You know the corporate spinoff craze may be nearing its peak when talk surfaces that a previously divorced corporate couple should get back together.

Last week’s suggestion by Gabelli analyst Brett Harriss that Viacom and CBS recombine nearly nine years after breaking up highlights a little-discussed reality about corporate breakups: They’re not always the optimal way to assure ...

Jawbone is the latest wearable company to try to go where Apple is not going, with plans for two new activity trackers aimed at the low and mid-tiers.

With the $349 Apple Watch hitting shelves next year, Jawbone is set to announce two new fitness trackers soon, according to people briefed on the matter. The news follows wearables announcements from Microsoft and Fitbit in recent weeks.

The Up ...

In the sea of food pictures your friends post on Instagram, how many McDonald’s Big Macs have you seen? How many Starbucks cups, Sheraton Hotel lobbies or Budweiser beers?

Perhaps a few. But, in general, mainstream brands are dramatically under-represented in social media—a fact that illustrates a big challenge facing mass consumer brands.

People use consumer brands to express ...

I have been scratching my head all week about what’s going on at Twitter, and I’m worried. I’m not concerned that it posted a $175 million quarterly loss or that company executives issued lower-than-expected guidance for next quarter. What worries me is the confusing story it is telling.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and CFO Anthony Noto keep telling investors and the public that ...

Amazon.com’s unveiling this week of a video “streaming stick” that attaches to TVs was a refreshing break from its recent, troubled hardware strategy.

The $39 Fire TV Stick, while essentially the same as other devices made by rivals like Google, played more to Amazon’s strength as a “horizontal” company that offers a broad array of services including ...

Long-time Google exec and former Android boss Andy Rubin told his team today that he’s leaving Google, according to people close to the company. 

As Facebook continues to ramp up the presence of video in its News Feed, executives at ad agencies and brands have begun noticing a surprising trend: The first views for a new video tend to happen on Facebook rather than YouTube.

The shift was strong enough for one media planning agency to rethink its client’s Super Bowl advertising strategy. Traditionally, agencies will ...

For years, U.S. cellular carriers have helped drive enormous demand for smartphones by heavily subsidizing retail prices of what would otherwise be costly devices. So what could happen to smartphone sales now that carriers are moving away from that approach?

New plans introduced over the past year or so by most of the major carriers change the longstanding wireless pricing model in the U.S. ...

Health care represents about 18 percent of the U.S. economy, and Malay Gandhi is trying to change it one $100,000 check at a time.

Mr. Gandhi is the San Francisco managing director for Rock Health, a nonprofit incubator and seed funding provider that has invested in 50 digital health companies, including Doctor on Demand and Lift Labs, which was bought by Google in September.

It’s ...

It’s a good time to be raising money as an enterprise startup.

For the first three quarters of the year, U.S. venture funding for enterprise services increased 42 percent to $18.6 billion from $13 billion the same period a year ago, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. By contrast, venture funding for consumer information and media services declined 7.1 percent to $429 million from $462 ...

Two classes of technology startups are doing well these days, pulling down enormous valuations and aggregating top talent in Silicon Valley.

The first is applications that have strong self-reinforcing and highly scalable growth mechanisms. These are generally the messaging, photo and sticker-focused services that can at least theoretically reach more than a hundred million global users.

The ...

Consumers are just starting to use Apple Pay to make purchases at cash registers and online stores. But Apple representatives have also talked to potential partners about using the technology behind Apple Pay for other sorts of transactions, including building security access and accepting tickets at public transit turnstiles.

The Apple representatives have talked to technology providers like ...

Usually, the best way to drive down the value of a product is to flood the market with excess supply. Someone needs to explain that to the TV industry.

Everyone from streaming video outlets like Netflix and Amazon to the most traditional cable channels are increasing spending on new TV shows. This surge of spending isn't likely to end well, with companies likely to have to take big ...

“If  humans can build an intelligent AI…”

Enthusiasm for the notion that humans will create an artificial intelligence that can act and think like they do is running high across the tech industry. So, it was with some surprise that the experts whom The Information convened for a panel for subscribers on Wednesday expressed some doubts about when, how and whether people will be able ...

Google is getting serious about cloud services.

For the past two years, the business of running applications for other customers in Google data centers appeared to be a low-priority hobby for the tech giant. But now, as Microsoft and Amazon race ahead, Google executives are prodding their engineers to make its public cloud as fast and powerful as the data centers that run its own apps.

That ...