Sarmad Ali

Voices

Looking to Capitalize on the Boom in Mobile Apps

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on March 29, 2010 at 8:15 am PT

Filling a niche created by the surge in smart-phones, a recently launched site called TheyMakeApps hopes to be the central marketplace for one of the tech world’s hot commodities–mobile app developers.

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Small Businesses Join Lawsuit Against Yelp

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on March 18, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

Nine small businesses have joined a lawsuit accusing local business review start-up Yelp Inc. of extortion and fraudulent business practices. The newest plaintiffs were officially added Tuesday in an amended complaint filed by two law firms, the Weston Firm of San Diego and Beck & Lee Business Trial Lawyers of Miami. The new plaintiffs include a Chicago bakery, a Washington, D.C., restaurant and a California furniture store, among others.

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The Internet: A Candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on March 11, 2010 at 2:00 pm PT

The Internet has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010–but should it be? The nomination was proposed by the Italian version of technology magazine Wired and has so far been endorsed by 11 people including 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop Per Child.

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Original "Rickroll" Video Returns to YouTube After Mysterious Disappearance

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 24, 2010 at 3:47 pm PT

The famous, original “Rickroll” video is back on YouTube after it disappeared mysteriously, causing a flurry of complaints from Web users. Fans trying to locate the original “RickRoll” video on YouTube on Wednesday were greeted with this message: “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.”

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Bloggers Speculate Over Possible Twitter Ad Platform

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 23, 2010 at 2:33 pm PT

Twitter’s long-awaited advertising platform was the subject of much speculation among bloggers on Tuesday. The furor was kicked off by comments from Anamitra Banerji, the head of product management and monetization at Twitter, who told MediaPost.com that “We are working on an ad platform, but it’s only in the test phase.”

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Facebook Gets Stickier

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 17, 2010 at 1:49 pm PT

Facebook held onto Web visitors for more than double the time that other big sites, including Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Wikipedia, did, according to Nielsen’s latest report.

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Washington Group Tests Security in "Cyber ShockWave"

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 17, 2010 at 12:00 am PT

A Washington think tank conducted a simulated, 12-hour cyber attack Tuesday that is intended to show how the U.S. government would respond to a similar move against its networks and infrastructure.

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Cisco Sees Mobile Data Doubling Annually

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 12, 2010 at 7:16 am PT

Wireless-data traffic is expected to double every year through 2014, driven by a sharp increase in the volume of handheld devices as well as mobile video content, according to a Cisco report. Data use will surge as cellphone makers produce more Web-enabled handsets. Cisco says there could be more than five billion such devices connected to mobile networks in four years.

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Iran Tweets Engulf Twitter

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 11, 2010 at 3:52 pm PT

As the Iranian regime clamps down on antigovernment protesters on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, many people around the world are using Twitter to exchange information and disseminate updates on the situation on the ground.

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Twitter Buzz Over Iran's Gmail Ban

Sarmad Ali, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on February 11, 2010 at 12:53 am PT

As soon as news of Iran’s ban on Gmail broke, Twitter was awash with outrage about Iranian censorship, but also with jokes about whether Google’s new update service had prompted the decision.