GigaOM
Sun Jan 24 11:40:28 EST 2010
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Calacanis Takes on Comscore — and Fred Wilson - Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis has called for a public boycott of Comscore because of a controversial change in the way they measure Web traffic, and has pulled Union Square VC Fred Wilson into the fight as well.

Will Amazon Be the New Wal-Mart? - As analysts scratch their heads try to explain why Amazon's stock defies gravity, they’re coming up with theories that are of interest even to non-investors. A Cowen & Co. analyst argues that Amazon “can eventually achieve a Wal-Mart-like share of the U.S. retail market.”

Android This Week: App Controls FIOS Remotely; HP Smartbook Hits FCC - Android-based phone owners that are also Verizon FIOS customers now have access to a free app that enables remote control of the service. In the meantime, Nexus One owners may have a fix for the 3G connectivity problems that's been plaguing so many of them.

Spiceworks CEO on the Future of IT Jobs and His Company - Spiceworks, an Austin startup that last week raised $16 million, has created something as revolutionary as Google in the small to medium business software market. Check out the video to learn more, and hear about the future of IT from Spiceworks' CEO Scott Abel.

GoWalla About to Pass the 100,000 User Mark - Gowalla, a location-based social application is about to pass 100,000 users, according to some of my sources. The company is going to hit the milestone sometime this weekend, having just crossed 99,000 users. In comparison, New York-based Foursquare is closing in on 300,000 users.

U.S. Military Turns to Social Networking to Encourage Sharing Official and Sensitive Info - The U.S. Military launched in October a social networking site called milBook, a sort of Facebook clone for organizational information. With 18,000 members now, the site is more oriented towards collaboration than socialization, and, of course, has extensive security levels.

Startups, If You Can Make Verizon’s LTE Network Awesome, There’s $1.3B to Be Had - There are $1.3 billion in venture dollars sitting on the table for startups that can make Verizon's next generation LTE network better, so I talked to Daniel Deeney who is investing some of those dollars to see what types of companies he's looking for.

Citi and MSN’s Bundle Visualizes Personal Spending - Bundle.com launched this week a data visualization site for personal spending. The company, founded last June with funding from strategic investors Citigroup, Microsoft and Morningstar, helps users understand how they match up to others in their demographics and locations with regards to monthly household expenditures.

Call Me via VoIP on Facebook - 8x8 has launched a new application that allows you to add a "Call Me" button to your Facebook page, thus allowing you to receive calls without giving out your digits. Since you can control access to your Facebook page, this is better than Do-not-call list.

How Red Hat Routed the Recession - While the recession has battered many U.S. software companies, Red Hat--which has staked its future on open-source Linux software, virtualization and cloud computing -- has flourished. The company has a number of secrets behind its success, some of them unique.

Yelp Fights Back Against Foursquare, Gowalla - Yelp is stepping up its game against Foursquare and Gowalla by adding "check-ins" by users to its reviews. But will be enough? Or will Foursquare and/or Gowalla make for a simpler user experience and therefore a significant competitive threat?

Will Chinese Users Buy Android Phones Sans Google? - Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Lenovo are moving ahead with their Android plans in China despite Google's recent decision to postpone the launch of two new phones. But are Chinese consumers interested in purchasing Android phones that don't feature Google's mobile apps?

From Azure to VMware: A Look Back at Infrastructure Trends From Q4 - Quite a bit of news emerged from the cloud computing and data center markets during the fourth quarter, but the full impact of announcements — from companies including Cisco, Vmware, EMC, Microsoft, and Oracle — won't be felt until 2010. Here's a look at what to expect.

Could the Supreme Court and Cablevision Help the Wireless Biz Get More Spectrum? - Cablevision hopes the Supreme Court will hear its lawsuit regarding the programs it must carry and decide to overturn aspects of those must-carry rules. Such a decision would set off a chain of events that could benefit cable companies and wireless carriers, while hurting local broadcasters.

Journalists’ Social Media Sideshow Will Prove Nothing - A group of journalists has agreed to "prove" how useless Twitter and Facebook are by reporting only news they receive through those services for five days. But this is a farce that only proves these journalists don't understand the role social media plays in the news.

Aircell Gets $176 Million for In-flight Broadband - Aircell, the company behind wildly popular GoGo in-flight broadband, has raised $176 million in funds from an undisclosed group of investors. GoGo is available on more than 700 aircraft and adding more -- which means the company will have to build out its network aggressively.