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The race for right now: How to build a real-time commerce app

Jul02
by on July 2, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, Design & Dev, Entrepreneur

smartphoneaddiction
Gautam Golwala is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Poshmark. Today’s economy is one that’s rooted in the right here, right now, instant delivery mentality. Mobile technology is empowering consumers to follow the news, order a driver on demand, and make purchases from each other all in real-time. At the highest level, real-time commerce drives sales by connecting people and merchandise together through interactive app experiences. Many brands today are engaging in real-time commerce, each with a different approach that caters to their communities: Uber is one-to-one, Twitter is one-to-many, and Poshmark is many-to-many. While real-time commerce apps are…

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Microsoft acquires SyntaxTree, maker of a popular Visual Studio plugin for Unity

Jul02
by on July 2, 2014 at 5:09 pm
Posted In: Around the Web

Microsoft announced today that it has acquired SyntaxTree, the creator of UnityVS, a Visual Studio plugin for the Unity game engine. UnityVS will soon be available to download for free from Microsoft. UnityVS enables developers to view and debug the code for their games from within Virtual Studio. A number of top gaming companies, including EA, Ubisoft, Mojang, Valve and Blizzard, use the plugin. ➤ Microsoft acquires SyntaxTree, creator of UnityVS plugin for Visual Studio

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Amazon pushes back on FTC request to tighten in-app purchase procedure

Jul02
by on July 2, 2014 at 4:49 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

According to the WSJ, Amazon is resisting requests from the FTC to change the way it handles in-app purchases. The underlying issue is that its too simple for children to make those purchases while using apps. In a letter to the FTC obtained by the WSJ, Amazon’s Associate General Counsel wrote that when a parent tells the online retailer that a child made a purchase that wasn’t authorized, the company issues a refund. But, the FTC wants more prominent roadblocks like password protection on in-app purchases and a simpler refund process. The commission says that Amazon has often failed to…

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Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg apologizes for psychological News Feed experiment

Jul02
by on July 2, 2014 at 4:41 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting In New York
Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has admitted that a week-long psychological experiment affecting almost 700,000 unaware users was “poorly communicated.” As the Wall Street Journal reports, the company executive said: “This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was; it was poorly communicated. And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you.” The controversial tests came to light through a research paper. Led by data scientist Adam Kramer, a team of researchers altered the News Feed algorithm to show 689,003 users a larger percentage of either positive or…

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Radical.fm takes its ‘pay-what-you-can’ music-streaming service to Android in the US

Jul02
by on July 2, 2014 at 4:38 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

Almost a year after Radical.fm brought its ad-free ‘pay-what-you-can’ music-streaming service to iOS in the US, it’s finally arrived for Android users too. We first covered the service way back in 2012, when it was available globally as a Web-only affair restricted mainly to artists from the non-major record labels. But it’s shifted focus slightly since then to mobile, and is now only available in the US. That’s all very well and good, but its main differentiator for now is that it’s funded entirely from donations. You like it? You pay what you think it’s worth via PayPal, either as…

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