It’s a tough world out there for on-demand startups — confusion around the W2 versus 1099 conversation, tough margins and customer service are but a few of the initial obstacles for these companies. Add in the necessity of huge amounts of up-front capital and it’s an uphill battle at best. But trust me, the on-demand economy will survive and eventually prevail, and 2016… Read More
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Cisco announced it has purchased Synata, a search startup that allows users to search across on-premise or cloud repositories simultaneously. Cisco plans to integrate the Synata technology into its Spark communications platform (which should not to be confused with Apache Spark). While Cisco usually reveals purchase prices, because it was under $100 million, it chose to keep this one… Read More
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Twitter Moments, the feature that’s meant to highlight the best of Twitter in a more magazine-like format, has so far failed to incite further user growth, as was initially hoped. But the company is continuing to develop and improve the experience, which offers collections of tweets and associated media content in a separate tab in Twitter’s application both on the web and mobile. Read More
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In case there was any doubt where Instagram was drawing the line when it came to its shutdown of third-party feed reading apps, it appears that its decision to revoke API access doesn’t just extend to those that offer an alternative means of browsing the photo-sharing service. It also reaches apps that offer an expansion of what you can do with Instagram – for example, the… Read More
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Mobile is changing how people work, travel, read, communicate, shop and many other lifestyle behaviors. In the Internet Trends 2015 report by KPCB, mobile engagement is better than ever, with three hours of time spent per day on mobile devices in 2015 compared to an hour per day five years ago (a 300 percent increase). Adding to this, there was 69 percent and 23 percent annual worldwide growth… Read More
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Crowdsourced journalism startup Fresco News has just scored a notable partnership which will bring photo and video footage shot by ordinary citizens to several local Fox newsrooms around the U.S. Using the company’s iPhone app, participating Fox-owned stations will be able to send out assignments to the app’s users, who will then submit content to be used on-air. Users will… Read More
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Spot, a startup that says it can help you find “the best places in the world,” is launching to the public. The company emerged from “startup studio” Expa. It’s also announcing today that it has raised $2 million in seed funding from Expa, SV Angel, Ram Shriram, Tim Ferriss, Fenwick & West and others. When I spoke to founder Luke Groesbeck last summer, he said… Read More
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It’s dumbfounding how an industry as huge as live music still relies on a patchwork of backwards, outdated technologies. Word document offer letters, PDF riders, endless back-and-forth emails, spreadsheets, physical checks. Fax! It makes the whole process a headache that takes forever when organizers could be focusing on making the experience better for attendees and making performers… Read More
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Julie Desk, the French startup that’s developed a ‘virtual assistant’ to automate the email back-and-forth typically associated with scheduling meetings and appointments, has picked up a further €600,000 in funding. 
The rate of growth of Apple’s iOS in urban China slowed in the three months ending January 2016, according to the latest data from smartphone market watcher KantarWorldpanel.