market

Pepsi is trying something new to connect its brand with would-be customers. It involves music, and it involves Twitter, though how exactly this effort is supposed to get people to drink more soda isn't quite clear.

Starting today, Pepsi will post a video summary of music news on its corporate Twitter page each Wednesday, based on trending music topics on Twitter. It will also offer a free MP3 download from Amazon that relates to the video news summary. To get the song, users will have to send a tweet with a Pepsi hashtag.

Pepsi will also stream video of … Read more

Android and iOS are stealing mobile market share at a shocking rate, new data from research firm IDC has revealed.

During the first quarter, Android and iOS combined to secure 82 percent of the smartphone market. Android-based device vendors shipped 89.9 million smartphones last quarter, jumping 145 percent year over year. Apple's iPhone shipments soared by 88.7 percent to land at 35.1 million units.

Android and iOS shipments hit 36.7 million units and 18.6 million units, respectively, during the first quarter of 2011. At that time, the platforms owned 54.4 percent of the … Read more

For better or worse, the buzz on social media could be your guide to when and how to trade stocks.

Since last summer, Derwent Capital Markets has been using Twitter sentiment to help drive its hedge fund, as its algorithms sort out the ups and downs of people's chatter on the social network.

Now, Derwent is ready to share that ability with you. The firm today announced it's working on an online retail trading platform with a "built-in social media sentiment analysis research tool" -- which will track social media data from Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere … Read more

Apple's iPhone is, by far, the most dominant device in the mobile ad market, according to new data from Millennial Media's Mobile Mix report.

The iPhone accounted for 15 percent of all mobile phone impressions hitting Millennial Media's ad network during the first quarter. RIM's BlackBerry Curve and Motorola's Droid Razr trailed far behind with 4.4 percent and 4 percent of all impressions, respectively. The Samsung Droid Charge and the BlackBerry Torch rounded out the top five with 3.4 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively.

Millennial Media's data is taken from the … Read more

Already on shaky footing, Research In Motion is being dealt another blow. After 14 years of company loyalty, the company's London-based head of global sales is moving on, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Patrick Spence was with the company since 1998 but had only been in his current position as SVP and managing director of global sales and regional marketing for the last 10 months, according to The Next Web.

This shakeup comes at a bad time for RIM. It is struggling to bring back lost market share and sales for its once popular BlackBerry devices, but it'… Read more

A tablet is only as good as the software it runs. Unfortunately for Android tablet owners, finding great tablet-optimized software can be a struggle. Browsing Google Play (formerly known as the Android Market), there's no easy way to filter out smartphone apps and focus just on the meaty tablet stuff.

The good news is that there are some great Android tablet apps out there, and they can be found with just a little extra effort.

The above video offers some of my best tips for finding all the great app content available for Android tablets. For a step-by-step walkthrough, … Read more

A tech company creates a robotic espresso machine that can be controlled by text messages and print bits of those messages on espresso foam. All in the name of duping gadget bloggers and others into spreading the company's name far and wide.

The blogosphere-manipulating company is called Zipwhip. And as you'll see in the video below, it has a product it would like everyone to know about. And, as we think we've mentioned, it also has a robotic espresso machine that can be controlled by text messages etcetera.

Now, this machine is not something that's on the market. Apparently it's a one-off created expressly for Zipwhip's offices (though Zipwhip has posted some info about it for those who might like to create their own).… Read more

PARIS -- Apple is the biggest buyer of microprocessors today -- and it's getting bigger.

The semiconductor industry produces all kinds of chips for memory, running software, communicating over networks, and more. And Apple, by virtue of its booming iPhone and iPad business, is a voracious consumer, said Dale Ford, head of IHS iSuppli's electronics and semiconductor research business. Samsung is in second place, and also growing fast, he added, speaking at the analyst firm's Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Summit here.

In 2009, Apple was one of the herd, spending about $9 billion on semiconductors. This … Read more

Apple's iPad helped catapult the company to the top of the mobile PC space last quarter, according to new data from NPD DisplaySearch.

The research firm revealed today that during the first quarter, Apple shipped 17.2 million mobile PCs worldwide, earning it 22.5 percent share of the market and jumping 118 percent year-over-year. Hewlett-Packard and Acer trailed with 11.6 percent and 9 percent market share, respectively. Lenovo and Dell rounded out the top five with 7.7 percent and 7.3 percent share.

NPD DisplaySearch, which defines mobile PCs as tablets, notebooks, and mini-notebooks, said total … Read more