NewsTrust - Most Recent Stories

Telcos could be the key to Twitter’s revenue model

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Sam Ramji - Jun. 26 (Interview) - At WWDC this year Apple and Twitter announced a new partnership to bring Twitter to iOS devices. While this is impressive, the total number of new iOS users is dwarfed by the number of people who use feature phones worldwide. So how will services like Twitter bridge this opportunity gap?

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No, Twitter Is Not a Replacement For Journalism

Tue, 31 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Matthew Ingram - May. 31 (Opinion) - With so much real-time reporting of news events via Twitter, some argue that we no longer need the traditional news article. But while reporting on social networks can be very powerful, we still need someone to make sense of those streams and put them in context.

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Future of Media: Curation, Verification and News as a Process

Sat, 21 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Mathew Ingram - May. 21 (News Analysis) - As part of a “social media summit” this week, the BBC posted an overview of how its user-generated content desk handles reports from the field — verifying and curating them in much the same way that Andy Carvin of NPR has been doing for the past few months during the upheaval in the Middle East. As I’ve written before, there is a growing need for this kind of curation, but there is also the need to start looking at news as a process and not as a pristine, finished product. While many media outlets have web editors who track reports on Twitter and other social media, the BBC is unique (as far as I know) in having a special desk that sits in the middle of the newsroom and pulls in reports from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and anywhere else it can find information. The desk staffers then try to verify these reports, and some of the ways they do that are fascinating.

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Video Killed the Radio Star, But Might Save Newspapers

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

GigaOM - By Mathew Ingram - Dec. 22 (News Analysis) - What comes to mind when you think of newspapers? Whatever it is, its probably not streaming video. And yet, one of the interesting facts in a new survey of the online video market (PDF link) from video-hosting platform Brightcove and analytics provider TubeMogul is that newspapers overtook broadcasters in terms of the total number of video minutes streamed in the third quarter of 2010. As news publishers of all kinds try to move their operations online, more and more seem to be getting the message that the future includes video. The Brightcove and TubeMogul report shows that the number

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Does Facebook Still Have Some Twitter Envy?

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - Sep. 03 (News Report) - Facebook has confirmed that it is testing a new feature with a small group of users that allows a member of the social network to “subscribe” to another user’s updates, in the same way that Twitter allows users to “follow” each other. But there’s a

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Truthsquad Shows Potential of Crowdsourced Fact-Checking

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Mathew Ingram - Aug. 12 (News Report) - Florin said that the impulse behind both NewsTrust and Truthsquad was the idea that “if we are to become our own editors in the digital age, we need better tools and training to thoughtfully evaluate the credibility of the information we find online.”

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Does the Internet Make Us Smarter or Dumber? Yes.

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Mathew Ingram - Jun. 06 (Opinion) - Is the Internet making us smarter or dumber? The Wall Street Journal put together a couple of provocative essays this weekend looking at that question: one from Nick Carr, whose most recent book “The Shallows” argues that the Internet is making us less attentive and in general less intelligent (Wired has an excerpt here), and the other from Clay Shirky, whose latest book “Cognitive Surplus” argues that the Internet is on balance a good thing for both individuals and society. So who wins this debate? Arguably only the reader, who might find something worthwhile in both viewpoints. Certainly neither one wins by a landslide — primarily because both of them are right.

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After Breaking Up With Google, Apple May Turn to Facebook As Its New BFF

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Liz Gannes - Apr. 07 (Opinion) - Before a dramatic split last August that saw Google CEO Eric Schmidt booted from the Apple board, Apple and Google had been the best of friends. Now that the two titans are broken up, it’s looking increasingly likely that Apple will buddy up with Facebook.

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Why Lockheed Martin Wants to Be In The Clean Energy Biz

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

GigaOM - By Katie Fehrenbacher - Dec. 02 (News Report) - In a briefing on Wednesday Lockheed Martin executives described the defense firm’s overarching energy strategy, which includes project management for solar thermal technology, wind, synthetic fuels, fuel cells (mobile soldier power), ocean energy technology, satellite and carbon monitoring systems and smart grid systems. As Jim Kohlhaas, VP of Energy Initiatives with Lockheed’s Corporate Engineering & Technology group, put it, the company is looking at “any and all alternative energy sources.”

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Data: The Future of the Internet Looks Highly Mobile

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - Jul. 18 (Opinion) - With every day that passes we become more convinced that the Internet in our hands aka on our mobile devices is going to define network usage and innovation. According to some estimates, the consumption of data on mobiles will near an exabyte by the end of 2009. In less than four years almost three-quarters of the population will have access to mobile broadband, according to data released today by analyst firm Telegeography. The firm predicts that by the end of 2013 the addressable market for 3G and 4G cellular services will have grown to over 4.5 billion potential subscribers — or about 71 percent of all wireless subscribers.

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10 Reasons To Celebrate/Grouse About Greentech on Earth Day

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Katie Fehrenbacher - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - We have a lot to cheer about in this moment — the Obama administration, young people getting excited about careers in energy, and the burst of innovation in startups — but a lot to moan about, too: the darn economy, consumer malaise over climate change issues, and the recent greentech bubble that elevated and crashed quite a few green firms. Here’s our take on what to celebrate and what to grouse about in the greentech biz on the 39th Earth Day:

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Restructuring Deadline Looms: What’s Next for the Chevy Volt?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

earth2tech.com - By Josie Garthwaite - Mar. 30 (News Report) - A critical week lies ahead for the U.S. auto industry and GM’s Chevy Volt: On Monday, President Barack Obama is scheduled to reveal the next chapter in the government’s bailout plan, announcing the first recommendations from his auto task force, which test drove GM’s plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt earlier this month as part of an onsite scrutiny meant to help determine whether or not to swoop in with another round of rescue funds.

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OptiSolar Crashes: Lessons for Greentech

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

earth2tech - By Katie Fehrenbacher - Mar. 20 (Breaking News) - ... the faults of the struggling cleantech firms have been largely both underestimating how expensive it is to manufacture “stuff” and not being able to reach a large manufacturing scale quick enough before the credit crunch hit. It seemed as if OptiSolar had announced it was building one of the largest solar photovoltaic projects ever built at 550 MW, before it had even disclosed its funders or explained how its technology was superior to any competitors.

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Can Ocean Power Keep Its Head Above Water?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

earth2tech - By David Ehrlich - Mar. 18 (News Report) - Most of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, so it seems like it would be a great idea to harness all that wave and tidal power and turn it into electricity. But so far, that’s pretty much what it is — an idea.

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Why eBay Should Consider Breaking Itself Up

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

GigaOM - By Kevin Kelleher - Feb. 14 (News Analysis) - Nearly five years into a steady buying binge, eBay is looking bloated, unfocused and schizophrenic. eBay owns well over 100 subsidiaries, some of which were built in-house. But many are acquisitions that have been crammed into the parent company like those Tokyo train conductors at rush hour.

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A Quarter of Americans Aren’t On the Web

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

GigaOM - By Stacey Higginbotham - Jan. 23 (News Report) - Amid the discussion of universal broadband access, those without broadband get all of the attention. But what about the 17 percent of Americans who regardless of cost or access simply don’t want to go online? Or the 1.7 percent who think dial-up is just fine? As hard as it is for the technically literate to imagine, roughly 25 percent of Americans don’t use the web.

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UN: Poor Countries Will Need $130B A Year to Adapt to Climate Change

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

earth2tech.com - By Josie Garthwaite - Dec. 05 (News Report) - Delegates from 190 countries have gathered in Poznan, Poland, this week as part of negotiations for a climate change treaty expected to be finalized in Copenhagen next year. According Yvo de Boer, the top climate change official at the UN, delegates today focused largely on adaptation, or helping developing countries take steps to withstand severe drought, extreme storms, and other events expected to become more frequent as a result of of climate change.

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California’s Largest Solar Roof To Power Up

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

GigaOM - By David Ehrlich - Dec. 01 (News Report) - Southern California Edison is set to hit a milestone today in its plans to install two square miles of solar panels in California — the completion of the largest rooftop solar installation in the state. Details on the size of the installation have not yet been released, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to hold a news conference this morning.

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Accenture on Biofuels: "It Ain't Easy"

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - Sep. 10 (Opinion) - The biofuels industry, once the poster child of the new energy economy and purported savior of the internal combustion engine, is again discovering that the road to global primacy is rougher than expected. According to a report released by Accenture entitled "Biofuels' Time of Transition: Achieving high performance in a world of increasing fuel diversity," three main obstacles will hinder the sector's growth: environmental issues, distribution and infrastructure shortcomings. These pesky inconveniences aside, Accenture estimates biofuels could make up 10-15 percent of the future fuels mix in the next 10-20 years.

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New iPhone Will Jumpstart Demand for Wireless Broadband

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Om Malik - Jul. 14 (Opinion) - this is the first time that a 3G connection on a non-computer device actually feels like a broadband connection. "This device is a true game-changer. Why? The immediacy of the data at your fingertips is huge. Imagine, looking up anything, anywhere," is how AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega told me in a chat earlier this year. In the U.S. especially, the iPhone is going to have a major impact, mostly because are a PC-centric society constantly search for web-like experiences. (So far, most of the carriers have made their money off 3G computer connections. I am wondering how the iPhone impacts (or not) 3G usage in Europe.)

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FAQ: The Obama Energy Plan

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Craig Rubens - Jun. 09 (Opinion) - Now that the Democratic Party has a presumptive nominee, it's time to take a closer look at Sen. Barack Obama's energy plan and how he intends to use the office of the president to accelerate our transition to a greener economy. We profiled Sen. John McCain's energy plan earlier, and since energy will almost certainly not get as much debate time as Iraq, health care or the economy, we encourage you to compare McCain's and Obama's plans and comment below. (The Wall

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Why Tiered Broadband Is the Enemy of Innovation

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Om Malik - Jun. 04 (Opinion) - It should come as no surprise: Incumbents are beginning to act like incumbents. But while the cable companies are the first ones to jump on the tiered broadband bandwagon, they won't be the last. Their argument for limiting bandwidth and data transfers based on price sounds like a good idea, especially as a way to get bargain hunters to buy. In the long run, however, tiered broadband is a terrible idea that will bring the innovation inspired by flat-rate broadband to a screeching halt.

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Europe Debating Stricter Car Emissions

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Irina Haltsonen - May. 29 (Opinion) - Car makers are facing newer and stricter emissions regulations all over the world. In Europe, the debate over proposals to curb carbon dioxide emissions for new cars is getting fiercer. This week six Greenpeace activist dressed up as Flintstones characters were arrested in Brussels, Belgium, as they were protesting about the influence of the car industry on the proposals. The European Parliament started debating legislation concerning CO2 emissions from cars on Wednesday. A vote on the legislation is coming up in the fall.

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The True Fiction of Microsoft Live Search

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Om Malik - May. 22 (Opinion) - Yesterday, I read a post on Google's blog about their focus on improving search quality. Today, I read a press release from Microsoft in which it said its Live Search product will be used to give "cash back" to those who use it to find and buy things. Innovation vs. buying your way into the market...in my book, that kinda speaks for itself.

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DOE Still Throwing Money at Carbon Capture, $126M

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

GigaOM - By Craig Rubens - May. 07 (News Report) - Those still hoping clean coal will become a reality can take comfort in the knowledge that tax dollars are still funding carbon capture and sequestration endeavors. Making good on its promise to fund a number of smaller, distributed projects to test the capture and storage of carbon following the nixing of the FutureGen project, the Department of Energy has awarded $126.6 million to two regional carbon capture projects.

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