Web sites

Three years ago (an eternity in the social media world), Facebook was trying to become more like Twitter. Facebook, while big, wasn't the dominant force it is today, and Twitter was growing at record speeds.

This scared Facebook, of course, so Zuckerberg and his team set out to counter the Twitter threat with updates of their own. Facebook added public status updates and a real-time search engine. It even released Facebook Lite, a simplified Facebook interface that drew a lot fo comparisons to Twitter's sparse and simplistic design.

Fast-forward to today. Facebook has grown to 950+ million users … Read more

The screen grab above is from The Crowdwire, a new, noncommercial project that among other things looks at the success of the political campaigns in regard to branding and social media.

As you can see, in this snapshot for the period July 16 to August 15 the brand of President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, figure in the top three most-discussed brands on social media (I was surprised to see that the Batman movie came in only at fourth place considering the fact that the Colorado shootings took place July 20).

The Crowdwire (@TheCrowdwire on Twitter), a … Read more

When I meet friends in person these days, I often ask if they have any new apps on their phone I should know about. I've learned about useful new and new-to-me apps as well as frivolous, waste-of-time apps this way (some only work on Android, which I don't have at the moment, but are still worth hearing about). 

I'll tell you about one my favorite newish apps, one I use every day, in a moment, but want to invite you to tell me about your favorites, too (the less commonplace the better, of course). Please tell … Read more

Yahoo has pulled off an incredible coup. Forget Carol Bartz, Scott Thompson, and Ross Levinsohn -- Marissa Mayer is Yahoo's new CEO.

I can't stress how much of a coup this is for Yahoo. Mayer, Google's 20th employee and first female employee, was one of the search giant's most recognizable faces. She ran product for Google's search engine for years before being relegated to Google's local products. It was clear her influence in the company had waned, which may be why it wasn't a hard decision for her to leave the comfortable world … Read more

Sometime in the next 12 months, Google Chrome will become the world's most popular browser, knocking Microsoft's Internet Explorer off the mountain it has ruled for more than a decade.

This fact should scare the pants off of Facebook.

In July 2008, IE controlled 68.5 percent of the market, according to Statcounter, while Chrome wasn't even on the market. Now Microsoft's browser is down to 34.8 percent market share while Chrome controls 30.9 percent of total browser usage. Chrome has grown by a percentage point the last few months, while IE has dropped … Read more

Facebook and Groupon are two of the world's largest Internet companies, but their trajectories couldn't be any more different. One will become the largest Internet IPO in history, while the other can't find a way to stop its freefall.

I can't help but feel sorry for Groupon. In just the last two weeks, Groupon revised its fourth-quarter revenue downward due to higher merchant refunds, was hit with a shareholder lawsuit and took a beating from the press.

The result: Groupon's stock price has fallen off a cliff, and then some. Once worth $26.19 per … Read more

Former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz says the idea for a health care site like CareZone had been germinating for about a decade.

But it wasn't until two years ago that he had some time to really devote to it. It was then that he and his good friend Walter Smith, one of the creators of the Apple Newton, sat down to talk about how they could make a difference in the lives of people who are caring for elderly parents or for children who have issues--people who want a safe place to store medical records and share access to … Read more

The New England Journal of Medicine, the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world (it celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2012), is now offering up its content on the iPad.

The journal says the iPad edition of its weekly, peer-reviewed content includes audio, video, expandable images, and features such as sharing, searching, and notating.

"We know that you're busy, and you want to have the relevant clinical information you need, right at your fingertips," reported the journal on its blog this week.

The app is available free for download at the iTunes App Store. Current journal … Read more

Is that a QR code in your pocket, or do you just want to tell the world where you last had sex?

Turns out the answer could be "both."

The scannable codes have been popping up on (of all things) condom wrappers--to enable users to post the location of their sexual activity online.

No, it's not a check-in app for orgy-goers (VCs take note--that opportunity may still be available). It's part of an effort by the Seattle-area chapter of Planned Parenthood to hook up with members of the social-media generation.

Taking a cue from check-in sites like Foursquare, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest has been handing out the specially stickered rubbers to college students. The students are encouraged to scan the codes after sex to go to a Web site where they can anonymously post the approximate whereabouts of their recent safe-sex tryst to an online map.… Read more