Mashable: Latest 22 News Updates - including “Gowalla Launches for Android” |  |
- Gowalla Launches for Android
- Xbox LIVE Beats PlayStation Network in Reader Vote
- TextMarks Makes Sending Mass Text Messages Easy
- New Version of Foursquare for iPhone Coming Soon [SCREENSHOTS]
- Major Facebook Investor Hopes to Score with Chatroulette
- FRIDAY POLL: Will Desktops Be Irrelevant Soon?
- The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, February 2010
- Conan Pledges to Change One Woman’s Life… on Twitter
- Granny DJ Spins the Internet into a Frenzy [Randomly Viral]
- LEAKED: More Juicy Microsoft Courier Details and Pics
- Google’s App Store for Business to Launch Next Week
- Hulu Users Tag Leno’s Return as “Vomit Inducing” (and Much Worse)
- Google Acquires Microsoft Office Collaboration Tool DocVerse
- Brush Up on Oscar Trivia with Wolfram Alpha
- How Companies are Using Social Media to Make Better Decisions
- Jersey Shore Parodies The Oscars [VIDEO]
- Shorty Awards Honor Twitter’s Finest Micro-Bloggers
- Microsoft Allows Xbox LIVE Users to Express Sexual Orientation
- Why I’m Banking on Facebook
- YouTube Revenue Approaching $1 Billion Per Year [REPORT]
- Jon Stewart Blows the Lid Off Chatroulette [VIDEO]
- Oscars Red Carpet Livestreams: Where to Watch
- Apple iPad Coming to U.S. on April 3
| Posted: 06 Mar 2010 02:09 AM PST  
The new Gowalla 1.0 app isn’t some secondhand version of its iPhone counterpart — it’s completely packed with an array of features that allow you to check into locations, view friends, access details about specific locations, and check out your progress completion for trips (a Gowalla feature that lets you earn badges by checking into a set of locations). Essentially, the app is divided into four sections: Activity (a feed of your friend’s activity stream), Spots (where you find nearby locations to check into), Trips (explained above), and Passport (your personal profile and list of achievements). Each section drills deeper, allowing you to add friends, view maps of specific locations (along with the number of check-ins and people there), or complete a trip. Here’s the gist of it: Gowalla for Android, from first impressions, is well-designed and has many of the features of its iPhone counterpart, though as Android and Me points out, you can’t create a location within the app quite yet. It needed to be slick and feature-rich to compete with Foursquare’s Android app (which I think in many ways is superior to its iPhone version). Whether it succeeded…well, that’ll take some time. Gowalla users, be sure to tell us what you think about the app in the comments. Now here are a few screenshots, courtesy of Android and Me. You can check out a full gallery there.  
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| Xbox LIVE Beats PlayStation Network in Reader Vote Posted: 05 Mar 2010 07:52 PM PST 
… and Xbox LIVE takes the win! They’ll obviously get an achievement rather than a trophy for this victory. Just a day or so ago the polls were holding steadily even so it was definitely in the home stretch here that XBLA pulled ahead. The final tally reads 19,858 for Xbox LIVE (57%) and 14,258 for PSN (41%), with a surprisingly small tie vote of only 939 (3%). Thanks to everyone who voted this week! Were you disappointed with the results? Sound off in the comments! Faceoff Series: Overall ResultsWeek 1: Week 2: Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Week 7: Week 8: Week 9: Week 10: Week 11: Week 12: Week 13: Week 14: Week 15: Week 16: Week 17: Week 18: Week 19: Week 20: Week 21: Week 21: Week 22: Tags: gaming, microsoft, playstation, playstation network, polls, PSN, sony, video games, web faceoff, xbla, xbox, XBox live
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| TextMarks Makes Sending Mass Text Messages Easy Posted: 05 Mar 2010 06:24 PM PST 
Quick Pitch: TextMarks group text messaging services turn any mobile phone into a powerful marketing tool. Genius Idea: TextMarks makes it easy to create SMS marketing campaigns by letting users send a text message with a custom keyword of your choice to 41411. You can also use TextMarks auto-post service to send out SMS messages to subscribers and also update Facebook and Twitter.  TextMarks is a service that makes it really easy to set-up a mobile campaign to broadcast messages or updates to users that opt-in to your service by first texting a keyword. What we like about TextMarks is that the service is easy to set-up and affordable. You can try out the service for free and send unlimited ad-supported messages each month, and ad-free plans start at $9.95 a month. For small businesses or small groups like churches or clubs, that’s a really nice option. We also like that you can update Twitter and Facebook with the same messages you send out to other users. That way, if you’re using messages to keep people updated with scheduling information or other time-sensitive info, the message can go out across all of your social channels. 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)." Tags: sms messages, text messages, TextMarks
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| New Version of Foursquare for iPhone Coming Soon [SCREENSHOTS] Posted: 05 Mar 2010 04:14 PM PST 
This version of the app – v1.6 – should be heading to the App Store soon. Nick Starr shared screenshots of it with us and we’ve included a few below so that you can see some of the new features. Looking at the images from Foursquare 1.6, the first thing you’ll notice is that the interface has been totally revamped. The colors, icons and menu layout are all completely restyled and rearranged in a much more appealing manner. For instance, check out the new Shout and User Profile pages. They look almost indistinguishable from their current iPhone counterparts:  There are also a few new features. For instance, users have a profile screen that contains checkin history and friends that is accessible directly from the menu at the bottom of the app.  Friends’ Checkins also now have a pull-down to refresh mechanism, that harkens back to Tweetie 2.0 for the iPhone.  Friends info pages have also been completely redesigned and friend-by-friend ping control is much more attractive.  All in all, just looking at the screenshots is making us drool. We’re not sure when this release will actually hit the App Store, but we wouldn’t bet against a SXSW release. Update: OK, we think we’ve figured out what happened. For a few minutes earlier today, 1.6 was available via the App Store. The update was pushed out too early and Foursquare has since pulled the app. The company confirmed on Twitter that this was a little “pre-release hiccup,” adding that the app will be released “next week.” So next week boys and girls, next week! What do you think of the new look? Let us know! Tags: foursquare, foursquare 1.6, iphone, iphone apps, trending
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| Major Facebook Investor Hopes to Score with Chatroulette Posted: 05 Mar 2010 03:57 PM PST 
According to Spiegel Online, DST made an offer to 17-year-old Andrey Ternovskiy to buy a piece of his booming website. He has yet to say yes though, as he is traveling to the U.S. to speak with American venture capitalists before taking any investment. Multiple venture capitalists have apparently expressed interest in Chatroulette, which has more than 1.5 million visitors per day and a reputation for, well, extraordinary amounts of male exhibitionism. Some of the potential investors may include Google, Union Square Ventures and Skype. Look, we understand why people would want to invest in Chatroulette: It’s hot, it’s fast-growing and it’s taken the web by storm. However, as we argued in an article earlier today, we believe that Chatroulette is unlikely to be the next Twitter — its primary functions are novelty and shock factor, not utility. Unless Mr. Ternovskiy has a plan to turn the site into a legitimate business (with the male genitalia completely removed), we have a tough time seeing Chatroulette as a smart investment. Do you agree? Would you invest in Chatroulette? Let us know in the comments. Tags: business, chatroulete, facebook, social media, twitter
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| FRIDAY POLL: Will Desktops Be Irrelevant Soon? Posted: 05 Mar 2010 02:33 PM PST 
Last week we wanted to know if location checkin services freak you out in terms of privacy concerns. Reactions were pretty mixed, although many of you felt like services gave you enough control over permissions and what to make public. Some were concerned about the “digital divide” between early adopters who probably have the experience to know how to use the tools wisely, and the more general public who may end up confronting more privacy issues due to unfamiliarity with these services. This week there’s another hot topic on the table, thanks to a comment made by Google’s European Director of Online Sales John Herlihy, who said that Google’s focus is squarely on mobile because “in three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs.” We definitely wanted to find out what Mashable readers thought about the future of desktops in light of the push towards mobile: Will desktops still be around? Can these form factors co-exist or will mobile rule the day in short order? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! Mashable Answers
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ericsphotography Tags: computing, desktops, future, Google, laptops, lunchtime poll, Mobile 2.0, polls, predictions, smartphones
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| The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, February 2010 Posted: 05 Mar 2010 02:04 PM PST 
If you’re looking for some video entertainment to watch on your lunch break, this chart is a great place to start. Find a show you’re interested in and click the play button to the right to check it out. February’s numbers contain quite an upset — long-time chart-toppers Fred and Happy Tree Friends gave way to a newcomer on the chart: The Annoying Orange. They still hold the #2 and #3 spots, respectively, however. Key of Awesome cracked the chart only recently, but it has already propelled itself to #4 with 300% growth since last month. Impressive! And if what you’re looking for is a more elaborately produced drama, similar to what you might see on network TV, The Bannen Way, which includes Oscar-nominated actor Michael Lerner, makes an appearance on the chart this month. It’s tied with The Guild in leading Streamy Award nominations this year. We’ll have more tidbits after the chart below. The Chart: February 2010
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The battle for social geolocation domination has expanded to Google’s Android platform, as 
We had a very hotly contested matchup this week in our long-running 
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details 
Name: 
A new version of 
Happy Friday, people! Along with the venerable tradition of 
Each month, our partner 
*The Visible Measures Top 10 Webisodes Chart focuses on digital studio-driven Web series that appear on Internet video-sharing destinations. Each Web series is measured on a True Reachô basis, which includes viewership of both studio-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data are compiled using the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on more than 100 million Internet videos across more than 150 video-sharing destinations.
Note: This chart does not include vloggers, interviews, how-to series, news shows, or product review shows. View-count results are incremental by month.
To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming Web series, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign’s overall performance, please contact us directly.
If you’re interested in exploring this data further, go to visiblemeasures.com/mashable.
The Annoying Orange
The Annoying Orange follows a formula that works. Most two to three minute episodes star a talking orange who annoys other fruits — usually in the kitchen. In many cases, the annoyed guest fruit’s day is made worse when he or she is chopped up and eaten at the end.
The GagFilms series has been running for a few months, but it achieved new popularity thanks to coverage by blogs like iJustine, who actually voiced the passion fruit in the seventh episode.
The series managed 29 million views in February, beating long-standing champion Fred by a wide margin.
The Bannen Way
This crime drama about a con man and womanizer doing one last job so he can pay off his debts and get out of the business is markedly different from the other shows on the chart. If you’re more into traditional television-style productions than goofy web videos, this is a show you’ll want to check it out.
There’s been some question as to whether or not tightly produced series like this one have a place on the web, but The Bannen Way is reaching an audience. It’s hard to say if it’s a big enough audience to justify the budget, though.
Unfortunately, we were only able to embed the trailer for this one, but you can watch episodes at the show’s Crackle page. Crackle is Sony Pictures Entertainment’s video streaming site that features professional content ported from broadcast and cinemas as well as made-for-web shows.
Other Highlights
College Humor has continued a strong presence with live-action comedies Jake & Amir and Hardly Working. We weren’t surprised to find that the former of those has a mostly male audience at 77%. If raunchy college student humor is your thing, that’s the network for you.
How It Should Have Ended made another appearance on the chart with an animated alternate ending for James Cameron’s massively successful film Avatar.
The Station, Smosh and Key of Awesome have become staples by this point, so be sure and check them out if you haven’t already!
Tags: Fred, happy tree friends, hardly working, how it should have ended, jake and amir, key of awesome, monthly top webisodes, smosh, the annoying orange, the bannen way, the station, video, visible measures, web series, Web TV, web video, webisodes
Conan Pledges to Change One Woman’s Life… on Twitter
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 01:45 PM PST
Sarah Killen loves gummy dinosaurs, coke syrup, peanut butter and now Conan O’Brien. The Michigan gal — not a fan of Russell Bigos, her sister-in-law’s treadmill singing or cleaning — happens to be the only person that the jilted late night personality follows on Twitter.
Conan, who up until minutes ago wasn’t following a single person, decided to change Sarah Killin’s life by following her and her alone. Conan announced the news via Twitter — likely with the help of his Twitter army. The tweet in question reads:
As you can imagine, Killen’s Twitter following is now rising fast. She’s gone from meager follower counts in the hundreds to more than 3,750 followers at the time of this post. We’re not sure if Conan plans to gift Killen with more than just Twitter followers, but his tweet certainly leaves the door open.
Congrats Sarah. Our only advice to you is: Now that the eyes of the Twittersphere are upon you, you might consider leaving full names out of your tweets.
Tags: celebrities, conan o'brien, twitter
Granny DJ Spins the Internet into a Frenzy [Randomly Viral]
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 01:27 PM PST
This little news item has yet to go totally viral, but it’s definitely on the cusp: Behold DJ Ruth Flowers, a 69-year-old world-spinner, groove-shaker, beat-maker from Paris, France.
This CBS News story hit YouTube yesterday and has so far garnered nearly 10,000 views, but its burgeoning popularity on Internet video sites is sure to make it a viral sensation by the end of the weekend.
Why? Well, because this story has all the makings of a viral hit:
Elderly Person + Incongruous Activity + Proper British Accent = Instant Pass-along
Add to that the fact that Flowers is actually a halfway decent DJ and you’ve got one enjoyable little vid. Flowers says of her act — which was born during her grandson’s birthday party — “It’s a little bit glammy — a little bit perhaps over the top — but it fits the bill, I think.”
We would tend to agree, DJ Flowers, we would tend to agree.
Tags: music, television, viral video
LEAKED: More Juicy Microsoft Courier Details and Pics
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 12:57 PM PST
We’ve been following the rumor mill avidly on Microsoft’s alleged “digital journal” device dubbed Courier, and today sees another spate of leaked images and details courtesy of Engadget.
The Courier is a hinged device that combines elements of a tablet, an e-reader, and a netbook (sans physical keyboard). It’s reported to be less an inch thick, slightly heavier than a pound and slightly larger than a 5×7 print when folded. Instead of running Windows 7, the Courier will run the mobile OS Windows Mobile 7 Series, with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip under the hood.
Other leaked features include handwriting recognition, cloud storage for all the data in the device (plus a way to integrate comments on shared items back into your journal), a built-in camera and headphone jack. Unfortunately, none of this is yet official from Microsoft itself, so everything including the loose “second half of 2010″ release date is still a bit speculative.
Nevertheless, the Courier is shaping up to be an exciting take from Microsoft on an Internet tablet meets e-book reader, particularly as both of those form factors continue to heat up. Check out more pics in the gallery over at Engadget (and if you missed it, the earlier leaked video) and let us know what you think of this device from what we “know” so far.
[img credit: Engadget]
Tags: courier, ereaders, microsoft, microsoft courier, tablets, windows mobile, windows mobile 7 series
Google’s App Store for Business to Launch Next Week
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 12:36 PM PST
Google is set to launch an app store for business next week, Mashable has learned from sources close to the company. It will be focused around creating software for Google Apps and could launch as soon as Tuesday.
Early last month, news leaked about Google working on its own app store that would give third-party apps and developers the opportunity to sell their software to customers of Google Apps. This included options for increasing security, word-processing and information porting/syncing.
When reached for comment, a Google spokesperson told us, “We’re constantly working with our partners to deliver more solutions to businesses, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”
Nonetheless, we’re fairly confident that you will see Google’s app store officially announced next week — consistent with The Wall Street Journal’s report last month that suggested a March launch date. It looks to be another strong by move by Google to compete with Microsoft in the enterprise, with its own version of Office and the rich ecosystem that surrounds it, but entirely in the cloud.
Who exactly will launch with the app store next week and how it’ll work, we’ll soon find out.
Tags: business, EXCLUSIVE, Google, google apps
Hulu Users Tag Leno’s Return as “Vomit Inducing” (and Much Worse)
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 11:59 AM PST
Before NBC heralds Jay Leno’s triumphant return to late night (the TV ratings are great) it might want to check out The Tonight Show’s Hulu tag pages. The show has garnered seven pages of astoundingly negative user-created tags — think “sellout,” “craptastic,” “vomit-inducing,” and “coco crybaby” — that speak to the sentiments of web denizens.
As you no doubt recall, the NBC late night debacle ended with Conan O’Brien leaving The Tonight Show and Jay Leno stepping back into his former role. Sides were taken and it became immediately clear that Conan won the hearts and minds of the Internet.
With Conan taking to Twitter (with his small army in tow), Leno is left to return The Tonight Show to its former glory. Despite strong ratings this week, Leno is still facing a backlash from those of us with a penchant for Conan’s style and resentment for how the situation was handled.
The overwhelming number of negative tags on Hulu are every indication that there’s a huge disconnect between television audiences and web users. It’s a rift that could have long-term effects on The Tonight Show’s success and Jay Leno’s approval ratings.
We’ll leave you with a few screenshots of those tags and a viral video spoof of the ad promoting Leno’s return.
[via True Slant]
Tags: celebrities, conan o'brien, jay leno, social media, the tonight show, tv
Google Acquires Microsoft Office Collaboration Tool DocVerse
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 11:09 AM PST
Google has just announced the acquisition of DocVerse, a startup that adds Google Docs-like functionality to Microsoft Office.
In a blog post, Google explains: “We recognize that many people are still accustomed to desktop software. So as we continue to improve Google Docs and Google Sites as rich collaboration tools, we're also making it easier for people to transition to the cloud, and interoperate with desktop applications like Microsoft Office.” That’s exactly what DocVerse will help them do — as we described in our review of the service back in November:
“You can invite friends and colleagues to collaborate on any documents. As you and others make edits, those changes are synced to the cloud. In addition to a hard copy, the plug-in automatically saves a web-based version of the doc that others can see to make collaboration easy.
It's not just the instant collaboration though – there are also some great discussion and tracking features via the DocVerse sidebar. One allows you to IM anybody collaborating on the document in question. Another lets you track the most recent changes and by whom they were made. Finally, the version history tab lets you see a larger overview of the history of the document.”
In other words, DocVerse brings much of the functionality that Google Docs users are accustomed to into the desktop world of Microsoft Office, which still holds the vast majority of the market. Presumably, as part of the Google Docs family, we’ll quickly see features emerge that make synchronization between Office and Docs seamless.
Microsoft offers its own features for pushing Office data to the cloud — Live Office Workspaces — and is soon to launch a complete web-based version of the Office suite with Microsoft Office 2010. Clearly though, Google sees an opportunity to convert some of those desktop users to Docs users instead.
Currently, DocVerse isn’t free. It will be interesting to see if one of Google’s first moves is to make it so (or just make it an included part of Google Apps), which would give its assault on the Office behemoth quite a bit more ammunition.
Tags: docverse, Google, google docs, microsoft office, trending
Brush Up on Oscar Trivia with Wolfram Alpha
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 10:56 AM PST
Computational knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha can help resolve any Oscar-themed squabbles that may come up on Sunday, or so it claims. Apparently, it can answer questions about every Oscar nomination and award since the first ceremony in 1929.
The Mathematica engine can solve any quandary — whether you’re interested in just how many times Meryl Streep has been nominated (a lot) or how many statues Titanic collected (also a lot).
As always with Wolfram Alpha, how you input the query will affect results. For example, “best actor Oscars” will garner you a historical list of all winners, while “best actor in 2004″ will bring you a whole host of relevant data about the winner, nominees, films, etc.
In addition to the info from direct searches, Wolfram Alpha will now also show Academy Award data within relevant results. So it will tell you how many Oscars an actor has won if you search by name, or will note any nominations within the data about a particular film.
It seems the only thing Wolfram Alpha won’t be able to do is tell who the winners will be this time around. However, you can ascertain that knowledge youself with Mashable’s guide to the Oscars red carpet livestreams.
Tags: academy awards, Oscars, wolfram alpha
How Companies are Using Social Media to Make Better Decisions
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 10:33 AM PST
Mat Fogarty is the Founder and CEO of Crowdcast, a leading provider of collective intelligence and prediction market solutions. You can read more of Mat’s posts on the Crowdcast blog or follow @crowdcastinc.
Collaboration and crowdsourcing are the realities of today’s public Internet, and the trend is now gaining real traction in the workplace. Smart companies increasingly understand that their richest source of insight, ideas, data, and information is within their own employees. They are the ones whose talent, work, and daily interactions with the product make the business what it is.
Just as so many of us look to the Yelp community to figure out where to make our dinner reservations, companies are increasingly looking to the employee crowd for the knowledge and insight to make better business decisions.
Enterprise Social Networks
"If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive." – Lew Platt, Former CEO of HP
As the social enterprise builds momentum, the big question is: How will companies effectively tap the employee crowd to become more productive?
Enterprise social networks arm companies with social media functionality, allowing them to collaborate with their employees around up-to-the-minute information. Late last year, Salesforce stirred up some buzz around enterprise social networking with the announcement of its Chatter Collaboration Platform. Currently in beta, Chatter aims to bring together elements of Facebook, Twitter and other real-time services. By integrating profiles, feeds and groups across its platform, Salesforce offers its end users the same functionality they already use to share ideas and information on public social networks.
While social networking functionality excels at connecting teams around projects, information, and qualitative data, it falls short in its ability to drive quantitative, actionable insights — the holy grail for project managers and enterprise forecasting groups.
Prediction Markets
Prediction markets are all about tapping the crowd to source hard, unbiased quantitative metrics about the future of projects and business initiatives. A prediction market works like a stock market of sorts, allowing employees to anonymously place “bets” on key forecasts: When will the product really ship? How much will we sell in Q1? Will our competitor enter the market in 2010? And so forth.
Business leaders rely on metrics and data to inform decisions around new products and opportunities, but traditional forecasting methods suffer from bias and lack of first-hand information. That’s why business forecasting is an ideal target for the application of crowd wisdom. While bets are made anonymously, some prediction market software applications have built-in reward systems for accurate forecasters. And the accuracy of prediction markets over traditional forecasting methods is proven again and again.
Crowdsourcing the Next Big Idea
There’s a good chance that a company’s next big idea could be hidden within the people who are most engaged with its product and brand. More companies are turning to the crowd for ideas on all aspects of their business by creating online public forums. In 2008, Starbucks launched a major initiative to enhance their services with a website called My Starbucks Idea that polls members on decisions that would most directly impact them.
This kind of innovation sourcing applies to the enterprise as well. Companies like Brightidea and InnoCentive are helping their customers tap resources to inspire, gather, and manage ideas and innovation from within their employee ranks.
The Future
As collaborative technologies gain traction, the future of enterprise will include internal social networks, prediction markets, and idea management platforms. In this vision, social networks will be the default location for a collaborative employee community. Think of it as a wide and deep pool of employee knowledge and ideas.
Prediction markets will then aggregate this knowledge to produce actionable, people-powered forecasts. The result is an ultra-rich information source that will lay the foundation for smarter, better-informed company decisions. We are already seeing the first movement towards this integrated vision with products like 12sprints from SAP.
The ability to manage and profit from employee knowledge through social networks, idea funnels, and prediction markets will be the defining competitive advantage for this decade. Employees will have a voice and enterprises will truly leverage their most valuable assets.
More business resources from Mashable:
- 3 Crisis Survival Lessons for the Social Media Age
- 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online
- 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence
- HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
- Google Buzz: 5 Opportunities for Small Businesses
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alexsl
Tags: business, crowdsourcing, enterprise, facebook, small business, social media, social networks, twitter
Jersey Shore Parodies The Oscars [VIDEO]
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 10:15 AM PST
The Academy Awards are this Sunday and that means that there are plenty of awesome opportunities for funny (and sometimes not so funny) attempts to parody the films nominated for the film industry’s top prize. The kids from Jersey Shore have been featured in a slew of Oscar videos over at Lopez Tonight on TBS.
Lopez Tonight is even hosting its own competition of sorts, called “The Guidee Awards,” where you can vote on which Jersey Shore cast member gives the best Oscar-esque performance.
BuzzFeed also has the entire collection of clips, which you can watch if you wish. In the meantime, here’s our personal favorites.
Jersey Shore Does Avatar
Snookie Is Mariah
Tags: entertainment, humor, jersey shore, Oscars, oscars-2010, viral video
Shorty Awards Honor Twitter’s Finest Micro-Bloggers
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 10:01 AM PST
The second annual Shorty Awards ceremony went down this week in New York City, honoring the community-nominated and voted on best of the best from Twitter.
Awards were given in 26 official categories as well as a huge selection of crowdsourced community categories. The Twitter community was invited to contribute nominations beginning this January, with the intent of recognizing a user’s overall Twitter stream as opposed to particular tweets. Popularity determined a set of finalists in each category, which were then also reviewed by a panel of judges from the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences.
The winners, who gave 140-character acceptance speeches at Wednesday night’s ceremony, included Betty Draper (the popular fan-run account for the Mad Men character), Whole Foods in the brand category, Nathan Fillion in the celebrity category, and more.
Did you participate in the Shorty Awards this year? Did any of your favorites becomes finalists or winners?
Tags: shorty awards, twitter
Microsoft Allows Xbox LIVE Users to Express Sexual Orientation
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 09:46 AM PST
Microsoft has announced that it has changed a controversial policy for its Xbox LIVE service that banned people from expressing their sexual orientation in their user profiles.
Said to have been originally put in place to prevent the use of such terms “as insults or slurs”, it was a step too far for many, including Richard Gaywood, a gamer who was banned from the service.
However, an update to the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use and Code of Conduct will now allow members to, in Microsoft’s words, “more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles”.
As far as sexual orientation goes, users can now describe themselves as “Lesbian,” “Gay,” “Bi,” “Transgender” or “Straight.” Microsoft says the changes are being introduced alongside increased enforcement to prevent the misuse of such terms.
Stephen Toulouse, the director of policy and enforcement for Xbox LIVE, has tweeted his thanks to GLAAD and Microsoft’s LGBT community for guidance.
How does this affect you? Are you pleased with the changes? Will you be making changes to your Gamertag now? Let us know your thoughts in the comments box below.
Tags: gaming, microsoft, social gaming network, XBox live
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 09:27 AM PST
A new Facebook app launched this week that lets you send small sums of money to friends – the London-based company allows payments to be sent in US dollars or Euros.
Beyond sharing links, photos, videos and status updates, is the exchange of real money a logical next step for Facebook users?
What about Facebook Credits, and the popularity of buying virtual goods within games like FarmVille — do those indicate Facebook’s potential to become a leading online payments provider?
That’s the topic of my CNN column this week.
Check out the column at CNN.com >>
Tags: cashmore, cnn, facebook, payments, pete cashmore
YouTube Revenue Approaching $1 Billion Per Year [REPORT]
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 09:09 AM PST
YouTube may be closing in on $1 billion in annual revenue, according to some new research performed by a Wall Street analyst.
Using MySpace's estimated CPMs and YouTube's estimated page views, Mark Mahaney of Citigroup calculates that Google's video site generated $727 million in revenue for 2009, and will pull in $945 million in 2010.
The research, published earlier today by AllThingsD, uses the simple assumption that YouTube's traffic and monetization efforts will continue to expand — trends that are readily apparent in recent headlines about the company.
What's interesting is that the revenue estimate varies greatly from one that was widely circulated last year, when Credit Suisse projected that YouTube would bring in only $240 million in revenue for 2009. That report also pegged YouTube's expenses at $711 million per year, in turn creating a $471 million loss for Google.
While Citi's report doesn't touch on the expenses side of the equation, it's much higher revenue assumption (which is in-line with other recent research) adds some meat to Google CEO Eric Schmidt's recent comments that suggest YouTube might turn a profit this year.
So maybe Google did overpay for YouTube by around $1 billion by 2006 standards — something only them and a handful of other companies had the resources to do. But now, the company may be close to starting to make some of it back, while at the same time enjoying an enormous lead in the now many times larger online video market.
Jon Stewart Blows the Lid Off Chatroulette [VIDEO]
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 08:11 AM PST
And… it’s over. Dead as a doornail. Completely and totally played-out. That’s right, Chatroulette has made The Daily Show, thereby becoming so mainstream that — hear that? Yup, that’s the sad, sad death knell of an expired Internet sensation.
On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart expertly depicted the current state of infamous video chat site, Chatroulette. As we all know by now, the majority of users are men, and many of those men are, well, super proud of their joysticks.
Now there’s a new cadre of folks invading the site: reporters. Yup, everyone from The New York Times to CNN has jumped on the Chatroulette bandwagon, each news outlet sending a brave, hapless Gonzo-wannabe into the fray to experience the site for him or herself. And, as Stewart points out so astutely, it’s getting kind of old.
I mean, the mere fact that Stewart is lampooning Chatroulette speaks to the fact that it’s on its way out. At this point it has made its way to every news outlet available — including fake news outlets. If you haven’t heard of Chatroulette by now, you’re most likely living under a proverbial rock.
The site started out as kind of an underground deal — that was part of its appeal. According to my sources — a bunch of 20somethings who live in Brooklyn and spend a lot of time in front of their computers — before Chatroulette hit the major news circuits, it was populated by a bunch of artsy kids having “deep conversations.” Now, I can’t attest to this, as I have never used the site, but I can see how this would be true.
As of late, it seems like the site has followed the old “one bad apple ruins the whole barrel” philosophy: It got a rep for lewdness, so more and more perverts followed suit. Therefore, it went from a parlor game kind of novelty to a den of infamy. The infamous angle was what caught the news outlets’ attention — that and the video element. (Random chat site Omegle never garnered this much attention — mostly because it was merely text-based.)
News outlets have only fed the fire by reporting extensively on said perverts — calling the site a phenomenon or a craze. Still, the idea of calling Chatroulette an Internet “craze” seems like a fallacy in some respects.
Think about it: The site serves no purpose beyond functioning as a novelty. It’s not like Twitter — which can be used as both a tool for communication and marketing. Basically, Chatroulette’s only function at the moment — aside from fostering the occasional Missed Connection — is to shock. Unless it becomes as established community for masturbating exhibitionists, Chatroulette’s burgeoning flame will most likely gutter out.
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Tags: chatroulette, television, video
Oscars Red Carpet Livestreams: Where to Watch
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 07:32 AM PST
The Oscars will air on ABC this Sunday, March 7, but if you’re really into movies (or at least celebrities and fashion), you’ll want to watch the red carpet and backstage coverage on the web too. To that end, we’ve found three live video streams that will accompany the awards ceremony.
There aren’t as many choices as there were last year, but we do have quality ones for backstage access and red carpet coverage. Though neither of them are streams of the actual ceremony, the appeal for a lot of folks is that peek into the lives of Hollywood’s top celebrities, and these livestreams will be at least as interesting as the ceremony itself to gossip and fashion addicts.
While you’re waiting for these streams to commence, you can also turn to social media to see who’s leading in Oscar buzz. If you know of any other great ways to keep up with the Oscars on the web, let us know in the comments.
Oscar.com and Facebook
ABC will do a live red carpet show from 3:00 to 5:00 PM PT (6:00 to 8:00 PM ET) at Oscar.com. ABC’s reporters will ask arriving celebrities questions submitted by Facebook users, and you’ll be able to chat with your Facebook friends about the event as it happens.
We’ve seen similar setups before. Facebook was integrated with CNN Live’s coverage of both Barack Obama’s inauguration and the Michael Jackson memorial service in 2009.
The coverage will continue with backstage cameras after the ceremony starts. There will also be a “Thank You Cam” on which award winners will share extended comments and thanks after they’ve left the stage. That way, even if they’re driven off stage by a swelling orchestra warning them that they’re in danger of cutting into advertiser time, they’ll still have a chance to thank everyone they know!
There’s no embeddable video yet, but if Oscar.com adds one we’ll add it to this page.
The Associated Press and Livestream
The AP and Livestream will also do live video coverage of celebrity arrivals on the red carpet via an embeddable video widget. The widget is called AP Live; it displays Twitter and Facebook updates about the Oscars, and you can update your own profiles without leaving the page.
You can watch AP Live at Livestream, Facebook, and a few other places, including AT&T Entertainment. Or you can watch it right here on Mashable, as it’s embedded above. Your call!
TVGuide.com
Finally, TVGuide.com will stream a live “fashion cam” from the red carpet beginning at 3:00 PM PT (6:00 PM ET). We haven’t been able to secure an embed code yet; we’ll add one when it’s available. Until then, you can watch TVGuide’s six-part Academy Awards preview video series.
Tags: abc, academy awards, celebrities, facebook, Film, live video, livestream, Movies, Oscars, oscars-2010, television, tv, tv guide
Apple iPad Coming to U.S. on April 3
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 05:55 AM PST
Apple finally announced the exact date of iPad availability in the U.S.: It’s Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models, while models with both Wi-Fi and 3G will be available in late April.
As far as other countries go, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.
If you’re interested in pre-ordering your iPad, you can do it from March 12 onwards; U.S. customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple's online store or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.
Pricing and availability are the same as announced: Wi-Fi models will be available for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB.
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