Samsung | Cheryl Waller

Facebook’s Earnings and Other News You Need to Know

May 2, 2013 by Stan Schroeder Leave a Comment

Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world.

Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting storiesFacebook reported its quarterly earnings Wednesday. The company cleared $1.45 billion in revenue, 30% of which came from mobile advertisingiOS 7 will be on time, according to sources who say Apple is scrambling engineers from other divisions to get the mobile OS ready. And the Pentagon could soon start using more iPhones and Samsung devices.

Check out the video above for more on these stories.

Thumbnail image via iStockphoto, hocus-focus Read more...

More about Facebook, Iphone, Samsung, Features, and Ios

Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, features, iOS, iphone, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking

This Week With The TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast: Google Glass, Ubuntu, And Vibrating Undies

April 19, 2013 by John Biggs Leave a Comment

This week on the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast we talk about Google Glass, the Galaxy S4, and the magic of Ubuntu laptops. This time we’re joined by Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Greg Kumparak, and a pair of underwear that vibrates in Australia. Enjoy!

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3pm Eastern and noon Pacific.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.
You can subscribe to the show via RSS.
Subscribe in iTunes

Intro Music by Rick Barr.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, Gadgets, gadgets podcast, Galaxy SIV, Google, google glass, podcast, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

Google’s Schmidt: Moto’s New Phones Are ‘Phenomenal’ But The Samsung Relationship Is A Defining One

April 16, 2013 by Ingrid Lunden Leave a Comment

Google chairman Eric Schmidt today denied that there is any tension between his company and Samsung, the world’s biggest handset maker and the biggest OEM partner for Google’s Android mobile OS. “They have hundreds of millions of phones coming out on Android and I don’t think you will see much of a change there,” he said of the Korean handset maker, during an interview at the D:Dive Into Mobile conference. “Obviously we want to see competition but the Samsung relationship has turned out to be a defining one.”

During the last Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, there were reports, citing sources close to the matter, that Samsung’s size and “heft” were worrying Google. “We spend lots of time with Samsung and I can confirm that this is not correct,” Schmidt said today.

While Google played down its presence at in Barcelona in February compared to years before (no Schmidt, no Android stand, no pins), Samsung was near-ubiquitous, including stands in many of the exhibition halls and even in the subway station near the venue.

Schmidt’s comments came in the context of other questions about Android competitors, including the one now owned by Google itself, Motorola. On this he was predictably confident, but also realistic:

“Motorola has a new set of products I’ve seen that are phenomenal, but they are in a tough space… [but] what you see in this next generation of technology is very impressive,” he said.

Nevertheless, with companies like HTC struggling for critical mass on the platform, and more OEMs looking for ways of differentiating themselves with customized launchers (like Facebook Home) or forking altogether (as in the case of the Kindle Fire tablet from Amazon, or many “Android” handsets in Asia), there remains a question about how those Android handset makers who are not Samsung will eventually make decent margins on their hardware businesses.

When there’s a will, there’s a way, seemed to be Schmidt’s mantra.

“Those smartphone makers are capitalists,” he said. “I’m pretty sure they will all be making money. If you tell me there is a billion consumer opportunity people will make money on that, [just] in different ways.”

One way might be with aggressive pricing across a wide range devices.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: android, Blogging, Facebook, Google, htc, mobile, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

Facebook Phone: Like It or Not, It’s Probably Real

April 3, 2013 by Lance Ulanoff Leave a Comment

I am willing to concede that there will probably be a Facebook phone. The likelihood doesn’t make the idea any less ridiculous, but I’ve read enough tea leaves to believe the social media giant is now hell-bent on muscling its way into the mobile handset market, no matter the cost. And I think I finally understand why.

Location, Location, Location

Facebook mobile ad revenue took a huge leap in the fourth quarter of 2012. That’s tremendously good news for a company that knows it can’t win without mobile. Still, Facebook is a mere passenger on smartphones. Despite the fact that one in seven people in the world use Facebook, it’s just one of many competing apps on any given phone and quite a few of them are competing for your social media attention. Read more...

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Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, htc, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, smartphone, Social Networking, tech

Samsung’s Platform Play Likely More Valuable As A Bargaining Tool, Analyst Suggests

April 3, 2013 by Darrell Etherington Leave a Comment

When Samsung revealed its new Galaxy S4 flagship smartphone, it literally did a lot of song and dance about its own unique software features, with nary a peep on the built-in Google Android improvements and features brought by the use Jelly Bean 4.2 on board. I argued that it could be a signal that Samsung is looking to move towards an Amazon-style approach to building its own version of Android, but a new investor note from Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu suggests Samsung’s platform bluster might be more useful to the South Korean company as a bargaining chip.

Wu praises Samsung’s move into a more “vertically integrated platform play” in his note, which puts it in a better place to compete with similar efforts by companies including Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon who are all trying similar combined approaches to software and hardware. But he also notes that Tizen, the smartphone OS that Samsung is co-developing, has massive challenges ahead in terms of taking away platform share from Android and iOS, especially with BlackBerry and Windows Phone slugging it out for a third spot in the mobile market.

Samsung’s biggest strength, according to the investor note, is that it has a lot of leverage in terms of negotiating a better split of mobile advertising revenues from partners including Google thanks to its dominant market position. Treating their platform ambitions as a sort of backpocket option in case the lucrative deal they have worked out with Google starts to become not so lucrative does seem to be more of a hedge than a realistic option at this stage of the game, given how entrenched the top two platforms are, and the challenges we’ve seen even manufacturers with a wide reach like Nokia and BlackBerry have with populating the software ecosystem for a brand new mobile operating system.

Google has been reported to be somewhat ill at ease with Samsung’s growing dominance over the Android hardware market, but for now the two companies are much stronger together than they are apart, which means we’re unlikely to see either side do anything to initiate a rift. Meanwhile, we’ll likely see both also work on their own hedges, which means Google building out its Motorola division with new, Google-directed initiatives after major restructuring, and Samsung continuing to feint with Tizen and build its own pseudo-platform on top of Android.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: android, Blogging, Facebook, Gadgets, Google, mobile, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

Top Comments: Google Glass Hits the Streets

March 23, 2013 by Jessica Fee Leave a Comment

In this week's top comments, the dust began to settle from Google's decision to kill Google Reader, we went back to talking about Google Glass, Facebook and Apple were top of mind, and much more.

Mashable's Chris Taylor addressed criticisms of Google Glass in an op-ed that generated an intelligent debate among our readers. In his article, Chris explains that this kind of reaction is common when disruptive technologies emerge, as we saw with the personal computer, iPod and smartphone.

Facebook tested out a new push-notification feature that reminds users to post a status update. A rep for the company explained that this was merely a test and not necessarily something Facebook would implement across the network. But the negative reaction in our comments section indicates that Facebook might be better off leaving it as a test. Read more...

More about Mobile, Facebook, Apple, Samsung, and Push Notifications

Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: apple, Apps and Software, Blogging, Conversations, Facebook, Gadgets, gallery, google glass, Marketing, mobile, Project Glass, push notifications, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, social media, Social Networking, top comments, Uncategorized

Top Comments: Google Glass Hits the Streets

March 23, 2013 by Jessica Fee Leave a Comment

In this week's top comments, the dust began to settle from Google's decision to kill Google Reader, we went back to talking about Google Glass, Facebook and Apple were top of mind, and much more.

Google Chromebooks Go Global: Now Available In Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland And The Netherlands

March 19, 2013 by Drew Olanoff Leave a Comment

Google has learned all that it needs to learn about the reception of its Chromebook laptops in the U.S. and UK and has announced availability of Acer, HP and Samsung flavors of its device in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.

As we’ve spent time with Google’s Chromebook and OS, it has become apparent that the goal of the operating system is to focus on what people do on a computer the most, which is surf the web in a browser. Since Chrome has become the No. 1 browser, building an operating system that showcases it makes complete sense.

In addition to this global rollout, Chromebooks will now be available in all 1,000+ Best Buy stores that sell PCs in the U.S. Basically, that’s twice the number of stores that Chromebooks were sold in previously. This in-store rollout will take place over the next two weeks.

As far as the rest of Google’s line of laptops in partnership with Acer, HP and Samsung, there is indeed a niche that has gravitated towards the machine as a lower-cost alternative to the Macbook Air and Windows machines, specifically schools and small businesses.

Google recently launched its Chrome Pixel, which has come with mixed reviews. One thing that most technologists can agree with is that while this machine might not be the end-game for consumer computing, it includes quite a bit of technology that will eventually be priced for mass-markets. I’ve been using the machine for the past few days and the idea of touching your laptop screen is still something of a mind-melt. It’s going to take some time to consumerize this product.

It’s been an active past week in Google Chrome land, as it recently named its VP of Chrome, Sundar Pichai, as head of its Android unit, moving Andy Rubin on to bigger and brighter “moonshots.” Some think that this means the eventual merging of Chrome with the Android OS, which is something we’ve been waiting for.

Can Google get past the “cheap” label? It remains to be seen, but I can say from experience that the machine does exactly what you need it to do, and it does it well. During my trip to India, it’s the only laptop that I had with me, and it did the trick. The only downside to Chrome OS is the lack of popular applications available, such as Skype. That will come in time, and global expansion will help speed that up.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Acer, Blogging, Browser, chrome, chromebook, Education, enterprise, Facebook, Google, HP, international, laptop, mobile, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

Dear Microsoft, Samsung Isn’t Very Happy With You

March 15, 2013 by Michael Seo Leave a Comment

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Samsung’s growing rift with Google. But what about Samsung and Microsoft?

Samsung has indeed been moving away from Google’s native apps with their own complement of directly competing services. And their insistence to continue developing Tizen as an mobile OS over which they have full control looms over Google’s future as a valuable partner to Samsung. You can check out our thoughts about this here.

But Samsung’s executives have been voicing their discontent with Microsoft’s products for quite some time. “Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft’s Windows operating system aren’t selling very well,” admitted Samsung Co-CEO J.K. Shin in his latest interview with the WSJ yesterday. “In Europe, we’re also seeing lackluster demand for Windows-based products.” It’s also worth noting that J.K. Shin gave his assurances that Samsung and Google were still very much on friendly terms.

Samsung Executive Vice President Song Soo Jun, manager of the company’s memory marketing division, was a little more blunt. “I think the Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform.” That’s a low blow considering Windows Vista’s reputation as a bloated and buggy OS that shipped too soon. Even more so when you consider that Windows 8 was supposed to be Microsoft’s great divergence away from the Windows of Yore.

Samsung has reason to be unhappy with Microsoft – Windows 8 and Windows Phone devices as a whole just aren’t selling well. Since its debut last October, Windows 8 only amounts to 2.3 percent of the global desktop OS market share. Microsoft has only managed to ship 1.5 million units of its Surface tablet, falling far below industry estimates of 3 million. Weak sales for Windows RT tablets in Germany is forcing Samsung to ditch their entire Windows RT lineup there.

But from some perspectives, Samsung’s attitude towards Windows Phone is one wrought purely from negligence. “There is no evidence that Samsung has any interest in seeing the Windows Phone platform succeed,” writes Detwiler Fenton analyst Jeff Johnston.

All of this says plenty about where Samsung and Microsoft respectively are today. Samsung’s successes in the mobile market have seemingly turned the company overnight into a fearsome juggernaut with plenty of spending power. When it comes to mobile, Microsoft is still struggling to keep itself afloat.

That’s why it isn’t surprising at all that Samsung feels confident enough about its own position that it’s firing shots over Microsoft’s heads. A Samsung executive badmouthing Windows would have been unfathomable a decade ago. But times and circumstances have changed. Samsung has an answer to mobile that is producing profit. Microsoft doesn’t. And until Microsoft figures out a way to make itself relevant in the mobile space, Samsung won’t be paying any attention to them.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, samsung, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

Samsung Galaxy S4 And Other News You Need to Know

March 15, 2013 by Stan Schroeder Leave a Comment

Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world

Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting storiesSamsung’s Galaxy S4 has launched. Don’t call it just a smartphone, though. Samsung’s press release calls it a “life companion.” Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys has been indicted for working with Anonymous. Finally, Facebook wants to start using hashtags, to group common discussions and news updates into a single category.

Check out the video above for more on these stories

Image by Mashable