The “crowdsourced” question-and-answer site Quora raised more than a few eyebrows on Monday when it closed a new $50-million round of financing that values the fledgling company at $400 million, despite a conspicuous lack of scale when it comes to users. Is this just another example of the bubble-style funding rounds that have made Instagram and Pinterest the talk of the VC business, or a sign of how much power the “Facebook mafia” has in Silicon Valley? Or is Quora really onto something that c...  show all text

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The new Bing interface, with a healthy dose of social connections and discovery, is now live for all users. Bing’s announcement today says that anyone can access the new interface at www.bing.com/new, but you should also see a new message atop the Bing home page that invites you to try... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

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"Advertisers are learning and experimenting" with Facebook's ad business, says Facebook itself. GM's move shows the downside of making it up as you go.

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NBC may have been criticised for not streaming enough Olympics Games – but, in the U.K., the BBC plans to stream all 2,500 hours of this summer’s London 2012 events (up from 1,500 in 2008), in what it’s calling “the first proper digital Olympics.” “It’s the first time our audience gets total control,” BBC News & Knowledge GM Phil Fearnley said during a Tuesday briefing, in which executives showed products demonstrating already-announced plans to offer 24 alternate live HD streams (up from six ...  show all text

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Server teams are made up of the people who write and maintain the code that makes servers go, as well as those who keep that code working. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Google, and every other service in the world have one or more people in this role. When things go right, nobody notices, and they get no praise. When things go wrong, their phones ring at 3 in the morning, they're up fixing a new issue, and they're answering calls from every cog in the corporate ladder who's screaming ab...  show all text

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Sony snags screenwriting superstar Aaron Sorkin to write its screenplay about Apple's cofounder.

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I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. It’s not that the word “privilege” is incorrect, it’s that it’s not their word. When confronted with “privilege,” they fiddle with the word itself, and haul out the dictionaries and find every possible way to talk about the word but not any of the things the word signifies. So, the challenge: ...  show all text

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Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, went on trial at The Hague on Wednesday for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in the 1990s.

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Today, Flipboard introduces a major new addition: sound. Now you can enjoy all kinds of audio—music, podcasts, news segments, ephemera and more—while flipping through your favorite sections on Flipboard. You can start your auditory adventure by tapping on the red ribbon and exploring the new Audio category or by connecting to SoundCloud in the Accounts area. As soon as you press play, a music note will appear in the bottom left corner of Flipboard. Tap the note anytime to control your listening...  show all text

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Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic is due to go on trial in The Hague on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Allan Little, who covered the Bosnia war for the BBC, reflects on the conflict.

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Michael Wolff: The irony of the Facebook epoch is that old media covets its IPO billions, while new social media envies the old's content

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In the white heat of the current tech market it’s sometimes easy to forget that some companies, although taking their time, simply become viable businesses – instead of waiting for a call from Facebook or Twitter that may never come. I’ve been covering web site and shop builder Moonfruit for longer than I care to remember (they launched in 2000), but along the way husband and wife team Joe and Wendy White kept on pushing the company until it was one of the most innovative of its kind out there....  show all text

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Facebook is nearing a billion users, but what could topple the big blue giant? Government intervention, the shift to mobile, and a loss of “cool” all have the power to violently disrupt the social network, or at least cause it to lose its strong grip on the market. Here’s a look at the four things that could ruin Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of a single site that connects the world. The thread that runs between all these pitfalls is their potential to make Facebook irrelevant. If you can’t access it,  show all text

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Web startups are made out of two things: people and code. The people make the code, and the code makes the people rich. Code is like a poem; it has to follow certain structural requirements, and yet out of that structure can come art. But code is art that does something. It is the assembly of something brand new from nothing but an idea.

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General Motors plans to stop advertising on Facebook after determining its paid ads had little impact on consumers. The news comes just days ahead of Facebook's IPO.

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The band String Cheese Incident is making a symbolic end run to protest what it considers high ticket-sales fees.

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ACCORDING to the internet's hilarious headline writers, Eduardo Saverin, a Facebook co-founder, dis-

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Mr. Sorkin said last year that he was inclined to adapt Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs for Sony. But no deal had been set until now.

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There are a bunch of ways to explain away GM’s decision to stop spending ad dollars on Facebook. We’ll get to those. But there’s one thing that even the most ardent Facebook fan can’t argue with: Facebook advertising is very much a work in progress. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Facebook itself: “We believe that most advertisers are still learning and experimenting with the best ways to leverage Facebook to create more social and valuable ads,” the company says in its IPO filing. If you’...  show all text

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Erin Podolak (blog, Twitter) was interviewed at The SA Incubator a few weeks ago. Then she decided to turn the tables on me and interview me ...

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Four and a half years ago, I proudly joined the ranks of America's Finest News Source, a/k/a The Onion. For a comedian, tech geek and politics and news junkie, it was and remains an epic high in my life. Today, with a deep sense of nostalgia, I'm excited to move to the next chapter of that insane life having stepped down as Director of Digital to pursue more entrepreneurial ventures. It’s been an amazing ride. Acting as politics editor, I played a part in The Onion's 2008 "War For The White H...  show all text

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It couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Facebook, which has its initial public offering of stock later this week. General Motors has decided to stop advertising on the social networking giant, citing concerns about the site’s effectiveness. Meanwhile, a Forrester analyst says... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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After four years at the Las Vegas Sun, Rob Curley is leaving the paper. A memo from Brian Greenspun, the paper’s publisher and president, does not specify what Curley is doing next, just that “Rob has decided he has done… Read more

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“Social magazine” Flipboard may have to think up a new tagline for itself, as tonight the company is rolling out an update which greatly expands its focus beyond text-based content to also include audio. The rollout features integrations from NPR, PRI (Public Radio International) and social sound platform, SoundCloud. Also of note, Flipboard is launching its third localized edition with the debut of a Flipboard app for Japan, following its previous launches in China and France. And there’s an u...  show all text

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Peter Sciretta / /Film: Aaron Sorkin To Adapt ‘Steve Jobs’ for Sony  —  Last year we heard that Sony wanted Academy Award-winning The Social Network/The West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay for a Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography.  Sony had purchased the rights …

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Last year we heard that Sony wanted Academy Award-winning The Social Network/The West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay for a Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson‘s best-selling biography. Sony had purchased the rights in a $1 million deal made just days after the Apple co-founder’s passing on October 5th 2011. Last we heard, Sorkin was “strongly considering” the project. Since then, another movie from an independent producer based on Jobs’ life starring Ashton Kutcher has ...  show all text

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Startups usually succeed because of a single major product or business innovation. Google is unusual in that they succeeded because of two major innovations: their core search product, and their keyword advertising business model. Back in 2000, when Google was wildly popular but generating no revenue, the conventional wisdom was that their business model was uncertain. Then Overture invented keyword advertising and Google adopted the same model. This turned out to be both wildly profitable and ...  show all text

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General Motors plans to stop advertising on Facebook after determining its paid ads had little impact on consumers. The news comes just days ahead of Facebook's IPO.

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Web startups are made out of two things: people and code. The people make the code, and the code makes the people rich. Code is like a poem; it has to follow certain structural requirements, and yet out of that structure can come art. But code is art that does something. It is the assembly of something brand new from nothing but an idea. More »

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