Social Network User Loyalty Erratic

I've mentioned before how social networks are in a fad business. Recent data from Nielsen Online suggests that even more strongly. The rapid change in the fortunes of social media companies are enough to make your eyes cross -- and to reconsider just how most tech companies should hedge their strategic bets, given that today's sure thing can become tomorrow's has-been. Here's a look at the Nielsen NetView data, via the Center for Media Research, comparing minutes of use:

• Jul 3, 2009

Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz Selling More Than $1M in Shares

Every new CEO of a troubled company comes in with rolling thunder and promise that things will be better, telling employees to have faith. So what kind of signal does one give when selling more than $1 million in shares after six months on the job? Maybe not a good one. And who does it? Carol Bartz of Yahoo.

• Jul 3, 2009

Tech Companies Whine About State Mandates

There's been talk for years of state governments pushing for taxes on Internet product sales by out-of-state companies. And now you can add pressure for electronics companies to pay for recycling when their products reach end-of-life. But what the industry is about to learn is that it's actually been largely charmed when it came to government regulation. Now it may be time to recognize what many other types of businesses have: you can grimace and you can fight, but sometimes all you can do is find ways to deal with official requirements as smoothly as possible. Whining -- we've been hearing a lot of it -- only serves to tick off people and put companies squarely in the sites of government.

• Jul 2, 2009

New Salesforce Strategy: 'Amplify And Extend'

Salesforce.com doesn't think that large enterprises should have to replace software and infrastructure in which they've already invested huge amounts. Peter Coffee, director of platform research at Salesforce, told me over the phone this morning that the sotware-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor is trying ...

• Jul 2, 2009

Making A LinkedIn For Twitter

Back in the days before Facebook, no one would have ever suggested that businesses get involved with social networks. Can you imagine someone suggesting to Michael Dell that his company ought to have a MySpace page? Today, not only does Dell Computer Company have a Facebook page but Michael Dell ...

• Jul 2, 2009

Can Anyone Make A Handheld Anymore?

Either handheld device customers have become the biggest bunch of whiners in history, or there's something seriously wrong with overly-hyped products coming out of Silicon Valley. My colleague Erik Sherman has reported about Apple's new iPhone 3G S overheating so much that some customers are repo...

• Jul 1, 2009

iPhone Overtaking Nokia Worldwide

Nokia has lost its overall market share leadership in the worldwide smartphone segment to Apple, based on browser calls for mobile ads. Why is mobile ad share important? Because in the smartphone segment, the tail wags the dog -- apps drive customer loyalty more than hardware features -- and Gart...

• Jul 6, 2009

Google Adds Enterprise Contact Features to Apps [UPDATE]

In a telephone conversation today discussing Google's strategy for Google Apps, director of products Matt Glotzbach mentioned a new set of enterprise specific enhancements for contact management in Google Apps. This is significant because contact management, at least according to the users I've spoken with, has been considered a big weakness of the product line.

• Jul 1, 2009

More iPhone Overheating, Now 3GS, But Problem Old, Continuing

Apple is known for innovative design and great user interfaces. But quality assurance? Not so much. There's a new problem that has been appearing, this time in the latest iPhone 3GS. Overheating has been causing a number of white cases to discolor, even after the short time people have had them. But then, can you call a problem "new" when some number of iPhone users have dealt with it for two years?

• Jul 1, 2009

Palm Red-Faced from CFO Resume Pumping [UPDATED]

Congrats to Eric Savitz at Barron's Tech Trader Daily for uncovering that Palm CFO Douglas Jeffries has been claiming to be a CPA, even though he hasn't been registered as such since 1984. But there is at least one other odditity at the moment: just who did he work for before joining Palm?

• Jul 1, 2009

Rackspace Isn't A Cloud Vendor, It's A Tech Vendor

Hosting and cloud computing vendor Rackspace suffered an hour-long shortage yesterday, as my colleague Erik Sherman discussed. Erik quite correctly notes that cloud vendors have to overcome fears about cloud security and availability that are exacerbated by exactly this kind of incident. The sad ...

• Jul 1, 2009

Rackspace Outage Shows Delicacy of Cloud [UPDATED]

According to sister site CNET, hosting company Rackspace experienced an outage today. This is the type of incident that will have to become as uncommon as eggplants with wings before cloud computing can get the wide enterprise adoption that so many pundits and vendors insist is just around the corner.

• Jul 1, 2009

June Tech Job Cuts Down from May

We got the May job cut numbers from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, and announced job cuts hit a 15-month low. In high tech -- which we've been taking to be electronics, computers, and telecom, though there is undoubtedly some high tech falling unseen into other categories -- the announced cuts in June were down 56.3 percent compared to May, when the sector bucked the general trend and actually saw an increase in planned job cuts compared to the rest of the economy.

• Jul 1, 2009

Look Out Microsoft: Google Jailbreaks Handset Category

You may have heard about Dell's plan to develop a pocket-sized web device that would provide Internet connectivity but no cell phone service. Add the two of those statements together, and you get the real news: Google is officially in the wider device OS race.

• Jul 1, 2009

Facebook Developing Mobile Payment Future

There's no doubt that Facebook is developing a Web payment platform to rival those of Google, Amazon and eBay (PayPal). But Facebook may also be looking to crack one of the biggest nuts in the online payment world, which is mobile. Facebook spokesperson Kathleen Loughlin confirmed reports that the s...

• Jul 1, 2009

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