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With a wealth of information at their fingertips, consumers are savvier than ever. They're also much less likely to be swayed by traditional, in-your-face advertising and commercials. They want, instead, to be entertained and engaged by marketers. In short, consumers just want to have fun....

The CRM Idol competition starts this week. If you aren't aware, here's the basic rundown. It's the brainchild of Paul Greenberg, who is no stranger to the speaking circuit and a believer in making CRM entertaining. Idol, as the name implies, is a competition focused on emerging companies, and its purpose is to identify one of the hottest emergi...

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It was once the case that computer viruses and other malicious software were written primarily by hobbyist hackers. Their motivations, for the most part, were simply bragging rights and the respect of their peers -- desirable rewards, to be sure, but certainly not the sole focus of any career The results of their efforts, meanwhile, could spread on...

The U.S. Federal Communications Communication (FCC) reportedly intends to investigate the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) over the San Francisco-area public transportation system's recent shutdown of cellphone service at four stations in the face of a public protest BART cut cell phone services for several hours on Aug. 11 when a public demons...

The deal Google announced Monday -- to acquire Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion -- is a stunning seismic event in the already-heated mobile device and operating system market. Google's Android OS has been on a tear lately, rivaling Apple for the moniker of coolest smartphone system Now what? Will Motorola competitors desert Android? Will ...

Technology analyst Scott Steinberg answers a viewer's question about Google+'s foray into social games: Is it really going to give Facebook a run for its money? In the short term, the answer is no. There are about 25 million users on Google+ versus roughly 750 million on Facebook, so when it comes to making money, there's really no contest between...

For thousands of years, auctions remained largely unchanged -- until 1995, when a computer programmer posted a single item online. The result: A broken laser pointer found a home, and Pierre Omidyar founded eBay. Unlike its slow-to-change offline predecessor, the online auction has gone through some rocky reincarnations in the past few years. Sti...

U.S. government agencies are moving quickly to incorporate social media into their IT programs. For organizations with huge public constituencies, adopting Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as major communication channels makes a lot of sense. However, in the rush to utilize social media, federal agencies have had some misfires in their handling of privacy and security requirements...

The initial response to Google's surprise announcement on Monday that it had inked a deal to acquire Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion was that it was a move largely to protect itself from the increasing patent attacks against Android. That could be why all five major manufacturers of Android devices appear to be thrilled with the deal. Should...

Two papers on mobile security were presented at the 20th USENIX Security Symposium, held in San Francisco recently Both touch on mobile security, a topic that's become increasingly hot lately as security vendors warn that this may well be the year of the mobile hack....

Google announced Monday it intends to purchase Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion, pursuant to regulatory approval That price is a premium of 63 percent over the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday....

A partially redacted letter supposedly sent from AT&T to the FCC has raised new questions about the pending merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, bringing to light the money at stake and whether the merger is necessary, as AT&T claims, to expand wireless broadband coverage Since February, AT&T, the second largest mobile network in the U.S., has been pu...

A partially redacted letter supposedly sent from AT&T to the FCC has raised new questions about the pending merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, bringing to light the money at stake and whether the merger is necessary, as AT&T claims, to expand wireless broadband coverage Since February, AT&T, the second largest mobile network in the U.S., has been pu...

Over the past few decades, most IT shops have followed a somewhat similar trajectory: Starting from a centralized model (i.e., the mainframe days), computing resources, much like the cosmological Big Bang, have exploded outwards to become ever-more-distributed and decentralized. This makes sense given market dynamics. Computing platforms evolve quickly, so monolithic computing platforms that require heavy up-front investment are less efficient from a depreciation standpoint (i.e., from a MIPS per dollar per year point of view) than numerous, incremental investments in lower-powered devices. ...

Recent announcements in the CRM space have been all about crossing bridges to streamline customer contact functions and making customer service representatives' lives easier and more productive. And all it's taking is a click of the mouse LiveChat, a developer of real-time software and Web analytics tools for e-commerce sales and support teams, has...

I've been covering video conferencing (now often called "telepresence") products since the late 80s and saw my first offering in the mid-60s as a child at Disneyland. Over the years, product wave after product wave has come to market with the promise of the next big thing in telecommunications only to fail to meet even reasonable expectations for deployment in a market where users are measured in billions. ...

A social network makes changes to its privacy policy. Shortly thereafter, users are shocked to see their names and photos appear in in-house ads. For example, an ad promoting the services of a local printer might include the faces of three "followers" of that particular company. Is this Facebook privacy fail, episode 231,789? Not quite. LinkedIn i...

In an era when the sting of recession has not yet worn off, many consumers are continuing to look for ways to save a few dollars. One of the effects on the retail industry is the increasing desire of shoppers to avoid unnecessary shipping fees. While many consumers want to be able to purchase an item in a nearby store, which saves money on shipping, they also want the convenience of finding the item quickly and knowing that they are getting a good deal. ...

Acer on Friday announced the first seven-inch tablets in its Iconia line -- the Iconia Tab A100 series These devices run Android 3.2, a.k.a. "Honeycomb," and are available now in North America....