adeelarshad82 writes “For the fourth year running, PCMag sent drivers out on U.S. roads to test the nation’s Fastest Mobile Networks. Using eight identical Samsung phones, the drivers tested out eight separate networks for four major carriers across 30 cities evenly spread across six regions. Using Sensorly’s 2013 software, a broad suite of tests were conducted every three minutes: a ‘ping’ to test network latency, multi-threaded HTTP upload and download tests including separate ‘time to first byte’ measures, a 4MB single-threaded file download, a 2MB single-threaded file upload, the download of a 1MB Web page with 70 elements, and 100kbps and 500kbps UDP streams designed to simulate streaming media. Nearly 90,000 data cycles later, the data not only revealed the fastest networks (AT&T) and the most consistent (Verizon), but also other interesting points. The tests recorded the fastest download speed (66.11 Mbits/sec) in New Orleans and the best average in Austin (27.25 Mbits/sec), both for AT&T’s LTE network. The tests also found T-Mobile’s HSPA network to have the worst Average-Time-To-First-Byte, even when compared with AT&T HSPA network. Also according to the tests, Sprint’s LTE network didn’t even come close to competing with other LTE networks, to the point that in some cities its LTE network speed averaged less than T-Mobile’s HSPA network speed.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business for Dashboard.io and on his blog NirAndFar.com. Follow @dashboard_io and @nireyal. Ethan Stock lived the Silicon Valley dream. He had recently sold his company to eBay and emanated the tanned skin and relaxed composure you’d expect of someone who just cashed a big corporate check. But as we sat across from one another in a Palo Alto coffee shop, I was surprised by what he said next. “Mediocrity is worse than failure, you know?” For seven years before the acquisition, Stock served as the founding CEO of Zvents, an online guide for local events. Though he was successful by anyone’s standards, I could tell he was a guy who, like me, had learned some hard lessons. “Zvents grew incredibly well,” Stock told me. “We were the largest events site of its kind, providing local listing in hundreds of markets and attracting over 14 million monthly unique visitors.” Zvents had done what so many tech companies dream of doing, they cracked the network effect and built a business that increased in value with each new user. The more event organizers posted to the site, the more useful the site became to people looking for things to do. Both parties loved the site and Stock’s company was in the middle, connecting visitors to events they otherwise wouldn’t find. “But I learned the network effect isn’t everything. In fact, it became a liability.” Stock’s words confused me. How could being in such an enviable position of creating a valuable marketplace be a bad thing? “Getting paid was a bitch,” Stock said, and he began to unravel how certain marketplace businesses like Zvents can succeed themselves to death. The Expectation of Completeness Marketplace businesses exist to connect two or more parties, typically the buyers and the sellers. Investors love these businesses because they tend to grow quickly and spawn winner-take-all companies. A long line of successful Silicon Valley startups have found success providing a place for people to connect and transact. Examples of these kinds of companies include industry titans like eBay and LinkedIn but also include some of today’s web darlings like Uber and Airbnb. “Marketplace businesses are great,” Stock told me. “But there is a fatal flaw in some businesses that can hogtie their ability to make money — the expectation of completeness.” Stock explained how Zvents had planned to
When it comes to online video networks, Google’s 
A few weeks ago, 
FounderDating, the networking service that matches startup entrepreneurs with potential co-founders who have complementary skill-sets, has launched in London. The platform already spans 19 U.S. cities, including San Francisco, LA, New York, Boston, but London is only its second international city — the first being Tel Aviv in Israel.
Zynga wasn’t the only company that had major layoffs this week. Tapjoy, which has been an advertising and monetization backbone for many mobile gaming companies across the entire industry, also is going through a round of restructuring, according to multiple sources connected to the company. While Tapjoy wouldn’t disclose the number of layoffs, we hear that it’s more than 20 people, which could be close to 10 percent of the company’s headcount. Tapjoy has weathered many changes on both the Facebook platform and Android and iOS throughout the years. It used to be known as Offerpal and was a leading offers provider for social games until Facebook put in tougher restrictions around the practice. Through the acquisition of a small mobile app install company called Tapjoy, they shifted to iOS until Apple banned the practice of incentivizing gamers to download apps in exchange for virtual currency. Eventually, they turned into a pay-per-install ad network where developers could spend to get new users through rich ad units. Here’s Tapjoy’s vice president of global communications, Patrick Seybold, on the restructuring: We have made changes in our organization to position the company for continued growth. Following the appointment of new executive leadership and a thorough assessment of our Product and Engineering teams, we have decided to re-organize these departments. Jeff Drobick, our CPO, is now in an expanded role and will oversee our Product and Engineering organizations end-to-end. Sean Lindsay, who had been running Tapjoy’s Boston engineering office, is now VP, Engineering for the company, reporting to Jeff. In conjunction with these appointments, the company is also re-organizing its engineering organization. The changes are intended to address velocity of getting products to market, product quality and scaling the company’s core infrastructure for continued growth. In addition, there have been some reductions across the company to better align our organization with our business plan and strategic direction. We believe these moves will make us more competitive, productive and will enhance our ability to bring innovative products to market. The company has gone through several executive level changes over the past year, with the entire management team turning over. After former CEO Mihir Shah stepped down in November, a longtime Disney executive Steve Wadsworth stepped in. Other executives including Claire Hough, who had been senior vice president of engineering since last year, and Al Wood, who was brought in as CFO when the company had
Alibaba Group 
One of the biggest challenges many entreprenuers face is finding the right technical partner when building a company. Some startups can have a single leader, but more often than not, there is a balanced team behind every successful business.
Video ad network Tremor Video has 
As online advertising transitions from desktop to mobile, it stands that startups operating in the wider mobile ad ecosystem are well-placed to benefit. To that end, click-to-call startup 
Investor
Looks like 
Last July, a group of veteran executives from eToys, eBay, Sesame Street, Discovery and Disney 
EE, the U.K.’s first and still only 4G network operator, has broken out 4G-specific customer numbers for the first time — confirming that after five months of 4G trading it has hit a total of 318,000 4G-specific customers. The carrier has previously reported total postpaid 3G and 4G additions for its Q4 quarter, when it said it saw 201,000 net gains in the quarter.
Editor’s note: Lucas Dailey is a UX designer and chief innovation officer at political social network MyMaryland.net.
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