Mashable: Latest 20 News Updates - including “Mashable Readers Choose Freemium Over Ad-Supported Business Model” |  |
- Mashable Readers Choose Freemium Over Ad-Supported Business Model
- Facebook Makes Its Pitch for Places [VIDEO]
- Google Buys Visual Shopping Search Engine Like.com
- Verizon Looks to Jump into Mobile Commerce with New Investment
- Bank of America and Visa Working to Bring Mobile Payments to the Masses
- Score Last-Minute Vacation Rental Deals
- Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Cat Edition
- Twitter’s Tweet Button Comes to the Browser
- The Snazzy Napper Goes Viral: Now Make Fun of It and Win [CONTEST]
- T-Mobile G2 Spotted in the Wild [PICS]
- HOW TO: Change the Google Logo to Your Favorite Google Doodle
- Connect with Wedding Planners and Vendors Online
- Facebook Acquires Social Checkin Service HotPotato
- Why Social Media Monitoring Tools Are About to Get Smarter
- Earn Travel Rewards for Checking in to Facebook Places
- 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now
- North Korea Joins Facebook
- BlackBerry App World Gets a Major Refresh
- Morning Brief: Nokia Acquires Analytics Co, Apple Shutters Quattro, Dell & HP Post Earnings
- The WikiLeaks Debate: Journalists Weigh In
- Nokia Gives Up on Messaging for Social Networks Application
| Mashable Readers Choose Freemium Over Ad-Supported Business Model Posted: 20 Aug 2010 09:41 PM PDT      Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen several web companies switch to freemium business models, offering free versions of their services but providing additional features and functionality at tiered prices. Hootsuite and Slideshare are just two companies that have recently switched, but there are many more turning to the freemium business model to generate revenue. We were interested in the trend, so we made it the subject of this week’s Web Faceoff, our weekly series where we pit two opposing technology products or ideas against each other for your vote. We asked you on Monday which web business model you preferred. Your winner: Freemium. With 36.88% of the vote (461 votes), Freemium was the preferred business model of Mashable readers. Ad-supported received a 24.4% share (305 votes), while 34.24% of you (428 votes) said it was a tie. Our commenters made interesting points about the two business models in this week’s faceoff. “The correct balance with each model makes both acceptable to me,” said commenter Wadehammes. “When they start over doing ads or there is a HUGE gap between the free and paid version of the product (updates, feature fixes, versions, etc.), that’s when it get tricky to pick which one is better than the other.” Another commenter, Mike Weber said it was a tie because “it completely depends on the product and the upsell path / offering.” What do you think of this week’s results? What’s your take on the business models that generate revenue for some of your favorite web applications and services? Voice your opinion in the comments. Reviews: Mashable More About: ad, Ad Supported, business, business models, freemium, hootsuite, slideshare For more Battles coverage:
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| Facebook Makes Its Pitch for Places [VIDEO] Posted: 20 Aug 2010 07:23 PM PDT   Facebook has posted its highly-polished promotional video for Facebook Places online; it’s a glimpse into how the company hopes users will utilize its new location service. The world’s largest social network first played the two-and-a-half minute video at the beginning of Wednesday’s Facebook Places launch event. In the video, the Facebook team pitch the value of Places for enhancing everyday life. They cite examples of where Places can help connect friends or tell stories about what others did at places like the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s a well-produced piece of work. A lot has been said this week about Facebook’s new location product. Some believe that it spells big trouble for Foursquare, while others point to its potential impact on Yelp and countless local businesses. We’ve embedded the video below. Let us know what you think of Facebook’s pitch for Places in the comments. Reviews: Facebook, Yelp More About: facebook, Facebook Places, foursquare, youtube For more Social Media coverage:
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| Google Buys Visual Shopping Search Engine Like.com Posted: 20 Aug 2010 06:08 PM PDT   Google has acquired visual search and price comparison engine Like.com, according to an open letter posted on Like.com’s website. “Since 2006, Like.com has been moving the frontiers of eCommerce forward one step at a time,” said Munjal Shah, the company’s CEO. “We were the first to bring visual search to shopping, the first to build an automated cross-matching system for clothing, and more. We didn’t stop there, and we don’t have plans to stop now. We see joining Google as a way to supersize our vision and supercharge our passion.” Like.com launched in 2006 from the remains of Riya, a facial recognition search engine. While that company is now gone, Shah used the technology behind it to build Like.com’s visual shopping comparison engine. Recently, Google has been experimenting with visual search and image recognition. In 2009, Google launched Similar Images, a tool that uses image recognition technology to filter image results by similarity. The tech titan also overhauled Image Search last month, but the Like.com acquisition indicates the company wants to do more with image recognition. According to TechCrunch, Google paid upwards of $100 million for the visual shopping engine. The company raised around $50 million in three rounds of funding. Reviews: Google More About: acquisition, business, Google, like, Like.com For more Business coverage:
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| Verizon Looks to Jump into Mobile Commerce with New Investment Posted: 20 Aug 2010 05:03 PM PDT   The venture capital arm of Verizon, Verizon Ventures, has invested $400,000 in CardStar. The Boston-based CardStar makes a mobile app for iPhone, Android and Blackberry that lets users store all of their membership cards in one digital repository. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the investment is part of Verizon’s continued interest in mobile commerce, an interest that also extends to the carrier working with AT&T and T-Mobile in a separate initiative around mobile payments. CardStar hopes to capitalize on the intersection of traditional loyalty, reward and club programs with mobile technology, a hot trend of late that will only become more relevant with time. Users can replace their physical club cards with a digital replica and potentially receive merchant-provided extras for doing so. The application also integrates with Fousquare for convenient in-store checkins. “The carriers have long been looking at the mobile wallet idea, especially mobile payments … But mobile payment is not here yet. So, what else is in someone's wallet? A lot of different cards, and the common thread is loyalty cards,” CEO Andy Miller explained to the Journal. With Verizon’s investment, CardStar has raised a total of $1.4 million in funds. CardStar is also said to have been downloaded more than 1.4 million times and have 700,000 users. [img credit: shanecurcuru] Reviews: CardStar More About: cardstar, loyalty program, Mobile 2.0, mobile loyalty card, verizon For more Mobile coverage:
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| Bank of America and Visa Working to Bring Mobile Payments to the Masses Posted: 20 Aug 2010 02:35 PM PDT   Soon, some New Yorkers will be able pay for their purchases with their smartphones rather than their credit cards. Bank of America and Visa are working together to launch a new test program that will bring digital wallet capabilities to smartphones. Users in the test program will be given small chips to insert in their smartphones. These chips emit radio signals over very short distances and can communicate directly with point-of-sale systems in stores. By waving their smartphones near cash registers, users can automatically send payments and banking information. This sort of technology has existed in Europe and Asia for the better part of a decade, but mobile-based purchases have yet to really take off in the U.S. As smartphone and mobile usage continues to climb, however, it looks like U.S. consumers might finally join the revolution. In addition to the Bank of America/Visa program, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Discover Financial Services are also working together on a joint mobile payment system. Startups like Square are also jumping into the mobile and micro-payments arena. Likewise, PayPal has been ramping up its mobile offerings. Both the iOS and Android versions of PayPal Mobile include Bump technology that allows users to easily transfer payments by waving or bumping their devices. In our discussions with PayPal, the company has also indicated that it is very interested in working with other partners to make it easier for businesses to collect payments using PayPal from mobile devices. As a consumer, I would love to be able to pay for things just by waving my phone at the register. What about you? What are your thoughts on mobile payment systems? Reviews: Android More About: bank of america, banking, mobile banking, mobile payments, Visa For more Mobile coverage:
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| Score Last-Minute Vacation Rental Deals Posted: 20 Aug 2010 02:09 PM 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.
Quick Pitch: PackLate makes booking a vacation rental as easy as booking a hotel. Genius Idea: PackLate is an online marketplace for last-minute deals on vacation rentals. Members can browse the site for exclusive discounts — often up to 45% off — on properties in approximately 30 locations, primarily in California, Colorado and Florida. When users find a rental they’re interested in, they can opt to book or “watch” the property. PackLate will automatically inform users when the price changes or others express interest in the same rental; the risk is, of course, that if users wait too long, someone else might snatch the deal. Recently, invite-only sales sites like Gilt’s JetSetter, Rue La La and TabletHotels have begun to offer discounted travel deals in a similar fashion, mainly on stays at major hotels and high-end vacation packages. Of the three, TabletHotels is the most similar to PackLate with its emphasis on last-minute opportunities at boutique hotels. PackLate, however, has focused on building relationships with smaller property managers of vacation rentals, rather than hotels. The four-person, Philadelphia-based company launched a mere eight months ago, having obtained $700,000 in seed capital from a number of local venture capital funds and private angel investors. Given the small size of the staff and the inherent difficulties of forming business relationships with many small and medium-size property managers and owners, it will take awhile for PackLate to scale. That, and there needs to be a shift in consumer thinking for it to really take off; as The New York Times points out, Americans outside of the upper tax brackets have yet to “embrace the indulgent concept of the impulsive vacation.” What do you think of PackLate? Have you ever booked an impulsive, last-minute vacation because you saw a good online discount? Please share your experiences in the comments. [img credit: *Micky] Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
More About: bizspark, gilt, jetsetter, rue la la, spark-of-genius, startup, tablethotels For more Tech coverage:
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| Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Cat Edition Posted: 20 Aug 2010 02:08 PM PDT   It’s Friday. Anyone else feel like their brain is leaking out of their eye sockets, pooling on the floor like pink — wait, ew. Anyway, everyone’s probably feeling a little fuzzy at present, which is why this week’s YouTube roundup is of the soft and furry variety: Cats. Ever since Keyboard Cat put his paws to those ebonies and ivories 30 years back — only to end up on da YouTube years later — cats on film have held a special place in our blackened, cynical hearts. So rest your chin on your weary hands, gentle readers, and take in the show below. And, remember, pet with the fur. Simon's Cat in "The Box"Amy-Mae Elliott: I always do a little happy dance inside when there's a new Simon's Cat episode as they don't come round often enough. As luck would have it, this week was one such happy occasion. Anyone who owns -- or as I should say -- is owned by a cat will instantly recognize this bizarre behavior! Surprised Kitty (Original)Amy-Mae Elliott: Nearly 30 million views can't be wrong. Cat Talking, TranslationJosh Catone: Shh, someone's coming... Act like a cat! Samurai Pizza CatsStephanie Marcus: OK, who remembers this: Samurai Pizza Cats? Animated Cats SingBen Parr: What, animated cats don't count? Not on my watch! Real-life PUSS IN BOOTS!Zachary Sniderman: There are cute cats, and then there is Puss in Boots. Like, for real. Cutest Wrestling Match Ever - PetTube.comTamar Weinberg: This "baby" is like 11 years old now. Maow Crazy Cat LadyChristina Warren: The Crazy Cat Lady from The Simpsons with Maow Goodness. Animated Cats Sing in this Chefs Blend Cat Food Commercial 1979Ben Parr: What, animated cats don't count? Not on my watch! Paula Abdul - "Opposites Attract" (Video) HDChristina Warren: My very first concert was Paula Abdul's Spellbound Tour in Atlanta in November of 1991. Kittens Inspired by KittensBrenna Ehrlich: As a former hyper child who enjoyed narrating various and sundry mundane events, this spoke to me.[ht: Shaun Hettinger] Cat NapErica Swallow: It's Friday. I need a cat nap. Don't Steal From A CatJay Irani: It's a dog-eat-dog world, but this little kitty's got a plan. [img credit: The above is Mashable editor Josh Catone's cat, Ellery] Reviews: Mashable, YouTube More About: cats, favorite-youtube-videos, Film, humor, pop culture, television, viral video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| Twitter’s Tweet Button Comes to the Browser Posted: 20 Aug 2010 01:26 PM PDT   Twitter has released a browser-based tweet button that provides a simple way for Twitter users to click to share the web page they’re on with followers. Twitter users can drag the “Share on Twitter” bookmarket to their browser’s bookmarks bar — all major browsers are supported. A click of the button opens a new window with the web page title and shortened URL pre-populated in the customizable tweet field. Twitter is using its own t.co URL shortener to shorten the links users share on Twitter via the bookmarklet. The bookmarklet addition is a minor one. For years, third-party applications and clients have offered bookmarklets for faster sharing. Still, the update is convenient for those who want to share web pages not already using the official Tweet Button and who prefer to use Twitter.com rather than a client like Tweetdeck.  Reviews: TweetDeck, Twitter More About: twitter, twitter bookmarklet For more Social Media coverage:
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| The Snazzy Napper Goes Viral: Now Make Fun of It and Win [CONTEST] Posted: 20 Aug 2010 12:50 PM PDT   Sometimes, products go viral that are just too ridiculous for us to mock successfully. That’s why, in the light of the burgeoning virality of The Snazzy Napper, we’re calling upon you, our esteemed readers, to do that for us. Yup, we’re launching a parody video contest. So all you aspiring Scorseses… take a hike! This task requires an artistry far more subtle… The Snazzy Napper is blowing up today in the wake of a CNN story in which reporter Jeanne Moos interviewed the creator, Atlanta physician Margaret Wilson, and tested out the thing on a New York City subway. How did people react? Well, considering the product is basically a blanket that you strap to your face, with shock, horror and confusion. Confusion. That’s the feeling that the infomercial for The Snazzy Napper most readily evokes. Why? Well… it kinda looks like a Burka. Or what the Elephant Man would sadly don after yelling dramatically, “I am not an animal!” In short, the The Snazzy Napper, and its accompanying infomercial, are just ripe for parody. That’s where you come in. We’re asking you to create a two-minute parody of the below video by Tuesday, August 31. All videos will be posted on the Mashable HQ Tumblr. The winner will be featured on Mashable, and will receive their very own Snazzy Napper (yup… I ordered one… It’s coming to my apartment now…) signed by the entire Mashable New York office. This is your chance for viral fame folks — the likes that only Keyboard Cat and adorable dancing babies have seen. Take it. We implore you… How to Enter
InfomercialReviews: Mashable, YouTube More About: contest, humor, pop culture, snazzy-napper, viral video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| T-Mobile G2 Spotted in the Wild [PICS] Posted: 20 Aug 2010 12:35 PM PDT   Earlier this week, T-Mobile put up a teaser site for the upcoming HTC G2 smartphone. Today, Engadget has received photos of the phone out in the wild. The new device, which is the T-Mobile branded version of the HTC Vision, features a slide-out keyboard just like the original T-Mobile G1. The G2 will also be the first phone to run on T-Mobile’s new HSPA+ network, which theoretically has speeds that can rival 4G. Aesthetically, the phone echoes some of the design cues from the Nexus One, and the keyboard may be appealing to those that find the flatness of the Droid 2 untenable. What are your thoughts on the G2?  [img credit: Engadget] More About: android, gadgets, htc vision, phones, T-Mobile G2 For more Mobile coverage:
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| HOW TO: Change the Google Logo to Your Favorite Google Doodle Posted: 20 Aug 2010 12:14 PM PDT   We all love Google’s Doodles, in which the classic homepage design is changed to mark a special anniversary or event. But if you’re anything like us, you probably wish that the Google logo was a little more fun every day of the year. Fortunately, there’s a clever little and unofficial Greasemonkey script from Google employee Tiffany Lane that will let anyone using Firefox or Chrome personalize their Google homepage with their favorite Doodle all year-round. If that sounds like a win to you, then head to the gallery below for a quick how-to on this super-simple process, along with a few of our favorite Doodle choices.
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| Connect with Wedding Planners and Vendors Online Posted: 20 Aug 2010 11:17 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.
Quick Pitch: BridalTweet is an online community that gives wedding professionals free business advice and the opportunity to market to brides. Genius Idea: BridalTweet is a free online wedding community that offers a place for both brides and wedding professionals to connect with one another. For wedding professionals and vendors, the site also offers lots of free advice and networking opportunities. That’s why we think BridalTweet is a great idea. Brides can benefit from the community, but the core focus is on wedding professionals. The site offers blogs, forums, discussion boards and photo galleries that let professionals communicate with one another and share ideas and advice, while also having the opportunity to network and communicate with brides. Although the site does connect with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (natch), the real community is on the site’s blogs and forums. BridalTweet also offers up a list of recommended vendors and a vendor member directory so that wedding pros can show off their services and brides can find reputable places and leave feedback on their own experiences.  We really like that the site makes it easy to browse various photos and to ask and give advice. I’ve been pretty lax about this whole “wedding planning” thing — which is why my engagement is going on 20 months and I still haven’t set a date — and just looking through the site provided me with a lot of ideas for cakes and dresses. We only wish that the site was easier to search. So much good information is available but finding it can be difficult. Just adding tags to photographs, for instance, so that they could be browsed by topic and sub-topic, would be really helpful. Still, we like that this is a community with a focus on the people behind-the-scenes of a wedding, while also giving brides a way to find and interact with those parties. Did you plan or are you planning your wedding online? What tools did you use? Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter More About: bridaltweet, wedding planning, weddings For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook Acquires Social Checkin Service HotPotato Posted: 20 Aug 2010 10:37 AM PDT   After unconfirmed reports on the pending deal, Hot Potato, a New York-based startup that specializes in social activity updates, announced today that it has been acquired by Facebook for an undisclosed amount. The company will be shutting down operations within a month. Peter Kafka of MediaMemo estimates that the sale netted between $10 and $15 million. TechCrunch also speculates that the price tag was around $10 million. Justin Shaffer, the founder and CEO of Hot Potato, would not comment on the financial details of the acquisition. In a statement to Mashable, Facebook spokesperson Jonny Thaw said, “We're excited to confirm that we recently acquired Hot Potato, a service that helps people socialize around live events and share what they're doing with friends. We've admired for some time how Hot Potato is tackling this space and look forward to working with them to bring Hot Potato innovations to Facebook.” Thaw would not comment on the terms of the acquisition. Hot Potato’s eight employees, most of whom are developers, will be moving to Palo Alto shortly; Shaffer has already started at Facebook. Hot Potato raised a $1.42 million Series A round late last year and was backed by RRE Ventures, Betaworks and Ron Conway. It’s not clear how many use the application. Although Facebook would not comment on what Hot Potato will be working on, it likely bought the company, which launched as a mobile-based application last November, to improve the functionality around status updates and its newly launched Facebook Places feature, and to tap into real-time updates around events. Hot Potato’s announcement hints that some of its features will be integrated into Facebook, as well: “Today, we're thrilled to announce that some of the features and thinking behind Hot Potato are going to be exposed to a much larger audience: We've been acquired by Facebook.” According to its blog, Hot Potato will be wrapping up operations and delete all user data in about a month. The blog stressed that “no user data or account information will be kept by Facebook.” Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, blog More About: android, facebook, Facebook Places, hot potato, iphone, Mobile 2.0, social media, social updates For more Business coverage:
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| Why Social Media Monitoring Tools Are About to Get Smarter Posted: 20 Aug 2010 10:24 AM PDT   Jim Tobin is president of Ignite Social Media, where he works work with clients including Microsoft, Intel, Nature Made, The Body Shop, Disney and more implementing social media marketing strategies. He is also author of the book Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why You Already Know the Rules of Social Media Marketing. Over the last three years, social media marketers have gotten a lot more sophisticated about the programs they deploy and how they're measured. Platforms like Sysomos and Radian6 have become vital tools in understanding not only the social universe in which you operate, but how that universe responds to your brand. But for all of our success, we're still largely entering strings of Boolean variables into a tool and waiting for matching results to roll in. Most tools have added sentiment processing, but that clearly has a long way to go. Beyond sentiment, however, how are these tools going to evolve to provide more insights? The answer is with math. Cluster Analysis Shows PromiseCluster analysis is one of the features that many tools are adding. Basically, it involves complex mathematical computations that analyze how certain words are gathering — or “clustering” — relative to your search topic. It finds the words that are mostly likely to be associated with your search word. This may provide unexpected insight into what's being said about you. In fact, some articles suggest it's a way to predict record sales two weeks before they happen. The downside to cluster analysis is that it’s complex. Nilesh Bansal, the CTO of Sysomos, likes cluster analysis, but worries it's not that easy: "We very often find ourselves explaining to clients what these features mean and how to use them best. For a full blown unguided cluster analysis, a team of technical analysts will be required and it cannot be point and click." Semantic Analysis Will Also Be KeyWhen it's not just where words appear but what those words mean that you're trying to decipher, semantic analysis will become key. Semantic analysis strives to understand what words mean in context to provide deeper insights. Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6, likes to think of various "analytic lenses" to apply to the vast data they collect. LeBrun says he doesn’t see cluster analysis as a direction to move in, but as one of the tools in the analyst’s toolbox. He explains that cluster analysis works on the basis of math, but it can’t differentiate apple (the fruit) from Apple (the company). Semantic technology, he says, can add additional insight because of its ability to identify entities and nuances in language. Depth vs. SimplicityFor a while, the relative strength of social media monitoring tools was dependent on how much data they indexed, and how far back they had stored it. Today, major competitors have largely mastered indexing the stream (private Facebook updates being the obvious exception). So the new race is on to display and interpret that data better than the next guy. Every monitoring tool is rushing to improve their dashboards, and competitors like RowFeeder are trying different approaches. All of these companies are working with very smart people who can make data dance. Sysomos' Bansal published a paper on cluster analysis applied to social data three years ago, indicating that they are ahead of the curve. The real challenge is to apply these complex lenses to the data in a way that lets us non-PhD holding marketers understand it at a glance — and to do it flexibly enough for different monitoring objectives. Through cluster analysis, semantic analysis and enhanced dashboards, we're likely to see an aggressive monitoring "arms race" over the next year. For the companies involved, nothing short of market share gains are at stake. More Business Resources from Mashable:
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| Earn Travel Rewards for Checking in to Facebook Places Posted: 20 Aug 2010 09:46 AM PDT   Facebook Places may have just launched Wednesday, but those Facebook checkins can already be exchanged for travel-related rewards. Those rewards come courtesy of Topguest, an all-in-one checkin rewards service that has just upgraded to include integration with Facebook Places. Topguest has tapped into the Facebook Places Read API to pull in checkins and apply them toward loyalty programs at partner hotels. Checkins at participating locales are automatically converted into points and deposited into the member’s points program accounts. The service already does the same for user checkins that come via Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and even geolocated tweets on Twitter. Topguest members can make sure their Facebook Checkins count for points by navigating to the Settings section of the site and authorizing Topguest to pull in their Facebook Places checkins. Topguest is just a few months old, so its partner programs are limited. Current partners include The Standard and Viceroy hotels, as well as Priority Club Rewards — the points program for Holiday Inn hotels — and Grand Guest travel rewards programs.  [via CNET] [img credit: johnwilliamsphd] Reviews: Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter More About: Facebook Places, facebook places api, loyalty program, rewards, topguest For more Social Media coverage:
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| 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now Posted: 20 Aug 2010 08:46 AM PDT   What’s the first thing young women do when they wake up? Check Facebook. How do enterprise employees pass the time at work? With social media. With so many studies highlighting ever-accelerating social media usage rates, the conclusion is obvious — social media is everywhere. What follows are five of the hottest social media trends right now. Each are influencing our social, online and mobile behaviors in significant ways. Entertainment checkin services are changing the way we watch television. Mobile loyalty applications are helping us connect the dots between our real-world shopping behaviors and digital rewards. A new breed of Q&A services are changing the way we search. Barcode scanning applications are making products social, and deal-of-the-day sites are giving us ways to save by recruiting our friends to the party. 1. Social Scanning Smartphone owners have the world at their fingertips. As grandiose as that may sound, advances in mobile barcode scanning technology have given rise to applications that allow for comparison shopping, QR code place checkins and ultimately a social experience around product barcodes. What this means is that at any given moment, any smartphone owner can pull out their device, fire up a barcode scanning application, scan a code and complete activities or gain access to a wealth of immediately relevant information. Really, what we’re seeing is the convergence of social media and barcode scanning to create “social scanning.” The consumer’s scanning behavior is so significant that location-sharing checkin services such as SCVNGR are giving away QR code decals to retailers free of charge. Even Google is sending their own QR code decals out to small businesses with popular Place Pages. What makes the scan so significant? It is a tangible connection between the physical and digital world. For Google, SCVNGR, and the businesses they serve, it’s about access to measurable offline behavior. These scans aren’t inherently social in nature, but because they can double as verifiable place checkins, they can also possess the social properties of a checkin: location-sharing with friends on the same service or via social network distribution. Services such as Stickybits and Bakodo are taking the social scanning experience beyond the checkin and creating product-driven communities around brands and items via barcodes. Stickybits lets users add video, text, photos and audio to the barcodes they scan in the physical world via iPhone and Andriod apps. It’s a clever way to use barcodes to help people tag, share and connect around items. It has also recently become more brand-friendly. “Official bits” are barcodes that brands can claim in order to highlight their own content. New social features allow for user response in the form of threaded conversations, and voting to ensure that the best content attached to the code rises to the top. Bakodo’s iPhone app began as a barcode scanner primarily for comparison shopping, but it’s evolving to add social scanning functions as well. App users can scan barcodes of all varieties to review items and check out recommendations from friends. The barcode intelligence search engine combines a wealth of product-related data and socializes the process for a comprehensive product-driven experience. As scanning becomes a more socially acceptable practice, the barcode scan will only become more social in nature. Expect future QR code marketing efforts to tap into the social opportunities, and for brands to explore ways to engage with consumers at the scan touch point. 2. Q&A and Intelligent Information Discovery Web-based Q&A services have been around for years. Now the previously sleepy space is seeing renewed interest from some of the Internet’s biggest names. This second iteration of Q&A services will likely forever redefine the way we find information, because it re-imagines “search” as intelligent information discovery. The most buzzy of the bunch right now is Quora, an intuitive and relatively straightforward Q&A site whose co-founder, Adam D’Angelo, is most known for his past role as Facebook’s CTO. Quora was founded in June 2009, released into private beta in January 2010, and immediately became a hit Q&A site with the technorati crowd. In fact, web celebrities have been known to use the site to answer questions about themselves. There are few Q&A services that have received the same type of attention as Quora, but the just-launched Facebook Questions project — which mirrors Quora in purpose and function — was released before Quora ever achieved mainstream recognition. Now the two products are essentially going head-to-head, competing for the same audience. Facebook has the clear edge when it comes to its built-in user base, but we’ve repeatedly seen bigger companies fail at side projects — just look at Google Wave — simply because smaller startups can innovate faster and have the benefit of progressively scaling over time. Quora’s opportunity lies in Facebook’s somewhat bungled launch of Questions, and its smart exposure through search results. Another notable Q&A site that contributes to the intelligent information discovery trend is Google’s Aardvark. Aardvark approaches the space with a model that helps users surface answers through friends of friends. It’s an algorithmic social system that should help Google improve its search algorithms. In fact, Google should be able to use the technology to provide socially-relevant answers in search queries. Google does have a reputation for letting purchased startups wilt after their pre-acquisition bloom, but given how closely aligned Aardvark is with Google’s core search product, that likely won’t be the case here. There’s also the freshly enhanced Ask.com, which is seeking to join the “people plus search results” party with its new beta Q&A offering. Most of the key players in the space believe in the power of intelligent information discovery and define it as the intersection of people and their social circles, with scientific methodologies for surfacing the best possible answers in the shortest amount of time. Apple-owned artificial intelligence app Siri, however, eliminates the social and instead focuses on the science of finding the right answer. Right now the overlap between services such as Aardvark and Siri is minimal, primarily because Siri focuses on solving immediate problems of convenience — finding food, calling a taxi or making a reservation — and not on long-term, more conceptual problems. Still, Siri is unquestionably a mobile search engine keen on intelligent information discovery, which means the technologies could become more competitive in the months ahead. Another startup to watch for in this space is Swingly. The private beta service describes itself as a “Web-scale answer engine designed to find exact answers to factual questions.” Humans are largely eliminated in Swingly’s machine-driven Q&A formula, so it too challenges the notion that social integration enhances the Q&A experience. 3. Group Buying Group buying is the deal-a-day group coupon trend made popular by Chicago-based startup Groupon. It’s also a slight variation on flash sale sites such as Woot, an Amazon property, which originated in the early 2000s. Groupon is the brain-child of CEO Andrew Mason, who came up with the group buying idea after founding the earlier group-focused site The Point in 2007. The Point is a campaign platform designed to support group action around causes. In 2008, nearly a year after launch, the platform was repurposed to bring Groupon’s deal-of-the-day vision to life in Chicago. Today, Groupon deals are available in cities across the world, thanks in part to the acquisition of international clone Citydeal. The company has also managed to come by a $1 billion valuation, partner with Twitter to power @EarlyBird deals, find alternative distribution via newspapers, and start personalizing deals for subscribers in select cities. Just yesterday, Groupon introduced its first nationwide deal — a 50% discount at the Gap — to much fanfare, attracting roughly 10 Groupon purchases every 10 seconds. Over the years, Groupon’s successful model has been copied with ease. LivingSocial, 8coupons and a host of other clones have found their own way on the web. Recently, Yelp, Zagat and OpenTable have veered away from their core product strategy to bring group buying to their respective site audiences. The clones and copycats keep on coming, but what’s also interesting is that a host of group buying enterprise-targeted software-as-a-service products are also cropping up. Each hopes to attract brand clients interested in offering their own Groupon-style deals. Wildfire has a Facebook-friendly do-it-yourself Group Deals product, Megachip Technologies just launched their own daily deal coupon software, and daily-deal site Adility launched a Groupon-like platform for small business earlier this summer. All signs indicate that the group buying trend will only increase in popularity over time. Local businesses are finding that they can successfully attract new and repeat business by introducing customers to their services with a deeply-discounted group coupon. In fact, Groupon asserts that 97% of merchants featured on the site want to be featured again, which further demonstrates just how much demand they are dealing with. In the future, look for more brands to create their own Groupon-style deals and for Groupon and its larger competitors to snatch up smaller clones in order to expand and enhance their offerings. Also watch for checkin and location-based services to intersect with group buying to create services similar to GroupTabs. The notion of having patrons check-in in masses to unlock deals is extremely business-friendly. 4. Mobile Meets Loyalty As consumers purchase more and more smartphones and phone technology heads in the direction of the “super,” it’s only a matter of time before old-fashioned loyalty, rewards and club card programs head in the mobile direction. Two applications — Key Ring and CardStar give us a preview of what’s to come. Both applications are designed to eliminate plastic loyalty card buildup with a single digital repository. The apps leverage barcode scanning technology so users can save gym cards, grocery store cards, drug store cards and the like, right to their phone. This trend is just beginning to take shape as smartphones become more commonplace, scanners become more sophisticated and retailers become digitally savvy. In the future, we can expect integration with merchant loyalty programs, as well as integration with checkin services like Foursquare. The latter also demonstrates the inevitable convergence of social media with traditional loyalty programs, which we’re already seeing from Tasti-d-Lite’s innovative approach to automatic, POS-integrated social media rewards system. Shopkick’s retailer-friendly automatic checkin service is currently being tested by Best Buy, Macy’s, Sports Authority and Simon Property Group. This early interest in Shopkick points to retailer interest in verifiable, checkin-driven rewards. There’s also private beta mobile app Pushpins, which seeks to leverage QR codes to further enmesh the in-store shopping experience with digital retailer rewards, the likes of which resemble the sophistication of SCVNGR’s recently released rewards program. 5. Checking-In to Entertainment What are you watching on television right now? Whether it’s the latest episode of Mad Men or the next installment of a reality dating show, chances are that you’re sharing the entertainment experience either through face-to-face interaction with friends and family, or by posting outrageous and shocking moments to your favorite social media channels. Consuming most entertainment media is an inherently social experience. A crop of services have popped up in recent months to refine that social experience through entertainment checkins — the act of checking into the television show or movie that you’re watching right now. We’ve already explored why entertainment will drive the next checkin craze, and three of the emerging startups — Philo, Miso, and GetGlue — propelling this trend toward mainstream audiences. There are a few other services in the same mix that are certainly worth watching. CBS recently released their entertainment checkin service, TV.com Relay. It’s a browser-based mobile app for most smartphones that allows users to checkin to live television shows and follows the same TV guide-style format that Philo employs. The CBS offering is nice to look at, and offers content-driven badges like the other guys. It also excels in the real-time comment department. In talking with the Senior Vice President and General Manager of CBS Interactive's Entertainment and Lifestyle Division, Anthony Soohoo, it became clear that the vision behind TV.com Relay extends far beyond entertainment checkins. Soohoo also iterated that the application, which is just a few weeks old, already has 100,000 users thanks to TV.com’s built-in audience. Tunerfish is another mobile and web television checkin service. It’s backed by Comcast and boasts partnerships with networks including HBO, Showtime and NBC. App users answer the question, “What are you watching?” by typing in the name of a show or movie and clicking the “I’m watching” button. The service also provides behavioral incentives in the form of awards, and has been actively working to bring network-sponsored, show-themed awards into the mix. There’s also Clicker Social, a relatively new addition from Clicker that turns the television search engine and web TV guide into an entertainment checkin service as well. The re-purposed entertainment version of the checkin is a smart way to link entertainment consumers with content they love, enhance the social experiences around television, and potentially inspire new audiences to tune into trending or friend-approved television shows. The enormous amount of competition in such a brand new space means that things are just starting to get interesting. All of the services need to evolve to attach real value to the checkin. They each recognize that awards, badges and stickers are easy ways to encourage new user participation, but these existing game mechanics merely scratch the surface in terms of user engagement. In the coming months, look for constant iteration on this front. For example, we can expect Miso to introduce even more show-specific content exclusives via its show fan clubs and for GetGlue to experiment with offering discounts and coupons that users can redeem for their Glue points. More Social Media Resources from Mashable:
[img credits: bluefountainmedia, Helga Weber, rschroed, jhritz, Hector Milla] Reviews: Aardvark, CardStar, Clicker, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Google Wave, Internet, Siri, Twitter, Yelp More About: cardstar, facebook, foursquare, getglue, group buying, groupon, grouptabs, key ring, List, Lists, loyalty program, miso, PHILO, quora, scvngr, shopkick, trending, tunerfish, tv.com relay For more Social Media coverage:
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| Posted: 20 Aug 2010 08:44 AM PDT   First YouTube, then Twitter and now Facebook — it seems North Korea is suddenly moving aggressively into social media. North Korea has been in the news for its social media antics quite often lately — it joined Twitter under the handle @uriminzok just last week, an account that was blocked yesterday by South Korea's state-run Communications Standards Commission. According to South Korean National Security Law, tweets from that account contain "illegal information.” Said information basically amounts to Korean history, news items and links to videos found on the Uriminzokkiri YouTube page, as well as anti-Seoul and anti-U.S. statements from the Uriminzokkiri website. Now, the Twitter feed also features links to wall posts from its Facebook profile. Oddly enough, North Korea has chosen to create a Facebook profile, rather than a Fan Page — which means that it has more control over who its “Friends” are. Currently, the Profile has 65 friends, and features links to videos from its YouTube account, photos of the landscape and statements from the North’s foreign ministry. According to Yahoo News, the “Write Something About Yourself” section of the profile reads: “A page that contains wishes of North Koreans, South Koreans and Koreans living abroad for unification, peace and prosperity.” Also — interestingly — the Profile is “Male” and is interested in “Men” for “Networking.” South Korea has yet to block Facebook, which means curious parties can still read the messages that North Korea is putting out into the online world — and in greater detail, too, since Facebook allows more than 140 characters. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, colevineyard Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto More About: facebook, North Korea, Political, social media, South Korea, twitter, youtube For more Social Media coverage:
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| BlackBerry App World Gets a Major Refresh Posted: 20 Aug 2010 07:37 AM PDT   The latest version of BlackBerry App World, RIM’s mobile application store, is now out of beta and available to everyone. It includes several important improvements. The odd $2.99 price limit for paid apps is gone; developers can now charge $0.99 and $1.99 for their apps if they choose to do so. Customers are now finally able to purchase apps using major credit cards, including Visa and MasterCard. Furthermore, carrier billing may be supported by certain carriers. As far as app discovery goes, BlackBerry App World now features tabbed sections with top 25 lists for free apps, paid apps, newest apps, recently updated apps and themes. Finally, a feature well-known to iPhone and Android users — QR barcode scanning — is now available to BlackBerry users as well. There’s also some bad news for developers hidden in this update: RIM’s generous revenue share split is being cut from 80/20 to 70/30 percent. True, Apple and Android both have a 70/30 percent revenue split, but we doubt BlackBerry app developers are pleased about the change. Disclosure: RIM is a Mashable sponsor. Reviews: Android, Mashable More About: blackberry app world, Mobile 2.0, RIM, smartphone For more Mobile coverage:
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| Morning Brief: Nokia Acquires Analytics Co, Apple Shutters Quattro, Dell & HP Post Earnings Posted: 20 Aug 2010 06:45 AM PDT This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America’s first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The “First to Know” series keeps you in the know on what’s happening now in the world of social media and technology.   Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today. Nokia Acquires Mobile Analytics Company Nokia announced that it has acquired mobile analytics firm Motally Inc., a privately held, eight-person company headquartered in San Francisco. Motally specializes in application tracking and reporting for developers and publishers. Nokia plans to adapt its service for its Qt, Symbian, Meego and Java developers, in addition to serving Motally’s current clients, the company said in a statement. Apple Shutting Down Quattro Wireless Apple is shutting down the Quattro Wireless ad network it acquired in January to focus on its iAd platform, Quattro CEO Andy Miller — who is now Apple’s VP of iAd — wrote in a memo to Quattro participants yesterday [via BusinessInsider]. Dell, HP Post Quarter Earnings Results Dell and HP posted quarterly earnings results in line with analysts’ expectations. Dell, affirming a recovery in enterprise and government technology spending, announced double-digit profit growth, although its gross margin declined 16.6% from 18.7% due to higher component costs. Total earnings were $629 million for the second quarter; overall company revenue was up 22% to $15.5 billion. The company forecasts that revenue will grow 14% to 19% and income from 18% to 23% in the second half of the year. Just last week, Dell Founder and CEO Michael Dell was rebuked by shareholders when 1/4 voted against the continuation of his tenure on the company's board. Meanwhile, HP revealed in a conference call with investors that it would launch a webOS tablet in Q1 2011. The company reported that its third quarter net revenue rose 11.4% year-over-year to $30.7 billion, also in line with analysts’ expectations. There is still no word who will replace CEO Mark Hurd, who recently resigned over a sexual harassment investigation. Further News
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| The WikiLeaks Debate: Journalists Weigh In Posted: 20 Aug 2010 06:44 AM PDT   WikiLeaks and potential imitators could be game changers for the relationships between journalists and the governments and companies they cover. The merits or dangers of those changes are, however, big points of contention for both the organizations that have experienced leaks and the journalists who cover them. While it’s tough for anyone to speak about WikiLeaks with total authority, we turned to four diverse thinkers in the field: A varied group of experienced journalists with something to say. Their insights could help the rest of us find the proper perspective on this new development in media and technology. Read on for four takes on what WikiLeaks means, and let us know your own thoughts in the comments below. “WikiLeaks Must Be Stopped”“WikiLeaks is not a news organization,” said Marc Thiessen. “It is a criminal enterprise.” Thiessen is a conservative political commentator who has written articles for The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, National Review and USA Today, and his August 3rd op-ed in The Washington Post titled “WikiLeaks Must Be Stopped” is one of the most scathing indictments of WikiLeaks in a mainstream publication. Thiessen, who served as a speechwriter for U.S. President George W. Bush, views WikiLeaks through the lens of national security. He is of the opinion that WikiLeaks’ ethics are simply nonexistent. WikiLeaks’ collection and publication of confidential military data “arguably constitute material support for terrorism,” he said. He believes the administration of President Barack Obama not only has the right, but the responsibility to track down founder and spokesman Julian Assange and throw him in prison; then shut down his entire organization. The post said that WikiLeaks has already exposed over 100 friendly informants and one U.S. operative, whose lives and families could now be in danger. With at least 10,000 more documents still unreleased, Thiessen considers this an issue of national security and believes that the United States should take whatever action is necessary to prevent those documents from being released, even if it means infringing on international laws that might protect Assange and his associates. “A New Wrinkle on an Old Idea”WikiLeaks doesn’t change the fundamentals of journalism. Rather, it’s a new manifestation of the same journalistic process that needs “people to leak and people to dig and people to consume and explain, and people who care enough to find the documents and bring them to light,” said Mike Sager, a respected writer for Esquire, Rolling Stone and The Washington Post “WikiLeaks is a new wrinkle on an old idea,” Sager said. “Bigger, better and faster, and more high tech, like everything else nowadays. Gumshoe 10.2 but still gumshoe.” The site is still just a big mine full of data that has to be extracted and processed by other agents in the journalistic machine. Sorting through large piles of leaked documents isn’t new. Sager remembered a moment when John Feinstein and Bob Woodward lugged in a huge catch of documents: “I was standing at my desk in the metro section and John Feinstein came in lugging a huge box of documents… Seeing Feinstein approach, Woodward came steaming out of his glass office with a huge grin on his face. He uttered one word (in a pre-PC era): “Doc-u-gasm!” His hokey mid-western accent (and constant wad of chewing gum) turning it into a cute bit of baudy newsroom vaudeville. We crowded around the cache to revel in our paper’s good fortune.” WikiLeaks is the same stuff, just a different era. “Don’t Confuse Platform With Content” WikiLeaks, like most other Internet “news” organizations, doesn’t provide the perspective and understanding the public actually needs, according to author and University of Chicago and Northwestern University writer-in-residence Alex Kotlowitz. “We need to be careful that we don't confuse platform with content,” Kotlowitz said. “WikiLeaks was able to get someone in the U.S. government to leak them these documents, and then they posted them on their website. But people turned not to WikiLeaks to help us make sense of the 92,000 pages of documents. Rather we turned to sources like The New York Times or The Guardian to help us interpret the importance of what's there.” The lack of proper context-providing prowess isn’t unique to WikiLeaks. Kotlowitz believes there’s a place for “rigorous, thoughtful, fairminded news sources,” but that “no one on the Internet has found a financial model to make that work.” Google gives blogs financial incentives to write the news that people want to hear, not what they need to hear. Often, speed is more important than allowing for deep, thoughtful analysis. The rapidly changing landscape of online news causes most stories to get brushed out of the way before they get the consideration they deserve. WikiLeaks is a different beast, of course. It’s even less comprehensive in that it only provides the raw materials and documents with any analysis. Kotlowitz argues that we need “established news organizations to lend us their expertise in deciphering and navigating the often arcane and secret workings of both public and private institutions that shape our lives.” WikiLeaks doesn’t, or can’t, do that; someone else has to: Its influence is constrained by the news establishment that interprets and explains the data it collects. “WikiLeaks and the Mainstream Media Still Need Each Other”There’s undoubtedly a symbiotic, albeit strained relationship between WikiLeks and the mainstream media. Who better to dig deeper than a fresh face who has grown up in the gray area between new and traditional media? Alexander Hotz teaches at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, does some work for NPR, and contributes to Mashable. In the recent Mashable article, “Why WikiLeaks and the Mainstream Media Still Need Each Other,” Hotz adds another dimension to the idea that WikiLeaks can’t do much good without the mainstream media. Hotz goes one step further than Kotlowitz to explain that nobody would even read the leaks without mainstream media support. When WikiLeaks released the Afghan War Logs, it did so in conjunction with The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel because — let’s face it — no one would have read the logs without someone to grab their attention, give the logs legitimacy and explain why it all mattered. It’s hardly a community-driven exercise, thereby making “wiki” an inappropriate term. Hotz took care where others didn’t to acknowledge that WikiLeaks was “inspired by the Internet's freedom of information culture.” An organization that has no boundaries, no bureaucracy, and a dubious code of ethics is useful because it’s going to get scoops that The New York Times couldn’t on its own. However, those scoops might be meaningless to the public without media interpretation and validation. We’ll just have to wait to see what kind of dynamic they settle into. More Journalism Resources From Mashable:
[img credit: Quiltro Elemento] Reviews: Google, Internet, Mashable More About: afghan logs, data mining, interview, interviews, journalism, journalists, whistle blower, wikileaks For more Social Media coverage:
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| Nokia Gives Up on Messaging for Social Networks Application Posted: 20 Aug 2010 06:34 AM PDT   Nokia announced it will be shutting down its Messaging for Social Networks beta program. Nokia envisioned the application as an alternative to standalone Facebook and Twitter applications, enabling users to post to both networks at the same time. It also featured location awareness as well as integration with the device’s calendar. The decision to shut down the beta did not sit well with some of Nokia’s customers. A couple of weeks ago, one of them complained on Nokia’s forums about the app going 5 months without an update. Unfortunately for users, the app will not receive any more updates. In a blog post on Nokia’s Beta Labs, the Nokia messaging team explains “there are no plans to further develop this particular client,” as it will now focus on an “integrated Social experience on Symbian^3 devices beginning with Nokia N8.” Reviews: Facebook, Twitter More About: Messaging for Social Networks, Mobile 2.0, Nokia, social networking For more Mobile coverage:
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