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Start small: 5 tips for building a successful niche marketplace

Mar18
by on March 18, 2014 at 9:04 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, Entrepreneur, How-To's

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Leigh Middleton is the CEO and Co-Founder Six3. A lot has been written about digital marketplaces – virtual spaces in which a market operates – and, similarly, about niches – narrow target markets. However, the two are rarely contemplated together. Niche marketplaces have already proven to be a successful model for the likes of Airbnb, Etsy, Hotel Tonight, Uber, and Yplan by offering a focused user experience that is synergetic with the delineated audience requirements. But how do you keep this audience engaged and returning while building out both sides of the marketplace simultaneously? A niche marketplace with a two-sided interest…

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8 of the best iOS apps for shooting and sharing video—beyond Vine and Instagram

Mar18
by on March 18, 2014 at 7:41 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Roundups

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Let’s imagine you’re not toting a dedicated video camera or DSLR, but rather are using the the ever-present smartphone camera in your pocket. While you can always call on Instagram or Vine for shooting and sharing video, there are so many other cool video apps out there—some free, some costing a few dollars—that it’s worth broadening your field of view to include these eight innovative selections. One major, and somewhat non-obvious, obstacle that stumps many filmmaking novices when recording on a smartphone is, ironically, too much volume. That’s right. Each second of unnecessary video is time wasted. That footage may be…

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Facebook mobile now shows workplace, hometown, and mutual friends at the top of other people’s profiles

Mar18
by on March 18, 2014 at 7:30 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Mobile, Social Media

Facebook today rolled out a new feature for getting more information about other people on the social network. Now, when you go to another person’s profile on mobile (iOS and touch-enabled browsers), you may see “things that are relevant to you” at the top, including that individual’s workplace, hometown, and mutual friends. While the new feature didn’t make it into Facebook for Android, it does work in “all mobile browsers for smartphones,” a Facebook spokesperson told TNW, though the company has “nothing to share at this time around a date.” The addition isn’t a huge one, though it does show…

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Bing now shows a map, your estimated travel time and mileage when you ask for directions in the US

Mar18
by on March 18, 2014 at 6:14 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Product Updates

Microsoft today updated Bing with a number of new features and refinements to help you navigate from point A to point B. The search engine will now show your estimated travel time, mileage and a small thumbnail of a suggested route whenever you search for driving directions. So whether it’s “directions from New York City to Boston” or “from Bellevue, WA to Tacoma, WA,” Bing will offer some context about your journey. When you select the map thumbnail or “turn-by-turn directions” link, Bing will serve up a detailed plan of your route with a full breakdown of the directions. The…

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European vote could strike a blow against net neutrality

Mar18
by on March 18, 2014 at 5:48 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, UK

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An Industry Committee of MEPs have today voted to approve a controversial plan that could allow service providers to prioritize certain types of traffic as long as it doesn’t degrade access to other rival services. The decision comes as part of a package of measures that includes ensuring that mobile roaming costs would be banned by December 15 2015 – although MEPs are now calling for the European Commission to lay down guidelines for “exceptional cases in which companies would be allowed to apply charges” to protect against “anomalous or abusive usage of retail roaming services”. The potentially more worrying part of…

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