Tag Archives: US

FTC clears Google for monopoly abuse, but will the EU?

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GUEST POST: Will Becker is the MD and co-founder of Media Ingenuity, the corporate parent of TotallyMoney.com

Google IceLast week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it would not be taking legal action against Google for monopolistic abuses provided that Google changed some of its business practices relating to mobile patents.

Interestingly, it found that Google had not skewed its search results to favour its own ‘vertical search’ products. That seems a strange finding as it is unlikely that the EU’s competition commission will come to the same conclusion at the end of a similar two-year investigation. Continue reading →

Secret ambitions, early exits and bootstrapped lessons

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* This is the first post by James Devonport Wood, MD of accredited Facebook developer PageHub

There is a significant gap in Europe for early stage funding for startups seeking less than £500,000. While new funds and incubators are starting to emerge, the lack of finance available is leaving European tech businesses at a disadvantage to their North American counterparts.

For many startups, bootstrapping a business is the only method of starting a company although this does have its advantages. Bootstrapped startups are more likely to have a more realistic business model and to be profitable early on. Continue reading →

In social media everybody could hear you scream… not any longer

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Man talking into shoeIt was when the Library of Congress in the US announced two years ago that it would archive every single tweet that people became serious about social media… and more to the point their data.

The idea of all that data being saved made many people more reticent when posting their 140 characters on Twitter. It seemed inconceivable that all that information could be stored, as much as 160 characters on SMS could similarly be saved via those operators that are as avuncular as Uncle Joe Stalin. Continue reading →

London games start-up hits paydirt with Smash Cops iOS racing game

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Five ex-PlayStation developers who set up a start-up studio in London’s Shoreditch last year have struck gold with their new iOS racing game Smash Cops.

The game launched in the iTunes App Store a week ago after receiving critical acclaim from influential review sites such as Pocket Gamer and EuroGamer and is now at No 2. in the top iPad game chart for paid apps.

The game retails for $2.99 in the US and ‘uses innovative new push controls to control and steer your car in a way that is natural and fun for gamers’. This may be so, but perhaps the FANTASTIC name of the game is also responsible; Police chase felons and drive them off the road.

The company who developed and published the game, Hutch Games is another one of those nifty little UK companies that live around London’s Old Street. Let’s just hope the owners don’t drive to work too often or Old Street roundabout might be a little dangerous.

American Idol gave it life, but the mobile web has killed the US text messaging star

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I don’t know about you, but I don’t text as much as I used to. In fact, the list of contacts on my mobile is becoming less important than the chosen people I DM on Twitter.

It’s a cultural movement I wasn’t expecting as I used to text like a demon. Maybe I don’t have any real friends any more, maybe I’m a digital refugee who can only operate in a binary universe, maybe I should stay in more. Continue reading →