Computer Support Blog

In the quest to make digital music a viable business endeavor instead of just a cool idea, there have been many businesses and websites that have already come and gone.  While digital music pirating has been a huge issue for most of the services that have failed, rapidly changing hardware has been a serious issue as well.  One quarter, the dominant digital music device is an MP3 player, the next it is a smartphone!  Failure to adapt the digital music service to the new technologies has sunk some of the digital music services distributing digital music files over the Internet.  Spotify is deeply invested in making sure that does not happen.  For that, they have Oskar Stal!

Oskar Stal is the Chief Technology Officer of digital music distributor Spotify.  As Spotify developed as a website, but prepared to take its service international, the company sought a CTO who had extensive experience with mobile operating systems.  Without a CTO who knew the ins and outs of various mobile platforms, Spotify could not take their business to the next level.  Having been employed at mBlox, a company deeply invested in mobile transactions and the technical interactions between mobile platforms, Oskar Stal rose to the top of Spotify’s list of desirable candidates for the position.

Oskar Stal’s resume is more extensive than simply working for mBlox, though spending eight years as the Director of Development in the technical department at that company was the weightiest factor in Spotify hiring him.  Fortunately for Spotify, Stal was exceptionally interested in the position; he was already impressed by how much Spotify had accomplished without someone as experienced at the top of their development branch!

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It can be very tough to break into the social network and online media markets.  Given how YouTube has virtually dominated much of the online media market and how the major Internet social networks continue to develop tools to make it easier to stream videos, share music, and distribute photos, it is a tough time to be a new online service in that niche.  Even so, that has not stopped Demand Media and it is not slowing down Joanne Bradford.

Joanne Bradford is Demand Media’s Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer.  Bradford joined Demand Media after working for Yahoo!, which is one of Demand Media’s biggest business rivals.  It is easy to see why both Yahoo! and Demand Media would want Joanne Bradford; Bradford graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Journalism (Advertising).  Since college, she has trail-blazed with some of the most influential companies in the tech sector and the media world.  She started her ascent up the corporate ladder at publishing giant McGraw-Hill where she served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for BusinessWeek Magazine!

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Given that the television has been available to consumers for almost a century now, it might seem odd to make the statement that there are very few people who “get” television.  As far as the tech sector and Internet businesses who are trying to exploit the classic medium, there are very few people who “get” television.  One need only look at how both Apple and Google have unsuccessfully attempted to market Smart TV products to know that the giants of the Internet simply do not understand how consumers use their televisions.  Ashwin Navin, on the other hand, completely gets the television audience and through his company, Flingo, he is enhancing the television-viewing experience.

Ashwin Navin is the co-founder and CEO of Flingo.  Flingo is virtually reinventing television . . . without trying to change the sloth-like way that most people view television.  While it might seem like a contradiction, Navin’s approach to Smart TV programming has been very different from the approach of his competitors.  Instead of trying to change television entirely, Navin and Flingo are working to enhance television.  Navin created Flingo to easily provide additional content related to television on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices.  As well, Ashwin Navin realized that many people might enjoy seeing their YouTube and other videos on their big, expensive, sophisticated high-definition televisions.  A big initial application of Flingo was linking Internet videos to your television!

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With so many smartphones available to consumers, it can be overwhelming to try to shop for a new smartphone.  There are so many brands, so many operating systems, so many distinguishing aspects of the different smartphones on the market that it becomes a full-time job to keep up with the benefits and detractions of each different make and model of smartphone.  Fortunately, some of the new smartphones are delightfully simple in their pitch and intended market.  The Samsung Rugby Smart is one such smartphone and it is for active/sporty individuals.

The Samsung Rugby Smart is a brand new smartphone from one of the most reliable names in computer technology today!  The Samsung Rugby Smart is intended for the on-the-go, athletic type smartphone user.  In addition to having a more durable casing with a dust-proof seal, the Samsung Rugby Smart is waterproof.  Tested to resist submersion – not just a few drops of water, but actually being immersed in water! – the Samsung Rugby Smart will remain undamaged under a full meter of water for up to half an hour!  That means if you accidentally start swimming with your Samsung Rugby Smart, you should not lose your precious data or files stored on your smartphone!

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Some of the coolest ideas in the tech sector come about by accident.  These accidental ideas might not have the overwhelming significance to humanity that medical science kismet discoveries – like the discovery of penicillin through bread mold – have, but they can be pretty neat in their own right and lead to surprisingly cool businesses.  Andrew Houston is an American Internet pioneer whose frequent forgetfulness led to the creation of Dropbox!

Andrew (Drew) Houston studied computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 2000s.  Born and raised in Massachusetts, Drew Houston frequently forgot his USB flash drives while attending MIT.  Always on the run, Houston soon came to lament how forgetting his flash drive would affect his time, grades, and travel.  Houston began to back up his files so he had remote access to them.  When he started doing that, he realized the idea might translate into a service.  With his fellow MIT graduate, Arash Ferdowski, Drew Houston translated the idea for the service into a business: Dropbox.

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When browsing products on Amazon and you see a product has a five star rating that means it is a great product, right? Unfortunately, you cannot trust that rating as much as you might have thought. At least one Amazon retailer has been paying people to post rave reviews for its products on the site.

Though this highly misleading practice violates Amazon’s stated policies, VIP Deals paid its customers to give the product good reviews. The company is now suffering the consequences – Amazon took down the product page on which people posted the offending reviews and then removed all other VIP Deals products from the website.

When shopping online, many customers place a high importance on peer reviews because they cannot physically see or handle the item they are purchasing. Good reviews are essential for retailers to sell their product amid the multitude of similar products available online. Therefore, some retailers like VIP Deals are resorting to posting anonymous reviews or selling reviews in order to obtain customers.

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In the ever-more-complicated online world, new social networks seem to pop up (or close down) almost every month.  As you surf the web, you might be astonished to discover there have been entire social networks that you never heard of before.  Some of the photo sharing and intimate social networks actually only make headlines when they shut down!  But one social network you may not have heard of that is not closing down anytime soon is Yammer.  And while you may not have heard of Yammer, that is not the fault of An Le!

An Le is the Vice President of Business Development for Yammer.  Yammer is a company that builds social networks for private companies, almost like a social network for a business’s intranet.  Yammer serves companies like Ford, LG, and Pitney Bowes and developing the network to more companies is the responsibility of An Le.  As Vice President of Business Development, An Le helps businesses understand how vital an internal social network can be to increasing productivity, teamwork and corporate efficiency.

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Facebook versus Google Plus – which side are you on? It is the battle for the future of social networking and the outcome will decide the direction the Internet takes in the coming years. Google+ is still a relatively new social networking site, having only been launched last year, but it shows promise.

Some of the most basic features of Google+ were applauded by the public when first introduced. Facebook did its best to integrate similar features within its own site, but the features on Google+ are far more seamlessly incorporated. These features include the circles, hangouts, and making Google+ part of all other Google websites.

Google+ allows you to easily group your friends the way we do in real life with the circles feature. The best thing about this feature is that no one else knows in which group you have put him or her. The hangouts are the video chat feature for Google+ and this feature allows people to chat with everyone in one of their circles all at the same time.

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Online gaming has taken a few major turns in recent years, especially in terms of type of players and company business models. Until recently, most games on the Internet were for hardcore gamers. Now, anyone can find a game online that he or she will enjoy playing.

Social networking games have created a window into the gaming world for casual players by creating thousands of games that are free and very easy to play. These games come with a revolutionary business model that other types of games are slowly adopting.

Massively Multiplayer Online games, known as MMOs, are a type of game in which players from all over the world can play the game together in an online world. MMOs can be any type of game, but Role Playing Games (or RPGs) are the most popular. These MMORPGs, like the well-known World of Warcraft game, are beginning to change.

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If you play games on Facebook, you know about Farmville. No matter your opinion on the game itself, there is no denying that Farmville is a huge success. As is Zynga, the company that created Farmville.

Zynga currently has four of the past year’s top ten games on Facebook, according to Gameinformer. These games, of which Farmville was not one, were ranked based on how highly players recommended the games.

Zynga’s Farmville remains a very popular game, even if it did not make that list. How and why is it so popular? Why do people play a game where they have to run a farm? How does Zynga make money from these free Facebook games?

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