GigaOm

Beyond hashtags: Instagram's next challenge is tackling big data

SAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said his company's big hurdle is knowing how to mine the constant stream of photos being uploaded each day to the popular network.

"Instagram isn't necessarily a photo company, or a communications company as I like to say, we're also going to be a big data company," he said today at the GigaOm Road Map conference in San Francisco.

Systrom said the company, recently purchased by Facebook, needs to find better ways to organize the billions of photos shared on Instagram. That means looking beyond hashtags for looking … Read more

Instagram CEO: Twitter's photo filters don't scare me

SAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said he has no problem with Twitter adding filters -- something Facebook-owned Instagram is known for -- to its photos.

"I don't think that in anyway threatens Instagram because Instagram is a community and not a filter app," Systrom said at the GigaOm's Road Map conference in San Francisco.

It's been reported that Twitter is planning to launch a filters feature in the coming months.

Systrom said adding filters to photos is now ubiquitous with photo sharing and photo apps, so Twitter jumping on the bandwagon is not … Read more

Google exec: "Surface is a very complicated strategy to pull off"

Google's senior vice president of Chrome and Apps, Sundar Pichai, gave Microsoft some credit for innovating with its new Surface platform. "I think form factors need a lot of innovation," he said in reference to Surface. "It looks like they put serious effort into it."

But he was more dubious about Microsoft's odds for success, and seemed to welcome the potential disruption Windows 8 might cause among long-time Microsoft users. 

"The Surface is a surprising announcement, to say the least," Pichai said at the GigaOm Structure conference in San Francisco. He … Read more

GigaOm acquires media blog paidContent

GigaOm, one of Silicon Valley's best-known blogs, said today it has acquired the assets from ContentNext Media, parent company of media blog paidContent, from publisher Guardian News & Media.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

"PaidContent is the leading voice covering the evolution of media, an area that is very important to us," said Paul Walborsky, CEO of GigaOM. "Integrating our teams will enrich our editorial coverage and expand our footprint immediately in two markets that are critical to our growth - New York City and the United Kingdom."

In addition to paidContent.org the other … Read more

Tech news site ReadWriteWeb acquired by Say Media

ReadWriteWeb, a popular tech news site, has been acquired by San Francisco-based Say Media.

The site's editor, Richard MacManus, announced the deal this morning, explaining that RWW will join Say's Technology channel, giving it access to more than 75 million monthly readers:

ReadWriteWeb is going to get bigger and even better. Our plans include widening ReadWriteWeb's editorial scope and expanding our team. That starts from today, with the addition of SplatF's Dan Frommer to our team as an editor-at-large. We will also be doing a redesign, utilizing the sophisticated designers at SAY Media. With SAY's … Read more

Netflix reportedly getting kid-friendly with new tab

Select Netflix members have been getting a new tab labeled "Just For Kids" in the main menu of the Netflix Web site, according to a GigaOm post.

When clicked, the tab opens a sliding bar of characters from a number of kid-friendly sources, including Nickelodeon and Disney, GigaOm explains. A click on one of those characters opens up a new page with access to TV shows and films starring that character. "Each episode is previewed with a screenshot," the post says, "and there is barely any text at all. Everything is optimized for instant playback … Read more

Report: MySpace may get Imeem in firesale

Om Malik over at GigaOm advanced the story about MySpace's efforts to acquire Imeem on Wednesday.

The news that Rupert Murdoch's MySpace was in talks to buy Imeem, a long struggling social-networking site focused on music, generated a lot of headlines on Tuesday.

Judging from the glut of media coverage but relatively few reader comments at some of the sites covering the story, this is one of those events that journalists care more about than the public (don't know what it's like at other sites, but MySpace stories don't generate big readership numbers).

Be that … Read more

A 'post-x86 world'? Preposterous!

I honestly don't know whether Om Malik's blog site, GigaOM, is intended to be informative or merely entertaining. I pointed out a previous example of the overwrought rhetoric that permeates that site last September (in the context of Comcast's then-new usage cap policy), but generally, I try to ignore the nonsense there for the same reasons that I ignore talk radio.

But like it or not, GigaOM is widely read, and sometimes when a post there bears directly on a market that's important to me, I can't bear to let it go. This is one … Read more

How to evaluate SaaS for your business

In the early days of software as a service applications like those of Salesforce.com, you were required to stick with the company's approach to processes. Users realized what the the issues were early on, but many SaaS providers still don't offer much in the way of customization.

But the lack of customization is starting to be addressed with the advent of platforms like Force.com. Through the adoption of platform-as-a-service options, businesses can customize SaaS applications much the same way one can develop software or modify an open-source product.

In outlining "7 Questions to Evaluate SaaS,&… Read more