Selasa, 31 Agustus 2010

Mashable: Latest 27 News Updates - including “Facebook Down for Many Users”

Mashable: Latest 27 News Updates - including “Facebook Down for Many Users”

Link to Mashable!

Facebook Down for Many Users

Posted: 31 Aug 2010 05:08 AM PDT


In the last couple of hours, Facebook has been unstable for many users (including us), according to numerous tweets from those affected. In the last 15 minutes or so, Facebook seems to be completely inaccessible.

While downtime happens far more rarely to Facebook than, say, Twitter, world’s largest social network has occasionally had stability issues. It’s a big deal: with 500 million active users, complaints about downtime mount up pretty quickly.

We've contacted Facebook to see what's wrong. We'll keep you updated as we learn more.

More About: facebook, social networking

For more Tech coverage:

Digital Coupon Clipping Comes to the iPad Via CardStar

Posted: 31 Aug 2010 05:03 AM PDT


Today, a Verizon-backed startup is releasing its iPad application and introducing a new functionality — digital coupon clipping.

CardStar makes mobile applications to digitally manage retailer club and membership cards. CardStar for iPad doubles as a personalized, digital circular for coupons. The app lets users discover coupons relevant to each of their stored rewards cards, clip and save them to their loyalty cards, and redeem them on their next shopping trip. Clipped coupons will automatically be deducted at the register for all applicable purchases.

At launch, Zavers, an online coupon provider, is powering CardStar’s repository of coupons; but the startup plans to work with additional third-party online coupon services moving forward. Zavers primarily issues online coupons for grocery store chains such as A&P and Superfresh on the East Coast. With the CardStar iPad app, users can add their Zavars account to browse and clip coupons with ease.

Users can fire up the iPad app to browse available coupons by club card. They then simply click a coupon to attach it to their card for future redemption. They can also view coupons by All, Unsaved and Saved filters; send a coupon via email to a friend; and track how much they’re saving.

The iPad app comes with a few additional nice touches, including Foursquare integration and the ability to view nearby coupon offers on a map.

Given that coupons are limited to Zaver’s offerings, CardStar for iPad’s coupon clipping functionality is a bit premature to be useful for everyone. Still, the app was released to keep CardStar ahead of the curve and prove that the service can be a platform with the power to complete the loop between loyalty card, consumer and retailer coupons. On those fronts, it certainly delivers.

Would you find this app useful? What other coupon sites should CardStar include next?

More About: cardstar, ipad, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, mobile coupons

For more Mobile coverage:

Google Wave Is Not Dead (Yet)

Posted: 31 Aug 2010 03:29 AM PDT


Google’s Wave was a project that garnered a huge amount of interest, only to see the buzz completely die within a year of the launch, even after Wave stopped being invite-only and opened to the public.

This prompted Google to shut the service down in August, making some parts of Wave open source. Furthermore, Google promised to create tools that will help users extract their content from Wave.

Now, in a blog post, Google has an update on Wave, promising two things. First, Wave will be available “at least through the end of the year.” Furthermore, tools that will enable users to export their waves will be available “before the end of the year.”

Also, Google claims it’s still looking into “ways to continue and extend Wave technology in other Google products,” as well as “open sourcing more of (Google’s) code.” So, while Wave as it was will probably never make a comeback, don’t be surprised if you see a feature or two from Wave reincarnated in Gmail.

More About: Google, wave

For more Tech coverage:

iTunes to Double Song Sample Length [REPORT]

Posted: 31 Aug 2010 12:46 AM PDT


Are you frustrated by the fact that song samples on iTunes are only 30 seconds in length, which is often hardly enough time to get a true taste of the song?

If so, you’re in luck: according to CNET, which cites multiple sources with knowledge of the matter, Apple plans to extend the length of song samples to a far more enjoyable one minute.

Apple declined to comment, but it’s quite possible that it will announce the change at a music-related event tomorrow. Apple is also rumored to unveil a new iPod touch at the event, while a launch of a 99-cent TV show rental program, as well as a relaunch of Apple TV under the new iTV name, are also a possibility.

More About: apple, ipod, itunes, music

For more Apple coverage:

Gmail Priority Inbox: 5 Tips for Better Productivity

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:28 PM PDT


With the launch of Priority Inbox, a radical new way to sort mail, Google has hugely changed the way you can process and manage email. As Gmail Product Director Keith Coleman says, “Once you go priority, you never go back.”

The set-it-and-forget-it solution has actually existed in various states of completion for years, dating all the way back to pre-release versions of Gmail. The feature was picked up again 18 months ago, and today we can finally experience it for ourselves.

At its core, Priority Inbox is an algorithmic solution to email overload. Gmail attempts to automatically process your email by factoring in variable such as who the email was sent by, how many people it was sent to and the keywords included in the subject and body of the message.

You can use Priority Inbox with its out-of-the-box default settings, or you can tweak it to your liking by using the plus and minus symbols atop the inbox to “teach” Gmail which emails are important.

We’ve also identified a few more complex tips for those of you looking to maximize productivity and use some of the less obvious features of Priority Inbox.

1. Prioritize Filters

With Priority Inbox, Google has also enhanced the functionality of filters. This means you can define whether or not your filters are important and tell Gmail how to automatically process them in your new inbox.

When creating or editing a filter, you now have two new options: “Always mark it as important” or “Never mark it as important.” The former option will ensure that email messages meeting the criteria of your filter will always show up as important and hence in the “Important and unread” section. The latter option will ensure the opposite; it’s a perfect way to create and manage your own rules for less-than-important messages you’d rather not waste the time of teaching Gmail to ignore.

2. Customize Sections

Priority Inbox presents you with three default sections: “Important and unread,” “Starred” and “Everything else.” These are great starting points for working with the new view of Gmail, but you can also tweak what each of the sections show. There’s even a hidden fourth section that you can create and define, if you so choose.

Next to each section title is an arrow. Click it to view a drop down menu of available options for that section. Here you can adjust your preferences for each section. Should you wish to view all “Important” messages instead of just the unread ones, you can specify that here.

You can click “More options…” to use the section to view messages with a particular label. You can also reconfigure the Starred section to show all Starred conversations, and not just the ones still in your inbox, from the “More options…” menu. Further, you can specify how many messages to show per section: 5, 10, 25 or 50 for each section.

To display the hidden fourth section, navigate to settings and select “Priority Inbox.” Here you’ll notice that the number three section is marked empty. Click the “Add section” arrow to create a fourth section for your Priority Inbox.

3. Start With a Clean Slate

Gmail designed Priority Inbox to be a better system for processing emails. In order to reap the full rewards, you’ll want to leverage the “Starred” section as an area for emails that require next actions. Whether you choose to leave the section as is (in inbox and starred), or customize it to show all starred messages (i.e., to include those that have been archived), the best way to start is with a clean slate.

To do so, click “View Starred” to the right of the Starred section, or type “is:starred” in the search field. Then use the checkbox drop down menu and select “All.” That action will select all the conversations shown on the page, but to grab all the messages you’ve ever Starred, you’ll want to click the “Select all conversations” option. From there, select “More actions” and hit “Remove star.”

It’s a drastic maneuver that will eliminate all starred conversations, but it could prove incredibly handy in helping you better mange your email via Priority Inbox.

4. Use Your “Inbox” for Folders

Just because you’ve switched to Priority Inbox doesn’t mean you have to completely ignore the traditional inbox. In fact, avid users of Multiple Inboxes, a nifty Google Labs feature, can still employ their inbox-filtering skills to better sift through and organize email.

For these users, we suggest you try using the Priority Inbox as your main work center and using Multiple Inboxes in your regular Inbox to highlight action items or semi-important emails in a folder-like fashion. The goal would be to configure Multiple Inboxes to compliment your use of Priority Inbox so you can still keep an eye on messages based on their labels or level of importance.

For this approach, enable the Multiple Inboxes feature in Labs, and set up the alternate panes to appear above the inbox. Treat each of the five panes as folders for emails of varying significance. In each pane enter the search query to pull the appropriate emails. “Label:xxxx” or “is:xxxx” is an easy to way to create a pane or inbox for messages with particular labels or status. “Is:unread,” for instance, will show all emails that are unread.

5. Test Priority with Multiple Inboxes

If you want to test the Priority Inbox waters without fully committing to the new view of your Gmail, you’ll still want to start by enabling the feature and then configuring your regular Inbox to display “Important” messages. The idea here is to create a workaround to uncover priority messages in your standard inbox.

For this trick, you’ll need to enable the Google Labs Multiple Inboxes feature in your settings. Once that’s enabled, navigate to your Multiple Inboxes settings panel and create a pane to highlight just the messages that Gmail deems important. Enter “is:important” in the search query field and title the section. The end result is an alternate inbox inside your main inbox designed to filter just the important emails.

The only caveat with this method of testing out Gmail’s priority algorithm is that you’ll still need to use Priority Inbox to train Gmail to better distinguish between important and unimportant email messages.

Do you have other tips for using Priority Inbox? Be sure to share them with us in the comments!

Reviews: Gmail, Google, Google Labs

More About: email, Gmail Priority Inbox, Google, Priority Inbox

For more Tech coverage:

Michael Jackson Is Nokia’s Most-Downloaded Musician

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:10 PM PDT


Never mind the Beiber; here’s the King of Pop. He’s posthumously beat out every recording artist to become the most-downloaded musician of all time, based on sales data from Nokia.

According to data collected by Nokia’s Ovi music store, Michael Jackson has surpassed Elvis Presley, Lady Gaga and a horde of the world’s most popular recording artists to achieve this title.

Some speculate Jackson’s death last year and tributes surrounding what would have been the singer’s 52nd birthday this week to a surge in sales.

In a release, musicologist Geoff Roberts noted Jackson’s perennial popularity, saying, “Michael Jackson has always been a pop music legend. But the anniversary of his death and upcoming birthday celebrations seem to have revived Jackson fever as fans rediscover his songs, making him the most popular solo artist of all time.”

Jackson’s “Beat It,” a popular 1982 single, is the most popular track in the Nokia Ovi store, with “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” close behind.

Sadly, the view counts for Jackson’s hits on YouTube and Vevo aren’t nearly as inflated as those of relative newcomers Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber, who’ve been battling it out for pop cultural supremacy all year.

Still, when it comes to total impact on international culture, YouTube counts are hardly an adequate barometer of significance. When Jackson passed away last summer, tweets mentioning him accounted for an unprecedented 30% of all tweets that day. And during the singer’s memorial service, more than half a million status updates were posted to Facebook.

While Nokia’s store is doubtless a small representation of the larger market of online music sales, the company’s sales data makes sense when you consider other social media stats around Jackson’s life and tragic death.

Have you downloaded a Michael Jackson song or album over the past year, yourself?

[img credit: newyork]

Reviews: Facebook, YouTube, michael jackson

More About: michael jackson, music, Nokia, ovi

For more Entertainment coverage:

Voice Faceoff: Skype vs. Google Voice

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:14 PM PDT


With the help of Gmail, Google has turned Google Voice into a legitimate Skype competitor. Is it enough to make people abandon Skype for Google Voice calling?

The Skype software application has been around since 2003. Since its launch, it has garnered hundreds of millions of users because of its ability to make crisp and clear audio and video calls to both phones and other computers. It’s been the gold standard on voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology.

But Google has pushing its own technology hard. Google Voice takes a different approach by providing each user with his own personal number that can call any telephone, along with features such as voicemail transcription and call screening. Last week, Google integrated Google Voice into Gmail, providing a single, Skype-like interface where users can make and receive audio and video calls.

While Skype and Google Voice are different products with different goals, you can’t ignore their converging similarities. That’s why they’re the subject of this week’s Web Faceoff. Our question is simple: Do you prefer Skype or Google Voice for your VoIP and phone calls?

Let us know your answer in this week’s poll. Cast your vote by Friday, September 3 at 12:00 PM PT. Let us know what you think of the collision course between the two VoIP services in the comments.


Reviews: Google, Google Voice, Internet, Skype

More About: gmail, Google Voice, poll, Skype, voip, web faceoff

For more Battles coverage:

Gmail Priority Inbox Launches: Your E-mail Will Never Be the Same

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 08:23 PM PDT


Today, Google will begin rolling out Priority Inbox for Gmail, a new feature for managing massive amounts of e-mail. Your inbox will never be the same again.

Priority Inbox is Google’s attempt to solve the e-mail woes of Gmail power users. At its core, the feature is an algorithm; Priority Inbox uses information such as keywords, the people you e-mail the most and your e-mail habits to select the most pressing e-mails in your inbox. Those e-mails are brought to the top of your Gmail and marked as important so you deal with them first.

Priority Inbox is also an adaptive algorithm. Marking items as important or unimportant teaches the system what types of messages you deem the most urgent. You can also use Gmail’s filters to automatically mark certain messages as important (for example, from your boss or your spouse),

The new feature appears as a new menu item just above the “Inbox” link. Instead of indicating how many unread e-mails you have in your inbox, Priority Inbox only displays how many priority e-mails still require your attention. These appear at the top of Gmail as “Important and unread.”

The second layer of the new layout is your starred e-mails. These messages appear in their own section under the Priority Inbox. The goal is to get users to star important e-mails they have read but for whatever reason still need in their inboxes. Under the “Starred” section is “Everything else,” which contains the rest of your unarchived inbox.

The Impact of the Priority Inbox

During the many months of testing the feature internally, the search giant found that users spent 16% less time reading insignificant e-mail. If you do the math, that’s about a full week’s worth of time saved. According to Google, once someone switches to Priority Inbox, he or she never needs or wants to go back.

We can see why. We’ve had the chance to test out Priority Inbox for the last few days and discuss the new feature with Gmail Product Director Keith Coleman, and we’re impressed. Our inboxes get filled with hundreds of e-mails daily, but only a few of them require our immediate attention. Even with dozens of Gmail filters, important messages often get lost in the pile, leading to lost opportunities or missed meetings.

Priority Inbox, while not perfect, is a dramatic step toward solving that problem. Important messages bubble to the top, while e-mails that still require attention can sit in the Starred section until they’re addressed. It basically takes the Gmail Multiple Inboxes feature and adds a smart algorithm for cherry picking the threads that require your attention.

Coleman says that the company has been working on the feature for 18 months, but the original version of Gmail had something similar to this before it launched, but was removed because it simply wasn’t ready for mass consumption. Now it is refined enough for use by all.

What do you think of Priority Inbox? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Gmail, Google

More About: e-mail, gmail, Gmail Priority Inbox, Google, Priority Inbox, trending

For more Tech coverage:

“The Social Network” Movie Launches a Facebook-Themed Website

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 08:09 PM PDT


Columbia Pictures has just launched the official website for The Social Network, 500MillionFriends.com. David Fincher’s take on the Facebook story is highly anticipated by film fans and social media addicts alike.

The site opens into a large-form portal with photos, videos and cast information, all arranged in a very Facebook-like collage.

The new site carries on the same theme used in the teasers, trailers and TV spots for the film.

Words such as “Punk,” “Traitor” and “Genius” are displayed either as their own or overlayed over other photographs. The site also contains access to cast information, the official synopsis and cast publicity stills.

The Social Network will be in theaters October 1, 2010 and is already garnering rave reviews from Rolling Stone and Film Comment.

What do you think of the new site? will you be going to see the movie when it comes out? Let us know!

Reviews: Facebook

More About: facebook, facebook movie, Film, Movies, the social network

For more Entertainment coverage:

Hell Freezes Over: AutoCAD Returns to Mac

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 07:34 PM PDT


After an 18-year absence, AutoCAD is finally coming back to Mac OS X. Autodesk, the company that makes the CAD program that has become he defacto industry standard, last released a native Mac version of its flagship product in 1992.

Not only is AutoCAD coming back to Mac OS X, Autodesk is also bringing an AutoCAD app to the iPad and iPhone. This app will let professionals import, modify and export CAD files on the go.

Autodesk has already had success on the iPhone and iPad with its Sketchbook Mobile and Sketchbook Pro apps, but these are consumer-facing tools. Still, it’s clear that this success and the growing rate of Macintosh computers in the enterprise and corporate environment have made Apple professional users a demographic worth targeting.

Although AutoCAD hasn’t been officially available for the Mac since 1992, Autodesk has supported virtualized or BootCamp installations since Apple first switched to Intel processors in 2006.

In fact, many engineers and architects in our acquaintance were finally able to convince their bosses to let them adopt the Mac as the primary workstation once it became feasible to run AutoCAD.

Since that switch to Intel, Mac marketshare has exploded. Just last week, Needham’s Charlie Wolf asserted that in the second quarter, business shipments for the Mac grew 50%, more than three times the market average of 15.7%. Mac shipments in government also grew 200% in the second quarter, sixteen times the market growth of 12.1%.

Apple may still make up a negligible share of the worldwide PC market (around 4%), but the size of the market and the type of market where Mac has a large presence has simply become too large for software companies to ignore.

Historically, there have been a handful of business applications unavailable for Mac OS X that were oft-cited reasons the Mac wasn’t ready for business. Chief among these apps were AutoCAD, Quicken/QuickBooks and Microsoft Outlook. Well, QuickBooks and Quicken have returned to Mac; Microsoft is finally bringing a proper version of Outlook to Mac OS X later this fall; and now, the grand poobah, AutoCAD, is also making its return.

As more and more enterprise software shifts to the cloud or SaaS models, the gap between Windows and Mac tools for the corporate world will likely continue to dwindle.

What do you think about AutoCAD for Mac, iPad and iPhone? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Microsoft Outlook, Windows

More About: autocad, Autodesk, CAD, ipad apps, iphone apps, mac, mac software, software

For more Apple coverage:

Skype Tries Its Hand at VoIP for Business

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 05:49 PM PDT


Skype has formally announced its newest product for business users, Skype Connect.

Skype Connect, formally Skype SIP, is Skype’s play at the IP-enabled PBX and Unified Communications (UC) market. With Skype Connect, businesses can now integrate the service into their existing PBX systems.

In addition to making outgoing calls at Skype rates from desktop phones, Skype Connect also lets businesses receive phone calls from other Skype users, landline or mobile phones, or from other phones on the corporate PBX. Also, Skype Connect can be configured to route calls to mobile numbers.

This video gives an overview of just what Skype Connect does:

Skype is one of the most visible players in the consumer VoIP space, but it has a much smaller presence in the business world.

Skype first launched its Skype Connect Beta in March 2009, and according to its business blog now has more than 2,400 global customers. That’s not a bad start, but it pales when compared to some of the bigger players in this field.

Skype also faces stiff competition, not just from companies like Cisco — which has its own IP-PBX offerings — but from startups in the same space, including Bandwidth.com. Bandwidth.com offers SIP Trunking for businesses that want a cost-effective, in-house IP-PBX, and its Phonebooth Free and Phonebooth OnDemand products directly target SMBs.

Skype’s advantage, of course, is going to be that it has brand recognition with new customers. For small businesses that are transitioning to a phone system, IP or otherwise, for the first time, the Skype brand should have its own set of advantages.

Likewise, while other hosted IP-PBX systems have click-to-talk systems like Skype’s own interface (meaning users can initiate a phone call from a button on the Internet), Skype is a ubiquitous part of many consumer and business desktops.

Skype’s disadvantage, however, is that because it has been such a consumer-centric service, it’s unproven in the business support and infrastructure arena. Skype offers a new dedicated customer support option for Skype Connect users, but it’s going to also off-load some of its support to channel partners and VARs. Depending on the business, this may not be ideal.

Also, we find ourselves confused about Skype Connect’s pricing plan. Rather than bundling together plans with minute buckets or extensions, Skype is charging by the minute and by what it calls “channels.”

Incoming calls are free, and outgoing calls are charged according to Skype’s standard rates of 2.1 cents per minute. Users will also need to pay $6.95 a month per channel. A channel is the number of concurrent calls you want to make or receive at once. So if you want to have five different extensions that can all be in use at the same time, you’ll pay $34.75.

We really think it would be in Skype’s best interest to create some unified or bundled pricing plans for its business offerings, if only to make comparison shopping easier.

What do you think of Skype’s formal entrance into the corporate VoIP space? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Internet, Skype

More About: ip-pbx, pbx, phonebooth, Skype, skype connect, voip

For more Tech coverage:

Facebook Goes Back to School with New Universities Page

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 04:33 PM PDT


As millions of students are trudging back to the classrooms this August, Facebook is returning to its roots: colleges and universities.

Just in time for the back-to-school season, the company has partnered with social marketing firm Context Optional to build a Facebook Page of resources and information for new and returning students and their families. Students can find out about publicizing events, engaging with their larger campus community and distributing their own content on this page.

And at the outset of the school year, Facebook is also partnering with a ton of big brands to bring students great discounts on everything from new threads to gadgets to dorm supplies. The company has joined with Eddie Bauer, Modcloth, Newegg, Alice.com and a slew of other companies to offer special price cuts and packages for students.

So far, the Universities on Facebook Page has tabs for student government, school sports, college newspapers, community, deals and more.

“It is great that administrations and administrators are involved,” wrote Facebook communications intern Arielle Aryah in a note on the page, “but we have noticed the need for more content created by students.” Aryah continued to write that Universities on Facebook will “help students and campus organizations such as school newspapers, sports teams, student governments, dorms, clubs and classes learn how to take full advantage of all the site has to offer to publicize events, distribute content, foster community and encourage school spirit.”

The Page will give best practices on how connect and communicate with various individuals and groups around campus. Aryah and the rest of the Facebook team hope the Page will “extend the impact of your message far beyond an event, a group, or a wall post by itself.”

Students and families of students, check out Facebook’s new page, and let us know what you think of it in the comments. Do you think this tool will help interested college students become more active and engaged on campus?

Reviews: Alice, Facebook

More About: back to school, college, facebook, universities

For more Social Media coverage:

MTV Teams Up with Foursquare for VMAs

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 02:33 PM PDT


Hey Foursquare junkies, here’s another merit badge to add to your digital belt: MTV has teamed up with Foursquare to award users who check in to a music venue with the 2010 MTV VMA Moonman Badge.

Yeah, a rad badge is all well and good, but what’s in it for you? Well, the whole deal is also a contest, the grand prize being a trip for two to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12. To get in the running for the prize, all you have to do is follow MTV on Foursquare, and then check in to any music venue between August 30 and September 5. The checkin will score you that nifty badge up there, and a chance to win a trip to Cali.

Already heralded as one of the top five brands on Foursquare — at least in terms of followers — MTV’s award show integration is hardly a surprise. The network has been an active participant in the realm for a while now; almost six months ago, Foursquare announced a deal with MTV & VH1 that introduced a new "Celebrity Mode," a function that allows users to follow celebs, a la Twitter. The first celebrity to hop on the geo-location band wagon was Jersey Shore's DJ Pauly D.

According to an MTV representative, “We started with talent doing checkins and tips, and we are still doing that (the Jersey Shore cast recently provided new tips for Miami and Real World cast for New Orleans), but the change is that we’re going broader to include MTV the brand as well in areas where it makes sense. For example, MTV Music, News, Shows and Style will also be providing tips and checkins.” Integration with the upcoming award show is just a natural progression.

MTV has really been ramping up its social media efforts lately; the network chose its first TJ (Twitter jockey) just a few weeks ago, and acquired social gaming company Social Express last month in order to launch games based on Nickelodeon and MTV shows and characters.

Reviews: Foursquare, Twitter, news

More About: foursquare, mtv, television

For more Entertainment coverage:

3 Winning Alternatives to Online Sweepstakes

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 02:21 PM PDT


Meaghan Edelstein has gained national media attention through her blog, I Kicked Cancer’s Ass, which she started to document her battle with end stage cancer. She is an attorney, the founder of the non-profit organization Spirit Jump, and works for the Real Time Marketing Group.

For some time now, companies have been utilizing online promotions as a means to increase brand excitement and build a strong following. While there are many different types of promotions, sweepstakes appear to be more and more popular. What many brands fail to realize, however, is that sweepstakes can be considered illegal gaming. Unless they consult an attorney experienced in that area of law, the ramifications of running this type of promotion can be complex.

So what exactly are sweepstakes? Sweepstakes are contests that have all three of the following elements: something of value is given away, it is awarded by chance, and entrants must provide consideration for their entry.

If any one of these elements is eliminated, the promotion is not a sweepstake. For example, “Free entry” and “No purchase necessary” have proven practical as a means to eliminate consideration. However, one can avoid the complications of sweepstakes altogether by running different types of promotions.

Here are some ways to engage consumers utilizing social networks in lieu of sweepstakes. Each way removes the second element — chance — which makes the promotion no longer a sweepstake because winners are chosen based on something other than random drawings.

1. Polls, Brand Trivia and Sharing

Polls, brand trivia and promotions that encourage sharing can be great alternatives to sweepstakes. These options can offer a variety of incentives for participating; anything from actual prizes to sheer bragging rights. Because awards are based on skill and not chance, these types of promotions are not considered sweepstakes. Contests such as these generally focus on engagement, fun and healthy competition.

The new A&E television show The Glades created a Facebook Page four weeks ago and has been running a sharing promotion, Top Fans, for the past three weeks. To date, they have over 45,000 “Likes.” This sharing promotion encourages fans of the show to invite their friends to also Like The Glades, and those with the most referrals win bragging rights and are featured on The Glades Facebook Page.

But, sharing promotions aren’t enough. The Glades posts unique content on its social media platforms, including never-before-seen footage, teasers and other interesting insider information. The idea is to provide content people will feel excited about sharing.

Vice President of Advertising and Consumer Marketing Lori Peterzell speaks to their recent sharing promotion: "The Glades Top Fan promotion has been a powerful tool to organically increase our Likes on Facebook. We have run successful sweepstakes contests, but wanted to offer something different. Human beings are naturally competitive and our Top Fan promotion offers fun and healthy competition. We have found sharing promotions create strong emotional connections — being proud of their relationship with The Glades and sharing that with their friends. Bragging rights that one is the ultimate fan have proven to be just as worthy as prizes."

2. Voting

MTV Twitter Jockey

Contests that require people to vote for winners are not considered sweepstakes because winners are not chosen at random. Instead, the majority vote decides who is victorious. Voting has become increasingly popular and brands use this type of contest in various ways.

Over the past several months, many well-known companies have executed successful voting contests. Levi's used voting to find the future face of its company. MTV asked fans to vote for who would be the first ever Twitter Jockey, and Pepsi and Kohl’s are using voting to decide what cause should receive financial awards. The buzz that has erupted around these campaigns is enormous. This might be in part because voting allows fans to be more connected and feel important and valued.

3. Uploading Content Promotions

This type of contest removes the element of chance. Asking people to submit great content, whether videos, essays or photos, and awarding prizes based on submissions is a win-win for the brand and participants. The brand gets amazing content and a view into what customers are thinking, while participants are able to connect on a deeper level with brands they love.

The Radio Flyer company has manufactured little red wagons since 1917. Many of us have fond memories of being pulled around in these wagons as kids. This emotional connection has led the brand to a promotion that encourages fans to upload photos and help create the “World's Largest Wagon Mosaic.”

Rather than offer a grand prize to one random winner, the mosaic offers weekly and monthly incentives to encourage participation. Each week, one photo is selected to be featured on their homepage and the individual who submitted the winning photo receives a commemorative mini classic wagon. At the end of each month, all submissions are entered to win a full size Classic Red Wagon. Rather than choosing winners at random, they are selected by a panel of judges.

Melissa Akers, Marketing Manager for Radio Flyer says, "We have, for many years, seen how our friends and consumers have proudly uploaded images of themselves and their families interacting and enjoying Radio Flyer products via sites such as Flickr, Ofoto and Google Images. It was therefore our desire to thank these loyal supporters while also working with them to reach the next generation of Radio Flyer fans … The mosaic provides a place for all fans of the brand to upload their photos together and be a part of something bigger."

Conclusion

There is no limit to the variety of concepts that can be used to create non-sweepstakes promotions. With social media, brand managers are only limited by the scope of their imagination. Regardless of the approach, the key is to take advantage of the strengths your brand has to offer. You don't need the complications of sweepstakes to run a competitive promotion.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to serve as legal advice. The laws around sweepstakes and contests vary from state to state. We strongly encourage you consult a qualified attorney if you have any questions about running sweepstakes on the Internet.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Legally Structure Your Startup
- 10 Tips For Corporate Blogging
- 5 Lessons to Learn from Web Startups
- 5 Online Tools for Answering Your Small Business Questions
- 5 Tips for Managing Your Company's Brand on the Web
- How Lawyers Are Using Social Media for Real Results

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, KLH49

Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Internet, iStockphoto

More About: brands, business, Contests, engagement, MARKETING, polls, prizes, small business, social media, sweepstakes, voting

For more Business coverage:

100+ Upcoming Social Media & Tech Events

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 02:00 PM PDT

social_media_events_guide1

Every week, Mashable puts together a calendar of upcoming social media and web events, parties and conferences. Would you like to have your conference or event listed here? If so, please contact us at least one month before your event to establish a media partnership. For more upcoming listings, check out Mashable’s Events section.

This September, join Mashable for the Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit in partnership with the United Nations Foundation. More information about the event can be found here. Please e-mail events@mashable.com for available sponsorship information.

In the meantime, here are some tips on how to network, share your information and/or promote your event using social media:

Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

August 30-31 & September 2-3, 2010, Singapore & Hong Kong: Join us at the Integrated Marketing Communications in a Social Media Age Conference. Through a showcase of best practices from global brands, this two-day conference will equip marketers with strategies and insights to funnel core messages with conviction and consistency. Find out how you can capitalize on social media and integrate it seamlessly with offline channels to engage consumers and combat message dissonance. Register now and save 10% when you enter Mashable under "Additional info".

September 1, 2010, New York, NY: Come meet with fellow developers, marketers and agencies, members of the Facebook team, and your hosts from Syncapse. This is the official New York Garage as part of the global Facebook Developer Garage series. The theme of this Garage is global: Open Graph on a bigger scale, Facebook analytics, scaling apps globally – we'll cover it all. For more information and speaker application info, click here.

September 6–7 & 9-10, 2010, Singapore & Hong Kong: Join us at the Social Media Marketing & Measurement Workshop. Through hands-on exercises, interactive discussions and case studies analysis, expand your knowledge in Social Media (SM) Marketing strategy development and implementation techniques and pick up skills in measuring social media efforts in financial and non-financial terms. Marketers can look forward to hearing how to design and integrate social media with existing marketing platforms and how to measure and monitor social media campaigns using free and paid tools. Register today and save 10% when you enter the code Mashable under 'Additional Info'.

September 8-9, 2010, Minneapolis, MN: Event Camp Twin Cities is about inspiring event professionals to try new communication and collaboration paradigms at their events. Today's attendees are more educated, more experienced and have more information at their fingertips than ever before. Event Camp Twin Cities will show you new ways to harness this new attendee power and transform that energy into new ideas and solutions that change business. Come to Event Camp and discover the collaborative community of event professionals that are leading the events industry into the world of Social Media. Save 15% using discount code mashable.

September 9-11 2010, Denver, CO: BlogPaws 2010 West is the only social media and blogging conference for the pet industry. Join us and more than 300 bloggers, pet-focused media and brands to learn, network and create change for pets in need. You'll walk away from this exciting weekend with new ideas, a fresh perspective and a supportive network of new friends and partners to help you further your mission online. Whether you blog for business, fun or for a pet-related cause, the inspiring keynotes and action-oriented breakout sessions by pet industry and social media experts will provide you with the inspiration, guidance and tools you need to build and promote your online presence. Register with promo code MASHABLE for a 20% discount! Learn more and register here.

September 9-11, 2010, Atlanta, GA: The Modern Media Man Summit is the first blogging conference for men and dads and will feature many of the most influential social media experts in the country, including Charles J. Orlando, Dave Taylor, Liz Strauss, Carol Roth and Ted Murphy. Many speakers, including Jim Kukral and Ron Mattocks, are newly published authors and are focused on helping men and women bloggers prosper in the digital age. Thanks to M3's Platinum Sponsor Chevrolet, baseball legend Cal Ripken, Jr. is throwing out the first pitch. Register with the promo code M3MASH and save 20 percent.

September 10, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Join San Francisco trendsetters, world travelers and social media fans to celebrate Trendy Lime’s first anniversary with the special edition of JETLAG! Over the past year, Trendy Lime, a social media-driven producer of upscale events, has been creating events to suit the most discerning tastes by mixing Fashion, Travel and New Media. Among JETLAG partners: Mashable, Vator.tv, Bub.bliciou.us, 360 Fashion Network, Mesaic and others. Register with the promo code JLMASH to receive a surprise present.

September 13-14, 2010, San Francisco, CA: APPNATION is the first global conference and exposition to focus exclusively on the burgeoning consumer applications marketplace. The event will cover social and mobile apps across all devices and platforms including social media platforms, smartphones, tablets, internet-enabled televisions and other emerging connected devices. Speakers include Adobe, Accel Partners, Getjar, The North Face, Marvel, Sequoia Partners, Smule, Time Inc., The Wall Street Journal and more.

September 13-14, 2010, Charlotte, NC: Social Media 4 Responders is the first hands-on social media conference specifically designed with responders in mind. Law enforcement; fire service, emergency management, public health, disaster and crisis aid, emergency medical services, public utilities and the list goes on! Seven hands-on workshops and four power packed sessions over two-days that will provide you with the knowledge & skill you need to get your organization engaged in the fastest growing means of communication in the world. Follow us on Twitter hashtag #sm4r. Use promo code Mashablesm4r to save 10% on your registration fee.

September 13-15, 2010, Silicon Valley, CA: DEMO is the premier launch event with a 20-year track record of successfully identifying and delivering the world's most innovative new products and services to the market. Companies like: VM Ware, Palm, Skype, Google, EA, Microsoft, IBM, Nokia and Citrix have launched new products at DEMO. DEMO Fall 2010 will showcase the top B2B, B2C and vertical innovations coming to market—innovations on track to evolve or disrupt the markets they serve. Don't miss the chance to experience first hand the latest technology game changers in social and media, health and life sciences, clean and sustainable technology, cloud and enterprise computing and more! Register for DEMO at http://www.demo.com/EDFPartner and save 25% off the current public price for DEMO.

September 14-16, 2010, Dallas, TX: BIA/Kelsey's Directional Media Strategies 2010 takes place in a pivotal moment in Yellow Pages history. BIA/Kelsey's latest global Yellow Pages forecast indicates digital will account for 39% of Yellow Pages revenues by 2014. The future revolves around how publishers can best serve the needs of small business advertisers — with video, reputation management, mobile directories, social platforms, group buying, SEM/SEO and more. Join more than 400 senior execs from the global Yellow Pages community at DMS '10, September 14-16 in Dallas. Register with the promo code DMSMASH and save $200!

September 14-16, 2010, San Francisco, CA: The social business event of the year, JiveWorld10, will bring together industry luminaries, customers, business executives and leading enterprise vendors to share social business thought leadership and provide a platform to network with peers. Jive CEO, Tony Zingale will keynote and unveil company news highlighting how to enable the social enterprise. JiveWorld10 includes 40 content-rich sessions featuring customer speakers from Alcatel-Lucent, Charles Schwab, CSC, EMC, Intel, Mattel, McAfee, MIT, Premier Farnell and SAP. These customers will share their experiences in adopting and implementing a successful social business strategy that has changed the way they engage with customers, employees and the social web. Register by August 27 to secure your discounted hotel room.

September 14, 2010, Lawrence KS: Social Media Marketing Boot Camp with Sarah Evans: Limited tickets will be available for this unique boot camp style event with renowned expert Sarah Evans. You’ll spend a full six hours of session time with Sarah, taking an in-depth look at the role of social media in marketing your business or organization. You wont just learn effective social media marketing techniques, but will look at how social media works in conjunction with traditional marketing, practical ways of engaging customers and prospects, case studies, help with creating a social media based marketing plan, hints and tips, ways to make your brand stand out online, tools and resources and plenty of opportunities for discussion and Q & A. Use the discount code MASHABLE to receive a 20% discount at registration.

September 15-16, 2010. Cologne, Germany: The dmexco is the leading European exposition for digital marketing & advertising. The exposition covers among others the theme areas online marketing, targeting, tracking, digital contents (moving images, audio advertising), social, mobile, performance marketing, affiliate, email marketing, search engine marketing and in-game advertising and offers agencies (media agencies, creative agencies, full-service agencies) a presentation platform. The dmexco is organised by the Koelnmesse, its industry partners are the BVDW (Federal Association of the Digital Industry) and the OVK (Online Marketers Circle).

September 15-16, 2010, Chicago, IL: Are you looking to quantify your social media efforts? Do you want to have constant customer engagement? If the answer is yes, join us at in Chicago at the Hotel Allegro for iStrategy 2010 to learn, network, share ideas, and understand how to build your online marketing strategy to its fullest potential. iStrategy 2010 Chicago brings together the cream of American leaders in social media marketing. iStrategy will give delegates the valuable insight they need to: Harness New Technologies, Drive Revenue Growth, Create Value from Digital Assets, Develop Innovative and Creative Online Strategies and achieve a Market Leading Online Position. Register now and quote MashableCHI to receive a 10% discount

September 15-17, 2010, San Francisco, CA: GSMI presents the Social Media Strategies Summit. We have researched the social media buzz to develop and present to you a top of the line marketing conference that you can't afford to miss. With in depth case studies from the nuts and bolts to microblogging and sustaining online communities, you leave with a refreshed vision to take your marketing plan to the next level for 2010 and beyond. Please use the code “MikeSM” for a discount.

September 15, 2010, New York, NY: Mobile Social Communications: Case Studies & Roundtables — Our Keynote Presenter will be Eric Friedman, Director of Client Services, Foursquare. Case studies by Tasti D-Lite LLC, Buzzd, Yelp, McDonald’s and others will showcase how real brands are achieving tangible business goals integrating mobile social strategies into their overall marketing and communications approach. The case studies will be followed by moderated interactive roundtables. Use the promo code MASH for a discounted rate ($155).

September 15, 2010, Los Angeles, CA: Announcing our 2nd annual Digital Media Pipeline conference which will offer the only industry event that has as its primary focus – the distribution pipeline that helps connect the world's leading digital media content providers with the end user. Digital Media Pipeline offers an opportunity for digital retailers, Hollywood studios and aggregators, technology and service providers to share learnings and experiences in the business of retailing digital entertainment. Join us; register now and use the discount code MASH45 to receive $45 off.

September 15, 2010, Antwerp, Belgium: Out of Site proudly presents its very first Social Media and Google Optimization seminar. In two 60-minute sessions which take place in Out of Site headquarters in Antwerp (Belgium) you will gain more insight in the possibilities Social Media can offer your brand or company. Also an in-depth view of Google's role in your sales process will add to your key-knowledge of web technologies available to us today. Regular fee is 35 euro a person, which includes an incentive gift, lunch and drinks. Mashable readers can save 15% by entering the discount code OOSMASH159.

September 16-17, 2010, Dallas, TX: This year's 2nd Social Media Optimization Summits event, presented by Multifamilypro, brings together small to mid-sized business owners with an interest in putting social media to work successfully within their organizations. The event offers two full days of intensive, hands-on workshops from the intermediate to advanced level, led by top social media experts including Brian Solis of FutureWorks, Jason Falls of SocialMediaExplorer.com, Shama Kabani of The Marketing Zen Group and Shama.TV, Geno Church of Brains on Fire and more. The unique "See it. Hear it. Do it." approach allows attendees to learn by doing and begin applying newly-acquired skills and knowledge while the event is underway. Register now and save $125 at: http://optimizationsummits.com/. Use discount code Mashable.

September 16-17, San Diego, CA: The San Diego Music & Technology Conference brings people together to enjoy, advance and celebrate the convergence of electronic music and technology. Interactive panels led by industry experts and musicians will be open forums where attendees can collaborate, challenge themselves and walk away inspired. And come experience world-class artists and up-and-coming talent perform in beautiful, sunny San Diego. Register today and save 20% off the ticket price with the code: mashable.

September 17, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Social:Email is a one day conference that offers expert-led guidance on how to engage with customers via email and social media, including tips on how to maximize the impact of your campaigns, insights into new tools and services, how to monitor and measure the results, and trends to watch out for. This is the ultimate event for anyone interested in combining email with social media marketing. Speakers include Brian Solis, Kristin Hersant, Dan Martell, Chase McMichael, Luke Brynley-Jones and Murray Newlands. Register with code mashable to get a 10% discount.

September 17, 2010, Pittsburgh, PA: Join us for a morning of networking and discussion on topics pertaining to how social media affects how you do business in the Pittsburgh region. Lauren Lawley Head, editor of the Pittsburgh Business Times, will moderate the discussion. Some of the topic questions include “How have you used social media to increase your business?”, “What is the biggest change your business has seen due to social media?”, How do you measure the ROI of your social media efforts?”, and “How much time do you devote each week to social media?” Join the discussion of live tweets on Twitter by following the hashtag #pghbiztu. We’ll also be broadcasting live on Ustream. Seating is limited, so register today here!

September 18, 2010, Seattle, WA: Imagine the 200 smartest, most passionate and most influential entrepreneurs and business leaders gathered together to strengthen your business and ventures in Seattle. BizTechDay is an intensive one-day experience where you can meet, learn and be inspired by the most practical business ideas and technology strategies. Get fired up by stories, ideas and strategies from some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs. Speakers include Ben Huh, Founder of Cheezburger Network, the Chief People Officer of Zynga, the Founder of Biznik, as well as leaders from Squidoo, Theo Chocolate, Teachstreet, Wildfire App, Madrona Venture, Fox News and Hotel Max. Get your tickets at BizTechDay 2010. It is like Woodstock for Entrepreneurs. Use the promo code BTDMASHWA and save 20%!

September 21–22, 2010, London, UK: ad:tech London is the UK’s essential free to attend event for professionals seeking to stay ahead of the latest interactive media, advertising and marketing trends. The event unites advertisers, media owners and agencies to harness the power of digital and deliver real marketing ROI. Alongside the exhibition, there is also a conference featuring 100+ international speakers for serious digital innovators and marketers. Mashable readers can take 20% off their conference ticket price – call John Corrick on + 44 (0) 203 180 6595 and quote Mash10. Register online now at www.ad-techlondon.co.uk.

September 21-22, 2010, Los Angeles, CA: PPC Summit Presents: Search and Social Media Success. This September, PPC Summit is launching its new conference, a comprehensive look at Search and Social Media marketing. The conference features 27 ALL NEW expert-led classes through three in-depth tracks. You'll learn the latest techniques for leveraging search engine marketing, search engine optimization, pay per click and social media marketing. Learn actionable campaign techniques and tactics to maximize your campaign results.

September 21, 2010, London, UK: Join us at this topical event to ensure that you are fully aware of all the legal and regulatory requirements surrounding data protection, as well as to hear how other organizations are handling these challenges. Speakers include Rosa Barcelo, Senior Legal Adviser to the EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION SUPERVISOR, and Martin Hoskins of everything everywhere (the company that manage T-Mobile and Orange), who will discuss the lessons learnt from T-Mobile's data breach experience. Plus, don’t miss out on our post-conference workshop on Cloud Computing. Mashable readers save 10% with the following code: KW8112MASH. For more info or to register, go to http://www.ibclegal.com/dataprotectionmash.

September 21, 2010, Chicago, IL: The New Marketing Labs team will be invading Chicago to hold our New Marketing Experience event. Imagine a world where you can take your One Big Idea and tap over 100 other participating conference attendees and experts and each of their One Big Ideas. All of this in a structured, fast-paced and highly interactive one-day program under the direction of Chris Brogan, Justin Levy and the team from New Marketing Labs. New Marketing Experience is that world. Through six key discussion sessions this program will help you analyze and draw the best of what you need form these Big Ideas. For more information, visit us at: http://nmlevents.com. Use the code “MASH50” for a 50% off discount.

September 21, 2010, New York, NY: NY Games Conference — A Day of Power Networking with Leaders in the Exploding Games and Connected Entertainment Industries! NY Games features a lively and fun debate on timely cutting-edge business topics and demos, as well unrivaled access to some of the most progressive companies in Hollywood, Silicon Valley and beyond. We invite you to join us at the event and take part in the discussion with executives, creators, investors, analysts, press and gamers who will be instrumental in shaping the future of this booming business. Mashable readers can receive 10% off registration with promo code MASH10.

September 22-23, 2010, Santa Clara, CA: The Toy, Game and Technology Summit, in Santa Clara, CA is a one-of-a-kind summit that brings together leaders from the toy, video game and technology industries for in-depth discussion, cross-industry networking and the opportunity to generate new business. Capitalize on crossover business opportunities. Gain insight into toy, game and technology design issues, marketing strategies, exclusive market research and the latest trend forecasts. Toy, Game and Technology Summit is co-located with the Virtual Goods Conference. One registration gets you into both events for unparalleled networking and knowledge. Register with promo code MASHVIP and save 15%.

September 22-23, 2010, Singapore, Asia: At Social Media World Forum Asia, become educated, discover, engage, network, share and collaborate in the world of social media. Ideal for those looking to embrace the latest in brand engagement, monitoring, ROI, advertising and building communities. learn from social networks, brands, advertisers and analysts. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive a 15% discount.

September 22-23, 2010, Chicago, IL: As we fight our way through a tough economy, “change” is the biggest word in business. Anyone who wants their organization to thrive knows that making change happen is better than watching it happen, and that “new ideas,” “fresh thinking” and “continuous innovation” have to be more than buzzwords. When IBM's Institute for Business Value recently asked 1,500 chief executives to name the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future, the number one answer was “creativity” — and creativity is why the Cusp Conference exists. A supercollider for creative thought, Cusp 2010 will feature designers of change like TED founder Richard Saul Wurman, social activist Tim Will, education innovator Diana Rhoten, “doctor of the future” Jay Parkinson and many more. Creativity is contagious. Register with the promo code MASHC and save 10%.

September 22, 2010, Santa Monica, CA: Join us for an evening of fun mingling with other startups, VCs, entrepreneurs, and technology enthusiasts, as we host our first Startup Demo event in Los Angeles. StartupDemo is an informal social gathering of tech companies and people, companies showcasing their new ideas and attendees sharing their feedback. This event is FREE for all attendees. For more information, please visit www.startupdemo.com and/or register here.

September 22, 2010, Toronto, ON (Canada): Social Media Bootcamp: history | strategy | tactics is a perfect introduction to social media for your business or organization, this full-day workshop and seminar will investigate how to use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and how to use them successfully. Besides providing a foundation on the origins of the web, we’ll cover the latest and most important trends and dive deep into where this is all going. We’ll cover emerging technologies and look how this will shape our future. Attendees will leave the workshop with an integrated, and more holistic view of how the web is changing and how their businesses and organizations can harness their potential for building relationships online. This knowledge will be used to reach a wider audience and improve community engagement. Register now and save an additional 10% with discount code mashable.

September 23-25, 2010, Richmond, CA: Are you a community leader, organizer, marketing executive, CEO, Executive Director, or media maker? Join us at theCOREconference where community and technology leaders convene to exchange ideas, practices & strategies. Learn how to build, engage, lead, communicate and collaborate with your people from dynamic practitioners across many fields. Grow your social endeavors and understand the economy and ecology of communities. Subjects explored include: collective intelligence, crowd sourcing, alternative currencies, movement building, multi-stakeholder collaborations and the economics of community. Save $50 off with the promo code MASH at http://thecoreconference.com.

September 23, 2010, Atlanta, GA: Lift: The B2B Social Commerce Summit is a "must attend" event for marketers, senior management and business owners looking to apply real-world social tactics that drive sales lift to their business. Co-hosted by Wharton Interactive, OfficeArrow and Social Strategy1, and bringing together the brightest minds in the B2B space, this 2nd annual 1-day information-packed all-inclusive event delivers educational workshops on how to monetize social media, how to quickly generate quality leads, and how to translate social data into measurable conversions. Use promo code MASH2010 and save 10% off $199 admission or $159 early-bird through 8/16.

September 23, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Mediabistro’s Think Mobile conference explores the broadening mobile ecosystem, the application marketplace and the innovation that drives the industry. Hear from visionaries that reinvented businesses by innovating with unique mobile offerings and gain an understanding of key mobile metrics. Speakers include Starbucks CIO Stephen Gillett, Microsoft Sr. Product Manager Anand Iyer, NPD Group Executive Director Ross Rubin, Evernote CEO Phil Libin and more. Register with promo code MASH and save 15%!

September 24-26, 2010, Asheville, NC: Type-A Mom Conference provides bloggers and companies with a chance to network, learn and take it to the next level. The conference will feature some of the most insightful people in social media talking about topics like finding your voice, how businesses can engage bloggers, and turning your passion for blogging into a paycheck. New this year is Dad Track, Type-A Mom Business and Tribes, small group power sessions for blog niches. The popular Blogger Town Hall Meeting and Kid Con will be back this year. Register with the promo code MASHABLE to save 25%.

September 24, 2010, New York, NY: Imagine 400 of the smartest, most passionate and most influential entrepreneurs and business leaders gathered together to strengthen your business and ventures in New York. BizTechDay, an intensive one-day conference where you meet, learn and be inspired by the most practical business ideas and technology strategies. Get fired up by stories, ideas and strategies from some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs. Speakers include: Seth Godin, Clay Shirky, Founder of Meetup, Help a Reporter Out, Profounder, Gymboree, Ofoto, Dan Schawbel and Fox News. Get your tickets at BizTechDay 2010. It is like Woodstock for Entrepreneurs. Use promo code BTDMASHNY and save 20%.

September 24, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Mediabistro and Charles Hudson’s Smartphone Games Summit is a one-day conference about emerging trends in the mobile gaming industry. As new developments emerge such as the iPhone Game Center, is it game over for a number of gaming companies, or does it open an even larger opportunity? How do new technologies like the iPad change the game? The conference will bring together leading developers, investors and executives from around the globe to share their collective wisdom on what’s working today and where this exciting industry is heading. Register with promo code MASH and save 15%!

Sep 24, 2010, Mumbai, India: Digital Content and Social Media define the new marketing mantra of the future world, and they go to the heart of Corporate Strategy. Are you in yet? Attend the Digital Media Conclave – the most relevant and cutting-edge conference brought to you by CellStrat, India’s leading Mobile and Digital Media Strategy Consulting firm. Listen to top-notch digital and social media innovators from leading companies across India as well as corporate case studies in the digital media domain undertaken by India’s foremost Digital Marketing experts. Mashable readers will receive a 10% discount upon registration at the event.

September 24, 2010, San Francisco, CA: TEDxSoMa seeks bring the TED experience to a local level, bringing together innovative ideas andconcepts through TEDtalks and inspiring speakers. TEDxSoMa is organized by members of the pariSoma Innovation Loft and other volunteers whose core beliefs are community, collaboration, innovation, openness, and sustainability. Join us in person or by watching the live stream on the day of the event. Learn more and register at www.tedxsoma.com.

September 25, 2010, Atlanta, GA: Produced by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society & Kennesaw State University's Center for Sustainable Journalism, Media Law in the Digital Age – The Rules Have Changed, Have You? provides an overview of the new legal landscape, case studies, cautionary tales and how to make the laws work for you. In a one day conference held at Kennesaw State University, learn what Lawyers, Journalists, Educators, Citizen Media Producers, Communications Directors, Academics and Publishers big and small need to know now. Panelists include the Nation's top Media Law Attorneys, Scholars and Journalists. Register with promo code MASH and save 20%.

September 27-28, 2010, Chicago, IL: midVenturesLAUNCH is the largest startup and innovation conference in the Midwest. Showcasing new startup companies in web, mobile, consumer products, sustainability and greentech, we're bringing together 150+ new companies in three tracks: COMPETE, a startup competition with over $100,000 in cash and prizes; mVDEMO, an area for early-stage startups to gain exposure; and LAUNCH, where later-stage VC- or angel-backed startups and established brands will launch new, innovative products and services from 2010 on our main stage. Featuring key panelists and speakers from the top of the industry, midVenturesLAUNCH is the conference for technology innovators, offering a unique opportunity to seek funding, meet entrepreneurs, investors, developers, designers and leaders, and watch new ideas come to life. All in one space. Visit wwww.midventureslaunch.com for more info.

September 27-28, 2010, Minneapolis, MN: Get your ticket today for the ninth annual MIMA Summit, the premier interactive marketing conference in the Midwest. We're offering summit attendees more session speakers than any year before, a whole new line of intensive workshops, and featuring author and high-energy businessman Gary Vaynerchuk and comedian, author, and vigilante pundit Baratunde Thurston keynoting the event. The MIMA Summit 2010 will offer more than 1,000+ attendees a dynamic range of educational content—from interactive, media, brand and technical strategies, to design, content strategy, the neuro-science of marketing, open-source CMS, and even social media. Early bird pricing is available until September 3rd at www.mimasummit.org.

September 27-29, 2010, Dallas, TX: After 15 years, the Web has lost its “new media” moniker to a new disruptor: mobile. The action is clearly local. Local mobile advertising is forecast to take an even sharper hockey-stick trajectory than the local Web, going from a few hundred million in 2009 to $14 billion in less than five years. Join Borrell Associates for its Local Mobile Advertising Conference to identify what’s working today for local advertisers, what’s likely to work tomorrow, and how to get there. The conference is designed for executives selling mobile-related advertising at the local level. Use promo code MASH100 and save $100!

September 27-30, 2010, New York, NY: Web 2.0 Expo New York assembles top tech influencers for four days of intense talks, workshops, discussions, and networking events. This year, Web 2.0 Expo New York focuses on Platforms for Growth, diving into the platform opportunities for the whole web ecosystem. We'll highlight the important challenges faced by the industry’s key players, and help you pick the winning platforms for growth in a web-fueled world. Connect with other designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business strategists, and investors at one of the most vibrant events of the year. Use discount code webny10bd14 when you register to save 25%.

September 27, 2010, Miami, FL: Calling all Affiliates, Merchants, Advertisers and Social Media Strategists looking to CONNECT to the right people, LEARN from the experts, increasing their EARNING potential and GROW their business! The Performance Marketing Expo is the premier event for best-in-class educational sessions (become an expert at Landing Page Optimization, Search, Social Media Strategies and Relationship Management), highly effective facilitated networking (in the Tune-Up Shop, Idea Factory, Masters of the Universe Roundtable sessions) and access to the leading Super Affiliates (Stephanie Nelson, Coupon Mom – Zac Johnson, MoneyReign, – Todd Martini, Alex’s Coupons – plus, eCoupons, MarketAmerica, TrialPay, Parent Media and more). Save 15% when using code PME2010MASH at www.iirusa.com/performancemarketingexpo.

September 28-30 2010, London, UK: IIR's Mobile Broadband World is an absolute must for all those involved in the MBB ecosystem, including Mobile Operators, Content Developers, Financial Investors, Press and Media, Consultants, Technology Partners, Handset Developers and more. To claim your 10% discount courtesy of Mashable, please quote I2GS2MASH when registering.

September 28-30, 2010, Hamburg, Germany: Facebook, Twitter & Co are now part of good corporate communication and marketing. They dominate all channels of interaction. To find out how to optimize your business and marketing activities by using these instruments is this year`s topic of the annual Community & Marketing 2.0 Summit in Hamburg. Within two parallel tracks 36 experts from different companies share their experiences and best practices in the fields of community management and marketing 2.0. Register with promo code CMSMASH and save 10%.

September 28, 2010, London, UK: At a time when organisations are having to cut their budgets for training, marketing and communications, we recognise that having the right skills in-house are more important than ever. With this in mind, sounddelivery are proud to announce The Social Media Exchange Express. During this one-day event, you'll have the opportunity to attend four workshops of your choice. From podcasting and video production, to AudioBoo and social media management, you will get hands-on and learn the skills you need to improve your organisation's online presence and increase your confidence in the use of social media, all in bite-size, one-hour chunks.

September 28, 2011, San Francisco, CA: Want to learn how to leverage technology as a tool to GROW your business? Want to attend the Small Business Technology Tour? The tour is for business owners, entrepreneurs and business professionals who want to have FUN, NETWORK and LEARN. Whether you know nothing about technology or know a lot, the Small Business Technology Tour is for you. Bring a friend! The first 10 attendees who register with discount code MASHABLE – get a complimentary ticket. Use discount code MASHABLEDISCOUNT to get 50% off!

Sept 28, 2010, Brisbane, Australia: Come to Bluewire Media's E-mail Marketing Secrets event and learn how to use email marketing to its full potential. Discover the dos and donts of growing your database, getting the basics right, nailing your newsletter content, calculating your ROI and be amazed by some of the biggest email marketing blunders! Bring your most pressing questions for our guest panel of email marketing professionals – Evan Fortune (Vision 6), David Smerdon (Clemenger), Adam Franklin (Bluewire Media) & MC'd by Toby Jenkins (Bluewire Media). Tickets $50. Early birds $40. Register with the promo code MASHABLE to get $10 off your ticket price!

September 28, 2010, London, UK: Brands are frequently companies’ most valuable asset. The threats to this valuable asset are increasingly coming through online channels. This event will provide practical solutions and risk mitigation strategies for brand owners to combat these critical risks. Join experts from companies including Abercrombie and Vodafone to benefit from the practical advice and guidance they can provide. Not only will they share their own experience of preventing brand abuse, but will explain how they derive real ROI from their brand protection activities. Mashable readers save 10% on the event with the code KW8079MASH. For more info or to register, please go to http://www.ibclegal.com/obpmash.

September 28, 2010, London, UK: The first ever Mobile and Video in Recruitment Conference has been designed to help recruiters get the most from using mobile and video in Recruitment. This unique conference will include speakers from some of the largest and well-known blue chip companies (including YouTube) who are leading players in mobile and online video. The conference will also include case studies and discussion panels and is aimed at forward-thinking recruiters who want to gain a competitive advantage. Save 15% with the discount code MASHABLE.

September 28, New York, NY: Discover how to best use online media to target the mature consumer and make your brand stand out among the high school demographic. Delve deep into the minds of both consumer groups during our live consumer panels. Led by Ken Colen of Colen Research, these panels will discuss music discovery and purchasing behavior, social media usage and music gifting. Also slated for the agenda are research and best marketing practices presentations offering fresh perspectives, facts and figures. Event speakers include Lori Bitter, President of ContinuumCrew; Scott Hess, VP of Insights for TRU; Scott Jones CEO/Founder of ChaCha; Ron Roy, Partner at Wines That Rock; Joseph Vella, President & Founder of Vella Interactive and boomitude.com; and Tina Wells, CEO of Buzz Marketing Group. For presentation descriptions, pricing and registration information, visit knowyourconsumer.eventbrite.com. Use the promo code Mashable100 to receive $100 off the non-memberr ticket price.

September 29-30, 2010, Singapore: The Customer Show Asia 2010 is providing a unique platform that links loyalty and experience strategies with the latest technological tools and media. This conference will gather the world's largest brands, major stakeholders and leading solution providers in the customer care industry to learn, network, establish partnerships and seal profitable business opportunities. For more information, please visit website at http://www.terrapinn.com/2010/customerasia/index.stm. Register with promo code CSAMAS01 and enjoy 10% discounts.

September 29-30, 2010, New York, NY: The Location-Based Marketing Summit in New York City, is the leading event for Fortune 1000 companies seeking to maximize marketing, commerce and business strategies using location-based services. Attendees receive valuable industry insight that can be immediately utilized in developing a location-based strategy. We give you an inside look at the location based marketing activities of major brands. Hear from companies who’ve made the journey and learn from their experiments and activities. We cut through the hype and separate buzz from success. Register with promo code MASHVIP to save an extra $100 off registration. The full schedule and speakers list can be found here.

September 29-30, Denver, CO: Are you a CEO, Owner, or Marketing Executive wondering how you should be using social media to promote your business? Come to our Free 90-minute Social Media Boot Camp for CEOs where you will learn proven techniques and valuable tips to drive customers to your website and generate new leads. Our expert speaker, Paul Slack, will offer abundant detailed strategies you can immediately put into action. We will be in a different city each week, so please check our listings to see when we will be in your area!

http://www.ceosocialbootcamp.com/

September 30-October 1, 2010, Lake Tahoe, NV: Tahoe Tech Talk is NOT just about assembling an outstanding lineup of speakers (though we’ve done that, including Digg founder Kevin Rose, Twitter adviser / investor Chris Sacca, and former Facebook strategist Dave Morin). It’s about creating an opportunity for true discussion. Each speaker will return to the stage for a massive interactive session, taking questions from the audience about the technology sphere in 2010 and beyond. Conference registration includes a complimentary night’s stay at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Resort and Casino… all for just $399! Space is extremely limited, so reserve your spot today! For more details, visit www.tahoetechtalkconf.com.

September 30-October 1, 2010, Málaga, Spain: From the organizers of SearchCongress, a new and professional online marketing event, WebCongress, featuring two days of conferences, workshops and networking, will take place at the Palacio de Ferias y Congresos de Málaga. The event offers a wide range of sessions providing you a complete training in social media, developer, hosting and domains, web design, search and marketing online. Come and share with Google, SEMPO, W3C, Sedo, InternetX and the most impressive experts specializing in SEO, SEM, web analytics, accessibility, usability and social media. For more information, please visit www.wcongress.com/malaga.

September 30, 2010, New York, NY: DigitalFlashNYC Productions, in conjunction with Popular Science magazine, presents POPSCI LIVE, a one of a kind digital tech event. For the first time in New York, the future of consumer electronics—from phones and cameras to next-gen 3-D televisions—will be in your hands. Popular Science Deputy Editor Jake Ward will be on hand to discuss these amazing devices in an interactive Q&A about the future of electronics, and what they mean for the future of media. As part of Advertising Week, this event will be the only place that will be providing an interactive forum for you to hold the gadgets you've always wanted to understand, and to ask tough questions about where it's all headed. There’s also a special discount for the Mashable community – enter coupon code DFNYMASH at checkout for a 15% discount off your ticket. Go to www.digitalflashnyc.com to register.

September 30, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Vator, a leading platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to connect and learn from one another, is holding its third Splash competition to find 10 promising early-stage startups to present at the Vator Splash event on Sept 30, Thursday. Enter the competition today and join other onstage presenters, such as Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason, Twitter COO Dick Costolo, Eventbrite founder and CEO Kevin Hartz, and VCs from First Round, FirstMark, Charles River, Felicis Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Mayfield, Norwest and many more. Buy your 20% discount ticket here using the code MashableSplash.

September 30, 2010, New York, NY: More than ever, ad operations is integral to online advertising. AdMonsters introduces OPS, a forum for the growing Ad Ops community, and invites everyone to join us and dig in. OPS will deliver a deep understanding of the critical technologies, tools, methods and practices that will enable you to turn online ad operations into a source of greater profit. In true AdMonsters fashion, this one day event will focus on what is actionable today that will lead to long term success. Speaking companies include The Wall Street Journal, Turner Broadcasting, The Weather Channel, MTV, NBC, Havas Digital, Universal McCann and more. See the event page for more details and register today.

September 30, 2010, London, UK: Bringing together collective thoughts on Social Media for 2011. We know its going to be much more than an introduction to Social, we're looking forward into the bigger picture about how we communicate within the platforms and how we measure and integrate Social Media into our strategies. We're bringing together some of the leading authorities in Social Media, from app developers to word of mouth evangelists to discuss where and how the industry is evolving! – 'A forward thinking social media conference'. For more information, please visit http://www.social-collective.com. Mashable readers can receive 25% off ticket prices at registration with promo code MASH25

September 30, 2010, London, UK: Get the latest on the attempts to increase regulation surrounding the moderation of UGC. What qualifies as illegal and inappropriate content and how should it be dealt with? This year Luisa Edwards, Head of Commercial, Google Legal EMEA, will share with you her expertise on the interactive online environment, based on experience managing the legal challenges facing Youtube. Plus attend the workshop Social Networking and the Law: Challenges, Risk & Opportunities; a fully interactive guide on protecting your organisation and maximising on the opportunities that social networking presents. Mashable readers save 10% on the event with this code: KW8094MASH. For more info or to register, go to http://www.ibclegal.com/ugcmash.

September 30, 2010, London, UK: Brightlemon Drupal Training – Drupal Development with Views and CCK: Drupal is a powerful CMS solution on its own – but the add-on modules of Views and CCK take that flexibility to a whole new level. This day is dedicated to turning you into an expert of how to integrate the two modules to get a lot done quickly. Buy tickets here.

October 1-2, 2010, New York, NY: The Open Video Conference (OVC) is a multi-day summit of thought leaders in business, academia, art and activism to explore the future of video on the web. Join us October 1-2 for two days of learning and inspiration, and stick around for the OVC hack labs, presented in partnership with NYU ITP.

October 1, 2010, New York, NY: Produced by Mediabistro and Social Times, the third annual Social Ad Summit explores best practices for social media marketing and advertising. The rapid growth of social media is providing marketers with larger reach, stronger customer relationships and increased relevance. At this showcase of recent case studies from agencies and brands, you'll see firsthand what is working and learn how to implement a successful strategy for your organization or client. Social networks, publishers, ad agencies, marketers, PR agencies, service providers delivering social advertising and anyone else interested in the latest trends in social media marketing will unite at Social Ad Summit. Speakers include Organic SVP Steve Beck, Turner Sports VP of Marketing Jeff Mirman, Skimlinks Co-founder and CEO Alicia Navarro, and more. Register with promo code MASH and save 15%!

October 1, 2010, London, UK: Brightlemon Drupal Training – Drupal e-commerce solutions with Ubercart (London): The course will introduce you to the world of e-commerce Drupal style and show what a powerful and flexible suite of solutions is available. We will build a shop from scratch and through the process explore the various modules and techniques that are required. The main focus is around the Ubercart set of modules. Buy tickets here.

October 2-3, Vancouver, BC, Canada: The Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit is an annual conference to unite and improve the Drupal Community in the Pacific Northwest region. This year’s Drupal Summit is being organized by volunteers from the Surrey, Vancouver and Victoria Drupal User Groups. The camp will feature both scheduled sessions and “unconference” content on both days. Sessions are proposed by community volunteers and programming decisions will be made based on the interests and Drupal experience level of the attendees. In addition to the scheduled sessions, the camp will feature space for community gatherings, Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, hands-on training and more!

October 2-3, 2010, Philadelphia, PA: PodCamp Philly 2010 is targeted to audio and video podcasters, bloggers, social media enthusiasts, professionals and hobbyists, musicians, marketers, and people who generally want to understand more about the new media space. The power of an unConference is you get open access to ideas, thoughts, best practices, and the true "wisdom of crowds" simply by registering and attending. Find out more at http://www.podcampphilly.com, or sign up at http://podcampphilly2010.eventbrite.com.

October 3, 2010, Victoria, British Columbia: Come to Canada’s most beautiful city, and the first city in the world to proclaim Mashable’s Social Media Day! Whether you are an avid Facebook user, interested in learning about Twitter, or you're trying to grow your business by leveraging social media tools – there is something for everyone at this event! Social Media Camp is a one-day event featuring interesting and knowledgeable speakers from around British Columbia, and across North America! Register with promo code SMCV10 and save 15%!

October 4-6, 2010, New York, NY: At Search Marketing Expo – SMX East, you'll learn to maximize ROI from paid search advertising, optimize your website content for superior organic search results, expand your skills with local and mobile advertising expertise, master social media marketing on Twitter, Facebook and other SMM networks, boost conversions… and increase sales. Use code "smx100mashable" and save $100 off your registration. For more info visit http://www.smxeast.com.

October 4-7, 2010, Atlanta, GA: FutureMedia Fest 2010 – Explore new paradigms in how Content is Created, Distributed and Consumed with FutureMedia at Georgia Tech. Join our mash-up of talent, ideas, trends and technology. Hear directly from top industry execs and visionaries. Talk with investors. Meet interactive marketing experts. Network with potential partners. Experiment real-time with open innovation. Industry leaders, academics, entrepreneurs and VC's will inspire and challenge attendees with provocative panel discussions, facilitated small discussion groups and hands-on demos of next generation technology. Register today at futuremediaglobal.com and use the code FutureMedia 2010.

October 4-8, 2010, Boston, MA: FutureMis the first ever week-long, collaborative, multi-location conference in Boston offering participants the opportunity to tap into the freshest thinkers in marketing, media and technology. Leading innovators will come together to share and explore how the newest technologies and insights are changing the way marketers think, create, engage and measure.

October 5-8 2010, Austin, TX: The Game Developers Conference® Online, formerly GDC Austin, is designed for online and connected game developers creating social network games, free-to-play titles, large scale MMOs, and all types of social games. GDC Online focuses on emerging topics in connected game development including microtransactions, the casualization of MMOs, and new distribution models and is ideal for online gameservice providers, tool vendors, and emerging game technology pioneers. Join industry trailblazers from Bigpoint, Disney, Playdom, Tencent, Relic, Zynga and more to discuss best practices and provide insight on the future of online games. Register with code GDCMASH and save 15% off conference passes. Learn more about GDC Online and start the registration process at www.gdconline.com.

October 5-6, 2010, Prague: EyeforTravel's Online Marketing & Social Media in Travel Summit brings together top travel brands to share key insights on how to maximize the impact of your online marketing and social media initiatives. The 2 days are packed full of case studies, presentations and networking opportunities. Speakers hail from across Europe and include Lufthansa, Lonely Planet, Expedia, TripAdvisor, P&O Cruises and many more. Use the code MASHABLE to claim your €100 discount on the price to attend.

October 5-6, 2010, London, UK: Are you looking to quantify your social media efforts? Do you want to have constant customer engagement? If the answer is yes, join us at in London at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel for iStrategy 2010 to learn, network, share ideas, and understand how to build your online marketing strategy to its fullest potential. iStrategy 2010 London brings together Europe's leaders in social media marketing. iStrategy will give delegates the valuable insight they need to: Harness New Technologies, Drive Revenue Growth, Create Value from Digital Assets, Develop Innovative and Creative Online Strategies and achieve a Market Leading Online Position. Register now and Quote MashableLON to receive a 10% discount.

iStrategy 2010

October 6-7, 2010, Boston, MA: The Inbound Marketing Summit is where the online marketing community gathers to solve today’s marketing and business communications challenges. This event features the brightest minds in the business, including world-renowned authors and practitioners, as well as leaders from some of the companies already using the new tools and strategies. This fast-paced and information-packed event is your check-up on your existing business communications strategies and your prescription for the coming months. On October 6 and 7 join Chris Brogan, Justin Levy and the entire New Marketing Labs team along with hundreds of marketers like yourself and 60+ speakers and sponsors at Gillette Stadium for two days of fast-paced, highly interactive, actionable content. For more information, visit us at: Inbound Marketing Summit. Use the code “MASH50” for a 50% discount.

October 6-7, 2010, Novotel Clarke Quay, Singapore: The Mobile Social Networking Conference is hailed as the event for all major players within the mobile social networking and telecommunications industry to explore topics ranging from product innovation, revenue management, pricing strategy, and consumer trends. Conference presentations include case studies, discussion panels, and presentations by industry leaders, professionals and regulators. Register with the promo code M1 for a 10% discount.

October 6-7, 2010, Los Angeles, CA: Digital Music Forum West: Over 300 of the most influential decision-makers in the music industry gather in Los Angeles each year for this incredible two-day dealmakers’ forum to network, do deals and share ideas about the business. Digital Music Forum West -– now in its fifth year –- features a lively and fun debate on timely cutting-edge business topics and demos, as well as unrivaled access to some of the most progressive companies in Hollywood, Silicon Valley and beyond. Mashable readers can receive 10% off registration with promo code MASH10.

October 6, 2010, New York, NY: AdWeb 3.0 is an exclusive event taking place at the Cornell Club in New York City focusing upon the latest in business models, solutions and technologies in the digital advertising business in of data, platforms and monetization from the perspectives of buyers and sellers. Registration is open and available at the discount rate of $495. For more information on registration, and a full roster of speakers and sponsors, visit adweb30.com.

October 6, 2010, Seattle, WA: The International Search Summit is coming to the US for the first time and will be held alongside Localization World at the Bell Harbour Conference Center. As with the European events, the Summit will focus on international and multilingual search marketing topics and offer delegates insight and advice on how to effectively develop and manage international online campaigns. Speakers at the event will include Eugene Lomize from Russian search engine Yandex, Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR, Andy Atkins-Krüger from WebCertain, John Yunker of Byte Level Research and Anne Kennedy from Beyond Ink. Topics covered will include International Video Optimization, Twittering in Tongues, International Link Building and Geolocation. The summit is a must for any marketer targeting multiple markets and/or languages online. Register now with the coupon code MASH20 to receive 20% discount.

October 7-8, San Francisco, CA: Every year we bring you our biggest and brightest conference in the Fall in our beautiful hometown of San Francisco. Health 2.0 always features the most comprehensive line-up of technology innovators, as well as leaders in health care, government and finance, and unveils the best new health care technology startups at Launch! You won't want to miss the Fourth Annual Health 2.0 Conference. With nearly a hundred speakers and plenty of new healthcare demos and technologies on display on stage and in the exhibit hall, you'll get a sweeping overview of the ways that information technology and the web are changing healthcare.

Oct. 7, 2010, Cheyenne, WY: Last year’s inaugural event was so great, we’re bringing SocialWyo back. And SocialWyo 2.0 will be free! Build on your knowledge of social media for small business and other applications while learning a bit more about keeping your online life in balance with your offline life with Boulder, Colo.’’s Gwen Bell. The only statewide social media conference in Wyoming will be at Laramie County Community College, and once again is sponsored by LCCC and the LCCC Entrepreneurial Program. Space is limited, so register soon at www.socialwyo.com.

October 7, 2010, New York, NY: The Great Leaders Conference is an invitation-only annual event for C-Suite and senior executives. The goal of the conference is to examine the Changing Culture of Leadership in a Web 2.0 world. The GLC will honor Great Leaders in Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Advocacy, Sustainability and Innovation. Keynote Speakers include Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos, Wyclef Jean, Founder Yele Haiti, Jeffrey Swartz, CEO Timberland, Stephen McDonnell, CEO Applegate Farms and more. Register by September 3 for best price: $999! Learn more and register at greatleadersconference.com.

October 8-10, 2010, Miami, FL: The Blogalicious Weekend conferences are aimed at celebrating the diversity of women of all ethnicities in social media. Over the course of 3 event-filled days, savvy, influential and talented bloggers will ignite a sense of unity within the multicultural blogging community as well as educate marketers on the importance of our demographic in today's marketplace, all while networking, building relationships, and promoting inspiration and success for each other. Imagine a getaway that combines all of the things that you love about blogging with the added element of face-to-face interactions and the intimacy of "IRL" relationships. At Blogalicious 2010, You'll laugh, you'll learn, you'll let your hair down. It will be just like blogging…only better! Register with the promo code MASHABLE10 and save 5%

October 8-10, 2010, Philadelphia, PA: Experience 24 hours of training in iPhone/iPad Development covering basic to advanced features. It is an established certificate training program that trained over 400 iPhone developers since 2008. Matt Campbell, author of “How to Make an IPhone App" for AppMastery Press, will serve as the instructor. Developers will be able to develop an app after the training. For limited time, a 10% discount off the discounted early bird rate – a $400 savings is offered on the registration page using the discount code mashable.

October 9-14, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Unlike other conferences out there, DMA2010 is the only Global ROI Marketing Event, focusing on direct and digital marketing integration across all channels! Learn from 300+ experts from brands like Pepsi, LG, HP and Twitter. Network with 10,000 practitioners from 50+ countries giving youaccess to broad and fresh marketing insights. and, create new partnerships with any of 400+ vendors in the comprehensive Exhibit Hall to learn how to merge direct and digital to maximize your ROI! Register and save an additional $250 with the discount code AN500.

October 10-13, 2010, Cincinnati, OH: The HighEdWeb Conference is nationally recognized as the conference designed by and for all higher education Web professionals — from programmers to marketers to designers to all team members in-between — who want to explore the unique Web issues facing colleges and universities. With more than 60 presentations; a robust poster session; daily general session addresses; pre-and post-conference intensive, hands-on workshops; and multiple high-quality networking opportunities, HighEdWeb attendees receive a high-quality professional development experience packed into just a few days. Register by August 31, 2010 and save $125!

October 12-13, 2010, London, UK: a4uexpo is Europe’s largest Performance Marketing Conference with over 1,000 delegates, 48 diverse conference sessions, an all inclusive middle evening party, a pre and post event networking bash, and a buzzing expo hall all being shared with the leading entrepreneurs and players within the dynamic £10bn Affiliate & Performance Marketing industry. A4uexpo London focuses on quality, knowledge transfer and unparalleled networking opportunities with delegates from around the world, whether you’re a new or established affiliate, agency, entrepreneur, search specialist, merchant or network, a4uexpo is simply a must attend, educational and networking event for those serious about making an impact in Affiliate Marketing. Register online today with code MASHABLE25 and save £25 on a full conference pass for a4uexpo London.

The Multi Channel Pharma Marketing Event

October 13-14, Princeton, NJ: Brought to you by the producer of the sold-out ePharma Summit, the Multi Channel Pharma Marketing Event brings together product managers and marketing operations under one roof to discuss cross-channel media plans for building brand value and elevating top line sales. Join us at the ONLY industry event focused on breaking down internal silos to achieve channel integration and maximize return on engagement. Visit www.multichannelevent.com for more information. Register with Priority Code XP1515MASH to save 15% off standard registration!

October 14-15, 2010, London, UK: Creating and distributing video online? Join us at Online Video Strategies this October in London and learn how to choose the online video solutions that meet your needs, increase audience engagement with interactivity, use video for marketing, promotion and branding, deliver video to the iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices, leverage video for internal and external corporate communications, make sure your video gets seen by viewers and search engines and measure the ROI of your video projects. In addition, Online Video Strategies is a featured event at Streaming Media Europe and all delegates enjoy unlimited access to the Streaming Media Expo as part of their registration. Register at streamingmediaglobal.com/ovs. Quote priority code MASHABLE20 for a 20% discount.

October 14-16, 2010, Las Vegas, NV: BlogWorld & New Media Expo is the first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of new media including all forms of blogging, podcasting, social media, social networking, online video, music, Internet TV and radio. The BlogWorld conference features more than 120 educational sessions, panel discussions and keynote presentations, while the New Media Expo features the only industry-wide new media marketplace where thousands converge to network and find all of their online business and marketing resources. Running concurrent with the BlogWorld conference, the Social Media Business Summit is the world's largest social media business conference where marketing executives, business owners and world-renowned companies send their teams to learn the strategies, tactics, tools and technologies they need to build their brands and grow their businesses with social media. Register today with the code MASH20 for 20% off!

October 17-19, 2010. New York, NY: Pivot Conference is the only industry conference to explore and evaluate the attitudes, technologies and preferences of the “always on” 18-34 year old consumer. Attend Pivot Conference and hear from those successfully engaging with today’s emerging consumer and create your own action plan for success. Register today with code MASH101 and save 20%.

October 17-20, 2010, Scottsdale, AZ: SuperGlad describes the prosperous life of agencies on the right side of the digital marketing divide. The “have’s” have it. The “have nots” do not. For an agency, in-house digital marketing expertise is now a must, not a nice-to-have. And does the knowledge permeate the agency or rest with just one person operating as a stand-alone department (who, by the way, could leave you high and dry if something better comes along)? Digital marketing is a core competency of the “have” agencies. You might not need to execute on all of it but you need to understand it and drive the strategy upon which decisions are made surrounding it. BOLO 2010 takes on the big task at hand: explaining why digital media leads the charge in SuperGlad agencies. It is not an afterthought. It is dealt with using creative, media, traffic and account service employees who think traditionally first, then translate that thinking to a digital environment. This event will show you how. $799/person (or $599 for agencyside members). Use discount code mashable to save $125 (more than 15%) off full-price registration at any time.

October 18-22, 2010, Chicago, IL: Discover the tools of engagement at SES Chicago Conference and Expo on October 18-22, 2010. No longer just lecturing your customers, learn to listen and converse in a more social world. Our experts will show you how integrating search, social media, and video in even basic ways will transform both your sites visibility and profitability. Our program features 60+ sessions covering everything from marketing attribution, the business value of social media, brand reputation management and more. Save 15% with promo code MHCH15. Register now!

October 18-20, 2010, Washington, D.C.: As Social Media quickly emerges as more than a communication tool, the U.S. Government must proactively leverage this new "environment" to achieve organizational goals. IDGA's 3rd Social Media for Defense and Government provides a forum for senior Government and Military officials, industry partners and academic communities to align shared goals, showcase new technology and define the way forward. This conference will present advanced social media strategies that not only improve communication but actually utilize the tools to improve effectiveness. Register with code MASH4GOV and receive 20% off the standard three-day event fee!

October 18-19, 2010, Dallas, TX: The Restaurant & Hospitality Social Media Marketing Bootcamp event provides the practical knowledge and insights required by restaurant and hotel operators to establish objectives and strategies for your market, properly select the social media platforms to engage guests and monitor and measure the results of these efforts for a greater ROI. This event is presented by RestaurantWorx Consulting and Inside Hospitality. Use the code MASHABLE when registering and receive VIP pricing on “Day 1″ or “Day 1 & 2 Attendance” tickets. See complete event details on the event website at www.restaurantsocialmedia.com.

October 18-19, 2010, Singapore: Build your company's reputation and profits at Online Reputation Management Asia 2010. It only takes a few blog posts or YouTube videos or Facebook threads to destroy reputation and image. Don’t miss this opportunity to benefit from industry leaders' extensive experience, practical insights, and proven business-building tactics that you need to know. Be sure to secure your spot now! For more information, please visit our website or download the brochure. Mashable members/subscribers are entitled to a 10% discount off the registration fee!

October 18, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Join us for the third annual i-stage startup competition, featuring debuts from game-changing apps, products and services. Presented by CEA, i-stage gives tech startups the opportunity to compete for a share of $50,000 in prize money and a free booth at the 2011 International CES. Audience members get the first look at the industry's newest visionaries and network with high profile investors, media and industry leaders. Past winners include Boxee and Regen Inc's ReNu solar charging system. There is no entry fee for competing start-ups. Mashable readers save 10% on attendee tickets. Register now and use discount code IMASH.

October, 18, 2010, Washington, DC: Digital East 2010 will feature over 75 leading speakers addressing best practices and trends in Social Media, Mobile, Online Advertising, Ecommerce, Cloud Computing, Web Analytics, Search, Online Video, Email, ORM and more! Hear from brands such as ESPN, Google, Intel, Salesforce.com, AOL, Rosetta Stone, National Geographic and the US Dept of Energy just to name a few. When registering, use the code MASH1 for 20% off.

October 22-23, 2010, Petaluma, Sonoma County, CA: SocialBizWorld is a 2-day Social Media and Web 2.0 business conference for private and public-sector business executives, leaders, managers, employees and consultants looking for insightful speakers, hands-on workshops, in-depth discussions and real-world examples to move their business forward with new media. With Basic, Intermediate and Advanced tracks, attendees will have full access to multiple sessions on both days, have numerous networking opportunities, attend the Friday evening Awards and Business Networking reception (with Special Guest “The TwitchHiker”) and have access to experts gathering in Northern California from all over the country. Join us for this fantastic event in beautiful Sonoma County, at the foot of wine country, minutes from Sonoma and Napa, and just 30 minutes north of San Francisco. Mashable readers receive 15% off conference registration with promo code MASHED. Please visit socialbizworld.com for more information.

October 22-23, 2010, Atlanta, GA: Social Media Experts will be in high demand as social media becomes an integral part of PR and marketing campaigns. Will you be one? Designed specifically for marketing and PR professionals of all backgrounds, non-profit organizations and small business owners, the Integrating Social Media Conference goes beyond the buzz words to real-world and proven methods for successfully incorporating social media into your current marketing and PR strategies. You'll hear firsthand from social media experts including Shiv Singh of Pepsi Co., The Brand Builder's Olivier Blanchard, WholeFoods's Marla Erwin, HubSpot's Mike Volpe, Kellye Crane of Crane Communications and more. Register with promo code MASH and save 20%.

October 22, 2010, Nashville, TN: Social Media Marketing Workshops 101 & 201 — a full day, hands-on training for businesses who want to create a social media marketing campaign from the ground up. Featuring top 10+ networking sites with step-by-step setup guides on each application with strategies on how they all work together. Sessions include blogging strategy, social CRM, social monitoring, email & mobile marketing, best of Google Analytics, SEO tactics and special focus on Wordpress websites for businesses. These are no-nonsense, intensive learning workshops you wont find anywhere else! a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://clear-idea-workshops-2.eventbrite.com/?discount=” target=”_blank”>Register with the promo code MASH and save $100!

October 25-26, 2010, Northborough, MA: The Restaurant & Hospitality Social Media Marketing Bootcamp event provides the practical knowledge and insights required by restaurant and hotel operators to establish objectives and strategies for your market, properly select the social media platforms to engage guests and monitor and measure the results of these efforts for a greater ROI. This event is presented by RestaurantWorx Consulting and Inside Hospitality. Use the code MASHABLE when registering and receive VIP pricing on “Day 1″ or “Day 1 & 2 Attendance” tickets. See complete event details on the event website at www.restaurantsocialmedia.com.

October 25, 2010, Orlando, FL: IIR presents CUSTOMER WORLD, the co-location of three unique customer-centric events (NACCM, Linkage Strategies & Customer UNinterrupted) under one roof. Where the Voice of Your Industry comes together to champion and celebrate CUSTOMERS 1ST. Customer World's flagship event, NACCM, is an industry favorite. It attracts top customer-centric leaders in North America to share new and best practices for strengthening customer relationships. Content areas include customer-centric social media strategies, loyalty, customer experience, innovation, culture, engagement, leadership and more. Register with code CWORLD10MASH and save 15% off the standard rates.

October 26-28, 2010, Frankfurt, Germany: The Enterprise 2.0 wave has spilled over the corporations' boundaries and creates a good deal of discussion about the way businesses will be managed in the future. "Setting the path towards an open and agile E 2.0 driven organization" is therefore the topic of this year's Enterprise 2.0 Summit, the gathering of European experts and practitioners discussing technology trends and adoption topics on Enterprise 2.0. The English-language conference consists of interactive workshops, seminars, expert talks and best practices from all over Europe, e. g. BMW, Hewlett Packard, SONY, Swiss Reinsurance Company, etc. Go to www.e20summit.com and register with the promo code MASH10 and save 10%!

www.e20summit.com

October 26, 2010, San Jose, CA: Get real about social media at SocialTech 2010 — the only conference dedicated to teaching B2B high-tech marketers how to harness the power of social media. You’ll learn from B2B marketing leaders at companies like IBM, Intel, SAP, HP, Adobe and Cisco how to use social media to achieve real, measurable business results. Enjoy networking and keynotes from Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble and Jeremiah Owyang. Can't make it to San Jose? You can join us online. Register today and save 10% with coupon code MASH10!

October 27-28, 2010: The Caribbean Media Conference & Expo have become the Caribbean's premier regional conference on television, cable and satellite, broadband, wireless, radio, magazines, news and print media, advertising and marketing. The 2010 Caribbean New Media Expo and Conference is unique in that it seeks to strengthen the relationships with new media companies, marketers and advertisers to further capitalize on the benefits of digital, social and mobile media. Presentations and panel discussions will help marketers understand concepts such as online-display advertising, search and social networking and how the impact of new technologies has wrought consumer behavior changes.

October 27-29, 2010, Washington, DC: This event will showcase 15 federal perspectives on different strategies government agencies can implement to comply with the Obama Administration's Open Government Directive. The social media realm will be a prevailing topic of discussion as it has been the prime means federal agencies have taken to achieve compliance, but problems with its use still persist. This event will provide ADVANCED solutions and ideas to the policy, security, monitoring and measuring struggles that many agencies face on a daily-basis. Mashable subscribers will enjoy a 10% discount when they mention MASHABLE in their follow-up email to the event contact listed here: event.

October 28-30, 2010, Toronto, Canada: Today, companies recognize that Social Media is an important part of an integrated strategy that is woven into every fiber of Sales, Marketing, PR, Advertising, Customer Relations and Branding campaigns. The second unGeeked Elite three-day Retreat brings together 10 keynotes and 16 presenters who'll provide you with examples of best practices, solutions and case studies in a forum where keynotes and presenters ask you to engage, poke them in the eye with questions and get one-on-one responses in this intimate learning environment. RSVP with the promo code unGeekedMashable and save 30% off regular ticket price!

October 28-29, 2010, Exeter, UK: The Like Minds Conference – Autumn 2010 is a 2 day event attended by participants from across Europe focusing upon the subject of “Creativity and Curation”. This year, we have a range of workshops, keynotes and lunch time talks from leaders in marketing, communications and media from around the world. Then, you can relax on Thursday and Friday night with the Like Movies and Like Music festivals. Details and registration at www.wearelikeminds.com.

Like Minds Conference – Autumn 2010

October 28, 2010, London, UK: The International Search Summit will focus once again on international and multilingual search marketing topics and offer delegates insight and advice on how to effectively develop and manage international online campaigns. Speakers at the event will include Eugene Lomize from Russian search engine Yandex, Omar Khaled from Arabic search Engine Ayna, as well as well-known search marketers Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Marty Weintraub, Massimo Burgio and Barry Lloyd. The Summit will be held at The British Library in London and is a must for any marketer targeting multiple markets and/or languages online. Register now with the coupon code MASH20 to receive 20% discount.

November 1-2, 2010, New York, NY: Are you a health marketing and communications professional? Please join us at unNiched 2010, a unique collaborative boot camp where you will actively learn and use collaboration, strategic marketing and communications skills. Using our unNiched Innovation Model, gain the tools to create and drive marketing communications success within (and without) your organization. In addition, you’ll have access to a private online group and learn from a range of experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AIDS.gov, Edelman, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab. Use the discount code Mashable and get 10% off.

November 1-2, 2010, Dubai, UAE: Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Summit at Total Marketing Discuss and debate the opportunities and challenges faced by marketers in leveraging social media as a marketing tool. Hear from leading organizations on how they managed to turn Twitter and LinkedIn amongst others into powerful communication channels! Getting in at the top of any search remains a key focus for many organizations today. Hear from leading practitioners on how best practice strategies and innovative methods to get the most out of the internet. Register and save 15% when using code MASHABLE-TM. For more information, visit www.totalmarketing2010.com.

November 3, 2010, Frankfurt, Germany: The viscom tec.10 conference focuses upon how to create a customer focused experience with technology. Thanks to modern technologies, consumers are now more networked and better informed than ever before. Used to finding the ideal product by making comparisons and consulting with others on a wide range of webservices. In the future the challenge for marketing and technology providers will be to reach this “always on” generation in real life. The conference will highlight the perspectives and visions of the different sectors: from traditional advertising and out-of-home possibilities to web and mobile-based communication and digital signage. Use the early bird pricing and save 200 EUR.

November 4-6, 2010, Savannah, GA: Geekend is the interactive conference phenomenon you have been waiting your whole life for. Geekend is your chance to interact with people taking the tech and creative industries by storm. Join us this November as the brightest geeks, designers, developers, artists, and social media mavericks flock to Savannah for a weekend filled with cutting edge speakers, fun-filled after parties, and amazing networking opportunities. Speakers include Noah Everett of Twitpic, Scott Stratten of Unmarketing, Margaret Francis of Lithium, and many more.

November 8-11, 2010, Las Vegas, NV: PubCon, the premier search and social media conference, features the industry’s biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon holds cutting edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon Las Vegas will also hold a one day two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry’s most respected search professionals. PubCon makes all of this available at some of the most affordable registration rates in the industry. Please use the code ma-8201210 for 10% off the registration price.

November 8-11, 2010, Santa Clara, CA: See the latest collaboration tools and technologies at Enterprise 2.0 Santa Clara’s comprehensive conference and expo. Gain thought leadership — from strategy to execution and performance monitoring — to bring the power of collaboration to your organization, accelerate information flow, drive revenue and increase productivity. Register with the promo code CNUJES04 to save $100 off the onsite price for passes or for a free expo pass.

November 10-12, 2010, Orlando, FL: Please join the Social Media Club for their first annual conference, Social Media University, in Orlando, FL. The Social Media University event will be a deep dive into the higher ideals and issues affecting Social Media itself, including the rise of the Social Media Professional. It will be quite different from what you have experienced at other conferences on social media. With John Hagel III, David Meerman Scott, KD Paine, Tom Foremski and many other social media masters as our 'faculty', this conference will be invaluable for all Social Media Professionals. Please visit www.socialmediauniversity for more information!

November 11, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Social Media Prom, presented by @FunnyOrDie, is for anyone and everyone who didn’t have a chance to go to prom. Or maybe you did, but you were the wallflower, someone poured punch down your dress, or gave you a wedgy and hung you from a locker. This is your chance to shine, and relive what you may not have been able to experience from the backseat of the car or behind the bleachers. Visit www.socialmediaprom.com to get your tickets! Don’t have a date? No big deal, go stag! Tickets are $20 for couples and $15 for singles.

November 11, 2010, London, UK: The first London Social Gaming Summit is a one day event focused on the intersection of games and the social web. The event focuses on helping social games developers build, monetize, and grow their social games. We’re bringing together the leaders in free-to-play games, social networking, and payments infrastructure for a full day of panels and talks.

November 12, 2010, London, UK: The first London Virtual Goods Summit is a one day event focused on the emerging market opportunity for virtual goods and economies. Once restricted to the world of online gaming, virtual goods and currencies are beginning to influence the development of social networks, community sites, and many other new and exciting markets. The market for virtual goods continues to grow – join us for engaging talks and panels designed to highlight important trends in this fast growing market. This is a must-attend event for those in the games, social media, and entertainment markets. Register now with the promo code MASHABLE010 for 15% off!

November 15–18, 2010, London, UK: Europe's definitive customer strategy experience. Focusing on the strategy behind the concept of loyalty, Loyalty World will provide you with the insight and tools to develop the ultimate loyalty initiative to support your business goals and add measurable value to your bottom line. Loyalty World will examine the relationship between your brand and your customers, look at what drives consumer behaviour, and help you understand how you can identify and harness new trends and tools to really drive engagement. Loyalty World attracts participants from some of the world's most reputable brands. With speakers from retail, financial services, travel, leisure, utilities and telecoms, you will gain cross-transferable loyalty insights and experiences that will help rejuvenate your loyalty strategy, attract, engage and retain customers, and strengthen your market. Register here and SAVE 10%.

November 15, 2010, London, UK: The virtual goods model is the revenue-generating sensation that is taking the world by storm, from games publishers to media companies, from social-networking sites to consumer brands. The Virtual Goods World Europe 2010 promises to be the next step for your business! Major brands will come together to discuss the opportunities presented by the rise of virtual goods. Social networking sites will participate, to learn more from the brands and create business models for the future. Games publishers and developers will learn best practice customer acquisition strategies. All participants will learn new opportunities presented by advances in alternative payment systems. Register now with the promo code VGWMASH and save 10%!

November 17-18, 2010, Raleigh, NC: Internet Summit 2010 will feature over 100 speakers and an audience of over 1500 internet execs, entrepreneurs and senior marketers. Join dozens of industry leaders and innovators in the conversation on topics such as Social Media, Mobile, Cloud Computing, Geolocation, Online Advertising, Analytics, Video, E-commerce and more. Use registration code MASH for 20% off.

November 17, 2010, Phoenix, AZ: Fifth Annual Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference (AZEC10). In the current environment, some companies will still come out stronger than before. Has your business suffered? Have you been laid off? Are you trying to grow in difficult circumstances? Here at AZEC10, we’ve got your back. Local investors, local entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley veterans will spend the day discussing the realities of business today. You MUST meet these people and learn from them during the Great Re-Set of 2010. This is the premier entrepreneurship conference in Arizona, benefitting the Opportunity Through Entrepreneurship Foundation.

November 18-19, 2010, New York, NY: Get your tickets now to attend NextGen:Charity, a conference on non-profit innovation being held in New York City. Learn and network with 500+ executive-level professionals of non-profits and foundations. Featured speakers include Seth Godin, Scott Harrison, Arianna Huffington, Nancy Lublin, Randi Zuckerberg. Visit our website for more information, to learn about all our presenters and get your tickets. Click here to register now!

November 18, 2010, Madrid, Spain: Stepping out of the comfort zone: Innovation & Social Media in Healthcare. Advertising in the new markets of conversations is the big challenge, and realizing that you no longer have the control of the brand is difficult to assume and scary. But wanted or not, the conversation is out there. HCPs are right now storytelling their opinions, experiences, unmet needs, therapeutic strategies and ideas via the Social Web. They are looking for connectivity and knowledge in these new ecosystems which are "common and global grounds". The word of mouth surpasses, in credibility, the traditional communication tools.

November 25, 2010, London, UK: The media and marketing industry's Global GREEN Awards 2010 recognise and reward creative work that communicates the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainable development and ethical best practice in any sector and across any marketing discipline. Now in its 5th year the GREEN AWARDS™ are going Global, this year for the first time, all the categories are opened for entry from all over the world. The Awards illustrate the crucial role that needs to be played by green marketing and sustainability communications in informing people about green issues, products and lifestyle choices, and showcase examples of excellence and best practice in communicating sustainability and green issues. The Awards are now open for entry. For more information about the 16 categories and entry process, please visit http://www.greenawards.co.uk

November 30, 2010 – December 2, 2010, London, UK: Online Information is the largest UK event dedicated to the information industry. Taking place in the Grand Hall at London's Olympia, the exhibition attracts more than 9,000 visitors each year from around the world. This unique, free to attend event consists of an exhibition with more than 200 international exhibitors alongside an extensive seminar programme. Online Information covers 6 core segments: Content Resources, ePublishing Solutions, Library Management, Content Management, Search Solutions and Social Media, providing an annual meeting place for this global industry. Mashable readers may register to attend here.

November 30-December 1, 2010, London, UK: Apps World aims to address the entire app ecosystem and the challenge of delivery, development and design of apps across multiple platforms. The event will bring together leading operators and app stores worldwide, and draw in parallels between the mobile & TV app platforms. Register now to receive the early-bird discount.

November 30, 2010, London, UK: Social Recruiting Conference will gather together leading employers and recruitment industry professionals, to passionately discuss and practically demonstrate the power of Social Recruiting. The conference will be unlike any other Social Media Recruiting conferences you have attended. Our aim is to take the talk from theory to practice; and shift conversations from hype and hope to reality and results. #SRCONF will focus on Social Recruiting case studies, with measurable ROIs. Save 10% when you register with the code MASH10 at http://www.srconf.com.

November 30, 2010, London, UK: Hear how 21 heavyweight brands, including Facebook, Sainsbury’s, Google-YouTube, COI, King of Shaves, Motorola, JustGiving, BBC, Volvo, M&S, FT, Jaguar, Eurostar and Santander are demonstrating real results from social media at the Social Media Results For PR & Comms Conference. Tried and tested strategies to genuinely engage audiences, fully embed and integrate social media practices and clearly demonstrate real results. Mashable readers receive a £150 discount with the promo code MASHABLE if you book before August 19. Click here to download the conference brochure.

December 1-2, 2010, Berlin, Germany: Lead generation, lead nurturing, inbound marketing, B2B social media marketing, SEO, storytelling, mobile marketing and blogging, B2B marketers are facing new challenges in building profitable marketing strategies. The first BB2B Marketing Europe event features a keynote presentation by Chris Brogan and will bring together European B2B marketers to share knowledge through real-world case studies, best practices, lessons learned and offer networking opportunities with some of the biggest brands and businesses today – Forrester Research, Google, Philips, Dassault Systemes, Accenture, HP, Honeywell, Canon, Kodak, Symantec, HubSpot, iTive and more. Register by September 30th to receive an early bird discount.

December 1, 2010, London, UK: The Mobile Cloud Computing Forum will provide a full perspective of mobile cloud computing and SaaS from business value through integration and implementation and to the emergent trends in the industry. Meet some of the best known mobile cloud computing and SaaS professionals in person and exchange your experiences. Register with promo code MCMASH20 and save 20%! http://www.mobilecloudcomputingforum.com/

December 6-7, 2010, Los Angeles, CA: The LA Mobile Entertainment Summit is brought to you by the producers of the widely acclaimed 3D Entertainment Summit, this high level strategy and networking event will explore all facets of the mobile entertainment industry. This event will be presented in association with Variety and in partnership with the Mobile Excellence Awards, the industry's most prestigious awards program for the mobile industry. Located in the heart of the Entertainment industry, the Summit will attract the brightest minds in the mobile ecosystem. Delivering two days of packed in-depth discussions, the summit will deliver strategies to capitalize on this rapidly changing landscape, attracting senior level decision makers, leading press and market analysts.

December 7-9, 2010, Santa Clara, CA: Taking place in the heart of Silicon Valley, BIA/Kelsey's Interactive Local Media 2010 (ILM:10) is a unique, three-day mega-conference featuring the true innovators of local media, local directories, local search, local mobile, local social and local direct marketing. One highlight is a special Mobile Local SuperForum offering the deepest and most strategic dive ever presented in the mobile local space. Head's up: Local is hot, and this year's conference should be BIA/Kelsey's largest ever. Register with promo code ILMMASH and save $200!

December 8-10 Reno, NV: Join professionals from marketing, tourism, gaming, service industries and nonprofits in Reno-Tahoe's amazing ski country for Social Media at Reno Tahoe (SM@RT), one of the best values of any similar national conference in 2010. Speakers, along with specialized breakout session presenters, include top authors, practitioners and strategist from media giant, Gannett, winter travel destinations, Vail Resorts, and many other experts in building business for professional service firms. Anchored by the University of Nevada, and its business and journalism schools, attendees get specialized instruction to return home with ways to immediately improve their social media marketing. Register now and save and an additional $100 online for the main conference with the discount code MASH.

January 20-22, 2011, Mumbai, India: Click Asia Summit 2011 is designed to be Asia's largest digital & mobile marketing conference and expo where industry thought leaders congregate to discuss online marketing, challenges faced by agencies, and the changing face of social media. Click Asia Summit 2011 is going to change the way you look at Digital and Mobile marketing. Please register by clicking here. http://www.clickasiasummit.com/register

February 7-10, 2011, Orlando, FL: ARC's 2011 World Industry Forum: Driving Innovation, Sustainability and Performance will take place at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld! This forum will focus on challenges that will help you develop winning strategies. It provides an ideal environment for industry executives to collaborate, share ideas, and find new ways to attack their most pressing problems. The event includes sessions on the major issues facing our industry, with multiple tracks that enable executives to explore these topics from different perspectives. Owner/operators, solution providers, & technical experts will all benefit while contributing to the community's body of knowledge.

March 8-9, 2011, Brussels, Belgium: Are you looking to unleash the power of social media for CRM? As new channels and strategies emerge it is increasingly important to meet face-to-face to share knowledge, challenges and experiences. Enterprise Social 2.0: CRM will bring social media marketers and CRM experts together to share knowledge through real-world case studies, best practices, lessons learned and offering networking opportunities with some of the biggest brands and businesses today. Past speakers include: Google, Kodak, L'Oreal, Philips, Nokia, Lego, Siemens, Vodafone, SWIFT, SAP, Roger Smith Hotel, Dominos Pizza, Airbus and more. To receive a special discount, register now!

March 28-29, 2011, Paris, France: The Marketing 2.0 Conference features leading social media experts who will discuss and learn about the social media initiatives from brands, advertisers, researchers and analysts. Hear from leading people in social media about their strategies, revenue models and how they are approaching upcoming trends in the field. The event will also examine the current market conditions, future forecasts and predictions from leading researchers. Use the promo code mash2011 to receive a discount off the registration price.

April 13-15, 2011, Singapore: The Internet Show Asia 2011 is a series of seminars and a large end-to-end showcase of the latest internet technologies and solutions. More than 10,000 attendees will be at the exhibition and conference to find new ways of doing internet business and enhancing product offerings through the internet – through case study presentations and speaking directly with solution partners. The show will aim to increase your ROI, it's all about business, not a technology show. For more details and registrations, please visit www.theinternetshows.com/2010/Singapore.

eventbrite logo

The Mashable Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

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.

Reviews: Australia, Boxee, Digg, Drupal, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Google Analytics, Internet, LinkedIn, Mashable, Skype, Twitpic, Twitter, WordPress, Yelp, YouTube, awards, eXperience, social media, society, ustream, video

For more Social Media coverage:

Nike+ Meets Gowalla in Vail Resorts App for Skiers and Snowboarders

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 01:58 PM PDT


More than just powder will be coating the mountains and chair lifts at Vail Resorts this fall. The Colorado-based company has unveiled a new social gaming app for its 2010-2011 ski and snowboard season that allows visitors to track their activities and share them with their friends and family — all via radio frequency (RF)-enabled chips embedded in their season passes and lift tickets.

The app, called EpicMix, is a cross between Nike+ and miCoach, which allow you to track your physical activities, and Gowalla, which rewards users for exploring new areas via its Trips feature. Like Gowalla, EpicMix rewards users with special pins for various accomplishments, such as being on the first chairlift of the day, or skiing a certain number of vertical feet over a designated period of time.

How It Works

What’s different (and especially impressive) about EpicMix is that it doesn’t require a smartphone or GPS-enabled device to participate, nor does it require familiarity with geolocation apps and the concept of “checking in.” Everything visitors need is already in their pass or lift ticket.

Employees will be stationed at the resorts’ various lifts (there are 89 across its five resorts in Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Heavenly) to scan the chips, which allows the application to automatically calculate the number of vertical feet skied, days on the mountain, routes taken and other feats. Guests can thus seamlessly and effortlessly keep track of their activities without having to fumble for their smartphones to check in at various locations — in other words, they can continue skiing and snowboarding the way they always have. Of course, visitors can also opt not to have their passes scanned.

To access their stats and the pins they’ve earned, participants will need to log in to the app via their desktops or a free mobile app for iPhone and Android devices. A third hybrid application is also available for other smartphones, including BlackBerrys. (The Vail Resorts team told us that most of their visitors are Blackberry users and that while the current BlackBerry OS is not robust enough to support all of the same features available to iPhone and Android users, they are hoping to improve on it in the future.)

Users can also use the apps to keep track of where their Facebook friends are at each of the resorts, create leaderboards to compare accomplishments, send private messages to organize meetups and share their activity with their social networks on Facebook, Facebook Places and Twitter. We can imagine that the the tracking feature will be especially useful for parents who want to monitor the whereabouts of their children’s ski classes.

Vail Resorts has also created a version of the app designed especially for kids under age 14, which boasts a separate set of pins and other content, as well as the ability to connect to their parents’ accounts and additional privacy restrictions.

Why We Like It

EpicMix delivers a terrific user experience that is sure to drive loyalty and engagement well beyond what the resort is currently able to offer via its newsletter and other communications channels. It also successfully repurposes the best of activity-tracking apps like Nike+ and miCoach, and social gaming apps like Gowalla and Foursquare in a personalized way, proving what a localized, medium-sized company can do with cutting-edge social and mobile technologies.

The app launches officially on opening day at Keystone Mountain on November 5.

What do you think of EpicMix? When do you think it’s better for companies to design campaigns within the parameters of location-based apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, versus creating their own?

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter

More About: action sports, Android App, epicmix, foursquare, gowalla, iphone app, Nike, skiing, snowboarding, sports, vail resorts

For more Mobile coverage:

NASA Puts Historic Image Collections on Flickr

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 01:33 PM PDT


Three compilations of historic NASA images have been released on The Commons on Flickr, the fruit of a collaborative effort between Flickr, NASA and the Internet Archive.

Although all of the photographs in these sets have been available to the public via NASAimages.org since 2008, NASA on The Commons allows the photographs to be tagged, annotated and given keywords. It also widens the opportunities to share and embed these photographs, ultimately increasing overall awareness of the NASA archives.

The inaugural sets in the collection chronicle the building of NASA, namesakes behind NASA’s 10 field centers, and iconic images of takeoffs and landings of spacecraft and aircraft.

NASA historians will continue to add images and photo sets to The Commons over time.

Image courtesy of Flickr, NASA on The Commons

Reviews: Flickr

More About: flickr, historical photographs, internet archive, NASA, photography, space, the commons

For more Social Media coverage:

Bing for Android Has Arrived… for Verizon Only

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 12:54 PM PDT


Bing has made its debut on Android, but you can only download the app if you’re a Verizon customer.

The new app doesn’t skimp on bringing the full Bing experience to Android. Not only can users search the web with the Bing app, but they can also browse search results for images, movies, maps, news and directions. The addition of Bing Maps is particularly interesting; it works much like Google Maps, providing you not only directions, but layers such as traffic and satellite views. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with voice navigation.

In addition to Maps, Bing for Android includes a simple interface for finding local businesses. While it isn’t as robust as Yelp, it can help you find the basics, like the closest flower shop or grocery store.

Bing for Android also brings its own version of Voice Search to the Google OS. While it’s a functional and useful feature, it doesn’t come with some of Google’s more advanced voice features, most notably Voice Actions.

Bing didn’t forget about the look and feel of the app, either. Every day it will load Bing’s picture of the day as the app’s background. You can also load Bing as a search widget on your home screen.

Overall, Bing’s offering is solid and functional, but it can’t beat the deeper integration Google Search has with the Android OS. Voice Commands, Google Navigate, and a host of other Google-only features dilute the usefulness of this app. Bing users won’t be disappointed by the interface or the results it delivers, though.

One thing that confuses us is Bing for Android’s limited availability. Microsoft doesn’t make it clear in its announcement why the app is exclusive to Verizon phones such as the Droid, the LG Ally or the Droid Incredible. We’ve contacted Microsoft to find out whether we can expect Bing for Android on other carriers.

What do you think of the new Bing app? Will you use Bing instead of Google on your Android phone? Let us know in the comments.

Disclosure: Microsoft is a Mashable sponsor.

Reviews: Android, Bing, Google, Google Maps, Google search, Mashable, Yelp

More About: android, bing, Bing Maps, Google, microsoft, Search, verizon

For more Mobile coverage:

Users Revolt Against New Digg

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:55 AM PDT


Since launching its new version last Wednesday, Digg has been met by a slew of criticism from users unhappy with the latest iteration of the social news site. In a current Mashable poll (open until September 1), the majority of users are saying they prefer the old Digg over the new.

Today, the situation escalated further, as users flooded the site’s Top News page with links to Reddit by digging stories auto-submitted by the Digg competitor. Similarly, a mention of Reddit’s takeover on the Top News page was also doing well on Reddit with user comments such as, “At this rate, by noon digg.com will just redirect to reddit.com.” Other acts of revolt included submissions of content “Not Suitable For Work.”

At launch, we predicted that this might happen, as the changes in the functionality of the new Digg are a dramatic shift for its core users. The backlash stems from features that were stripped away in the new design and a repositioning of the site to become more Twitter-like by including its own version of the Suggested Users List, which promotes publishers and celebrities to follow.

As a result of the new system, which gives more exposure to users with more followers, some of these publishers and user accounts (including Mashable), have been repeatedly landing on the front page of Digg.

Digg Founder Kevin Rose responded to some of the backlash on his personal blog, defending some of the changes and noting that some previous features would be returning, such as the Upcoming News section. Rose also said that the site’s SUL would be expanded and based more on users that make quality submissions.

“All diggs are still equal, nothing has changed there,” Rose said in his post. “Our directory of recommended users will eventually open to the entire world. We will sort users, not on popularity (followers), but based on how good you are at finding/digging content (similar to wefollow.com). This will remove the popularity contest and put the focus on quality diggers.”

Digg has encountered and survived significant user backlash before as a result of changes on the site, like its new commenting system, changes to its algorithm and the infamous encryption key fiasco. Still, this is one of the biggest shifts for Digg in user experience and functionality to-date, and the backlash will once again test the company’s resolve as it looks to add new mainstream users.

What effect will the new Digg version have on its future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Reviews: Digg, Mashable, Twitter, reddit.com

More About: digg, digg revolt, social news

For more Social Media coverage:

How CEOs Will Use Social Media in the Future

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:36 AM PDT


This series is supported by Gist. Gist provides a full view of the contacts in your professional network by creating a rich business profile for each one that includes the most news, status updates, and work details. See how it works here.

Today’s CEO is not social. So says Forrester Research’s CEO George Colony. Very few of the CEOs at top companies in the U.S. and the rest of the world have any material presence on the popular social media sites. Colony believes they should be social though, and all signs are pointing to a future filed with CEOs who can speak the language of the people — social media.

While one can only speculate about the future of CEOs and social media, there’s no question that social media plays a huge part in life and the world as we know it right now.

As younger CEOs replace older ones, news consumption habits change and social media continues its trend towards ubiquity, there’s little question that the man (or woman) at the top will need a firm grasp on social media — whether that be for recruiting, scouting, public engagement or social CRM.

The Next Generation of CEOs

When it comes to CEOs, there’s a vast disparity between the young ones heading up startups and the more seasoned CEOs running the world’s most powerful companies. That disparity is social media — the young are more versed than the old. The difference between the two groups can be attributed to different generations and different attitudes around content and information meant for the public and private domains.

No one is predicting that the venerable CEOs will be booted from their lofty perches for lack of a Twitter account. In fact, younger CEOs with a predilection and savvy for social media may find their visibility to either be a contributing factor to their rise or a liability once they graduate to bigger, hence more vulnerable, publicly traded companies.

Let’s have a gander at some stats on the status quo. In April, Colony let it be known that most CEOs are not social. In fact, by his own research and calculations, Colony has concluded that, “None of the CEOs of Fortune Magazine’s top 100 global corporations have a social profile.”

Social media abstinence even appears to extend to CEOs of tech companies. “Eric Schmidt of Google is an infrequent Twitterer and is not a blogger; Steve Ballmer at Microsoft has no blog and no Twitter account; Michael Dell is on Twitter but is not an external blogger … Steve Jobs of Apple, and Larry Ellison of Oracle have no Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or blog presences that we could find.”

His findings paint a bleak present tense. In the coming years, however, there will be a changing of the guard that favors social media over silence.

We Live in a Social Media World

Let us pause and reflect on the fact online users spend 22.7% of their time on social networking sites. That’s twice as much time as we spend on any other online activity. Consider where people are getting their news today. More and more, it’s not through direct sources like USA Today, The New York Times, or TV broadcasts, but through social networks.

Plus, industry is social. In the future, every company, no matter how small or how big, will be influenced and impacted by social media internally or externally. In the entertainment industry, for instance, social media has the potential to significantly bump up live television viewing audiences. Network executives such as Greg Goldman, formerly an executive director at ABC and now CCO at Philo, are nearly certain it’s happening now and will become more obvious with time.

Take what you know about the world today and then ask yourself, can a CEO remain relevant if they’re not versed in the new language of the people they serve?

SCVNGR’s youthful CEO Seth Priebatsch doesn’t believe so. The 21-year-old CEO says he’s “never lived in a world where I didn’t use social media.”

Priebatsch compares social media to cloud computing, and makes the analogy of how building applications for the cloud is a given. “It never occurred to me that you would write software to run on machines as opposed to access it through a browser. Why would you do that?”

For Priebatsch, social media is a given.

“Those companies that actively monitor, react and engage with what people are saying about them are at a huge advantage. If I’ve just launched a new feature on SCVNGR and people like it (or don’t) I know immediately. And that’s powerful. And what’s even cooler is that I can dig deeper. Someone says on Twitter: ‘Hey @SCVNGR, love the new social check-in. Way cool!’ and I can tweet back immediately ‘Thanks @user. What have you been using it for?’ And immediately get more information on how people are using SCVNGR, why they like it (or don’t) and how to make it better. That’s real power. It combines huge scale (tons of people talking) with massive granularity (ability to dig deep into one response).”

CEOs and the Future

The business leaders of tomorrow will be versed in social media, and we don’t need a crystal ball to predict how CEOs in the future will use social media. It’s the socially versed CEOs of today who help manufacture the following:

Opportunity Knocks

LIVESTRONG CEO Doug Ulman, himself a social media advocate and user, believes that perceptions around social media being too risky for CEOs are beginning to change.

“I would predict that more and more executives will see this as an opportunity rather than a risk,” he says.

Certainly the opportunity is there. Ulman pulls from his own work at LIVESTRONG as proof of concept. “Transparency and authenticity are two important factors in our work and social media allows us to amplify both in a significant way.”

Plus, given the digital landscape of the world we live in, future CEOs using social media is practically a given.

“Those who are currently growing up using these tools and mediums will have them integrated closely with their daily lives as they begin to enter the workforce, so they will come to expect their colleagues to be engaged as well,” according to Ulman.

Colony also sees social media as a platform paved with opportunity. He believes that CEOs should be social if the CEO “has something valuable and distinctive to say,” and has “a specialized strategy for social.”

For CEOs looking to start their social path, Colony prescribes a four part methodology that involves targeting the right audience, defining a clear reason to be social, setting up social expectations, and choosing the right platform(s).

Public Engagement

Edelman Digital’s Senior VP and Director of Insights Steve Rubel also sees great opportunity for how CEOs will use social media in the future.

One opportunity lies in public engagement, or as Edelman CEO Richard Edelman calls it, “the third way.”

“Companies need to complement their usual paid and earned media strategies by embracing new, social and owned media,” Edelman argues.

Rubel believes that CEOs will drive adoption of the third way. “They [CEOs] will lower the internal barriers within the organization so that it can engage the public at every level directly in achieving shared outcomes.”

Rubel’s own personal use of social media, his day-to-day dealings with the CEOs of client companies and his astute observations of corporate and market dynamics make him an expert on the subject.

While bullish on CEOs making organizational changes to better incorporate social media, Rubel does not see reason to predict a huge uptick in social media broadcasting from the CEOs themselves. “I see CEOs more laying the groundwork in vision and process than necessarily participating actively themselves,” asserts Rubel.

Recruiting and Scouting

Talent is a commodity. Facebook, Google and Twitter often cherry pick each others’ employees. The company with the brightest minds is the one that’s most likely to excel. As such, recruiting is key and social media gives CEOs the ability to scout out potential hires and follow what they’re posting and what others are posting about them.

In a related fashion, CEOs will scout out the competition and search for potential acquires via social media properties. Many executives have already been doing this for years. Venture capitalists like Fred Wilson, for instance, have discovered the added benefits of maintaining a professional blog.

Wilson uses his blog to find companies to invest in and build relationships with entrepreneurs. It’s certainly no coincidence, then, that Union Square Ventures has an impressive portfolio of companies that includes Fousquare, Twitter and Tumblr.

Social Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

“Every CEO has a CRM dashboard right now. In the future, every CEO will have a social media dashboard,” predicts Miso CEO Somrat Niyogi.

Niyogi asserts that the social media dashboard will become a fixture inside the enterprise. “Every business unit will be using social media within the enterprise – customer support will use it to answer questions using tools like CoTweet, sales organizations will use it to get a better read on what’s happening with their customers in real-time, marketing organizations will be using it as a new channel to connect with new or existing customers. It’s already happening right now.”

What are your thoughts on how CEOs will use social media in the future? Let us know in the comments below.

Series supported by Gist


This series is supported by Gist. Gist keeps you better informed with less effort by giving you a full view of your professional network in one place bringing together information from across the web for all your contacts giving you the right information at the right moment to get a meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- How CEOs are Using Social Media for Real Results
- How Small Businesses Will Use Social Media in the Future
- How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results
- How Freelancers Might Use Social Media in the Future
- How Salespeople Are Using Social Media for Real Results

[Images Courtesy of dmason, TedxBoston, Claudio Vaccaro]

Reviews: CoTweet, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter

More About: business, ceo, CEOs, future of social media series, MARKETING, small business, social media

For more Business coverage:

Arcade Fire’s Experimental New Video Shows What’s Possible with HTML5

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:06 AM PDT


Watch out MTV, the music video has just got a new gold standard. Indie band Arcade Fire has released a vid for the song “We Used to Wait” off of their new album, The Suburbs, and it’s basically one big ball of HTML5/Google Maps/musical goodness.

The video was announced today on the Official Google Blog, which details exactly what elements went into its creation. Dubbed "The Wilderness Downtown" (an undertaking created by writer/director Chris Milk) the video is a new kind of musical experience, reminiscent of — but much more advanced than — hypertext storytelling of old.

Basically, you surf over to “The Wilderness Downtown” page using Google Chrome (don’t use Safari, the program will murder your browser), and type in the address of your childhood home when prompted. If Google Maps has enough footage of home sweet home, you’ll be pulled into a multi-browser movie of your own making.

The experience of watching this highly personalized video is not easily described, but basically the story of childhood ending as time rapidly slips away becomes your own as trees shoot up out of nowhere on your old street, culminating in an opportunity to write a letter to a younger you. Check it out when you have a moment to really watch the whole thing, sans any other browsers.

HTML5 + Music = Awesomeness

Mashable’s own Christina Warren and I chatted a bit about the technical aspects of the “The Wilderness Downtown,” and she pointed out that it really shows off the capabilities offered by HTML5. As the Chrome Experiments page details, the new audio, video and canvas tags in HTML5 are used to full effect.

“In addition to timed-playback, synchronized effects and custom windows sizes for the video and animated content, this video also features custom rendered maps directly from the Google Maps API,” Christina told me. “Using SVG, the drawing application, for the postcard aspect of the video adds an interactive and personal touch.”

“More than just a one-off proof of concept, the end project (the video) shows just what is possible with HTML5 and emerging web standards,” she added.

Using Social Media to Score a Number-One Album

Not only is the video a hit in terms of technology, it also marks yet another interesting venture on Arcade Fire’s part with regard to the release of their third album. Arcade Fire — which has been around since 2004 — has really set the precedent for online promotions and fan experience this time around.

After the album dropped on August 3, the band teamed up with Vevo, YouTube and American Express to put on a live-streamed show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The stream attracted 3.7 million viewers, according to Google, and boasted a ton of interactive features: "Choose Your Cam," which will let the audience control their viewing experience by switching between the director's stream and the second camera, as well as a projection of fan-provided images, all depicting childhood suburbs. Also, bonus, Terry Gilliam — of Brazil fame — directed the live stream.

In addition to this show, Amazon also partnered with Merge records — the band’s indie, North Carolina-based label — to offer The Suburbs at a discounted price of $3.99 during the week of release, helping the band sell 156,000 copies in the U.S. by August 11, and score the number-one spot on Billboard’s album chart, according to The New York Times. (The album is currently at number seven on the Billboard chart.)

The live stream — as well as all the buzz around the album — soon attracted the attention of Twitter, who reached out to Merge and the band to ask if they’d like to participate in the micro-blogging service’s new @earlybird program, a Twitter account designed to tweet out special deals from selected advertisers. Twitter launched the deal — a CD discounted to $7.99 — on August 12 to coincide with the band’s appearance on The Daily Show.

“We knew that Arcade Fire had a big Twitter following already and we’re always trying to get new followers, and Arcade Fire is one of our biggest bands, so we thought this was a great time to try to branch out our fan base and the band’s fan base,” says Lindsey Kronmiller, who does online/radio/video promotions for Merge.

Although the band (curiously enough) did not tweet about it, the record label garnered a pretty good amount of attention for the deal, which was Twitter’s first @EarlyBird promotion around a band. (Some criticized Merge for hawking CDs rather than records or MP3s, but given Merge’s free domestic shipping policy, records would have been extremely expensive to ship, and since Amazon had already had a digital deal, it seemed best to go with a physical product.)

Like The National before them — who, despite the leak of their new album High Violet, nabbed the number three spot on the Billboard Top 200 chart after one week of sales, thanks in part to a Vevo live stream — Arcade Fire has managed to catapult themselves into the public eye via the web.

Yes, they’re not exactly underground when it comes to popularity, but on a scale of your cousin’s ironic polka band to Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire are not exactly fameballs, either. Yes, the album has gained this level of attention because it was hotly anticipated and, well, good, but the band has managed to attract much more praise by tapping into relevant channels — channels where fans both new and old reside. Much like the now-fabled Old Spice Guy campaign, Arcade Fire and Merge’s use of social media is sure to be a model for album releases to come.

Now, enough business talk — check out “The Wilderness Downtown” post haste.

Reviews: Google, Google Chrome, Mashable, Safari, Twitter, YouTube

More About: arcade-fire, chrome, earlybird, Google, music, trending, twitter, vevo, video, youtube

For more Entertainment coverage:

MySpace Launches Facebook Status Update Syncing

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:27 AM PDT


MySpace, once Facebook’s bitter rival, is embracing the social network in a big way today with the launch of status updating syncing for Facebook.

Sync for Facebook allows users to broadcast their MySpace status updates to their Facebook friends. In addition to status updates, users can share their links, photos, videos, music and even application installations from MySpace to Facebook. This is in addition to Sync for Twitter, which the company launched last year.

Facebook-MySpace sync isn’t perfect, though. The big thing that’s missing is the ability to share Facebook status updates on MySpace. Jen Ruffner, director of product management for stream, told me that MySpace simply wanted to get this product out the door as quickly as possible, but is planning on bringing two-way sync between the social networks in the near future.

MySpace says that it doesn’t believe sync will marginalize MySpace in any way. “People use different social networks for different things,” Ruffner responded. The company is focused on giving artists and users the ability to share their MySpace content on as many channels as possible, and that includes Facebook.

MySpace hasn’t been afraid to latch onto Facebook for growth. Earlier this year, MySpace added Facebook Connect for its Fan Video service. Sync for Facebook is a far bigger step towards integrating the two social networks, though.

Will Sync for Facebook make you use MySpace more? Will you broadcast your MySpace updates to Facebook and vice-versa? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Facebook, MySpace

More About: facebook, myspace, Sync for Facebook

For more Social Media coverage:

Make Your Outlook Inbox Smarter with Meshin [INVITES]

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:08 AM PDT


This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Meshin

Quick Pitch: Meshin is an Outlook sidebar that organizes information contextually so that you can work faster and smarter.

Genius Idea: Using semantic technology and natural language processing, Meshin can take information from your inbox and connect it with related information on the web and conversations on social networks.

Meshin is a Xerox-funded project incubated at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where the Meshin team has worked on developing semantic technologies to create what they call “context-aware information services.” In other words, this is technology that can go beyond keyword matching and create actual meaning.

For example, when I’m doing research for an article, I often end up gathering pieces of information from a wide array of social channels. A conversation might start by e-mail, but I might also have messages sent back and forth on Facebook or Twitter. Instead of having to search separate inboxes and social streams to collect all of my material, Meshin promises to make all of that data accessible from my inbox.

Why the inbox? Because for better or for worse, that’s still the central communication hub for many users, especially business users. Meshin is a plugin for Microsoft Outlook 2007, with support for Outlook 2010 promised shortly. Meshin is also actively looking to the community for guidance on what other platforms and services to add support for.

So what makes Meshin different from say, Xobni, Gist or Rapportive? Well, really it’s all about scope.

Xobni, as an example, does a really great job of helping people find contacts and get information about those individuals from headers, vCards and so on.

Meshin’s goal is to go beyond contacts and also link to information that is linked by your own social graph, available through public timelines or websites, via information sources like Wikipedia, LinkedIn and Google.

One of the cool things that Meshin has planned is the ability to index content behind hyperlinks, similar to what Yolink is doing. This would be useful when you are trying to find a link to a certain site in your e-mail that doesn’t contain any helpful keywords to identify it.

Get Your Invite

Meshin is still in the invite-only stage of its beta, but has extended access to the plugin to 500 Mashable readers. Please be aware that as of right now, this works in Outlook 2007 only.

To get your invite, just follow @meshin on Twitter and RT this post. Meshin will DM you to give you access to the beta.

The semantic web promises to make finding information by context rather than by keyword a reality. Until we get there, what tools do you use to better manage your various information streams?

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.

Reviews: Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mashable, Microsoft Outlook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Xobni

More About: email, meshin, Outlook, semantic search, semantic web, xobni

For more Tech coverage:

Google and Associated Press Make Content Licensing Deal

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 09:50 AM PDT


Google has inked a deal with the Associated Press to keep the news organization's content on Google News, an issue that was very much in doubt for a time earlier this year when the news aggregator stopped posting AP content as the two sides worked on a new deal.

In a brief statement, the AP says that the companies "have reached a new agreement on the continued licensing of AP content by Google. Under the agreement, AP and Google will also work together in a number of new areas, such as ways to improve discovery and distribution of news." The AP signed a similar agreement with Yahoo back in February.

In the past, the AP has taken a strong stand against content aggregators (of the non-paying variety) and at one point somewhat infamously introduced a policy of charging $2.50 per word for using excerpts from AP content (a policy they quickly said was misinterpreted). The AP also toyed with the idea of charging news outlets for priority access to breaking news.

For now, it appears the AP has gone in a more conventional direction, however, taking an undisclosed sum of money from Google for the rights to host its content.

Reviews: Google

More About: Associated Press, Google, media

For more Business coverage:

HOW TO: Respond when Social Media Attacks Your Brand

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 08:08 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.

For all the praise that brand advertisers have for social media, they must be aware that it’s very much a double-edged sword. And for all the free marketing, advertising and brand promotion via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other platforms used to help build an identity and relationship with your customers, it can just as quickly turn on you and your brand.

Social media disasters occur for a number of reasons, the first being that your company probably messed up. It may not have been intentional, but something, somewhere down the line, went wrong enough for someone to complain and it was enough for others to vocalize that complaint en masse. One mistake is all it takes for social media to turn against your brand.

No one is perfect and you can’t expect to please everyone all the time, so the best trick is to be prepared for how to handle things if your company finds itself under attack in the social realm. Here are three examples of companies who were attacked by social media and how they handled, or should have handled the situation. Learn from their mistakes or successes so you can stay on social media’s good side.

1. Ann Taylor

This past July, LOFT, a brand owned by Ann Taylor Inc., posted photos on its Facebook page of a tall, blonde model wearing LOFT’s new silk cargo pants, with a click-to-buy link in the captions.

What happened next is a perfect example of how social media can suddenly turn on you, even when you’ve done nothing “wrong,” or seemingly out of the ordinary. Fans of the brand complained that while the pants looked good on the model, they weren’t so flattering on anyone who wasn’t 5′10 and stick thin.

Fans requested that LOFT prove their pants could look good on “real women.” And they did. The following day, the company posted photos to Facebook again, this time with their own staff posing in the pants. The “real women” came from different company departments and ranged from a size 2 to size 12, and in height from 5′3″ to 5′10″.

What to Learn from Ann Taylor

This is a perfect example of how to turn a possible threat via social media into an opportunity. Ann Taylor had the good sense to stop the attack before it escalated. Here customers had a direct and valid complaint about a product and how it was featured. The company did the best thing possible, they stayed calm and listened to the comments. They took the comments into consideration and came up with a constructive resolution.

By responding to Fan requests to post photos of women of different sizes wearing the pants, the company proved that they really do listen and care about their customer concerns, and they were able to back up the product. It’s a double win for Ann Taylor as they actually gained customer support, while avoiding a potential disaster.

2. Southwest Airlines

This past February, Southwest Airlines kicked director Kevin Smith off a flight from San Francisco headed to Los Angeles for being too fat. Smith had apparently failed the armrest test, meaning that because he couldn’t fit between the two armrests, he would have to purchase an extra seat. Since he was flying standby and the plane was full, there were no extra seats for him to purchase and he was asked to get off the plane, and was offered a $100 voucher by the airline, but the incident was far from over. While it’s somewhat refreshing that Southwest provides the same customer service to all their customers regardless of their level of fame, it might not have been the best idea to tick off someone who is very vocal on Twitter and has 1.6 million followers.

Smith countered that he wasn’t large enough to be the safety risk Southwest claimed he was, and he tweeted up a storm that caused a social media disaster. According to Position², a search and social media marketing firm, in a span of six days, the incident generated 3,043 blog mentions, 5,133 forum posts and 15,528 tweets.

For their part, Southwest was quick to respond — 16 minutes after Smith’s first tweet regarding the incident, they tweeted: “@ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I’m so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM!”

Of course, it didn’t stop there as Smith continued rant-tweeting about six tweets for every one response from the airline. The tweets finally stopped as Southwest posted the whole story, including a briefing of a later conversation with Smith, explaining to others what had happened on the plane, and the company’s explanation for why it happened, which included an apology.

What to Learn from Too Fat to Fly

Southwest had a plan, which is something that is necessary if you want to avoid being burned by social media. They monitored their online presence, quickly identified a problem brewing, and responded in a quick and friendly manner.

Because of this, many of the responses on their own blog were sympathetic to the company’s side of the incident. Not only did the company apologize, but they offered a refund as they had clearly embarrassed a customer. But they also made sure to take the opportunity to restate their police of requiring larger customers to purchase two seats, so as to make people understand why the incident occurred in the first place.

Make sure your company is alert and monitoring your presence on social media sites, and make sure you are ready with a plan to remedy the situation. Here, responding quickly saved the company a lot of time and effort later.

3. Pretzel Crisps

Most recently Pretzel Crisps launched an ad campaign in New York City with four slogans, including “You can never be too thin.” The campaign launched in early August with that slogan gracing bus shelters and ad stands and caught the attention of the blogosphere after a photo was posted online.

The photo was re-posted to the women’s blog Jezebel and was followed by condemning posts, tweets, and videos from other bloggers. In fact, I was one of the people who vocalized a problem with this particular campaign. The slogan the company picked is a “thinspiration” motto used by the pro-anorexic community, and was called “irresponsible” and accused of promoting unhealthy weight loss.

The company responded first on Twitter to offended tweeters with replies of, “Thin just happens to be a good word to describe the shape of our product.” As outrage escalated the VP of Marketing participated in interviews with bloggers and explained, that they were a small company and simply wanted to launch an ad that would grab people’s attention. As bloggers continued to post, a video made its rounds of one New Yorker’s protest calling the ads a “disgrace” and listing facts about eating disorders.

The same day, Pretzel Crisps sent out an e-mail to bloggers thanking them for their feedback, as well as tweeting, “We didn’t intend to advocate unhealthy weight loss with our ads. Thanks to all for the feedback. The ads will be taken down asap.”

The blogosphere rejoiced feeling that they actually accomplished something, only to learn that the company replaced the offending ad with another play on a pro-anorexic slogan, “Tastes as good as skinny feels,” from the initial campaign.

Further outrage from bloggers was met this time with the brush off: “While dialoging with some of the bloggers, I mentioned that 'you can never be too thin’ was just one of four tag lines that we had running throughout the city…The only one that people commented on was the 'too thin’ ad. So we removed them and replaced them with one of the other three.”

The ultimate fallout from the campaign is still yet to be seen, and many blog commenters agree that it was probably the company’s goal to anger people and get the free publicity. But is free publicity really worth tweets like, “Congratulations; you have ruined your product for me forever with your pro-ana ad slogans. It’s too bad–I loved you,” and “How can you people sleep at night? No matter how you may try to justify it, you are promoting eating disorders.”

Finally, a week later the company agreed to take down all the offending ads.

What To Learn From Pretzelgate 2010

For all intents and purposes, Pretzel Crisps did a great job of responding to a social media attack on their product. They directly and individually responded to complaints over Twitter, and made themselves available for interviews.

The company offered their reasoning, and then listened to the reaction of the blogosphere. They took responsibility, they apologized, and they swiftly took action to fix the problem.

And then they messed up: they lied. They lied and they refused to understand why their other ad was just as offensive as the one that had been taken down. The company claimed they didn’t receive any negative reaction towards the other campaign slogans, which simply wasn’t true.

If you want to maintain integrity, you need to be honest and transparent, and if you’re not, your customers won’t want anything to do with you. Honestly is the best policy. Your company needs to be open and take cues from its customers, and know when it’s time to quit.

These three case studies illustrate how your brands should (or should not) handle a social media crisis. Let us know which tips you’ve learned along the way in the comments below.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Small Biz Web Design Trends to Watch
- Why Social Media Monitoring Tools Are About to Get Smarter
- Why the Social Gaming Biz is Just Heating Up
- The Future of Public Relations and Social Media
- HOW TO: Pick the Right Social Media Engagement Style

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, KLH49

Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, iStockphoto

More About: advertising, ann taylor, brand management, branding, business, MARKETING, Pretzel Crisps, Snack Factory, social media, social media marketing, Southwest, Southwest Airlines

For more Business coverage:

The Next “Oxford English Dictionary” Could Be Online-Only

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 07:43 AM PDT


Bad news for everyone out there who was eager to hold the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (that exceedingly portable 20-volume set of wordy goodness): Thanks to the rise of the Internet, the next OED will probably be online-only.

Granted, OED3 is still about a decade in the making (according to The Telegraph, a team of 80 lexicographers have been working on it for the past 21 years), but seeing as how the OED has never posted a profit since its inception back in 1879, the move to online-only seems like a long time coming.

The second edition of the dictionary (which came out in 1989) has been online for about 10 years now and garners about 2 million hits per month from subscribers. Add to that a plethora of online dictionary sources, and the stack of books that make up OED3 seems a bit, well, like an unnecessary massacre of trees.

Oxford University Press, which prints the dictionary, will still continue to publish the slimmer Oxford Dictionary of English, however, which should set your mind at ease if you’re one of those folks who likes to keep a giant dictionary on a pedestal in the parlor.

The future of book publishing has become obfuscated this past year, as big companies like Amazon reported that Kindle sales have been outstripping hardcover book sales and Barnes & Noble posted declining retail sales while boasting that online sales are on the rise.

The news that the OED3 might exist solely in the online realm will likely add more credence to the idea that the publishing industry could be undergoing a massive change due to the rise of e-readers and devices like the iPad. Still, the final decision is still 10 years away, and a lot can happen in a decade.

Images courtesy of Flickr, greeblie

Reviews: Flickr

More About: amazon, barnes and noble, books, e-readers, ipad, Kindle, MARKETING, money, nook, trending

For more Tech coverage:

Soon, You’ll Be Able to Play “Starcraft 2″ from Your iPhone or iPad

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 06:58 AM PDT


Playing popular strategy game Starcraft 2 using an iPhone or even an iPad sounds like a usability nightmare, but developer Daniel Hellerman is planning to make it happen regardless of the potential issues.

Hellerman is working on an iOS application called the Starcraft 2 Gameboard that will let you fully control Starcraft 2 from your iPhone or iPad, complete with “mini-map control, detailed unit statistics, and easy touch access to the game’s most important hotkeys and macros,” he claims.

Blizzard, the company that develops the popular Starcraft game franchise, is known for promptly shutting down third-party projects related to its games that don’t follow its terms of service to the letter. The future of the Starcraft 2 Gameboard therefore seems uncertain.

However, the FAQ section of the application’s website claims that the system “does not modify essential Starcraft 2 functions” and that the device works “almost as another keyboard, therefore it is completely compatible with Starcraft 2.” Furthermore, the site claims the application is “not a hack” and “does not modify any game files whatsoever.”

The app should become available in September. What do you think: Will it be possible to play Starcraft 2 from your iPhone or iPad? Could such an application be useful or is it just a gimmick?

[via Kotaku]

Reviews: iPhone

More About: apple, Blizzard, game, iOS, ipad, iphone, Mobile 2.0, starcraft 2

For more Apple coverage:

Mashable Weekend Recap: 15 Stories You May Have Missed

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 06:22 AM PDT


Did you have a good weekend? Well, Foursquare sure did!

That and other news can be found in this roundup of stories you might have missed on account of enjoying time off with family or friends. We want to make sure you don’t pass over important news and resources, so we collect them each Monday — take it all in with your coffee today.

This week we have stats about surprising social media use by older adults, an update on Reddit’s financial drama, news about Google’s coming video rental service, and plenty of fun stories and features — one involves a cat and Twitter. You know you’re curious.

Thanks for reading!

News Essentials

Helpful Resources

Weekend Leisure

Reviews: Google, Twitter, reddit.com

More About: blackberry, cats, cheezburger network, entertainment, fantasy football, Film, football, foursquare, Google, honda, ipad, iphone, jobs, mashable weekend recap, Movies, new york, online games, programmers, reddit, ringtones, social games, social media, sports, stats, tech, times square, trends, twitter, video, youtube

For more Social Media coverage:
Diposting oleh di Tidak ada komentar:
Langganan: Postingan (Atom)