It has been awhile since we've heard anything about Amazon's impending tablets, so here's some good news.
Barron's reports one of the tablets will have access to a streaming movie service, which will be free for the first batch of tablet owners.
This is another great move by Amazon. Android tablets still don't have access to a robust video library like the iPad does. Right now, the Motorola Xoom is the only tablet that has access to the Android Market's streaming service.
Amazon's Instant Video service already has a selection that rivals Apple's, so it makes sense to add it to its new tablets as well.
Real-time Web analytics has changed the nature of collecting, analyzing and reporting Internet data. As the name implies, it's a way to measure website traffic in order to understand and optimize a site's usage.
It used to be this was a specialized area, inhabited by a select few who knew their way around data well enough to tease out and report on the trends they found. No more. Today, the ability to collect and view data in real-time allows more people to get their arms around it. In publishing, for example, "they'd push a story out and forget
about it and think about the next one," said Tony Haile of the analytics service Chartbeat, whose clients include the New York
Times, Fox News, and Forbes. "What we're seeing now with the real-time Web
is they're putting out a story but they're often iterating on it. They'll see a
story is spiking (generating a lot of user interest) so they will draw out the
audience and see what they can do with it. That ability to be much more
adaptive is key to what's happening to the real-time Web."
Interested? Many programmers already have the skills they need to hit the ground running.
"The core of our real-time engine is built in C, which is pretty much as old
school as you can get," says Haile. "And then we combine that with
things like Python
and Tornado
which are more conducive to real-time situations."
Whether you see your special someone every day or you are in a long distance relationship, Google Voice gives you a bunch of one-of-a-kind ways to let your sweetheart know that you are thinking about them on Valentine's Day.
There still isn't any pricing info regarding 4G data for headsets and an official release date for the Thunderbolt. VZW had very specific information and pricing for the iphone!
Unless Groupon's board has gone stark-raving mad, the answer should be "yes."
As we discussed earlier, this is a whopping huge pile of money for a 2-year old company, even one growing as fast as Groupon. Still, it's a smart move for Google, whose core business is maturing and whose cash $33 billion of cash is rotting away on its balance sheet.
Integrating the two companies will be very challenging, as it is hard to imagine two more different cultures. (Engineering in Google's case, sales and marketing in Groupon's).
But integration isn't Groupon's board's problem...
Google hasn't bought Groupon yet, especially for the $2.5 billion chump-change reported yesterday, but it has put a whopping-huge offer on the table, says Kara Swisher.
Google has offered $6 billion for the Chicago-based company: $5.3 billion now, with a $700 million earnout.
That is an enormous pile of money, and Groupon should take it.
This price seems high, but Google is smart to be aggressive here. Its core business, search, is maturing, and as yet it has been unable to develop a second major growth engine. Also, because one of Groupon's biggest costs is buying Google AdWords, there should be significant synergy between the companies. And Google has $33 billion of cash sitting around burning a hole in its balance sheet.
Google's DNA is engineering, Groupon's is sales and marketing. If the integration is handled well, the companies could complement each other by sharing these core competencies. If it is handled badly, however, the combination could be a disaster.
Your interviewing techniques worked well and now I have two exciting job offers. Based on your suggestions, I have evaluated the people, the products and the companies' reputations and I have chosen one. Your advice on how to resign properly was great, too - it went well.
Now: What is the best way to turn down the other offer? I would like to avoid a lot of "why" questions, because my reasons are mostly due to the reputation of the company I want to join, and I "clicked" better with the manager who would be my boss.
Again, thanks.
Nick's Advice
Glad to hear my suggestions helped you win a new job and resign an old one - I love to hear success stories. You're welcome, and thanks for your very kind words. Congratulations on getting two offers!
The right way to turn down one of the offers is on the phone, not in person. Make the call to the manager who offered the job, not to the human resources department. Here's what to say:
"I've thought about the offers I've received very carefully. The opportunity to work with you means a lot to me. However, after careful consideration I've decided that another job with a different company is more in line with my goals. So I must respectfully decline your offer. But I want to thank you very much for your faith in my abilities."
That's it. If the manager presses you, you can decline to discuss details just as politely and respectfully. "It's a better fit for me. There's really not anything else I can tell you. Thanks again for the offer."
The less you say, the better. I would definitely not tell them who the other company is, simply because it's not their business. (It's rare, but I've seen companies try to torpedo job offers from their competitors.) "I'd prefer not to divulge the name of the other company because I don't think it's appropriate to do so until I am actually working there."
In my opinion, you are required to be polite and professional. It ends there. If they get too pushy, just thank them again and gently hang up the phone.
There's one thing you can do if you'd like to leave the door open for future contact: Suggest another good candidate. That's a professional courtesy that goes a long way with some managers. "If you're interested, I'd be glad to recommend one or two other people who I believe could do a great job for you."
Just make sure you have a good candidate to recommend! Enjoy your new job! My compliments to you.
Note to readers: How have you handled this situation - turning down a job offer? Did you do it in a way that preserved your new relationship with the manager? Did the company come back at you with a counter-offer and more money? Have you ever referred someone else for a job you turned down?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - Tel Aviv, Israel - Eternix Ltd. today announced the launch of a new product. Known for its innovative technology, the company now offers an additional real-time visualization product, Blaze Extrusion Extension.
There are plenty of checkout and shopping cart solutions on the web; including Payvment,BigCommerce and others. Cashie is launching today as a cloud-based e-commerce platform that can be easily installed on a website or blog.
Cashie is designed for publishers using content management platforms such as Wordpress, and can be integrated into a site by copying and pasting a few lines of code. The technology leverages PayPal's X Developer Platform to allow users (who need to have a PayPal Website Payments Pro merchant account) to offer a PayPal and standard credit card checkout experience.
Answer added in topic Mobile Location Applications.
Ori Neidich, Cyberpunk media mogul, from the near-future
The premise of this question is a bit flawed.
You cannot have private checkins on Facebook in the same sense that they exist on Foursquare because of the way a "private" checkin is implemented on 4sq.
You see, 4sq is a game. People want points and mayorships. Sometimes, this causes them to do�embarrassing things, like checking in when they are at the doctor's office or at the local brothel (kids, don't try this at home :-)
A private check-in on 4sq allows you to get the points without alerting everyone to your potentially unsavory activities.
Facebook Places has no game mechanic. Ostensibly, if you are at a place you don't want people to know about, you wouldn't have a motivation to checkin.
However, you can control the privacy settings for Places wall posts just like other pieces of data on Facebook, so you could theoretically make it more "private" by limiting it to just a small list of friends.�
I suppose you could create a situation where you have an empty list and therefore no one but yourself could see your places checkins. That setting though would be applied to ALL your checkins, as opposed to on a case-by-case basis in 4sq. It would also be a very odd way to use the service as Places doesn't have any of the data visualization or statistics tools that Foursquare has that allow you to aggregate data about your checkin history.
There are plenty of checkout and shopping cart solutions on the web; including