Mashable: Latest 28 News Updates - including “10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]” |  |
- 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]
- How 12 CEOs & Founders are Leveraging Web Video
- 5 Free Ways to Never Miss a Twitter @Reply
- Rdio’s Unlimited Music Streaming Service Opens to the Public
- Interface Faceoff: Touchscreen vs. Mouse
- Pulse + Posterous = News Sharing Bliss
- So, You Want to Jailbreak Your iPhone 4 [VIDEO]
- Android Froyo Is Here For Sprint Evo 4G
- Feds Resurrect “Do Not Track” Concept for Online Ads
- Calculate Taxi Cab Fares With Bing Maps
- Digg Halts New User Registrations As It Prepares to Launch New Version
- Facebook Questions Get a Multi-Meme Easter Egg [VIDEO]
- HOW TO: Legally Structure your Startup
- Google Releases the Ultimate Experimental Version of Chrome
- Facebook Used by Police to Catch Lawless Drivers
- Faux “Oregon Trail: The Movie” Trailer Hits the Web [VIDEO]
- Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Arrives in October, Gets a Price
- Android Smartphones Outsell iPhone in First Half of 2010
- The A-Team Has an iPhone App
- Twitter & Facebook Dominate #WinWeekend for Favorite Mobile App
- 11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates
- AT&T Launches QR Code Scanning App for BlackBerry and Android
- Mashable Android App Now Available for Download
- Put All Your Club Cards on a Digital Key Ring
- How Small Businesses Will Use Social Media in the Future
- YouTube Star to Put His Life in Your Hands for a Year [VIDEO]
- Wireless Carriers Developing Pay via Smartphone Swipe System [REPORT]
- Social Networking Dominates Our Time Spent Online [STATS]
- Foursquare and Gogo Form Their Own “Mile High Club”
| 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS] Posted: 03 Aug 2010 04:01 AM PDT      While there’s no question that the iPhone experience can be greatly improved by a few choice accessories — a cool speaker dock and a snazzy case, for example — there are companies out there that have taken the concept to the extreme. Here we take a light-hearted look at 10 totally unnecessary iPhone accessories that only the true gadget-addict would consider a good investment. Have a laugh as you wander through the gallery, and let us know any kooky iPhone add-ons you’ve spotted in the comments below. And remember kids, the next time you’re tempted with an unsightly accessory, just ask yourself WWJID: (what would Jony Ive do?)
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| How 12 CEOs & Founders are Leveraging Web Video Posted: 03 Aug 2010 02:05 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. The debate continues on whether CEOs should be fluent in social media or not, but the number of CEOs using social media to engage customers is still very low, even among technology companies. In the past year it seems that executives have become more comfortable with platforms like Twitter and Facebook. For example, there are a number of influential CEOs using Twitter to represent their companies and bring a friendly face to their businesses. Tweeting CEOs like Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Guy Kawasaki of Alltop are well-known for their successful social presences and large followings as a result. With all of the talk about how CEOs are getting social, we were curious to see how many CEOs are also branching out into web video. We took a look around the web to see how CEOs and founders are leveraging video to educate and engage consumers. Once again, we found that the number of executives active in the web video space, as in the social media space, is quite small. But for those business leaders taking an active role, we’ve uncovered some great successes. Here’s a list of 12 CEOs and founders leveraging web video to promote their businesses. 1. Tom Dickson, Founder & CEO, BlendTecTom Dickson, Founder and CEO of BlendTec, a commercial and residential appliance production company specializing in blenders, is the host of popular the YouTube series Will It Blend? In the series, Dickson tests his blenders on everyday items to see if they will blend. Some recent items put to the blending test included the iPhone 4, a vuvuzela, and an iPad. Dickson’s YouTube series is a huge success. With just over 100 videos uploaded, total video views currently total nearly 131 million. We’d be surprised if that level of visibility wasn’t affecting the bottom line. 2. Gary Vaynerchuk, Founder, Winelibrary TVGary Vaynerchuk is the founder and host of Winelibrary TV, a daily wine video blog in which Vaynerchuk reviews wines and updates the world on the latest wine news. Vaynerchuk uses Viddler to host his daily video updates, and he also maintains an active personal account on Viddler, where he uploads videos on social media, technology, and branding, among a variety of other topics. Leaders with large personalities should take note of Vaynerchuk’s openness to be real. He’s a straight shooter with an honest mouth. That’s what keeps his fans coming back for more. 3. Mitchell Harper, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, BigCommerceBigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that helps businesses launch professional online stores. Mitchell Harper, co-founder and co-CEO of BigCommerce, posts videos to BigCommerce’s YouTube channel at least once a week, making it a point to speak on topics of interest to his core audience, e-commerce professionals. His videos take an educational point of view while maintaining a down-to-earth, yet professional tone. He says:
Harper seems to be adding value to both his community and business. Since launching the channel about six months ago, they’ve garnered nearly 420,000 video views. 4. Tim O'Reilly, CEO, O'Reilly MediaO’Reilly Media, a media company founded by Tim O’Reilly, publishes books, magazines and websites, and produces conferences on computer technology topics. With over 1,000 videos and 2.5 million video views, the O’Reilly Media YouTube channel is a well-updated outlet for the company. The channel often features speeches by and interviews with O’Reilly. We applaud O’Reilly Media for repurposing useful content that could have otherwise been lost in the great unknown. 5. Kevin Rose, Founder & CEO, DiggKevin Rose, founder and newly appointed CEO of Digg, a social news website, co-hosts a weekly video podcast called Diggnation, alongside Actor Alex Albrecht, where they discuss the top stories from Digg. Diggnation currently has over 3.3 million video views, proving that promoting your company can be as simple as putting together a video series where you discuss the latest news from within your community. Rose also has fairly active personal accounts on YouTube and Vimeo, in which he posts on technology, travel and food, and hosts The Random Show with Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week. 6. Scott Jordan, Founder & CEO, ScottevestAfter Apple launched the iPad, you may have heard the buzz around the iPad suit pocket, in which political faux-pundit Stephen Colbert called out the Wall Street Journal for not including him in an article about ways to carry the iPad. Colbert sported a suit jacket with an iPad-compatible pocket at The Grammys just days before the article was published. In the WSJ article, clothing manufacturer Scottevest was mentioned, as the company sells multiple iPad-compatible vests and jackets, some featuring up to 22 pockets. It turns out that Scott Jordan, Scottevest’s founder and CEO, actually created that large-sized interior pocket seven years before the iPad was invented. It’s a serendipitous story, but it has certainly ramped up buzz around the company. Jordan launched the company’s YouTube channel four years ago, and has uploaded nearly 800 videos since. His videos include weekly newsletters, product updates, and adventurous treks that often include his pets. Jordan’s videos usually feature him wearing Scottevest products, explaining how they are useful in certain situations. He’s a true company evangelist. 7. Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO, Mint.comAaron Patzer is the founder and CEO of Mint.com, and now the vice president & general manager of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group, since Mint.com was recently acquired by Intuit (makers of the popular personal finance apps Quicken and TurboTax). One of the best contributions that a company can make to an online community is educating its users on how to use its products. For video, that doesn’t always mean uploading a ton of videos on every little feature. Sometimes, it just means providing the basics. Mint.com’s YouTube channel does a great job of providing valuable information on how to use its products. With just over 20 videos uploaded, many of which Patzer appears in, Mint.com has garnered nearly 700,000 video views. Kudos to the Mint.com team for keeping it minimalist while still racking up video views. Their channel proves that quality always trumps quantity. 8. Loic Le Meur, Founder, Seesmic and LeWeb.netLoic Le Meur is the founder of Seesmic, a startup company that develops social networking clients for sites like Twitter and Facebook that run on the web, mobile devices, and the desktop. Le Meur has a very active YouTube presence with over 700 videos, totaling about 1.9 million video views. With over 3,000 subscribers, Le Meur has a sizable audience to engage. He uploads videos about Seesmic, technology, and LeWeb, a tech conference that he founded in 2005. 9. Pam Liebman, CEO, Corcoran GroupReal estate pros are jumping on the social media bandwagon, and Corcoran Group, the largest residential real estate firm in New York City, is ahead of the pack. Corcoran has an extensive social media presence, and their video presence spans to YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv. The videos feature CEO Pam Liebman answering questions posed by Facebook and Twitter followers regarding the state of the housing market and New York living tips. For example, in the video above, Liebman answers a question posted by Inman News‘ Rob Hahn via Twitter. These types of videos allow the Corcoran team to truly engage with potential customers, as well as showcase their expertise in New York City real estate. 10. Rob Banks (Co-Founder), BuildDirectRob Banks, Co-Founder of BuildDirect, a manufacturer and wholesaler of flooring and building materials, takes a pro-active role in marketing the company. He appears in hundreds of videos on BuildDirect’s YouTube channel, discussing various flooring and building materials. The videos occasionally also feature Jeff Booth, President and CEO of BuildDirect. BuildDirect’s mission for the YouTube channel is clearly stated: “We want to educate, to entertain, and to let you know who we are as a group of people.” The occasional Pancake Day video certainly gives us a glance into their lively company culture. 11. John Pozadzides, CEO, iFusion LabsJohn Pozadzides, CEO of iFusion Labs, creators of real-time web analytics service Woopra, maintains an active web video presence via his Viddler channel. Pozadzides embeds many of his videos on his blog, OneMansBlog.com, where he often updates his readers on innovations, announcements, and factoids in a variety of areas, including entertainment, computing, politics and technology. His blog seems to be quite a success, as on any given month it receives around half a million page views, according to Pozadzides. 12. Bob Parsons, Founder & CEO, GoDaddy GroupIf the GoDaddy "Too Hot for TV” ad shown during Super Bowl 2010 wasn’t hokey enough for you, you can always get more on BobParsons.me, the website of GoDaddy Founder and CEO Bob Parsons. The site features a vlog with Parsons’ latest tips for being successful. Of course, most of the videos feature token hot girls, if that’s what you’re looking for. Regardless of the corny marketing ploys that may be at work in these videos, we admire Parsons’ attempt to educate viewers on the lessons he has learned along the way while turning three startup companies into mega-million dollar enterprises. We can’t say it enough — having a web presence is all about creating value for others. Gimmicks aside, Parsons has what it takes to do that. Is your company’s founder or CEO blazing trails in web video? If so, let us know how they are creating value for your community. More business resources on Mashable
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, redhumv Reviews: Digg, Facebook, Mint, Seesmic, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, iStockphoto More About: business, ceo, CEOs, ONLINE VIDEO, small business, startups, viddler, video, web video, youtube For more Business coverage:
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| 5 Free Ways to Never Miss a Twitter @Reply Posted: 03 Aug 2010 12:02 AM PDT   There are plenty of Twitter apps and clients offering brand monitoring and keyword alert services, but if you’re only one person, you may want a more lightweight way of keeping track of what people are saying about you on the micro-blogging service. To this end, we’ve found five free, web-based Twitter services that will let you know via e-mail each time you are on the receiving end of an @mention, or get an @reply. Have a read through our picks below to see which one might suit your needs, and let us know your thoughts. If there are any services you’ve used that didn’t make the list, share them in the comments box. 1. Twitstra About as lightweight as services come, Twitstra is a study in minimalist app design. Sign in to the service using OAuth, enter the e-mail address you’d like the alerts to go to, wait for the confirmation link e-mail to come through, then hit the link and you’re all set up. Twitstra will then send you an e-mail every time a tweet mentions your Twitter name. Pretty much as instantaneous as you could expect, a Twitstra alert e-mail tells you who has referenced you in the subject line and then provides the full tweet in the body of the e-mail in plain text. Twitstra also offers a reply via e-mail service, but this was not functioning at the time of testing, although the developer says a fix is promised soon. 2. UgoTwitt French service UgoTwitt will e-mail you notifications when your handle is tweeted. Sign up on the site with your Twitter name, password, and e-mail notification preference (OAuth is said to be in the pipelines). After you’ve verified your address, the alerts will start pouring in (this was the third-fastest service we tested). The alert e-mails will come with a French subject “Vous avez recu x nouvelles reponses de…” adding a bit of charm to your inbox, but are simple to read with a thumbnail image of the tweeter, the full text of the tweet and the option to reply. Hitting the “send a reply” link loads up your Twitter web page and auto-fills the person’s Twitter name, readying you for an easy response. 3. TweetAlarm TweetAlarm is a keyword notification service. Signing up requires the standard OAuth and e-mail, after which you can set up your keywords to watch. TweetAlarm offers the really nifty trick of adding a list of users to ignore (which it automatically adds you to, although this can be changed), which is a handy option if you don’t want to be alerted to a particular user’s @replies. Making this an even better feature, there’s also a shortcut “ignore” link in alert e-mails that come through, so if you forget to ignore someone and get alerted to one of their tweets, you can just hit the “ignore” link and TweetAlerts will add them to the “don’t bother to alert me” list. You can set up alerts to come through daily, weekly or as often as the service finds tweets — although this is currently set at two hours due to Twitter’s new API search limits. When e-mails come through, they offer details of all the mentions in the body, complete with thumbnail images of each Twitter user. 4. Pu.ly Pu.ly offers a few handy little services for anyone who doesn’t want to be signed into Twitter all day, but needs to keep abreast of developments. In addition to telling you via e-mail when you have an @reply or mention, the service will do the same when you are added to a Twitter list or receive a direct message. For the purposes of this post, we tested the mention and reply alerts. Getting set up is easy; just connect via OAuth, enter the e-mail address you’d like the alerts sent to, and then select “on” or “off” for each of the three functions. When the alerts messages come through (which is very soon after the @action — matching Twitstra for speed) the subject line states, “mentioned in tweet by user” and the full tweet is shown in the body copy. A handy part of the service is the ability to reply in-mail to save loading up Twitter. To reply in-mail, you simply hit reply as you normally would for an e-mail, make sure you add the @name of who you’re replying to, and the service will send the first 140 characters as a tweet. 5. Twilert Twilert is a good-looking web-based Twitter app that actually offers general keyword alerts, and can potentially be used as a simplified monitoring tool. But for our purposes, we tested it as an @mention notifier. To get going, sign up and in via OAuth, set your time-zone, enter your e-mail address and then create your keyword-based Twilert; in this instance “@username.” Twilert lets you specify when you want the alerts to come through, with the minimum time period a 15 minute check. We set our Twilerts to the minimum, but saw gaps of two hours between alerts at peak times, suggesting system load was heavy, although alerts did come through quicker at quieter times. The e-mails that come through offer a list of who has @mentioned you in the time frame you’ve set up, with thumbnails of the Twitter users and hyperlink-rich text offering the ability to “view” or “reply” — both of which direct you to Twitter. In SummaryAll the services did what they promised to, but if you want fast notifications of any kind of @mention, then Twitstra and Pu.ly are going to be your best options. Twitstra wins for simplicity, while Pu.ly offers extra features like DM alerts. The better looking TweetAlarm and Twilert services offer a more casual alert experience, but with general keyword alert options, they could prove more useful for more advanced Twitter monitoring. More Twitter resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Pablo631 Reviews: Twitter, iStockphoto More About: how to, how tos, List, Lists, pu.ly, social media, tweetalarm, twilert, twitstra, twitter, ugotwitt For more Social Media coverage:
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| Rdio’s Unlimited Music Streaming Service Opens to the Public Posted: 02 Aug 2010 09:59 PM PDT   Rdio is the $9.99-per-month, all-you-can-stream, social, multi-platform music service that hails from the founders of Skype. The service has been around as a private beta offering for months, but today Rdio is opening its doors — and its seven million-song catalog — to the public. Now that the music service is publicly available, anyone can tap into its music collection through its web app, desktop app or Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad mobile applications. Rdio’s key selling point is that it offers unlimited and unfettered access to music. Once you purchase one of the subscription plans, you can listen to any songs you like, at any time and wherever you are, as many times as you want. CEO Drew Larner describes it as “unlimited online jukebox.” Of course, it also stands out because it is inherently social. Rdio has also been successful at negotiating with the “big four” major music labels in the U.S.: Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner Music Group. Most recently, Rdio has also struck deals with indie labels such as IODA, IRIS, Finetunes, INgrooves and The Orchard. Their industry relationships help make the available selection of songs as replete as possible. When it comes to the business appeal of the service, media and entertainment companies such as Spin Magazine are using the service to curate songs, become digital tastemakers and connect with fans. It’s an ingenious use case as fans can follow the accounts to discover new music and even sync their playlists to mobile devices. Now that Rdio is open to all listeners in the U.S. and Canada, we should soon see how the service stacks up against the likes of MOG, Pandora and even Spotify when it comes to user appreciation and adoption. Give it a try, and let us know your opinions in the comments. Reviews: Android, Pandora, Spotify For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Interface Faceoff: Touchscreen vs. Mouse Posted: 02 Aug 2010 09:53 PM PDT   The mouse has been a mainstay of the personal computer ever since the first GUI-enabled Apple Macintoshes hit store shelves. It’s how the vast majority of us interact with our computers every single day. Yet of the many basic computing features that have evolved, the cursor interface really isn’t one of them. Point-and-click has mostly been the same since the mouse’s introduction in the 1960s. The rise of the iPhone, iPad and Android devices have begun to alter how we interact with our computers, though. All of these devices use touchscreen interfaces out of necessity, but the result has been the birth of a wide variety of user interfaces that don’t require dragging a little arrow across a virtual desktop. So for this week’s Web Faceoff, we wanted to poll you, the readers, on which interface you prefer: the touchscreen or the mouse/keyboard/cursor. We’re going to leave the Magic Trackpads out of this fight for today. Cast your vote in the poll below by Friday, August 6 at 12:00 PM PT, then let us know why you voted the way you did in the comments. Reviews: Android, iPhone More About: ipad, magic trackpad, mouse, touchscreen, trackpad, web faceoff For more Battles coverage:
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| Pulse + Posterous = News Sharing Bliss Posted: 02 Aug 2010 08:13 PM PDT   Pulse, an innovative mobile news app, just got a lot more social, thanks to a new personalization feature that allows Pulse users to save and publish their own feeds. The new feature, known as My Pulse, is powered by Posterous, which means you can auto-share your news finds and curated posts across your social graph. Pulse created quite a stir when it was first released for the iPad this June. At its heart, Pulse is pretty simple; it’s a stylized RSS reader but with a lot less overhead. What makes the app so great (especially on the iPad) is that flipping through stories and feeds takes very little time.  With My Pulse, the app is much more social. You can create you own My Pulse account from inside the app; just give Pulse your name, an e-mail address and your desired username. Every post you “pulse” by tapping on a heart icon is added to your stream.  Your friends can follow your stream either in the app or at username.pulsememe.com. For instance, my feed is at filmgirl.pulsememe.com. This is a Posterous blog, which means you can syndicate content elsewhere and also send items via e-mail. You can look at a more real-time aggregation of what’s happening at Pulse by visiting pulsememe.com.  Pulse lets you have up to 20 different news sources. If you activate My Pulse, you get five more feeds and your own blog. You can search for people in the system or enter their Pulse username to add them to your account. As before, you can still share articles via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook or Instapaper. However, the great thing about using Posterous is auto-syndication, which you can manage in your settings. Likewise, you can still access a list of feeds from your Google Reader account and add or delete feeds as you please.  Using the My Pulse feature, I really enjoyed seeing what others were sharing and also marking my own favorites. Just as Pulse is a simpler, less top-heavy take on the RSS reader, My Pulse is a cleaner implementation of a linked list. Pulse for iPad is $3.99 in the App Store. How do you find and share news with friends? Is this an app you can see yourself enjoying? Let us know in the comments. Reviews: Android, App Store, Facebook, Google Reader, Posterous, Twitter, instapaper More About: ipad apps, news readers, posterous, pulse, pulsememe, rss For more Social Media coverage:
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| So, You Want to Jailbreak Your iPhone 4 [VIDEO] Posted: 02 Aug 2010 07:14 PM PDT Now that it’s legal and there’s a web app that lets you do it easily, do you plan to jailbreak your iPhone 4? There are ample reasons to do so and also a few good reasons to abstain for now. Our own Ben Parr talks to the smarties from G4’s Attack of the Show about the ins and outs of jailbreaking, what it means for app usage, what Apple might do to counteract jailbreaking, whether a jailbroken phone can still be secure and more. If you’ve decided to go ahead with a jailbreak, we suggest you take a look at JailbreakMe, the first web-based jailbreak tool for iPhone 4. It makes opening up your device as simple as a touchscreen swipe. It’ll work just fine for any iPhone running iOS 4.0.1 or below and any iPad running iOS 3.2.1 or below. Just a week ago, a U.S. court ruled that users who jailbroke their iPhones were not violating any laws. This update to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act ensures Apple won’t be suing you for opening your device and running non-App Store-approved applications. If you’re an iPhone 4 owner, what’s your decision so far: To jailbreak or not to jailbreak? Reviews: App Store More About: apple, attack of the show, Ben Parr, g4, iphone, iphone 4, jailbreak For more Apple coverage:
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| Android Froyo Is Here For Sprint Evo 4G Posted: 02 Aug 2010 06:14 PM PDT   If you’re the proud owner of a Sprint Evo 4G, today’s your lucky day. The powers that be are rolling out the latest upgrade to your Android operating system as we type. According to several gadget blogs and several of our friends on Twitter, Froyo downloads are available for some folks now and should be coming to all Evo users shortly. So far, we’re hearing from users that “Flash ads suck!” on the Evo. They can be avoided by selecting “on demand” in the plugin settings. The release of Android 2.2, more commonly known as Froyo, has been one of the most hotly anticipated events in the OS’s history, but its release has been staggered so far. Froyo appeared on Nexus One devices about a month ago, and some phones, such as the Galaxy S, won’t see the new OS until later in the fall. Froyo was unveiled officially at Google I/O in May. At the time, we saw that it performed incredibly fast, running laps around other operating systems. It also plays well with Flash, streams music from any desktop library (including iTunes), provides hassle-free wireless connectivity for other devices, runs web and native apps, and automatically syncs desktop and mobile applications. We haven’t yet heard that it turns water into wine, but Froyo’s pretty amazing and without a doubt the most exciting thing to come to Android devices in the OS’s brief existence. At its launch, we called it “a slap in Apple’s face.” If you’ve been able to download and run Froyo, let us know your first impressions in the comments, and congratulations! Just know that millions of Droid owners are really, really jealous of you right now. Although Verizon has said that Droid users will get Froyo sometime this week, they have been tight-lipped on specifics; we’ll update you as soon as we can confirm that information and determine an exact date. Reviews: Android, Twitter More About: android, evo, Froyo, sprint, sprint evo For more Mobile coverage:
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| Feds Resurrect “Do Not Track” Concept for Online Ads Posted: 02 Aug 2010 05:17 PM PDT   According to various reports, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering instituting a “do not track” list, similar in concept to the Do Not Call registry, for Internet users who want their browsing activity hidden from online advertisers. If implemented, this registry would keep advertisers from tracking your browsing and shopping history via cookies and serving customized ads based on your behavior. This opt-out solution would be great for consumers who’d rather not have the commercial version of Big Brother watching their every online move while still allowing those more lax in matters of online privacy to benefit from increasingly sophisticated e-commerce technologies. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told members of the Senate Commerce Committee recently, “We may explore in the context of behavioral advertising… a do-not-track mechanism that’s more comprehensive and easier to use than the procedures currently available. Under such a mechanism, users could opt out of behavioral advertising more easily rather than having to make choices on website-by-website basis.” Back in 2007, similar legislation was proposed. At that time, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America and the Electronic Frontier Foundation were among the registry’s advocates. These groups also suggested that advertisers should give consumers details about exactly what data they intended to track. We’re unclear on exactly why this idea wasn’t implemented three years ago. What we do know now is that it’s going to be difficult for the FTC to make these changes when it might not have the deep and wide control it would need to institute such a registry. Moreover, this list is guaranteed to be extremely unpopular in the online ad industry, which itself is one of the main arteries of Internet revenue. We won’t know anything about the fate of this idea for quite some time; whether or not it’s even feasible will be explored in a comprehensive report on online privacy due to be released later this year. If the online ad industry takes proactive steps toward explaining and protecting users’ privacy and data beforehand, the legislation may not even be necessary, Leibowitz noted. What do you think about the concept of a do-not-track list for online advertising? Would it harm the Internet industries as much as it would protect citizens? Let us know your opinions in the comments. [img credit: icki] Reviews: Internet More About: advertising, do not track, FTC, government, online ads, privacy For more Tech coverage:
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| Calculate Taxi Cab Fares With Bing Maps Posted: 02 Aug 2010 04:17 PM PDT   Thanks to a new app, Bing Maps now calculates the cab fare on a route between two points. The Taxi Fare Calculator was developed by Ricky Brundritt as a submission to the King of Bing Maps competition. The app is available at the Bing Maps website right now. Just pick a region (results are best within a major metropolitan area, such as New York or London) and type in two addresses. The app gives the shortest route and a fare estimate based on normal rates for cabs in the area. The pick-up charge, time charges and by-the-mile costs are all factored in where applicable. This tool should prove helpful to users who want to save some cash by comparing routes or who need to make sure they have the money on hand for a trip they intend to take. Taxi Fare Calculator is one of many apps being considered for Microsoft’s King of Bing Maps title. The winner will soon be selected by a panel that includes CNET’s Josh Lowensohn, Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling and Directions’ Joe Francica. Expect the announcement to show up on the Bing blog August 20. The Bing blog already features a few other candidates along with Taxi Fare Calculator, including World of Football, Random Location, Ricky’s Data Viewer, Apo-AT, Festivals de Theatre, GeoSalesTax and Microsoft Regional Directors. You can use some of the candidates in Bing Maps right now. Microsoft has been using this competition and other initiatives to tout Bing Maps’ development API and snazzy Silverlight 4 bells and whistles. This product needs to compete in a market already dominated by more entrenched applications such as Google Maps and Mapquest. It’s not easy to beat the reigning champions, but Foursquare integration and apps such as the Tour de France map and the street level stargazing feature are as likely to offer a formidable challenge as anything we’ve seen. What do you think of the competition apps so far?  Reviews: Bing, Google Maps More About: api, App, bing, Bing Maps, directions, microsoft, Silverlight, taxi, transportation, trending For more Tech coverage:
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| Digg Halts New User Registrations As It Prepares to Launch New Version Posted: 02 Aug 2010 03:11 PM PDT   In a sign that the launch of the new version of Digg is imminent, the social media company has turned off new user registrations for Digg.com. Visit Digg.com/register and you’ll be greeted with a message stating that the new Digg is coming, and prompting would-be new users to sign up for e-mail notifications for the relaunch of the social news service. Digg is likely porting data over from the current version of Digg to the new one and doesn’t want to leave out new users in the switch. The new Digg was first revealed in March by former CEO Jay Adelson, who has since stepped down. Digg founder Kevin Rose took over as CEO as the company focuses on building a more Twitter-like experience to discovering content. There is a lot of pressure on Rose and the Digg team to get this relaunch right: Digg has been steadily losing users for the last year. [via crenk] Reviews: Digg More About: digg, kevin rose, New Digg For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook Questions Get a Multi-Meme Easter Egg [VIDEO] Posted: 02 Aug 2010 02:06 PM PDT   MySpace VP Sean Percival just got Rickroll’d by a Facebook easter egg after he asked a question referencing another popular Internet meme. The easter egg, which presumably was added when Facebook Questions started rolling out a few days ago, responds to the “how is babby formed” meme from back in 2006. When Quora launched in 2009, MySpace’s Sean Percival referenced the old Yahoo Answers meme by asking the question on that platform. This time he christened Facebook Questions by doing the same, but when he did he was surprised by a pop-up of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video. There’s no way to know whether Facebook’s developers dropped that in as a treat just for Percival, but if they did, that’s, well… priceless. It works for everyone who has Facebook Questions, but the feature is not open to everyone in the public yet. If you’re one of the people with access, go to your homepage, click “Ask Question” and type in “how is babby formed” and you’ll be suddenly treated to this music video of Rick Astley singing and dancing the song we all know (for better or for worse). “How is babby formed?” is a less well-known meme at this point. The phrase comes from a particularly silly Yahoo Answers question from a few years ago. You can dig up more details about it at Know Your Meme. Here’s a video Percival made to demonstrate the easter egg for folks who don’t have Facebook Questions enabled on their accounts. We’ve included our own screenshot below as further proof. VideoScreenshot Reviews: Facebook More About: ask a question, easter egg, facebook, how is babby formed, humor, Meme, rickroll, social media, social networking, video For more Social Media coverage:
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| HOW TO: Legally Structure your Startup Posted: 02 Aug 2010 01:23 PM PDT   Nellie Akalp is the CEO & Co-Founder of CorpNet, her second incorporation filing service company based on the simple philosophy of truth in business and her strong passion to assist small business owners and entrepreneurs in getting their business off the ground in a fast, reliable, and affordable manner. Follow her on Twitter @corpnet and Facebook. Whether you’re the next big thing in social gaming or organic knitwear, each startup eventually faces the same gnawing questions: How should I legally structure my business? Should I form an LLC or an S-Corp? What about an S-Corp vs. a C-Corp? These questions are only natural. After all, the legal and financial ramifications are significant. And your passion might be designing iPhone apps or analyzing Twitter data, but I’m pretty confident it’s not tax law. While circumstances vary among individuals and individual businesses, here are some general guidelines to help you jump-start your decision on business structures. There are other possible business types, but I’ll focus on three: the LLC, the S Corporation, and the C Corporation. The LLC (Limited Liability Company)The LLC is very hot among startups now. Owners of an LLC jointly own and manage the business, and share in the profits. Like a corporation, the LLC is a separate legal entity — it can sue and be sued, it can own property, but individual owners are shielded from personal liability. The LLC (like the S-Corp and C-Corp) gives you peace of mind that your personal property can’t be wiped out because an unsatisfied client sues your company, or if your business runs into financial trouble because a key customer fails to pay. However, it is important to note that an LLC is not an ironclad protection against personal liability, as courts around the country have begun to override the LLC if there has been fraud or misrepresentation. The LLC is ideal for startups that don’t want or need much formality, but still want legal protection. In a corporation, minutes must be filed and resolutions passed whenever you want to make changes to the company. In the LLC, this isn’t the case. LLCs just use an informal “operating agreement.” Depending on your particular type of business, this could either be a great time and money saver, or the gateway to conflict down the road. An LLC is considered a pass-through entity when it comes to federal income tax. This means the business itself is not taxed; rather, any business income or loss is reported on each individual owner’s tax return. However, every business has different financials, so please remember that it’s wise to consult with a tax advisor on your own situation. In an LLC, income and loss can be allocated disproportionately among the owners; in the S-Corp, income and loss are assigned to each shareholder strictly based on their pro-rata share of ownership. So, if I own 80% of an LLC, my share of the tax burden doesn’t necessarily have to be 80% of the taxable income. But if I own 80% of an S-Corp and that company makes $100,000 in taxable income, I will be taxed on $80,000 of income, even if I never withdrew a cent from the corporate bank account. The S-CorpAn S-Corp typically starts off as a regular C Corporation, and then soon after (or to get technical, within two months and 15 days), all shareholders must submit Form 2553 to the IRS. This means the company is now treated as a pass-through entity, similar to the LLC, and income/loss is passed through to each shareholder’s individual tax statement. An S Corporation should be selected when your startup will make a profit soon after incorporation —- and most of that profit will be distributed to shareholders as a dividend. If your business model requires you to reinvest the profit back into the company for growth, you should be looking at a C-Corp instead. This is due to the simple fact that all shareholders will still be taxed on the profits individually, even though those profits are pumped back into the business, instead of into shareholders’ wallets. Beyond tax matters, there are other rules shaping whether the S-Corp is right for your startup. An S-Corp cannot have more than 100 shareholders. All shareholders must be individuals (not LLCs or partnerships) and legal residents of the United States. The C-CorpThat brings me to the C Corporation. Unlike all other forms of business, a C-Corp is not a pass-through entity. It’s taxed separately and the company must file its own tax returns with Form 1120. C-Corps have their own tax brackets, which in many cases, are lower than individual tax rates. Unlike the S-Corp, almost anyone can own shares in a C-Corp and there’s no limit on the number of shareholders. Obviously, if you anticipate having more than 100 shareholders, the C-Corp is the way to go. In addition, the C-Corp lets you create different classes of stock, so owners can have different shares in terms of profits and losses. With a C-Corp, individuals are taxed only on the money they receive. Therefore, if you’re planning on reinvesting your startup’s profits back into the company, a C-Corp is preferred since these profits are usually taxed at a lower rate. Additionally, the C-Corp is generally the preferred business structure for startups seeking funding from different sources, including VC and equity financing. Keep this information in your back pocket as you get the ball rolling on your business venture, and always be sure to consult a lawyer and/or tax advisor before making any firm decisions. Good luck! More Business Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, njgphoto Reviews: Twitter, iPhone, iStockphoto More About: business, C-Corp, contracts, corporations, fiancing, incorporating, investors, IRS, law, legal, List, Lists, LLC, pass-through entity, personal liability, S-Corp, small business, startups, stock, taxes For more Business coverage:
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| Google Releases the Ultimate Experimental Version of Chrome Posted: 02 Aug 2010 12:35 PM PDT   Not content with the feedback speed and weekly release cycle of the Dev version of Google Chrome, the search giant has launched the Google Chrome Canary Build, the most experimental and risky version of the web browser yet. Google constantly tests new features and experimental builds of the Chrome browser through the Chrome Dev channel, part of the open-source Chromium Project. However, it’s usually updated in a weekly cycle, which in some cases is not fast enough for the Chrome team to gather feedback and iterate on the world’s third most popular browser. That’s where the Canary Build comes in. According to Google, this build will be updated “more frequently than the Dev channel, with riskier changes, and usually without a human being ever verifying that it works.” In other words, it is the ultimate experimental version of Chrome. Expect it to break, crash and implode without warning. It’s ideal for developers who really want to help the Chrome team test out new features and, as Google puts it, “like to live on the bleeding edge.” There are a few caveats to the Canary Build, though. The big one is that it’s only available for Windows users. The other is that it cannot be set as your default browser (it’s not smart to make this thing your default, anyway). Are you one of the brave few who will try out the Canary Build of Chrome? If you do take the experimental build for a spin, we encourage you to report back with your experience in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, GlobalIP Reviews: Chrome, Google, Windows, iStockphoto More About: Google, google chrome, Google Chrome Canary Build, web browser For more Tech coverage:
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| Facebook Used by Police to Catch Lawless Drivers Posted: 02 Aug 2010 12:00 PM PDT   The traffic police of Delhi, India, are using citizen submissions on a Facebook page to catch and ticket misbehaving drivers. The New York Times says officials have issued 665 tickets based on photographs of license plates posted to the Delhi Traffic Police Facebook page, which has almost 18,000 fans. The police didn’t initially solicit these photos, but citizens took the initiative to help the authorities because Delhi, a sprawling metropolis that’s home to more than 12 million people, has only 5,000 traffic cops. This method will only become more useful. The 2010 Commonwealth Games will take place in Delhi in early October, bringing a huge influx of travelers to the roads. Now the info panel at the Facebook page says: “Managing traffic in Delhi during the Commonwealth Games will be a big challange as well as a great opportunity. Delhi Traffic Police cannot possibly succeed without the active cooperation, participation and support of all the citizens.” There are detractors, of course. Privacy hard-liners aren’t thrilled with the idea of cameras snapping shots of them from every direction (though many nations have automated cameras at stoplights and roundabouts that do just that) and there’s always the possibility that someone adept at Photoshop will forge a depiction of a traffic violation to harass someone else. The Delhi Traffic Police also tweets about traffic congestion and operates a website, though the latter looks like it was designed in 1997 — hit counter and all! Reviews: Adobe Photoshop, Facebook More About: crime, crowdsourcing, delhi traffic police, facebook, india, new delhi, social media, traffic For more Social Media coverage:
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| Faux “Oregon Trail: The Movie” Trailer Hits the Web [VIDEO] Posted: 02 Aug 2010 11:49 AM PDT Remember those glorious days of indoor recess, during which you would while away the half hour playing that most iconic of computer games: Oregon Trail? Well, now you can reclaim them, because new media production group Half Day Today has come out with a (fake) trailer for Oregon Trail, the movie. Although the vid only has around 300 views right now, it’s been popping up on video blogs, Twitter and friends’ Facebook profiles all day — so we predict that this parody is ripe to go viral. Why? Well, it adheres to the “Candy Corn” theory coined by College Humor’s Ricky Van Veen: It contains a cultural touchstone that everyone knows, but doesn't actively think about. Moreover, it’s part of recent wave of faux trailers: see, Jane Austen’s Fight Club, Java: The Movie!, The Meaning of Rainbows, etc. Whatever the reason for its appeal, this vid prompted everyone over at Mash HQ to have extremely strong elementary school flashbacks — a return to the days when being a banker from Boston was everyone’s most ardent desire, and you created dream families entirely composed of your homeroom crushes. This one’s for you, bowl-cut kid whose name I no longer remember, who sadly passed away whilst fording the river. This one’s for you… [via Buzzfeed] Reviews: Facebook, Twitter More About: Film, humor, Oregon Trail, pop culture, software, viral video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Arrives in October, Gets a Price Posted: 02 Aug 2010 11:41 AM PDT   Microsoft has announced that the long-awaited Office for Mac 2011 will hit U.S. store shelves at the end of October with three versions in 13 languages. The Mac version of the popular productivity software will make its debut in three flavors: Office for Mac Home and Student 2011, Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 and Office for Mac Academic 2011. Home and Student 2011, which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Messenger, will retail for $119 for an individual install and $149 for a Family Pack (three installs). Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 will retail for a higher price: $199 for one install and $279 for two installs. However, it comes with a significant addition: Outlook for Mac, which replaces the less capable Entourage e-mail client. The Academic edition of Office, which includes all of the features of the Home and Business version, will cost $99, but is only available for students, faculty and staff of higher education institutions. Office for Mac 2011 comes in 13 languages, including two new ones: Polish and Russian. This is on top of the English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish versions, most of which will be released by the end of the year. Mac users, are you going to get the new version of Office? What features do you want the most? Let us know in the comments. More About: microsoft, microsoft office, Microsoft Office for Mac, office for mac, Office for Mac 2011 For more Apple coverage:
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| Android Smartphones Outsell iPhone in First Half of 2010 Posted: 02 Aug 2010 11:36 AM PDT   According to new data from Nielsen, smartphones running Google's Android operating system outsold those running Apple's iOS in the first half of 2010 by a margin of 27% to 23% of the US market. The news builds on data from NPD that showed the same result in the first quarter, when Android claimed 28% of smartphone sales to iPhone's 21%. It should be noted that iPhone 4 only went on sale in the last week of the second quarter, meaning that iOS might actually be closer to Android than those numbers would have you believe, given the robust sales numbers we’ve seen for Apple’s new device. Nonetheless, the longer-term trend remains intact – as more and more Android devices launch across manufacturers and carriers, it continues to gain marketshare in the US and around the world (another study out today shows Android shipments up 886% year-over-year worldwide). Of course, that strategy is vastly different than that of Apple, who is the only manufacturer of iOS devices and in the US, offers its device only on AT&T. Considering that strategy is buoying the company to record profits quarter after quarter, Android outselling iOS is not so much an alarming sign for Apple as it is a maturation of Google's mobile strategy and the smartphone market as a whole. That said, Nielsen's stats also suggest a fair number of Android users – 21% to be exact – still have iPhone envy and would like to make the switch for their next device. The opposite is true for only 6% of iPhone owners. It will be interesting to see how an iPhone on a different carrier might change the dynamics of this ongoing battle. Reviews: Android, Google More About: android, apple, Google, iOS, iphone, trending For more Mobile coverage:
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| Posted: 02 Aug 2010 11:26 AM PDT   NBC Universal has just released The A-Team Action Pack [iTunes link] for the iPhone and iPod touch. The app was created to coincide with the availability of the first season of The A-Team on iTunes. In 1983, a television series hit the airwaves about a crack commando unit that was sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped to the Los Angeles underground, where they had a successful five-season run on NBC. Today, still beloved by the public, they survive as the inspiration for a summer action movie and, more importantly, a brand new app for the iPhone. If you have a problem, if no one else can help — and if you can find them (and you have an iOS device) — maybe you can hire… The A-Team! As an app, The A-Team Action Pack is pretty basic, but it’s still a lot of fun. It includes a sound board with clips from vehicles, music, character catchphrases and other sound effects. If you shake the phone, you can create the sound of a gun or grenade blasting off. You can also watch the famous opening sequence. Check out the video below for more info on the app. The app is free, so download it now, sucka! What do you think of the use of mobile apps to promote other digital releases? Let us know! More About: iphone apps, television, the a-team, tv For more Mobile coverage:
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| Twitter & Facebook Dominate #WinWeekend for Favorite Mobile App Posted: 02 Aug 2010 10:59 AM PDT
Congratulations to Hellen Araujo of Fort Lauderdale, FL, who is the winner of this week’s Lady Gaga prize package, which includes: a CD copy of Lady Gaga's The Remix, a limited edition vinyl copy of The Remix, Lady Gaga The Fame Monster super deluxe (includes fan collector's art book, pull-out posters, themed fanzines, a paper doll collection, and more…"), Telephone limited edition poster featuring Beyonce, and Fame Monster limited edition gold lithograph. To everyone else, thanks for playing, and check out Mashable on Friday afternoon for this week’s prize and question. #WinWeekend will begin weekly at 5:00 p.m. ET on Fridays, and end Sundays at 11:59 p.m. ET. Stay tuned for your chance to win an awesome prize! Also, if you didn’t have a chance to answer the question this weekend, we’d love to hear what your favorite mobile application is in the comments below. Thanks to Our Partner LiveNation.com
Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, beyonce More About: Contests, entertainment, Lady Gaga, live nation, winweekend, winweekend sweepstakes For more Entertainment coverage:
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| 11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates Posted: 02 Aug 2010 09:59 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. Maintaining a constant social media presence can be difficult, especially for busy entrepreneurs looking to stay in touch with their communities. Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there to help ease the burden. One of the most useful functionalities for a social management tool is the ability to schedule updates. Here is a list of 11 free services for scheduling social media updates, either across multiple social platforms or just for Twitter. At the end of the list, you’ll also find a quick note on 11 paid services that you may be interested in investigating, as well. If your service of choice, free or paid, isn’t in this post, let us know in the comments. Free Multi-Platform ServicesIf you or your company have an extensive online presence across multiple social platforms, you should check out some of the following services that allow for scheduling social media updates across multiple platforms. 1. Hootsuite Hootsuite has a broad range of apps, including their web-based original, mobile apps (iPhone and Android), desktop apps (Windows, Mac and Linux) and add-ons for Firefox and Chrome, all with the power to schedule updates. Social Platforms: The desktop and web-based apps allow you to schedule to Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress, MySpace, and Foursquare, while the mobile apps are limited to Twitter and Facebook. 2. LaterBro On the sign-in screen, you can log in using either your Twitter or Facebook information. After choosing your time zone, you can either start scheduling updates or add more social accounts. You can add multiple Twitter accounts and are limited to one Facebook account. When scheduling an update, you can choose which accounts the update should be posted on and when. If you schedule a particular update to multiple accounts, they appear separately in the queue, so that you can edit them individually. For Facebook, you can mark posts as recurring daily, every other day, weekly, every other week, monthly or annually. Social Platforms: Twitter and Facebook 3. CoTweet CoTweet is an enterprise-grade tool for monitoring a brand’s Twitter accounts and engaging with customers. One of the many features is the ability to schedule tweets by time and date. CoTweet can also be configured to send updates to Ping.fm. The Ping.fm configuration allows you to send updates to any of the social platforms that your Ping.fm account is hooked up to. Social Platforms: Twitter and Ping.fm 4. Twaitter After logging in with your Twitter information, choosing your time zone, and providing an e-mail address, you’re on your way to scheduling tweets with Twaitter, soon to be called Gremln. Scheduled tweets appear in a queue and can be edited or deleted prior to being sent. Twaitter has a built-in URL shortener and spell checker, and also boasts the abilities to translate tweets, save drafts and mark tweets as recurring. You can also connect your Ping.fm account to Twaitter and begin scheduling updates on that platform, too. Social Platforms: Twitter and Ping.fm Free Services for Twitter OnlyFor the Twitterati members out there who focus their efforts on Twitter, dismissing all other social platforms, the following seven services may be of particular interest. Whether your goal is to keep your Twitter followers updated on your social life, feed them with the hottest news in your industry or inform them of upcoming marketing programs, these free services will help you schedule each tweet accordingly. 5. FutureTweets FutureTweets allows you to sign in using Twitter OAuth. Choose your time zone and get to tweeting. Oddly, FutureTweets gives you the choice to “flip” your tweet upside down and in reverse. Why you would want to do this, I’m not so sure, but strangely they offer the option. I enjoy the analog clock they provide, if only for its campy feel — the user experience behind manually choosing a time on an old-fashioned clock isn’t so swell. In that case, you can just type in a time and date. 6. Tweetsqueue Tweetsqueue puts an emphasis on frequency. Although currently in closed beta, you can request an invite, and after gaining access, simply sign in using your Twitter account, choose your time zone and set your tweet frequency (e.g. every 45 minutes). This queuing system allows for a constant flow of tweets at a predetermined interval. 7. Dynamic Tweets Dynamic Tweets allows you to schedule tweets in advance by the hour or for a specific time and date. The most unique feature in Dynamic Tweets is the option to upload a CSV file of planned tweets, including information for the time, date, Twitter account, tweet and optional tracking code. This could be useful for companies that have massive lists of scheduled tweets planned. 8. Taweet What’s happening in the future? That’s the question that Taweet asks of users, as opposed to Twitter’s default, “What’s happening?” The purpose of Taweet is to allow users to schedule future tweets in coordination with events they are planning on participating in. When scheduling, you have the option to share a tweet that announces your future tweet. For example, on July 30th, I planned to be at Chelsea Piers Date Night. As you can see in the example above, I scheduled the tweet and shared it with my followers in case anyone was interested in joining me — killing two birds with one stone, I suppose. If you’d rather not share the future tweet at the time of scheduling, you can deselect the “Share Now” button. From the Taweet platform, you and other users can comment on future tweets. This can be useful for planning and coordinating. 9. Tweet-U-Later Tweet-U-Later has three main options: Scheduling a tweet, scheduling a private message (known as a Direct Message on Twitter), and scheduling tweets via e-mail. When scheduling a tweet, you choose the time, date, time zone, message, and whether you’d like the tweet to be a recurring message. Pending tweets appear in a queue, where you can edit or delete them. To schedule tweets via e-mail, you are given a Tweet-U-Later e-mail address. In order to successfully schedule a tweet via e-mail, you must follow this format: “Your message goes here;YYYY-MM-DD@HH:MM.” This option seems extremely susceptible to human error, so be careful if you plan on using it. 10. TweetSched TweetSched is a desktop app, available as a free download, that allows you to schedule your tweets by date and time. The simple interface includes a text box, add button and queue where you can edit and delete pending tweets. 11. Twuffer You can easily sign onto Twuffer using your Twitter username and password. After setting your time zone, preferred time and date formats, and whether you’d like your tweets shown on Twuffer’s homepage, you can begin scheduling tweets. There are two lists of tweets, the queue for scheduled tweets and the list of sent tweets. Unfortunately, you can’t edit your tweets once they are queued. The only option for defunct tweets is deleting and starting from scratch. Not FreeFor the record, there are also a lot of services out there with various pricing plans. This post was dedicated to free services, but if you’re interested in checking out a whole slew of options, check out Objective Marketer, SocialTALK, Vitrue, AMP, Postling, Sendible, Buzzom Premium, Media Funnel, Converse, SocialOomph and Social Tomorrow. Some of these services have freemium models, with limited-usability free versions. Social management tools are growing in popularity, and scheduling social updates is just one of the great features that many of these tool come packaged with. If you’ve tested some of the services in this list or you currently use a service that wasn’t mentioned, let us know in the comments. More Social Media Resources from Mashable
[img credit: alancleaver] Reviews: Android, Chrome, CoTweet, Facebook, Firefox, Foursquare, HootSuite, LinkedIn, Linux, MySpace, Ping, Ping.Fm, Twaitter, Twitter, Windows, WordPress, iPhone More About: cotweet, dynamic tweets, facebook, futuretweets, hootsuite, laterbro, ping.fm, sendible, social media, social tomorrow, socialoomph, taweet, tweet-u-later, tweetsched, tweetsqueue, twitter, twuffer For more Social Media coverage:
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| AT&T Launches QR Code Scanning App for BlackBerry and Android Posted: 02 Aug 2010 09:36 AM PDT   We’ve talked a lot about how QR codes are poised to take off in the mainstream and now AT&T is jumping on the bandwagon with a new set of tools for Android and BlackBerry phones. The company has just announced its AT&T Code Scanner application and its AT&T Create-a-Code service. Code Scanner is a free app for BlackBerry and Android devices that scans both 2D (QR and datamatrix) and 1D (UPC and EAN) barcodes. You can get it from the BlackBerry App World or the Android Market or by going to http://scan.mobi/ on your mobile device. However, the more interesting part of the app comes via the menu options, which includes a direct link to AT&T’s Create-a-Code site (accessible via desktop or mobile), where you can create a QR code for contacts or for a web page. You can sign up for a free account with AT&T and create up to five codes that will be set to last for one year. You can then download the QR codes in PNG or EPS formats.   My QR Code AT&T isn’t alone with its QR code generator but it is nice that the process has been simplified and that the apps are easily accessible. Do you have a QR code for your business card or website? Let us know! Reviews: Android, Android Market More About: android, Android apps, att, blackberry apps, QR Codes, redlaser, shopsavvy For more Mobile coverage:
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| Mashable Android App Now Available for Download Posted: 02 Aug 2010 09:07 AM PDT   With a growing number of Mashable readers using the Android OS, we’re excited to announce the Mashable Android App – live in the marketplace [mobile Marketplace link]. The application makes it easy to navigate, read, save and share Mashable stories. It also enables you to browse content by specific channels, and even includes a category for Android news and tips. Features include:
We hope you'll download the app in the marketplace and give us your feedback. We’ll continue to make improvements and add new features to the app based on your feedback. Download Using the QR Code Below
 Reviews: Android, Digg, Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, instapaper More About: android, Android Application, mashable, Mobile 2.0 For more Mobile coverage:
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| Put All Your Club Cards on a Digital Key Ring Posted: 02 Aug 2010 08:12 AM PDT   Mashable's Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Quick Pitch: Never carry plastic loyalty cards again. Download “Key Ring Reward Cards” for free on your iPhone or Android device. Genius Idea: Key Ring, a mobile loyalty card application for iPhone and Andriod made by Mobestream Media, serves the same purpose as other apps such as CardStar — mitigating loyalty card buildup. Consumers tend to carry around cards for retailers or venues they frequent on a regular basis, including gyms, boutiques, drug stores and grocery stores. The Key Ring Rewards Card application makes a digital copy of those cards so that you can leave the physical cards at home. You can download the free app and use it to scan the barcodes on your loyalty and club cards. To get started, select “Add Card” and click yes or no to specify whether or not the card in question has a barcode. If it does, the app will then let you scan the barcode, identify the retailer and create a digital copy. If the card doesn’t have a barcode, you can manually input the membership ID in lieu of the barcode scan. After inputting all your cards, you’re left with a single mobile phone repository of all your various cards. When visiting any of the retailers you’ve created mobile loyalty cards for, you can simply have them scan the barcode from your phone to retrieve your account information. The Key Ring offering is simple and painless. The service even includes an online account manager and card backup system. Eventually users will be able to password-protect individual cards. Mobestream Media is also planning to partner with businesses and retailers to offer King Ring-specific loyalty programs for real-time coupons or discounts. Practically speaking, Key Ring is a simple way to get rid of the paper and plastic cards weighing down your wallet.  Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Android, CardStar, iPhone More About: cardstar, key ring, loyalty program, mobile loyalty card For more Tech coverage:
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| How Small Businesses Will Use Social Media in the Future Posted: 02 Aug 2010 08:04 AM PDT
The usual suspects — Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare — have already proven to be great ways to engage with an audience and promote a brand, but what are the next steps in using these social networks to earn real money for your small business? Soothsaying necessarily has its limitations. In order to peer into the future of small businesses and social media we took a step back and tried to build cases based on the evolution of trends and some successful examples. Below, find some key ways that your business can develop those ideas to (hopefully) earn some good old-fashioned cash. New Platforms It's clear that social media will continue to evolve both in its appearance and its offerings. It is unclear, however, whether this means that our beloved Facebook and its ilk, will be replaced by entirely new platforms, or whether it will become more robust as it's used for more complex actions. "I have a hard time seeing Facebook ever going away," said Scott Scheper, an entrepreneur and VP of Strategic Partnerships at Yontoo. Rather than e-mail blasts or bursts of self-promotion, Scheper suggests that small businesses try to create added value. "… Something that people have a lot of fun doing that you can put your brand into subtly. It's kind of like product placement and getting eyeballs on [your brand] without having a stand-out ad." The idea is more about viral than Madison Avenue: Create content that is attached to your brand that would naturally get shared online. Scheper also pointed to the cost-per-share model as touted by Ad.ly's in-stream advertising. In-stream advertising has been gaining popularity as a way to leverage social networks to better target buyers. "You have a pipeline into somebody's brain, almost," said Andrew Nusca, a writer for tech and business site ZDNet.com. That pipeline is also an important way to gain information. He said networks like Facebook and LinkedIn would become even more important for the huge amount of data they index. "This is a data game, this is a war over data," Nusca said. "That LinkedIn knows your work history, that Facebok knows what you like or don't like… That's why they changed those pages, because they can look it up. They're tags." We’ll have to wait to see whether the data giants of today or the new platforms of tomorrow will win out among small businesses. Capitalizing on It With all this data available, the trick will be for small businesses to find their ideal audience and market strategically. Loudspeaker networks like Twitter are invaluable for broadcasting, but they retain very little personal information. Small businesses by definition have smaller budgets and must watch their dollars more closely, explained Mike Svatek, Chief Product Officer of social commerce consultancy bazaarvoice.com. "If you can see ROI ["Return on Investment"], it's much easier to keep pouring money into it." Svatek said MotoSport, one of their clients, saw a 21% increase in conversion when their mailings included user-generated content and product reviews. Facebook will have to deal with more businesses as they become better at marketing online. "I think as marketing and advertising gets savvier about how to use social platforms, they're going to start putting demands on the Facebook platforms and Twitter platforms [to provide more feedback and services]." Still, Svatek sees advertising on Facebook or Twitter as a way for business to ultimately drive customers back to their home sites. New Ways of ThinkingAny innovation in monetizing social media will be limited by the ability of analytics to keep up. Analytics and metrics will need to be just as advanced as the ads they monitor in order to truly change the way small businesses can approach marketing. This is partly why all three of our biz experts believe traditional banner ads will always be a part of monetizing social media. "There are so many solutions and services built for tracking those ad sites," Scheper said. "If I'm published and I want to show ads in a new format, I'm going to have to call up a huge agency and now I'm asking them to work harder and ask them to step away from their typical routine… it's a little bit of a tougher sell." For Scheper, there is a disconnect between the creativity of recent social media-related ads — from Old Spice's viral videos to small business Facebook apps or Foursquare promotions — and the analytics designed to measure them. "I don't think that banner ads and traditional advertising models will go away," Svatek said. "I do think advertising is a function of its medium." Banner ads might be around forever, but their basic function will change. Svatek gave the example of a highway billboard by the side of the road. Because of the limited time a driver has to interact with the sign, the ad has large, bright pictures and just a few words. Online ads are based around creativity and interaction. The user is expected to click through and gain added value, much like Apple's new iAd advertising platform. Businesses that can tailor their efforts to focus on interaction and appeal to their users' unique contexts will be the most effective in converting social media into money. Much of that interaction might come from your own friends. "We know throughout history that word of mouth is the most powerful way to get someone to perk up and take action," Svatek said. In-stream advertising, news feeds from Facebook, and user-generated content are all ways for a business to monetize a customer's interaction with both their friends and the brand. Directly Monetizing Your EffortsWhile we can dream of a time when the hours spent updating an online profile will directly translate into money for small business, "the most immediate opportunity for anyone, big or small, right now is to drive the traffic back to a website," Svatek said. One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make is not leveraging the content they've already created. Svatek saw missed opportunities where small businesses could repurpose traditional content for use on their social networks. All of this, however, depends on approaching social media with a concrete goal. Scheper suggested small monthly steps like getting one sale via Twitter or converting one user per month via Facebook. While businesses shouldn't invest a huge amount of time joining every new network they see, it can be useful to secure your handle or company name on startup sites with promise. You don't want to be late to the game and find out that your preferred username or vanity URL has already been taken. While Nusca said it could be possible to translate social media into real cash for small business, he believes that social networks are really just platforms. "It's a conduit, it's a pipeline," Nusca said. "Twitter would have to bend to the will of every company that tried to make money off of it. I don't think it's possible for the platform to expand that way." Small businesses will have to continue using these networks as mouthpieces for their brands and as platforms to build customer relationships — the development will be better-targeted ads and more effective outreach. Potential for Growth So which of all the popular networks is the best one to put your money on? Which should you devote the most time to now in order to best reap the rewards later? Unfortunately we don't have one answer, but we did get some insights depending on the kind of company you are. "I would say Facebook or LinkedIn," Nusca said. "It depends on the business you're in… It's because they are both tied to real people — you are you. And they have real data." Nusca sees the value in obtaining information on individual, identifiable customers. Business sites might benefit more from LinkedIn's emphasis on work data whereas Facebook is better for getting information about personal tastes and pop culture. Scheper thought Foursquare had the most potential for its emphasis on geo-location and its focus on businesses and real places. Still, he acknowledged that Twitter is the best site to get content to go viral whereas Facebook is most effective at building and maintaining long-term consumer relationships. Geo-location was a key area for Svatek who saw the future of social media and small business hinging on mobile. "The nice thing about a mobile device is, mobile is inherently social," Svatek said. Consumers think of phones as ways to connect to friends. They're also becoming a quick and easy way to spread mobile commerce. The (sometimes strange) success of ring tones and other micro-transactions could easily be applied to small business purchases or perks. Svatek also stressed the importance of search engines like good ol' Google. Google is still the biggest router of information on the web. With phones, most people find information by typing in searches on the go. A well-optimized site can show up high on search engine results — a fact made all the more important when considering how many fewer results pop up on a mobile screen. Svatek gave the example of Swanson Health Products, another client. They implemented a technique that allowed all of their user-generated content to be indexed by Google. As a result, they saw a 163% lift in traffic and a 67% increase in keyword diversity from inbound traffic. Not only did their numbers improve, but they were attracting new customers from a more diverse range of search results. Regardless of how large or small your business may be, the future of social media monetization is far from certain. We'll continue to keep an eye on trends and small business resources to help you make sense of the future of social media. Series supported by Gist  This series is supported by Gist, an online service that helps you build stronger professional relationships by bringing together information from across the web for all your contacts and their companies, giving you the right information at the right moment to get a first meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection. Gist does all the work for you, assembling a dynamic collection of all your contacts and their companies from your e-mail inbox, your social networks, or even your CRM system automatically building and updating their profiles as new content is published – by them or about them. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LockieCurrie Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, iStockphoto More About: advertising, business, data, facebook, foursquare, future of social media series, Google, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, small business, twitter For more Business coverage:
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| YouTube Star to Put His Life in Your Hands for a Year [VIDEO] Posted: 02 Aug 2010 07:22 AM PDT   Heyo all you megalomaniacs out there — may we introduce yet another way to get your jollies this year: Dan 3.0. Starting today, 20-year-old YouTube sensation Dan Brown is launching a new web show/social experiment in which he will turn control of his life over to you, the viewers, for an entire year. Brown — who is best known as the guy who taught YouTubers to solve a Rubik’s cube — is one of those rare dudes whose only gig is video blogging. That seems like a dream job, for sure, unless you’re lacking in the ideas department. Back in January, Brown found himself in a kind of limbo when it came to fresh concepts. It was 2 a.m. and he was in his customary blogger’s uniform — half-naked in a Snuggie — when he came upon a documentary called Us Now, which details the state of the Internet present and future, and the collaborative nature of the online space. Struck by this concept, Brown decided to follow suit, launching a web show on which he would take suggestions from viewers on how to live his life. “The more control you can give to communities, the better,” he told us by way of explaining why he thinks it prudent to let a bunch of laptop jockeys dictate his fate. The show will air on Internet television network Revision3, which is also responsible for the community decision engine by which viewers may submit suggestions. If you head on over there now, you can submit your own instructions for Brown. When asked how he thinks this project will affect his day-to-day life, Brown told us: “Basically I’m going to be living my life, doing what my viewers tell me and documenting it. That’s going to be it. Daily life is going to be affected — I don’t know exactly what it means for relationships with friends and relationships with people I know in real life. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.” So as to prevent any catastrophes, Brown has a few ground rules. Viewers can’t ask him to do things like, say, dump his girlfriend, or to do anything illegal or harmful to others. He has also veto power, which he hopes he won’t have to use. “The project loses credibility if I veto something,” he explains. Brown isn’t the first person to crowdsource his life. Most notably in recent months, there’s been David on Demand and Dating Brian, both projects that turned agency over to Twitter users and social media junkies alike. We’re interested to see how Brown’s project turns out, and how this trend of making like a media marionette continues to evolve. In the meantime, the first episode is now up. Check it out. Reviews: Internet, Twitter More About: Crowdsource, dan-3.0, humor, pop culture, web video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| Wireless Carriers Developing Pay via Smartphone Swipe System [REPORT] Posted: 02 Aug 2010 06:39 AM PDT   Soon your smartphone could double as a credit card substitute. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are said to be partnering with Discover Financial Services, makers of Discover Card, and Barclays PLC, a global retail banking company, to test the concept in stores. Bloomberg reports that the carriers and their financial backers have built a system that supports payments via smartphone swipe in front of a contactless card reader. The real-world trial is expected to take place in Atlanta and three other cities in the U.S. according to sources. Official details on the carrier pilot program are scarce, but the contactless mobile payment concept appears market-ready. Consumers have already been able to leverage similar technology with Visa payWave, a system that uses special card readers to allow customers to simply wave their Visa card to initiate payment. Starbucks customers can pay with their iPhones at select stores and Target outlets, and most recently PayPal has been experimenting with BlingNation stickers that turn any device into an instant payment system. Mastercard also has its own mobile tap-and-go device sticker system, Mastercard PayPass. Discover is said to be the party responsible for processing payments, and Barclays will assist on the account management side of things, but we can also assume that the carriers involved will get a significant transactional piece of each mobile payment. As such, the carrier-backed mobile payment system could disrupt the status quo when it comes to credit card transactions, an area primarily dominated by Visa and Mastercard. [img credit: Andrew Mason] More About: att, barclays, discover, Mobile 2.0, mobile payments, T-Mobile, verizon For more Mobile coverage:
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| Social Networking Dominates Our Time Spent Online [STATS] Posted: 02 Aug 2010 06:04 AM PDT   Social networking now eats up twice as much of our online time as any other activity. According to new stats from Nielsen, sites like Facebook and Twitter now account for 22.7% of time spent on the web; the next closest activity is online games, which make up 10.2%. The stats also show the degree to which social networking is displacing other forms of communication, with e-mail as a percentage of online time plunging from 11.5% to 8.3% from June 2009 to June 2010. Instant messaging also saw a significant drop in share, with a 15% decline from last year. However, e-mail use on mobile is still on the rise – from 37.4% to 41.6% — presumably as users continue to migrate to smartphones from feature phones. Here's the full breakdown from Nielsen:  Are these trends consistent with your own online usage and the trends you're seeing elsewhere? Let us know in the comments. [img credit: foreversouls] More About: e-mail, Mobile 2.0, social networking, stats, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Foursquare and Gogo Form Their Own “Mile High Club” Posted: 02 Aug 2010 05:12 AM PDT   Starting today, airplane passengers who check in to Foursquare via Gogo’s Inflight Internet service will be greeted with a nice surprise — the “Mile High Badge.” The “Mile High Badge” is nothing more than a digital token you can use to celebrate your location-based conquest. But the Foursquare-Gogo team-up suggests that in the future, mobile phone checkins may have an important place in the sky too. Gogo Inflight Internet is available in the United States on Air Canada, AirTran, Alaska, American, Delta, United, US Airways and Virgin America. A la carte, Gogo service costs around $10 per flight, depending on the airline and the destination. The provider also sells service by month, in six packs and as 24-hour passes. As Wi-Fi in the sky becomes more ubiquitous, the competition to attract passengers who pay to surf will only grow for both Internet carriers and airlines alike. Gogo’s Foursquare “Mile High Badge” is a clever promotional vehicle that, if successful, will have flyers promoting their service across social media channels. Reviews: Foursquare, Internet More About: foursquare, gogo inflight internet, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, wifi For more Mobile coverage:
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Short of saying we'll all be doing business from Foursquare-fueled hover cars, the future of social media and small business is very much an unknown. While most social media-savvy businesses undoubtedly have an online presence, the ability to then monetize online efforts is still in its infancy.| You are subscribed to email updates from Mashable! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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