Mashable: Latest 26 News Updates - including “Many World Cup Players Banned from Social Media”

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• Many World Cup Players Banned from Social Media
• The Next Food Network Star Could Come From YouTube
• iPhone-Playing YouTube Star Applegirl Gets Record Deal
• FTC to Investigate Apple for Antitrust Issues
• Our Top YouTube Videos This Week: “The Karate Kid,” “Saved By The Bell” & Ayn Rand
• Twitter’s Performance Problems Explained By a Twitter Engineer
• More Facebook Design Changes Being Tested [PIC]
• Top 10 World Cup Twitter Trends [CHART]
• Site Matches Consumers with People, Not Businesses
• 10 Beautiful and Usable iPhone and iPad Interfaces
• New Slang: Find Out What Those Crazy Kids Are Saying [APPS]
• The Perils of Social Media Dating [COMIC]
• “Rock Band 3″ Widens Its Musical Repertoire [VIDEO]
• 5 Father’s Day Gift Ideas from Web-Savvy Dads
• Twitter Considers Selling Trending Topics as Ad Space
• Sportscaster Len Berman on His Move from Old Media to New Media [VIDEO]
• World Cup 2010: Mashable’s Complete Coverage
• Google News and Why Human Editors Still Matter
• Yahoo World Cup Shootout Game to Raise $100k to Fight AIDS in Africa
• Are Social Media Giving Contests Good for Non-Profits?
• Top 20 Mashable Reader Responses to “What is Social Media?”
• Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters
• Twitter Launches Official World Cup Tracking Page
• Google Gives “Toy Story” the Search Story Treatment [VIDEO]
• The World Cup’s Social Media Evolution
• Foxconn Halts Hiring, Probably Not Completely Pulling Out of China [REPORT]
• Experts Predict We’ll Be Working in the Cloud by 2020 [STUDY]

Many World Cup Players Banned from Social Media Posted: 11 Jun 2010 10:59 PM PDT For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games. During this year’s FIFA World Cup games in South Africa, players on several competing teams will be unable to tweet, poke, buzz, checkin, like or in any other way make their presence known on the social web. It’s not uncommon for coaches to ban sex or alcohol during the World Cup, but increasingly, they’re also instituting ad hoc bans on social media sites, including Twitter. So far, players on the teams from Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Germany, Argentina and England are forbidden to use social services such as Twitter. One coach, Marcelo Bielsa of Chile, banned all social networking and even put a curfew on regular or non-social Internet use during the evening. In the U.S., similar bans have been enacted over the past year during the American football season and basketball season. Players in the NFL, for example, are prohibited from using social media during all games and for a 90-minute period prior to and following a game. Moreover, players are not allowed to have someone else post an update or tweet on their behalf. As the World Cup-related hashtags trend on Twitter and millions of people around the world use the web to tune into and talk about these matches, do you think it’s a bit unfair that the players themselves aren’t allowed to participate in this conversation? Or are these strict coaches doing us all a favor by keeping their players focused? Let us know what you think in the comments. For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Twitter Tags: ban, facebook, fifa, social media, twitter, world cup

The Next Food Network Star Could Come From YouTube Posted: 11 Jun 2010 09:25 PM PDT The new trend in cable and network television is to turn to social media sites to recruit talent for reality series. Case in point, The Food Network has put out a challenge asking YouTubers to submit video entries to be considered for The Next Food Network Star. Entries will be accepted through July 16, and though the prize for the winning entry isn’t a guaranteed spot on the show, it’s still pretty decent: a one-on-one audition in New York City with Food Network executives. If you’re unfamiliar with the reality series, this show challenges contestants to live in a house together and compete in food-creating challenges in the hopes of securing their own series on the Food Network. Episodes are usually filled with drama, tears and celebrity chef guests. Obviously, YouTubers auditioning will want to show a ton of personality mixed with culinary prowess should they wish to be considered for the actual show audition. The YouTube challenge reminds us of the Glee casting call on MySpace and the America’s Got Talent YouTube auditions, but there’s nothing wrong with emulating a strategy that works. For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter Tags: entertainment, the food network, tv, youtube

iPhone-Playing YouTube Star Applegirl Gets Record Deal Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:07 PM PDT Kim Yeo-hee has been blowing up the tubes lately — the YouTubes, that is — with her iPhone-playing, singing, viral music videos, which have garnered millions of views over the past two months. Her efforts have paid off in spades; the Wall Street Journal reports that this young lady just signed a record deal. The 22-year old song stylist uses iPhone music apps running on several different iPhones simultaneously as her accompaniment. She is signed to Dreamhigh-Ent, based in Seoul, and will be releasing an album of her own music later this month. Of course, we’ll also see some professionally produced videos along with this release. Kim, who might be better known to her online fans as Applegirl002, told the Journal, “Since I bought my iPhone, I kept playing with it and experimenting with different apps and got totally hooked. I wanted to show people I can do playing and singing at the same time.” Here’s an example of her artistry, a unique version of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face: Kim went on to note that she’d love to work with Apple and also work outside Korea. We’d love to see what she could do with an iPad — perhaps she should hook up with Rana June, the fabulous iPad DJ. What do you think: Is this young woman a 15-minutes-of-famer with a trendy, gadgety gimmick, or does she have the the talent to be an international star? For more entertainment coverage, follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: App, apple, applegirl, iphone, music

FTC to Investigate Apple for Antitrust Issues Posted: 11 Jun 2010 07:10 PM PDT Apple is once again facing antitrust investigation, this time to determine whether its mobile advertising policies constitute unfair business practices. According to multiple reports, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will be probing the company to determine if its tactics are restrictive to competitors in the mobile advertising space, such as recent Google acquisition AdMob. Several companies have alleged that they have been excluded from running or selling advertising on iPhones and other Apple mobile devices by the company’s policies. Apple’s mobile ad platform, called iAds, was just unveiled a couple months ago. iAds was discussed at some length during Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote earlier this month a WWDC, the company’s annual developer conference. At the time, Jobs reported the company had been selling iAds for just eight weeks. These reports come in the immediate wake of antitrust inquiries over Apple’s war on Flash and the company’s marketing practices for iTunes. And with the FTC’s recent investigation of the Google acquisition of mobile ad platform AdMob, we’re sure these feds are well versed in the mobile advertising industry. What do you think: Will this investigation — or any of the others — amount to anything in the eyes of the American and international iPhone-buying public? [img credit: yggg] For more Apple coverage, follow Mashable Apple on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Google, Twitter Tags: Antitrust, app store, apple, FTC, iAd, iads

Our Top YouTube Videos This Week: “The Karate Kid,” “Saved By The Bell” & Ayn Rand Posted: 11 Jun 2010 05:48 PM PDT All week it has shimmered before you like a mirage — the weekend, a wistful island located somewhere in the turbulent sea that is the work week. Well, never fear, weary travelers — freedom is within your grasp, and until then you can completely zone out with this week’s top YouTube picks. This fleet of buoyant, see-worthy (haha, get it?) vids is guaranteed to help you navigate toward that brilliant horizon that is the Saturday. Just don’t crash on the (vodka on the) rocks before you get there, mmkay? There Will Be Bell Brenna Ehrlich: Maybe if There Will Be Blood featured more witticisms from my childhood crush, Zack Morris, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep so quickly. Lizard Takes a Leap Zachary Sniderman: Like that video of a sheep jumping into a wall, but with a person. Twice. “Liz” possesses a strange and brilliant combination of courage and ignorance. Wax On, F*ck Off with Ralph Macchio Stefanie Rennert: Today is the release of The Karate Kid remake. I totally feel for Ralph. What a good guy. He will always be my hero as I actually had to use "The Crane Kick" once… in preschool! No More Kings “Sweep the Leg” Christina Warren: This video features Ralph and Johnny the bully (also the bully in Just One of the Guys) from The Karate Kid. It’s pretty hilarious. Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” Look Stephanie Marcus: This is a lot of effort for a look that you’d never probably wear beyond Halloween, but it’s interesting none the less. How to Pull Out a Tooth with a Rocket… Erica Swallow: I can’t think of a more dramatic way to pull a tooth than with a rocket. Adidas Originals – Star Wars Cantina 2010 Josh Catone: It’s not quite as brilliant the Nike’s Write the Future spot (best ad of the year so far), but Adidas’s Star Wars Cantina 2010 is still rather amazing. Plus, now we know why Snoop Dogg talks like that (he’s from outer space!). Kung Fu Bear Finds a Light Saber Barb Dybwad: Yes kids, Kung Fu Bear is back, and he’s badder than ever. As made famous by such classics as “bear and his stick.” Die Antwoord – “Enter The Ninja” Vadim Lavrusik: In the spirit the World Cup, here is South African rap meets House/Techno music. This video is just bizarre, but has some interesting undertones about the South African culture. Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959 Part 1 Ben Parr: It’s shocking what fascinating stuff you can find on YouTube. If you’ve ever read Atlas Shrugged, you need to watch this interview. For more web video coverage, follow Mashable Web Video on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Tags: humor, karate-kid, pop culture, saved-by-the-bell, viral video, youtube

Twitter’s Performance Problems Explained By a Twitter Engineer Posted: 11 Jun 2010 04:24 PM PDT Twitter has just explained the causes of — and remedies for — its multiple and massive failures over the past week. The high number of errors and generally poor performance were reminiscent of the Great Twitter Outages of the summer of 2009. Once again, this summer’s problem has been one of scale: Twitter is growing so much and so quickly that the engineering team has been challenged when trying to keep up with the sheer volume of data going through the service’s internal network. What happened that caused this week’s Twitter issues, wrote engineer Jean-Paul Cozzatti, is that the engineering team made three critical mistakes: The team put two important, fast-growing, high-bandwith components on the same segment of Twitter’s internal network. The network wasn’t being monitored the way it should have been. The internal network was also temporarily misconfigured. To ensure the same mistakes aren’t repeated, Cozzatti continued to outline what Twitter will be doing to fix the problem. He wrote that the company has doubled the capacity of its internal network, improved how it’s monitored and rebalanced its traffic. “For much of 2009,” he wrote, “Twitter’s biggest challenge was coping with our unprecedented growth (a challenge we happily still face)… But as this week’s issues show, there is always room for improvement. “Based on our experiences this week, we’re working with our hosting partner to deliver improvements on all three fronts. By bringing the monitoring of our internal network in line with the rest of the systems at Twitter, we’ll be able to grow our capacity well ahead of user growth.” Did Twitter’s errors have any impact on your professional or personal life this week? And how do you think the service will hold up during the World Cup? As Twitter continues to grow in cultural importance and user adoption, will it ever be a truly reliable service in the way that other, larger tech companies have become? For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: errors, fail whale, trending, twitter

More Facebook Design Changes Being Tested [PIC] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 03:54 PM PDT Images of more Facebook design tweaks landed in our inbox (actually, in my Twitter stream) this afternoon, involving some changes to the publisher you get atop your News Feed. The biggest changes, it would appear, are making the option to share photos more prevalent (currently, you only get the photo option after clicking on the status box), some aesthetic changes to status updates,as well as bumping up the prominence of the pull-down that lets you select the privacy level of your post. Facebook confirmed they are testing this new look in an email to us this afternoon, writing, "we're currently testing different variations and designs of our Publisher. As with many of our features and products, we're constantly making tweaks to test performance and usability." It's hard to say what the goals of these changes are without the full context of what Facebook's testing, but the simple conclusion is that they're looking to promote even more photo sharing and get users to pay more attention to privacy settings (which, makes sense in light of recent news). In any event, if you're seeing new looks at Facebook, let us know in the comments. [h/t @deucehartley] Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alwyncooper For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: facebook

Top 10 World Cup Twitter Trends [CHART] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 03:42 PM PDT For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games. Hey fútbol fanatics! If you haven’t noticed, World Cup mania has gripped the Twitterverse and turned the Trending Topics to an international free-for-all of cheers, team pride, and trash talk. As every time zone on earth woke up to the start of the 2010 tournament today, the tweets began pouring in at full speed. Up until now, much of the Twitter discussion has been about team selection and some post-season injuries that have thrown the World Cup appearance of key players into question. So which topics, teams, and players have been the most Tweeted about in the weeks leading up to the games? Check out the scoreboard below, courtesy of our friends at What The Trend, and Liz Pullen who compiled these charts for us. Note: These are trends leading up to the games, as data for matches was not yet available at the time of writing. Most-Tweeted World Cup Topics Rank Trending Topic Points Topic Explanation 1 964 points Vuvuzela A vuvuzela, sometimes called a “lepatata” is a stadium horn commonly blown by football fans at matches in South Africa. It emits a very loud monotone sound (like an elephant or foghorn) which some people find annoying. Expect to hear it a lot in the next four weeks! 2 906 points World Cup Kickoff Concert This opening concert started off the World Cup tournament with performances by Shakira, John Legend, Alicia Keys and other artists. 3 681 points Galvão Bueno A much disliked Brazilian football commentator that Twitters were telling “Cala Boca!” (Shut up!). 4 636 points Soccer Aid A pre-World Cup charity event for UNICEF that was played in the UK on June 6th . 5 370 points Waka Waka The 2010 FIFA World Cup competition theme song sung by Shakira. The song is originally from Cameroon in West Africa. 6 267 points Tonka Tanka A prime-time TV show in Chile, hosted by Tonka Tomicic devoted to the World Cup. 7 198 points #labarratvn #labarratvn 8 167 points #WC2010 This World Cup hashtag will climb to the top of the list by next week! 9 45 points Bafana Bafana The name of the South African National Team. 10 45 points Orina Spanish for “to pee”, trending because officials are testing World Cup players for steroid use. Most-Tweeted World Cup Players The matches have only just begun today (June 11th), so we don’t have stats on first round results. However, trend data does reveal which players tweeters have been talking about this past week. Rank Trending Topic Points Name Team 1 360 points Didier Drogba Ivory Coast; might be sidelined by an injury 2 267 points Neymar da Silva Brazil; not selected for the starting team 3 240 points Arjen Robben Netherlands; might be sidelined by an injury 4 69 points Felipe Melo Brazil 5 57 points Obi Mikel Nigeria; might be sidelined by an injury 6 57 points Dagoberto Pelentier Brazil 7 39 points Bruno César Brazil 8 33 points Edson Buddle USA 9 27 points Rio Ferdinand UK; might be sidelined by an injury 10 27 points Emile Heskey UK; Heskey injured England captain Ferdinand during a WC training session. Need more social media World Cup coverage? Of course you do! Head on over to Mashable’s World Cup headquarters, where you’ll find real-time data on match scores, social mentions, and links to all our previous news and features. For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook More World Cup resources from Mashable: - World Cup 2010: Mashable's Complete Coverage - The World Cup's Social Media Evolution - 5 Free Must-Have World Cup Android Apps - HOW TO: Follow the 2010 World Cup on Twitter - Top 6 Free World Cup iPhone Apps Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Jezperklauzen Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, bruno, iStockphoto Tags: data, social media, trends, twitter, twitter trends, world cup, world cup 2010, world cup twitter trends

Site Matches Consumers with People, Not Businesses Posted: 11 Jun 2010 03:14 PM PDT Mashable's Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Betterfly Quick Pitch: Betterfly makes it easy to learn, look and feel better by matching you with people – not companies – who can help. Genius Idea: Betterfly caters to people who are looking to better their lives and professionals who provide services to help individuals complete their personal missions. It’s essentially a community site and marketplace for all things lifestyle-related, with a focus on individual service providers over companies. If you’re looking for cooking classes, music lessons, yoga training or any other type of educational instruction, you can use Betterfly to scour the site for coaches, trainers, tutors, stylists and other “Betterists.” Users can also search for a Betterist by a variety of criteria, book appointments and leave reviews. Betterists can use their page to offer services, list their expertises, take appointments, manage their calendars and blog about their professional endeavors. Their individual Betterfly sites also include reviews from other users. The site is still pretty new, so while there’s hundreds of professionals offering services in a myriad of areas, there doesn’t appear to be too many reviews and ratings yet. Still, Betterfly could prove to be a very handy utility the next time you’re on a quest to master a new skill or complete a personal goal. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, anouchka Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: betterfly, bizspark

10 Beautiful and Usable iPhone and iPad Interfaces Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:49 PM PDT This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here. Mobile devices like the iPhone and the iPad have been a real springboard for designers and developers. Because we can now literally have our computers in our pockets, our favorite applications and websites and services can now come with us. However, when designing for mobile devices, it’s important to focus on the size and resolution of the device’s screen, as well as how the user interacts with the device. You can make a really beautiful looking application that ultimately fails because it is difficult for the user to use and isn’t optimized for a touch screen. Sometimes the best way to get started thinking about application design is to look at what others have already produced. For your inspiration, here are 10 iPhone and iPad apps that have both beautiful and usable user interfaces. Twitterrific for iPad Twitterrific for iPad is not only a great looking Twitter client, it's also extremely usable. In landscape mode, you can easily change accounts or choose between @replies, direct messages, Twitter lists and trending topics. It's easy to send a tweet and it's also easy to find out more about a user and to view their past tweets. The interface is crisp and bright, but it isn't too busy and everything works the way that it should. WeatherBug for iPad The screen size of the iPad is fantastic in that it allows designers and developers to show off more content and more alerts, but because of the increased space, it's easy to make things too cluttered and complicated. WeatherBug for iPad could easily be overly cluttered and difficult to navigate, however it manages to display lots of different weather and forecast information without overwhelming the user. Digital Post Digital Post is an iPad app that lets you see the top stories from a variety of news and web sources in an easy to navigate and easy to read manner. We love that instead of cramming as much text as possible, layouts are well spaced and at a size that is easy to read. Touching an article brings up a justified and well-formatted copy, making the experience more similar to reading a newspaper rather than a regular RSS reader. NPR for iPad NPR has a great iPhone app but with the iPad, they really take advantage of the space and enhanced gesture room. You can browse through the latest stories in various categories, read the text version, or choose to listen to or add it to a playlist. You can also easily find stations to tune into live or programs to listen to on demand. The app is well laid out and text and photos are easy to read. Todo for iPad Todo for iPad is a really fantastic organization app. The layout is intended to replicate a standard paper organizer or agenda and you can customize the color of the pages and the "book" itself. What we like about Todo is that you can have lots of information and notes attached to an event, but it doesn't clutter up the main interface. It's easy to see what is due when, what is coming up next and what you have already accomplished. Happening Happening is an iPhone app that connects with Yahoo's Upcoming.org service and pulls in events happening in your area (you can also search in a broader range) and makes it easy to see who is attending, what your friends are doing and to RSVP. When designing for the iPhone, the screen size needs to be taken into account. Making icons easy to understand, buttons the right size to touch and text readable are all important factors, and Happening does this all. TripDeck TripDeck for the iPhone is one of my "must-have" apps because it is such a great way to keep all associated travel and itinerary information in one place. What we love about TripDeck is that the cards for each item are easy to read, yet they also contain the important information, like confirmation number and seat number. When you are designing an app that is going to be used by people on the go, running through airports or navigating street corners, it's important that information is accessible and easy-to-read. TripDeck does this on all counts. Billings Touch Billings Touch is the companion iPhone app to Marketcircle's Billings for the Mac, and it is a really great tool for anyone who has to create expense reports, invoices or track mileage or time worked. The app has a great interface, again, making it easy to read and also see what is important. Numbers are big and readable, which is important for any app that is tracking time or money. Ramp Champ Hands-down, my favorite game of 2009 for the iPhone was Ramp Champ. It is still a great example of how to design a game that is polished, detailed, and screen size appropriate. The app perfectly captures the look of a boardwalk skee-ball game, and the in-game physics are enhanced by the character icons and colors, which all work great on the small screen. Reeder for iPhone After trying literally dozens of RSS readers that connect to Google Reader, I came across Reeder for iPhone and in my opinion, it is hands-down, the best RSS reader for the iPhone. Period. What makes the app so great is that features -- like number of items in a feed, read/unread count, sending things to Twitter or Instapaper, and mailing as a link -- are all easy to access without being cluttered. The app also does a great job of rendering RSS feeds, something that is very easy to ignore. If you are building an app that parses an XML feed, it is very, very important to think about how you display that text and how you show that to your users. What are some of your favorite iPhone and iPad apps from a design and usability point of view? What tips can you offer others looking to make their apps better? Let us know! For more dev and design coverage, follow Mashable Dev & Design on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Series supported by Rackspace 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. Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iPhone Tags: billings touch, digital post, happening, ipad apps, iphone apps, npr for ipad, reeder, todo, tripdeck, twitterrific, weatherbug

New Slang: Find Out What Those Crazy Kids Are Saying [APPS] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:21 PM PDT The web has been blamed for the degradation of the English language — imho, idk wtf da h8ers mean. No, seriously, there’s no denying that the advent of texting and Internet speak has heralded a bevy of acronyms, some designed by crafty teens so as to elude their parents’ prying eyes (remember “pos,” or “parent over shoulder”?). Well, Teen Chat Decoder has the remedy for any parent suffering from Internet illiteracy. This web app isn’t the handsomest lad of the block — to be sure — and it’s not exactly designed to amuse and delight (it’s more about keeping your kid safe online), but you can definitely while away a goodly number of minutes decoding an array of baffling slang (for anyone who has had to Google stuff like “ftw,” “pyt” and “otp,” this could be a pretty useful tool). Right now, the app has a pretty good store of terms — even a few odd ones we’ve never seen before (“LOLLZ” means “Laugh out Loud Literally Zapped,” huh?) — and you can add anything it may be lacking. What do you think of apps like this? Will they actually help parents keep kids safe online, or are they simply interesting diversions? [img credit: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML] [via MakeUseOf.com] For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Google, Twitter Tags: apps, parents, pop culture, slang, software, teens

The Perils of Social Media Dating [COMIC] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 01:50 PM PDT Believe it or not, there are some things in life that may be better left untouched by social media. A first date (or any date, for that matter) is probably one of them. Of course finding that first date is a whole different story. Find more “Friend Me” comics at artcandy.tv. For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: comic, dating, foursquare, humor, social media, twitter

“Rock Band 3″ Widens Its Musical Repertoire [VIDEO] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 01:27 PM PDT We’ve just received confirmation that the third installment of Harmonix’s wildly popular Rock Band franchise will include a new keytar controller — sure to put a spring in the step of ’80s new wave fans everywhere — as well as a new Fender Mustang guitar controller with 17 frets and a 6-string strumming area. In addition, Harmonix and MTV Games have partnered with Fender on a Squier Stratocaster controller for the game that also functions as an actual guitar. That’s right — if you pick up this particular axe, it can get you through those blistering Rock Band 3 guitar solos as well as double as a real instrument. Now gamers will have a legitimate retort to the curiously omnipresent, “Why don’t you just learn to play a real guitar?!” call-outs. But wait, there’s more — Rock Band 3 will also feature a new Pro Mode that focuses on teaching players actual musical skills. Featuring four levels of difficulty from Easy to Expert, Pro Drums supports three expansion cymbals, Pro Keys features two-octave range pitch-accurate keyboard performances, and Pro Guitar includes notated guitar and bass parts playable on either the Fender Mustang or Squier Stratocaster controllers. Beyond that, the game has reportedly been re-imagined and redesigned from the ground up. The title is “a clean slate design of Rock Band. Nothing was sacred… We decided to build the ultimate music game,” the developers told Joystiq — who also have a full hands-on preview of the game. They’ve also fixed the often-times annoying setup process of previous Rock Band titles, where invariably one of the players would start air noodling and totally disturb everyone else’s session settings for character and difficulty. Check out the trailer for Rock Band 3 below and let us know what you think. We’ll be heading to E3 next week to take our turn on the virtual stage, so stay tuned for gripping footage of Mashable editors’ mad musical skillz (or lack thereof). More screenshots, shots of the new controllers and the initial song list follow the trailer below. Announced Rock Band 3 Tracks 2000s: Metric, “Combat Baby” Rilo Kiley, “Portions for Foxes” Them Crooked Vultures, “Dead End Friends” The Vines, “Get Free” The White Stripes, “The Hardest Button to Button” Phoenix, “Lasso” Ida Maria, “Oh My God” Juanes, “Me Enamora” 1990s: Jane’s Addiction, “Been Caught Stealing” Smash Mouth, “Walkin' on the Sun” Spacehog, “In the Meantime” Stone Temple Pilots, “Plush” 1980s: Dio, “Rainbow in the Dark” Huey Lewis and the News, “The Power of Love” Joan Jett, “I Love Rock and Roll” Night Ranger, “Sister Christian” Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again” The Cure, “Just Like Heaven” Ozzy Osbourne, “Crazy Train” 1970s: Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody” 1960s: Jimi Hendrix, “Crosstown Traffic” The Doors, “Break On Through” For more entertainment coverage, follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, love, news Tags: e3, E3 2010, harmonix, mtv games, music games, playstation 3, PS3, rock band, rock band 3, video games, Wii, Xbox 360

5 Father’s Day Gift Ideas from Web-Savvy Dads Posted: 11 Jun 2010 12:55 PM PDT Sara Dunham is the community manager at online coupon site and community Savings.com.  You can read more of Sara's posts on the Savings.com coupon blog or fan Savings.com on Facebook. Ties, golf balls, Old Spice gift boxes — these are things we’ve all come to accept as the norm for Father’s Day gifts. But is it really what they want? Well, depending on how old you are, you might remember the Cosby Show episode where Dr. Huxtable creates an outfit out of all of the crazy Father's Day gifts his kids have gotten him over the years; suspenders, oversized sunglasses, a brightly colored visor, a giant tie with a battery-powered light-up palm tree — it's glorious. Dads these days are a lot cooler and hipper than we give them credit for, and their interests vary beyond stereotypical dad-type activities. To prove it, and to gather some great gift ideas, we’ve asked a diverse group of the web’s savviest dads to give their thoughts on what makes a killer Father’s Day gift, what they’re personally hoping for, and where to find it. Here's what they had to say. "Sports Dad" Bill Murray New father to a four-month old, busy sales executive Bill Murray is among a special group of folks celebrating their first Father's Day this year. And while many things have taken the backburner, his love of baseball is not one of them. Whether watching his beloved Kansas City Royals at the stadium or from the couch (with a certain someone close by) his Father's day wish list includes the new ESPN iScore Baseball Scorekeeper for iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad – a great gift for other baseball loving dads like himself that will help him stay in the game while not necessarily being at the game. And for those sports-loving dads who prefer a more "traditional" outlet, many sports stores are tapping into social media, offering their fans and followers special offers. Check out Eastbay on Twitter or Dick's Sporting Goods on Facebook to see what kind of sales they're offering. "Traveling Dad" Andrew Hickey Social Media Manager and globe-trotter extraordinaire Andrew Hickey knows a thing or two about travel and writes about his adventures on his blog The Brooklyn Nomad. While this Father's Day (his first!) he's hoping for something extravagant like an iPad to accompany him around the world, he's also a sucker for anything travel-related and says, "Since I love to travel, I usually love gifts related to the topic." Despite what you might think, a unique gift for the adventurous dad can still be scored on a budget. By following travel companies like JetBlue on Twitter or “liking” the Travelzoo Facebook Page, you'll find the latest sales and last minute getaway deals for dad. "Foodie Dad" Todd Singleton Foodie Daddy blogger and professional chef/restaurateur Todd Singleton is all about — you guessed it — food. His perfect Father's Day gift would be a top-of-the-line, reliable tool for the kitchen, and three essentials to be exact: The knife, the pan, and the coffee machine. But before skipping over to the restaurant supply store, remember there are some great quality products for quality prices available. Following the Williams-Sonoma Outlet on Twitter and scoping out sites like Cooking.com, which offer exclusive deals, gift inspirations and the best in cookware out there, will make any "Chef Boyar-dad" — whether pro or amateur — excited to cook dinner for the entire family. "Video/Gadget Dad" Logan Hale As a self-proclaimed Video/Gadget Dad, and founder of littlefilm.org, Logan Hale is excited for any gift this Father's Day that nurtures his love of film and photography. "I would love to receive a Canon 7D, the most incredible Digital SLR on the market today… [It's] great for newbies and pros," says a very excited Logan. While not everyone can set their expectations quite as high, Adorama Camera has great equipment, both new and used, at affordable prices. And while gadget and tech deal sites abound, if you're looking to keep up-to-date with a few of them via social media, try following Woot and TechBargains on Twitter. "New Dad" Luke Knowles Luke Knowles is the founder of Free Shipping Day, a frugal online shopping expert, and a dad of two who has some comforting advice. With the latest Knowles addition arrived just last month, Luke is a new dad immersed in the world of online business and frugality. He says "It would be hypocritical of me to expect the family to shell out mad money on expensive Father’s Day gifts … If you tell me you used a coupon, I’ll like pretty much whatever you give me. Honest!" For the new dads who need a gift (beyond just a good night's sleep), Luke suggests checking out the Amazon Deals Twitter account for their awesome “Lightning Deals" on just about anything. Or you can “like” the Outback Steakhouse Fan Page on Facebook to become eligible to enter their Father’s Day photo competition to win free Outback steaks for a year. And for a more practical, less carnivorous gift, check out Diapers.com for free, overnight delivery on the web’s widest selection of baby gear and new daddy essentials. Remember, no matter what you get your dad this Father's Day, he's sure to love it. But if you want to go above and beyond, our advice is to really think about what your dad loves … besides you, of course! For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook More gift guide resources from Mashable: - 10 Adorable Apple-Themed Baby Accessories - 7 Ways to Customize Your Real Life Online - Top 10 Geekiest Decorations for Your Home or Office [PICS] - 10 Great Digital Gifts for Social Media Lovers - 10 Unique Gifts You Can Make with Help from the Web Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PinkTag Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iPhone, iStockphoto, video Tags: Father's Day, gift, gift guide, gift guides, Gifts, Holidays, List, Lists, shopping, social media

Twitter Considers Selling Trending Topics as Ad Space Posted: 11 Jun 2010 12:33 PM PDT Twitter is exploring a new addition to its Promoted Tweets ad platform. It’s called Promoted Trends, a feature that would allow advertisers to insert their own terms into Twitter’s trending topics. All Things D writes that Twitter is already discussing Promoted Trends with advertisers, but only “in vague terms, and has yet to test it out.” If the blog’s sources are correct, Twitter plans to price Promoted Trends at “tens of thousands of dollars” for exclusive placement each day. It appears that Promoted Trends, if implemented, would allow a single advertiser to create a term to be featured alongside other trending topics on Twitter for a specified duration. If a user clicks on the trending ad, he would be directed to a search results page with the advertiser’s promoted tweet listed at the top. There’s still a lot of work Twitter needs to do to make trending topics advertiser-friendly. Although the company has recently modified its trending topics algorithm, spam is still a major problem — one that happens to be adversely affecting its World Cup tracking site. Still, the idea makes sense, and if Twitter follows through we’re likely to see a few eager advertisers step forward to claim their places within trending topics. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, parema For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: MARKETING, Promoted Tweets, trending topics, twitter, Twitter Trending Topics

Sportscaster Len Berman on His Move from Old Media to New Media [VIDEO] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:35 AM PDT One of my personal favorite moments of this week's Mashable Media Summit was when long-time sportscaster Len Berman took the stage to talk about his transition from a nightly TV reporter in New York to a new media persona — a presentation he prefaced with the question “what’s an old fart like me doing on Twitter?” Aside from the fact that I watched Berman growing up, his tale is an interesting one that points to the ongoing trend of old media personalities reinventing themselves in the social media world. In Mashable's backstage interview, we talked to Berman about the move, how he thinks social media helped him get a book on The New York Times Best Seller List, and which of the Fantastic Four's powers he'd want. Check it out in the video above. Also, watchBerman, an Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and New York Times bestselling author, talk about the transition from old media to new media during his speech in this livestream video: For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: internet week ny, journalism, media, soical media

World Cup 2010: Mashable’s Complete Coverage Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:15 AM PDT Whether you’re a football neophyte or seasoned veteran, Mashable has put together an essential hub for all of your 2010 World Cup needs. Mashable will be covering the tournament with essential social media resources, news, stats and features including the best World Cup goals of all time and which team has the most passionate fans (according to Facebook). Aside from some football rule refreshers and tournament details on both the group stage and knockout stage, be sure to check back to this post for recent match scores and all of Mashable’s 2010 World Cup coverage. We’ll be updating this post continuously throughout the tournament with links to our World Cup social media coverage. Recent Scores Coverage on Mashable Features - Top 10 World Cup Twitter Trends [CHART] - 5 Free Must-Have World Cup Android Apps - HOW TO: Follow the 2010 World Cup on Twitter - 3 Ways to Watch the 2010 World Cup - Top 6 Free World Cup iPhone Apps - 10 Best World Cup Goals on YouTube - The World Cup's Social Media Evolution News - Many World Cup Players Banned from Social Media - Web Goes Wild for World Cup [STATS] - Which World Cup Fans Are the Most Passionate? Facebook Knows - Yahoo World Cup Shootout Game to Raise $100k to Fight AIDS in Africa - Twitter Launches Official World Cup Tracking Page Rules of the Tournament The tournament is largely structured into two parts: a group stage and a knockout stage. The group stage is essentially a round robin organized by team ranking. All World Cup teams were divided into eight groups of four. Each set of four teams play each other during the group stage, the top two teams from each group move on to the knockout stage. The knockout stage plays like a single-elimination tournament. Teams are seeded into a bracket based on their performance during the group stage. It’s single-game elimination so one loss in the knockout stage is enough to send a team home. All standard football rules apply (no using your hands, 11 players on the field including a goalie, 23 players in total per team). Games are 90 minutes long. If the game is tied after regulation two 15-minute extra time periods are played. If it’s still tied, the teams go to a heart-pounding, nerve-shredding shoot-out. For more entertainment coverage, follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook More sports resources from Mashable: - 5 Amazing Android Apps for Baseball Fans - 5 Brilliant iPhone Apps for Baseball Fans - How the PGA Tour Uses Social Media to Connect with Fans - 5 Reasons Every Sports Fan Should Be On Social Media - When Social Media Gets Athletes in Trouble Image courtesy of iStockphoto, daboost Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: group stage, knockout stage, rules, score, South Africa, world cup

Google News and Why Human Editors Still Matter Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT After years of having its news generated by algorithms, Google News is testing a new “Editor’s Pick” section with publishers, enabling them to select and promote specific content to users. The new feature — a module of content that is hand-picked by editors at partnering news organizations — with a “small percentage” of users, according to report by Megan Garber of Nieman Lab. Partners include less than a dozen publishers, such as Reuters, Slate and The Washington Post. Although social media and other web tools have enabled users to personalize their news streams, the ubiquity of content has created an echo chamber that some readers are trying to parse through to find not only what they want to know, but the news they “need” to know as well. This is where human “editors” and curators play a crucial role in helping readers filter through the noise. And although it is only a small test, it marks a significant shift for Google News, which includes the footer tagline: “The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.” See the screenshot of stories picked by Slate’s editors below: The Value of Curation in the Age of Personalized News It may be a step in the right direction for Google — who began experimenting with new content formats to present content using the likes of FastFlip and contextualized content with Living Stories — to help news organizations and showcase the curation expertise of editors. It can also give publishers the opportunity to put forward and promote content that may not be performing well in terms of traffic or meme value, but are important to share in the interest of public awareness (i.e. government scandals to hold officials accountable, human rights injustices in countries afar, etc.). There is no doubt that news has become increasingly social; readers are often pointed to content that is recommended by friends on Facebook, Twitter and Digg. That’s because there is a lot of value in receiving news from friends, whom often have similar interests. News That Content Farms Can’t Point You To Limor Elkayam, the founder of iSpotAStory.com, which curates content from the Web using editors, told Mashable that she thinks that Google is realizing the value and benefit of having human editors filtering content. “Computer algorithms are great for many things, but when it comes to news, people still want that human element, telling them what they should read or pay attention to; it’s why people love Twitter for getting news…there’s a human behind it.” Whatever Google decides to do with the feature, it has the potential to add a lot of value to readers in getting pointed to content by professional journalists. What do you think? Is this a feature you find worthwhile? Image courtesy of iStockphoto [screenshot credit: Nieman Journalism Lab] For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Digg, Facebook, Google, Google News, Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: content farms, curation, Google, google news, journalists, news organizations

Yahoo World Cup Shootout Game to Raise $100k to Fight AIDS in Africa Posted: 11 Jun 2010 10:33 AM PDT For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games. World Cup 2010 is officially underway and to celebrate, Yahoo and (RED) have teamed up to donate $1 for every goal scored today via Yahoo Penalty Shootout to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Yahoo’s Penalty Shootout online game launched in May. The game tasks users to try their hand at winning a penalty shootout against friends or strangers. You can choose your country and challenge one of your Yahoo or Facebook friends to a shootout duel. For each shootout, you’ll play the part of both the striker and the goalie, selecting a portion of the goal to either attack or defend. If you take the challenge seriously, you can compete against the entire pool of participants for a top spot. The top two point leaders over the entire duration of the game (which will run until the end of the World Cup) will compete head-to-head in a real shootout for a chance to win free travel, lodging and tickets to any four sporting events every year for the next four years. At the very least, Yahoo Penalty Shooutout is a fun Friday distraction that can double as a charitable donation. We’re sure your boss will understand. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, zentilia For more entertainment coverage, follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: Red, world cup 2010, Yahoo

Are Social Media Giving Contests Good for Non-Profits? Posted: 11 Jun 2010 10:10 AM PDT Geoff Livingston co-founded Zoetica to focus on cause-related work, and released an award-winning book on new media Now is Gone in 2007. Recent media coverage and Case Foundation America’s Giving Challenge research demonstrates that non-profits can hurt themselves by participating in too many online giving contests and challenges. Yet, given the extreme popularity of social media-driven online contests like Pepsi Refresh and others that innovate, non-profits can expect to see many more opportunities like this. “We've seen the emergence of two quite different kinds of contests,” said Mayur Patel, Director of Strategic Assessment at the Knight Foundation. The first kind, he notes, offer “prizes and awards focused on supporting particular innovation and experimenting with new solutions to societal challenges, such as the Knight News Challenge or Apps for America.” The second kind offer “online fundraising contests, in which non-profits compete with each other to get the most votes in order to win a sum of money for their organization.” Now that the sector has more experience, it’s time for non-profits to intelligently weigh the pluses and minuses of contests. Here’s an analysis of how online giving contests and challenges impact the sector. Disclosure: My company Zoetica performed the America’s Giving Challenge research for the Case Foundation. Understand The Possible Negative of Impact Contests The obvious benefit of participating in contests and challenges is winning. But there are also negative aspects that can occur, especially if you lose — lost resources and community fatigue can be a problem. This is particularly true of giving contests that focus on crowd-driven popularity, and don’t offer matching grants or widespread consolation prizes. “The downsides for non-profits entering contests that create a ‘who’s who’ popularity contest are obvious: Burn-out from campaigning, fear of or actually damaging the support base from asks (whether it’s vote, donate, or support), capacity (time, energy, resources) spent disproportionately to the return, and so on,” said Amy Sample Ward, global community development manager for NetSquared. NetSquared has hosted several innovation challenges over the past few years. “It's important to consider scalability and bandwidth to take on any additional tasks or responsibilities related to a contest or program — for any organization, non-profit or otherwise,” said Anamaria Irazabal, Marketing Director at Pepsi. “Organizations entering into these programs should clearly understand the staff time and resources needed to apply, campaign, and most importantly, oversee implementation of any added funding or other benefits of such a program.” Disclosure: Mashable is a media sponsor of the PepsiCo10 competition. More Pluses Than Just Winning Instead of looking at contests and challenges as all-or-none opportunities, non-profits should also consider the intangibles. A complete picture shows opportunities to excite donor and volunteer bases with social media driven contests on national and even international stages. “Philanthropic contests amplify voice, connect new audiences and break down traditional silos and barriers,” said Michael Smith, Vice President of Social Innovation at the Case Foundation. “The explosion of new interactive technologies combined with an increasing desire from social institutions to have genuine interactions and input from their constituents, have created the perfect storm and opportunity for philanthropic contests to take center stage. Innovative non-profits and causes now have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field, allowing their voice to be heard by the mass public, influencers and social investors (big and small) alike.” Theories of Change In the non-profit sector, it’s critical to have an actionable theory of change. This provides outcomes, results, and accomplishments that relate to a desired long-term goal, according to ActKnowledge. A theory of change can help the non-profit determine the value of the contest. “We believe that the power lies in having a specific theory of change,” said Pepsi’s Anamaria Irazabal. “Through the Pepsi Refresh Project, we believe in enabling ideas that will make a difference. We want people across the country to use their voice, community and the Internet to promote good ideas, which can help them get the funding and the volunteers to make these good ideas a reality. We're encouraging organizations and individuals to use their own theories of change to refresh America.” “Contests almost by their nature don't have a specific solution in mind that they are looking to fund and/or test,” said the Knight Foundation’s Mayur Patel. “All contests though, embody some form of agenda setting, regardless of whether they have an explicit 'theory of change' at work. “For challenge prizes and awards, rather than online fundraising contests, the act of problem identification — of elevating a specific issue that you are encouraging innovation around — can be a targeted way of incentivizing and spurring problem solving,” Patel continued. “It gives people the constraints in which to work, and can build a constituency around a particular problem.” Size Does Matter For some reason, smaller non-profits seem to favor contests more than larger ones. Whether that’s based on sheer numbers or the way contests and challenges are built, smaller non-profits tend to be better suited to participate. “I don't think it's that larger organizations are not willing to take risks, I think it's a couple other key factors,” said the Case Foundation’s Michael Smith. “When you are a large non-profit with a large development staff that has a set calendar of events, mailings and five layers of organizational approvals you have to go through before you can send an e-mail out to supporters, it makes it very hard to compete in these types of competitions. “Winning these competitions is all about giving up control,” added Smith. “An e-mail or two from a development director in Washington to a large mailing list will not guarantee success. Rather, you have to depend on a decentralized group of passionate supporters who are willing to tweet, DM, Facebook, e-mail, text and Skype a few hundred of their closest friends to get the viral ball rolling and make the personal connection that motivates people to take time from their day to help an organization win.” Thoughts on Criteria Irazabal, Patel and Smith offered several tips for non-profits to consider when weighing a contest or challenge. Here is an amalgamated list of ten points to consider: Do you have a realistic chance of being successful in the contest? Do you have the necessary time and resources to engage intensively in the contest to maximize the chances of winning? Will the campaign help build a new set of donors? Will participating in a contest strengthen capacity to integrate social media tools and networks into overall strategy? What kind of publicity will be generated from the application? Is there strong alignment between the contest's brand and your own? Does the contest align with your values, mission and goals? Will participation add to or detract from potential donor fatigue? Can your organization give up and share control? If your non-profit wins, can you implement any funding or other offering from the contest with your current infrastructure? If not, can your organization scale to meet the demands a winning opportunity brings? For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook More Social Good resources from Mashable: - 4 Social Media Efforts to Aid the Gulf Coast - HOW TO: Turn Slacktivists into Activists with Social Media - How Does Twitter's New Social Good Initiative Stack Up? - 5 Ways Mega Charity Events Can Harness the Power of Social Media - 5 Ways Non-Profits Can Increase Engagement With YouTube Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndrewJohnson Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Mashable, Skype, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: business, charity, Contests, non-profit, nonprofit, social good, social media

Top 20 Mashable Reader Responses to “What is Social Media?” Posted: 11 Jun 2010 10:01 AM PDT Last week, we asked readers to define and submit answers to the elusive question, “What is Social Media?” To make it fair for readers submitting answers via Twitter, we limited the responses to 140 characters. Despite this limitation, we received some fascinating answers that ranged from the simple (i.e. “Twitter.” from Connor Jack) to the complex (Conduit collecting, catalyzing & closed-circuit circulating collaborative citizen comments, contextual contributions & co-created content” from Tim Davis) and even the predictive (“Currently a term for user-generated web content, but will soon become obsolete when the whole web becomes social” from Dominick Soar). Thank you to all who participated on our Google Buzz account, Facebook Page, Twitter using #whatisSM, and the comments of the post. We also encourage you to participate in celebrating Social Media Day on June 30. Although we said we would only feature 10 of the best reader responses, we decided to up it to 20 because we received hundreds of great submissions. We gathered up some of the most telling responses from our readers to highlight the key characteristics that embody social media. Which of these do you think really nailed it? What’s missing? Let us know in the comments. 1. Collaboration: Ask not what the Internet can do for you, but what you can do with other Internet users. – Jonny Rose 2. Network: Social media is a phenomenon which creates a personalized network for sharing digital content among all people in the cyberspace. - Rohan Aurora 3. Conversation: Tools or platforms that allow anyone/everyone to share information or engage in conversation. – Veena Mathew 4. Sharing: Social media = Sharing information through conversation. – Scot Chisholm 5. Relationships: Relationshipping on steroids. – Pat Graham-Block 6. Multi-dimensional: Social media is a multi-dimensional communication information system connecting people to people. -Peter Feuersenger 7. Inclusive: It’s a conversation in an instant with anyone, anywhere, anytime that gives control back to the individual & consumer in unpredented ways." – Charles Ubaghs 8. Information: Information funneled to users from all angles. – Sarah Thomson 9. Community: Set of updated communication tools that allow us to build new communities at a time when our local community had almost been lost. – Jerry Daykin 10. Personalization: It is the ability to connect and see the world in your own way. The personalization of one of the greatest human achievements: communication! – Benjamin Fischbein 11. Empowering: Social media is an online renaissance empowering people with influence to facilitate conversations around shared ideas. – Mark Blackman 12. A Radical Shift in Communication: The radical shift from one-way broadcast type communications to dialog and conversation using web based tools. - Joe Buhler 13. Real-time: "Social Media is on-demand, real time interaction, that uses technology to enable genuine engagement with others around media vs simply sharing data with them." – Corina Newby 14. People: Social Media is the instantaneous aggregation and creation of content by the people, of the people, for the people, on the social web. – Eric Pena 15. Content Distribution: Social media consists of online technologies that facilitate the creation and distribution of content. – David J. Perdue 16. Self-expression: Social Media’s my friend. I can finally broadcast my belief in God, my likes in music, my emotional state & my dinner all from my fingertips – E. A. Freire 17. Unity: The never ending drive for humans desire to unite. – Sean Farrell 18. Dynamic: Social media is dynamic user-generated content coming from the bottom up, which bypasses static media forms through adding a social layer. – Anees Younis 19. Discovery: Social media is communication, friending, family, media, learning and discovery at one click. – Glenn K. Bolton 20. Power of the Crowd: Social media is the ability to put out a message and having worldwide responses via email, text, tweet, or whatever form in a matter of seconds. – Lilian Ongelungel For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Twitter, social media Tags: facebook, google buzz, social media, social media day, twitter, what is social media, whatissm

Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters Posted: 11 Jun 2010 10:00 AM PDT Thanks to this week's advertisers and partners for enabling us to bring you the latest social media news and resources. Mashable’s sponsors are as social media savvy as our readers! Advertise with us and get noticed. Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large, diverse audience — social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, developers, bloggers and many more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views a day in addition to weekly recognition as part of our “thank you” to our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information and to receive our media kit and rate card. This week, our valued sponsors are IDG, Paracalls, The Wall Street Journal for iPad, Bantam Live, Gist, Yield Software, Clickatell, Influxis, Microsoft BizSpark, MailChimp, Sun Startup Essentials, MaxCDN and Eventbrite. IDG’s Strategic Marketing Services group works with tech marketers to deliver services that include integrated, multimedia marketing programs, program consulting and IDG Amplify social media advertising. Paracalls is an online meeting place for professionals around the world. It’s a professional network with the combination of social tools to find and to connect with the past and present colleagues and friends. Paracalls is designed to provide useful resources as much as possible to all professionals, including Facebook and Twitter. What’s news meets what’s next. Introducing The Wall Street Journal for iPad, a new way to experience the Journal's award-winning coverage, blending the best of print and online. Touch the stories that matter to you most, get the latest news updates and market data throughout the day and save your favorite articles and sections for later. Subscribe now for just $3.99/week. Bantam Live is a web-based collaboration workspace for small business teams that combines “Social CRM” with project/task management and microblogging communication – all centered within a real-time activity stream. Business teams can share an address book and track contacts and conversations, track prospects and sales pipelines and organize projects and tasks to get work done. With integrations to social networks, team members can search for keywords and reply to and import new contacts and their real-time profiles into Bantam Live. 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 by assembling a dynamic collection of all your contacts and their companies from your e-mail 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. 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 e-mail 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 $39.95 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: Since 2007 W3 EDGE has assisted with creative, web development and search / social media marketing Mashable.com and its numerous projects and other web properties. Day-to-day maintenance and support is also handled by Frederick Townes and his W3 EDGE team. Thanks to ConVerdge for implementing our My Mashable social network. Mashable would also like to thank AttentionPR for its 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. 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Contact us for more information about supporting Mashable’s growth and development. Alternatively, visit our advertise section for more details about: Competitive direct ad sales Sponsorship Opportunities for Events and other channels Sponsored giveaways and contests Custom ad deals and partnerships 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, Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto, social media

Twitter Launches Official World Cup Tracking Page Posted: 11 Jun 2010 09:08 AM PDT For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games. The 2010 World Cup is officially underway and football fever is taking over the interwebs. In order to make it easier to follow news and updates about specific teams and matches, Twitter has launched a brand new World Cup portal page. The new page is smartly designed, displaying upcoming matches, the most interesting tweets (as determined by Twitter’s algorithm) and Twitter staff picks for relevant users to follow. By clicking on a country’s flag, you can view its upcoming matches and also a stream of tweets about that country. If you click on a match, you can see specific tweets related to that match. Twitter filters the tweets using hashtags like #fifa and a country’s three-letter abbreviation. This works well for matches that are taking place right now (currently South Africa versus Mexico), but it can be problematic with future matches because of hashtag spammers. We expect that this will be worked out as time goes on. While there are still plenty of other fantastic ways to follow the World Cup on Twitter, Twitter’s official page shows off an elegant, easy-to-use option. How are you following the World Cup online? Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kevinjeon00 For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: football, soccer, sports, twitter, world cup, world cup 2010

Google Gives “Toy Story” the Search Story Treatment [VIDEO] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:42 AM PDT Earlier this week, Google posted a brand new addition to its Search Stories collection, this time for the upcoming Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 3. This is the latest in a long list of digital marketing endeavors for the film that have utilized Facebook, YouTube and other social networks to spread the word about the film to a broad demographic of potential moviegoers. Google first debuted its Search Stories series in its Super Bowl ad and the motif has since been carried on in spots created by Google and other brands and individuals using Google’s Search Stories Video Creator. While brands like Sesame Street have released their own Search Stories videos, the Toy Story 3 spot goes one step further in its use of both Randy Newman’s score as well as the voices of the Toy Story toys (performed by actors like Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Wallace Shawn and Don Rickles). Previously, Disney/Pixar used YouTube in the creation of faux-vintage toy commercials for some of the new characters in the next film. The studio has also utilized Facebook to ignite student interest in the film and to sell movie tickets directly on its Facebook Page. Toy Story 3 opens up internationally next week and is expected to be a big hit. [via AMC Entertainment] For more entertainment coverage, follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube Tags: disney, MARKETING, movie ads, Movies, pixar, search stories, toy story 3

The World Cup’s Social Media Evolution Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:20 AM PDT For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games. Kaka, one of the world's premiere football players, is using his Twitter account to connect with fans and do things like share a pair of songs that were written for him. During the last World Cup in 2006 Kaka — or any other player, for that matter — couldn’t have connected with fans in that way because, well, Twitter didn't really exist. This year's World Cup has an unprecedented volume of social media outlets and initiatives from Twitter feeds to Facebook fan pages, viral videos to mobile apps and more. With so much access, it's easy to lose track of where all this social media goodness actually came from. Below is a brief look at how the World Cup and social media have evolved together. 2002 – Korea/Japan World Cup "Social media" as we know it now (complete with Twitter, Foursquare, etc.) did not exist in 2002, but the World Cup still found ways to connect with fans. (Hey, even at the inaugural World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, fans could use the technology of the day — telephones — to connect to one another!) In 2002, the Korea/Japan World Cup was one of the first to utilize the Internet by creating homepages for teams and multiple websites for the tournament. However, social media outreach was still limited in scope. "In '02, I can't remember anything, any social media methods with that world cup," said Sports Illustrated producer Bryan Graham. "… I don't even think the word ’social media’ even existed." 2006 – Germany World Cup By 2006, social media sites were starting to pick up steam. Facebook had launched but it was still restricted to college and high school students. Similarly, Twitter was still in its beta-stage and hadn’t yet caught on; MySpace was the most popular social networking site in the US. Companies like Adidas, Nike and Puma were early adopters with campaigns that included print ads, television spots and online sites. Nike in particular teamed up with Google to create "the first social network for football fans worldwide," Joga.com, allowing users to create profiles, view video and connect with fellow fans. Other companies joined in, with Adidas launching a MySpace site featuring video and exclusive content, and Coca-Cola launching a blog to track two unofficial World Cup mascots. Users could provide the mascots with suggestions and track their antics. The blog was a predecessor to similar video sites created for MySpace and YouTube. "All we did was shoot stuff and talk to people and put it on the blog. And now that's when the real work begins," said Franz Strasser, a Digital Reporter/Producer at BBC America that independently blogged during the 2006 World Cup. He and his partner set up a blog to record video during the tournament. They were invited to join Coca-Cola's WeAllSpeakFootball initiative, a site that posted content from several bloggers and vloggers. "It's literally crazy thinking about our '06 projects and all those smart guys in the room who didn't even think about Tweeting or even putting it on Facebook." The blog, however, lacked social interaction: "Podcasting is not live, you record it and then you post it online,” Strasser said. “But you cannot change anything, it's done.” Interactive social communities were limited online until the birth of Twitter later in 2006. When Strasser blogged about the 2008 Euro Cup, things had changed: "In 2008 we would post [on Twitter] before we recorded a show. We asked for questions, comments, so that we would have that interaction." 2010 – South Africa World Cup In just the two years since the Euro Cup, social media has exploded around the football world. Almost any site that even mentions football has embraced social media efforts from blogs to live streams to mobile apps. Even still, new initiatives are launched daily, such as Foursquare's partnership with CNN to create two new World Cup badges and more than 100 viewing parties taking place across the globe. Social media will also help link those already in South Africa trying to stay connected between the 10 far-flung football stadiums, some more than 1,000 miles apart. "This is a way to tie all of them together," said Cindy Boren, the Washington Post's Sports Social Media Editor. "It's the string that sort of binds it together." Traditional media outlets like Sports Illustrated magazine are running profiles of the US national team, but are also including each players Twitter handle (10 of the 23 have accounts). "You know with FIFA, the accessibility of these players is so guarded and so controlled," Graham said. "Just the idea that these guys are kind of removing filters, connecting with their fans, I can't believe people aren't talking about it more. Maybe one reason is that it's happening across all sports." The World Cup starts today (Friday) but the social media storm has been gaining momentum for years ahead of time. For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook More sports resources from Mashable: - HOW TO: Follow the 2010 World Cup on Twitter - 10 Best World Cup Goals on YouTube - 5 Amazing Android Apps for Baseball Fans - 5 Brilliant iPhone Apps for Baseball Fans - How the PGA Tour Uses Social Media to Connect with Fans Image courtesy of iStockphoto, zorani Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Internet, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, blog, iStockphoto Tags: bryan graham, cindy boren, foursquare, franz strasser, kaka, myspace, social media, South Africa, trending, twitter, world cup

Foxconn Halts Hiring, Probably Not Completely Pulling Out of China [REPORT] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 06:53 AM PDT Foxconn is considering restructuring its operations in China, reports Businessweek. At the same time, The Register writes that Foxconn is considering shutting down its factories in China altogether, a rumor that arose out of a shareholder’s meeting held three days ago. Following the string of suicides at the Foxconn factories in China — which produce devices (including the iPhone) for consumer electronic giants such as HP, Apple and others — Foxconn officials first announced that the company would increase the salaries of workers, as well as raise safety nets around the dormitories and factory buildings to help the situation. However, Foxconn may now have decided that at least partially moving its operations elsewhere is a preferable solution. According to Businessweek, Foxconn has stopped hiring workers across China to "review resource allocation." Recently, Foxconn Hon Hai Chairman Terry Gou announced at a shareholder’s meeting plans to relocate some of Foxconn’s production to automated factories in Taiwan or Vietnam. Whether this means Foxconn is planning to completely move its operations from China remains to be seen, but given its enormous task force there, it’s very unlikely. If Foxconn does pull out of China altogether, it will leave 800,000 Chinese workers unemployed. For more business coverage, follow Mashable Business on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: apple, china, Foxconn

Experts Predict We’ll Be Working in the Cloud by 2020 [STUDY] Posted: 11 Jun 2010 06:11 AM PDT In a recent survey of around 900 Internet and tech experts and social analysts, Elon University researchers found that most of their respondents said Internet users will "live mostly in the cloud" by 2020. These experts, or a full 71% of them, at least, predict we’ll be working primarily through web-based and mobile apps, such as Facebook and Google Docs, and less on software installed on our own desktops. This group isn’t forecasting the death of the desktop altogether, though — at least, not just yet. According to this study, the majority of respondents think that in the future, we’ll use a hybrid of cloud and desktop computing, with web-based programs continuing to grow in their scope and role. This question about cloud-based applications was raised as part of a 10-question survey conducted jointly with the Pew Research Center. The statement that leads us to this 71% figure of majority agreement reads thus: "By 2020, most people won’t do their work with software running on a general-purpose PC. Instead, they will work in Internet-based applications such as Google Docs, and in applications run from smartphones. Aspiring application developers will develop for smartphone vendors and companies that provide Internet-based applications, because most innovative work will be done in that domain, instead of designing applications that run on a PC operating system." The advantage of instant access to information regardless of device, operating system or location is a huge factor in the dominance of web apps over desktop apps. “The cloud” is accessible from work, from home, from any location with an Internet connection, and increasingly, from our ever-smarter mobile devices. Who wouldn’t find that kind of postmodern fluidity appealing? We’re no longer tied to offices for work, nor are our social activities locked away at home. Yet some of the same experts in this mega-panel disagreed, mainly on grounds of security and privacy. "Trust not the cloud for reliability, security, privacy,” said respondent Barry Wellman, a professor of sociology and Netlab director at the University of Toronto. Another enterprise blogger predicted a “huge blow-up with terrorism in the cloud… People will lose confidence as cyber attacks cripple major systems.” Craig Partridge, chief scientist at BBN Technologies, noted, “I think a big issue will be information privacy. How do you really control access to your valuable data if it is in the cloud? How do you retrieve your prized novel or your business records if the cloud fails?" What’s your take on this issue? Do you fall into the group more concerned with security and privacy, more wary than enthusiastic about the potential benefits and likely pitfalls of an overly eager approach to cloud computing? Or are you a seasoned netizen who welcomes the new fluidity that web and mobile applications are bringing to our lives and work? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, Google Docs, Internet, Twitter Tags: cloud, Pew, stats, study

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