When news leaked in January that Facebook was allowing iPhone users in the U.S. and Canada to make free phone calls through its Messenger App the technorati speculated the service could become a Skype killer.Read more

Joanna Shields, Facebook’s Vice President and Managing Director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has played an important role in Europe’s Internet scene for over a decade.After moving to the UK in 2000 to run Real Networks International, she served as Google’s Managing Director of Syndication and Partnerships for EMEA.  She left Google to become Chief Executive at European social networking site, Bebo, and spearheaded its successful acquisition by AOL-Time Warner for $850 million in March 2008.Read more

Although Deezer, a popular French music streaming service, expanded into the UK in September, the bulk of its subscribers are in France.That’s about to change. Thanks to Facebook, Deezer is going global overnight. At Le Web 2011 CEO Axel Dauchez (pictured on Informilo's home page) is expected to announce that the music streaming service, which currently has 1.4 million premium offer subscribers and 20 million users, will launch in more than 130 countries on the social networking giant’s platform.Read more

QuBit Digital, a start-up focusing on analyzing big data for business, was founded by four ex-Google employees who funded the new company by selling their own Google options and investing their life savings in the London-based venture. It is no anomaly.

Just as the so-called Paypal mafia in Silicon Valley ended up defining the next wave of innovation, a swelling group of Xooglers, as ex-Google employees are known, are leaving the mother ship to either launch or join start-ups or to start funds in Europe.Read more

If Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena (pictured above), which has been operating without a break for over five centuries, represents the banking sector’s history, its future is more likely to resemble that of a 35-year old company: the one behind the iPhone, iPad and iTunes.

 Read more

Banks and mobile operators have been vying to dominate the mobile payments space but Silicon Valley companies could end up reaping the richest rewards.The reason?  It is not those that process the transactions but rather the companies that manage to leverage the rich information in the electronic trail clients leave behind – the so-called digital slipstream - that will win in the networked economy, say industry observers.Read more

During his tenure as Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt attended a private meeting in Davos with a group of senior telecom executives and tried to crack a joke. “Why don’t you make all of the investment and we will take all the profits,” quipped Schmidt, according to a story making the rounds in the tech industry. Nobody in the room laughed. His stab at humour hit too close to home.

 Read more

Ariel Brailovsky beat thousands of consumers to win a dream vacation package. All he had to do with tweet and complete some tasks on Facebook. The contest was launched on behalf of the Spanish government by SrBurns, a firm specialized in helping companies and countries in the Spanish-speaking world leverage social media to increase business. SrBurns is one of dozens of innovative young companies from Spain and Latin America that are expected to particpate in La Red Innova a June 14-15 conference in Madrid.Read more