Tom Foremski
Latest from Tom Foremski
News Without a Profit Model? Doomed.
I’m not a supporter of philanthropic non-profit news ventures because I believe that we need to find a news business model that is self-sustaining and doesn’t rely on handouts from rich people or fundraising. If it generates a reasonable profit it will encourage a range of competitors — which is good for society. San Francisco ...
UberVU and the Romanian Geeks
I had an excellent morning, drinking coffee at the Apollo cafe, and chatting with the co-founders of uberVU, a London-based startup. Vladimir Oane and Dragos Ilinca are young serial entrepreneurs on their second startup. I missed them on my trip with the Traveling Geeks last summer to London, so this was a good opportunity to ...
Google’s Actions Towards China Could Hurt Their Other Businesses [Cold Packet Wars]
Last week I asked if Google’s opposition to the Chinese government might affect its other business interests in China, and elsewhere. It’s already happening. Michael Wines and Jonathan Ansfield reported in today’s New York Times: After China Move, Google Faces the Fallout – NYTimes.com China’s biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, was expected to cancel ...
M6S Launches an Attention API at DEMOspring
One of my favorite entrepreneurs is Barak Hachamov, co-founder of My6Sense, the developer of a very interesting iPhone application that manages your content feeds, feeding you only the content that matters to you. It’s a great application, but I don’t use my iPhone that much for reading content feeds and I’m always badgering Mr Hachamov ...
Russia Invests Not in Journalism But Propaganda
Robert Andrews is puzzled. Why Are Russians Spending Like Mad To Save Journalism? He writes: The latest – after last year buying France-Soir, the country’s smallest daily, for €50 million, shipbuilder’s son Alexander Pugachyov is now spending a further €20 million on a marketing campaign to take it mainstream. He’s upping the print run by ...
Twitter to App Developers: Don’t Make Too Much Money Off Our Platform
I recently wrote about Twitter’s business model as ultimately enveloping ever greater parts of its developer community. [Twitter Is The Black Hole Of The Twitterverse…] After all, why leave money on the table? Why not produce the best desktop client, or mobile client? Why let others build lucrative businesses out of your community? That seemed ...
Looks Like Google Is Out Of China – Senior Official Says It Must Obey The Law
Joe McDonald with the Associated Press, today reported: China’s top Internet regulator insisted Friday that Google must obey its laws or "pay the consequences," giving no sign of a possible compromise in their dispute over censorship and hacking. "If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are ...
When Will Techmeme Start Originating Content?
Gabe Rivera’s Techmeme is the news reader of choice for much of the Silicon Valley tech-setters — more so than Techcrunch because it has a much wider selection of articles. I often see Gabe at press events, he has a press pass like other journalists. But is he a journalist? After all, he doesn’t write ...
Bad Ideas, Part Two: UK is Pulling an FTC Blogger Regs Maneuver
This is astounding: ClickZ in the UK reports: U.K. to Regulate Social Network Marketing – ClickZ Marketers and brands using social networks will soon find their activities in those spaces regulated by the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority, following recommendations submitted by the Advertising Association this week. The proposed amendment to the Committee of Advertising Practice ...
Disruptive Tech: It’s Not Enough to See the Trainwreck Coming
People like to talk about disruption but sometimes some people misunderstand the power of disruptive technologies. I’ve had companies tell me: "Yes, we know we are in danger of disruption but we see it, we can adapt, we can change and take advantage of it." Good luck. Even when you can see the train wreck ...