Global Web companies like Google and Facebook know that most of their future growth will need to come from emerging markets. But as smartphones continue to bring more people online, data-plan costs and other hurdles are preventing those people from using mobile Web services.

In response, Google engineers in recent months have talked to select app developers in emerging markets like India about ...

Apple rattled tech rivals like Google last year when it entered brick-and-mortar retail with Apple Pay, which lets people use their iPhone to pay for goods in stores. Now Google, which has long offered a similar product for Android phones that hasn’t become widely used, and Square, which helps small businesses accept credit card payments, are searching for new ways to insert themselves into ...

For the startups vying to attack the $34 billion-plus database market Oracle Corp. has dominated for decades, creating software popular with developers doesn’t guarantee success. Figuring out a sales strategy is crucial.

Take MongoDB, so well positioned among the young companies nipping at Oracle’s heels that last summer it was valued at $1.2 billion, making it one of New York’s most valuable ...

In hindsight, it was probably an impossible task: Getting major Hollywood studios, technology companies and retailers to agree on a way to sell movies that consumers could watch on lots of devices. And three years after just such an initiative launched, a reaction to the dominance of Apple’s iTunes, its time may be running out.

Known as UltraViolet, the venture is backed by most of the major ...

Through its ownership of Comedy Central, Viacom has a lock on the television funny space. Now the company is contemplating whether to extend that presence in the digital realm.

The New York-based media company is considering whether to buy a trio of Web video comedy sites that started looking for buyers late last year—CollegeHumor, The Onion and Funny or Die—say people with knowledge of the ...

Google is preparing to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers and manage their calls and mobile data over a cellular network, according to three people with knowledge of the plans. 

The new service is expected run on Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks, two people familiar with the product say. Google is expected to reach deals to buy wholesale access to those carriers’ mobile voice and ...

Google is close to investing in rocket maker SpaceX, according to several people familiar with the talks, creating a formidable alliance in Silicon Valley’s accelerating Internet space race.

The purpose of a deal, which is still in the works, is to support the development of SpaceX satellites that could beam low-cost Internet around the globe to billions who don’t have it.

The price and terms ...

For some time Marissa Mayer has been hinting that her strategy for turning around Yahoo hinged on bringing mobile expertise into the company. Now she’s about to show her cards on the advertising side.

In the past few months, the company has been aggressively hiring for its mobile ads team ahead of a planned revamp of its ad products in the first half of the year. Yahoo plans to give ...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intends to develop a consumer business in China. In 2015, we’ll learn more about how he might do so.

For political reasons, the core Facebook service has been blocked by the Chinese government for the past six years or so, and that doesn’t seem likely to end in the near term.

But current and former Facebook employees and others who have advised the ...

Question: Who in Silicon Valley would choose to work for a company that didn’t pay bonuses and only gave employees stock options if they were willing to forgo part of their salary in exchange?

Apparently, not too many, if Netflix’s experience is anything to go by. That unusual stock-for-salary allocation approach has been a central element of the streaming video outlet’s ...

Mozilla’s decision last week to replace Google with Yahoo as the default search engine for the Firefox browser in the U.S. was a nice little score for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

In June 2011, Steve Jobs took the stage before Apple developers to announce a project close to his heart. It was iCloud, a system for syncing files across Apple devices. Mr. Jobs was particularly excited about the potential to sync photos, one of the most widely used media types, say people who work at Apple.

Yet today, the photo vision, codenamed Hyperion, has yet to be fully realized. The ...

Google intends to launch a version of its Google Play app store in China, hoping to exercise greater influence over a market that accounts for roughly half the people who use its Android mobile operating system, say several people with knowledge of the company’s plans.

In recent months, the company has indicated its intention to reverse a longstanding Google policy and distribute ...