Photograph by Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Aaron Swartz, left, has a working lunch outside in Cambridge, Mass. in 2007.

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, said today that the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who killed himself while facing computer-fraud charges, was a “travesty of justice.”

Berners-Lee made the remarks in an interview after a memorial service for Swartz at the Central Avenue Synagogue in Highland Park, Illinois, about 25 miles north of Chicago. More than 200 people attended.

Swartz’s father reiterated that he holds the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and U.S. prosecutors responsible for his son’s death. The family blames authorities for engaging in a campaign of “intimidation and prosecutorial overreach” in charging Swartz with crimes that carried a potential sentence of more than 30 years. The case has raised questions about whether federal anti-hacking legislation is too broad.

“It was a senseless trial,” Robert Swartz said at the service. “We tried to get MIT to show compassion and it was inconceivable to me that they wouldn’t. They said they were neutral, but they cooperated with the prosecutors. Aaron didn’t commit suicide but was killed.”

As an outspoken advocate for unfettered access to information online, Swartz was a symbol of the fight against corporate control of data that could serve the public good.

Aaron, 26, was found dead in his Brooklyn, New York, apartment Jan. 11. In the wake of his death, ruled by the New York Medical Examiner’s Office as a suicide by hanging, he became a symbol in a debate about whether the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the 1986 law under which he was charged, gives prosecutors and hacking victims too much leeway in seeking harsh punishments.

Swartz was indicted in July 2011 for allegedly downloading more than 4 million documents from JSTOR, a fee-based service for scientific and literary journals, through an MIT connection. Swartz was challenging the idea that access to academic documents should be confined to the elite, and was scared of the prospect of going to prison, according to his lawyer, Elliot Peters, of San Francisco-based Keker & Van Nest LLP.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act fails to distinguish between hacking for social causes and flagrant criminal activity, wrote Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and former defense lawyer for computer hackers, in a widely shared essay about Swartz’s death.

Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote that the charges against Swartz were based on a fair reading of the law, and that the “charges brought here were pretty much what any good federal prosecutor would have charged.”

MIT declined to comment beyond a statement from President Rafael Reif ordering an investigation of the institute’s role in Swartz’s case. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz dismissed the charges against Swartz yesterday in a filing in federal court, citing his death.

As a teenager, Swartz helped create a technology called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, which lets Web users subscribe to online updates, and co-founded the news and information site Reddit as well as Demand Progress, a group that advocated against Internet piracy legislation, according to his website. He had written on his blog about battling depression.

By Anastasia Ustinova and Jordan Robertson

Original post is Berners-Lee Calls Aaron Swartz’s Prosecution ‘Travesty of Justice’ by Tech Blog.

Online electronics retailer Newegg is gearing up for the holidays by promoting tablets and laptops running on Microsoft’s new operating system. It doesn’t have much of a choice. Like Amazon, Newegg isn’t an authorized reseller of Apple products, meaning it can’t offer much of a deal on MacBooks and iPads.

Microsoft introduced Windows 8 last month, the biggest overhaul to its flagship software in two decades, as it tries to make up lost ground to Apple and Google.

Newegg is looking to decade-old relationships with companies such as Intel, AMD and Microsoft to undercut competitors. Its users are usually geekier types — those who like to experiment with building their own computers and electronics, said Soren Mills, the company’s chief marketing officer. Holiday promotions provide a boost because non-geeks stumble upon the site as they’re hunting laptops for loved ones, he said.

“We have an even broader customer base than we have during the rest of the year,” Mills said. “Throughout the holidays we’re running basically a constant stream of Black Friday-type programs.”

As Newegg prepares to provide twice as many deals as last year, it’s pushing ultrabooks, TVs and home audio equipment, and especially devices made by Samsung and software made by Microsoft, who are both partners. Traffic during the season can be three to four times the normal amount, and conversion rates jump because consumers are looking to buy gifts, Mills said.

Mobile shopping is also increasingly popular — with 10 percent to 15 percent of traffic coming from smartphones and tablets, Mills said. While the company, based outside of Los Angeles, has begun discounting some of its three million items this month, it launches its official holiday sale on Nov. 21.

Newegg can use the spark. The company filed to raise $175 million in an initial public offering in September 2009, only to withdraw its prospectus in May of last year. While it didn’t provide a reason, meager growth could be the problem. Revenue rose 7.4 percent in 2010 to $2.46 billion, followed by 9.8 percent last year to $2.7 billion. Sales at Amazon.com, the largest online retailer, jumped 41 percent last year to $48 billion, while revenue at online marketplace EBay climbed 27 percent to $11.6 billion.

Both of those companies held initial offerings in the late 1990s, at least two years before Newegg was founded. To attract public market investors, emerging companies typically need to be growing faster than their older rivals. Newegg is also less profitable, recording a gross margin of 9.4 percent in 2010, the last time it reported, compared with 22 percent for Amazon last year.

Mills declined to comment on whether the company is reconsidering going public or its current margins.

Relationships with suppliers will help it provide better deals on a wider array of electronics than its competitors, said Merle McIntosh, senior vice president of product management. Newegg works with Samsung, Intel and other companies to relieve them of excess inventory and promote certain items, he said, helping the online retailer keep costs low and pass on savings to customers.

“We have become — for a myriad of suppliers — the primary online source for helping solve problems or get products to market,” McIntosh said. “Whenever there’s an inventory situation that needs to be dealt with, we’re the first our suppliers call.”

Newegg expects three-day shipping that’s often free to help it stay on pace with Amazon during the holidays. It’s also subsidizing expedited delivery, so that products bought at the last minute will arrive on doorsteps before Christmas. The company will run flash sales and curate content, along with offering longer-term deals — more or less rolling the models of the deal sites like Groupon and Gilt Groupe into one.

“This is an opportunity for us to really shine,” McIntosh said. “It’s the time of year where we get a whole lot of people coming to our website.”

By Danielle Kucera and Ari Levy

Original post is What Newegg Hopes Its Shoppers Will Buy This Holiday Season by Tech Blog.

Photograph by Adam Berry/Getty Images

Accessory makers and app developers aren't the only ones that have built businesses in Apple's orbit.

Amid a crowded field of websites dedicated to covering every move of Apple, John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog stands out. With about 5 million visitors a month, the 10-year-old site has grabbed the attention of those inside the $634 billion juggernaut and outside.

One Friday afternoon earlier this year, a group of Apple employees discussed the latest Daring Fireball post over beers at BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, located steps from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. At Apple’s annual developer conference in June, Gruber recorded a podcast with a throng of fans crowded around like some sort of geek version of MTV’s “Total Request Live.”

“I know that I’m preaching to the choir,” said Gruber, who also has the ear of the conductor, Phil Schiller. He said he has occasionally exchanged e-mails with Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide marketing since 2004. Schiller, a Red Sox fan, likes to rib Gruber when his Yankees are on a losing streak.

But Gruber, whom we reported on in Bloomberg Businessweek, isn’t the only blogger who’s managed to make a living out of writing about Apple.

Arnold Kim, who started MacRumors in 2000, left his job as a kidney doctor four years ago to focus on his gossip site full time. Ad revenue supports his wife and two kids, as well another full-time writer and freelance contributor.

“There’s a lot of brand recognition and as a result, loyalty to Apple,” Kim said. At some point, “Apple rumors became a mainstream thing.”

News sites have ramped up their coverage of Apple in recent years. Rumors about the latest iPhone can be found in just about any general-interest news publication.

AppleInsider is a sort of newswire service just for Apple news. The site employs about a half-dozen regular writers and editors. Neil Hughes joined the site in 2009 from the Charlotte Sun Herald newspaper. The editor enforces Associated Press writing style and has a reporter assigned to work on in-depth features about Apple’s business.

“When I started doing it, there wasn’t nearly as much news,” Hughes said. Now, “everybody is in a rush to be first, and nobody is really concerned about being accurate. There’s so much noise out there.”

Gruber has become a mentor to other aspiring bloggers. Horace Dediu, who runs the industry-research website Asymco.com, consulted with him about how to make a living with an independent site.

Jim Dalrymple, a former editor at Macworld magazine, started Loop Insight in 2009 to offer a blend of commentary similar to Gruber’s. (The site is named after Apple’s corporate address, 1 Infinite Loop.) Before striking out on his own, Dalrymple called Gruber for advice.

“You can’t help but have respect for what he’s doing,” Dalrymple said.

While Dalrymple’s site is much smaller than Daring Fireball, he has a direct line to Apple spokespeople for tips on news and early looks at products. He sells $1,000-a-week sponsorships and small banners to advertisers, and $3-a-month memberships to readers. With ad revenue from the site, the Nova Scotia-based blogger was able to throw a $30,000 party at the ritzy San Francisco W Hotel that coincided with Apple’s developer conference.

“I have a loyal following,” Dalrymple said. “I’m making a nice living.”

–Mark Milian and Adam Satariano

Original post is The Big Business of Apple Blogs by Tech Blog.

The social-media company, which has offices throughout the U.S. and in the U.K. and a total sales staff of about 200 globally, plans to open a Brazil site soon, Bain said in a meeting with journalists at Bloomberg News in San Francisco. Bain said his team met with marketers and potential employees in the past two weeks.

“We’re really infatuated with the market there,” he said, citing future events such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. “The digital marketplace in Brazil is alive in a big way.”

Twitter is benefiting as more advertisers seek new ways to reach consumers, including internationally and through mobile devices. The company, which says it has more than 140 million active users, expects to generate at least $1 billion in sales in 2014, two people with knowledge of the matter said last month.

Brazil is home to one of Twitter’s largest audiences, Bain said. Until now, operations there have been run out of the U.S.

Twitter’s user base in Brazil rose 24 percent since January to 41.2 million in July, according to Semiocast, a research company. Semiocast estimates that Twitter has more than 500 million accounts, and about 8 percent of those are located in Brazil, the researcher said.

The company is also looking at potential expansion in other areas of Latin America, including Mexico and Chile, Bain said.

Mobile advertising continues to lead desktop-based ads on most days, Bain said. The company gets the majority of its users through mobile devices, he said.

“It’s a trend that I think will continue,” he said.

–Brian Womack and Mark Milian, with assistance from Douglas MacMillan

Original post is Twitter’s Bain Says Company Plans to Open Sales Office in Brazil by Tech Blog.

Photograph by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Path's Dave Morin was interviewed by reporters at a Bloomberg Newsmaker event in San Francisco.

Social-networking service Path is ramping up efforts to reach users of mobile devices. Dave Morin, Path’s chief executive officer, said the startup will release an app designed for Apple’s iPad this year. He said Path is likely to release an app next year for Microsoft phones, which run a newly revamped version of the company’s flagship mobile operating system.

“I’m bullish on Windows Phone,” Morin said in an interview with reporters at a Bloomberg Newsmaker event in San Francisco. Microsoft CEO Steve “Ballmer and those guys deserve huge credit.”

Co-founded by Morin in 2010, Path lets users post messages and photos to a tightly knit group of no more than 150 people. The company stopped offering a version of its service for computer Web browsers last year in order to focus on mobile platforms — a bet that demand for social networking over wireless devices will surge.

About 70 percent of Path’s 3 million users access the site via Apple devices, while 30 percent use handsets with Google’s Android software. In the future, Apple will probably remain the dominant platform, with the rest split between Google and Microsoft, Morin said. Microsoft is poised to benefit from its partnership with Nokia, maker of the recently released Lumia, he said.

“Lumia is probably the best-designed phone, besides the iPhone,” Morin said.

Path, whose user base surged threefold since November, also seeks to expand through partnerships like one it recently announced with Nike, he said. Through the deal, Path users can download Nike tools that help them map runs and track and share information about workouts.

Facebook and Twitter services are also integrated with the Nike app, which is only available for the iPhone. The number of people posting maps of their runs to Path using the Nike app is about even with the number who post similar maps to Twitter, even though Path has fewer users than Twitter, said Morin, who formerly worked at Facebook and Apple. Twitter has 140 million users.

Path does not directly make money from the deal with Nike, Morin said. These types of partnerships may yield revenue in the future, he said. Path expects to make most of its money by selling add-ons within its apps, similar to the photo effects it currently offers, he said.

“Path is a place where you pay for things,” he said.

–Mark Milian and Douglas MacMillan

Original post is Path’s Morin Says He’s ‘Bullish’ on Microsoft’s Windows Phone by Tech Blog.