Group items tagged

Public libraries has the rest of the crowd beat with their eBook stockades.

Many libraries use the Overdrive mobile app for downloading eBooks, which is a useful service. We use it to put eBooks on Kindle for our kids. The user experience in that app for searching, however, is TERRIBLE.

Not sure I'm a fan of this idea, regardless of a Apple's potential to profit.

claims to beat facebook and myspace in terms of fan interaction/UGC a mobile app that lets bands engage with fans

Now we know, a drunken video costs 200 million.

"To accomplish the 5.9 percent error rate, which beats a 6.3 percent record set just last month, the Microsoft team leveraged neural language models resembling associative word clouds. That is, a word like "fast" resides much closer to "fast" than it does to "slow". This allowed the speech recognition engine to generalize between words and better recognize them in context. "

"Walmart began recruiting top Silicon Valley talent and acquiring start-ups last year. For instance, Walmart acquired Kosmix, a company that specializes in making web design more seamless, for $300 million. That team has been working for over a year to fix Walmart's systems and improve its website.  Walmart is investing in the "social gifting" market. A year ago, Walmart launched "Shopycat," which makes gift recommendations based on friends' Facebook profiles. The site is now called "Walmart Gifts" and allows customers to log in and get personalized recommendations based on Facebook and Twitter profiles.  The retailer got a better search engine. A dozen top engineers took 10 months to build it, and while the company won't discuss sales figures, they said the new system is more user-friendly. "If you search for cotton socks now, you'll actually find them," Manjoo writes.  Walmart is trying to lead the charge in same-day shipping. Its at an advantage considering that 96 percent of Americans live within 20 miles of a Walmart.  Walmart is investing like crazy in its mobile app. "Walmart imagines that as you go through an average day, you'll remember things you need--milk, bread, a new tennis racquet, a toy truck for your nephew's birthday--and tell the voice-enabled Walmart app. The app will list each item's location inside your local Walmart and include product info; eventually, it will also learn your preferences and offer recommendations. And once you're actually in the store, you'll be able to summon an associate to help you," Manjoo says. "

But if we have learned anything in the last few years, it is that traditional media are now only in charge of part of the story. There is a paucity of facts and an excess of processing power because everyone with a keyboard is theoretically a creator and distributor of content. Most of those efforts begin from behind a firmly established battle line, then row backward to find the facts that they need. Was that a dark spot on the back of George Zimmerman's head in the grainy police video, or evidence of a beat-down? We retweet and "like" what we agree with and dismiss the rest. As if the overheated cable news debate weren't enough, social media are fueling the story with misinformation, along with incendiary calls to action. There is a Twitter account called "@killzimmerman" that suggested George Zimmerman needed to be "shot dead in the street." On Twitter, the movie director Spike Lee passed on what he thought was Mr. Zimmerman's address, but it was wrong and an elderly couple was forced to flee from their home. And what if Mr. Lee had gotten it right? (Mr. Lee has since apologized and reached a settlement with the couple.)

Wearable tech

With 170,389 check-ins, the 84th annual Academy Awards telecast on ABC set a new GetGlue record and came close to doubling the total of CBS's powerhouse sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," our No. 2 finisher this week. The Oscars increased total viewers, meanwhile, to 39.3 million this year from 37.9 million -- not enough of a boost to beat this month's Grammys -- while coming in flat for 18-to-49-year-olds.

Mobile - search or display? Worldwide, most marketers are choosing search

instagram competitor EyeEm Key advantages:  1. Tracks photos you like and creates a personalized photo feed that changes along with your interests 2. Network not based on friends but rather shared interests 3. Location feature "Around Me" lets you see photos that were taken wherever you are 4. Does not constrain photos to Instagram's square format