Analysis Why iYomu, a Social Network for Old People, Expired iYomu was a social network designed for adults, that launched in August 2007 with a splashy $1 million competition. Less than a year later, the company has closed its doors. Turns out adults didn't want a separate social network after all, or at least not iYomu's one. In this post we explore why this New Zealand startup failed. It wasn't just… Richard MacManus View comments
Interviews People in Tech: Mike Dunn, VP Interactive Media, Hearst The technologists behind large companies are always fascinating. Unlike entrepreneurs, who often code their vision into software, CTOs channel their vision through the engineers working for them. CTOs of modern media companies are measured on their ability to bring innovation to the market quickly. This installment of People in Tech features a… Alex Iskold View comments
News Rumor: Microsoft to Acquire Powerset for $100 Million Venturebeat reports that Microsoft might be close to acquiring the San Francisco based semantic search engine Powerset for about $100 Million. No announcement has been made yet by either party. We contacted Microsoft, but did not get an answer beyond "Microsoft does not comment on rumors or speculation." We will update this post once we receive… Frederic Lardinois View comments
Features Does Open Sourcing Niche Web Apps Work? Recently, we've seen a couple of our favorite web apps go open source. The code for FF To Go, the popular mobile client for FriendFeed developed by RSSMeme creator Benjamin Golub, is now available under the MIT license and Snackr, the RSS AIR app we adore has posted their source code on Google Code. Is this the start of a new trend for niche web… Sarah Perez View comments
Social Networks MySpace Releases Data Availability API Social networking site MySpace is releasing a set of APIs later today that will allow developers to implement protocols for exchanging and synchronizing user profiles between their own applications and MySpace profiles. Users can share their basic profile information, as well as their MySpace photos, videos, and friend list. As we reported… Social Frederic Lardinois View comments