Amazon’s Web Services went down on Sunday due to a technical issue at a North Virginia data center. The outage was caused by a problem with a single networking device, and reveals that many companies do not distribute their Web services in different locations for service redundancy. This comes as Amazon is bidding on a CIA contract to manage their data services, and competitors are critical of whether Amazon can manage the demands of government data. Continue reading Amazon Web Services: Outage During Bid for CIA Contract

Now in its ninth year, the Aspen Ideas Festival (June 26-July 2) gathers thought leaders from a wide range of areas such as economics, policy, environment, science, education, arts, global affairs and philosophy. Presented by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, this year’s event includes discussions on a number of compelling media topics. We’ve gathered some of the more interesting quotes from leaders in social media, film and television, online distribution and more. Continue reading Industry Leaders Share Thoughts at the Aspen Ideas Festival

Earlier this week, we reported that for more than a year Facebook has been quietly working on a service called Reader that could essentially become a newspaper for mobile devices. As Google retires its RSS news reader on Monday, Facebook Reader could become an opportunity for the social giant to increase engagement and create a viable ad channel. However, there is a question regarding whether Facebook can offer a mobile app that competes with existing readers. Continue reading Will a Facebook News Reader Fill the Void Left by Google?

Facebook has been quietly working on a service called Reader that could essentially become a newspaper for mobile devices, according to inside sources. The service, which has reportedly been in development for more than a year, displays content from the social network’s users and publishers in a new visual format designed specifically for smartphones and tablets. Recent versions have been similar to mobile news aggregator Flipboard. Continue reading Facebook Targets News Aggregation in Latest Mobile Effort

• Scribd — a Web site that lets users share reports, personal stories and recipes — revealed plans this week to launch a digital newsstand that provides a vast library of news to readers for a monthly fee, similar to the Netflix subscription service model.
• The newsstand, named Float, is the latest in a collection of strategies that have attempted to make money from online news. Other news hubs include Flipboard, Zite, Pulse, News.me and Ongo.
• Publications that are made available via Float will receive a share of the revenue after the subscription program launches this fall (although subscription fees and the amount to be shared with publishers have yet to be announced).
• Float will introduce a free version this week featuring articles from 150 publications such as The Associated Press, People, Fortune, Salon and Time magazine (publishers participating in the free version will share in the advertising revenue).
• Float will initially be available to consumers online and through an iPhone app, while Android and iPad versions are expected at a later date.

Forbes spoke with Flipboard CEO Mike McCue about the latest version of Apple’s official iPad “App of the Year.” As of December 2010, Flipboard was running on about 1 million iPads — and the 25-person company is developing HTML5 code for the app to eventually run on Android, iPhone and the Web.

The recent Flipboard upgrade includes more dynamic and immersive features such as deeper integration with Facebook and Twitter (and a new focus on other social networks like Google Reader and Flickr), the ability to upload content (for example, you can post Facebook status updates or tweet from Flipboard), and access RSS feeds.

Flipboard has future plans to offer more social integration with the likes of LinkedIn, Posterous, Instapaper, and Vbulletin.