Weekly round-up 8/31/10

Enough activity on bookmarking, favoriting and facebooking in the past week to begin to roll them into a round-up post:

M&A goodness coming in threes- As balance sheets swell start-up and mid-market companies find buyers on a shopping spree.

• Intel’s tapped Infeon’s Wireless offerings, McAffee Software and the cable mobile business of Texas Instruments.
• Google’s three bets for Social: Slide, Jambool and now Social Deck.

Speaking of Google…Google added voice calls to gmail. Significant news due to scale, integration, implications for expediting non-carrier wifi solutions for consumers. Free in US & Canada, 2-cents to call elsewhere. I see the banditos Carriers like Telemex–who once charged me $50 for a five-minute emergency call–dripping with irony as they scream “foul!” Encourage you to try it out right away. Feel free to call me .

• Five ways Google Gmail Voice Chat is better than Skype
• This is a big deal for travelers: Google adds voice calling to Gmail (think wifi) http://bit.ly/googvm
• Skype/Google faceoff on Mashable. Poll puts Skype @ 43% and Google @ 42%–a statistical dead-heat with over 2,000 votes as of this posting. Shouts volumes in terms of the strength of a Real Brand.

From App to Hollywood & FAO – Angry Birds, the iPhone game whose popularity has soared and entertained many, is working on getting a plush toy line and their people are talking to people about a movied deal. You’ll hear this theme continually from me: The Valley is not just creating the technology that’s doing more to change consumer’s behaviors and expectations than Hollywood and Madison Avenue combined; it’s also creating the best entertainment of any kind. Anyone got options on “Farmville The Movie?”

Quotable Stats: Some findings on how influential active Twitter users are, and their engagement with brands online– “Study Finds Twitter Users Three Times More Likely to Impact Brands Online”

About these ads