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It's on some 450 million small devices - mostly smartphones - but the owners of most of those devices probably don't even know they have it. Which could make QuickOffice one of the most successful yet little-known software applications in history. A big change to its work environment and pricing model could draw folks' attention to it.

Moments after Facebook bought Instagram, the next race began - which mobile social video app would become the "Instagram for video"? Presenting a social video experience that is enjoyable not only from a smartphone but across existing social platforms is no easy task. Socialcam, Viddy and Klip are three apps that have emerged as leaders of the pack. We tested each one by recording videos, applying filters and paying close attention to the sharing mechanisms therein. What we discovered may surprise you.

Amazon waited until the dust settled from last week's news to launch Amazon Cloud Drive for Mac and Windows. Dropbox and Microsoft SkyDrive each got major updates last week, and the mythical Google Drive launched, too. What's the difference between all these clouds and drives, anyway?

I’m writing this post to procrastinate grading the last batch of final papers that are sifting into my inbox. After one year of being a proponent of social media in the classroom, I can tell you what worked and what didn’t in the classes I taught at Bridgewater State University this year, and how it compares to what the current scholarly research is finding about student engagement in classes that use social media.

Getting financing for your startup is rarely easy, but if you approach the wrong investor, you can make it even harder than it has to be. “How can there be a ‘wrong investor’?” you might be thinking. “Don’t I just go with whoever is willing to give me the money?”

It’s not quite that simple. Approaching the wrong investor is kind of like asking someone who’s married out on a date. Not only will they turn you down, but they’ll probably think you’re an idiot.

First in a five-part series.

When you spend a week interviewing people about a social media bubble and whether it exists, one of the things you notice is that people who insist there is no bubble make little mention of revenue and business models. They talk about the depth of which social media has permeated the culture and niche markets, but rarely mention the fact that the most frequently used social networks ultimately rely on the fickle relationship between users and advertisers.

Indeed, the deal that got the whole social media bubble discussion rolling was Facebook's $1 billion purchase of Instagram, a company that has no revenue. If you think this is starting to sound a lot like the dot-com boom in 1999, you're not alone. And several experts say you should be worried.

Instagram images come in all shapes and sizes. But when they are on the wall of a gallery instead of just existing on the iPhone or Android app, the once ephemeral images cast with filters take on a completely different meaning. As Duchamp did with a urinal nearly 100 years ago, Instagrammers are doing with throwaway ephemeral imagery - taking it out of the massive social Web stream and putting it in a gallery. 

Google is moving the goalpost significantly in the market for big data tools, at least for organizations that can work with its canned tools and are willing to trust the search giant with their data. After some time in a limited preview, Google has unveiled Google BigQuery for public consumption. Google is giving developers the ability to query up to 100GB of data per month for free, or up to 2TB of data stored without having to contact sales at all, which provides a very low bar for working with big data.

Earlier this week, we reviewed how mainstream social networks are being used to track the things you care about - such as art, baseball or cooking. Our conclusion was that Twitter is the best way to do this currently, because it's easy to track topics and converse with other people about them. Google+ has some advantages, such as deeper discussions and Google's famed search features, but Twitter is more popular. Facebook, we concluded, has been innovative and has potential due to its massive user base. However, it's more difficult to use in this way than either Twitter or Google+.

That said, don't discount Facebook as a tool to manage your personal interests. Through the use of "Interests" lists, Facebook can be used effectively for topic tracking. In this article, we explain how.

Mark Zuckerberg, SXSW, 2008

When Facebook takes to the road next week to pitch its stock to investors, the soon-to-be public company will be hawking a dual-class stock structure that makes the self-proclaimed tech company act like a media company.

The stock structure has become the darling of Internet companies. Google adopted the structure in its initial public offering in 2004 and was later mimicked by Groupon, LinkedIn, Zynga and now Facebook. So what's the allure? Power.

A common question among technology companies looking for attention is: “How do I trick an analyst into talking about my product?” The answer: Find a really bad analyst.

Still, the question raises a good point. A lot of vendors view analysts as mythical, cave-dwelling beasts who demand ritual sacrifices before they deign to cover a new technology product. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Nintendo is in trouble. The Japanese gaming giant, which has long felt building pressure from mobile computing platforms, is now officially losing money. Lots of it. 

Last week, the company reported an operating loss of $458 million, the first such deficit in its long history. While larger economic trends are partially to blame, it certainly doesn't help that Nintendo is refusing to consider the one thing that could possibly save it.

YouTube has come to define the era of online video, so let's take a look at its most popular videos of all time. Our latest update has Justin Bieber still at number 1 with Baby, which was the first video to earn a half a billion views! Currently, Bieber and Eminem between them make almost half of the top 10. Also of note is a music video by Jennifer Lopez called On The Floor ft. Pitbull, which has risen to number 2 with 500 million views in less than a year.

We first did this list in August 2007, at which point Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply was number 1 with nearly 56 million views (it's now outside the top 10). The next update was September 2008, when Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend pop music video was number 1 with 103 million views. In January 2010, Charlie bit my finger - again ! was number 1, with 148 million views. By the beginning of January 2011, Justin Bieber was at number 1 with over 400 million views for Baby.

Here is the top 10, as of May 2012: