Tom Foremski
Latest from Tom Foremski
Ice Cream And Tweets – How A Business Monetized Its Following
Here’s an interesting story via Cecily Ruttenberg: San Francisco based Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream has an impressive Twitter following of 310,000. Engage4Change, a new San Francisco civic engagement site, prepurchased 500 ice cream cones to offer a free ice cream to anyone participating in its efforts to collect ideas on how to make San Francisco ...
White House Wants Silicon Valley Input On Reg. Changes That Help Business
The US Small Business Administration (SBA) and the White House are reaching out to entrepreneurs to ask for ways federal regulations and processes could be changed to encourage entrepreneurship. They will be making regional visits to meet with local business people. I’ve been invited to a conference call this Friday so please let me know ...
Google’s $900m Patent Binge – Will It Share the Protection?
Larry Dignan at ZDNet reports: With the move, Google would get about 6,000 patents covering wired, wireless and digital communications technologies. Google’s top lawyer, Kent Walker wrote: Google is a relatively young company, and although we have a growing number of patents, many of our competitors have larger portfolios given their longer histories. Foremski’s Take: ...
The World Has Room For Only Nine More Googles…Or 1,000 Startups
Here’s an interesting analysis of the advertising industry and Silicon Valley’s growing bubble in new media by Rick Webb. He argues that Silicon Valley is heading for a cliff in funding too many startups to provide new media channels for advertisers. He writes that there seems to be a perception that there will be far ...
The Demise Of Social Media And The Return Of Mass Media
There have been quite a few studies lately on what people Tweet and post on Facebook, and the large number of links that people share. Invariably, the links that most people share belong to large media organizations — what used to be called mass-media. For example, Nate Silver recently analyzed links to news sources and ...
VCs Looking For “Curation” Startups – Is A Curation Bubble Forming?
As the subject of curation takes off VCs are funding more “curation” startups which could likely lead to a bubble in this sector. VCs are beginning to talk publicly about “curation” which means they are telling startups what type of companies they are looking to fund in the hopes that someone will create those companies. ...
Blekko And The Future Of Search
On the eve of Google’s launch of an experimental feature that allows users to recommend search results, Blekko, the curated search engine, hosted a lively dinner in San Francisco with journalists to discuss the future of search. Vivek Wadhwa, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley (photo) kicked things off by saying that Google’s results were ...
Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum Launches Online “Revolution”
The Computer History Museum this morning launched “Revolution” an online exhibit featuring images, video, and stories chronicling the development of key computer technologies. More than 4500 pages are avialable online on a diverse number of topics, from punched cards to the first computer games, such as the “Naughts-and-Crosses machine” (above). The curators of the museum ...
Study Shows How Social Media Amplifies Mass Media
Social media is touted by many as a way to get around the gatekeepers of media, the traditional old order of mass media setting the agenda for society has been tipped onto its head. Not really. A study from Yahoo! Research “Who Says What to Whom on Twitter | Yahoo! Research” found this: We find ...
Danish Startup Podio Makes A Splashy Entrance
Danish startup Podio made a splashy entrance this week into the US market and I’m not referring to the torrential rains soaking San Francisco. In a week dominated by the news of the launch of $41m startup Color Labs, it was an impressive feat. Podio, which offers apps for small businesses launched an App store ...