Tech News Stop - Sharing by Wasim Akhtar

::::Seagate to acquire controlling interest in LaCie::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1338001029_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>Seagate and Lacie announced an exclusive agreement with the intent for Seagate to acquire a controlling interest in LaCie. Seagate has offered to purchase from Philippe Spruch, LaCie’s chairman and CEO, and his affiliate, all of their shares, representing 64.5% of the outstanding shares of LaCie.Following governmental approvals and the close of this transaction, Seagate would commence an all-cash simplified tender offer (followed as the case may be by a squeeze-out procedure) to acquire the remaining outstanding shares in accordance with the General Regulation of the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).Seagate has offered Mr. Spruch and his affiliate €4.05 per share in cash, minus a potential adjustment depending on the cash and debt position of LaCie at closing. This price may be increased by a possible price supplement of 3% in the event that the threshold of 95% of the shares and voting rights of LaCie would be reached by Sparrow within 6 months following closing, resulting in a maximum potential price per LaCie share of €4.17. Without the price supplement, the offer currently values LaCie at an approximate €146 million, or $186 million total equity value, including acquired net cash of approximately €49 million, or $65 million, as of March 31, 2012. The €4.05 per share price represents a premium of 29% to LaCie’s average closing stock price over the 30 trading days ended May 22, 2012.Ricol Lasteyrie & Associés was appointed today as independent expert by the board of directors of LaCie, to deliver a fairness opinion on the price that would be offered in the context of the tender offer, including in the perspective of a potential squeeze-out procedure.The transaction would combine two complementary product and technology portfolios, adding LaCie’s line of premium branded consumer storage solutions, network-attached storage solutions and software offerings to Seagate’s array of mainstream consumer storage products. The combination would accelerate Seagate’s growth strategy in the expanding consumer storage market, particularly in Europe and Japan, and add strong engineering and software development capabilities, as well as relationships with several key retailers.The transaction is expected to be neutral to Seagate’s fiscal 2013 earnings per share. Following the close of the sale of his shares to Seagate, Mr. Spruch would join Seagate and lead the company’s consumer storage products organization. Reporting to him would be Patrick Connolly, who currently serves as vice president and general manager of Seagate’s retail group, as well as Pierre van der Elst, who currently serves as deputy general manager of LaCie. The financial terms of the new position of Mr Spruch are not determined as of today and would therefore be described subsequently, including in the tender offer documentation.“Seagate has a strong commitment to the growing consumer storage market and bringing the most dynamic products to market. LaCie has built an exceptional consumer brand by delivering exciting and innovative high-end products for many years. This transaction would bring a highly complementary set of capabilities to Seagate, significantly expand our consumer product offerings, add a premium-branded direct-attached storage line, strengthen our network-attached storage business line and enhance our capabilities in software development,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. “We are also excited that Philippe, who is a true visionary and leader in the consumer storage business, would join Seagate to run our consumer storage products organization.”“With the proliferation of devices and content being shared and stored today, consumer demand for high-quality branded storage solutions continues to grow,” said Philippe Spruch, LaCie’s chairman and CEO. “We are excited about the potential for this combination to benefit customers and employees by creating significant scale and opening up new markets. We look forward to making the resources of a much larger company available to our customers around the world."

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::::MongoDB or MySQL? Why not both?::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1338000935_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>Someone please tell me we’ve gotten past the either-or debate over NoSQL and relational databases.While NoSQL databases are foundational technologies for web startups — with most of these young companies opting forMongoDB, Cassandra, CouchDB or something else to fulfill their database needs — they might be better served going a hybrid route instead. There’s always room for a good, old-fashioned relational database — especially if they want to conduct and store financial transactions.Just ask Mark O’Neill, CTO of Thrillist, a New York City-based media company that fields e-commerce and consumer recommendation services. Thrillist uses the NoSQL MongoDB to track and store tons of data about user interactions, but it’s MySQL all the way when it comes to bread-and-butter transactions and financial data that runs the company.There’s a reason for that, O’Neill said. As great as MongoDB (or Cassandra or CouchDB or insert your favorite NoSQL entry here) may be, they’re still relatively immature compared to their SQL forebears. The ancillary tools aren’t as robust and it’s hard to find NoSQL talent.“Skillsets around NoSQL are lacking and SQL [as a language] is relatively simple to learn — writing queries in SQL  is not so bad. With NoSQL, the tools are less robust and the barrier to entry is much higher,” O’Neill told me in an interview.Thrillist, founded in 2005, looked at several NoSQL options but went with MongoDB over the NoSQL alternatives because at the time it was more stable, had a larger community around it and better tools than the others, O’Neill said.Make no mistake: MongoDB is great for handling all the critical social interactions that take place. “For each action taken by a user, you want to know what the user’s friends were doing and you want to pull all that data out from a single location. Say you take an action on Meet Up, it will update your user references and update all your friends. Non-relational stores are really good at that and you can afford to keep that data in multiple places — we use Mongo for that,” O’Neill said.But, for transactions? Well, “Mongo doesn’t really have transactions. If I write [data] in multiple places and want to check all that in at one time, Mongo can’t do that,” O’Neill said. When someone buys something at Thrillist’s Jackthreads site, the system must record their order and all the items associated with that order, or nothing works. “It all gets written or none of it does. Mongo is not good at that,” said O’Neill.So a word to the wise web startup: NoSQL — in this case MongoDB — is great for what it does, but for your financial transactions stick with SQL.For more discussion about the technologies — NoSQL or not — powering the web sites and mobile applications we all use, come check out GigaOM’s Structure conference next month.

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::::Sign oâ€˜ the Times: IBM, SAP Now Support Microsoftâ€˜s Standardization Move::::

<img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1338000662_temp.jpg.pagespeed.ce.sgS5akm0TU.jpg" border="0" alt="Image" align="left" />It's perhaps the one way that database interaction can work reliably using any format, any server and any client on the Web today. It happens to be a protocol created by Microsoft. But in a symbol of how Microsoft is now perceived today as just another major player instead of a dominant force, the leading platform makers are joining Microsoft in a formal move to standardize OData, the Open Data Protocol. The reason Microsoft and IBM are no longer fighting over this? The real competition is no longer just amongst these old-line technology companies, but largely between them and a new breed of competitors often based around new mobile devices and consumer platforms.<div id="more" class="asset-more" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; clear: both; text-align: left">Nearly six years ago one of the most bitter standards battles in all of computing was fought betweenOASIS, caretaker of the OpenDocument format, and Microsoft. The issue was whether, by making the document formats for Microsoft Office available as open standards, the company was unfairly leveraging Office's broad base of installation to unseat its only real competitor, the storage format behind OpenOffice.That year, 2006, marked the turning point in Microsoft's public stance towards openness and interoperability. This despite bitter opposition led by IBM, which was working to resurrect theSymphony brand it had acquired through Lotus. IBM argued that Microsoft was undermining the standards process to suit its purposes. Just how much the computing environment has changed since then was made evident today as IBM (whose heart grew three sizes this day) joined with SAP and Citrix in backing a move by Microsoft to declare the OData HTTP-based database interaction prototol - also known as Open Data Protocol - an OASIS standard. "OData is an application-level protocol for interacting with data via RESTful Web services," reads a white paper on an OData extension for XML published by OASIS (PDF available here).  "An OData Service’s contract is defined by simple, well-defined conventions and semantics applied to the data model exposed by the service, providing a high level of semantic interoperability between loosely coupled clients and services."Phrasing data in XML, ATOM or JSON format does allow it to be visible to many different database engines. They can see data in these formats, so that's not the problem. Essentially, how does a Web client (any browser on any device) request data from any server (any database engine or framework), and then initiate a dialog with that server so it can update or change one or more records? Remember, HTTP is a stateless protocol: Clients make GET requests and the occasional POST statement, and servers acknowledge and, when they can, comply.So OData enables communication using any of these three formats for data expression, setting up the mechanism for clients to authenticate themselves and enter into a secure dialog. It already works. And as IBM discovered two years ago, OData was pretty much the only way of creating a single Web client for WebSphere data that worked with .NET, AJAX and PHP clients.While an XML document contains the body of data, expressed explicitly within the markup, OData expresses the schema - the arrangement and relations between data in a database. It also allows for vendor-specific properties that enable features that one vendors database might utilize while another's does not, though these properties are typically flagged within the metadata using obvious vendor-specific tags; for example, sap:filterable.Writing on behalf of the OData organization today, Microsoft's senior program manager for ODataAlex James said today, "With interoperability front and center in OData we saw more and more technology stacks that started to work with it. Now there are a number of companies that use OData in their products to ensure the data they manage is easily accessible beyond the boundaries of their applications. Many of these companies regularly collaborate on the ongoing design effort for OData. While so far we’ve run the OData design process as transparently as we could (sharing designs, taking feedback through the odata.org blog and distribution list, etc.), we are at a point where the level of adoption and the scale at which organizations are betting on OData require a more formal commitment to shared ownership of the design of this protocol."It’s tempting to draw the conclusion that Microsoft and IBM are “joining forces,” in coalition against a common enemy. The facts are more economic than melodramatic: Waging platform wars, especially over something that should be as ubiquitous as data exchange, costs way too much money. While the Open Office XML/OpenDocument fracas generated plenty of headlines and even sparked a few campaign rallies, it was a drain on both sides’ resources at a time when the platforms supporting both standards – client-side applications – were starting to become obsolete anyway. The fact of the matter is, OData works, and creating a competing format just to rally the troops and produce headlines is a waste of time and money.  It’s best that companies pick their battles more wisely. What’s more, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP alike have come to the realization – perhaps a mutual one – that the best platforms are never islands unto themselves.</div> 

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::::6 Time Management Strategies for Startups::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1338000338_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>Many startups seem to be powered solely by excitement over the new business (occasionally mixed with some Red Bull and Starbucks). Startup founders typically devote every waking moment to their companies, and probably even dream about it too. But while pure passion can propel entrepreneurs 24/7 for a while, eventually even the most committed startup teams need to learn to manage their time.<div id="more" class="asset-more" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; clear: both; text-align: left">Burnout is one obvious danger of poor time management. But even more important is the risk that something important will fall through the cracks. If you fail to respond to a potential partner or prospect in a timely fashion because there’s too much on your plate, you could be blowing a make-or-break opportunity.Time management is one of the top challenges for every entrepreneur I know. After years of experience working with entrepreneurs and business owners, I have learned a few tricks for getting more done in the 24 hours we all have.1. Know thyself. Everyone has a natural rhythm - some of us are morning people and some don’t become fully awake until after noon. Pinpoint your “up” times and use them for the most crucial business tasks - like meetings with investors, brainstorming sessions or putting together proposals. Feel your energy flagging? Use that time for tasks that don’t require as much brainpower, like checking email, updating your calendar or organizing your files.2. Prioritize. The first step is to recognize you can’t do everything you want to do. Then you need to figure out what’s most important and work on that first. What’s most important is likely to vary from day to day, but in general, focus on the activities that generate the most money or have the potential to do so. That may mean concentrating on developing game-changing features or product improvements instead of day-to-day tasks. It may also mean responding to leads from bigger prospects or proposals from larger investors before smaller ones - or completing projects for bigger or more established clients before slower-paying or newer ones.3. Harness technology. Make sure the tech tools in your life work together to simplify and streamline time management. Use cloud solutions to store your data and synchronize files and calendars so you’re not entering appointments in multiple devices or finding yourself without crucial files. Use online project management tools to keep you on top of what your team is doing at a glance. Regularly weed out apps you aren’t using or tools that aren’t working - sometimes, we get so enamored by what technology can do for us that we stop recognizing when it’s getting in our way.4. Identify time-wasters and find solutions. Keep a log of your activity for a week or so. You may be surprised how much time you’re using inefficiently. Are you typing the same response to emails over and over? Create a template or shortcut to save time. Maybe you spend hours sorting receipts for accounting. Try an app that lets you quickly scan them and trash the paper.5. Delegate. It’s hard to let go of your “baby,” and even if you’re willing to, at this stage you probably don’t have enough staff to delegate a lot. But if you’re lucky enough to have some employees, independent contractors, or even friends and family who will donate some of their time, sit down and assess what you could possibly offload to others. You’d be surprised how getting some grunt work off your plate can free up your creativity and energy to truly grow your business.6. Get offline. I’m not advocating abandoning your email or leaving your smartphone at home, but even tech entrepreneurs recognize that the onslaught of input has to be shut off every now and then. Set aside blocks of time to focus on important projects. You’ll be surprised what an hour or two a day can do for your business.What time management tactics work for your startup? </div> 

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::::College Degrees: More and More, Theyâ€˜re Just a Piece of Paper::::

<img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1338000196_temp.png.pagespeed.ce.yG3PYgAXje.png" border="0" alt="Image" width="300" height="200" align="left" />Faking a computer science degree cost Scott Thompson his CEO job. But with one notable exception, most observers thought he was doing OK, under lousy circumstances.Sure, the lying was wrong, but apart from that, would Thompson’s lack of a computer science degree have hurt his career? Does having the right degree - or any degree - really matter that much any more?<div id="more" class="asset-more" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; clear: both; text-align: left">There’s plenty of evidence that in a world where a 9-year-old can write an iPhone app, degrees may be obsolete. After all, Bill Gates and Michael Dell did just fine without finishing college, and dropouts like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson have questioned the value of traditional education. Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel is offering standout youngsters $100,000 in angel investments to start companies instead of going to college.To find out what a degree means today, we asked a Bay Area headhunter. She specializes in financial services, but also works with medical and high-tech clients. Under condition of anonymity, she revealed that while a degree helps, lacking one is usually not a deal-breaker, particularly if the prospect has solid experience.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.2em; padding: 0px" class="p2">Are You a “Front-Pager”?</h2>“A computer science degree from 1987 isn’t worth much if they haven’t stayed current. I’d rather present a self-taught developer if he has a couple of shipped products under his belt.” She does admit that a degree can be a good tie-breaker, and a paper from a top-tier school shows an applicant “was at least smart enough to get in.” In the end, though, “Clients are interested in ability. If you have the chops and the experience, you’re getting hired – unless [the client] is looking for a front-pager.”A “front-pager,” or high-profile executive, needs a different set of credentials to impress the public. “If you’re director-level or below, we can be flexible, but VPs and C-Levels need to build confidence with the board, the public and investors. They need a solid track record with no holes, and it helps to have a couple of relevant degrees. They need to be groomed and vetted.” Degrees set baseline expectations, and the lack of a degree would not put investors at ease.In many cases, the shorter the list of accomplishments, the longer the list of degrees. Executive rosters seem to bear this out. Even maverick CEOs surround themselves with highly educated cabinets, particularly in technical and financial positions. Michael Dell may have dropped out of college, but his Enterprise Group CTO has a Master’s in Electrical Engineering. Avadis Tevanian, a former Apple CTO, has a doctorate in computer science. Microsoft’s CFO has an MBA.Of course, a lot of these executives predate the current democratization trend. And many of today’s director-level execs will eventually work their way up through the ranks. Ten years from now, we’ll probably see more degree-less VPs who were hired under “or equivalent experience” clauses.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.2em; padding: 0px" class="p2">Social Performance Reviews</h2>Degrees may become optional, but assessments will not. Internet Research Group’s Peter Christy sees a codified analysis of “demonstrated behaviors” as the answer. “The idea is to have someone tell you about important behaviors - how they dealt with problems previously that were thought of as important to the position in question. One can imagine a much more valuable "CV” in a modern form, in which the person made assertions about what they did of importance in a previous position and there was the opportunity for others to comment on the assertion (a more substantial form of Facebook, perhaps). Sort of like a social form of performance reviews - interesting but a little frightening… ."So don’t spend the kid’s college money just yet. Making the initial cut to get to that interview will always require a standout resume, and a degree is still a good way to start building. And that’s particularly true for folks who want to do something other than coding apps.Still, despite Thompson’s travails, there’s no question that the technology world is more open than ever to hiring star performers who never bothered to go to college.It’s as good a reason as any to start requesting testimonials on LinkedIn. Here’s hoping nobody lies.</div> 

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::::A Five-Year Update: The State of the Web in India::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"> <img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1338000097_temp.png.pagespeed.ce.BuF_mXV9gG.png" border="0" alt="Image" width="300" height="200" align="left" /><div style="text-align: justify">Since this 2006 article on RWW about the Top Web Apps in India, a lot has happened in the Indian web industry. Some new entrants have made a mark for themselves and some existing ones have strengthened their market positions, while still others got lost somewhere in between. We take a homegrown look at the changes in India during the past five years.</div></div><div id="more" class="asset-more" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; clear: both; text-align: left">First, some quick stats. According to a report, Internet in India 2011, published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) as well as a short video published by Nielsen:<ul style="margin: 5px 0px 7px 25px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial"><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">There are currently 112 million Internet users (88 million urban dwellers, and 24 million more from rural villages) in India, out of which 90 million are active users;</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">240 million Indians accessed the Internet on their mobile phones last year;</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">20 million Indians look for job openings on the Internet every month;</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">54 million Indians check online reviews for the products they wish to purchase, out of which 15 million do so only on social media sites;</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Young users continue to drive Internet usage in India;</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Internet usage in smaller towns continues to dominate over the top eight cities, with a combined usage of more than 60%.</li></ul>In this fast-changing Indian Web ecosystem, here are 10 Indian Web apps that have been successful in capturing the popular imagination:<ul style="margin: 5px 0px 7px 25px; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial"><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Flipkart: Founded in 2007, Flipkart started its journey by selling books online. Today, with 11.5 million book titles, 11 different categories - including movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers, health care and personal products, home appliances, and electronics - and with more than 2 million registered users and sales of 30,000 items a day, Flipkart can easily be considered a trendsetter for e-commerce in India. Recently, the company introduced a digital music store, along the lines of iTunes, called Flyte.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Redbus: Started in 2006, Redbus is a first-of-its-kind online travel portal, concentrating on bus ticket reservations. Through Redbus, users can book bus tickets online for more than 10,000 routes across India. They even allow bookings over interactive voice response through their call centers.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Snapdeal: Started in 2008, Snapdeal is often hailed as the Groupon of India, but with a difference. The business had its origins in selling coupon books, discount cards, mobile coupons, etc. It was only in 2010 that they moved into a Groupon-like model and entered the online daily deal space. However, unlike Groupon, group buying is not mandatory in Snapdeal; deals are valid even if only one person buys it. With more than 10 million subscribers, more than 10,000 merchant partnerships and deals in more than 50 Indian cities, it is among the 30 most-visited websites in India. Recently, Snapdeal has ventured into selling products, as well.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Paytm: Launched in 2011, Paytm is an online recharge service for mobile, direct-to-home satellite TV and data cards. Though there are other recharge services in India, what distinguishes it from the crowd is its simple user interface, which aids in easy recharge. The application had more than 1 million registered users as of November 2011.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Zomato: A restaurant and lifestyle portal launched in 2008, the app is primarily noted for its restaurant guide, which features more than 18,000 restaurants from 10 major cities in India and is populated by user-generated reviews. The application also has an event section that provides ticket sales for local events.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">JustDial: This service started operations way back in 1996, but the app in its present form was launched in 2007. It offers local search services across multiple platforms - Internet, mobile, call center and SMS text. According to JustDial's statistics, it has a database of approximately 7 million listings and has addressed more than 250 million search queries.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">BookMyShow: Launched in 2006, BookMyShow is India's largest entertainment ticketing website. With ticketing for more than 850 screens across 87 cities, 75% of all cinema tickets sold online in India are booked on BookMyShow. In addition, BookMyShow has ticketed for several concerts, plays, live events, stand-up acts and sports events.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Slideshare: Launched in 2006, SlideShare is a true Web 2.0 product that supports the world's largest community for sharing presentations. With 60 million monthly visitors and 130 million page views, it is among the 200 most-visited websites in the world, according to Web analytics company Alexa. It also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars. On May 3, it was acquired by LinkedIn.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Shaadi.com : An old-timer (started in 1996), Shaadi.com is India's leading matrimonial site; it claims to have helped about 20 million Indians find their partners. Its services are also available to Indians living abroad.</li><li style="text-align: justify; margin: 0px 0px 7px 7px; padding: 0px">Naukri : Another old-timer (launched in 1997), Naukri.com is India's leading job portal. As of March 2009, it had a database of about 17 million registered job seekers, and more than 70,000 live job listings from corporate customers.</li></ul>This list is in no way all-inclusive, but these Web apps definitely have top-of-the-mind brand recall in India. There are several others that have made their valuable contributions to the Web industry in India; please feel free to add your choices in the comments section. </div> 

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::::How Big Tech Companies Keep Quiet on Big News::::

<img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337999968_temp.jpg" border="0" alt="Image" width="300" height="200" align="left" />Even as all sorts of questions swirl around last week’s initial public offering and this week’s release of a camera app that looks a lot like the camera app it paid $1 billion for last month, Facebook has taken its usual quiet stance, issuing as few public statements and offering as few public answers as possible to the questions that business journalists and tech bloggers have been asking.<div class="asset-body" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; clear: both; text-align: left">It’s a tried-and-true public relations tactic: While startup companies crave the kind of exposure that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to public relations firms, established tech players often pick and choose when they speak, if they choose to speak at all.</div><div id="more" class="asset-more" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; clear: both; text-align: left">None of Facebook’s top executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, gave interviews last Friday as the company became the third-largest IPO in history, and none have publicly commented as shares slid this week. Zuckerberg’s last interview was a fawning report of the company’s announcement on ABC News about an initiative to encourage Facebook users to list their organ donor status on their profiles.“Many [companies] work on the theory, you can't go wrong by saying no,” said Mark Shapiro of SRS-Tech PR. “As long as the media clamors for info, hoarding it works as a publicity strategy.”As a result, the tech world was watching as Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg gave the commencement address at Harvard Business School on Tuesday, hoping she’d say something - anything - about the company’s poor performance since going public last Friday. But in the end, Sandberg stuck to familiar themes about women in the executive suite and barely mentioned the company’s $100 billion valuation.Sandberg’s only reference to the IPO was when she joked that, as the newly minted MBAs started their careers, they should stay in touch on Facebook. “We are public now,” she quipped, “so you can click on an ad or two while you are there.”Facebook seems to be taking a page from Apple, which famously (or infamously) only makes its executives available in highly orchestrated media events. At the same time, founder Steve Jobs was known more than occasionally to answer an email from a shareholder, a customer and even the occasional journalist.“For the bellwether companies, the likes of Apple and Facebook, they are going to get covered no matter what they do, so they have the luxury of being more selective,” said Frank Strong, the director of public relations at Vocus. “That said, it's still a delicate balance of give and take. Even the largest brands in the world need to answer questions that make them uncomfortable sometimes, because sooner or later, they are going to have a pitch they'd like that reporter or blogger to consider.”And both companies have PR teams in place, as well as outside agencies on retainer. The key for tech companies, according to Barbara Bates, co-founder and CEO of Eastwick, a digital communications consultancy, is to make sure the buzz around their products does not appear as if it’s being driven by PR.“The impact of Steve Jobs standing up at MacWorld - count the YouTube views on those - or answering an email isn't available to every company. Most companies have to look across the whole communications continuum and decide what channels and messages work best,” Bates said. “Trust me, Apple and Facebook both have PR teams and work with agencies. But they do it differently because of the unique positions they hold.”<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.2em; padding: 0px">Changing Dynamics</h2>These are, of course, general rules of thumb: Some big companies are incredibly forthcoming in the PR strategies, and some startups try hard to fly under the radar. Tech companies also have a dedicated segement of the press; about one in four Americans reads tech news, and the companies covered are often better served by chasing coverage from niche publications than doing big media campaigns.Paul Kenjora, the founder of AwareLabs, a PR marketing toolbox for startups, says another factor might be at play: Through analytics, companies have more data than ever on what does and doesn't work, and increasingly they are finding that public relations spending doesn’t always offer a consistent return on investment. “Almost all startup founders eventually see a big PR spike in traffic to their site,” he said. “They also see that very little of that spike translates into sales.” <h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.2em; padding: 0px"> </h2></div> 

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