When you’re a tween or teen who just has to repost that great porn GIF you just found, Facebook really isn’t the place to do it. It’s not that porn GIFs are any less appreciated by Facebook users, of course, but rather that young users are often tracked by their parents on the world’s top social network. As a result, a recent Pew Research study found that teenagers are moving away from Facebook and finding a new home on Tumblr. More →
As Pandora struggles to fight off a new wave of competition from the likes of industry giants like Google and Apple, the company recently announced a new feature that could definitely boost interest in its services. Dubbed “Pandora Premieres,” the new feature allows users to stream new albums in their entirety a week before they are released to the public. Upcoming albums can be streamed on-demand from start to finish for one week until they are released, and then they will be mixed in with Pandora’s standard streaming radio offering. Pandora Premieres is available to Pandora subscribers at pandora.com/premieres, and the company’s full press release follows below. More →
We all know that the PC industry is in dire straits at the moment, which has naturally led to speculation that Microsoft could also soon find itself in big trouble. But while Microsoft’s struggles to establish itself in the mobile consumer device market are well-documented, the company still has an ace up its sleeve in the form of enterprise cloud services. Barron’s points us to a new note from UBS analyst Brent Thill, who makes the case that Microsoft cloud offerings such as Office 365 and SkyDrive have the potential to give the company a more predictable revenue stream and make the company more like IBM, which for years has raked in high earnings despite being out of the consumer electronics spotlight. More →
When Google unveiled its new Hangouts service last week, keen observers noted that there was a glaring omission in the company’s effort to cobble together all its messaging services onto one platform: Google Voice. But a new Google+ post from Google director of real-time communications Nikhyl Singhal suggests that Hangouts users won’t have to wait for Voice much longer. Specifically, Singhal says that while “today’s version of Hangouts doesn’t yet support outbound calls on the web and in the Chrome extension,” it will “support inbound calls to your Google Voice number.” He then adds that the company is “working hard on supporting both, and outbound/inbound calls will soon be available.” Singhal also says that Hangouts are “the future of Google Voice,” so it’s pretty clear that Google is placing all of its messaging service chips onto Hangouts for the foreseeable future.
The days leading up to a big industry event like Google I/O are always packed with leaks and this week has been no different. Among the details trickling out ahead of Google’s big day is confirmation that a complete overhaul of Google Maps will debut during the keynote on Wednesday. Or, it would have debuted had Google not leaked it ahead of time. Droid Life managed to grab screenshots of the new Google Maps’ sign-up page when it accidentally went live briefly on Tuesday night, and they reveal what appears to be a terrific reimagining of Google’s popular mapping service. Changes include a brand new layout, new search features and new ways to highlight the “things that matter most.” Additional images showcasing Google Maps’ new design follow below and the rest of the screenshots can be viewed by following the source link beneath them. More →
Apple’s negotiations with Warner Music and Sony Music to launch its “iRadio” streaming music service have hit a snag, The Financial Times reported. Earlier reports suggested Apple was close to striking deals with two major labels, and Universal Music has reportedly already agreed to terms that will see its catalog made available on Apple’s upcoming streaming music service, which should be similar to those offered by Pandora and Spotify. Apple’s most recent offer to Sony and Warner was 12.5 cents per 100 streamed tracks, the report claims, but neither label has accepted the terms at this point. According to FT, they want Apple to pay more than the standard rate paid by Pandora and similar services because of its “broader ambitions for iRadio.” It is unclear exactly how Apple plans to structure the upcoming service, which the company seemingly hopes to launch this summer.
A statistical analysis of Google’s track record has found that more than one out of every three services Google launches ends up being shut down. Gwern.net recently published an extensive analysis of Google’s launches over the years in an effort to find closure patterns and maybe even predict which current and new services might be shuttered in the future. In doing so, the site found that a sizable chunk of Google’s product portfolio — 35% — has been shut down over the years. More →
Here’s a good way for Microsoft to attract new users to its Outlook web mail platform that doesn’t involve convincing people that Gmail is too scary to use. Microsoft’s Skype blog announced this week that it has started rolling out a preview version of Outlook that will give users the ability to make Skype calls directly from their web browsers. The video demonstration that Microsoft has posted of Skype in Outlook shows that the integration is very smooth — when you click over someone’s email profile, you can now see voice and video calling icons that you can click to connect with someone over Skype. The preview version of Outlook is launching in the United Kingdom this week and will roll out in the United States over the next couple of weeks. Microsoft’s full video of Skype in Outlook is posted below. More →
Apple’s artist-driven music network “Ping” was basically dead on arrival, but Twitter thinks it has what it takes to make a successful social music service. The company on Thursday unveiled Twitter Music, the worst-kept secret in social networking. The service helps users discover music based on what their friends are listening to, along with recommendations from popular artists. “It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists,” Twitter said in a blog post. “It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.” Twitter Music will be available on the web and on Apple’s iPhone at launch, but Twitter plans to expand it to other platforms moving forward.
Whether or not Google (GOOG) is actually happy that Facebook (FB) has just launched software intended to take over Android home screens is certainly up for debate. But the company is doing its best to put on a happy face following the announcement, and it tells VentureBeat that Facebook Home “demonstrates the openness and flexibility that has made Android so popular.” That said, Google couldn’t resist nudging its own services into the conversation by saying that Home is “a win for users who want a customized Facebook experience from Google Play — the heart of the Android ecosystem — along with their favorite Google services like Gmail, Search, and Google Maps.” In other words, Google is sending a gentle reminder to potential Facebook Home fans that their phones will still have plenty of Google services for them to use even if they choose to clog up their home screens with status updates.
Apple (AAPL) has Ping, Microsoft (MSFT) has Zune, and now BlackBerry’s (BBRY) BBM Music can be added to the list of failed music ventures embarked upon by consumer electronics companies. As the reinvigorated smartphone vendor fights to stage a comeback in 2013, it is also apparently still trimming the fat. The latest addition to the chopping block will be BBM Music, the curious service that gave users access to 50 songs of their choosing as well as songs chosen by each of their BBM contacts. ”BBM Music service will be discontinued as of June 2, 2013,” BlackBerry said in a letter to customers picked up by CrackBerry. “For paying customers, April is the last month that you will be billed. In May, as your BBM contacts stop using the service, songs in your playlists will begin to turn grey and will no longer be available.”
Skype just announced proudly that its users spend 2 billion minutes a day on Skype calls. It’s a big achievement, for sure… but considering how long Skype has been around, it’s also somewhat underwhelming. According to company comments from 2011, the average video call length was 27 minutes. If we estimate that the average Skype call including both voice and video calling is closer to 20 minutes, the 2 billion minutes a day figure would translate roughly to 100 million calls per day. This sounds decent enough — except that a cluster of mobile messaging app companies that debuted just a couple of years ago have already moved far beyond that level. More →
