By Gilbert Falso :: 12:06 AM
TechCrunch has announced the final seven winners of its 2011 Disrupt show, naming Shaker, an avatar-styled chat room built on a user’s Facebook profile as the top winner of the Disrupt Cup.
The first runner up was awarded to Prism Skylabs, an application that hooks into a company’s surveillance cameras for real-time footage and analysis.
The remaining five were: Bitcasa, CakeHealth, TalkTo, Farmigo, and Trello.
By Gilbert Falso :: 11:53 PM
It looks like Facebook is putting the brakes on its initial public offering. It has been widely reported that the social network is looking to move the date for their planned IPO from April, 2012 until later in the year.
People familiar with the workings of Mark Zuckerberg’s company told the Financial Times he wants his employees focusing on developing new products for the platform right now, rather than on concentrating on their IPO payouts.
Larry Yu, Facebook’s spokesman stated to the Los Angeles Times, “as is our typical practice, we just don’t get into speculation about an IPO.”
Other Internet powerhouses such as Zynga and Evernote also have IPOs that have been pushed back, but theirs are due to current market conditions, while Facebook’s is more of an internal matter.
IPO or not, Facebook will have to begin releasing quarterly financial numbers to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the first quarter of 2012. This is due to regulations set forth in a section of the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act known as the “500 rule.†Once a private company has over 500 investors, it must begin releasing quarterly financial information.
It is estimated that Facebook’s valuation could top out at over $100 billion. Not bad for a Harvard dropout.
By Paul Thomson :: 6:28 PM
Facebook has announced an easier way for users to share photos, posts and updates with a smaller, more limited group of friends.
A feature called Smart Lists began to roll out last week. It automatically groups friends, and is similar to the Circles concept on Google+ .
Facebook will now automatically group your friends based on whether they work at the same place with you you, are related to you, went to school with you or live nearby.You will also have the ability to share information with just these Smart Lists rather than all of friends list.
You can now also distinguish between close friends and acquaintances. Setting up a “close friends” list will make updates from those people show up more often in your timeline, while those from acquaintances will show up with less frequency.
The new features are a direct response to the granular settings allowed by Google+, and is part of Facebook’s strategy to give its users better control over how they use the network.
By Paul Thomson :: 4:49 PM
Microsoft today unveiled a new version of its Windows operating system that will run on handheld touch-screen computers and tablets, and is directly focused on narrowing the lead of Apple’s iPad 3 in the tablet market.
The Redmond, Washington-based company showcased Windows 8 at a conference for developers in Anaheim, California earlier today, without committing to a sale date.
Developers will be allowed to download a preview of the program this evening. It will allow personal computers and tablets to turn on instantly and run all day on a single battery charge.
Microsoft has been under market pressure to release a new version of the Windows operating system that is capable of running smaller, tablet computers with battery life close to that of the iPad. Windows 8’s design closely mimics Microsoft’s software for mobile phones in its use of digital tiles in place of standard icons to assist users in moving between applications.
By Gilbert Falso :: 4:32 PM
Twitter has announced the launch of Twitter Web Analytics, a tool that will assist website owners in understanding how much traffic they receive from Twitter and the effectiveness of any Twitter integrations they have on their sites.
The birth of Twitter’s analytics platform was driven by the company’s acquisition of BackType in July. The new platform will allow users to get a better understanding of how much of their website content is being shared across the Twitter network, and see the amount of traffic driven to their sites from Twitter.
Currently, Twitter plans to roll the platform out this week slowly, to a select group of pre-identified partners. The product will be made available to all website owners within the next few weeks.
Twitter has also said that they are committed to releasing an API for developers interested in incorporating Twitter data into their products.