Tom Foremski
Latest from Tom Foremski
Out And About: Techcrunch Bombshell Draws Lots of Passionate Critics
I went out to several parties last night related to the AppNation conference that’s in town and spoke to a lot of developers and others about the revelation that Techcrunch editor Mike Arrington is investing in startups and his admission that it will affect his coverage. The unanimous response was that this is not a ...
New Smartphone Envy: Two-Thirds Say Stuck with Old Phones
The power of the new: Retrevo, the consumer electronics buyers guide, conducted a survey that finds 62% of smartphone owners believe they are stuck with obsolete devices because of their two-year contracts. Andrew Eisner, Director of Community and Content at Retrevo reports: Manufacturers are flooding the market with new phones at a very fast rate. ...
AOL’s Techcrunch Editor Discloses Investments, Admits to Conflicts Of interests
He said he had refrained from making investments in startups since 2009 because of distracting accusations of conflicts of interest but that he had recently changed that policy (following the sale of Techcrunch to AOL). Over the last several months I have begun investing actively again. We’ve noted these investments in Shawn Fanning’s new startup ...
Do Jerks Do Better In Silicon Valley?
This morning on CNBC, Ryan Tate from Gawker and I were debating “questionable ethics and jerk behavior by CEOs” it was related to my post last week: Questionable Ethics And The Next Generation Of Entrepreneurs; and Ryan’s follow up: Why Are Tech Founders Such Assholes? Ryan made a good point on the show that looking ...
More On Panda Pandamonium: Is Blogger.com a Front for Scam Sites?
I’ve been helping Murray Newlands with his San Francisco Blog Club meetups, which are great for helping to educate a mostly newbie group about blogging. Last night the featured speaker was Chang Kim, product manager at Google’s Blogger.com. Trouble is he was a no show. He didn’t call to say he was running late. Nothing. ...
How Curation Can Rescue Great Content From The Tyranny of the Timeline
When I first started blogging in 2004, I didn’t like the way blogging software gradually pushed older stories off the page and into the archives. It tended to discourage me from writing some posts because I didn’t want to lose better, or what I thought were more important posts, from the home page. Because once ...
New Research: Online Ads Fail Because They Distract
Online advertising is failing badly to literally click with readers and advertisers are trying to figure out how to improve a dismal 0.09 percent click-through rate. A new report from Nielsen, commissioned by AdKeeper and WPP’s 24/7 Real Media has found one answer to why online ads don’t work: they distract. Research Study From AdKeeper ...
Silicon Valley Boom: Intel Reports Record Quarter
More good news for Silicon Valley as Intel [INTC] reported a record quarter beating Wall Street estimates and its own prior guidance by about $800 million. Intel shares jumped 6% in extended-hours trading. Sales were boosted by a return of IT spending as enterprises upgraded data centers and replaced older equipment. Revenues grew 25% to ...
Unethical Founders and the Next Generation of Startups
The film “The Social Network” has helped to make startups popular among young people the world over. It’s just one factor inspiring new generations of entrepreneurs hoping to succeed through innovation and hard work. But are they learning ethical ways of doing business? The more we find out about Mark Zuckerberg and his behavior during ...
Google’s Search For Quality, and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Google regularly changes its algorithm and it’s a smart move because all the companies that were trying to game Google — and were succeeding in taking advantage of the some 200 rules that make up the algorithm — get shaken out of the results. It’s a quick way of finding the most egregious gamers of ...