Crush Google Plus + more

1 minutes estimated reading time

How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War to Crush Google Plus | Vanity Fair – Zuckerberg et al were helped by Google Plus having a poor product experience and dumb rollout approach. This has been evident across Google’s products from Google Wave to GTalk and the Google Cloud service. Facebook didn’t need to crush Google Plus, it just needed to do a better job on a consistent basis. More on Facebook here.

Huawei Draws From Apple Playbook, Narrows IPhone Market Lead | Digital – AdAge – Guo Ping talks a good game, but why would someone develop specifically for Huawei rather than Android?

Smart TVs are a dumb idea | TechEye – really nails it in terms of the value created and consumer behaviour

The foibles of freemium – …turn the commercial model upside down by no longer relying just on journalists to report the news but also articles from a raft of other contributors – including corporate brand and advertising PR people. City AM goes all Forbes and Huffington Post blurring the line in editorial and advertorial content

Samsung’s subtle nudge to get potential customers to upgrade – interesting acknowledgement that the competition is existing devices in mature markets like Europe and North America

Huge: Microsoft opens up its Windows Holographic platform to third parties – In what could be a defining moment in the nascent augment reality and virtual reality spaces, Microsoft Corp. has opened up its Windows Holographic platform – trying to become the OS for immersion in the same way that AltSpace is the social platform for VR interactions

SMARTPHONES: Microsoft Puts Smartphone Bets on Xiaomi Bottom line: Microsoft probably took a 10-20 percent stake in Xiaomi as part of the pair’s deal. At least Xiaomi doesn’t have a carrier relationship to burn by bundling Skype on a handset – let’s hope the do a lot better than Nortel, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, Sendo or LG. All of whom had been in bed with Microsoft at one time or another

Mobile location data is accurate up to 30 meters: report – Location data accuracy fluctuates which isn’t terribly surprising