Archive for the ‘Yahoo’ tag
OK, new Flickr, you got me. I’m back.
I knew something good was happening when I saw the rectangles.
This week I did something that I hadn’t done for five months and 12 days: I went to Flickr on my laptop, accessed some photos on my hard drive, uploaded them, named them, tagged them, and organized them in a set.
The magic of the Internet happened before my eyes, and they joined the other rectangular images on the venerable photo-sharing site. And finally, for the first time in almost half a year, I had something beside square pics on my Flickr photostream.
Yahoo announced its massive revamp of the Flickr service with three missing Es, calling the updated site Biggr, Spectaculr, and Wherevr. But really, the update boils down to two massive changes: Dropping freemium and making an old and tired user interface awesome.
Since I was just wondering about reupping my Pro account, the first is really significant.
Yahoo’s giving each Flickr user a full terabyte of space for images for free, which essentially means you don’t need to be a Pro user anymore. You still can, for an ad-free account, or to add even more space … but I don’t mind a few ads, and I’m only using 0.8 percent of my freely available terabyte anyways.
But the best and most important is the incredible new look.
There’s varied response to the new look, to say the least, and the official forum thread on the new layout has a staggering 241 pages of user comments: 24,102 in total so far. The vast majority of them are negative, and most of those appear to be from long-time users who liked the site the way it was and are asking Flickr to change it back.
Good luck.
Flickr as it was was turning into a byway, a leftover, and an also-ran. Which is why most of the pics on my photostream and home page were square: They were exports, shares from Instagram photos. In other words, Flickr was changing from the place where you went to share photos from, to the place where you shared photos to. That may be a small change in the English language, but it’s a massive change in user engagement.
And it had huge effects on Flickr’s traffic, which dropped about 40 percent in the last year alone:
The new look is gorgeous and photo-centric, giving photos — the raison d’etre of Flickr — center stage.
Sure, it’s Pinterest-ic and Tumblr-y. But if you love images and imagery, the new Flickr displays photos immeasurably better that the previous iteration. In a funny modern way, your digital photostream now resembles an old-fashioned photography album, without any cheesy in-your-face design elements attempting to highlight the fact.
In addition, the new layout options gave Yahoo the option of displaying images with much more creativity while honoring the photographer’s shot selection — such as Flickr displaying panorama shots across the entire page:
I’m sold. Flickr, I’m back.
“I think Flickr is awesome again with these new announcements,” Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said. “Photos make the world go around. Flickr was awesome once. It languished. But now it’s awesome again.”
I agree. And so does one of the more famous photographers on Flickr, Thomas Hawk:
despite all of the naysayers about the new @flickr, my page has never had more engagement than it has there in the last 3 days.
— Thomas Hawk (@thomashawk) May 23, 2013
Image credits: John Koetsier
Filed under: Business, Lifestyle, Media, Social 
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Yahoo Reportedly Bidding on Hulu
Ermolaev Alexander / Shutterstock.com
The video streaming service Hulu is amassing a long list of suitors, and Yahoo has reportedly joined the bunch.
The bid was reported by Reuters and AllThingsD, though Yahoo declined to comment for them as for SocialTimes.
The move in many ways would make sense for Yahoo, which many of its recent short-lived CEOs, most notably Ross Levinsohn, referred to as a media company. Yet, Marissa Mayer has seemed to re-orient Yahoo as a tech company.
Other bidders for Hulu, owned by News Corp, Disney and Comcast, include Directtv, Time Warner Cable, Guggenheim Digital and The Chernin Group.
Hulu’s brought in nearly $700 million in revenue last year and continues to draw new users. Its corporate parents are allegedly deciding whether to sell the property.
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Yahoo Testing New Search Results Page
I’m not sure anyone would notice in all of the Google Penguin news and discussion, but Yahoo appears to be testing a new search results page. I’m able to see the new interface when logged in and using Firefox, but I still see the old/current interface when using Safari and logged in to…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Marissa Mayer and Yahoo are on fire, acquire yet another company, PlayerScale
If I can paraphrase a popular Alicia Keys song, this woman is on fire. And Marissa Mayer is clearing moving Yahoo back into the center of the Silicon Valley tech conversation.
Days after finalizing a $1.1 billion Tumblr acquisition, Yahoo has bought yet another company.
PlayerScale, a cross-platform game infrastructure startup that provides tools for games played by 150 million users on platforms such as iOS and Android, announced the acquisition on its site today. And — unlike recent Yahoo acquisitions like Astrid, CEO Jesper Jensen said that the company would continue to operate as it has, supporting over 2,600 developers and 4,000 games.
In fact, he added, PlayerScale is adding 400,000 users a day.
“With Yahoo’s backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than ever before,” Jensen said.
Marissa Mayer
That would be a major change from recent Yahoo acquisitions such as Stamped, OnTheAir, Snip.it, Alike, Summly, Jybe, and Astrid, all of which have been shuttered or put on notice. But it makes sense, given PlayerScale’s volume of business and growth rates.
And, presumably it makes sense given Yahoo has now signaled a move into casual gaming on iOS, Android, Facebook, the web, and even Xbox.
PlayerScale’s platform helps game developers with pretty much everything they need to make their game platform work, except the game itself. It includes payments, chat, analytics, virtual currencies, distributed caching, authentication, social sign-on, leaderboards, localization, and more.
Here’s CEO Jesper Jensen’s announcement in full:
Today is a great day — both in our journey with PlayerScale and for users of our Player.IO product. We are happy to announce the next big step toward our goal of building the best possible gaming infrastructure platform: we have been acquired by Yahoo!. And don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere. Our platform will continue to support the same great games that you love playing today … and in fact, it will only get better from here!
Our goal has always been to help developers build the best possible games, without having to worry about building and scaling the infrastructure required to operate today’s biggest successes. In working with the folks at Yahoo!, it has become clear that we share this passion.
We have spent the past four years growing a three-person startup into a product that powers games played by over 150 million people worldwide and we are adding over 400,000 new users every day. In the last four months alone, we have increased our daily user growth rate by almost sixty percent. With Yahoo!’s backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than ever before. We will continue to support our existing product and deliver new services to help you grow and manage your success in cross-platform gaming — whether it’s casual, social or mobile.
Today marks a milestone for PlayerScale and I want to sincerely thank the team, our developers and millions of users for the adventure so far and can promise there will be more to come.
- Jesper Jensen
Image credit: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat
Filed under: Business, Cloud, Deals, Dev, Games, Mobile 
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Amazon Wants To Build A Bio-Dome Three Blocks From An Actual, Normal Park
Amazon has reportedly submitted plans for a new futuristic headquarters in Seattle that combines a skyscraper and a tri-sphere, bio-dome-like structure. According to the plans, the structure will be able to hold various forms of plant life and become a place where employees can “work and socialize in a more natural, park-like setting.”
Because, God forbid, employees walk to the park that’s three blocks away.
Here’s an excerpt from the plans (also, hat tip to GeekWire for the find):
While the form of the building will be visually reminiscent of a greenhouse or conservatory, plant material will be selected for its ability to co-exist in a microclimate that also suits people. To encourage growth and maintain the health of the plants, the building’s interior will include high bay spaces on five floors totaling approximately 65,000 SF and capable of accommodating mature trees. The exterior enclosure will be highly transparent and be composed primarily of multiple layers of glass supported by a metal framework. In addition to a variety of workplace environments, the facility will incorporate dining, meeting and lounge spaces, as well as a variety of botanical zonesmodeled on montane ecologies found around the globe. The building will be anchored at either end by publically accessible retail spaces entered from 6th and 7th Avenues.
Generally, it all sounds very cool and very futuristic and very trendy (read: Apple did the whole “plans for a spaceship” thing ages ago). However, it’s interesting to see how the biggest companies in tech are tackling the issue of working in an office or with a more loose structure.
Remember, everyone made a pretty big deal out of Marissa Mayer’s recent policy change that requires all Yahoo employees to work in an office. And just recently she announced that Yahoo would be taking up space in the Times building in New York’s Times Square, which is capable of housing up to 700 employees.
As it stands now, all of the big four tech companies — Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon — favor keeping employees in the office.
Google has one of the best campuses you could dream of, both in Mountain View and in New York, feeding employees free lunch from world-renowned chefs. Apple is working to build out one of Steve Jobs’ final projects, a new spaceship office. Facebook has the same diversions: chess boards, and video games, and basketball courts, and free lunch.
So of course, the fourth horseman in the race, Amazon is devising its own tricks to keep employees at the office as long as possible. It’s a win-win: Employees do more and better work due to a pleasing and comfortable work environment, and employers get more, and better work, out of their employees.
Also, there’s a perfectly good park just three blocks from the new campus.
Here’s the full set of plans:
Amazon’s new HQ design by John Cook
All I’ve Heard From My Family Since The Acquisition News Began
Tumblr’s “Literary Community Organizer” Rachel Fershleiser has family who read TechCrunch. And Tumblr founder David Karp think it’s the “greatest thing.”
So do we.
Update: We originally thought this email was a missive from Karp’s family. Thank you Scott Kidder for setting us straight.
How silly is @TechCrunch? They confuse emails to @RachelFersh with emails to @DavidKarp techcrunch.com/2013/05/21/all…—
Scott Kidder (@skidder) May 22, 2013
Image Tumblr
Welcome To The One Screen World
Channel surfing got weird.
There was this episode of All-Star Celebrity Apprentice this season that revolved around each team’s ability to create a television ad for the consumer electronics company, LG. It wasn’t really about a particular model of television or kitchen appliance. It wasn’t about some new-fangled technology that would allow their washing machines to clean your clothes through some kind of micro-parcel technology. It was all about how connected these devices have now become. The television, the smartphone, the washer and dryer and yes, even the refrigerator are now "smart." Smart in a connected sense. Smart in not just being connected to the Internet, but in how each device now has a touchscreen that offers up all kinds of information – from operating data to content (like recipes based on what’s inside the fridge). Screens are everywhere. Screens are connected. Screens are mobile. Screens are increasingly getting cheaper and more ubiquitous.
Welcome to the one screen world.
Not too long ago, I was asked to give a presentation on the state of digital media and how well brands are intersecting the worlds of marketing and technology. Prior to my closing keynote presentation, there was a panel discussion about the state of media. One senior media executive was discussing the power of a four screen world. I thought that he had made a mistake. I was familiar with the concept of three screens (television, computer and mobile), but four screens was something new. Eventually, he unveiled that the fourth screen was the tablet. It’s still somewhat shocking to think that the iPad was first introduced on April 3rd, 2010, and we now live in a world where more iPads are being sold than any PC manufacturer sold of their entire PC line (and this has been a constantly growing trend since 2012). In fact, all of this shores up to the notion that it’s not about three screens or four screens. It’s about one screen: whichever screen is in front of me. In a world where screens are connected and everywhere, the notion of even counting them seems arbitrary, at best. Don’t believe me, speak to somebody who is currently sporting Google glass.
The true tale of a nineteen year old.
My niece is nineteen years old. When she was sixteen years old, she would come home school, take out her laptop, plop down on the couch, lift the computer lid, turn on the TV, plug in her earbuds, so that she could listen to music on her iPod, and her BlackBerry was always within reach. From afar it looked like she was running NORAD. Fast-forward a mere three years, and now she comes home from school, takes out her iPad… and that’s it. All of that core content is now readily available on the one screen (in one way, shape or form). From content (in text, images, audio and video) to communications (chatting with friends on Skype or via Google Hangouts)… it’s all readily available on this one device that rules them all. Yes, we are seeing a massive uptick in consumers who are using companion devices (meaning, they are watching TV but have their smartphones nearby), and while the industry does refer to it as a companion device, the truth is that you’re not watching the television with one eyeball and your iPhone with the other. The only screen that still matters, is the screen that is in front of you.
It’s bigger than you think.
While most people are busy paying attention to the fact that Yahoo just bought Tumblr for over one billion dollars, they’re forgetting something profound about the last acquisition of chaotic proportions (when Facebook bought Instagram for close to one billion dollars as well). In the Newsweek article, Instagram Will Take Facebook Into the Mobile Age (April 16th, 2012), journalist Dan Lyons so appropriately wrote: "The Internet was all about websites. Then came the iPhone and Android, and today the only reason anyone creates a website is to promote a cool new mobile app." And here we are, today, with over a billion smartphones in the world and they are outnumbering the PCs. Within the next decade, virtually all mobile phones will be smartphone, meaning 6 billion people will be constantly connected. And, as if the exponential growth of the one screen world is not scary enough, we currently live in a world where more individuals have a mobile subscription than access to electricity or safe drinking water (more on that here: Putting Global Mobile In Context).
So, how are the brands stacking up?
Not so well, thanks for asking. According to a recent survey by Adobe, 45% of marketers still don’t have a mobile presence, and this is happening at the exact same time that eMarketer is reporting that 15% of online retail sales will take place this year via a mobile device (sales will reach nearly $39 billion in 2013, which is up over 56% from 2012). If ever there was a time to embrace the notion of the one screen world, this would be it. Businesses are still splitting hairs of what is the Web, what is the smartphone, what is the tablet and what is TV in a world where consumers are shoring these screens up into one. They have a constant and consistent desire to simply have the content they want on the device they want, when they want it. Sadly, most marketers are thinking about how they are going to advertise on a mobile screen, instead of hunkering down and figuring out what the customer’s new expectations are when everything from their washer and dryer to their television and smartphone are hyper-connected to one another. Instead of curling up into a ball or sticking the proverbial head in the sand, what we’re truly seeing in this day and age is a massive global opportunity – unlike anything in business that we have seen before – to take the mobile lead. By the looks and sounds of the data and the exponential growth in consumer demands for these devices and the content on them, the one screen world is poised to make websites, social media and e-commerce combined look like a joke in comparison.
Are you ready? Is your brand ready?
The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Harvard Business Review. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:
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With Yahoo! Buying Tumblr, How Much Does Social Media Marketer Gary Vaynerchuk Stand To Make?
I have a simple question for you: How much does social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk stand to make from Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr? On Gary Vaynerchuk’s website, he discloses that he has an investment in Tumblr.
As far back as 2008, according to The Wall Street Journal, Gary has been seen “backslapping” with Tumblr CEO David Karp. Gary’s website is hosted on Tumblr, something that, in arguably an extraordinary step, was announced on the Tumblr staff blog in February of 2009. In his first book, Crush It, Gary compares and contrasts WordPress with Tumblr, but I feel he clearly was arguing in favor of readers using Tumblr over WordPress, going as far as to have an aside on Page 63 that says, “E-mail me at Gary@vaynermedia.com for details about the press conference I’m going to have to explain why I’m a fan of Tumblr.” In his follow-up book, The Thank You Economy, Tumblr is consistently mentioned with Twitter and Facebook. WordPress, at least in an initial Google Book Search of The Thank You Economy, is not mentioned at all. (The need for transparency on any company’s part because of social media; however, is.)
You might be thinking, well what about the VC people? Don’t they do shady stuff like this too! YES! Absolutely. But I don’t know too much about their world. I do know about the social media industry, the players in it, and some of the shady stuff they do in order to benefit themselves and sell you their wares. So my focus rests, for now, on exposing these folks in an effort to help you make a more informed choice about whom you get your information from. Don’t worry. I’ll get to the VC people eventually. They’re not off the hook. I just need to do more research on them first.
Back to Tumblr …
Tumblr was founded in February of 2007. If you want to take Business Insider as a credible source of information,Tumblr was not profitable as of 2012. TechCrunch reported this weekend that Tumblr has three months worth of funds available to operate. In terms of the large amount of traffic Tumblr claims to generate, Gawker claimed back in 2011 that a nice chunk of that could be contributed to Tumblr’s porn and spam problem — a problem that the company acknowledged to an associate producer at NPR. (Although in their defense, according to BusinessWeek, the problem is not as big as it used to be.)
In April of 2013, Tumblr CEO David Karp stated that Tumblr still wasn’t profitable, but readily pointed out that there were more than 70 book deals and three TV deals that came from Tumblr blogs. Unless Tumblr received profits from those book deals, that doesn’t somehow make them more profitable. That’s like saying I own an ice cream store, and a couple of my customers who were once spotted by a casting agent there are now big Hollywood stars. It doesn’t really mean anything for my ice cream store; it’s just a thing that happened. Coincidentally, I’m pretty sure this is why Channing Tatum is a thing.
There’s a whole lot more to the Tumblr-to-book, Tumblr-to-television story that often doesn’t get told —a lot of which has nothing to do with Tumblr. For example, one of those TV deals and one of those book deals belongs to Emma Koenig. Were it not for the small footnote in the story The New York Times did on her, you would not have known she was the sister of Ezra Koenig, who sings for the popular band Vampire Weekend. The story also revealed that Koenig came from a wealthy family, is based in NYC, and was found by her editor after The Huffington Post featured her blog. Suddenly that “Tumblr-to-book deal” thing doesn’t seem so magical, does it? Sure, she used the platform, but there are other factors behind her story and those of numerous others that go beyond the use of Tumblr. (On a similar note: There’s also far more to Gary Vaynerchuk’s social media success story too.)
I don’t mention all of this to knock Tumblr. I actually like the service and used to use it. I mention this because we’ve now established that Tumblr, an unprofitable company for its entire existence, was acquired for more than a billion dollars, and that this unprofitable company was extensively promoted publicly by an investor who was simultaneously selling advice on how to use that company’s services in books, speeches, interviews, and videos.
While we’re on that subject, Gary Vaynerchuk also owns shares in Twitter, which is likewise disclosed on his website. Twitter is preparing to go public, although the timing of that is the subject of rumor at this point. It’s a bit harder to know if Twitter is profitable. There was a flare-up involving a statement that Fred Wilson, an early Twitter investor, had made that some took to indicate that Twitter was profitable, which he would then later clarify and say he doesn’t know if they’re profitable or not.
Here’s what we do know: Like with Tumblr, Gary Vaynerchuk was constantly and publicly peddling Twitter in his books, presentations, and interviews. At one point, he was encouraging The New York Jets, a client of his social media consulting firm, Vaynermedia, to start a trend among Jets fans to use a hashtag of #J_E_T_S_JETS_JETS_JETS on Twitter after every touchdown. Of course, if you’re a Jets fan, you know that your fellow Jets fans are mostly illiterate, racist, and don’t know what a Twitter is, but that’s beside the point. What is the point is that Gary was using his social media consulting firm, which sells advice including how to use Twitter, to encourage a multi-million dollar brand to use a company that he owns shares in.
Although these relationships are disclosed on Gary Vaynerchuk’s website, is that sufficient enough to inform consumers of his relationship with these companies? What about Vaynermedia’s clients? Are they told what social media platform the owner of this social media consulting service has a financial interest in? Can we reasonably assume that everyone who has ever read Gary’s books, listened or watched his interviews, seen his speeches, have in turn visited his website and saw that disclosure notice? Are his investments disclosed in those books and speeches?
You might be thinking, “So what?”, or worse still, the deeply cynical “the rich get richer.” You’re right on the latter, but I think this is bullshit. It may not be illegal, but consumers should be protected from potentially deceptive practices, and know who benefits from the information that’s being provided. Especially when it comes to social media.
B.J. Mendelson has sold 7,000 copies of his book on zero budget, helped get a television show into 40 million homes on ABC, and lives in and out of hotels across America. Contact him at BJ@BJMendelson.com. Contact the editor at devon@socialtimes.com. Image by Matthias Pahl.
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How Tumblr Can Make Money And Not Piss Us Off
The debate swirling online about how Tumblr (and by extension, Yahoo) can make ad money without alienating a fickle hipster audience is fairly straightforward, if you know how Tumblr works.
Most users would be pissed off if Tumblr put ads a/ on their blogs (extremely pissed off), or b/ in their dashboard stream of Tumblr posts from followed blogs (really pissed off). We consider that our territory, because it is by us, for us.
On the other hand, the Tumblr tags area has a definitely different feel to it, and therefore I think people would be more accepting of Tumblr going more mercantile there. First of all, if I am looking at the stream of all posts tagged ‘Yahoo’ or ‘Tech’ I expect to see posts from strangers, people that I am not following. Therefore, the tag stream does not feel like a personal space, one defined by me. Following a tag is not like following a person, it’s like visiting a museum.
Second of all, a handful of the most followed tags are curated by Tumblr. In these cases, Tumblr has expended time and energy to contact and work with leading Tumblrs knowledgeable about ‘Architecture’ or ‘Movies’ or ‘Food’, and then handing over curatorial tools to that group to pull in the most interesting and insightful posts relative to the tag.
Placing even a fairly sizable chunk of those tag pages to ad space — especially if the editors were somehow involved in deciding that the ads were relevant to the topic — wouldn’t run against the grain, I think. Moreover, the ads themselves could be made to feel like Tumblr posts, too, like Tumblr Radar — selected posts of general interest — currently does.
Perhaps it’s so obvious that it can go unsaid, but clearly some camera company would be willing to pay a substantial sum of money to have tens of thousands of people daily see its offerings when they visit the Tumblr ‘Photography’ tag page. Likewise for the pages associated with ‘Cars’, ‘Weddings’, ‘Wine’, ‘Tattoos’, and ‘Russian Brides’. Ok, forget the ‘Russian Brides’, but the rest stays.
So the answer for Yahoo is tag stream advertising.
The best angle might be for companies to use the space as a mini curation. For example, IBM might rent the space on ‘Social Business’, and curate great content on that topic from around the world. This would actually be providing a great service, since Tumblr doesn’t have curation on that topic yet. It might actually help pull the community into Tumblr, just for the sake of accessing that content.
At any rate, given the near infinity of topics that are of interest to groups of people, and the ready-made, bottom-up nature of tags, Yahoo could be selling Tumblr participation in this way on tens of thousands of tag pages, and Tumblrs would feel like they are better off, not dissed.
On a completely unrelated topic, Tumblr Pro could have legs, too. For example, I would be willing to pay $5/month, let’s say, to be able to pull any RSS feed into my Tumblr stream, so that posts from friends’ non-Tumblr blogs would just show up. Or the Bits Blog from the NY Times, or dozens of others. Tumblr could make money collecting fees for the Financial Times, or other paywalled destinations. There are obviously other premier services that people would be willing to pay for, over and above this pull-to-read service.
Social Media Newsfeed: Oklahoma Tornado Captured on Social Media | It’s Official: Yahoo Buys Tumblr
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Vast Oklahoma Tornado Kills at Least 91 (The New York Times)
Emergency crews and volunteers continued to work through the early morning hours Tuesday in a frantic search for survivors of a huge tornado that ripped through parts of Oklahoma City and its suburbs, killing at least 91 people, 20 of them children, and flattening whatever was in its path, including at least two schools. Much of the tornado damage appeared to be in the suburb of Moore, where rescue workers struggled to make their way through debris-clogged streets and around downed power lines to those who are feared trapped under mountains of rubble. USA Today Amy Elliott of the state’s medical examiner’s office said today that officials could see as many as 40 more deaths from Monday’s twister. On May 3, 1999, a record-setting EF-5 tornado obliterated the city of 55,000 with winds measured at 318 mph, the highest ever on the earth’s surface. The storm killed 36 people, injured hundreds and caused about $1 billion in damages. Mashable A Facebook group is helping the victims of the tornado. On its trail of destruction, the tornado has blown debris from houses — including people’s personal belongings and important documents — many miles away. The group asks members to post photos of any items or documents that were blown into their yard, so that they can be returned to the rightful owners. RYOT News One man, David Massey, captured some amazing footage of the damage via Vine after emerging from safety. Here are his videos. The Huffington Post Twitter responded with prayers for the victims and hope for survivors. Here are a few of those prayers so far. Boston.com Kevin Durant, a three-time scoring champion for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, posted on his Twitter account that he was praying for everyone involved. He added: “Everybody stay safe!”
Yahoo Confirms Plans to Acquire, But Not ‘Screw Up,’ Tumblr (SocialTimes)
Yahoo has officially announced its plans to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Much like Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram in 2012, Yahoo’s latest purchase will bring the company a younger user base with the promise of more revenue. The Wall Street Journal In an interview Monday, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said buying Tumblr instantly boosts Yahoo’s user base by 50 percent to 1 billion, and Web traffic by 20 percent, “which is really heartening.” Mayer has said repeatedly that increasing Yahoo’s “impressions,” or the number of Web page views and other interactions on Yahoo’s sites, would be the only way to boost revenue. Business Insider Now that Yahoo has announced its acquisition of Tumblr, Karp could be worth north of $220 million. Even though Karp has found great success without attending college, yet alone finishing traditional high school, he doesn’t recommend kids these days drop out of school. USA Today Tumblr could be the crown jewel in Mayer’s major reclamation project of Yahoo, which is competing with Google and Facebook for billions of dollars in advertising revenue. At a press conference in New York, Yahoo unfurled a revamped version of photo-sharing site Flickr, featuring big, bolder photos and an Android app. The New York Times Yahoo is moving its New York headquarters to the former home of The New York Times, on 43rd Street, east of Eighth Avenue, where it plans to expand. Yahoo is talking to city officials about erecting a large illuminated sign with its name on the cupola at the top of the building, where The Times once had its own sign.
Report: Facebook Testing Video-Sharing Feature (AllFacebook)
In January, Facebook prevented Twitter-owned video-sharing application Vine from accessing its find friends application-programming interface. Now, according to one report, the social network may be testing a video-sharing feature of its own.
AT&T to Open Mobile Video Chat for All Customers (CNET)
AT&T customers should be able to use any mobile video chat app before too much longer. Preloaded video-chat apps will work over AT&T’s cellular network for all customers, regardless of device or data plan, by the end of 2013, according to a statement from AT&T. The Verge Video chat has been a hot-button issue for AT&T, which long blocked iOS users from making FaceTime calls over its network. Last year, that changed, with customers on non-unlimited plans allowed to access it. TechCrunch From the sounds of it, Google won’t have to first “enable” (ask for permission?) in order for Hangouts to work. Even though it’s a pre-loaded app, it will just begin working regardless of the customer’s current data plan.
Busted: Microsoft Intercepts, Decrypts and Reads Your Skype Messages (VentureBeat)
Speaking of video, according to a test by ars technica, Microsoft is intercepting, decrypting and reading at least some Skype messages — to the point where URLs embedded in Skype chat are being visited by machines at IP addresses belonging to Microsoft … most likely a bot, but potentially a human being. “And this can only happen,” ars’ security expert Dan Goodin writes, “if Microsoft can convert the messages into human-readable form at will.”
Couple Suing Twitter to Have Handle Returned to Them (AllTwitter)
A couple in Idaho had a Twitter handle for three years and lost it because a resort going by the same name wanted the handle. According to ABC News, Leonard Barshack and Erin Smith are suing Twitter and Sun Valley Resort to stop the resort from using the @SunValley handle (which it’s using right now).
Voice of San Diego Switches to WordPress — and Adds a Bunch of Other Cool Features (10,000 Words)
Monday, the Voice of San Diego relaunched its website with new software that uses technology to help amplify those goals. It realized that its old CMS was holding them back and relaunched a spiffy new design in a move from which the rest of us in the new industry could surely learn.
Facebook Debuts Share Dialog for iOS Out of Beta, Lets Developers Add Sharing to Apps with One Line of Code (The Next Web)
Facebook on Monday announced the release of its native Share Dialog, which lets iOS developers add sharing capabilities from the social network to their app with just one line of code. The feature is now available in the Facebook SDK for iOS.
Pinterest Delivers Pin Buttons to Other Mobile Apps (SocialTimes)
As part of a flurry of activity, Pinterest Monday announced that it had launched “Pin It” buttons in several popular craft, photo and commerce apps. Etsy, one of the first websites to include “Pin It” buttons on all of its photos, joins the first cohort of mobile apps to get the buttons.
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