Flickr co-founder launches Findery app to be the “Google of where”
A Flickr co-founder has been quietly compiling a map of the world’s stories in an attempt to transform location-based apps from drab star-based ratings and recommendations into a lively map packed with history, culture and personal tales.
From the historical Blue plaques that line London streets to maps of subcultures such as “Punk Rock in Chicago”, Caterina Fake’s new app Findery aims to help users discover new places in a more imaginative way. Read more
Why Getty Images is giving away 30m photos for free
Big media companies owned by profit-hungry private equity groups don’t normally give their core products away for free.
But Getty Images, which was acquired for $3.3bn by Carlyle in 2012, is doing just that. The world’s largest supplier of stock photos has made more than 30m images available to people to share for free on their blogs and social media sites, including tumblr, WordPress and Twitter.
This is not charity, however. Behind the move lies cold commercial logic. It’s all about data, control and advertising. Read more
Jawbone hopes to hook caffeine addicts with new Coffee tracker app
In a mobile world where single-serving apps are replacing vast monolithic services, Jawbone on Thursday poured out a shot of Coffee: its new caffeine-consumption tracking app.
The move to a standalone app that does not require its Up wristband to work is a first for Jawbone, which is raising $250m in new funding. It comes as part of a big push by Jawbone to up its game in software and services, as step-counting gadgets fast become a commodity. Read more
Sean Parker leaves Founders Fund, not part of latest $1bn fund
Hold the Sean Parker jokes about $1bn.
It was Justin Timberlake, playing Mr Parker in The Social Network, who delivered the famous line: “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool?”
Founders Fund has just raised its first $1bn fund – but Mr Parker has now officially cut his ties with the firm. Read more
WhatsApp founders’ secret weapon: five-year-old phones
It was just a regular Tuesday afternoon in Mountain View’s Red Rock coffee shop: rows of young entrepreneurs sitting behind their MacBook screens, working on what they hope might be the next WhatsApp.
The low-key cafe served as an office for Brian Acton and Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s founders, when they were starting out back in 2009. It was here that Sequoia’s Jim Goetz met them in 2011 before becoming their only venture-capital investor. WhatsApp’s modest, unmarked offices are still just around the corner. Read more
In the canon of Apple top executive departures following the death of Steve Jobs, the retirement of numbers guy Peter Oppenheimer should give the least cause for concern. Read more
Chris Garidis, 32, one of the pioneers of the FT’s award-winning mobile apps, product manager, squash player, wannabe surfer, and proud father, died on Monday, February 24th in Barcelona, Spain. Chris worked in London but lived in Bath with his wife, Aimi and their 18-month-old daughter Alice. Read more
Why the music industry’s “fat head” is eating its “long tail”
Technological utopians have been predicting for years that the internet will weaken the dominance of superstar artists in the music industry and enrich the teeming masses of smaller, niche creators.
But new research suggests that this “long tail” theory is wrong: superstars are capturing the vast majority of music revenues and their share is increasing – not decreasing – because of the rise of digital services like iTunes and Spotify.
The top 1 per cent of artists – the likes of Rihanna and Adele – accounted for a whopping 77 per cent of recorded music income in 2013, according to research by Mark Mulligan of Midia Consulting. Read more
Almost five years after launching, crowd-funding platform Kickstarter has received pledges worth $1bn. Half of the money has apparently been in the past twelve months (see chart below).
If Kickstarter were a venture fund, it would be a fairly significant player. So how exactly has humanity been enriched, for its money? Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
Robert Cookson is the FT's digital media correspondent in London. He
covers digital enterprise in media, from the music industry to local newspapers and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. A former Hong Kong markets correspondent, he is interested in the interplay
between old media and new technologies.
Hannah Kuchler writes about technology and Silicon Valley from the FT's San Francisco bureau. She covers social media including Facebook and Twitter and the dark and mysterious world of cybersecurity. Hannah has worked for the FT in London, Hong Kong and New York, reporting on everything from British politics to the Chinese internet.
Older entries