CNET shows us Samsung's history, talent for building tanks (video)

Sure, you know Samsung for its smartphones, TVs and automatic vacuum cleaners, but did you know it got its start in exporting produce, groceries and dried fish? You might not think it looking at your Galaxy Nexus, but the outfit's had its hands in quite a few industries over the years, including trade exports, sugar refinement, amusement parks and even wargadgets -- big ones. If you're itching to learn more (or just want to see a Samsung Galaxy S II clumsily sculpted from snow) read on, CNET's about to drop some Samsung knowledge into your inquisitive brain.Continue reading CNET shows us Samsung's history, talent for building tanks (video)CNET shows us Samsung's history, talent for building tanks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  CNET  | Email this | Comments

M3 Android NFC Communicator mixes something old, something new for prepaid subs

Malaysia may not be on the tip of anyone's tongue when wireless comes to mind, but that's not stopping local outfit DMD Mobile from attempting to make its mark. Set for an official unveiling at next week's Mobile World Congress, the M3 Android NFC Communicator is the outfit's clumsily titled stab at the prepaid market in South Asia and the Middle East. The touchscreen handset, to be available in both 2.6-inch portrait QWERTY and 3.2-inch candybar form factors, comes loaded up with a surprising mix of last- and current-gen specs: 650Mhz single-core CPU running a skinned version of Gingerbread 2.3.5, support for dual-band HSPA+ (850 / 2100MHz) and quadband GSM, VGA front-facing / 3MP rear cameras, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi and NFC. Sure, it's not the most thrilling of forward-looking devices to surface this year, but priced at RM500 (that's about US$165), it's certainly more of a great deal than it is bargain bin entry. Hit up the source below for additional info on this low-hanging mobile fruit.M3 Android NFC Communicator mixes something old, something new for prepaid subs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink The Star  |  DMD Mobile  | Email this | Comments

VMK preps Africa-designed Elikia smartphone with $170 price, fast track for apps

Congo-based VMK has been blazing a trail for mobile devices in Africa: its Way-C tablet proved that the continent could go its own way without leaning on Asia or Europe. The company promised several months ago to address the same gap with smartphones, and the result is here in the form of the Elikia ("Hope"). The hardware won't shake the cellular world's foundations with its 3.5-inch (and 480 x 320) display, 512MB of RAM, a 650MHz processor and both 5-megapixel rear as well as front VGA cameras, but that's not the point -- at $170 US off-contract, it's much more within the reach of Congo residents, and it even uses the unofficial Holo Launcher to bring a taste of Android 4.0 to what's really Android 2.3 underneath. There's also a minor revolution in app purchasing. As Google Play won't take Congo's credit cards, VMK has its own app store and prepaid gift cards to give the country a similar experience. You'll have to sign on to local carriers Airtel, MTN or Warid to use an Elikia in the near future, but we're hoping the phone expands its reach and levels the playing field. Gallery: VMK ElikiaFiled under: Cellphones, MobileVMK preps Africa-designed Elikia smartphone with $170 price, fast track for apps originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Sep 2012 12:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  VMK (translated)  | Email this | Comments

GSM Nexus Prime passes through the FCC, possibly heading to AT&T?

Just because next week's joint Samsung and Google event has been postponed doesn't mean the leaks have to end. A Sammy handset with the model number I9250, which matches up nicely with the baseband version in the Galaxy Nexus shots that popped up, just made an appearance at the FCC packing a GSM radio compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile's HSPA networks. It's also boasting dual-band 802.11n, Bluetooth and NFC. Despite suggestions that the next Nexus device would be a Verizon exclusive, we could be looking at the AT&T version or at least the unlocked GSM model. The fact that it doesn't support T-Mobile's 2100MHz band leads us to believe this won't be popping up in T-Mo shops. It appears that T-Mobile AWS is included. Noticeably missing, however, is any mention of LTE -- that particular feature could still be the sole realm of Big Red. Hopefully we won't have to wait much longer to find out all the details. One more image after the break.

[Thanks, Samer]Continue reading GSM Nexus Prime passes through the FCC, possibly heading to AT&T?GSM Nexus Prime passes through the FCC, possibly heading to AT&T? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Oct 2011 12:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Phandroid, Wireless Goodness  |  FCC, 2  | Email this | Comments

Demand Media Is Cutting Back On Its Massive Volume Of Writing (DMD)

In an email sent to Demand Media's thousands of freelance writers the company laid out a rather significant shift in strategy. The so-called "content farm" is cutting back, a process it mentioned in its Q1 report. It will be assigning fewer stories because it feels like it already has a strong backlog of material. "With our eHow.com library already so comprehensive, we saw the opportunity to shift our focus to more targeted categories and other forms of content such as slide shows, video series and feature articles," the company said. It continued, "Looking ahead, as we continue to publish articles for eHow and our other sites, we want to be sure we are building on what already exists, not replicating it. This is not to say we will stop assigning standard titles in How to and Topic View format for eHow.com. But it does mean that we will have fewer eHow.com assignments for the foreseeable future." A freelancer forwarded us the email and wrote Demand "effectively lays off writers via email." We reached out to Demand and chief revenue officer Joanne Bradford (obviously) disagreed with this person's assessment. She told us, "It's still one of the largest pools of writing assignments available in the world. We don't feel like it's that dramatic of a change because it's not like every assignment was being taken. It's all about quality for us." Bradford admitted that some writers would be cut, but that is a part of the process. They are always looking to get rid of the lowest rated writers and replace them with better once. Work for Demand? We'd love to hear from you (ndavis@businessinsider.com, 646.376.6016). Here's the full email:

Dear Writers and Editors, We realize there has been recent concern around assignment availability. We know many of you rely on Demand Media Studios as a regular income source and as a way to grow your careers. For those reasons and others, we want to be as transparent as we can about the future. In just a few years, we've worked together to grow the eHow.com library to an astounding 3 million articles. While eHow has been the main publisher of content produced by DMS writers, we've also developed other writing outlets on our own properties like typeF.com and LIVESTRONG.COM as well as through partnerships like Chron.com and USAToday. With our eHow.com library already so comprehensive, we saw the opportunity to shift our focus to more targeted categories and other forms of content such as slide shows, video series and feature articles. Good examples of these new formats can be found on  eHow and LIVESTRONG.COM. None of this would have been possible without having spent so many years working with you, our writers and editors, to build our comprehensive library. Looking ahead, as we continue to publish articles for eHow and our other sites, we want to be sure we are building on what already exists, not replicating it. This is not to say we will stop assigning standard titles in How to and Topic View format for eHow.com. But it does mean that we will have fewer eHow.com assignments for the foreseeable future. However, we will continue to add more publishers and sections as we've done over the years, and ultimately the work and opportunities will grow for our best writers and editors. We are also excited to completely execute on our vision of having the most qualified writers and editors working on titles within their areas of expertise. In order for this to happen, we need to make sure of a few things:

That only executable, valid and unique titles make it to your Work Desk. That every article is written and copy edited by a qualified professional with background, knowledge or experience in the topic. That every article has the appropriate format and word count for the topic to be comprehensively covered.

We will also be putting additional focus on helping you grow within your fields. This means offering ways for you to gain exposure on our sites and new tools for you to promote yourself and your work. We will send additional updates and information on assignments going forward. We will also set up some new avenues for you to ask questions and offer feedback. For the time being, if you have any additional questions, please use this forum thread. Best Regards,Demand Media Studios Team Please follow SAI: Media on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Samsung And Google Postpone Huge Android Announcement Out Of Respect For Steve Jobs5 Exercises To Fix Hunchback Posture From Office WorkAnd Now We Know Why Nobody Took Madoff Whistleblower Harry Markopolos Seriously...

Here's What An ACTUAL Content Farm Looks Like (DMD)

When most people talk about sites like Demand Media and Associated Content, they refer to them as a content farm, but that's not what they are. A content farm is a site that scrapes content from other sites and slaps ads against it. Demand Media meanwhile has an army of freelancers who create original content that they put ads against. It's a crucial difference. Like many people who are active online, your writer has a Google Alert for his name, and often gets back links from content farm that scrape our articles. Don't get us wrong: you're still free to believe that Demand Media represents the end of motherhood and apple pie. You can even argue that they're spam. But calling them a content farm is just incorrect. Here's what a real content farm looks like:

Whatever you may think of eHow, it's different. Don't Miss: Our Exclusive Q&A With Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt →Join the conversation about this story »

Demand Media CEO: Here's Why We Use Accounting That Some Analysts Hate (DMD)

After a public offering set it around $1.4 billion in January, Demand Media already has a $2 billion market cap going into the middle of March. The IPO – the biggest Internet offering since Google's – and the subsequent stock performance having been amazing to watch because on its way to success, Demand has proven a large chorus of haters wrong. Demand Media is a company that makes money two ways, as a domain registrar and as a publisher of evergreen content produced by an army of freelance writers. Demand's various doubters attack the company for three reasons.

Some financial analysts question the company's accounting principles. Demand categorizes the money it pays its writers as a capital cost and spreads it over five years. Some analysts think Demand should only spread the cost over one year, and that doing otherwise artificially inflates the company's net income – allowing it to tell the public it "profits" more than it actually does.

Other critics say Demand depends too much on search engines for its traffic – that a quick change from Google could kill the whole business.

Finally, lots of fancy pants journalist just plain hate Demand Media's method of creating content. These haters spill lots of ink trying to convince readers that Demand Media is a "content farm," and that this makes it evil somehow. This is probably the silliest of all attacks on Demand, but it's also the most ubiquitous and therefore the most dangerous.

Even without so many headwinds, Demand Media's big IPO and burst out the gate on the public markets would be a success story. But these criticisms do exist, and that makes the job Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt has done with his company even more impressive. We caught up with him to talk about that success – and to get his answer to some of those criticisms. (Rosenblatt was not able to discuss Demand's relationship with Google in greater detail than the company already did in a blog post. That might be fine because the criticism might have less merit than you think. A recent Google algorithm change – designed to reduce spammy search results – actually boosted Demand Media site eHow.com's prominence in Google search results.) Read on for the exclusive interview →  

  SAI: Was the IPO experience everything you imagined? Should more tech companies suck it up and go for it? Why are tech companies so afraid of the IPO? Richard Rosenblatt: Our experience going public played out as we had hoped and expected. It’s a serious and thoughtful process that takes a significant level of organizational maturity, energy and patience.  While we are pleased with the outcome, I definitely don’t look at the decision to go public as something that other tech companies should just, as you say, “suck it up and go for it.”  Every company has its own unique set of circumstances and the decision to go public requires many discussions with the company’s board, investors, senior team and legal/financial advisors.  For example, the benefit of liquidity and access to the public capital markets may not outweigh the ability to steer a young company through longer periods of investment and less predictable operating results. I would only suggest a public offering IF a company has achieved scale and it feels comfortable forecasting its performance on a quarterly basis. SAI: Some people are skeptical of Demand Media’s capitalization accounting for its media content. Why do you think that is? Why are they wrong?Richard Rosenblatt: In contrast to shorter-lived, time-sensitive content that revolves around news and current events, the vast majority of Demand Media’s content investment has been in longer-lived content that is informational or educational and addresses enduring, common questions expressed by consumers over a sustained period of time. We typically commission professionally written content when our systematic processes, which include our predictive algorithms that analyze web search data and direct marketing phrases, identify content investments that are expected to generate direct revenue over a period of five years that exceeds the costs of creating that content.  These processes, coupled with our analysis of the historic performance of our content, provide the basis for us to establish that our content embodies probable economic benefits necessary for capitalization prior to its publication.  The historical performance of our content also supports the conclusion that our content generates revenue over a long useful life.   Based on our data, we expect the vast majority of our content will be economically productive over five years.  We therefore account for our content by amortizing its cost over that five year period. Generally accepted accounting principles require us to apply the existing body of authoritative accounting literature to our particular set of facts and circumstances in order to arrive at the proper accounting conclusion.  We believe that our conclusions and disclosures best reflect our unique facts and circumstances associated with the acquisition and related accounting for our content. SAI: Demand keeps signing up big celebrities to launch Web sites. First Lance Armstrong, Tyra Banks and now Rachael Ray. How do these big names crossover into Web success? Richard Rosenblatt: In each case, we are partnering with extraordinarily talented people who have a real vision and passion for embracing the opportunity associated with new media. They were attracted by the ability to reach individuals in a more personal and impactful way than they experienced, for example, with their broadcast efforts.  For some of them, they tasted that first hand through social media tools like Twitter, Facebook or a blog.  But they also realized that they needed significant expertise to build a large audience and help them navigate the world of online media. What attracted them to Demand Media was our ability to connect with consumers in a deeply personal way.  Our ability to listen to the consumer and translate that into a specific need resonated with the mission of people like Lance, Tyra or Rachael and gives each of them confidence that they can be successful online. We’re taking the guesswork out of what their audience wants. Demand Media has also proven that we can take an existing property – like eHow or Cracked – and completely transform it into an online brand with a new focus and value proposition that attracts a large and engaged audience.  With LIVESTRONG.COM we proved that we could build a new online market leader from scratch – in just a few years.  Working with Tyra Banks on typeF.com, our new entry in the world of beauty and fashion, we are addressing and defining a unique position in a large, fragmented market.  And with Rachael Ray, we have the opportunity to mutually expand our connection to consumers in the Cooking & Food category.  These are all deep partnerships built upon shared values, trust and a long-term perspective on the opportunity at hand. SAI: AOL bought the Huffington Post for $315 million last month. What'd you think of the price? Do you think the media space is in for more consolidation? Richard Rosenblatt: Arianna and her team built a high visibility, fast growing business with a novel approach that was very disruptive to the news business.  In less than six years, The Huffington Post accomplished something no other news organization had managed to pull off.  That kind of success should be rewarded with the strategic premium that was reflected in the acquisition price.  Does this foretell more consolidation in the media business?  From our point of view, the media industry has always been acquisitive – in good times and bad – and we see no reason to expect that to change in 2011 or 2012. Related: These Folks Quit Facebook To Start Their Own CompaniesJoin the conversation about this story »See Also:THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Google's Big Opportunity In Display AdvertisingWho Gained Most From Google's Search Changes?Demand Media Gets Its First Buy Rating! (And A Few Holds)

Samsung SHV-E120L comes out of the development dark, is the Xtina to LG's Britney

Brothers from another mobile mother, or just a case of copycat syndrome? We'll let you be the judge, but from the looks of this latest leak, Samsung's SHV-E120L could be sharing some of the LG LU6200's special spec sauce. Outed over on Cetizen and iNews24, the full breakdown of the device's innards point to a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 HD display, 2 megapixel front-facing / 8 megapixel rear camera, 1GB RAM, 16GB of onboard storage, WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC. We've seen conflicting reports as to the exact version of Gingerbread that'll ship on the phone, with Android 2.3.5 in the running. As for the handset's radios, its purported MDM9600 Gobi chipset indicates tri-mode LTE, HSPA and CDMA compatibility. Sammy's super-sized smartphone could hit South Korea later this month, or in early October -- if the passable English in that Google translation can be believed.Samsung SHV-E120L comes out of the development dark, is the Xtina to LG's Britney originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink PocketNow  |  Cetizen (Translated), iNews24 (Translated)  | Email this | Comments

Wait, Just How Big Is ShoeDazzle? (DMD)

Yesterday top Silicon Valley VC Andreessen Horowitz, also known as A16Z, led a $40 million investment in ShoeDazzle, a "Netflix for shoes" startup. ShoeDazzle is best known for being sponsored by Kim Kardashian, but it seems to be a huge business. A16Z Partner John O'Farrell says the company has 3 million "members", and that the default subscription is $39.95. If every membership is a paying subscriber that would work out to $120 million in revenue PER MONTH, Internet analyst Andrew Chen notes.  But actually, you only pay in a given month when you want that month's selection of shoes, so the revenue is actually probably much, much lower. But it would be interesting to know what the conversion rate is, and what the growth is. It's almost certainly on those metrics (and churn) that A16Z invested.  So ShoeDazzle isn't as big as a casual look at its metrics might indicate. But it certainly seems to be big and generating serious revenue.  It's also an interesting look at the trend of celebrities going into startups. The way it usually works is that a celebrity will get shares into the company to promote it. It's win-win, because it's great marketing for the company. For example, Tyra Banks and Lance Armstrong partnered with Demand Media when it was young, and made millions in its IPO. Don't Miss: Here's Who Made Bank On The Demand Media IPO → For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:NYC Startup Group Commerce Raises An Additional $10 Million And Says It Could Have Raised MoreKim Kardashian's Company Raises $30 Million From Andreessen HorowitzSecretive Spy Tech Company Palantir Technologies Raises Another $50 Million

Most Tech IPOs This Year Were Total Busts (ZNGA, GRPN, DMD, LNKD, ANGI, P, YNDX, JIVE)

Zynga finally went public on Friday and started trading at $11 per share — but that euphoria wore off and it quickly fell below its IPO price of $10. It's the latest in a long string of tech companies that have gone public this year and haven't done so well. By year's end, seven of the 16 tech companies that went public are actually outperforming their IPOs. One of them, Bankrate, doesn't really count because it was taken private and then re-IPO'd this year. Was 2011 a bust for IPOs? You can draw your own conclusions. But to help out, we've assembled a list of the top tech IPOs this year, and where they are now:Demand Media is getting clobbered

IPO Date: 1/26 IPO Price: $17 Debut Price: $23.50 Debut Closing Price: $22.65 Today: $6.85 Change From IPO: down 59.7%

Zipcar is in a deep hole

IPO Date: 4/14 IPO Price: $18 Debut Price: $30 Debut Closing Price: $28 Today: $14.83 Change From IPO: down 17.6%

Renren is doing worse than everyone else

IPO Date: 5/4 IPO Price: $14 Debut Price: $19.50 Debut Closing Price: $18.01 Today: $3.28 Change From IPO: down 76.6%

See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.See Also:BRUTAL: Mark Pincus Is No Longer A BillionaireWhy LinkedIn's IPO Was A Big Success When Almost Everyone Else Was A BustThe Largest Tech IPO Since Google Just Made These People Millionaires And Billionaires

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