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Sonar brings iOS style social discovery to Android

Sonar is riding a wave of social discovery apps that includes Banjo, Glancee and Highlight, but it isn't a newcomer. The New York based startup has made the rounds on iOS for the better part of a year, but today it's available in beta on Android to a handful of lucky readers.

Like others in the field, Sonar enables you to make meaningful connections with people around you -- people you wouldn't otherwise have known. It works by aggregating geolocation data across social networks and then creating relational correlations among individuals based on shared connections. So if … Read more

Twitter co-founder Dorsey's advice to young innovators

Despite his formidable success, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey can offer would-be entrepreneurs a relatively simple formula: keep pushing ahead without ever feeling as if you've made it. Of course, Dorsey, who helped build a multibillion-dollar smash success, remains in a class by himself, and business success on any level is more complicated than a matter of keeping your eyes on the horizon. But speaking with CBS News, Dorsey boiled down his advice to people hitting the startup trail to a simple start:

"I think the biggest thing to do -- the hardest thing to do -- is start. … Read more

Metrics Watch: What does Square's $4B in transactions really mean?

Jack Dorsey and the brass at Square--the startup he runs when he's not doing duty as executive chairman of Twitter, the other company he co-founded--always gets amazing press.

And often deservedly so. Square's main product, a sleek device that turns the iPhone into a credit card processor, is a game changer for many. It's made it easy for individuals and small vendors to accept credit cards with little hassle, paying a flat transaction fee of 2.75 percent.

Square late Sunday blasted out news about a new product, an iPad app called Square Register, that won it … Read more

Foursquare's latest move: A partnership with Time

Time and Foursquare today announced an arrangement making them exclusive partners for the 2012 Democratic and Republican political conventions.

Individuals checking in or around either of the conventions will be able to unlock unique badges from Time and Foursquare. For those of you who aren't badge collectors, Time will use Foursquare to aggregate and visualize updates, "from reporters, newsmakers, and VIPs as they check in."

In addition to this partnership, Foursquare has made a number of other announcements in recent days. Earlier this week, it dispatched with Google Maps in favor of the OpenStreetMap movement.

It's … Read more

Gripevine, a new way to kvetch about customer service

Attention all those who like to gripe about lousy customer service and companies (I'm looking at you AT&T and airlines everywhere) that tend to provide it: there's a new place for people to get their complaints heard, and it means business.

The site is called Gripevine, and it's more than a platform like Facebook and Twitter on which frustrated customers can broadcast their complaints and hope for a response. Gripevine is signing up companies (for a fee) and has built a dashboard that automatically informs the targeted business of the complaint, offering them a chance … Read more

Highlight, the people discovery app that could change the world

Every year at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, hundreds of apps vie to do what Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Beluga, and Group.me have done over the years: Dominate the conversation and springboard to huge success.

Each of those apps became the talk of Austin, Texas, during SXSW because they were total game-changers when it came to how people communicated with each other. And because SXSW is the confluence of all the movers and shakers in the interactive community, there's no better place to have an app blow up. Succeed there, and the community will yell out your app'… Read more

AOL says bye-bye to Brizzly

Thing Labs is killing its social media client Brizzly.

When Brizzly launched in 2009, the Web-based client used Google Translate to offer inline translations of tweets. It also distinguished itself by providing definitions for topics trending on Twitter.

Trends would be its defining feature. Brizzly went so far as to launch the "Let's Be Trends" API, giving applications access to its trend information.

In 2010 AOL, acquired Thing Labs. Co-founder Grant Shellen said then on the startup's blog:

First things first: Brizzly is sticking around. Of course anything can happen in the future, but nowhere on … Read more

Why ambitious developers need more than just HTML5

Editor's note: This is a guest post by Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz, whose bio is below. CNET invited him to write about Yahoo's new approach to mobile development.

The much-hyped HTML5 Web standard is often positioned as the alternative to native application development. However, the reality is that WC3's HTML5 alone is not enough at this pivotal time in Web history. Which is why at Yahoo we're determined to return to our tech-first roots and help the Web evolve by pioneering the next application platform.

And guess what? It's more than HTML5.

We believe the answer is … Read more

Flipboard brings Cover Stories to iPad

Flipboard tonight unveiled a new version of its popular iPad app, an update led by the inclusion of Cover Stories, a feature that gives users a one-stop feed for the articles the service considers most relevant based on their social connections and what they've already read.

The new feature was introduced originally with Flipboard's iPhone app, and until now it hasn't been available for the iPad. But this new release makes Cover Stories a key component of the company's plan to make its app the best place for users to go to catch up on the … Read more