Apple has tried to acquire Dropbox for around $800 million, but it was rejected!
Dropbox is a web based file hosting service which keeps all of the files in perfect sync across numerous operating systems and devices. Dropbox has already received around $7.2 million in funding and is expected to have $100 million in revenues in 2011.
It seems a shock that Dropbox investors didnt jump at that price, but Im guessing they are holding out for over a billion dollar valuation.
Easy APNS is a great new PHP and MySQL based push notification service for iOS applications. This seems to be another great annoying way to get your information in-front of more users!
It has been leaked that Amazon has been testing a complete redesign of their site. Here is what it is going to look like.
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The new design is currently in place on Amazon.com, but is still yet to launch in other countries. It will be interesting to see if users like the sleaker and more basic design.
Most people who own iPhones are most likely also sporting iPods, iPads, and other Apple products. The brand seems to make extreme loyalists out of its users; however, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Apple and all of its products are the best.
Apple is great for users because the products sync up nicely and offer an easy-to-use interface. While this is great for those of us who aren’t incredibly tech savvy, it does leave much to be desired by those who want greater control over the devices that they often rely upon to get them through basic day-to-day tasks.
Cloud Computing Services have recently been brought into the forefront by Apple’s release of the iCloud in June. While the iCloud is a great service for those who are looking for a place to store all of their information, many are forgetting that they already use cloud services on a regular basis.
Email, GoogleDocs, and other programs such as Flickr are all based in cloud computing. The only difference between these programs and the iCloud is that the iCloud provides one central location for all of these programs to meet. With the iCloud you can store music, photos, and documents all in one convenient location and then access these files from anywhere.
While the iCloud sounds great, it does come with a monthly price which can be quite a deterrent – especially when there are other free or more inexpensive programs available. Google and Amazon will both offer similar products for significantly cheaper prices, but the programs to look for are those that offer open source software.
Both Rackspace and OpenStack offer cloud computing services for free, and they provide some of the great features associated with other clouds that cost upwards of $25 a month. By remaining open source, these types of programs also allow for quicker updates and the streamlining of problem solving should any issues arise. The users who use these programs actually care about them and want to make sure that they offer the best service available.
While Apple and Amazon may offer a great product, you can bet that these companies are more concerned with the profit rather than the product.
So before you haul off and buy a subscription to a cloud, consider what you are actually going to be using it for. If you own an iPod and a MacBook and want a place to store all your iTunes, then paying for a piece of the iCloud may be worth the expense. But if you simply want a place to store all your files so that you can access them from anywhere, consider some of the free and equally functioning and secure cloud services provided by other companies.
Fancy a cloned version of GTalk for your Facebook account? Well FTalk is here. FTalk is a freeware tool which allows users to chat with their Facebook friends.
This application is very basic and they have just taken the whole user interface directly from GTalk.
It is about time someone came up with a Facebook chat application, but is a clone really necessary? Couldn’t you come up with something original!
mAdserve is a great new free open source mobile advertising server. mAdserve is powered by PHP and MySQL and it allows anyone to control the advertising on their mobile websites and sell directly to advertisers.
mAdserve currently supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 apps and mobile websites. Additionally, it has the ability to target by device, country, city, handset and schedule. Basically, it is the OpenX of the mobile space.
It includes open source and lightweight advertising SDKs for the devices mentioned and code snippets for mobile websites.
Want to listen to the music you have on Google Music? Well Google Music now has their own desktop player.
The player is a web version of the music service inside an app, you need to first login to your Google Account and then access the Google Music.
For me it seems like Google Music is a complete waste of time. You can simply sign up to Spotify and use their amazing player for your locally hosted music. I know that your music with Google Music is hosted in the cloud, which is great, but its just a very basic service and its only as good as the devices I can get the service on.
Anyways, if you want use Google music then check out the Google Music player (not official version).
Spotify is on a roll at the moment. In only a few weeks they have signed up over 1.4 million US users, with 175,000 paying for the premium service.
This is amazing news for the music industry, because MOG, Rdio and other music streaming services have been having trouble gaining traction.
Spotify is all about conversion rates! The major labels want to see highest possible conversions to the premium service from the free option. In Europe Spotify has a conversion rate of 15% and so far in the US they are seeing 12.5%. Very promising signs for Spotify.
Hubpages has released an update to their system which now provides each Hubber with his or her own subdomain on HubPages, as a way to restore Google traffic to high-quality Hubs.
Apple has tried to acquire Dropbox for around $800 million, but it was rejected!
