Mashable: Latest 15 News Updates - including “Giiv Lets You Give Gifts Via Text Message” |  |
- Giiv Lets You Give Gifts Via Text Message
- Flickr Co-founder’s Startup Hunch Raises $10 Million
- Privacy Concerns Put the Kibosh on the Netflix Prize
- The Rise of Foursquare in Numbers [STATS]
- Keyboard Cat: The Next Generation [VIDEO]
- Why Sex-Ed Remains a Challenge for Social Media
- Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters
- Apple Sells 90,000 iPads in the First Day? [REPORT]
- How Musicians Are Using Social Media to Connect with Fans
- The iPad: A Pre-Order Preview
- StumbleUpon’s New Ad Platform: An Inside Look
- 4 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media as a Catalyst
- Google Buzz E-mail Notification Changes Are Coming
- Google Wave Keeps Rolling with New Extensions Gallery
- iPad: To Pre-Order or Not to Pre-Order? [POLL]
- Enjoy Paris in All of Its 26-Gigapixel Glory
| Giiv Lets You Give Gifts Via Text Message Posted: 12 Mar 2010 05:22 PM PST  
Quick Pitch: Giiv is a mobile gifting service that delivers gifts in real time in the format of a friendly text message. Genius Idea: Gift certificates are an awesome (if occasionally generic) way to say “You rock!” Giiv.com makes this process easier by letting you give gift cards and certificates to someone you care about via text message. There is a $0.99 processing fee added on to the gift amount, which seems pretty fair considering the convenience factor. You can get gifts from Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, TOMS Shoes, Fandango and others.  Sure, you can give a lot of gift certificates electronically over e-mail, but text message can be even faster — depending on the person you are giving to. Plus, if you have an iPhone, you can use the free Giiv iPhone app, which is really cool. How do you give gifts online? Let us know in the comments. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines)." Reviews: PHP Tags: gift certificates, giiv.com, iphone apps, SMS, talkshoe, web apps
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| Flickr Co-founder’s Startup Hunch Raises $10 Million Posted: 12 Mar 2010 04:23 PM PST 
Nearly a year ago, Ms. Fake revealed her new startup to the world. Her goal: to create a service that would help people make decisions via crowdsourced questions and advice from its users. Hunch launched last June and has been growing steadily ever since (it peaked at nearly half a million U.S. visitors last month). According to MediaMemo, the startup has raised $10-$12 million from Khosla Ventures and previous investors General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and original angel investor Ron Conway (an early investor in Google and PayPal). The lead investor seems to have been Gideon Yu, the former CFO of YouTube and later Facebook. It’s tough to bet against Hunch and its stellar leadership team. Our tests of the service have always been a positive experience, although it’s tough to say just how much of a market exists for their service. Hunch also has some valuable data that could be an asset into the future. Reviews: Facebook, Google, Hunch, YouTube Tags: business, funding, hunch, venture capital
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| Privacy Concerns Put the Kibosh on the Netflix Prize Posted: 12 Mar 2010 03:32 PM PST 
When the results were first announced last summer, Netflix followed them up with an announcement that a second contest would take place. Unfortunately, the next iteration is not to be. A class action privacy lawsuit arose when a customer claimed that the rental information that Netflix makes available for use in the contest wasn’t anonymous enough and could theoretically be linked to her and reveal her sexuality. As Ars Technica notes, researchers have often said that the external data source could be linked to an individuals renting history, something that does present certain privacy risks. Netflix has settled the class action suit and the FTC inquiry, but the Netflix Prize is no more. While we understand the potential privacy concerns and why this could be an issue, we’re sad to see the Netflix Prize go. Netflix said that it intends to continue to look at how it can collaborate with the community when developing its recommendation engine. Here’s an idea: Ask people if they are willing to opt into public research. Frankly, I’d be more than willing to do that in exchange for better and more accurate movie recommendations. What do you think about the end of the Netflix Prize? Let us know! Tags: netflix, netflix prize, privacy, recommendation engine
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| The Rise of Foursquare in Numbers [STATS] Posted: 12 Mar 2010 03:14 PM PST 
Despite that short amount of time, Foursquare has more than half a million users, 1.4 million venues and 15.5 million checkins, and it’s still growing. Experian Hitwise decided to use this milestone to analyze Foursquare’s growth. As you might imagine, not only have Foursquare’s mobile apps seen growth, but so has Foursquare.com. What did strike us as surprising is that the site’s number-one referrer is Facebook, which accounted for a whopping 33% of upstream visits last week. That’s even bigger than Google (22%) and Twitter (8%) combined. It’s yet another indicator of how much traffic the world’s largest social network can drive. Searches for Foursquare have also been sharply rising, accounting for around 0.00032% of all U.S. searches. Its most recent peak was February 20, about the time Please Rob Me was gaining the press’ attention.  With more than 15.5 million checkins and nearly 300,000 yesterday (many due to SXSW), Foursquare seems to have a bright future. However, competition from Gowalla, Yelp and Facebook in the local space could give the startup a run for its money this year. Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Gowalla, Twitter, Yelp Tags: foursquare, Mobile 2.0
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| Keyboard Cat: The Next Generation [VIDEO] Posted: 12 Mar 2010 02:26 PM PST 
Years later, Schmidt uploaded the vid to the Internets and, lo and behold, people liked it. Because, well, people enjoy cats — especially when they’re acting like people. Now, with little fanfare, a new video has been uploaded to Schmidt’s YouTube channel, the description of which reads:
Check it out below. Minds will be blown. (And before you ask, commenters: Yes, it is a slow news day, but that doesn’t make this video any less awesome.) [via Peggy Wang at Buzzfeed] Tags: humor, keyboard-cat, music, viral video, youtube
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| Why Sex-Ed Remains a Challenge for Social Media Posted: 12 Mar 2010 02:00 PM PST 
Addressing the very private nature of intimacy remains the most difficult aspect of sex-ed on the social web. While “Public Health 2.0″ is a top priority for related causes and organizations, it can be difficult to approach from a social media standpoint. Because it's the most private and sensitive of issues, many people are embarrassed or offended by conversations about sex. However, many organizations, from mass media outlets to cause-specific efforts, are still attempting to use social tools to address reproductive health issues. The difficulty in running a successful effort lies in navigating the troubled waters between an individual’s right to privacy and the public need for sex education online. Finding the Balance Between Public Education and PrivacyA very provocative effort may raise some eyebrows, but at the same time fail to generate conversation. The issue may be too sensitive for most — except for a minority of outgoing, extroverted online citizens. For example, Sex Really discusses violence towards women in dating situations. Sex Really takes the initiative on pointing out tough topics and assumes conversation will occur offline, though some folks do choose to interact with the Sex Really team online. The effort uses a variety of media from its own site, as well as a Twitter account. The site takes a rightful strong stances against violence towards women, yet the public conversational results vary. That doesn’t mean the effort isn’t successful in educating readers. “This campaign has made effective use of social content, messaging related to social behavior change, and content aggregation,” said Beth Kanter, author of the popular Beth’s Blog. “It’s hard to tell why there isn’t more conversation on the site from the target group (e.g. comments on the podcast posts) — they do have an active Twitter stream. They also have a link to [Planned Parenthood] where [users] can get private information or connect with a health counselor for advice.”  Another example of an open site that gets some decent participation (but still less than similar non sex-ed campaigns) is MTV's GYT (Get Yourself Tested). Because the effort is tied into the popular TV show 16 and Pregnant, there are a lot of eyeballs landing there. Integrating traditional media into a social web campaign is one way to incite conversations about getting tested for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). While educating themselves, participants not only sound off, but in some cases could win an opportunity to appear on the cable network — a great motivator to get people talking. There’s a GYT Facebook Group with 2,500 fans (which is comparatively low, considering other teen-oriented Pages get tens of thousands), and some decent online conversation. Clearly, though, openness can actually act as a barrier to communication for such a sensitive issue. Full disclosure: Beth is a business partner of mine. Privacy Protections Can Drive More Participation One organization committed to the sex ed space is ISIS, Inc., a non-profit organization based in Oakland, CA. They have had two very successful efforts: The Say What Contest and the inSpot notification service. ISIS efforts use technology to provide privacy guarantees first, then encourage the social conversation. By putting privacy at the forefront of what they do, ISIS is able to boost participation. The Say What Contest uses incentives to get youth and young adults to talk. Specifically, the contest asked teens and twenty-somethings what the worst advice they got from their parents was. The goal was to highlight misnomers passed on from generation to generation. User stories are posted in podcast format. “Youth used their own cell phones or landlines to call a private digital phone number and tell their stories,” said Deb Levine, Executive Director and Founder of ISIS. “Entrants’ phone numbers were stored in a data file that was password-protected and only available to contest sponsors in order to contact contest winners. We used a moderation feature for the widget such that we only included entrants who did not state their full name or location. No phone numbers were associated publicly with entries selected to be included in the widget.” “The Say What campaign was a compelling contest that focused on the gold mine of good and bad sex advice teens have heard,” said Scotty Hendo, principal at CauseShift. “I liked how they used the telephone to capture stories directly from the teens. Plus, creating a widget helped spread the word and offer more people the chance to listen and rank contestants … [T]he campaign was a creative way to get teens to critically question what they’ve been told by their peers and adults.” ISIS’s other project deals with an even greater social taboo. Many people experience great shame in finding out they have contracted an STD, and don't want to admit it to their past and present partners. In an effort to stop the spread of STDs, the inSPOT network allows users to sign on to a private local community and send an anonymous e-Card to partners from a “concerned friend.” “80% of senders choose to send their e-mails anonymously, and 80% of senders also choose to include a personal message,” said Levine. “The site has no backend database to collect information on sender e-mail addresses, recipient e-mail addresses, or personal messages. Currently, most users of inSPOT are using dynamic IP addresses which cannot be traced back to their computers or computer networks. We also use CAPTCHA to discourage spammers and bots from sending out multiple cards.” The “Share it if You Like it” Approach Making traditional media sharable on the web is another approach. While this strategy doesn’t break much ground in terms of social media, it hinges on creating content compelling enough that people will want to share it on their own networks using a service like AddThis or ShareThis. Consider the original and critically acclaimed PBS TV program The Education of Shelby Knox, which discusses abstinence versus sex education in the deep South. The website assumes you will want to sound off about the show positively or negatively (and thus sex education) on your own social networks using the ShareThis service, or even go so far as to plan an event in your neighborhood. “In terms of using a video with someone like Shelby, I do think it makes it much easier for people to discuss the issues because it’s not about ‘their kid’ — because no parent wants to believe their kid would be the one having sex in the school bathroom or whatever,” said Kivi Leroux Miller, president of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com. “Making the conversation about Shelby and her friends allows people to share their opinions, fears, etc., while giving them some cover, since it’s not about them personally.” Whether or not that cover translates into real social media discussion of sex education is another story. However, the site is still getting comments years after the show’s original air date. More social media resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LaurenSimmons Reviews: AddThis, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: education, facebook, List, Lists, non-profit, sex, sex ed, social good, teens, twitter
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| Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters Posted: 12 Mar 2010 01:59 PM PST 
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This week, our valued sponsors are Gist, phpFox, Yield Software, Clickatell, Influxis, Microsoft BizSpark, MailChimp, Sun Startup Essentials, MaxCDN, and Eventbrite.  Gist helps you build stronger professional relationships by bringing together information from across the web for all your contacts and their companies giving you the right information at the right moment to get a first meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection. Gist does all the work for you, assembling a dynamic collection of all your contacts and their companies from your email inbox, your social networks, or even your CRM system automatically building and updating their profiles as new content is published – by them or about them.  phpFox is a feature packed social networking script. Our goal is to provide your community with features found on major social networking sites. The platform gives you full control with your websites layout giving you the ability to easily create a unique look direct from the comfort of your Admin Control Panel. Try the new phpFox2 with a brand new engine; our fastest, coolest and most feature packed version ever. Start tomorrow’s next big thing today with phpFox!  Yield Software's Yield Web Marketing Suite optimizes paid search (PPC) natural search (SEO) and landing pages, all in one easy-to-use Web-based system. A simple, intuitive interface together with sophisticated algorithms work seamlessly to optimize SEM campaigns every minute of every day, enabling growing businesses and their agencies to lower costs, improve performance, and increase profitability. Yield also offers a free SEO Analyzer, which delivers a report covering how well a site is optimized and suggestions for improvement. Yield Software—Web Marketing Made Easy.  Clickatell offers mobile social networks the opportunity to measure their return on investment: Not only does Clickatell offer an Interactive Campaign Manager tool that allows you to monitor and intervene in your customer campaigns in real time, it also generates and manages database integration and comes with additional marketing tools. Track the delivery status of your text messages and the responses; take the guesswork out of campaigning. Your valuable messages will always be delivered as our products allow for message escalation to alternative delivery gateways. Social networks are also, through the account management package, given control over network channels and connectivity options. All necessary tasks have been automated and our central interface allows you to manage multiple connections and projects at the same time. Which leading social networking companies have chosen Clickatell as a mobile messaging partner? Read our success stories here.  Influxis is an official Adobe hosting partner and resource for the Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server. Influxis provides Flash hosting plans for all levels of use – beginner to enterprise. With a reputation for exceptional customer service, Influxis provides an extremely reliable international network of FMS servers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.  BizSpark is a program which offers new software businesses and entrepreneurs access to Microsoft design, development, and production tools with no upfront costs for up to three years. Members can also connect with a nationwide community of Network Partners – investors, incubators, service providers, and entrepreneurial organizations – who are keen to help. For more information, or to connect with a Microsoft BizSpark advisor, please visit MicrosoftStartupZone.com/BizSpark.  MailChimp is a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.  If you’re working for a startup, Sun can help you get it off the ground fast. We created the fee-free Sun Startup Essentials program offering deep discounts on industry leading, power efficient systems and storage products, optimized open-source software, massively scalable Web hosting services, plus free visibility via Sun’s co-marketing engine. It’s time to build your business on the kind of infrastructure that can scale right along with the skyrocketing demands of success. Find out about Sun Startup Essentials today!  MaxCDN – Content Delivery Network. MaxCDN makes it easy and affordable to get maximum global performance from your site and enable your visitors to get the most out of their visit! MaxCDN offers: resistance to the Digg effect, SSL Integration, No Setup Fee, US-based customer service, No Commitments. Get 1 TeraByte for just $10 today!  Eventbrite is an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell tickets to their events. Make your event a success on Eventbrite. Additionally, thanks to the following partners for making Mashable happen:
Thanks to ConVerdge for implementing our My Mashable social network and W3 EDGE for the development and maintenance of Mashable.com  Mashable would also like to thank AttentionPR for their PR support. AttentionPR proves that PR today is measurable, transparent, and yes, social. Learn more about AttentionPR.  Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.  iStockphoto offers easy, affordable inspiration with millions of safe, royalty-free photos, illustrations, video, audio and Flash® files. Using the most accurate search in the business, customers download a file at least every second from a collection of more than five million files for business, marketing and personal projects. iStockphoto started in 2000, pioneering the micropayment photography business model, and has become one of the most successful and profitable user-generated content sites in the world. iStockphoto pays out approximately $1.2 million weekly in artist royalties. iStockphoto is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Getty Images. Mashable readers save 10%.  Founded in 1998 as a free service, Dynamic Network Services Incorporated (Dyn Inc.) now operates two extremely reliable, “rock solid”, global DNS platforms; DynDNS.com for home/SMB users and the Dynect Platform for corporations and enterprises. As a leading provider of managed DNS services, Dyn Inc. plays a key role in keeping the Internet’s DNS infrastructure running smoothly, handling trillions of queries per day and servicing nearly four million active users. With a range of innovative solutions, from domain name and e-mail services on DynDNS.com, to failover, load balancing, traffic management and CDN balancing services with the Dynect Platform, Dyn Inc. remains committed to world class customer service and engineering excellence. Uptime is the Bottom Line. For more information about Dyn Inc., visit www.dyn.com, e-mail hello@dyn.com or call +1-603-668-4998.  ConcentricSky offers web development and strategic consulting services with a focus on emerging technologies such as Social Media and iPhone Apps. From simple websites to integrated web applications, we deliver innovative solutions that exceed your expectations – not your budget. We can get your name out there.Contact us for more information about supporting Mashable’s growth and development. Alternatively, visit our advertise section for more details about:
CPM-based advertising is available through our partner, Federated Media, but if you contact us directly, you’ll be entitled to exclusive unpublished discounts. Reviews: Digg, Mashable, iStockphoto
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| Apple Sells 90,000 iPads in the First Day? [REPORT] Posted: 12 Mar 2010 12:32 PM PST 
If you’ve ever doubted how dedicated Apple fans are, the background on how these figures were determined will assuage any doubts. A group of particularly prudent Apple fans from the APPL Sanity Board at Investor Village decided to put together a spreadsheet of order numbers, times that orders were placed and contents of those order. As someone who has been known to obsess over Apple details myself (tracking a freightliner from China to the US with 27″ iMacs on-board in order to better guestimate delivery time), my hat is off to these folks! Using this information, they were able to come up with a baseline for the number of items being sold through the Apple Online Store. Fortune’s Phillip Elmer-DeWitt reports:
This matches other estimates from blogger Andrew Erlichson who wrote:
Now as with anything unofficial, there are caveats — major ones — assuming that the order number system has been identified and “cracked” so to speak, this would really be more accurate for all orders placed through the Apple Store, not just iPad orders. Additionally, these figures wouldn’t account for orders with multiple iPads (you can only pre-order two at a time). This also doesn’t include any reservations to pick up an iPad at a local store (no payment information is required for that and you aren’t given an order number). Still, it’s safe to say that the majority of orders placed through the Apple Online Store are for the iPad. I’ve reached out to Victor Castroll for a more recent update and will update the post if I’m able to get any more information. Update: Victor Castroll from the Valcent Financial Group and AAPL Sanity got back to us with some numbers that account for approximately the first 6 hours of sales. Here’s what he tells us:
Indeed, 90,000 pre-orders in just one day is extremely impressive! Reviews: Apple Store Tags: apple, ipad, ipad preorder, trending
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| How Musicians Are Using Social Media to Connect with Fans Posted: 12 Mar 2010 11:54 AM PST 
Today’s musicians, both mainstream and indie, are using social media to connect with fans, build anticipation, and generate revenue in new and unique ways. The products range from singles to mix tapes to digital six-packs, even oddly shaped USB sticks, vinyl, and the occasional traditional album. But how are these artists reaching their new fan bases online through social channels? Much like the business world, social media promotion for musicians is still a very new game, with no exact recipe for platinum success. There are however, some innovations being put forth, and a new connection is being formed between artists and fans — a connection that empowers both to give each other what they are looking for. Fan-Funded Projects We have all heard about the success of micro lending organizations like Kiva, which use multiple small payments to contribute to a larger goal. The same process is being applied to creating an album or a music-based project. One such project is the Washington D.C.-based indie hip-hop group Panacea. The producer/MC duo listed their project on Kickstater, a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers, and others. The project was posted on the morning of February 26th. According to Jeremy Calvery, the group’s Director of Digital Media and Promotion, "We were at $1,000 before the end of the first day. We had to increase the number of $200 packages from three to five over the weekend because people were e-mailing and literally begging for the chance to ‘buy’ the whole back catalog. Less than five full days from the first e-mail to the list, we had reached the funding goal of $3,800, which was set to be just a bit more than what the minimum press of 250 vinyl copies was going to cost." Another hip-hop outfit, the Get Busy Committee, also launched a project on Kickstarter. In their drive to raise $3,218, they included one premium pledge level at $1,000 — an investment that netted the donor a song about him or herself to be included on the record, as well as a platinum plaque. They sold this spot within 24 hours. Using Video to Create BuzzAnother approach musicians are taking is the use of web video series. Indie pop artist Mike Posner has been telling his story over the course of a video series titled “One Foot Out The Door.” Daniel Weisman, Mike's manager, stated that he was attempting to create an income stream for Mike while he was finishing college and working on his debut album. Daniel and his management company Elitaste were approached by the shoe company Puma about integrated artist campaigns. Puma ended up sponsoring Mike's last semester in college, and provided a camera crew to follow him from classes, to the studio, to shows all over the country. Daniel wanted to do something special for the Mashable readers when I reached out to him, so fresh off the upload, here is the premier of Episode #10 of "One Foot Out The Door." Live streaming has also been worthwhile for big announcements. Underground artists the Kottonmouth Kings turned to Ustream to tell their fans all about their new album and when they could expect it in local stores. The video was watched live and formatted like a press conference, with fans getting the chance to ask questions and share their feedback. It was a smart way to bring their fans into the experience and give back to the community that has supported them for 10+ years. Creativity From the Fans
So far they have five songs in progress with fans like Adam saying, "I just feel the intro has a little too much going on and 2.33 to 2.56 I almost want the piano to play and pull at the heart strings." Another commenter named Russell gave tips like, "Think drums and a bit more of heavier guitar would go down nicely particularly near end." This concept empowers fans and gives them a product they feel responsible for and connected to. The project can only strengthen the bond between fans and artists, and result in an easier sale when the time comes to release an album. Reaching Out to Non-Music Bloggers
A marketing rep for Glasses told me, "These bloggers are more open to running contests and integrated campaigns than traditional music bloggers because they are not accustomed to being pitched by a major label artist. We have found blogs that love unique and fresh content that will separate them from their peers and competition, and it is working out very well for us so far." Armed with a research team, they have been targeting biking blogs, college blogs, beach lifestyle sites and more, all with the hope of driving new traffic to Glasses’ site and generating some pre-album buzz. ConclusionNo matter what the labels and corporations are doing, musicians are taking it upon themselves to use social channels to connect with fans, offer value, and create relationship. This has ultimately led to new business models and revenue streams from sponsorships, touring and live appearances, custom products, and social monetization through advertising. What are your expectations from artists in today’s music industry? What other unique social media promotions have you seen from your favorite musicians? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. More social media resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, karimhesham Reviews: Mashable, iStockphoto Tags: bands, BLOGS, music, record labels, social media, trending, ustream, video, Vimeo, web video, web video series
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| Posted: 12 Mar 2010 11:41 AM PST 
iPad Features- Screen rotation lock: Apple has added a switch to the side of the iPad that locks the screen in either a vertical or horizontal position, no matter which way you turn it. This is sure to make using the iPad in bed or on the couch easier. - ePub support through iTunes: Apple’s website now has a dedicated iBooks page that offers more information about the built-in e-reader and what formats it will support. If you already have DRM-free ePub titles, you can sync those books with the iPad using iTunes. - VoiceOver Works with i-Books: Apple is integrating its VoiceOver technology into the entire device, including the i-books app. This means that blind or vision-impaired users can have the text read aloud. Sweet! - Better video support: Apple didn’t highlight this feature, but on the Tech Specs page, we learn that the iPad will support more than just the standard Apple-approved video formats (*.mov, *.mp4, *.m4v) and will also support AVI and Motion JPEG. Apple has never supported AVI on its iPod/iPhone devices, so this is a great step. - Share YouTube Videos on Facebook: The YouTube page has an interesting note at the bottom — you can easily e-mail a YouTube video to friends or share it on Facebook. - Digital Camera Connector not available for pre-order: On the iPad’s Photos page, as well as in other photographs of the device itself, Apple notes an optional digital camera adapter that can be purchased to connect your digital camera to the iPad, using either a direct USB link or an SD card reader. However, as Macworld points out that adapter is not available for pre-order. Obviously the dongle is coming, but when and at what price is unknown. Macworld also notes that a similar adapter that was sold for the iPod Photo (heh, yeah, remember that? The red-headed stepchild of iPods that was quickly displaced by the far superior iPod Video) for $29, which would jive with the prices of other iPad accessories that are available for pre-order. Personally, we’ll wait to see if Monoprice releases their own version of this product. More?Have you found any new info about the iPad? Let us know in the comments! Reviews: Facebook, YouTube, video Tags: apple, iBooks, ipad, ipad guide, youtube
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| StumbleUpon’s New Ad Platform: An Inside Look Posted: 12 Mar 2010 10:57 AM PST 
These changes don’t so much change the basics of how StumbleUpon Advertising works, as much as they add additional tools and metrics for advertisers to better track and understand the results of their campaigns. I got to speak with StumbleUpon’s founder and CEO Garrett Camp, as well as Marc Leibowitz, VP of business development and marketing, about the changes and what it means for advertisers who want to better target their content. Last fall, StumbleUpon competitor Digg launched a similar platform and early results have been very positive. StumbleUpon isn’t changing the structure of how ads are displayed to users — that works, and works quite well — for users and advertisers. Instead, most of the changes with the platform are most noticeable on the backend. What’s NewYou can view this video tour to get an overview of how StumbleUpon Advertising works, but the big difference for advertisers is that the platform is now built on top of the same technology that powers Su.pr, the URL shortener for content publishers that StumbleUpon launched last summer. This new platform is faster and more responsive and now StumbleUpon ads is better integrated with the overall site. Additionally, the dashboard and how data is reported has been greatly enhanced. In the past, advertisers were able to see traffic generated from stumbles they purchased, but not for any organic traffic that also came from the campaign. If a lot of people end of liking and recommending a sponsored site, it can end up getting several times the number pageviews from organic, unpaid traffic than from the actual campaign. This greatly changes CPV, but this wasn’t accounted for in the old system. Garrett told me that some advertisers would use their own site logs to calculate the additional traffic they received from Stumble, but that’s a process that should really be done by the advertising platform. And now it is. When you can actually see your effective CPV (which, depending on the site or URL, could be considerably lower than the flat rate of $0.05 per impression that StumbleUpon charges), it can make evaluating how to budget future campaigns more efficient.  In addition to viewing paid and free traffic, the dashboard has now made it easier to identify trends and other metrics for success. Payment options for advertisers have also been expanded. In the past, PayPal was the only way you could make an ad purchase. Now you can use Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover. This is good for companies that might like to allocate funds to certain cards without having to divert things to a separate PayPal account. The FutureMarc came to StumbleUpon from Google, where he was a senior director of strategic partnerships. As such, he brings in lots of experience from the AdWords and AdSense teams and this is clearly having an impact on how Stumble does its ad platform. This is a good thing. As a writer, I know that StumbleUpon can be a terrific source of traffic — its community is engaged and its recommendation algorithm is sound. Highlighting these benefits to advertisers is key to building the community — and the company. As it stands, I like the direction Stumble is taking its advertising platform and I hope to see even deeper integration between publishing and advertising tools in the future. Have you ever used StumbleUpon or other social recommendation services for advertising campaigns? Let us know your experiences! Reviews: Google, StumbleUpon Tags: advertising, digg, stumbleupon, stumbleupon ads
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| 4 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media as a Catalyst Posted: 12 Mar 2010 09:25 AM PST 
As social media marketing becomes more widely practiced, the questions of the day are less frequently focused on the benefits of social media and more often focused on its implementation. Justifying social media to superiors is no longer the marketer's biggest challenge. Instead, marketers are being challenged not on the potential benefits, of which there is ample evidence, but rather on how to get those benefits. Where to start? Social Media as a CatalystWith this challenge in mind, it's vital to understand that social media is neither the end nor the beginning of any marketing effort. Rather, social media is a catalyst that works most effectively when it is finely woven into the fabric of a brand's other activity. When putting together a puzzle, it helps to take a look at the big picture on the front of the box. Likewise, when putting together a social media strategy it's necessary to zoom out a little and examine how social media will fit into the context of your other business activities. Below are four pieces of the puzzle that brands can mesh with social media to maximize results. 1. Cause Marketing The socialization of the web has made it evident that brands that want to succeed online must feel and act like humans, not like desperate, distant corporations. Accordingly, some social media marketers have taken on the role of teaching brands how to be human: don't say stupid things, don't feed the trolls, and don't dominate the conversation – pretty fundamental stuff that somehow got lost during the incorporation process. However, guidelines for not screwing up aren't enough for brands to really benefit from social media. Until you bring something interesting to the table — something that inspires passion, laughter, or curiosity — nobody will care if you have a Twitter account. One of the most effective, simple ways to get people to care about what you're doing is to do something worth caring about: get behind a cause. Brands have been benefiting from cause marketing for a long time, but the catalytic nature of social media has brought three additional benefits to the cause marketing table:
Pepsi is one of the best examples of a brand that has recently seized the opportunity to leverage a mix of social media and cause marketing. Their Refresh Everything project incorporates votes from users to decide where Pepsi will donate their funds as well as a variety of other simple social media features: single sign-on, a Facebook Fan Page, and a blog. By involving users with a voting process, Pepsi has effectively done three things. First, instead of just doing good themselves, they've helped their customers do good, which helps establish a very positive brand association. They have also created a situation that will compel users to share with their friends (in order to accrue votes for the cause of their choice). Finally, they have built a feedback mechanism that will ensure the causes they support are also the most popular among their customers (which is great PR). Brands can benefit greatly from integrating social media with cause marketing, and they can learn a lot about how to get started from the tactics that Pepsi has used. Disclosure: Pepsi sponsored Mashable’s NextUp NYC: The Future Journalist event. 2. The Offline World Isolating the impact of social media to the web is an easy mistake to make. It seems natural enough to meet online goals with online activity, but the tangible world of physical objects, locations, and events can often provide a compelling medium to drive fans to engage with you online, or vice versa, you can use your social media efforts to drive activity to guerrilla marketing events like Red Bull’s stash, or simply to brick and mortar stores. Integrating your social media efforts with real products, store locations, or activities is an important way to acknowledge that you care about the complete customer experience, and that you're not just in the social media space because it's popular. Some of the most successful campaigns, such as Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice, have been focused on driving the purchase of offline products. Similarly, customer support profiles like Comcast Cares would be much less successful if they didn't have the power to influence real offline change by working with customer support representatives that can help customers on location. On the surface, social media may look like a simple set of social networks that people use to communicate, but when marketers look deeper they find that it presents a whole new venue for empowering all of their existing services, online as well as off. 3. Media Coverage Though citizen journalism and user generated content have proven to be extremely powerful (Iran’s election crisis, Barack Obama’s massive online get out the vote efforts, etc.), it is important to remember that brands can still benefit enormously from traditional media coverage. When it comes to social media, or any marketing for that matter, brands must find ways to leverage all of their assets in the same direction. Just like the offline world can easily be used for online gain, so too can traditional media be leveraged in the new media space. Amit Gupta, founder of several wonderful startups like Photojojo and Jelly, sheds some light on how his businesses have benefited from traditional coverage:
I exchanged e-mails with Amit and he was kind of enough to lend some extended insight on what to expect from traditional media. TV, web, and radio are all able to generate fast, measurable results. With these mediums, people are either interested, or they aren’t. There are comparatively few lagging responses. Newspapers and magazines on the other hand, while carrying significant credibility, produce results that are harder to measure because their content is often read over days, weeks, or even months. The ultimate success of a social media strategy depends on your ability to recognize problems and seize opportunities to solve them. When considering the needs of your campaign, whether it’s brand equity or an immediate spike in interest, consider traditional media as another tool in your toolbox that could meet those needs. However, remember that part of your strategy should involve doing, saying, or making something interesting and worth talking about. If you don’t do that, no amount of good press can save you. 4. TechnologyLastly, your social media strategy is inherently paired with technology. Without technology, social media cannot exist. However, technology's role in creating a social media strategy often goes understated. At SoCon10, a social media conference in Atlanta, Carol Kruse (head of interactive marketing at Coke) described the pain her team went through creating a Facebook application, only to find two months later that changes in Facebook's design would require Coke to restructure the application – a maintenance cost that hadn't been anticipated. Having a plan in place for making technological changes on the fly is an important ingredient in the fast-paced social media world. But technology is more than just a potential cost that bloats social media campaigns; it's also the life that fuels them. Applications like the recently launched MySpace Fan Video are powered by collaboration between experienced creatives and programmers, not just one or the other. Thus, perhaps the most important synergy to be formed by any company delving into social media is one between their technology team, internal or external, and their marketing team driving the strategy. ConclusionSynergy is the name of the social media game. Whether you're coming from a small company or a well-known brand, starting as far back as possible, zooming out and staring at the big picture, is crucial to creating a strategy that makes sense. These are four of the most important pieces to the social media puzzle. If you can think of more or have something to add to these listed, please leave a note in the comments. More business resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, TommL Reviews: Facebook, Iran , Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: cause marketing, List, Lists, mainstream media, MARKETING, PUBLIC RELATIONS, social media, technology
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| Google Buzz E-mail Notification Changes Are Coming Posted: 12 Mar 2010 09:01 AM PST 
Google Buzz has the benefit of being integrated directly into Gmail. Not only does it have a prominent tab in millions of inboxes, but it also sends e-mail notifications of recent buzz activity to your inbox. If you’re like us, the e-mail flood can get pretty overwhelming pretty quickly. Plus, anytime someone comments on a buzz thread, the e-mail pops right back up. Google’s heard you loud and clear. In a buzz post, the Buzz team revealed that it is testing two changes to e-mail notifications to help you better manage your inbox. While these changes are not live yet, they should be up in the next few days. The first change is something we’ve been seeking for some time: The ability to choose which items get sent to your inbox. If you just want an e-mail when someone comments on your post, it will soon be possible. If you want just posts where you are @replied, that’s possible as well. The second feature is a “Mute” link on individual buzz posts, which will stop a buzz post from reappearing in your inbox every time someone comments. Both changes are necessary if Buzz is to be usable as a product. Still, Google hasn’t addressed our number-one request: collapsible comment threads. [via CNET] Reviews: Gmail, Google, Google Buzz Tags: email, gmail, Google, google buzz, social media
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| Google Wave Keeps Rolling with New Extensions Gallery Posted: 12 Mar 2010 08:49 AM PST 
After making a big slash at Google I/O last year, Google Wave (the real-time communication platform that is still in preview) has re-gained some momentum, thanks to an improved API and the addition of e-mail notifications. The addition of an extensions gallery speaks to even more growth on the service’s part. If you have a Google Wave account, you’ll see an “Extensions” item in your navigation panel. Click on it and you can see what extensions are available to install and then use. Here’s a rundown of some of the extensions you can install and use now:
Once you install an extension, in most cases it is added to your toolbar and can then be accessed within a wave.  There are more extensions in the gallery and developers can submit their own to be included by going to this submission page for Google to review. What Google Wave extensions are you using? Let us know! Disclosure: Mashable has teamed with Google for the Google Wave API Challenge. Reviews: Google, Google Wave, Mashable, video Tags: Google Wave, google wave extensions
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| iPad: To Pre-Order or Not to Pre-Order? [POLL] Posted: 12 Mar 2010 07:16 AM PST 
 So, to pre-order or not to pre-order — take our poll and then let us know why you are (or are not pre-ordering) in the comments! Apple wouldn’t be Apple if it didn’t offer some totally hot, yet totally over-priced accessories to accompany a new product launch. If you pre-order an iPad for home delivery, you can add some accessories to your order. These include a dock (with and without keyboard, a protective case/stand, an extra power adapter and a VGA connector. Are you adding any of these items to you pre-order? Let us know! Tags: apple, ipad, ipad pre-order, trending
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| Enjoy Paris in All of Its 26-Gigapixel Glory Posted: 12 Mar 2010 06:18 AM PST 
Having been to Paris, I can tell you that it’s a city you won’t be able to fully fathom in a week or a month — it takes a lifetime to see all the city has to offer. This was before, of course, this amazing 26-gigapixel panorama of Paris was created; it won’t replace actually visiting Paris, but with all of its amazing details, it gets pretty darn close. Paris 26 Gigapixels is a stitching of 2,346 photos, which add up to a high-resolution panoramic view of Paris. When we say high-resolution, we mean it; the end result is a 26-gigapixel (354,159×75,570 px) interactive photo. You can move around by clicking anywhere on the image and moving your mouse, and you can zoom with your mouse wheel (alternatively, you can use the arrows and +/- keys on the keyboard). It’s easy to get lost in this huge panorama, so Paris 26 Gigapixels features quick tours of 20 of Paris’ most impressive monuments, together with some textual information about them. The entire project, created by Martin Loyer, Arnaud Frich and Kolor, is available in English and French; there’s also a special HD view (highly recommended), activated via an icon in the upper right portion of the page, which requires installation of an additional plugin. Oh, and one more thing; this is one of those times when you’d want to switch to full-screen browser mode.
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