Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Apple Shows That Nokia N97 Mini Also Suffers from Death Grip Issue” |  |
- Apple Shows That Nokia N97 Mini Also Suffers from Death Grip Issue
- New Matchmaking Site Lets You Date by the Book
- Brightkite Takes Branded Badges to the Next Level
- Flipboard Launches as the iPad’s Social Media Magazine
- Has the HP Slate Come Back from the Dead? We Doubt It
- Facebook Among Web’s Worst in Customer Satisfaction [SURVEY]
- Android Devices Get Video Calling via Adobe
- Tethering App Sneaks into iPhone App Store [VIDEO]
- Droid 2 to Launch in Three Weeks [REPORT]
- MySpace and MTV Will Livestream Comic-Con Celebrities
- Foursquare Reaches 100 Million Checkins
- Free iPhone 4 Cases to Cost Apple $175 Million
- Yahoo Starts Testing Bing in Search Results
- HOW TO: Develop iPhone Apps With Staying Power
- Discovery and Facebook Show How a Pandemic Could Affect You
- Apple Reports Record Earnings, Calls iPhone 4 Most Successful Product Launch Ever
- Google Buys 20 Years’ Worth of Wind Farm Energy
- iPad Revenue Tops $2 Billion for Apple
- A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Social Media
- Work on Databases Remotely with Filemaker Go for iPhone and iPad
- Google: Mobile Search and Ads Growing Rapidly in 2010
- Slacker Radio Integrates ABC News Content into Its Music Service
- Kinect for Xbox 360 Will Cost $150, Game Included
- Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream
- Google Image Search Gets an Overhaul [PICS]
- App Lets Brands Add Groupon-Like Deals to Facebook Pages
- 10 Tips for Corporate Blogging
- Is Your Boyfriend Reading Your Facebook Messages? [STATS]
- MOG Brings Unlimited Streaming Music to iPhone and Android
- Nokia Looking for a New CEO [REPORT]
| Apple Shows That Nokia N97 Mini Also Suffers from Death Grip Issue Posted: 21 Jul 2010 02:02 AM PDT      Apple’s Smartphone Antenna Performance page, which aims to show that other phones besides iPhone 4 suffer from signal loss when held in a certain way, originally didn’t mention Nokia. However, that didn’t stop Nokia from issuing a statement, claiming that antenna performance has always been a high priority for them. As Nokia put it, “Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.” Now, Apple silently answered Nokia by adding a video which shows that Nokia N97 mini, when held a certain way, also shows significant signal loss. Grip the phone in a weak signal area, Apple claims, and it can drop from 7 to 2 bars. Check out the video below. What do you think about the demonstration? If you own a Nokia N97 mini, tell us your experience with the device! [via Engadget] More About: antenna, apple, Nokia N97 For more Mobile coverage:
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| New Matchmaking Site Lets You Date by the Book Posted: 21 Jul 2010 12:41 AM 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.
Quick Pitch: Alikewise is an online dating site that matches people based on their book tastes. Genius Idea: Online dating in the U.S. is a $1.049 billion per year industry (yes, that’s larger than the online porn industry) dominated by a handful of major players, including monthly subscription services like eHarmony and Match.com, and free dating sites like plentyoffish and okCupid. With so much competition in the general dating category, a number of niche dating sites have cropped up in the last few years: there’s Cupidtino for those looking to love something in addition to their Macs, sites designed exclusively for “Beautiful People” and gamers, and others that unite people by common interests in music or, uh, Star Trek. Alikewise is a new niche dating site that aims to unite people by a common passion for literature. Matt Masina and Matt Sherman, the site’s founders, began working on the site in late 2008 after the latter broke up with his girlfriend. “I [wanted to] meet a woman who had read The Black Swan,” he said. Now those who want to find others who are knowledgeable about the books and topics they’re passionate about can do so on the site. Upon signup, users can fill out four categories of information, plus add a photo and tagline:
Although there’s room for other information, the emphasis is entirely on books. You can only search for other users by typing in a book title or author or by username — not by any other interests (a drawback in my opinion, as some may be looking for, say, someone who reads and does triathlons, rather than someone who has read George Eliot’s Middlemarch, or an admirer of Henry James over 5′8″). A front page newsfeed also notifies you when others add books in your profile to theirs. Conceptually, the platform is promising; you can gauge a great deal by browsing the bookshelves in a person’s home and, with the addition of notes attached to book selections, you’ll likely form an idea of a person’s intelligence, humor and wit. Bibliophiles already like to gather — just think of the number of book clubs in the U.S. — and it makes sense that they’d want to date each another, too. The site, Sherman admitted, won’t make much money unless it decides to charge a monthly fee for subscriptions — but first it needs to reach critical mass. “Honestly,” Sherman said, “we may never charge. Mostly I am driven by the fact that this is an intriguing idea with a big potential audience.” At the very least, he should be able to attract a number of book publishers and vendors as advertisers. What do you think about the site? Would you rather spend time on a more general online dating site with a larger userbase, or a niche site that brings people together with commons interests? [img credit: odetothebigsea] Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
More About: alikewise, bizspark, dating, online dating, spark-of-genius For more Social Media coverage:
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| Brightkite Takes Branded Badges to the Next Level Posted: 20 Jul 2010 11:56 PM PDT   Brightkite has launched a new way for their users and partner brands to get more out of location-based checkins. The company has added the ability to “level up” on the badges you’ve earned, which means more brands will have more opportunities to give their faithful fans more rewards — and users will have more incentive to keep checking in. Unlike Foursquare checkins — which reward either the “mayor” of a location or all users who checkin at that spot — Brightkite checkins and badge levels will generate more data on customers’ level of engagement with a brand and allow them to be appropriately compensated. This system distinguishes a “superfan” from a “regular” from a casual visitor — a level of nuance that’s becoming increasingly important in these latter days of social media metrics and measurement. “The biggest reason to introduce levels to our badges was so stores, bars, restaurants and brands have a way to reward you, their customers,” reads the Brightkite blog. “We think a business should reward all their loyal customers, not just one person.” Currently, Brightkite is partnering with Starbucks, the CW, Visa, Sharpie, Redbook, McDonald’s and several other brands. For end users, Brightkite is taking a lot of the mystery out of “leveling up” by showing a progress bar under your badge and telling them exactly what they need to do to proceed: 
We think Brightkite’s approach to badges could be exponentially more interesting — and potentially more profitable — than what many of its competitors are doing. What’s your opinion of level-based badges? Reviews: Brightkite More About: badge, brightkite, checkin, lbs, location, social media marketing For more Mobile coverage:
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| Flipboard Launches as the iPad’s Social Media Magazine Posted: 20 Jul 2010 09:36 PM PDT   With backing from several heavy hitters and an acquisition, Flipboard has kicked off its quest to become the new and vibrant way your browse your social media streams. Flipboard, which is now available in the iPad app store, is a start-up that calls itself the “world’s first social magazine.” It connects to your social media accounts — primarily Facebook and Twitter — and utilizes that information to create an interface that will feel familiar if you’re a magazine lover. It officially launches today. Flipboard takes popular news sources (specifically the ones you choose) as well as your Twitter and Facebook feed to provide to create a unique web browsing experience. Moving through the interface is a simple as flipping the page. Items shared on Facebook are suddenly turned into magazine articles and multimedia is immediately made front-and-center. Here’s an example of what you might find simply browsing through your Twitter and Facebook feeds via Flipboard:   Coinciding with the Flipboard launch are two big announcements: first, the startup has raised $10.5 million in a Series A round including KPCB, Index Ventures, The Chernin Group, Jack Dorsey (Twitter’s creator), Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook’s co-founder) and Aston Kutcher. Second, it has acquired Ellerdale, a real-time web intelligence startup, and made co-founder Arthur van Hoff its CTO. Ellerdale’s semantic analysts technology will help Flipboard choose and organize the most relevant stories for the readers. I am thoroughly impressed from our first run with Flipboard. It is simply gorgeous and a pleasure to browse. I could the app open for hours just watching my feeds pass by. If I wanted to scan the key news from my social networks, this is the way I would want to do it. Would you use an app like this to browse your social media feeds? Let us know what you think of the app in the comments. Reviews: Facebook, Twitter More About: acquisition, Ellerdale, Flipboard, ipad, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Has the HP Slate Come Back from the Dead? We Doubt It Posted: 20 Jul 2010 08:30 PM PDT   A recently discovered listing on the HP website has restarted the rumor mill for the HP Slate, the PC maker’s supposed Windows 7 tablet. PCWorld has uncovered a now-removed webpage on HP’s website that lists not one, but eight different version of the “HP Slate 500″ tablet. Energy Star also lists the product on its website. Here are the specs, according to HP and Energy Star’s websites:
These numbers fit a previous HP Slate leak from April. In fact, they’re identical. Despite this recent discovery though, we doubt a Windows 7-based HP tablet is coming anytime soon. Windows 7 Just Isn’t Designed for Tablets The HP Slate was the subject of months of speculation, especially as it was seen as a viable alternative to Apple’s wildly successful iPad. That was before HP acquired Palm and reportedly killed off the project. HP originally went with Windows for its tablet because it had few other choices. However, the iPad has demonstrated the need for vibrant touchscreen interfaces in tablet designs. Windows 7 is not an OS designed for touchscreens — it’s one designed for the keyboard and mouse. A stylus wouldn’t suddenly make Windows 7 usable on a tablet. One of the primary reasons HP bought Palm was to get its hands on webOS. The mobile operating system is far better suited for touchscreen and tablet-sized devices. And while HP hasn’t talked much recently about the HP Slate, it has confirmed that webOS tablets are in the works. With webOS in its portfolio, there’s simply no reason for HP to make a Windows 7 tablet. While these product listings are exciting, they are in no way confirmation that the HP Slate is still in the product pipeline. These are the essentially the same specs that were floating around before the Palm acquisition. We have contacted HP to see if we can’t get a final answer. We hope HP is smart enough to leave the Slate project alone and focus its energy and efforts on a webOS-based competitor to the iPad: a PalmPad makes far more sense. Reviews: Windows More About: apple, Gadget, HP, HP slate, ipad, microsoft, palm, Tablet, webOS, Windows 7 For more Tech coverage:
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| Facebook Among Web’s Worst in Customer Satisfaction [SURVEY] Posted: 20 Jul 2010 07:19 PM PDT   The 2010 American Customer Survey Index conducted by ForeSee Results gave Facebook 64 out of 100 points in a customer satisfaction survey; that’s lower than any other business in its category. However, it’s not at the bottom of the social media heap; MySpace received one point less. ForeSee Results CEO Larry Freed says that “privacy concerns, frequent changes to the website, and commercialization and advertising” are responsible for the low rating. Those reasons for dissatisfaction mirror the ones revealed in previous surveys. By contrast, Google received a score of 80 (though that’s 7 points lower than last year’s score), Bing and Wikipedia managed a 77, Yahoo pulled a 76 and YouTube landed at 73. Facebook also received a lower rating than any of the major news websites, which were led by FOXNews.com at 82. MSNBC.com and CNN.com trailed behind at 74 and 73 respectively. We’d love to see what Twitter’s score would be, but the survey excluded Twitter because so many of its users experience it through third party applications, making it difficult to judge how much their perceptions reflect Twitter itself. Not Dissatisfied EnoughEven though Facebook’s users are dissatisfied, they haven’t demonstrated the will to leave. Perhaps it’s because there is no strong competitor, or because their social lives would suffer tremendously if they opted out of this now-essential tool for communication and event planning. After the Instant Personalization opt-out controversy, thousands of users committed to quit on May 31. The movement failed when many of them simply didn’t. Instead of suffering perceptible negative consequences for its choices, the social network has continued to grow. It will celebrate 500 million users later this week. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be giving a rare TV interview with Diane Sawyer tomorrow, presumably to talk about the milestone and repair some of the PR damage in the wake of these privacy scandals and in anticipation of the release of the film The Social Network. What do you think he’ll say? What does he need to say? Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, YouTube More About: 2010 american customer survey index, acsi, customer satisfaction, facebook, myspace, study, survey, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Android Devices Get Video Calling via Adobe Posted: 20 Jul 2010 06:40 PM PDT   A new Adobe AIR demo is making the rounds today; it shows how Android phones can be used for user-to-user video calls. Built using an upcoming release of AIR 2.5, this app is the Android and Adobe developer communities’ answer to FaceTime. The more generous in spirit would call this move “cheeky.” At any rate, it throws yet another log on the bonfire that is the Adobe-Apple public dialog. The app was originally called “FlashTime,” but the name was changed to avoid some confusion. Mark Doherty, Adobe’s Flash Platform Evangelist for mobile, said this isn’t an official release from Adobe; rather, it’s something he built over the course of three days to test the features of AIR 2.5 for Android. We’d love to show you his demo video here, but unfortunately, that clip is currently password-protected and not for public consumption. Doherty doesn’t plan to release the app as a product, but he said he will open-source the code. He expects the code to be stable and finished by next week; interested parties should contact Doherty directly. AIR and Flash for Android were announced first in February. Android and Adobe as entities have been getting awfully chummy with one another ever since Apple declared war on Flash. With jingoistic barbs flying from all sides, it’s hard to have an unbiased, logical conversation uncolored by emotion when it comes to this subject. But without weighing in on one side or the other of the grander to-Flash-or-not-to-Flash debate, we can say that Android device users deserve the same ability to make video calls that iPhone 4 users now have, and we applaud the developers of any application that will help users have this ability. One of the added bonuses of working on an open platform is that you can create apps like this and use the devices’ hardware in innovative, interesting and even “cheeky” ways without being blacklisted by the OS creator or device manufacturer. We can’t wait to see other Android video-calling apps in action. What’s your opinion of this demo so far? Do you think more video-calling apps for Android phones will be coming up soon? [img credit: lauhiu] Reviews: Android More About: adobe, android, facetime, flashtime, Mobile 2.0, video call For more Mobile coverage:
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| Tethering App Sneaks into iPhone App Store [VIDEO] Posted: 20 Jul 2010 06:09 PM PDT Get it while it’s hot , because this sneaky tethering iPhone app is certain to be yanked out of the App Store very, very soon. Update: And now it’s gone from the app store. A new app, Handy Light [iTunes link], seems harmless enough: it turns your iPhone into a flashlight with 5 different color settings. On the surface, it’s just a simple $0.99 app. Under the hood though, the app is actually a SOCKS Proxy tethering app, capable of turning your iPhone into an Internet tethering device. It takes a few minutes to set up, but after you’ve followed the instructions in the YouTube video above, you will be tethering like a pro. Of course, Apple and AT&T might not be too thrilled with you. We’re pretty sure that this app is going to be out of the app store momentarily. [via Macrumors] Reviews: App Store, Internet, YouTube More About: apple, iphone, iphone app, video For more Tech coverage:
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| Droid 2 to Launch in Three Weeks [REPORT] Posted: 20 Jul 2010 05:14 PM PDT   We’re seeing reports online indicating the mysterious Droid 2 might launch as soon as August 12. Just last week, we saw that the original Droid had been listed as an end-of-life device by Verizon, meaning that no more Droids will be shipping from Motorola and support for the device will slowly taper off. While this news was slightly sad for the Droid faithful, it also meant one very exciting fact: The Droid’s next-gen replacement must be waiting in the wings. So we’re not too surprised to see that sources are saying the Droid 2 will be launching on August 12, about three weeks from today. Here’s what we know about the Droid 2 based on previously leaked photos and video:
Reports also suggest there might be a special Star Wars edition of the Droid 2 that features a white R2-D2 on the back. As you may have noticed from watching various Droid commercials, “Droid” is actually a licensed term owned by Lucasfilms. We’re waiting to hear back from a few Verizon folks; if they have some confirmation or comment for us, we’ll update this post. In the meantime, let us know what you think in the comments. Will the Droid 2 perform as strongly as its predecessor, given the glut of Android-powered “superphones” now on the market? Or do you think the iPhone clones have an edge on this smaller, slightly less flashy device? Reviews: Android More About: android, droid, droid 2, launch, Mobile 2.0 For more Mobile coverage:
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| MySpace and MTV Will Livestream Comic-Con Celebrities Posted: 20 Jul 2010 04:22 PM PDT   MySpace and MTV are teaming up to stream live videos of interviews with celebrities like Seth Rogen, Jeff Bridges, Michael Cera and the cast of Glee — plus sneak peeks at unreleased entertainment — during Comic-Con this weekend. The programming will stream at MTV.com and the MySpace Comic-Con page starting Thursday, July 22 at 12 p.m. PT with host Josh Horowitz from MTV Movies asking fan-submitted questions from the web, among other things. The first show will feature Seth Rogen, who will be there to discuss The Green Hornet. You’ll also see the cast of RED and Machete’s Robert Rodriguez and Danny Trejo. On Friday, Tron: Legacy stars Jeff Bridges and Garrett Hedlund will be joined by director Joseph Kozinski at noon, and they’ll be followed by Michael Cera, Anna Kendrick, Jason Schwartzman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong and director Edgar Wright from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Saturday’s show will be at 3:00 PM, and its focus will be legendary screenwriter and director Joss Whedon and Captain America: The First Avenger. There will also be pre-recorded features with the cast of Glee and The Vampire Diaries, plus a whole slew of stars from Sylvester Stalone to David Duchovny to Zachary Quinto to Stan Lee to, well, a whole ton of others. MTV and MySpace have teamed up for big livestreams before; way back in 2007, they worked together to stream presidential debates to Gen Yers. More recently, they were partners for the Hope For Haiti Now benefit concert.  Reviews: MySpace More About: comic-con, comics, Film, live video, Movies, mtv, myspace, streaming video, video For more Web Video coverage:
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| Foursquare Reaches 100 Million Checkins Posted: 20 Jul 2010 03:54 PM PDT   Foursquare passed a big milestone yesterday: 100 million checkins. The news of this achievement came via the Twitter stream of Tristan Walker, who heads up business development for the company. Foursquare has experienced massive growth in the last twelve months, with nearly 1 million checkins taking place each day. In fact, it was just over two months ago that the company passed 40 million checkins. Location-specific data is poised to become a really big space for advertisers and, by extension, search engines. Foursquare Co-founder Dennis Crowley said that the company is in talks with the major search players and that the data his service generates could be of big interest to the next evolution of search. For location data to be really useful on a large scale — especially at the level that search engines could use it for algorithmic and predictive advantages — there needs to be a lot of data. 100 million checkins is a good place to start. Reviews: Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla More About: foursquare, geolocation For more Social Media coverage:
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| Free iPhone 4 Cases to Cost Apple $175 Million Posted: 20 Jul 2010 03:00 PM PDT   Apple’s solution to Antennagate — free cases — is likely going to cost the company $175 million in revenue. Apple posted record earnings this quarter. However, its recent success has been marred by controversy over the iPhone 4’s reception issues, specifically how holding it by its lower-right side can decrease reception. Apple held a press conference last week to address the issue. Its solution to the problem: free cases for all. Cases don’t grow on trees, though. During today’s Q3 earnings conference call, Apple revealed that it predicts that the free iPhone 4 cases and bumpers will result in $175 million in deferred revenue. It hits Apple’s books as a liability — essentially a debt or a negative balance on the bottom line. Apple says that it will expense the cost of the cases, which will help mitigate the overall cost on the bottom line. In other words, Apple is accounting for $175 million in lost revenue on its Q4 balance sheet, all due to free bumpers and cases. While no company wants to lose out on $175 million in revenue, the alternative — reduced iPhone 4 sales due to Antennagate — was far less palatable. And it’s important to note that this is just Apple’s cost estimate — the actual number could end up being more or less than $175 million, depending on iPhone 4 sales and how many customers take advantage of the free case offer. Still, it looks like Antennagate will be just a drop in the bucket for a company that made $15.7 billion last quarter alone. More About: antenna, Antennagate, app store, apple, ipad, iphone, iphone 4 For more Business coverage:
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| Yahoo Starts Testing Bing in Search Results Posted: 20 Jul 2010 02:59 PM PDT   Yahoo search users may soon start seeing results served by Bing. According to Yahoo’s Vice President Search Product Operations Kartik Ramakrishnan, the company has "started testing organic (also referred to as algorithmic) and paid search listings from Microsoft for up to 25 percent of Yahoo! Search traffic in the U.S." As Yahoo demonstrates in the above screenshot, that means that users that are part of the test will see results from Bing inside Yahoo's familiar interface. In spite of the impending changes, Yahoo has continued to add features and make design changes, and the company indicates that it will continue to do so post-integration. With testing now underway, it would seem then that Yahoo and Microsoft's plans for integration following their massive search and advertising partnership – signed back in July 2009 – are on track. When regulators approved the deal back in February, Microsoft and Yahoo indicated that they planned to have search and advertising integration completed by the end of 2010. Now, Ramakrishnan writes that, "we anticipate that our U.S. and Canada organic search listings in both desktop and mobile experiences will be fully powered by the Microsoft platform beginning in the August/September timeframe, and paid search in October." Reviews: Bing More About: bing, microsoft, Search, Yahoo For more Tech coverage:
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| HOW TO: Develop iPhone Apps With Staying Power Posted: 20 Jul 2010 02:23 PM PDT   Josh Clark is a designer, developer, and author specializing in iPhone user experience. Josh’s outfit, Global Moxie, helps creative companies build tapworthy iPhone apps and effective websites. Follow Josh on Twitter at @globalmoxie. He’s author of two books, including the following tips from his newest, Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps. An app’s shelf life lasts exactly as long as it can hold users’ attention. iPhone owners chew through apps, gulping down their content, then tossing them out and moving on. Studies show that the average user never launches an app more than 20 times before abandoning it. Less than 15% of downloaded apps get so much as a glance over the course of a week, and two months after purchase, only one-third of downloaded apps ever get used again. This may not matter to you if your goal is to build one-off novelty apps; in that case, you might even expect people to launch your app only a few times. Laugh delivered, mission accomplished. If you're trying to grow a following for your app, however, this is uncomfortable news. According to one survey, nearly half of all apps are downloaded based on a friend's recommendation. Loyal users spread the word, but few apps ever manage to create a huge fan base. If you're trying to create a long-term relationship with your audience, your app has to keep giving. Tools vs. Content Certain kinds of apps have a built-in heartbeat thanks to the fundamental nature of their key features. Tools that organize personal info (to-do lists, calendars, expense trackers, contacts) keep people coming back. Likewise, utilities that perform a common task (Skype calls, instant messaging, barcode scanning, weather forecasts, notebooks) continue to be useful as long as the underlying task is in demand. For most of us, tools and utilities still account for the majority of our desktop software. Most folks use computers to work. That doesn't hold so true for iPhone apps. The majority of apps in the App Store are content apps — games, entertainment, books, references, novelty apps. For these apps, it takes more work to keep the heartbeat thumping. Sometimes that simply means fresh content. News apps, of course, have a bottomless and constantly refreshing reservoir of content, drawing users back regularly for more about the latest political brouhaha or Brangelina update. Non-news content apps have to be a bit more creative, but the challenge is the same. Unlocking Content Trophies Games Games often offer additional levels through in-app purchases, which also has the happy side effect of steering additional cash into the company checking account. But new game levels are about more than just an opportunity to keep playing: They're markers of achievement — content trophies. That approach might seem unique to games, but other types of apps can offer a similar sense of expansion as achievement, letting you unlock new content as you master various chapters, challenges, or lessons. In-app purchases and add-ons let users keep the good times rolling . . . literally, in the case of the Skee-Ball-themed game Ramp Champ, which lets you download new ramp themes for free or fee. Skies of Glory, an aerial combat game, lets players upgrade the game's gear for a fee. Here, a Zero plane will run you two bucks. Travel Travel apps are especially road-ready examples that benefit from content that expands and adapts to mirror users' activities. Lonely Planet Travel Guide, for example, comes with a single city guide to San Francisco, but offers scores of other travel guides and phrase books for purchase inside the app — buy a new guide when you're headed to a new city. Similarly, OffMaps lets you download maps and guides for offline use anywhere in the world — handy for dodging international roaming fees that otherwise make it ruinously expensive to use the built-in Maps app abroad. Fitness This steady unlocking of content is also a staple of fitness apps. CrunchFu, for example, is an app for acolytes of the six-pack ab, a training program to help transform bellies from wishy-washy to washboard. The app gives you a daily training program to do a recommended number of crunches. As you complete each day, you unlock the next day's program. Each one gets gradually more difficult until you finally gut through 200 crunches at a single go. These steady, game-like accomplishments keep users coming back while also encouraging a safe fitness ramp-up — an effective way to give the app a healthy heartbeat. Even so, CrunchFu's content is limited by the fact that its training program has a finish line. After you hit 200 crunches, you're done. Normally, when users finish an app's content, they'd amble off into the sunset, never to look at the app again. Even when the training program peters out, however, CrunchFu provides a game to keep its users. The app offers "battles," head-to-head crunch competitions with other CrunchFu users. No matter where you are in the training program — beginning, finished, or somewhere in between — the app lets you find someone else at your fitness level and challenge them to see who can do the most crunches, earning points as you go. People Love People Even as we tap away at our iPhones, off to ourselves and oblivious to the world, we are still irresistibly social creatures. Like a physical place, apps that bustle with the activities of other people feel alive. Community features give an app life beyond its fixed set of content. For some apps, sharing content with friends and seeing what others are saying lets your users provide an ever-replenishing supply of fresh content. Among its many other features, for example, the Movies app by Flixster pools reviews by moviegoers. You can follow the advice of the grand mass of public reviews, or just listen in on what your friends have to say. Yelp adds similar value by encouraging customer reviews for local businesses, and Amazon, of course, does the same with reviews of its products. In all of these cases, community-driven reviews give extended life to the basic content provided by the app developers. You don't have to build this stuff yourself; you don't even need your own community. Just plug your app into the established social networks, where millions of people are already talking. Facebook and Twitter both provide easy platforms for sharing content from iPhone apps. For games, social networks like OpenFeint or Apple's Game Center let developers plug high-score leader boards and head-to-head challenges directly into their apps. Bolt on Features The apps described so far enhance and extend their value by replenishing their primary content. Another effective, if less elegant, approach is simply to bolt on complementary tools. The idea is to wrap secondary features around your app's main content to enhance and extend its value. The Typography Manual, for example, is an app for budding graphic designers. It's essentially an e-book spelling out the history of typography, tracing its letterforms and laying out its technique. [This app is not available in the U.S. iTunes store at time of writing. - Ed.] While the app does a fine job of dotting the i's and crossing the t's of its subject, it remains like any book — a fixed set of words and images. But the app also throws in a handful of tools that are useful to folks who sling type for a living. There's a font ruler, some font-size calculators, and a comprehensive reference for easy-to-forget HTML codes for special characters. Even after users finish reading the book, these add-on utilities keep them coming back by continuing to provide value. Think hard about the features that can give your app extended longevity, but don't just pad the app with features willy-nilly. It's often useful to design your app for a steady, long-lasting heartbeat. But as you do this, it's even more important to keep the app simple and focused. More Dev & Design Resources From Mashable:
Reviews: App Store, Facebook, Flixster, Skype, Twitter, Yelp, iPhone, news More About: App, app development, apps, content trophies, fitness, games, iphone, Mobile 2.0, movie, travel, typography For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Discovery and Facebook Show How a Pandemic Could Affect You Posted: 20 Jul 2010 02:22 PM PDT   Under the chilling tagline, “Humanity is an endangered species, it just doesn't know it yet,” the Discovery Channel’s latest social media campaign uses Facebook to show you how a virulent disease could affect your life and those of your friends and family members. This eerily realistic simulation uses a Facebook-like interface that is unique for each person who visits. The website created by this application shows a fake newsfeed featuring your friends’ names and profile images alongside status updates, links, pictures, and comments about the disease, government-mandated quarantine zones, emergency services availability (or lack thereof) and much more. You’ll even see some watchable, UGC-style videos created by Discovery in the feed. The updates contain all the trappings of real social media posts — ribbon-bedecked avatars, hashtags, how-to posts — but with a scary, sad, survivalist twist.
You can see pages showing updates for various stages of the disease running its course through your community, including “outbreak” and “pandemic.” It’s creepy, it’s realistic, and it really personalizes the idea that disease — virulent, pandemic disease — is a reality for many people around the world at many points in world history. We never really know when it’s going to happen again. Of course, Discovery’s campaign is a plug for a new show; The Colony will debut July 27 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. It’s a reality show that explores the fascinating and dramatic realities of a somewhat esoteric subject — epidemiology — that actually affects many communities, particularly in the developing world. In the show, seven non-actor volunteers are taken to an area without clean water and power, ostensibly after a devastating pandemic. Supplies are short and rivals abound. It’s like a slightly more realistic version of a zombie flick. The app comes from NYC-based agency Campfire; this shop has done an excellent job marrying a smart creative concept with a great social media interaction opportunity. What do you think of this campaign and the show itself? Let us know in the comments. Reviews: Facebook More About: Campfire, discovery, facebook marketing, social media marketing, television, the colony For more Social Media coverage:
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| Apple Reports Record Earnings, Calls iPhone 4 Most Successful Product Launch Ever Posted: 20 Jul 2010 02:00 PM PDT   Apple has just posted its Q3 earnings for fiscal year 2010 and the company has once again bested its own records, this time reporting an astounding $15.7 billion in revenue and a net quarterly profit of $3.35 billion. Apple, which is currently the most valuable technology company in the U.S. and the second most valuable U.S. company overall, reported earnings of $3.51 per diluted share. This is significantly higher than the $3.11 per share estimates from Wall Street analysts. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in the company’s statement, “It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4.” The quarter ended on June 26, 2010, just two days after the iPhone 4 was released, which makes the sales figure all the more impressive. This quarter — perhaps more than any other — Apple has faced big competition in the U.S. from the likes of the Google-backed Android platform. It’s telling that international sales accounted for 52% of Apple’s quarterly revenue and that the continued growth in countries outside of the U.S. is having a positive impact on all of the company’s major product categories. Apple will be holding its quarterly conference call today at 5:00pm EDT/2:00pm PT here. Reviews: Android, Google More About: apple, earnings, ipad, iphone 4, quarterly earnings For more Business coverage:
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| Google Buys 20 Years’ Worth of Wind Farm Energy Posted: 20 Jul 2010 12:50 PM PDT   Google has just signed a contract with an Iowa wind farm to purchase clean energy at a set rate for the next 20 years. This move is in keeping with Google’s strong environmental stance; with specific regard to energy consumption and wind-generated energy, the company has been championing PowerMeter and has invested $38 million in wind farms this year alone. In fact, Google gained the ability to buy and sell electricity like any other public utility in February in order to achieve its goals for carbon neutrality and more efficient energy use in its massive data centers. This Power Purchase Agreement is the first deal brokered under the auspices of Google Energy. On the official Google blog, Google’s SVP Operations Urs Hoelzle wrote, “On July 30 we will begin purchasing the clean energy from 114 megawatts of wind generation at the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa at a predetermined rate for 20 years… This power is enough to supply several data centers.” The company’s long-term commitment will generate a significant amount of capital for NextEra to develop more wind projects. “While we are happy to be purchasing renewable energy as part of our environmental commitment, this is also a structure that makes long term financial sense for Google,” wrote another company rep. “Through the long term purchase of renewable energy at a predetermined price, we're partially protecting ourselves against future increases in power prices. This is a case where buying green makes business sense.” What do you think of Google’s latest move in its broader push for greener energy sources? Do you think the company is making a significant and positive impact on the environment, setting a good example for other corporations, or both? Reviews: Google More About: energy, glean tech, Google, green, green tech, pwoermeter, wind farm For more Tech coverage:
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| iPad Revenue Tops $2 Billion for Apple Posted: 20 Jul 2010 12:49 PM PDT   In its just released third quarter earnings report, Apple indicates that it has sold 3.27 million iPads as of June 26. That translates to more than $2 billion in revenue for the company in a product category that didn't even exist one year ago. Putting that in further perspective, it's more money than Apple brought in through sales of iPods ($1.5 billion) and a bit less than half of its revenue from iPhone ($5.3 billion). It also represents about two-thirds of MacBook sales ($3.0 billion), another interesting nugget in light of a market many are expecting to shift towards tablets. Speaking of his company's performance, CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement that “It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4. iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.” We'll have more coverage of Apple's earnings report in just a bit. More About: apple, earnings, ipad For more Business coverage:
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| A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Social Media Posted: 20 Jul 2010 12:28 PM PDT
Fast forward to today and the sites we use and the way we use them have shifted dramatically. Facebook is closing in on Google as the Web's most trafficked site. There are hundreds of thousands of mobile applications that users access across a variety of smartphones, and social media is increasingly being consumed and produced on the go. And "Like" buttons have become the new form of social currency for publishers around the world. How did we get to this point? Here's a quick look back at the last five years in social media. The News Feed Brings It All TogetherIn late 2006, Facebook introduced the news feed – a controversial concept at the time (incidentally, there are many parallels between it and Facebook's most recent privacy issues) that has since become perhaps the most important and oft-imitated feature in social networking. It's hard to remember life before the news feed, but it consisted mostly of visiting your friend's profiles, making wall comments and perhaps maintaining a photo gallery. For Facebook, this innovation (and a lack of innovation by then leading social network MySpace) is the one that established the service's utility and has been at the heart of its expansion since — showing you at a glance what your friends are up to on Facebook and around the Web. Nowadays, whether it's Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr or yes, MySpace, the experience very much centers around seeing the most recent updates from your friends, in reverse-chronological order. Video Emerges as Social Media's Perfect ComplimentA few months before the birth of Mashable, YouTube made its debut on the Web in February 2005, making an unprecedented ascent into the mainstream consciousness. By December of that year, it had already become the most popular video site, and by July of 2006, it was serving 100 million video views per day (today, it serves more than 2 billion views daily). Then, in October, Google bought YouTube for a whopping $1.6 billion, just 18 months after the site launched. At the end of last year, I declared YouTube the top social media innovation of the decade, as it has come to embody so much of what we now know as social media, from highly shareable content to citizen journalism to the ability of anyone with a camera to claim their 15 minutes of fame. Social Networks Spread Their WingsIn early 2008, a new battle in the social media space emerged – the battle over portable identity. While OpenID had long promised a single sign-on for third-party websites, Facebook, MySpace and Google started to realize that your social networking profile had potential to be used as your identity across the Web, while at the same time enabling publishers to make their sites more social. Facebook Connect emerged, as did Google Friend Connect and MySpaceID. Eventually, as Twitter's popularity grew, they also got in the game. Today, Facebook Connect – which has evolved into the Facebook Open Graph – is used by hundreds of thousands of websites that can add simple copy and paste code to let their visitors "Like" stuff; "Likes" that are then pushed back into the Facebook News Feed. MySpace and Twitter ultimately hooked up with Google Friend Connect, which is now in use on some 9 million sites. Mobile Makes Social IndispensibleWhile there's been a running joke that it was going to be "the year of mobile" for about a decade, it's only within the last few years that smartphone use has exploded, and along with it, use of social media while not in front of a computer. According to data published earlier this year, 30% of smartphone users now access social networking sites from their phone's web browser – and that doesn't even take into account people who download apps on their iPhone, Android, BlackBerry or other devices. Thanks to increasing mobile broadband speeds, video is also going mobile. YouTube now serves up 100 million videos to mobile devices each day, and with more and more new phones offering video capture capabilities, we're also seeing smartphones become an important part of content production. What's Next?Now that we've established where we are – a social ecosystem that's moving beyond the walls of individual sites to mobile devices and third-party applications – the question is: what's next? Over the next month, we'll be exploring some of the past five years more in-depth, and concluding with a look at what the next five years hold. Stay tuned to Mashable as we celebrate our five year anniversary! Series supported by IDG  In honor of Mashable’s five-year anniversary, this series is supported by IDG. Customers are talking about your brand and products — find out what they are saying with IDG’s brand listening services. With IDG Social Scout you can listen to your prospects' real-time conversations and understand the nature and sentiment of the dialogue. This information is key to help develop marketing messages and content that resonate with your audience. Learn more about how IDG Social Scout can help you by clicking here. More Social Media Resources From Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndrewLilley Reviews: Android, BlackBerry Rocks!, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Google, Mashable, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, google friend connect, iPhone, iStockphoto More About: facebook, Mobile 2.0, mobile video, myspace, social media, social networking, social-media-retrospective-series, trending, twitter, video, youtube For more Social Media coverage:
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| Work on Databases Remotely with Filemaker Go for iPhone and iPad Posted: 20 Jul 2010 12:27 PM PDT   FileMaker has just released FileMaker Go for the iPhone and iPad, giving FileMaker Pro users the ability to work remotely and interface with their databases from their favorite iOS device. These apps allow users to view and interact with FileMaker Pro databases, make modifications to the remote systems, and download or copy databases from the web or from your Mac or PC. It’s further proof that mobile devices — both phones and tablets — are being taken more seriously by business users. As business adoption increases, more robust application support has followed. FileMaker Go is sold separately for the iPhone [iTunes link] and iPad [iTunes link] for $19.99 and $39.99, respectively. This isn’t your typical application pricing, but you essentially get the full functioning FileMaker client on your portable device. You can do almost anything with the data that you could in the FileMaker Pro desktop app, including sorting, connecting to external SQL data sources and even running most of the scripts that work with FileMaker Pro. For remote connection (which can take place over WiFi or 3G), you can access the data and make changes directly. If you want to copy files and make changes, you can share databases via iTunes or download database files from Dropbox, Box.net or e-mail. Check out these video previews of FileMaker Go: FileMaker Go for iPhone: FileMaker Go for iPad: Signs of Things to ComeSince the iPad was released, we’ve seen more and more robust business applications head to mobile platforms. For example, the Omni Group released an iPad version of OmniGraffle [iTunes link] back in April and it has been extremely successful. The fact that FileMaker Inc., an Apple subsidiary, is finally releasing a business-class product for the iPhone and iPad is a sign that the market is aching for more powerful tools so that professional users can do more work from their mobile devices. We expect to see even more business-class applications hit mobile devices as the year progresses. Reviews: Dropbox, OmniGraffle, iPhone More About: filemaker, filemaker go, filemaker pro, ipad apps, iphone apps For more Mobile coverage:
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| Google: Mobile Search and Ads Growing Rapidly in 2010 Posted: 20 Jul 2010 12:12 PM PDT   Not only has Google’s mobile search volume grown more than fivefold over the course of the last two years, but the clickthrough rates for its click-to-call mobile ads do 6-8% better than search ads without a number or URL associated with it, according to Mike Steib, director of emerging platforms at Google. Steib, who participated in a panel today at PaidContent2010 Mobile Conference in New York, said that 2010 just might be the year that mobile takes off. “We’re seeing lots and lots of search activity on smartphones.” Turning to Rachel Pasqua, the director of the mobile group at iCrossing, Steib joked about turning the panel into a business meeting and encouraged her to buy more ads for their clients. Pasqua responded by saying that many of her clients have been very happy with the ads and have had “tremendous success.” Finally the Year of Mobile?We have heard the phrase "Year of Mobile" in years past, and yet predictions have repeatedly failed to satisfy the hype — at least until 2010. In the first three months of this year, for example, users with smartphones searched 62% more than they did in the previous three months. Search on Android devices has grown 300% in the first half of 2010 with about 160,000 new Android devices being activated everyday. Although Steib wouldn’t specify the exact numbers, he did say that tens of millions of people make searches through Google on mobile devices each week, generating hundreds of millions of searches. And iPhone users, who dominate the smartphone market, are performing 50 times more searches than users of standard mobile features. Mobile Ads On the RiseMobile ads are doing better too, Steib said, especially click-to-call ads, which enable advertisers to add phone numbers to their ads. Advertisers are able to track how many calls they are getting per keyword, ad group or campaign. The click-to-call campaigns with location extensions or URLs increase 8% in average clickthrough rates, and campaigns with phone numbers perform 6% better than mobile ads without an extension. It makes sense; businesses get a direct call from a potential customer or a click to their website. The biggest differentiator between desktop and mobile ads is location targeting. If users search for something on a mobile app, they are “astronomically” more likely to click on the ad presented to them if it is for a nearby business. Google expanded the click-to-call campaign by offering it to local advertisers in addition to national ones just four months ago, so perhaps the increase in click-through rates is being affected by the large advertisers. When asked about the looming Apple’s iAd product, Steib said it will be a great solution as long as it is part of a menu of choices. He said that publishers will likely be interested in iAds, but will want to have an array of choices for advertising to be able to reach their audience. Reviews: Android, Google More About: android, click-to-call ads, Google, icrossing, iphone, MARKETING, mike steib, mobile ads, smartphones For more Mobile coverage:
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| Slacker Radio Integrates ABC News Content into Its Music Service Posted: 20 Jul 2010 11:03 AM PDT   Good news for Slacker Radio fans — the web/mobile music application integrated ABC News into its stable of content today, allowing users to customize their news consumption as well as incorporate it into their Slacker stations. Slacker Radio has gained its share of popularity among music fans for offering a nifty cache feature that other mobile music apps lack; after creating a station, you can save it for offline use (perfect for underground subway rides or long plane trips). Now it’s distinguishing itself from other services even more by incorporating still more diverse content. Slacker isn’t the first service of its kind to incorporate news content — Sirius | XM does something similar — but this move does serve to give Slacker what could be seen as an edge over Pandora, which only serves up music and doesn’t allow caching. For 14 days, basic Slacker users will be able to access ABC News content; Slacker Plus users can keep on tuning in after the two-week period ends (the Plus subscription is $3.99 per month). The content — which includes segments from Good Morning America, anchored by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Juju Chang and Sam Champion; and Nightline anchored by Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir — is located within the mobile app in a folder marked “News,” and works in much the same way music stations do (i.e. you can skip stories). You can also choose to add hourly news updates to any of your stations, but the process to do so is laborious, to say the least. First, you have to futz around on the website, create a station, go to the “Fine Tune” tab to select that option, save the station, make it a “Favorite,” and, if you’re already logged into Slacker on your mobile device, sign in and out to make the Favorited station appear. Sure, you can choose to “Fine Tune” any pre-existing station — which is easier than creating your own playlist — or choose to have ABC News turned on for all your stations by surfing over to “Account Settings,” but all this still requires signing online. We wish it were possible to do all that within the app, as going through all that song-and-dance degrades the whole easy and accessible aspect of it. Reviews: Pandora, news More About: abc, App, Mobile 2.0, music, News, Slacker-Radio For more Mobile coverage:
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| Kinect for Xbox 360 Will Cost $150, Game Included Posted: 20 Jul 2010 10:38 AM PDT
This price is unsurprising since numerous retailers and e-tailers, including Microsoft’s own online store, have listed Kinect for $149 at one time or another. The bundle is no surprise either, and in fact, it’s very good news. The 4 GB Xbox 360 Slim fills in for the hard drive-less Xbox 360 Arcade model, which was never an attractive proposition for gamers. Kinect and the Xbox 360 Slim were formally announced at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles last month. Since Kinect Adventures comes bundled with all Kinect devices just like Wii Sports comes with the Nintendo Wii, families and individuals will be able to pick up and play without investing in new games. Once those consumers start itching for more, though, most of the games for Kinect will cost $50 — $10 less than “core gamer” titles like Halo Reach or Call of Duty: Black Ops. That includes third-party titles like MTV Games’s Dance Central, which we previewed at E3. EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich notes that $150 is fair since game-specific peripherals with much more limited uses are already selling like hotcakes at the same price. “Game specific peripherals have a limited shelf-life in terms of appeal; there are only so many sessions of Guitar Hero one can enjoy before game fatigue sets in,” he says. “With the Kinect, however, there is the possibility of a wide array of games across a broad range of genres, potentially giving the Kinect a much longer shelf-life than a typical peripheral.” Do you agree? Is $150 the right price? Let us know in the comments.  [via Joystiq] More About: bundle, console, gaming, kinect, microsoft, motion gaming, price, pricing, project natal, video games, xbox, Xbox 360 For more Tech coverage:
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| Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream Posted: 20 Jul 2010 10:21 AM PDT   The QR code, or quick response code, is simply a two-dimensional bar code that came into being in 1994 and found a large audience in Japan. Stateside, however, QR codes — while clever for tying real-world objects to online content — have always remained on the outskirts of public awareness. Nonetheless, we’ve seen QR codes employed for creative purposes. The Detroit Red Wings interactive programs and the giant QR codes in Times Square come to mind. Each of these serves as prime examples of how QR codes could be on the verge of their breakout moment. What the technology needs in order to finally make it to the mainstream are applications that take the nerd-factor out of the QR code scan, and drive home the potential rewards of seeing a code, scanning it, and then engaging with the served-up content. Stickybits and SCVNGR are startups that integrate the barcode scan in intelligent and fun ways. They’re poised to propel the movement of the next generation QR code, and here’s why. The Potential of Collective Scanning Stickybits brings context to real-world objects with its next generation approach to the QR code. The mobile app is primarily a barcode scanner — powered by Red Laser — but it takes the technology into the realm of fun by creating a social and shared experience around any item in the physical world that possesses a barcode. Download the iPhone or Android application, scan your favorite cereal box, add an item — maybe a related recipe, but any video, photo, audio clip or comment will do — and you’ve just started a digital thread around that item. Where Stickybits succeeds is in making the scan feel familiar. People have already caught on to using Red Laser to scan barcodes on packages for comparison pricing. So Stickybits is nothing more than a barcode scanner for comparison multimedia conversations. Same idea, different application. It’s this approach that could finally help to bridge the gap between barcodes on packages and the still unfamiliar QR codes popping up in the real world. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Stickybits scans standard barcodes and QR codes, which eliminates the need for users to hunt down other QR code scanner apps. Of course, Stickybits offers tons of potential for both brands and marketers. The service essentially creates a social graph around things (products), so that alone makes it a new platform for digital exposure. The brands and marketers that can motivate fans to take to product-related conversation chains via Stickybits, with or without a nudge in the right direction, could find a distinct advantage over competitors. This is especially true for brands that find meaningful ways to participate, even it if is just by listening or following along. In this way, Stickybits is like a new frontier for savvy early adopter brands. Stickybits also makes more aggressive brand plays possible. Pepsi, for example, signed on as a sponsor. Stickybits users who scan Pepsi cans and other Pepsi products will see a sponsored message from Pepsi atop the bits threads. It’s somewhat akin to Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, and could prove to be both a money-making vehicle for Stickybits and an alternative way for advertisers to get exposure. Success in this realm will certainly depend on the branded message that scanners see. Anything too pushy will discourage app users from scanning product barcodes, which would be a lose-lose for everyone. For more guerilla-style street campaigns, Stickybits sells barcode stickers, and users can print codes onto gear or download and print their own codes from home. Gaming and QR Codes, A Perfect Match Location-based services have been around for years. Loopt and Brightkite were early pioneers in encouraging mobile owners to share their location with friends via GPS-enabled devices. Both services are still around today and each have their own appeal, but Foursquare, the second coming of Dodgeball, has pushed location-sharing into mainstream hands. Foursquare did it by hooking users with simple and engaging game mechanics, and now everyone, especially Yelp, is anxious to follow suit. SCVNGR — which bills itself as a mobile way to participate in place-based, scavenger hunt-like challenges — is in part a checkin application, but with the gaming experience at the core of the service. Users can check-in at a venue using the SCVNGR mobile app, but it’s what happens after the checkin that makes this an application worthy of note. SCVNGR is all about activity, and while it can be used as a Foursquare alternative, there’s so much business appeal here that it kind of exists in a new category of its own. Cities, museums, small businesses, universities and even brokers have already turned to SCVNGR to create their own location-based treks for customers or fans. goSmithsonian, for instance, used SCVNGR to build a trek through nine of the Smithsonian museums that require solving clues and completing challenges. More recently The Boston Globe’s trek involved five different content-driven, city-based challenges. Treks are about mobile, challenge-based discovery, so they’re certainly Foursquare and Gowalla-esque in nature, but as the Smithsonian and The Boston Globe examples demonstrate, there’s more here than just checkins. It’s within these challenges and treks where QR codes make their appearance and find real-life relevance. SCVNGR supports QR code challenges, so players can be tasked to scan a QR code to complete the challenge and earn the points. Of course, the QR code challenge is also a nearly fail-proof way to ensure that a player is where they say they are, which means it adds verification to the checkin. Since the application doubles as a QR code scanner, the scanning activity happens right within the game and helps to familiarize users with the foreign notion of a barcode scan. It’s this familiarization that will help make QR codes recognizable and decodable to the human eye. Obviously marketers and brands alike have shown an increasing interest in creative location-based initiatives. As interest continues to grow in this space, SCVNGR has a solid shot at becoming the de facto mobile application to facilitate mobile scavenger hunts, and propel QR codes to mainstream adoption. Challenges Still RemainAmidst all the possibilities, barcode scanning apps and services still face a number of obstacles before the general public will embrace them. The biggest hurdle is the fact that there are so many disparate applications that support QR code scanning, each with their own purpose or twist. Of course, there’s also custom barcode/scanner services like Microsoft Tag, which is progressive in its own way but requires that users have a special app (they can’t use generic QR code scanners) to process Tag codes in the real world. It’s asking too much of people to make them distinguish between a regular barcode, a QR code and some other custom code. We need simplification and standards. The barcode scan is also heavily dependent on the user wanting to interact with it. They have to pull out their smartphone, load up an app and scan the code in question. It’s a matter of a few seconds, but the barcode is likely a missed opportunity, lost in the real world as real people race to get from point A to point B. Thankfully, Stickybits and SCVNGR both tackle the “why should I scan this?” problem, and we’ll be watching closely to see if that’s enough to push this edgy technology beyond the niche.
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| Google Image Search Gets an Overhaul [PICS] Posted: 20 Jul 2010 09:59 AM PDT   Google is launching a revamped version of Google Image Search, which starts rolling out to users today. The announcement was delivered by Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, here at a press conference at the company’s offices in San Francisco. In a colorful room filled with journalists, Mayer and her team dived into the current technology underlying Google Image Search, but quickly turned their attention towards an array of new features that will greet searchers starting today. Here’s what the company had to say about the updated version of Google Image Search: The New Google Images: Press Conference NotesAt the start of its press conference, Google demonstrated some of Image Search’s current features. One of those features is Similar Images, a tool that recognizes images and finds similar images. Google Color Search (find images based on color) was also demoed. Google summed up the current version of Image Search by saying that it is a simple interface with powerful tools. There are more than one billion page views a day, with 10 billion images indexed. However, the company believes that it can do better. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Thus the revamped version of Google Image Search. The new Google Images is a far more visual interface. Instead of lines of images with text, Google Image Search results now display larger thumbnails with very little text through a hover effect. Text information such as file names, file size and URL are now included when you hover over an image. The landing page has also been massively revamped. The familiar Google Images frames have been removed in favor of displaying a full size image on top of the destination website. Once you close the image, you are taken to the actual destination page, rather than a Google-framed website. Finally, Google has announced a product for advertisers: Google Image Search Ads, a new image-based ad format for Image Search. In its Q&A session, Google stated that there will be a premium for Google Image Search ads — not surprisingly, they will cost more than text ads. The revamped version of Image Search has already started its rollout and will complete by the end of the week. This update will only be available on “modern browsers” at the onset, specifically Chrome, Safari, Firefox 3.0 and up, IE7 and IE8. This is a developing story. More in a few minutes… Reviews: Chrome, Firefox, Google, Safari More About: Google, Google images, google search For more Social Media coverage:
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| App Lets Brands Add Groupon-Like Deals to Facebook Pages Posted: 20 Jul 2010 09:29 AM PDT   Wildfire, makers of promotional tools for brands on Facebook, is releasing a new application that lets marketers and brands turn their Facebook Page or website in to a deal hub. The new application is called Group Deals, and it is designed to be like a do-it-yourself Groupon add-on to Facebook Pages and company websites via Facebook Connect. Wildfire users can create and define their own deal-a-day style promotions, which will allow interested brand fans to purchase the deals via their PayPal accounts. During the setup process, application users can set the value of the deal, define the threshold needed to activate it and link it to their e-commerce system through their own pre-defined discount codes. Brands can also set deal terms and conditions and customize the appearance of the check-out page, as well as use their own images to tweak the application’s appearance. The final step is to the publish the deal to a Facebook Page or a company website. Given that Group Deals are heavily tied to the Facebook platform, users who sign up for deals can publish the activity to their newsfeed or invite their Facebook friends to join them to unlock the promotion in the question. Wildfire is using the PayPal API, which means PayPal will help them to track and manage the entire deal buying process, and automatically notify buyers if and when the deal is activated. As the group buying trend continues to grow, brands and marketers are sure to be curious about how they can apply the deeply discounted deal model to their own products and services. Wildfire’s Group Deals option lets them do just that within Facebook’s network of nearly 500 million members and on their own sites. Obviously, there’s huge potential here. We expect creative brand campaigns tied to group discounts, and even think there’s enough here to help brands use social media to significantly impact sales.  [img credit: the justified sinner] Reviews: Facebook More About: facebook, groupon, MARKETING, wildfire For more Business coverage:
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| 10 Tips for Corporate Blogging Posted: 20 Jul 2010 08:31 AM PDT   This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. In a world where small businesses with corporate blogs receive 55 percent more traffic than small businesses that don’t blog, companies should be taking note on how to improve their blogs, attract more readers and get more results. But still, a lot of companies with corporate blogs seem to be bogged down in uniformed policies and simply aren’t thinking outside the box. Afraid to take on colorful personalities or step a bit outside of their company’s happenings, many corporate blogs employ an official tone announcing the play-by-play updates of company news. This is just one mistake that businesses are making in the blogging world. There is a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed when it comes to improving corporate blogs, but here we’ve narrowed down the key elements that companies should focus on. Here are 10 tips for corporate bloggers hoping to make a positive splash in their communities. 1. Establish a Content Theme and Editorial Guidelines When creating a product or service, you must be able to define the value that it’s bringing to consumers. In the case of a blog, you need to clearly define the focused theme that your team will follow. Choose a blog name and theme that fits well with your company’s expertise, but don’t be afraid to branch out into a larger space. Your blog should provide pertinent information for consumers interested in your area of business. Once you’ve chosen an area to cover, create a set of editorial guidelines that your bloggers will follow. Guidelines can include appropriate verticals and topics to cover, as well as how and when posts should be written. A clear goal and theme for your blog will make it easier for users to know what to expect. For example, Dogstuff, an online shop for canine gifts, toys and supplies, hosts a blog called Dog Blog. The blog is simple and to the point, and it’s more than evident that the blog is about dogs. The theme is specific enough for readers to understand what they may find, but it is such a broad topic, that almost limitless posts are possible. 2. Choose a Blogging Team and ProcessChoose a team of core bloggers to begin your blogging adventure. Select individuals that are knowledgeable and comfortable writing about the areas you would like to cover. Also, it’s key to choose people who write well and have a great online presence. Train your bloggers on the editorial guidelines and decide what type of writing and editing process you would like to put in place. Some companies prefer to elect an editor or group of editors to have a final look at all blog posts, while other companies allow their bloggers to publish directly. Figure out the level of comfort you have with your blogging, editing and publishing process and implement a procedure that works well for your team. 3. Humanize Your CompanyA company blog is an opportune place to let down your hair and get to know your customers. Think of it as a conversation between people, not between a brand and one person. In order to have a conversation, you need two people — a blogger and a reader. Give your corporate bloggers the freedom to be themselves. Encourage them to have their own personalities and writing styles. This type of diversity is more representative of your company than any monotonous tone that you could manufacture on your own. Always keep in mind that your blog is about people connecting and conversing with people, not a corporation. Throw away that “corporate” concept, and you’ll be ahead of most. 4. Avoid PR and Marketing If maintained correctly, your blog will act as a repository of real analysis and opinions provided by your company’s fine employees. The type of insight and expertise that a blog can demonstrate is far more useful than any PR pitch that you could post. Stay away from trying to sell your readers. There are appropriate venues for that, and your blog shouldn’t be one of them. Continue to add to the conversation, adding value for your readers. Your opinions will be priceless. And for the times that you don’t have an opinion on an important topic, gauge your community’s opinion by taking a poll or interviewing key people. Lululemon Athletica, a yoga-inspired athletic apparel company, constantly adds value to its community through its blog by providing posts on topics that their core followers would appreciate. Some of the most recent posts were on how to do a handstand, protect the lower back, and explore a new city. Readers will get a taste of the massive knowledge bank available at your company. Take your mind off of marketing, and you’ll find that the analysis that you provide sells your company better than a press release ever could. 5. Welcome CriticismOftentimes, corporations shy away from opening up their websites and blogs for commenting and interaction, because they are afraid of the harm that criticisms may cause. Make it a policy to welcome criticism, thinking of it as an opportunity for feedback and improvement. There are lots of ways to deal with negative feedback, so don’t be afraid to open up to your community. 6. Outline a Comment PolicyBe aware that if you open up your blog for full feedback (which you should), you will get a variety of comments — constructive, complimentary, hateful, and spam. Be prepared for everything. Create a comment policy that your team can follow, and make sure everyone is on same page. Outline the types of comments that should be responded to, deleted or passed along for follow-up. 7. Get Social Make sure your blog is open for comments and utilizes share tools, such as Facebook, Twitter and Digg. Share tools allow your users to pass along your content. Why not allow your readers to promote your work? Put forth an effort to respond to comments or forward them on when a specific employee could offer the best expertise in that area. Make sure each employee maintains a personable tone when responding to comments, so that readers know that your bloggers are genuine. Lastly, if you haven’t done so already, implement a social media strategy for your blog, creating the appropriate profiles across social networks that your readers and customers are active on. Usually, Facebook and Twitter are a good start, and YouTube is a must for video-sharing. When you post on your blog, announce the new post on your social networks and ask for your readers’ opinions on the subject. Promote your social presence on your blog, by implementing links, buttons and widgets that link to your social profiles. This will enable readers to stay connected with you across platforms. Whole Foods’ blog, Whole Story, for example, displays its social links prominently at the top of the blog. 8. Promote Your BlogJust as you would promote any other company initiative, get the word out about your blog. Share the URL on your website, social networks, business cards, e-mails, and advertisements. Without promotion, building an audience can be difficult. Get behind the quality work that your team is putting into the blog and promote away. 9. Monitor Mentions and FeedbackOne way to get a pulse on your blog and its effects on the community is to monitor mentions and feedback. Set up Google Alerts for your brand, blog name and any keywords that might be relevant. Search on Technorati and Twitter for those set terms. To make things easier with Twitter, set up custom search columns in a Twitter client, such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or CoTweet. The columns will update in real time, keeping you up-to-date on brand and blog mentions at all times. Getting more sophisticated, you should look into social media brand management tools, such as Radian6, for monitoring keywords across social sites. 10. Track Everything You’re probably accustomed to tracking everything, and your blog is no different. If your blog is a page on your website, make sure your current web analytics tools are set to track all the same data that it monitors on your website. If you don’t currently have a web analytics tool, check out Google Analytics, a free analytics tool with an easy-to-use interface. At the minimum, make sure you’re tracking site traffic, where referrals are coming from, and traffic-wise which posts are doing best. Learn from the data and adjust your blogging guidelines accordingly. For all of the bloggers out there, which tips would you add to this list of corporate bloggers rules to live by? More Blogging Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, rubenhi Reviews: CoTweet, Digg, Facebook, Google Analytics, HootSuite, Radian6, TweetDeck, Twitter, YouTube, blog, iStockphoto More About: blog, bloggers, blogging, corporate blog, corporate bloggers, corporate blogging, corporate blogs, Dog Blog, dogstuff, whole foods, Whole Story For more Business coverage:
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| Is Your Boyfriend Reading Your Facebook Messages? [STATS] Posted: 20 Jul 2010 08:30 AM PDT   According to a recent survey put out by AskMen.com, dudes are a nosy bunch — more than a few admitted to snooping around their partners’ inboxes. AskMen’s “Great Male Survey” — which is currently live on the site, chock full of manly stats — was conducted over a two-month period, during which the website collected the responses of more than 100,000 dudes. The questions range from Facebook use to online dating, but we found a certain collection of stats intriguing: those pertaining to online privacy and relationships. According to the survey, by and large, men believe that privacy is dead online. Although 21.31% opined that privacy is alive and kickin’, 53.18% answered, “Yes, but not online,” and 25.51% said no. The gaggle of hombres’ answers in other arenas backed up this assertion. When asked if they had ever read a partner’s Facebook messages, e-mail or other electronic correspondence, the men answered thusly:
While 32.73% is a still a goodly number of considerate bros — and while the survey doesn’t specify what “with my partner’s knowledge” means (it could entail, say, looking up flight information or something of that nature) — it seems a pretty substantial number of guys have snooped on a partner. Take comfort, though, ladies and gents — dudes are decidedly not down with actual stalking. When asked, “If you had the ability to, would you track your partner’s physical movement (with a GPS implant, for example)?” only 3.56% said “Yes,” while 79.28% said no. That’s rather heartening, but considering men are more down with Facebook (69.55% use it regularly) than geo-location (54.55% don’t use Foursquare or other geolocation apps because they don’t understand it or know what it is), perhaps it’s just a matter of time before men start embracing radar love. Totally kidding (I hope). image courtesy of iStockphoto, shironosov Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, iStockphoto More About: facebook, foursquare, online dating, social media, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| MOG Brings Unlimited Streaming Music to iPhone and Android Posted: 20 Jul 2010 08:03 AM PDT   On-demand subscription music service MOG has just launched its official mobile app for the iPhone, iPod touch and Android devices. MOG originally unveiled its mobile app at SXSW earlier this year, but it’s just now becoming available. While the Android version isn’t showing up in the Android Market at this time, the iPhone and iPod touch variant [iTunes link] is available in the App Store now. In addition to streaming playlists, albums and radio stations, users can also download tracks for offline listening, either in 64 kpbs or 320 kpbs quality. That’s a nice feature that brings MOG in-line with similar offerings from Rhapsody, which also has its own mobile apps. MOG for iPhoneWe had a chance to play with the MOG iPhone app earlier this morning and were pretty impressed with the features. Controls are easy to use and the app is easy to navigate. Searching for and downloading albums, tracks or playlists was a breeze and audio quality was good.  However, right now, the biggest problem with MOG (at least the iPhone version) is that while it supports iOS 4, it does not have multitasking built-in and it doesn’t support the iOS 4 playback widget. Pandora and Rdio for iPhone already supports both of these features. Multitasking in particular is something we really want to see in the next release. Having said that, we do like being able to download tracks for offline listening. The app is off to a good start. Check out this video for more details: Streaming Subscription Space Is Getting CrowdedA year ago, the big name in the streaming music subscription space was Spotify, and indeed, the European service redefined a market that that was in a major slump. However, as American consumers continue to wait for Spotify’s U.S. expansion, other services have stepped in to fill the void. In addition to MOG, Rdio, which is still in private beta for U.S. users is also gaining lots of steam. Hailing from the founders of Skype, Rdio already has an iPhone app, which Mashable’s Jenn Van Grove detailed and reviewed last week. Industry veterans like Rhapsody are also in the mobile space with both Android and iPhone apps. And this is even before discussing existing streaming music services like Slacker Radio and Pandora. What separates services like Rdio, Spotify and MOG from the competition, however, is that they allow both on-demand listening of certain albums and tracks and streaming playlists. The services can also be costly. In the U.S., both MOG and Rdio cost $10 per month for a mobile and desktop streaming plan. $10 a month isn’t bad for all-you-can-listen music, but it doesn’t fit into every user’s budget. Are you using any streaming music subscription services? What do you think of MOG Mobile? Reviews: Android, Android Market, App Store, Pandora, Rhapsody, Skype, Spotify More About: Android apps, iphone apps, MOG, music, music subscription services, rdio, spotify, streaming music For more Mobile coverage:
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| Nokia Looking for a New CEO [REPORT] Posted: 20 Jul 2010 07:08 AM PDT   Nokia is looking for a new CEO, the WSJ reports. Although the rumor hasn’t been officially confirmed, sources say that the mobile giant is unhappy with the way current CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is leading the company — particularly when it comes to smartphones. Nokia hasn’t yet released a smartphone that can compete with Apple’s iPhone or any of the top Android devices, and it’s been frighteningly slow when it comes to adapting to new conditions in the smartphone market. It took Nokia years to realize that Symbian is not a great fit for a top-notch smartphone, and MeeGo, Nokia and Intel’s new smartphone platform, is still in its infancy. Three weeks ago, Nokia’s new Head of Mobile Solutions Anssi Vanjoki wrote enthusiastically that he’s “committed, perhaps even obsessed, with getting Nokia back to being number one in high-end devices.” His note, however, would hardly convince an astute observer that Nokia knows where it’s going when it comes to high-end smartphones. Vanjoki praises N8, Nokia’s first Symbian 3 device, but admits right away that it is also the last Nokia’s N-series smartphone based on Symbian 3. He praises MeeGo, but also declares that a Symbian 4 N-series device is a “very strong possibility.” Nokia seems to be ready to alter its approach, but does it have a clear vision of where to go next? Nokia is “serious about making a change” and its board members are “supposed to make a decision by the end of the month,” WSJ’s source said. From what we’ve seen lately, maybe a new CEO is exactly what Nokia needs. Reviews: Android, iPhone More About: ceo, Mobile 2.0, Nokia, smartphones For more Business coverage:
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