts are allowed to pick and choose who they target without having to get clearance from the courts. The only thing in place is an internal audit system that reviews targets.

    Another worrisome aspect is a different order from 2010 that says that NSA is allowed to collect information on a target as long at that person “is a non-United States person reasonably believed to be outside the United States.” That doesn’t sound so bad until you read that the order allows the NSA to just automatically assume the target is outside the U.S. if it can’t confirm the target’s location. To make matters worse, the NSA can read messages from and listen in on phone calls of assumed non-U.S. persons to confirm whether or not they are in the U.S.

    Now, what happens once the target has been confirmed to a U.S. person? The NSA must then start what it calls a “minimization procedure.” In short, it means that the NSA must stop collecting information on the target immediately. Of course, the NSA analyst in charge of the investigation can appeal to a higher up to keep the information if they feel that it contains information related to the one of the following:

  • Significant foreign intelligence information
  • Evidence of a crime
  • Technical data base information (a.ka. encrypted data)
  • Information pertaining to a threat of serious harm to life or property

    • The NSA must immediately destroy data on U.S. persons if it does not pertain to one of the above categories. However, the agency is allowed to keep information on U.S. persons if they’re found to be communicating with someone outside the U.S. On top of that, the communications between non-U.S. and U.S. persons can be shared with friendly governments if the U.S. person is anonymized.

    All of these rules fly out the window when the NSA throws out a wide data collection net. In that case, the agency argues that it can’t filter out information on U.S. persons that is inadvertently collected alongside information on non-U.S. persons.

    The big takeaway from all of this is that the NSA is not subjected to as much oversight as President Obama and others have indicated. In fact, it seems that the NSA can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants with only internal audits and individual discretion getting in the way of data collection. It makes you really wish Congress would pass one of those transparency bills that would make the NSA’s data collection open for debate.

  • Oscars Stats From Google, Twitter And Facebook

    A flood of stats about Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony has been unleashed upon the web. Among these stats are some looks at trends from Google, Twitter and Facebook.

    Google

    Here are the top five most searched Oscar nominees, according to Google:

    Most searched oscar nominees

    “At the end of the show, Best Picture winner ‘Argo’ held the #6 spot, followed by Ang Lee, Christoph Waltz, ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ and Halle Berry,” notes Google software engineer Nemo Tamir.

    Google also shared the most searched red carpet dresses:

    Red Carpet dresses

    “This year’s Oscars brought with it a number of unexpected moments that grabbed our attention,” said Tamir. “Early in the show, Seth MacFarlane was visited by William Shatner in full Captain Kirk regalia, come from the future to save Seth’s monologue; at 8:36pm ET, searches for [kirk] spiked to almost 1,500 per minute. Later in the show, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ and ‘Skyfall’ tied for sound editing, and people flocked to the web with questions. Searches for [tie] spiked to more than 5,000 per minute, with many people wanting to know [has there ever been a tie in the oscars]. And in a final surprise, First Lady Michelle Obama introduced the Best Picture nominees and opened the winning envelope for ‘Argo.’ Searches for [michelle obama] spiked to 4,500 per minute.”

    Twitter

    “All in all, there were 8.9 million Tweets about the 85th Academy Awards: 2.1 million during the red carpet, and 6.8 million during the awards show. People at home (and in the audience) tweeted as the night’s most exciting and entertaining moments unfolded,” says Twitter’s Fred Graver.

    More Twitter stats:

    Best Picture award for Argo: 85,300 TPM
    Adele performs “Skyfall”: 82,300 TPM
    Best Actress in a Leading Role for Jennifer Lawrence: 71,600 TPM
    Best Original Song for Adele: 64,000 TPM
    Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Anne Hathaway: 60,400 TPM

    Facebook

    Facebook says Oscars buzz was at an all time high on the social network this year. According to the company there were 66.5 million Oscar-related interactions on Facebook.

    “The event scored a 7.17 on the Facebook Talk Meter, trumping last year’s awards ceremony, and we saw the most buzz in the Northeast (New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut) followed by California,” says Facebook data analyst Allie Townsend. “‘Oscars’ received three times more mentions this year, while the Best Picture nominees racked up twenty times more mentions than 2012. ‘Les Miserables’ had the most Likes of this year’s top films, and despite being set in France, the film’s largest body of fans are in London. It was also the favorite film among women and people ages 13 to 17.”

    Django Unchained, however, got the most mentions, Townsend says. It was the “clear Best Picture Choice” among men, she says.

    “Best Picture ‘Argo’ was the most-talked about winner of the night, as mentions of the film increased by 2,460% and mentions of Ben Affleck increased by 23,500% as the director, star and producer made his acceptance speech,” says Townsend. “Affleck also launched his new Instagram account from the red carpet and shared behind-the-scenes photos throughout the night, including this one of his name being engraved on Oscar trophy itself.”

    Facebook put out the following infographic looking at the trends:

    Facebook Oscars Trends

  • Super Bowl Facebook Buzz Dominated by Beyonce, Blackout

    Sunday’s Super Bowl was interesting for a couple of reasons apart from the actual game, and the Facebook data proves that. According to Facebook’s data analysts, two of the top three most-talked-about moments of Super Bowl XLVII had nothing to do with football.

    But the top trend did. The top moment from last night’s spectacle, in terms of Facebook chatter, occurred when the Ravens won the game. The second most-talked-about moment was Beyonce’s halftime show, followed by the Superdome Blackout in third place.

    Facebook says that mentions of Beyonce across the network started to rise around 8:00 pm ET, and by the time it was all over mentions of her name had increased over 49,000%. As soon as her former Destiny’s Child bandmates joined Beyonce on stage, mentions of “Michelle” and “Kelly” spiked 10,000%.

    One of the most interesting spikes in popularity was the phrase “killed it,” which saw a 40,000% spike after Beyonce finished her performance. I guess we know how she was received by fans on Facebook.

    And when the lights went out, mentions of the word “lights” skyrocketed (as you may expect) – 66,000%, to be exact.

    As far as specific players go, Ray Lewis won the night with the most chatter. Following Lewis was Ravens QB Joe Flacco, who won MVP honors. Coming in third was 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick.

    Here’s your complete top ten moment on Facebook from the big game last night:

    1. Ravens win the Super Bowl
    2. Beyonce’s halftime performance
    3. Blackout in the Superdome
    4. Jacoby Jones’ 108-yard kickoff return for a Ravens touchdown (and Justin Tucker’s field goal kick)
    5. Joe Flacco’s 56-yard pass to Jacoby Jones for a Ravens touchdown (and Justin Tucker’s field goal kick)
    6. Joe Flacco’s 13-yard pass to Anquan Boldin for a Ravens touchdown (and Justin Tucker’s field goal kick)
    7. Frank Gore’s six-yard run for a 49ers touchdown (and David Akers’ field goal kick)
    8. Destiny’s Child surprise appearance with Beyonce during the half time show
    9. Ray Lewis’ retirement
    10. David Akers’ field goal kick from 27-yard line

    And while you’re at it, check out what caused the second-most buzz online last night:

  • Alabama & Mississippi Win the Most-Racist-on-Twitter Award Surrounding the Election

    Twitter, you can be so great and so disappointing at the same time. It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that social media is a haven for imbeciles. So much hateful garbage is spewed out in 140-character snippets that it’s easy to just gloss over it. It’s so common that it feels like it’s not even worth it to stop and shake your head.

    Bottom line: we know that people are still racist. This study wanted to know where people are the most racist.

    Geo-coded data analysts Floating Sheep looked at the prevalance of racist tweets post-election, as compared with all other tweets in specific areas. What they found was that Mississippi and Alabama had the highest LQ (location quotient) for racist tweets with scores of 7.4 and 8.1, respectively.

    By comparison, the highest quotient among the rest of the 48 states was 3.6. Among states that received a score, Arizona had the lowest with a 0.2.

    Here’s the map:

    racist tweet map

    And here’s the science behind the racist tweets map:

    [W]e collected all the geocoded tweets from the last week (beginning November 1) with racist terms that also reference the election in order to understand how these everyday acts of explicit racism are spatially distributed. Given the nature of these search terms, we’ve buried the details at the bottom of this post in a footnote [1].

    Given our interest in the geography of information we wanted to see how this type of hate speech overlaid on physical space. To do this we aggregated the 395 hate tweets to the state level and then normalized them by comparing them to the total number of geocoded tweets coming out of that state in the same time period [2]. We used a location quotient inspired measure (LQ) that indicates each state’s share of election hate speech tweet relative to its total number of tweets.[3] A score of 1.0 indicates that a state has relatively the same number of hate speech tweets as its total number of tweets. Scores above 1.0 indicate that hate speech is more prevalent than all tweets, suggesting that the state’s “twitterspace” contains more racists post-election tweets than the norm.

    So, the higher the quotient, the more racist the tweet stream from that state.

    Floating Sheep is careful to add the disclaimer that they are looking at tweets, not users – so a small group of users could be responsible for a higher volume of racist tweets.

    If you’re wondering about the types of tweets that might be included in this type of study, a quick twitter search of “Obama” + a racially charged term will net some whoppers. Black president or not, blatant racism is alive and well in the Twittersphere. Just ask these walking, talking stains:

    These tweets come from California and Texas, states that didn’t even register that high on the scale. Post-racist society, indeed.

  • RIM, HTC Losing Big Worldwide, Shows Analyst

    RIM, HTC Losing Big Worldwide, Shows Analyst

    It’s widely known that RIM, HTC, and Nokia are in trouble in U.S. cell phone markets. As Samsung consolidates its power over the Android smartphone market, it isn’t leaving much room for another Apple competitor. It’s sometimes said that even though this is the case, other handset manufacturers have a good chance at propping up their profits by focusing on emerging cell phone markets.

    Research firm Canalys today released its worldwide country-level smartphone shipment data for the third quarter of 2012, and the numbers still don’t look good for anyone other than Samsung, Apple, and Sony.

    Their shipment data shows that the worldwide smartphone market reached 173.7 million units in Q3 2012 – 44% higher than Q3 2011. For the third consecutive quarter, Samsung led the global market by shipping 55.5 million smartphones, or 32% of all smartphone shipments. Apple came next with 26.9 million (15.5%), and Sony rounded out the top 3 with 8.8 million (5.1%).

    HTC and RIM come next on the list, and they aren’t far behind Sony, with 8.4 million (4.8%) and 7.3 million (4.2%), respectively. However, these numbers are a huge decrease for these companies from their 2011 shipment numbers. HTC shipped 36% more smartphones in Q3 2011, and RIM shipped 38% more. Their shares of shipment numbers have similarly dropped, over 5% in HTC’s case and almost that much for RIM.

    Nokia has been pushed off the top 5 and is now included with the “others” category, which collectively ships 38.5% of the world’s smartphones. Nokia shipped fewer units in Q3 2012 in anticipation of the launch of Windows Phone 8. RIM is currently gearing up for BlackBerry 10, which it hopes will revitalize its business, but which analysts are predicting might be DOA.

    Canalys emphasized that these numbers are heavily skewed by China, where Samsung has a large lead in the smartphone market.

    “When considering actual use of smart phones, however, the markets differ dramatically again, determined by network availability, speed, pricing and localization,” said Chris Jones, Canalys co-founder and principal analyst. “For example, data from the Canalys App Interrogator tool shows that the US market still leads in terms of app downloads and revenue. For example, the US made up 45% of all Apple iPhone app downloads in September, compared with just 11% in China.”

    (via BGR)

  • iPad Mini and iTV are Already in Production, Says Analyst

    Apple has already begun production on the iPad Mini and the iTV. According to a Forbes report, Apple manufacturer Hon Hai is currently producing the iPad Mini tablet and the iTV could go on sale before the end of the year.

    These proclamations are based on a research note to investors released this week by Jefferies analyst Peter Misek. According to Forbes, Misek came to his conclusions based on supply chain analysis. Misek points out that Hon Hai’s July revenues went up, which is odd for that month. This and the fact that supply chain projections of planned iPad builds have been raised to 30 million units for the December quarter convince him that Hon Hai is already manufacturing the iPad Mini.

    As for the iTV, Misek bases his speculation on data from Sharp, Hon Hai, and JDS Uniphase (JDSU), the makers of motion control modules found in Microsoft’s Kinect. JDSU has said it has a new living room based, non-gaming customer. Misek believes that this refers to Apple’s iTV, which he said is in full production.

    This morning, more details about what Apple wants a DVR and set-top box device to do were released. The timing of these two stories suggests that Apple might be looking to strike deals with cable companies in an effort to make the iTV and all-in-one solution for network, cable, and streaming TV.

    Though Misek believes the iTV could be out by the end of the year, he doesn’t believe the official announcement will come soon. Forbes stated that he expects the September 12th Apple press conference to reveal the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini, with the iTV announcement coming sometime in the future.

  • Google Makes Webmaster Tools Data Exporting Easier

    Google announced that it has included a new option for exporting data to a Google Spreadsheet in Google Docs. Users can now choose between the CSV and Google Docs download formats.

    “Choosing ‘CSV’ initiates a download of the data in CSV format which has long been available in Webmaster Tools and can be imported into other spreadsheet tools like Excel,” says Google Webmaster Trends analyst Jonathan Simon. “If you select the new ‘Google Docs’ option then your data will be saved into a Google Spreadsheet and the newly created spreadsheet will be opened in a new browser tab.”

    Download to spreadsheet

    “We hope the ability to easily download your data to a Google Spreadsheet helps you to get crunching on your site’s Webmaster Tools data even faster than you could before,” says Simon. “Using only a web browser you can instantly dive right into slicing and dicing your data to create customized charts for detecting significant changes and tracking longer term trends impacting your site.”

    This is only one of various user experience improvements Google has made to Webmaster Tools in recent memory. Last month, Google updated the navigation of the site, and launched a new dashboard.

  • Google Still Granting 93% of User Data Requests to U.S. Gov’t

    Google Still Granting 93% of User Data Requests to U.S. Gov’t

    Google released it’s semi-annual Transparency Report for July to December 2011 over the weekend and, as always, there are some revealing insights into how the company handles requests for both user data and content removal from different governments around the world.

    For starters, there were four new first-timers for content removal requests: Bolivia, Czech Republic, Jordan, and Ukraine. As Google continues its sprawl across the world, it’s becoming more accessible to larger populations and, as things go, this is about the average number of first-time requests from countries in each report. Beyond Google just becoming more available in other parts of the world, the internet itself is constantly growing in size, so the amount of removal requests and user data requests should be expected to increase commensurately, but within expectations. As you can see in the table compiled for the Transparency Report, the amount of URL removal requests that Google receives has increased steadily over the past year and a half but with a particularly high spike since March 2012.

    URL Removal Requests

    While more requests are expected as the company continues to grow, Google Senior Policy Analyst Dorothy Chou said in a blog post that the growing amount of government requests to remove political content has become a “troubling” trend. “It’s alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect—Western democracies not typically associated with censorship,” she said.

    Some of the countries Chou listed as examples, such as Spain and Poland, respectively submitted removal requests that linked to blogs and articles referencing public figures and links that were critical of a public institution. Google, she said, did not comply with either country’s requests.

    Merely perusing the interactive map that Google created to more easily see summaries of different countries included in the report, it’s not hard to identify some of additional Western governments that Chou may have been referring to.

    Google Transparency Report - UK

    Google Transparency Report - US

    Google Transparency Report - Germany

    Google Transparency Report - Brazil

    The report details some of the instances of removal requests from Western governments, some of which Google complied with and some it didn’t:

  • U.K.: We received a request from the UK’s Association of Police Officers to remove five user accounts that allegedly promoted terrorism. We terminated these accounts because they violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines, and as a result approximately 640 videos were removed.
  • U.S.: We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 1,400 YouTube videos for alleged harassment. We did not comply with this request. Separately, we received a request from a different local law enforcement agency to remove five user accounts that allegedly contained threatening and/or harassing content. We terminated four of the accounts, which resulted in the removal of approximately 300 videos, but did not remove the remaining account with 54 videos.
  • Canada: We received a request from the Passport Canada office to remove a YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. We did not comply with this request.

    • Hah. Really, Canada?

    The most startling figure in this report is the number of requests from the United States government for user data. 6,321 requests were submitted and, more troubling, Google complied with 93% of them. No other country was granted as much compliance and only one other country, Brazil, had a rate of compliance in the 90-100% range. While the percent with which Google has complied with requests from the U.S. government has remained consistent over the past three Transparency Reports, the number of requests filed by the government has increased significantly each time.

    Although Google continues to grant virtually every request for user data by the U.S. government, one stat that is more encouraging is the company’s compliance with content removal requests. This is one category in which Google appears to be holding its ground against undue attempts to limit the openness of the net. Over the past three years, which includes six different Transparency Reports, Google has gradually received more and more removal requests yet has complied with less of them. I could be wrong, but this would indicate that while the amount of requests has risen, Google’s maintained its same rubric for what content deserves to be removed and what content is permitted to stay. The increase of removal requests over just the last six months of 2011 is particularly stunning.

  • 1,421 requests to be removed July – Dec 2010, 87% compliance
  • 757 requests to be removed Jan – June 2011, 63% compliance
  • 6,192 requests to be removed July – Dec 2011, 42% compliance

    • From the first half of 2011 to the last half, Google received over an 800% increase in content removal requests from the U.S. government. Unreal. The bulk of these requests pertained to the nondescript “Other” with Google AdWords, “Privacy and Security” with YouTube content, and “Defamation” with Google Groups and Web Search.

    Google should be commended for even supplying the public with this Transparency Report, as its a practice that is not widely practiced among the upper echelon of tech companies. It’s also encouraging that Google appears to remain committed to fighting censorship on the web. However, Google doesn’t appear to be so resilient when it comes to user privacy as the company is almost guaranteed to comply with the government whenever the feds come knocking.

    The thing is, according to a recent report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google is actually one of the better companies when it comes to supporting users’ data privacy in the face of government requests. For example, Apple, Microsoft, Verizon, and AT&T were rated much worse than Google in terms of defending your data privacy to the government. So if Google’s complying with this government this much and you think that’s bad, just imagine how much other companies are betraying you to government interests.

  • WebMediaBrands Launches PageData Pro & PageData Enterprise

    WebMediaBrands Launches PageData Pro & PageData Enterprise

    Today, WebMediaBrands and their Inside Network research group launch of PageData Pro & PageData Enterprise, their new subscription service for tracking growth metrics for Facebook Pages. They are the latest installments to their suite of data and research products focused on Facebook and Mobile App Ecosystems.

    PageData Pro customers have access to the following daily metrics for millions of Facebook Pages:

    * The number of Likes a given Facebook Page has, dating back as early as 2009.

    * The number of People Talking About This, dating back to late 2011 when Facebook first introduced this engagement metric.

    PageData tracks engagement data on a per-post basis for a select group of Facebook Pages, allowing marketers to see the Likes, Comments, and Shares for each piece of content that a given Page posts. This allows users to see which content receives the most engagement, and which content has the most viral reach.

    Brendan Irvine-Broque, Product Manager of Inside Network comments on PageData Pro:

    “Similar to how AppData tracks active users for Facebook Apps, PageData tracks Likes and People Talking About This for Facebook Pages, and is the first service to offer a historical view of Facebook Page growth and engagement across millions of Pages,”

    “PageData Pro enables marketers to benchmark their historical performance against competitors and make smart decisions informed by accurate data. For analysts tracking the performance of brands and companies, PageData Pro provides actionable insights into these companies’ efforts to engage and reach Facebook users.”

  • SEOmoz Analyst: Google Will Be Cracking Down On Directories More

    Earlier this month, there was some discussion about Google having de-indexed free web directories. Most of the ones we looked at had not actually been de-indexed, but were not ranking well, but there were clearly some that had been de-indexed.

    Since then, SEOmoz has been doing somde extensive data gathering, investigating the situation further. Kurtis Bohrnstedt, the company’s “Captain of Special Projects” gathered a total of 2,678 directories, and only found 200 of them to be banned, but an additional 340 to be penalized (as in not de-indexed, but not ranking for obvious terms where they would be the only result that makes sense).

    Still, that’s only 540 directories out of 2,678. It would seem that there are a lot more directories in the clear, but Bohrnstedt thinks this is only Google sending a warning, and that there is likely more to come.

    “That is not to say the ones left unharmed are safe from a future algorithmic update,” he writes. “In fact, I suspect this update was intended to serve as a warning; Google will be cracking down on directories. Why? In my own humble opinion, most of the classic, ‘built-for-SEO-and-links’ directories do not provide any benefit to users, falling under the category of non-content spam.”

    I wonder if that includes directories that are apparently built for SEO and links and charge webmasters for the chance to get links, but offer some form of editorial oversight.

    Interestingly, when this topic was being discussed a couple weeks ago, one webmaster said he had a paid directory he hadn’t touched in years, which was unexpectedly seeing an increase in PageRank.

  • Patent Analyst: This May Be Google’s Panda Patent

    Google was granted a patent today for something called “Feature selection for large scale models”. It sounds pretty vague. The patent’s abstract says:

    Disclosed are a method and system for receiving a plurality of potential features to be added to a model having existing features. For each of the potential features, an approximate model is learned by holding values of the existing features in the model constant. The approximate model includes the model having existing features and at least the potential feature. A performance metric is computed for evaluating performance of the approximate model. The performance metric is used to rank the potential feature based on a predetermined criterion.

    That doesn’t exactly jump at you as an obvious patent on the Panda update. However, Bill Slawski at SEO By The Sea, who spends a fair amount of time analyzing Google patents sees a connection, and wonders if this is indeed the Panda patent.

    “I have been keeping a careful eye out for a patent that would describe the process behind Google’s Panda updates, and based upon the nature of those updates, my expectation was that I might not necessarily recognize it once I came across it,” writes Slawski. “I didn’t expect it to provide details upon specific features that might be seen as positive or negative when it comes to determining the quality of web pages. I didn’t expect it to provide hints about what a webmaster might do if he or she was impacted by it.”

    “I did expect that a patent about the Panda update would involve very large data sets, that it would include a machine learning approach that might determine positive features from known websites considered to be high quality, and that it could expand upon the features being used during the process of classifying a large set of pages,” he adds. “The process described in this patent does seem to fit those expectations.”

    Indeed. In the background description part of the patent, it says:

    In recent years, machine-learning approaches for data analysis have been widely explored for recognizing patterns which, in turn, allow extraction of significant information contained within large datasets. Learning algorithms include models that may be trained to generalize using data with known outcomes. Trained learning machine algorithms may then be applied to predict the outcome in cases of unknown outcome, i.e., to classify the data according to learned patterns.

    Could this be machines learning to asses page quality based on what it has already deemed to be quality? Slawski refers back to a famous Wired interview with Google’s Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal from last year. That was the interview where the update was actually revealed to be named “Panda,” after one of Google’s engineers. In that interview, Cutts talked about how Google came up with a classifier to look at sites like the IRS, Wikipedia or the New York Times on one side, and low-quality sites on the other, with there being “mathematical reasons” you “can really see”.

    As Slawski notes, this new patent illustrates a way to examine features on a seed set of known pages, and compare them with features on other pages, to determine a classification for those pages.

    He’s pretty clear in that he’s not certain that this is indeed Google’s Panda patent, but it’s interesting nonetheless, and could still provide clues to Google’s background processes.

    While Google’s Panda update is still something webmasters much contend with, it’s the Penguin update, which has has hogged the spotlight lately. This past weekend, Google pushed out its first data refresh for Penguin, and at least one site has shown that a full recovery is possible.

    Slawski has recently pointed to other Google patents which might be directly related to Penguin as well.

    Google filed for the “Feature Selection For Large Scale Models” patent on October 31, 2008. You can read the full filing here.

  • Want To Work For Facebook? Here Are The Nearly 400 Positions They’re Hiring For

    Facebook, as you might expect from a freshly public Internet behemoth, has been hiring a bunch of people. Inside Facebook points to the company’s LinkedIn feed, as well as its own Careers page.

    The company has hired some new engineers and sales staff. Engineers include: Joe Paley (previously of webOS applications at HP), Jonathan Medwig (from Natonal Research Council Canada) and Andrew Prasetyo Jo from Karma (which Facebook has acquired). In sales, Facebook picked up: Margaret Henkhaus and Sarafina Fornara.

    Inside Facebook reports that the following positions have been removed from the company’s Careers page, presumably indicating that these positions have been filled:

    Corporate Communications Manager, India (Hyderabad)
    Partner Engineer – Mobile
    Linguist
    Head of Retail, Global Vertical MarketingBusiness Operations, Analyst
    Compensation Consultant
    Sr. Linux Systems Engineer
    Developer Advocate, Mobile
    Partner Engineer, Marketing Solutions (Sao Paulo)
    Partner Engineer, Mobile
    Partner Engineer, Mobile (Tokyo)
    Client Partner (Hyderabad)
    Technology Partner, Sales and Marketing
    Associate, Business Operations, Mid-Market Sales
    Analyst, User Operations, Turkish (Dublin)

    There are still plenty of open positions. Facebook has 386 of them currently listed. These include:

    Entity Quality Rater – Contract
    Product Manager
    Product Manager, Growth/Engagement/Mobile
    Product Manager, Mobile
    Product Manager, Platform
    Product Manager, Platform (Seattle)
    Manager, Data Warehouse Operations
    MySQL Database Engineer
    MySQL Database Engineer (Dublin)
    Mobile User Interface Engineer
    Advocacy Engineer
    Developer Advocate
    Developer Advocate (London)
    Developer Advocate Manager
    Developer Advocate, Manager (London)
    Developer Support Engineer
    Developer Support Engineer (Dublin)
    Director of Partner Engineering
    Manager, Developer Support Engineering (Dublin)
    Partner Engineer, Games
    Partner Engineer, Games (London)
    Partner Engineer, Marketing Solutions
    Partner Engineer, Mobile Games
    Partner Engineer, Mobile, Native Applications
    Partner Engineer, Payments (Games)
    Partner Engineer, Platform
    Technical Account Manager
    Data Engineer, Product
    Data Engineer
    Sr. Linux Systems Engineer
    Software Engineer, Database Engineering
    Partner Engineer, Marketing Solutions (London)
    Security Engineer
    Software Engineer, Security Tools
    3D Graphics / Visualization Engineer
    3D Graphics / Visualization Engineer (Seattle)
    Application Engineer, Infrastructure
    Application Engineer, Infrastructure (New York)
    Build Engineer
    Data Scientist
    Front End Engineer
    Front End Software Engineer, Sales Tools
    Git/Build Engineer
    Manager, Infrastructure Engineering
    Manager, Software Engineering
    Platform Program Manager
    Platform Support Engineer
    Release Engineer
    Software Engineer, Ads
    Software Engineer, Ads (New York)
    Software Engineer, Ads (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Ads Product (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Ads and Pages (New York)
    Software Engineer, Compiler & Virtual Machine
    Software Engineer, Data Center Tools
    Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineering
    Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineering (New York)
    Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineering (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Desktop Software (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Developer Platform
    Software Engineer, Developer Platform (New York)
    Software Engineer, Developer Tools
    Software Engineer, Developer Tools (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Infrastructure Engineering
    Software Engineer, Infrastructure Engineering (New York)
    Software Engineer, Infrastructure Engineering (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Machine Learning
    Software Engineer, Mail
    Software Engineer, Mobile (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Mobile iOS
    Software Engineer, Mobile, Android
    Software Engineer, Network
    Software Engineer, Network, SDN
    Software Engineer, Pages (New York)
    Software Engineer, Payments
    Software Engineer, Payments (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Products
    Software Engineer, Products (Malaysia)
    Software Engineer, Products (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Sales/Mktg Tools
    Software Engineer, Search Product
    Software Engineer, Search Ranking
    Software Engineer, Test Frameworks
    Software Engineer, Tools Engineering
    Software Engineer, Web Performance Engineering (New York)
    Software Engineering Search Infrastructure
    Web Performance Engineer
    Manager, Production Engineering
    Mobile Operations Engineer
    Operations Engineer
    Operations Engineer (Dublin)
    Performance and Capacity Engineer
    Production Engineer
    System Software Engineer
    Manager, Business Operations Data Analytics
    Manager, Business Ops – Global Mid-Market Sales Quota – Setting & Forecasting
    Data Center Business Analyst
    Associate, Business Operations
    Business Operations Manager, LATAM (Sao Paulo)
    Business Operations Sr. Analyst
    Director, Investor Relations
    Finance Manager, Technology Infrastructure & Supply Chain
    Manager, Business Operations
    Manager, Corporate FP&A
    Manager, Global Marketing Business Operations
    Revenue Assurance Analyst
    Revenue Manager, International (Dublin)
    Administrative Assistant, Dublin – Contract
    Executive Assistant (Hyderabad)
    Operations Analyst
    Lead Counsel, Network Infrastructure
    Head Of Policy Japan
    Head Of Policy Korea
    Head of Policy (Italy)
    Manager, Corporate Communications – Contract (Toronto)
    Public Policy Manager (Sao Paulo)
    Technology Partner, HR
    Data Engineer
    IT Manager
    IT Operations Manager
    IT Security Engineer
    Sr. Linux Systems Engineer
    Technology Partner, Billing and Revenue
    Technology Partner, Hyperion
    Technology Partner, Security
    Technology Partner, Supply Chain/Logistics
    Law Enforcement Response Team Lead
    Physical Security Systems Designer, Data Centers
    Security Engineer
    Software Engineer, Security Tools
    Oracle Application Developer
    Software Engineer, Sales/Mktg Tools
    Software Engineer, Tools Engineering
    Business Analyst, Compensation
    Global Immigration and Tax Manager
    HR Specialist – Contract (Austin)
    HR Specialist EMEA – Contract (Dublin)
    People Services Rep
    People Services Rep – Contract
    Design Recruiter
    Design Recruiter – Contract
    Engineering Leadership Sourcer
    Head of Technical Recruiting
    Program Manager, Diversity Recruiting
    Recruiter – Contract (Sao Paulo)
    Recruiting Manager (Sao Paulo)
    Technical Recruiter – Contract
    Technical Recruiter – Contract (Dublin)
    Technical Recruiter – Contract (London)
    Technical Recruiter -Contract (Seattle)
    University Recruiter (Contract)
    University Recruiting Coordinator – Contract
    Communication Designer
    Content Strategist
    Creative Producer
    Market Researcher
    Mobile User Interface Engineer
    Product Design Manager
    Product Designer
    Quantitative Market Researcher
    Software Engineer Research Tools, University – Contract
    Software Engineer, Research Tools
    UEX Researcher
    UEX Researcher – Contract
    Data Center Business Analyst
    Data Center Energy Manager
    Data Center Infrastructure Delivery Supervisor (Lulea)
    Data Center Lead (Sweden)
    Data Center Network Technician (North Carolina)
    Data Center Network Technician (Virginia)
    Data Center Technical Operations Manager (Sweden)
    Data Center Technician (Ashburn)
    Datacenter Optimization Engineer
    Infrastructure Construction Manager
    Infrastructure Operations Engineer
    Network Infrastructure Acceptance Engineer
    Site Operations Compliance Manager
    Data Warehouse Engineer (Dublin)
    Manager, Data Warehouse Operations
    MySQL Database Engineer
    MySQL Database Engineer (Dublin)
    Storage Engineer
    Hardware Systems Engineer
    Hardware Systems Engineer (Austin)
    Manufacturing Quality Engineer
    Power Engineer
    Power Engineer (Austin)
    Storage Hardware Design Engineer
    Storage Hardware Design Engineer (Austin)
    Sustaining Engineer
    Sustaining Engineer (Austin)
    Systems Engineer
    Hardware Engineer 120501
    Operations Analyst
    Technology Partner, Supply Chain/Logistics
    Manager, Network Engineering, DNE
    Network Capacity Planner
    Network Engineer, Backbone
    Network Engineer, Corp
    Network Engineer, SW
    Network Security Engineer
    Data Analyst, Mail
    Decision Support Analyst
    Technical Program Coordinator
    Technical Program Manager
    Application Engineer, Infrastructure
    Application Engineer, Infrastructure (New York)
    Build Engineer
    Git/Build Engineer
    Manager, Infrastructure Engineering
    Release Engineer
    Site Integrity User Experience Engineer
    Software Engineer, Compiler & Virtual Machine
    Software Engineer, Data Center Tools
    Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineering
    Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineering (New York)
    Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineering (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Infrastructure Engineering
    Software Engineer, Infrastructure Engineering (New York)
    Software Engineer, Infrastructure Engineering (Seattle)
    Software Engineer, Mail
    Software Engineer, Network
    Software Engineer, Network, SDN
    Support Engineer
    Manager, Network Services and Equipment Procurement
    Sourcing Manager, Data Center Infrastructure Services
    Sourcing Manager, Network Engineering
    Sourcing Manager, OEM and ODM Servers Group
    Manager, Production Engineering
    Manager, Site Reliability Operations
    Mobile Operations Engineer
    Operations Engineer
    Operations Engineer (Dublin)
    Performance and Capacity Engineer
    Production Engineer
    System Software Engineer
    SMB Marketing Associate – Contract (Singapore)
    Manager, Business Operations Data Analytics
    Manager, Business Ops – Global Mid-Market Sales Quota – Setting & Forecasting
    Manager, Global Marketing Business Operations
    Analytics Engineer
    Data Engineer, Product
    Manager, Analytics Engineering
    Mobile Apps Analyst
    Product Analyst
    Quantitative Researcher
    SEM Analyst
    Operations Analyst
    Analyst, Measurement Solutions (Chicago)
    Analyst, Measurement Solutions (New York)
    Associate, Custom Market Insights (New York)Attribution Lead, Custom Market Insights (Menlo Park)
    Audience Researcher (London)
    Custom Market Insights Lead (London)
    Lead, Custom Market Insights (New York)
    Lead, Measurement Solutions (Chicago)
    Lead, Measurement Solutions (Menlo Park)
    Lead, Measurement Solutions (New York)
    Marketing Mix Science Specialist (Menlo Park)
    Measurement Partnership Lead (London)
    Measurement Solutions Group Lead (London)
    Pricing and Yield Analyst, Singapore
    Pricing and Yield Management Lead (London)
    Principal, Monetization (Menlo Park)
    Senior Analyst, Custom Market Insights (Dublin)
    Senior Analyst, Custom Market Insights (London)
    Senior Analyst, Custom Market Insights (Sao Paulo)
    Senior Analyst, Custom Market Insights (Sydney)
    Senior Analyst, Custom Market Insights, DACH, Benelux (Hamburg)
    Data Scientist (Dublin)
    Account Manager (Sao Paulo)
    Account Manager, Global Marketing Solutions
    Account Manager, Global Marketing Solutions (Austin)
    Account Manager, Global Marketing Solutions, Gaming
    Account Manager, Online Sales Operations, Australia (Singapore)
    Account Manager, Online Sales Operations, India (Singapore)
    Account Manager, Poland (London)
    Account Manager, Tech/SocialCom (Dallas)
    Account Manager, Tech/SocialCom (Los Angeles)
    Partner Manager, Marketing API Program
    Business Development Manager
    Business Development Manager, Mobile
    Director, Business Development
    Partner Engineer, Games (London)
    Manager, Mobile Partnerships (Tokyo)
    Ad Operations Analyst, Global Marketing Solutions (Austin)
    Media Solutions (Austin)
    Media Solutions (Buenos Aires)
    Media Solutions (Chicago)
    Media Solutions (Menlo Park)
    Media Solutions (New York)
    Media Solutions (Sao Paulo)
    Media Solutions (Toronto)
    Associate, Global Marketing Solutions, SMB Growth (Austin)
    Customer Solutions, Global Marketing Solutions, SMB Growth – Contract (Austin)
    Director of Global SMB Growth
    Director, Online Sales & Operations, South and Latin America (Sao Paulo)
    Strategic Partner Development Manager, Gaming
    Strategic Partner Manager, Gaming (Seoul)
    Strategic Partner Manager, Gaming (Singapore)
    Account Manager – German (Dublin)
    Account Manager – Swedish (Dublin)
    Account Manager, Danish (Dublin)
    Account Manager, Norwegian (Dublin)
    Client Partner, Danish (Dublin)
    Client Partner, German (Dublin)
    Client Partner, Norwegian (Dublin)
    Client Partner, Swedish (Dublin)
    Manager, API Marketing Dublin)
    Manager, Italian Mid Market Sales (Dublin)
    APAC Gaming Manager (Singapore)
    Account Manager Online Sales Operations (Buenos Aires)
    Client Partner (Buenos Aires)
    Client Partner (Melbourne)
    Client Partner (São Paulo)
    Client Partner, Australia (Singapore)
    Client Partner, India (Singapore)
    Client Partner, Korea (Singapore)
    Client Partner, LATAM (Miami)
    Global Business Manager, APAC (Singapore)
    Head of Sales Australia & New Zealand (Sydney)
    Manager, Global Sales Outsourcing (Tokyo)
    Manager, Sales & Account Management, Global Marketing Solutions (Buenos Aires)
    Manager, Sales & Account Management, Global Marketing Solutions (Sao Paulo)
    Sales Manager (Tokyo)
    Client Partner (Austin)
    Client Partner, Auto (Los Angeles)
    Client Partner, Global Marketing Solutions, Gaming
    Client Partner, Mobile (Chicago)
    Client Partner, National Sales
    Client Partner, Politics
    Manager, Global Marketing Solutions, Gaming
    Manager, National Sales, Global Marketing Solutions
    Manager, National Sales, Global Marketing Solutions (Austin)
    Partner Manager, Marketing API Program
    Operational Data Analyst (Austin)
    Manager, Data Warehouse Operations
    Manager, Developer Support Engineering (Dublin)
    Analyst, Global Sales Reporting (Hyderabad)
    Associate, Global Marketing Solutions, SMB Growth (Austin)
    Customer Solutions, Global Marketing Solutions, SMB Growth – Contract (Austin)
    Lead, Small and Medium Business (Tokyo)
    Principal, Global Marketing Solutions (Hyderabad)
    Analyst, Ad Review Operations – Contractor (Austin)
    Associate, Payment Operations (Dublin)Data Scientist (Dublin)
    Manager, Risk Operations (Austin)
    Analyst, Platform Operations (Dublin)
    Analyst, Platform Operations (Dublin)
    Analyst, Platform Operations (Hyderabad)
    Manager, Payment Partnerships Operations
    Manager, Platform Operations
    Analyst, User Operations, Arabic (Dublin)
    Analyst, User Operations, Brazilian Portuguese (Dublin)
    Analyst, User Operations, Intellectual Property, French (Dublin)
    Analyst, User Operations, LatAm Spanish (Dublin)
    Manager, User Operations (Austin)
    Manager, User Operations (Dublin)
    Team Lead, User Operations (Dublin)
    Marketing Manager – Contract (Hyderabad)
    SMB Marketing Associate – Contract (Singapore)
    Developer Advocate
    Developer Advocate Manager
    Director of Partner Engineering
    Partner Engineer, Games
    Partner Engineer, Marketing Solutions
    Partner Engineer, Mobile Games
    Partner Engineer, Mobile, Native Applications
    Partner Engineer, Payments (Games)
    Partner Engineer, Platform
    Technical Account Manager
    Manager, Global Marketing Business Operations
    SEM Analyst
    Event Marketing Manager 120502
    Creative Strategist (New York)
    Global Customer Marketing Pod Lead (New York)
    Head of CPG/Beverage, Global Vertical Marketing
    Market Development Manager, Platform (New York)
    Marketing Analytics Associate
    Marketing Analytics Manager
    Platform Developer Marketing Manager
    Platform Product Marketing Manager
    Strategic Partner Development Manager, Gaming
    Head of Retail, Global Vertical Marketing
    Product Marketing Manager
    Product Marketing Manager, Ads

    They’ve certainly come a long way since the days when they were just a few dudes coding in a house (as portrayed in The Social Network).

    Facebook has been incredibly busy since the IPO. The company has already announced more than one acquisition, including social and mobile gifting service Karma (which could have big implications for Facebook as an e-commerce platform, and Bolt Peters, a user experience, usability and design firm.

  • Groupon To Hire 100 Engineers

    Groupon To Hire 100 Engineers

    Groupon, the Chicago-based company that presently has about 200 employees at its Palo Alto office, seeks to expand its west coast operation with as many as 100 new hires.

    Groupon, who has already been buying billboards along the highways between San Francisco and the South Bay, plans to host a recruiting event in its Silicon Valley location later in the spring. The Palo Alto research and development office mostly employs data analysts, technologists and developers, primarily working on mobile and merchant products. The Groupon Scheduler was developed there.

    groupon billboard

    The 40,000 square foot office has grown through various mergers and acquisitions, which makes roughly 1 in 3 employees former CEOs or startup entrepreneurs. Interestingly, Google Android chief Andy Rubin started his company called Danger in the building, and Dreamworks came up with the Shrek franchise there.

    In the hilarious joke-making fashion typical of Groupon, the first floor conference rooms have all been given clever names – rooms include “IRS Audit”, “Lion Tipping” and “Zombie Invasion.” Groupon also remains on the cutting edge by not demanding the Facebook passwords of its employees.

  • Analyst Estimate Manufacturers To Ship 67 Million 4G LTE Phones In 2012

    Everybody is excited about the new 4G LTE networks that are available in an increasing number of areas, but how many of us have the technology to take advantage of them? While I can’t exactly answer that question I can tell you that corporation are banking heavily on the notion that consumers are going to buy the equipment.

    Shoppers purchased almost seven million LTE smartphones in 2011, but analyst estimates for 2012 are at 67 million! At least that’s how many they say manufacturers plan to ship. How will they sell all of these phones? According to experts in the technology sector, the trend will make it difficult for manufacturers to keep up with the demand.

    So we can expect everyone to be jumping on the bandwagon with 4G technology. There are already rumors that Apple will deliver 4G in the iPhone later this year, as you may already be aware the new iPad has the capability. Supposedly new offerings are also on the way from LG, Nokia, Motorola, Fujitsu, and Pantech, but Samsung and HTC will most likely be at the forefront of the 4G movement.

    Now these devices aren’t going to be cheap, so service providers are going to have to do something to entice buyers, especially if they just upgraded their technology last year. Then there’s the cost of extra data from 4G. I don’t know exactly what this will look like, but it might be a stretch to ask customers to pay for more.

    I’ll be watching this trend to see if these industry analysts are correct in their predictions. I don’t know if I believe the demand will be as great as they think. Sure, faster is better, but does it outweigh cheaper, especially in this economy? It could be good news though, if they build a whole bunch of these devices and nobody can foot the bill, there will be huge discounts offered; then we will all profit.