Editor’s Note: Si Shen is the co-founder & CEO of PapayaMobile, the Beijing-based mobile company that operates AppFlood, the largest global mobile RTB ad network out of China. Before Papaya, Si worked on Google’s mobile team in the U.S. and China.   In 2014, China-based Alibaba had a record-breaking IPO on the U.S. stock market, China surpassed the U.S. in terms of… Read More

 The Internet has become the world’s Sorting Hat: it identifies, and increasingly defines, the subculture(s) to which people belong. Does your Facebook feed feature Mother Jones or Fox News? The Guardian or The Telegraph? GamerGate vs Social Justice Warriors. Civil libertarians vs. terror-thumping authoritarians. r/parenting vs. r/childfree. Second Life vs. Digital Detox. Read More

 They gave us a fully decentralized Internet and we used it to build web services–Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, iCloud–so massively centralized they verge on being quasi-medieval fiefdoms. Now we’re building the Internet of Someone Else’s Things, wherein every room of every home will contain devices controlled by servers the homeowners don’t know, control, or understand. Read More

 For the last week, I’ve been away from France, covering CES in Las Vegas. When I woke up on Wednesday morning and looked at my phone, my lock screen was filled with an avalanche of notifications — French news apps, Twitter, Facebook, iMessage, Taptalk and Skype were all here to alert me about the massacre against Charlie Hebdo’s team… In many ways, the impact of the attack… Read More

 I’m cruising down the road at 45 mph when – ka-ching! – the sound of a cash register blares out from my iPhone. It’s one of now several deal-finding apps I have installed that alert me to nearby sales at local stores. I love the functionality they provide, but I’m not thrilled with the timing. The phone buzzes some more as the alerts roll in as I coast past the… Read More