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This is another indication of how eager the tech industry is to get in on the same monetization model that Rovio was just implicated in with the Snowden documents--data for dollars.

Rovio was just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone is trying to get involved in a "goldrush" of funds that have infused the industry with a serious lack of morality.

As I pointed out in a couple of posts recently ( http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... ), it is the mobile analytics market that the NSA is targeting for their data on as many people as possible. Those analytics providers are doing what the NSA cannot do themselves legally--gather data. Analytics providers do the gathering, and the NSA either steals or buys the data. It's as simple as that folks.

The really dirty secret is that pretty much every company out there with an internet presence and a mobile presence (an app) is complicit in this gathering of data, and they all know it. Both The New York Times and The Guardian use the exact same analytics firm that Rovio uses in their mobile game "Angry Birds", yet they are the ones that published articles based on Edward Snowden documents outlining NSA activity that targeted mobile analytics. Hypocrites.

Just to give you an idea of just how big this iceberg is, dig deep in the following webpages--they outline, by connections, a web of investors and customers that are perpetrating a global auction of our privacy.

Amazon -- Seattle, Wa.
https://developer.amazon.com/s...

Jaspersoft -- San Francisco, CA.
https://www.jaspersoft.com/mob...

Google -- San Francisco, CA.
http://www.google.com/analytic...

Flurry -- San Francisco, CA.
http://www.flurry.com/flurry-a...

Localytics -- Boston, MA.
http://www.localytics.com/

Countly -- LIBYA!!....serious wtf here. All contact info is for Libyan addresses.
https://count.ly/products/feat...

Konitgent -- San Francisco, CA.
http://www.kontagent.com/compa...

Webtrends -- Portland, OR.
http://webtrends.com/solutions...

Bango -- London, UK
http://bango.com/corporate/

Apsalar -- San Francisco, CA.
https://apsalar.com/

Piwik -- London, UK
http://piwik.org/what-is-piwik...

Mobilytics (Mobivity) -- Chandler, AZ.
http://www.mobilytics.net/

Adobe -- San Jose, CA.
http://www.adobe.com/solutions...

Openwave Mobility -- Redwood City, CA.
http://owmobility.com/about-us

Mixpanel -- San Francisco, CA.
https://mixpanel.com/

Urban Airship -- San Francisco/London
http://urbanairship.com/produc...

Cognizant -- Teaneck, NJ.
http://www.cognizant.com/enter...

Amethon -- Sydney, AU
http://www.amethon.com/

The ring to rule them all, if you believe the developers..
Segment.io -- San Francisco, CA.
https://segment.io/mobile

For the inner workings, see linked Whitepaper. A good list of other miscreants is included on that

With so much brouhaha about social networking, Web 2.0, networking analytics, etc. that the internet is spewing, I wonder where this is all leading to from a corporate intranet perspective. Am sure even if the CIO (or which ever CXO is responsible for IT & security) is not ready to open up these sites in his/her corporate network (by putting up site blockers, etc.), employees will find out a way to bring them in. So is it not prudent for the CIO to include social networking in the IT strategy of the organization?

OTOH, for the sales & marketing managers this could be a god send. It would be even very helpful for the product managers. These social networking mechanisms connect the customers directly with the product managers as shown by the GM, Lenovo, etc. blogs which led to the development of new products based on the direct inputs from customers to the product managers! Youtube kind of sites offering a very easy means of creating effective viral marketing.

The traditional CRM strategies that help the marketing, sales & service people need to be upgraded to include social networking. This indeed is happening with lots of talks about CRM 2.0! *not again* All that CRM 2.0 says is to enable customers to connect directly with the business in a much more integrated manner.

With the raise of open source business apps like compiere, openbravo & especially since SugarCRM getting GPLed, CRM & ERP systems have suddenly gotten within the reach of numerous SMBs who hitherto could not afford to splurge millions on systems like SAP or Siebel.

Now Google's OpenSocial being supported by SugarCRM from its launch puts a lot of pressure on the traditional CRM approach as well as vendors.

All that remains now is to come out with an architecture for integrating social computing apps with the traditional enterprise applications.

Many VPs, Directors, CXOs, do not understand why social computing is so 'in' thing may be (they are old) but the youngsters do understand it.

In the US especially, with the huge number of experienced people retiring in the next 5 years and some young blood joining the ranks, it is important in two aspects to implement social software in the enterprises too.

The knowledge of the old will be lost if not captured. But any amount of documentation is not going to capture knowledge as effectively as the informal atmosphere of blogs/wikis allows a person to do so. Organizational story telling is very important in this aspect. Not many people are keen to prepare formal documents confirming to templates, standards, etc. in a huge enterprise. But many are willing to try their hand in writing stories of their experiences at work.

Thus social networking & computing is going to act as big contributor for institutionalizing the old knowledge which will be not available the next few years.

The younger generation which will join in the next five years OTOH, will already be very well accustomed to the whole concept of social computing & networking, mostly without even being aware of them. Having a social network with the enterprise is going to allow these bunch of people to mingle better & easily in addition to learning form the system.

BTW, the young blood will anyway try to bring in the social networking concept into the enterprise in spite of all the regulations against them (they are currently viewed as time wasters in the enterprise environment). So it would be prudent & proactive of the CSO (Chief Security Officer) to allow enterprise social software with the organization in everybody's interest.

Also, the growing trend these days is to telecommute, work from home. In such an environment, social networking at work does make a lot of sense. Also, this is going to be helpful in enterprises which are spread out geographically too, to bind the various dispersed diaspora & workgroups.

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We (my group at my employers place) are involved in preparing a (work in progress) modular vendor agnostic framework which would ideally involve marrying web 2.0, social networking (social computing in general) with traditional CRM systems. Our initial offerings would presumably be using a cacophony of open source solutions already available.

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In due course of our R&D we found that IBM is already into the social software arena & has launched an enterprise version called Lotus Connections.

We are now partnering with them to figure out what it is, what are its capabilities and how can it fit into our framework.

IBM has already been in touch with many big fortune 500 enterprises and are talking about multi million dollar deals!

The stuff doesn't look very techie if you are already aware of what wikis, blogs, social networking, etc. are. But it does provide that enterprise touch to the whole thing of social networking & related stuffs.

A number of people have pointed to the cost of non-salary benefits like health insurance. For comparison, here is what Cognizant, an off-shore IT outsourcing company lists as benefits packages for American and Indian employees. There is a notable difference.

Here's what GE Global Research offers in benefit packages to American , Indian and Chinese employees. Again, you can see that there are significant savings in benefit costs.

A number of people have pointed to the cost of non-salary benefits like health insurance. For comparison, here is what Cognizant, an off-shore IT outsourcing company lists as benefits packages for American and Indian employees. There is a notable difference.

Here's what GE Global Research offers in benefit packages to American , Indian and Chinese employees. Again, you can see that there are significant savings in benefit costs.

A number of people have pointed to the cost of non-salary benefits like health insurance. For comparison, here is what Cognizant, an off-shore IT outsourcing company lists as benefits packages for American and Indian employees. There is a notable difference.

Here's what GE Global Research offers in benefit packages to American , Indian and Chinese employees. Again, you can see that there are significant savings in benefit costs.

I just read this interview with the CEO of Cognizant, a company you outsource to, where he talks about outsourcing and BPO.

Offshore development houses like Cognizant, Satyam Computer Services, and Wipro Technology have been posting 20%+ YOY growth since at least the mid-nineties and they're all doing embedded stuff. In his recent book ("Straight from the Gut"), Jack Welch admits that although GE built and abandoned manufacturing plants in India (for Plastics, Lighting, and Aircraft Engines, I believe), they're still growing their software development center there.