Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

A rare randomized study on Facebook by MIT shows how different marketing strategies perform. Brands can increase the number of people who install their Facebook apps by 400% through a combination of private and newsfeed messaging, according to a new MIT study.

Netflix will expand its streaming service to 43 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the company announced Monday, its largest international expansion so far. On word of the news, Netflix's share price shot up to $283, hitting a 52-week high. The move is yet another part of Netflix's plan to bring its online subscription service beyond the U.S

Facebook Likes and comments are great, but they won't save your brand. Researcher Dan Zarella (an expert in social media analysis ) set out to prove they would at least help. He found the opposite results.

While you won't have any trouble finding a way to learn Spanish, French, or German in the United States, brushing up on your Lakota or Navajo isn't so easy.

The AARP is known for the following: retirement benefits, travel discounts, and commercials of old people smiling, frowning, or falling down. But last month, the nonprofit organization for those 50 and older launched a new service that takes advantage of a massive untapped market in the digital music industry: baby boomers

Robin Chase recently launched a new car-sharing service in France, called Buzzcar. Robin Chase recognized early on that there is money to be made by making car travel smarter and more affordable

Tech Trends columnist John Brandon gave two DIY app building tools a whirl. Here are the results. Over the past few months, I've been getting loads of PR pitches about software that lets you create your own smartphone applications—no coding or design skills required

Ah, the joy of long holiday weekends. They re-energize, revitalize and send you back to work..

With the initial fuss about Google+ dying down, the real potential for the social system to challenge popular net apps is breaking through. Foursquare-challenging check-ins If you run the mobile app version of Google+ you can't help but spot the Check-ins feature --it's right there on the front page.

As Tom Hanks heads to the box office with his latest flick, a rodent-bodied spoof pops up on the streets of NYC--and on popular photo app Instagram. Is this a marketing stunt or just an odd cultural collision

Social-gaming powerhouse Zynga just filed its S-1 to raise up to $1 billion in IPO. It appears virtual farms and online cities have treated the San Francisco-startup well: Zynga pulled in $91 million in profit on sales of $597 million. What's more, revenue is rocketing

The recent rise in food prices is just the first warning sign that the way we produce food may not be working so well. There are some important changes that need to be made to continue to feed a growing population. Your local grocery store may be stocked with foods from around the world, but make no mistake: Our food system is starting to fail

The reviews for HP's TouchPad are in, and we have a consensus: It mimics the iPad well but is not yet a proper replacement; WebOS is sexy but not yet perfect or fully mature; the TouchPad is a solid but late entry to the tablet market; and where are the apps? This last point is most important. Only a day after reviewers skewered HP for offering just 300 TouchPad apps at launch, Apple hit 100,000 apps on the iPad

A new study using genes from the DNA-testing service made new discoveries about Parkinson's. Now the company is poised to continue groundbreaking genetic research, at a pace much faster than traditional research. Google-backed genotyping service 23andMe is a novelty for many people: spit in a tube, send it to the company, pay $99 and find out what diseases you're genetically prone to and whether you have any long-lost relatives who also use the service.

An Oscar-winning producer talks about his interest in moviemaking, medicine, and scaleable (storytelling) design. Nearly 8 of out 10 Americans are willing to pay up to $100 for a medical device that monitors their vital signs, according to an IBM study that tracks trends in the use of mobile devices in health care. Fewer than 10% of respondents are paying out-of-pocket charges for such devices today, but more than one-third expect to do so within the next two years.