Kamis, 30 September 2010

Mashable: Latest 26 News Updates - including “Nokia N8 Shipments Begin”

Mashable: Latest 26 News Updates - including “Nokia N8 Shipments Begin”

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Nokia N8 Shipments Begin

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 03:23 AM PDT


Nokia would like the world to know that its upcoming smartphone, the N8, is finished. The first batch of devices has left the factories in Finland and China, and these N8s will soon end in the hands of customers all over the world.

Many Nokia fans have wondered will there be further delays for the N8, and this is probably the best answer to that question. Recently, Nokia informed some of the customers who have pre-ordered the device they will be receiving it “during October,” as Nokia decided to “hold the shipments for a few weeks to do some final amends.” However, Nokia immediately clarified that the N8 is not being delayed, and now it proved it with the pictures of N8s leaving the factory.

The high level of transparency from Nokia shows how important the N8 is for the Finnish mobile giant. In a blog post, Nokia explains that while the first users will get the Nokia N8 “before the weekend,” most will be receiving it “over the coming days and weeks.” It’ll be interesting to see if the Nokia N8 can justify the hype when it finally reaches end users.

Image courtesy of Nokia

More About: Mobile 2.0, Nokia, Nokia N8, smartphone

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New WordPress for iOS Brings Video Support

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 02:05 AM PDT


WordPress for iPhone and iPad has reached version 2.6, and it brings several very interesting improvements.

Most importantly, you can now record, upload, attach and play videos within the application. As video becomes an increasingly important part of blogging, this functionality will be invaluable for bloggers on the move.

The new version also brings autosaving, meaning that you won’t lose your entire post if something goes afoul. The setup process for adding new sites to the application has been simplified, and media management has been improved – it’s now nearly as good as the functionality in the web app.

Finally, WordPress 2.6 for iOS brings a lot of bug fixes and performance tweaks; you can check out the details about those on the official changelog.

You can install WordPress 2.6 for iOS from the iTunes app store.


Reviews: WordPress, iTunes

More About: apple, blog, blogging, iOS, ipad, iphone, Wordpress

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Seesmic for iPhone Gets an iOS 4 Makeover

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 12:07 AM PDT


Seesmic has released a new update for its iPhone app, bringing some much-needed iOS features and UI updates to the iPhone version of the social platform.

The updated version of Seesmic for iPhone adds a few new features to the mix. The biggest change is support for Retina Display in iOS 4. It brings tweets into sharper focus on iPhone 4 and the new iPod touches. Seesmic also finally supports multitasking, which lets the app run in the background and quick-launch from the multitasking menu.

The app also makes some UI improvements. Loading new tweets used to require clicking the refresh button, but now Seesmic for iPhone supports the very popular “pull-down to refresh” interface that Twitter for iPhone (formerly Tweetie) popularized. A new threaded conversation view for @replies and direct messages has also been included in the updated app. The app adds Twitter List support as well, specifically the ability to add friends to lists.

The list of updates to Seesmic for iPhone goes beyond Twitter and bug fixes, too.

Facebook improvements include an updated News feed UI, messages support and the ability to see a list of friends and friends’ profiles. Finally, Seesmic for iPhone now includes integration with Instapaper and ReaditLater, allowing you to select articles to read later in Seesmic.

Seesmic is betting on its multiplatform strategy as a selling point for its myriad of apps. Not only is Seesmic available on Android, iPhone, desktop, the web, and soon Windows Phone 7, but it also supports Facebook and a range of other social services. Being able to update your Facebook and Twitter statuses from the same app sounds useful, but whether it’s a big enough differentiation point remains to be seen.


Reviews: Android, Facebook, Seesmic, Twitter, instapaper, news, tweetie

More About: iOS, iOS 4, iphone, iphone 4, seesmic

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Upload Photos to Solicit Car Repair Estimates with DentBetty

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 11:17 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.

Name: DentBetty

Quick Pitch: Upload photos of your cosmetic car damage, and local auto body shops will compete for your business.

Genius Idea: Car ownership comes with its perks, but there’s also a number of downsides. Car repair, for instance, is typically a headache-inducing and lengthy process, especially if you take the time to shop around and get estimates from multiple car repair shops. DentBetty exists to make the experience much less painful.

You can use DentBetty to upload at least two photos of your car’s damage and solicit estimates from nearby auto body shops. The easy-to-complete form includes fields where you can describe dent damage and specify whether or not the repair is an out-of-pocket expense. The service will then send your repair request to local shops via e-mail (and eventually SMS), and participating shops can use their own DentBetty dashboard to compete for your business.

In seven days or fewer, you’ll get up to seven different estimates that include information on the estimated cost, the length of time needed to make repairs, confidence level and whether or not the shop will pick up the car for you. You can then use DentBetty to select your preferred bid and follow up to schedule service.

One nice DentBetty bonus is that you’re only required to share photos of the damage to your car, not personally identifiable information. Your e-mail address is not shared with the third-party shops, and you don’t have to hand over your credit card information in order to receive estimates. DentBetty also collects feedback from users and shop owners to help both parties make better-informed decisions in the future.

While DentBetty promises convenience, it does have its limitations. Currently, the service has only signed up 120 shops in California (San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles), Massachusetts and New York. Plus, DentBetty should only be used for cosmetic service; you’ll have to go about soliciting estimates for structural damage the old-fashioned way for now.

Still, the service has raised $500,000 to date (and is shopping for more funds) to expand in to more areas and promises to release mobile applications for easier uploads. Once it does, DentBetty is easily something we could see becoming very popular among car owners. For this car owner in particular, DentBetty would be reason enough to finally seek bids for smaller dents that have remained unfixed due to sheer laziness.


Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark


BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, body shop, car repair, dentbetty

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MapQuest Launches an Interactive Atlas

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 10:38 PM PDT


MapQuest, in its drive to get on people’s radars again, is launching an interactive atlas that combines MapQuest maps with an array of geographic, cultural and climate data.

MapQuest Atlas sports a very simple interface. Users can drill down into data on every country in the world. Much of the information in the atlas comes from the CIA’s World Factbook rather than from sources such as Wikipedia. By clicking on a country on the map, you will be able to learn its capital, temperature and current time.

A second click takes you deeper, though, into a nation’s geography, culture, government, economy and military. Most of these facts are basic information that’s easily discoverable through the World Factbook’s web app or Wikipedia, but it’s nice to have another easy-to-use web tool that brings it all together. In addition to information on the different nations of the world, MapQuest Atlas also displays information on time zones, world climate, continents and oceans. There’s also a “Compare Countries” feature, which places the geographic, political and social data of any two nations side-by-side.

MapQuest’s Atlas is designed for the average Internet user, which means it’s intended to be inherently simple. It’s nothing groundbreaking like Google Earth, but we can see a lot of kids with insatiable thirst for knowledge browsing this thing all day. MapQuest, a subsidiary of AOL, recently launched a complete redesign with new features and an overhauled interface.

What do you think of MapQuest Atlas? Is it something you might use in the future?


Reviews: Google Earth, Internet, Wikipedia

More About: aol, Atlas, Map, MapQuest, MapQuest Atlas

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Google Debuts Gallery of Android Phones

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 09:32 PM PDT


One of the constant complaints about the Android diaspora is its fragmentation — the increasingly diverse multiplicity of OS versions and devices that are so relevant yet so confusing to the average consumer’s mobile decision-making process.

Apparently, the powers that be (at Google, that is) have heard users’ complaints on this score and have created the Google Phone Gallery, a carousel of devices that displays images, phone features, manufacturer and carrier information and more.

You can sort phones by hardware manufacturer, by phone service provider and even by country, a feature we know our international readers will be very happy about.

Finally, you can select multiple devices to do side-by-side comparisons.

There’s a tab that reads “Phones,” too. This seems a bit redundant for a “Phone Gallery,” unless you consider the rising tide of Android tablets. We hope to see a few non-phone mobile devices featured in this gallery in the very near future.

All these devices ship with the standard set of on-deck Android apps you know and love, including the Android Market, Google Search, Maps, Gmail and YouTube.

If you’re in the market for a new Android or thinking of buying one for the first time, this site’s the ideal destination for you. And if you’re a contented Android device user, this is where you can point all the people who ask you which phone they should buy next.

Now all we need is a better way to sort through the Wild West of apps that is the Android Market… Oh, wait. We found that yesterday.

If you ask us, the Android platform just gets better all the time. What do you think of the gallery from Google?


Reviews: Android, Android Market, Gmail, Google, Google search, YouTube

More About: android, android phones, Google, Hardware, Mobile 2.0, mobile devices

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New Twitter Rolls Out to More Users, What Do You Think So Far? [POLL]

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 08:17 PM PDT


We’ve noticed the newest version of Twitter’s web interface rolling out to more users this evening, and we’re sure a few of you have noticed, as well.

If you’re using New Twitter, you’ll notice a lot has changed, and these changes may take some getting used to. That being said, we’d love to get your first impressions.

The New Twitter is designed to handle multimedia within the stream. You’ll be able to view images and video from Twitter.com in a repurposed side panel on the right. This area will also show you threaded conversations and other users’ profiles. As you click around and get a feeling for how the redesigned side panel works, you might find that it cuts down a lot on back-and-forth navigation and the need for new browser tabs.

Twitter has also completely retooled their navigation controls. All tweets, your profile and your DM inbox are now at the top of the screen, with sub-menus for @replies (or mentions), retweets from and of your and others’ updates, lists, followers and much more.

Finally, you’ll notice and entirely new look and feel for your direct messages. The inbox has threaded conversations, with the most recent messages on top and a tally of the number of messages in each thread.

The new design was carefully thought out by the Twitter staff and is actually based on the Golden Ratio.

So, tell us, if you’re using the new version of Twitter.com:



Please vote, and let us know your full opinions in the comments.


Reviews: Twitter

More About: New Twitter, poll, twitter

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Digg Founder “Burned Out,” May Leave by End of 2010

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 05:17 PM PDT


According to statements made at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event today, Digg founder Kevin Rose may have reached the end of his patience when it comes to his problematic product.

Rose stated that he had wanted to accept an $80 million acquisition offer made during a high point in the site’s popularity and traffic, but the Digg board turned the offer down. (Though exact details remain officially unconfirmed, we’re guessing this offer was a 2008 near-deal with Google.)

To say that the company has had a rocky year would be a huge understatement.

The launch of “New Digg,” the fourth major iteration of the site and the first real set of new features in three years, should have been a triumph; but user dissatisfaction turned it into a disaster. Traffic has been slumping steadily, staff members have been laid off and there’s a revolving door just for the company’s CEOs (figuratively speaking — Digg has had three chief execs within the past six months, one of which was Rose himself).

In short, with all the Digg drama, who wouldn’t be burned out?

Rose refused to confirm that he’s still be working at Digg by the end of 2010. ReadWriteWeb reports that the young entrepreneur seemed more enthusiastic about his angel investments than in the company he founded six years ago.

This can’t be comforting news to new CEO Matt Williams, whose appointment to the post was announced just last month, or the rest of the Digg team. If its skittish founder, who spoke a lot about his and Digg’s mistakes, abandons ship, how well will Digg hold up on its own? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, thomashawk.


Reviews: Digg, Flickr

More About: digg, digg ceo, digg founder, kevin rose, techcrunch disrupt, trending

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What “Like” Buttons Mean for Web Traffic [STATS]

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 04:47 PM PDT


The new-this-year-yet-somehow-already-ubiquitous Facebook Like button has been around just long enough to generate some interesting numbers relating to Facebook users and web traffic.

The button, which launched in April at f8, Facebook’s developer conference, is now present on roughly 2 million sites around the web, from sports sites to news organizations and many other kinds of publishers.

A media analytics lead on Facebook’s Developer Network Insights team crunched some numbers and found that Facebook Likes not only generate interesting data about the “likers” (a.k.a. Facebook users who are also active on your website) themselves; this data also speaks volumes about clickthrough rates, time on-site and other engagement metrics.


Stats About People


On average, a Facebook user who “likes” your content has more than double the number of friends than does a typical Facebook user. This could mean the user is more “social” or more influential; on the other hand, it could mean the user is an attention-seeking narcissist. While it’s fatuous to read too much into that statistic, the number does show that the average “liker” is more active from a social-web standpoint.

An even more interesting stat about the likers is that they click on five times more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user. If clickthroughs are what you’re looking for from your social media strategy, this is good news.

Here’s a stat just for news sites: The average Facebook user who “likes” content on a news website is 34 — that’s about 2 decades younger than the average newspaper subscriber. We’ve known for some time that the future of journalism and social media are, at this point, inextricably linked; this stat provides a little hard evidence for that conclusion.


Stats About Traffic


Most website owners are aware that Twitter refers a ton of traffic. It’s meant to be a content-referral network, so link-sharing and clickthroughs are a given in many cases.

The Facebook “Like” button, however, might be bringing Facebook closer to competing with Twitter in the area of referral traffic, though. Since the button launched and was integrated on millions of sites, many publishers are reporting large increases in traffic specifically due to this kind of social plugin. ABC News reported a 190% increase; Gawker’s traffic shot up by 200%; Sporting News said their site traffic was up by a shocking 500%; and NBA.com said that Facebook had become their second-largest referral source.

Facebook relays messages from publishers saying that these users “are more engaged and stay longer when their real identity and real friends are driving the experience through social plugins.” As an example, NHL.com reported that pages per user was up by 92%, time on-site was up by 85%, video-viewing increased by 86% more videos and overall visits went up by 36%.

Clearly, Facebook is only part of social media referral traffic, but it’s becoming a larger part as the network grows and users become accustomed to interacting with third-party and external content from within the comfort of their social graph.

If you’d like to know more about Facebook for publishers, check out this recent presentation on the subject from Facebook Director of Media Partnerships Justin Osofsky.

In the comments, we’d love for any website owners out there to weigh in on the subject. What’s your number-one social referrer of traffic? If you implemented Facebook’s “Like” button, have you seen any increase in traffic from Facebook or traffic overall?


Reviews: Facebook, Twitter

More About: facebook, Facebook Like, like, like button, referral, stats, traffic

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When It’s More Polite to Unplug

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 04:23 PM PDT


Look, we know the day is approaching when we’ll no longer need to go outside to foster relationships. The day when the cords of technology will replace the cords of birth.

The day when we will join our computers in sweet, sweet union, becoming unyielding cyborgs who, if we’re lucky, will learn to be something more than a machine and will someday learn how to love (much like the chrome creatures in The Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”).

Well, until that day comes — hey, it’s on the horizon, there’s already a dude out there with a webcam for an eye — it seems as good a time as any to take stock of our Internet-tinged interpersonal relations.

Read on for four instances when it would be far wiser to unplug than to power up.

And so begins my Netiquette column — which I write with my Stuff Hipsters Hate co-blogger, Andrea Bartz — this week over at CNN.


Check out the column at CNN.com >>



Image courtesy of Flickr, jerekeys


Reviews: Flickr, Internet

More About: cnn, netiquette, social media, Stuff Hipsters Hate

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Google Instant Adds Keyboard Navigation, International Expansion

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 03:33 PM PDT


Google has added a new layer of functionality to their Instant search: keyboard navigation.

You can now use the up/down/left/right arrow keys and the Enter key to quickly navigate through and select from Instant’s ever-changing list of search term options.

It’s kind of a no-brainer enhancement, but it’s a feature that speed freaks (that is, those whose lives and online searches are optimized for fewer mouse-clicks and faster results) are sure to appreciate.

Another new item is Instant’s expansion into Google’s left menu of search options. That is, you’ll get Google Instant results when searching for News and Video searches just as you would with general web searches.

Here’s a brief demo video explaining how Google Instant’s keyboard navigation works:

On the international front, Google Instant is also rolling out to Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine. Previously, the product was only available in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Spain. Instant should be coming to even more countries within the next few weeks.

What do you think: Will these improvements help you search faster? Or are you among those who still find Google Instant to be information overload? Let us know in the comments.


Reviews: Google, news, video

More About: Google, Google Instant, Search

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Xbox LIVE Fall 2010 Update Coming With Kinect, Zune Pass Music and ESPN

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 03:01 PM PDT


Microsoft today confirmed that the Xbox LIVE Fall 2010 update will be available by November 4 and will include ESPN, Netflix Search and Zune Music. The release will come just before Microsoft’s Kinect motion capture gaming controller hits stores on November 10.

By far the biggest news coming out of the fall release is ESPN for Xbox LIVE. Access to ESPN will require an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription, but the features are fairly compelling:

  • Access to more than 3,500 sporting events per year, including college football, MLB, NBA and soccer.
  • Full HD video with DVR capabilities.
  • With the Games at a Glance feature, viewers can quickly check the scores of other sporting events, without leaving the game that is currently playing.
  • Viewers can predict the winner of games and see the percentage of votes among other Xbox LIVE ESPN viewers.
  • A voice chat feature will connect up to seven individuals so people can watch the game with their friends even if they’re not with their friends.

In addition to ESPN, Microsoft will also be bringing music to the Xbox 360 through Zune Pass. The Zune Pass music service costs $15 per month for unlimited music streaming and DRM-infused downloads. There will be several social music functions that allow listeners to connect with Xbox LIVE users with similar musical tastes. Listening queues will also be displayed so you can discover new music vicariously through your friends, and your friends can discover that you’ve been listening to tracks like “We Used to Wait” by Arcade Fire on repeat for the past two months.

Those who have grown familiar with Netflix on Xbox LIVE will be pleased to learn that the service is getting an upgrade. The feature makes it considerably easier to quickly search Netflix titles on Xbox 360. It’s admittedly minor in comparison to ESPN and Zune Pass music, but it’s nice to have the service streamlined.

The forthcoming Xbox LIVE update is focused more on traditional home entertainment than it is on gaming. The Xbox 360 with Xbox LIVE has long had the ability to stream a wide array of media formats (Xvid, DivX, etc.) and these features place it even more directly in contention with media center devices like Apple TV, Boxee and Roku.

With its game console meets media center demeanor (and Hulu Plus access said to be coming soon), Xbox 360 seems to have more than a fighting chance at winning a place in quite a few home theaters this holiday season. So what say you: Does the Xbox LIVE fall update sweeten the deal enough for you, or is your heart still set on some other media center?


Reviews: Boxee

More About: kinect, microsoft, netflix, xbox, Xbox 360, XBox live, zune

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The Groupon Baby Revolution Cometh

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 01:44 PM PDT


Sure, you can use Groupon to find a steal of a deal. But, beginning today, you can also steal a chance at love and potentially experience a very rewarding baby-making session thanks to Groupon’s new spin off dating site, Grouspawn.

Grouspawn is essentially the company’s way to bribe members into meeting and making Groupon babies. Groupon will give out up to two college scholarship grants — of undisclosed sums — per year to babies who were conceived as a result of a little Groupon action on the first date.

As a dating site, Grouspawn is as bare-bones as they come. The Date Assistant is a run of the mill dating tool you can use to filter members by gender and city when searching for Groupon singles to wine and dine on the cheap. Couples that then go on to use a Groupon on their first date, take photographic and evidentiary proof of said Groupon date and then produce a Groupon baby (a.k.a Grouspawn), are eligible to apply for the grant.

Deal seekers and cheapskates that meet the old-fashioned way — in person — can still apply for the Grouspawn grant, so long as there is proof of Groupon consummation (not actual consummation, though competition from other couples may inspire you both to rush things in this department) on the first date.

If you don’t want to seem too desperate on your first Groupon date (but want your future love-making sessions to count towards the college grant), Groupon suggests explaining the need for photographic proof with innocuous disclaimers such as, “Without a photo, nobody will believe we dated because I normally date a Japanese body pillow,” or, “I'm on a scavenger hunt and I need to take a photo with an extremely attractive person.”

Grouspawn is a kooky and kitschy dating site with a very transparent purpose; it’s nothing more than a dressed up publicity stunt. But, just as the Groupon is real, so too is Grouspawn. Happy deal hunting and baby-making.

Image courtesy of TheGiantVermin, Flickr


Reviews: Flickr

More About: dating sites, groupon, grouspawn, MARKETING, online dating

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The Case For Social Media in Schools

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 12:51 PM PDT

Laptop School Image

A year after seventh grade teacher Elizabeth Delmatoff started a pilot social media program in her Portland, Oregon classroom, 20% of students school-wide were completing extra assignments for no credit, grades had gone up more than 50%, and chronic absenteeism was reduced by more than a third. For the first time in its history, the school met its adequate yearly progress goal for absenteeism.

At a time when many teachers are made wary by reports of predators and bullies online, social media in the classroom is not the most popular proposition. Teachers like Delmatoff, however, are embracing it rather than banning it. They argue that the educational benefits of social media far outweigh the risks, and they worry that schools are missing out on an opportunity to incorporate learning tools the students already know how to use.

What started as a Facebook-like forum where Delmatoff posted assignments has grown into a social media component for almost every subject. Here are the reasons why she and other proponents of educational social media think more schools should do the same.


1. Social Media is Not Going Away


In the early 1990s, the Internet was the topic of a similar debate in schools. Karl Meinhardt was working as a school computer services manager at the time.

"There was this thing called the Internet starting to show up that was getting a lot of hype, and the school administration was adamantly against allowing access,” he says. “The big fear was pornography and predators, some of the same stuff that's there today. And yet…can you imagine a school not connected to the Internet now? "

Meinhardt helped develop the Portland social media pilot program after Delmatoff saw his weekly technology segment on the local news and called to ask for his advice. In his opinion, social media, like the Internet, will be a part of our world for a long time. It's better to teach it than to fight it.

Almost three-fourths of 7th through 12th graders have at least one social media profile, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey group used social sites more than they played games or watched videos online.

When schools have tried to ban social media, now an integral part of a young person's life, they've had negative results. Schools in Britain that tried to "lock down" their Internet access, for instance, found that "as well as taking up time and detracting from learning, it did not encourage the pupils to take responsibility for their actions."

"Don't fight a losing battle," says Delmatoff. "We're going to get there anyway, so it's better to be on the cutting edge, and be moving with the kids, rather than moving against them…Should they be texting their friends during a lecture? Of course not. They shouldn't be playing cards in a lecture, they shouldn't be taking a nap during a lecture. But should they learn how to use media for good? Absolutely."


2. When Kids Are Engaged, They Learn Better


edublogs image

Matt Hardy, a 3rd and 4th grade teacher in Minnesota, describes the “giddy” response he gets from students when he introduces blogs. He started using blogs in his classroom in 2007 as a way to motivate students to write.

"Students aren't just writing on a piece of paper that gets handed to the teacher and maybe a smiley face or some comments get put on it,” he says. "Blogging was a way to get students into that mode where, ‘Hey, I'm writing this not just for an assignment, not just for a teacher, but my friend will see it and maybe even other people [will] stumble across it.’ So there's power in that."

Delmatoff says that at first her students were worried they would get in trouble for playing because they actually enjoyed doing activities like writing a blog.

"But writing a blog, that's not playing, that's hard work," she says. "Karl and I started thinking we were really on to something if kids were thinking that their hard academic work was too much fun."

Her students started getting into school early to use the computer for the social media program, and the overall quality of their work increased. Although Delmatoff is adamant that there's no way to pin her class's increased academic success specifically to the pilot program, it's hard to say that it didn't play a part in the more than 50% grade increase.


3. Safe Social Media Tools Are Available — And They're Free


kidsblog image

When Hardy started using blogs to teach, he developed his own platform to avoid some of the dangers associated with social media use and children. His platform allowed him to monitor and approve everything the children were posting online, and it didn't expose his students to advertising that might be inappropriate. He later developed a similar web-based tool that all teachers could use called kidblog.org. The concept caught on so quickly that his server crashed in September when the school year started.

Many mainstream social media sites like Facebook and MySpace are blocked in schools that receive federal funding because of the Children's Internet Protection Act, which states that these schools can't expose their students to potential harm on the Internet.

Kidblog.org is one of many free tools that allow teachers to control an online environment while still benefiting from social media. Delmatoff managed her social media class without a budget by using free tools like Edmodo and Edublogs.


4. Replace Online Procrastination with Social Education


nielsen graph image

Between 2004 and 2009, the amount of time that kids between the ages of 2 and 11 spent online increased by 63%, according to a Nielson study. And there's no reason, Meinhardt argues, that schools shouldn't compete with other social media sites for part of this time.

He helped Delmatoff create a forum where she would post an extra assignment students could complete after school every day. One day she had students comment on one of President Obama's speeches; another day she had them make two-minute videos of something on their walk home that was a bad example of sustainability. These assignments had no credit attached to them. "It didn't get you an A, it didn't get you a cookie. It didn't get you anything except something to do and something to talk about with other students."

About 100 students participated. Through polls taken before and after the program, Meinhardt determined that students spent between four to five fewer hours per week on Facebook and MySpace when the extra assignments had been implemented.

"They were just as happy to do work rather than talk trash," Delmatoff says. "All they wanted was to be with their friends."


5. Social Media Encourages Collaboration Instead of Cliques


edmodo image

Traditional education tactics often involve teacher-given lectures, students with their eyes on their own papers, and not talking to your neighbor.

"When you get in the business world," Meinhardt says, "All of [a] sudden it's like, ‘OK, work with this group of people.’ It's collaborative immediately. And we come unprepared to collaborate on projects."

Social media as a teaching tool has a natural collaborative element. Students critique and comment on each other's assignments, work in teams to create content, and can easily access each other and the teacher with questions or to start a discussion.

Taking some discussions online would also seem to be an opportunity for kids who are shy or who don't usually interact with each other to learn more about each other. A study by the Lab for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology, however, found that this wasn't the case. The study found that using educational social media tools in one of the Institute's courses had no measurable impact on social connections.

Delmatoff argues that with her students, however, new connections were made. "If you're shy or you're not popular or any of those hideous things that we worry about in middle school — if you know the answers or have good insights or ask good questions, you're going to be really valuable online." she says. "So I started to see some changes that way."


6. Cell Phones Aren’t the Enemy


69% of American high schools have banned cell phones, according to figures compiled by CommonSense Media, a nonprofit group that studies children's use of technology. Instead, Delmatoff's school collected student's cell phone numbers.

Delmatoff would send text messages to wake chronically absent kids up before school or send messages like, "I see you at the mini-mart" when they were running late (there's a mini-mart visible from the school). She called the program "Texts on Time," and it improved chronic absenteeism by about 35% without costing the school a dime.

"The cell phone is a parent-sponsored, parent-funded communication channel, and schools need to wrap their mind around it to reach and engage the kids," Meinhardt says.


Conclusion


Nobody would dispute that the risks of children using social media are real and not to be taken lightly. But there are also dangers offline. The teachers and parents who embrace social media say the best way to keep kids safe, online or offline, is to teach them. We’re eager to hear what you think. Tell us in the comments below.


More Education Resources from Mashable:


- Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
- 15 Essential Back to School Podcasts
- How Social Gaming is Improving Education
- 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology
- 5 Innovative Tech Camps for Kids and Teens

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, dem10, Alsos


Reviews: Facebook, Internet, MySpace, iStockphoto

More About: education, Kids, Mobile 2.0, phone, schools, social media, social media in schools, teachers, teaching, tech, teens, texting, trending

For more Social Media coverage:


Mashable Wants Foursquare Tips For Your City

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 12:05 PM PDT

Foursquare Logo

Mashable staffers aren't everywhere — but our readers are.

That's why we're crowdsourcing tips for our Foursquare page. Help Mashable readers explore the social and tech scene in your city by submitting tips to our Foursquare page. Whether it's a startup headquarters or a social media savvy hangout, we want to share your insider information about the venues you recommend.

Your tips can be about anything, anywhere as long as they’re social media or tech-related. Please keep submissions at 200 characters or less, and include the venue name and a link associated with it.

Submit your tips by Monday, October 4, 12 p.m. ET. We'll choose the best submissions and add them to our Foursquare page for all Mashable readers to see when they check in to the location.


How To Submit


1. Write your tip in the comment thread below OR

2. Post your tip to our Facebook wall OR

3. If your tip is less than 140 characters, tweet it to @MashableHQ

Here are a few examples:


Reviews: Foursquare, Mashable

More About: foursquare, mashable, social media

For more Social Media coverage:


Virgin America Wants Your Awkward Family Photos

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 11:50 AM PDT


Your awkward family photos already make for hilarious comedic relief on the popular blog Awkward Family Photos. Beginning today, those photos will also score you at least 33.3% off your next family vacay to Orlando and potentially much more, as Virgin America has partnered with the meme blog to promote its upcoming new service to Orlando.

Virgin America is encouraging families to upload their most awkward photos to Awkward Family Photos (AFP) for a chance to win four roundtrip tickets to anywhere the airline flies. Submissions will be accepted via AFP and Virgin America’s Facebook Page through Oct 5, at which time the 20 most uncomfortable finalists will be selected and put to a public vote.

AFP voters will decide on the winner of that prize, but one California entrant will also be handpicked by Virgin America and AFP to win an Orlando family getaway including flights and accommodations. “The winners will be whisked in style from Los Angeles onboard Virgin America's celebratory flight and greeted on arrival in Orlando at a red carpet welcome party hosted by Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson,” according to the announcement.

The grand prizes are enticing, but even if your family’s awkwardness is not the most awkward of all (perhaps a good sign), you can still get the 33.3% family discount (for parties of three to six people) on a Virgin America Orlando flight. The same discount applies to Awkward Family Photos lookie loos who vote on their favorite submissions.

Prizes aside, the Virgin America Orlando promotion is quite interesting given the airline’s unorthodox choice for a contest partner. Instead of a Twitter or Facebook-driven campaign, Virgin America is opting to partner with a niche blog for a specialized purpose.

AFP, like many other many meme-oriented blogs and viral sensations, survives by making money through advertising, online stores and book sales. When Internet users vote with their attention, a meme is born. Virgin America appears to see opportunity in affiliating their brand name with an online pop culture phenomena, potentially paving the way for more big brand meme partnerships to come.

At the end of the day, the AFP photo contest is an interesting twist to social advertising and promotion norms that celebrates and supports Internet memes — what an awkwardly appropriate way to launch a new city.

Image courtesy of Awkward Family Photos


Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Twitter

More About: awkward family photos, contest, MARKETING, promotion, virgin america

For more Business coverage:


40+ Social Media and Web Development Job Opportunities

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 11:35 AM PDT


If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable’s Job Lists section gathers together all of our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.

But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable's job boards are a place for socially savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space and beyond. Have a look at what's good and new on our job boards:


Mashable Job Board Listings


Experience UX Designer at Chrispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami, FL.


Senior Product Manager at iCrossing in Los Angeles, CA.


Product Manager at MTV Networks in New York, NY.


Software Engineer, Social Platforms & Applications at Affinitive in New York, NY.


GEC Digital Guest Experience Team Lead at lululemon athletica in Burnaby, BC, Canada.


Vice President Human Resources at DeVries Public Relations in New York, NY.


Online & Social Media Marketing Coordinator at TY KU in New York, NY.


Vice President, Daily News at MTV Networks in New York, NY.


Web Architect at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Priceton, NJ.


Online Media Planner/Digital AE at Sawyer Studios in New York, NY.


Quality Assurance Engineer at Buddy Media in New York, NY.


Vice President of Portal Products at Synacor in Los Angeles, CA.


Vice President of Portal Products at Synacor in Buffalo, NY.


Senior Project Manager at TIG Global in Chevy Chase, MD.


Account Executive at Feed Company in Los Angeles, CA.


AVP Marketing Operation via MetierLink LLC in New York, NY.


User Interface Developer at Tokii in Toronto, Canada.


Lead Developer at Cortex in Chevy Chase, MD.


Sales Account Director via Metierlink, LLC in New York, NY.


Public Relations/Corporate Communications Associate via Metierlink, LLC in New York, NY.


Digital Properties Manager via Metierlink, LLC in New York, NY.


Web Developer at RMS LLC in New Brunswick, NJ.


Digital Creative Director at Meredith Corporation in Des Moines, IA.


Senior Strategic Planner at Modea in Blacksburg, VA.


Senior Front End Developer, Contract at Modea in Blacksburg, VA.


Senior Creative Director, Web at Modea in Blacksburg, VA.


at Modea in Blacksburg, VA.


Senior Copywriter at Modea in Blacksburg, VA.


Coordinator at FOX in Beverly Hills, CA.


Senior Interactive Marketing Strategist at Horizon Marketing Group, Inc. in Cromwell, CT.


Web Developer at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Atlanta, GA.


User Experience Designer at The Motley Fool in Alexandria, VA.


CSS Producer at Buddy Media in New York, NY.


Media Relations Specialist – Healthcare at Practice Fusion in San Francisco, CA.


Mobile Communications Manager at The Humane Society of the United States in Gaithersburg, MD.


Social Marketing Specialist at The Humane Society of the United States in Gaithersburg, MD.


Coordinator, Digital Marketing & SEO at MTV Networks, Logo Channel in New York, NY.


Front End Developer at Linkstorm in New York, NY.


Production/Sales Assistant at imagistic in California.


Web Developer at imagistic in California.


Digital Distribution & Social Media Marketing Manager at Screen Media Ventures, LLC in New York, NY.


Social Media & Online Marketing Manger at Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions in New York, NY.


Image Designer – Groupon at Groupon in Chicago, IL.


Senior Product Manager – Email Marketing at Deluxe Corporation in Minnesota.


Director of Product Management – Web Services at Deuxe Corporation in Minnesota.


Product Manager at Disney ABC Television Group in New York, NY.


Software Engineer – PHP & JavaScript at dConnect in San Francisco, CA.


Software Engineer – PHP & JavaScript at dConnect in San Francisco, CA.


Meatheads Social Ambassador at Meatheads Burgers and Fries in Chicago, IL.


VP of Ad Sales at tight bod with a pod, inc in Long Beach, CA.


Account Manager (Social Media) at 6S Marketing Inc. in Vancouver, Canada.


Marketing Manager/Director at BreakoutBand in New York.


Mobile Developer at Conversation, LLC in New York, NY.


Social Media Account Manager – Pharma at M80 in New York, NY.


CTO at M.E.S.S. Express, Ltd. in New York, NY.


Analyst – Business Development at a leading talent/entertainment/media agency in Los Angeles, CA.


Mashable’s Job Board has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out at here.

Find a Web 2.0 Job with Mashable

Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($99 for a 30 day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace).

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang


Reviews: Mashable, iStockphoto

For more Social Media coverage:


Most Tweets Produce Zero Replies or Retweets [STUDY]

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 11:25 AM PDT


Sysomos, maker of social media analysis tools, looked at 1.2 billion tweets over a two-month period to analyze what happens after we publish our tweets to Twitter. Its research shows that 71% of all tweets produce no reaction — in the form of replies or retweets — which suggests that an overwhelming majority of our tweets fall on deaf ears.

Sysomos findings also highlight that retweets are especially hard to come by — only 6% of all tweets produce a retweet (the other 23% solicit replies). The remarkably low percentage of retweets happening on Twitter might be encouraging news for those of us who feel like Twitter outcasts because we don’t get retweeted often; clearly, we are not in the minority.

Delving deeper into the research, we see that most replies and retweets happen in the first hour after a tweet has been published. 96.9% of replies and 92.4% of retweets happen within that all-imporant first-hour window. Reactions are nearly impossible to come by once a tweet ages beyond 60 minutes, and even more unlikely after the two-hour mark has passed. There’s just a 5.97% chance you’ll see a retweet in or after the third hour, and just a 2.22% likelihood you’ll garner a reply in the same time span.

Unfortunately, the Sysomos research also shows that of all the tweets that produce a reply, 85% only get a single reply. Twitter may not be as conversational as we think. Only 10.7% of all tweets that generate a reply see a reply to the original reply, and only 1.53% of these conversations are three levels deep (meaning there’s a reply, a reply to the reply, and a reply to the reply of the reply).

Sysomos is, of course, looking at Twitter replies and retweets in aggregate, so you’ll find these percentages will fluctuate based on an individual Twitter user’s follower count and influence. Still, the findings are an insightful look at broader patterns around replies and retweets. Perhaps our tweets really are just pointless babble after all, or maybe they’re just so remarkable that our followers don’t want to taint them with a reply or retweet. We’ll leave it to you to decide.


Visualization of Twitter Engagement


The following video is a sample demonstration of replies and retweets over time. “The spiral represents the time axis. Each blue dot is a tweet, with the size of the blue dot representing the number of retweets and replies to that tweet. Each green line shows a retweet to the original tweet and each orange line shows @reply to the original tweet,” according to Sysomos.


Reviews: Twitter

More About: replies, retweets, study, sysomos, twitter

For more Social Media coverage:


iPhone 4 Sells Out in China: 100,000 Units in Four Days

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 10:46 AM PDT


The iPhone 4 was released in China earlier this week and so far, the device looks like a big hit.

IDG News Service reports that China Unicom has sold nearly 100,000 iPhone 4 units over the last four days. On Tuesday, company Vice President Li Gang told reporters that the carrier had essentially sold out of its first shipment.

100,000 units in four days is impressive, but not entirely unexpected. China Unicom had more than 200,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4 and had to stop its online reservation system, asking that buyers come directly to retail stores instead.

Just like in the United States and Europe, lines for the iPhone 4 were massive, with some reports indicating more than 1,000 customers were waiting in lines outside shops.

Also like in the United States, the pace of iPhone 4 sales quickly outpaced those of the iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS. It took China more than a month to sell 100,000 iPhone 3GS units when it was released last October.

China Unicom officials expect to get the next shipment of phones on October 1.

More About: china, china unicom, iphone 4, iphone 4 china

For more Mobile coverage:


LinkedIn Aggregates Status Updates and Tweets in New Newsfeed [INVITES]

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 10:19 AM PDT


LinkedIn has announced the beta launch of LinkedIn Signal, a new product that essentially combines LinkedIn and Twitter updates into a single newsfeed. We have invites for the first 250 readers that are able to snatch them up.

LinkedIn Signal is a content consumption application with more filters than we could possibly ever need. Signal pulls in both Twitter and LinkedIn updates from LinkedIn connections and presents them in a style similar to the Facebook News Feed.

The goal here is to help professionals find the signal in the noise, thus the name. To that end, Signal has a slew of filters to help users find the news and content they’re craving. There are eight filters, based on your network, industry, company affiliation, location, university, time published and hashtag. Picking any of these options on the left-hand column will clean up the newsfeed considerably. So yes, an aspiring screenwriter could be as specific as “only updates from the entertainment industry posted in the last week in the Los Angeles area from people that work at major movie studios.”

But wait, you can make Signal even more specific than that. There is also the option for following only specific keywords, people or topics based on your searches. Once you follow a specific topic or search query, it is saved in a box on the left-hand navigation.

At the same time, the company is also tackling the issue of finding what’s hot on the web with its “Trending Links” section. This section in the right-hand column displays the most shared links in your Signal stream. The results change dynamically based on the search query or the filters you are using. You can even drill down into shared links with the “Who shared this link?” feature. Not only can you find the people who are sharing specific links, but you can also filter them by industry, company or region.


LinkedIn’s Big Bet on Content Consumption


The fact that LinkedIn built such a detailed product almost completely outside of the LinkedIn’s social structure surprised us. It would be one thing if it were filtering just LinkedIn updates, but we found that Signal was utterly dominated by Twitter activity during our tests.

That shouldn’t be a surprise though; just think about how often you update your Twitter compared to your LinkedIn. The result is that Signal is essentially a Twitter consumption app. It’s a very sophisticated, well-designed Twitter app, but a Twitter app nonetheless.

Signal makes a good deal of sense for LinkedIn. Thought it is indeed the world’s most prominent social network for business, users rarely come back unless they’re looking for a job or want to connect with someone they met at a business meeting. There is little incentive to return every day.

Nearly everything the company has launched in the last few months has been focused on increasing user engagement, especially in the realm of content consumption. Updated company profiles, the acquisition of mSpoke, the revamp of Groups and new link-sharing options have all been part of a trend to keep users more engaged on the site through content consumption.

The question now is whether people will find Signal useful enough to use every day or week, or if it’ll just become another LinkedIn tool that nobody uses until they’re looking for a job.


Invites


LinkedIn Signal is currently in an invite-only beta, but the first 250 readers to visit this link will automatically have access to it.


Reviews: LinkedIn, Twitter

More About: invites, linkedin, LinkedIn Signal, twitter

For more Social Media coverage:


10 Killer Firefox Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 10:00 AM PDT

FireFox Image

One of the reasons for the popularity of the Firefox browser is the wealth of downloadable add-ons, and the customization options available via the about:config hacks. However, there are some tidy tricks you can employ from within the “as is” browser that can greatly improve your web surfing experience.

These simple but powerful tips and tricks for the open source browser will have you cruising the web faster and smarter in no time.

So, if you’re a Firefox user, check out these 10 features we’ve highlighted and, as always, please do share any other Firefox hints you’ve found useful in the comments.


1. One-Click Bookmarking


Firefox offers a very fast way to add a site to your bookmarks — simply click on the star icon in the browser’s “Location Bar.”

Clicking once will add the page to your “Unsorted Bookmarks” folder while clicking twice will open up a window that will allow you to edit where the bookmark should be saved, its title, and any tags (see #2 below).


2. Tag Your Bookmarks for Quick Access


One way of organizing your bookmarks in Firefox is to tag them with keywords. You can either do this as you save them down, or retrospectively by going to the “Bookmarks” menu, selecting “Organize bookmarks,” finding the bookmark you want to tag, and adding in the keywords.

Once you’ve added a word, such as “news” as you can see in the example above, Firefox will offer this as a tag option in future, meaning you just have to tick the box to add it as a tag to another site.

Once you’ve set up your tags, typing a tag into the Location Bar will bring up all the sites you’ve tagged with that word, offering quick access to sites you visit often.


3. Shrink Your Icons


You can change how Firefox’s toolbar icons are displayed to give you a little more screen space. This is useful when every pixel counts (as on a netbook screen), or simply to achieve a more minimalist look.

Simply go to the “View” menu, select “Toolbars,” hit the “Customize” option and then tick the “Use Small Icons” box.

If you want to lose the icons altogether, you can follow the same steps, but hit the drop-down menu next to “Use Small Icons” and select “Text” for a graphics-free toolbar.


4. Add Icons to the Toolbar


If you carry out the same actions often, such as printing, viewing your history, or managing downloads, there’s a way to add more functionality to your toolbar.

Go to the “View” menu, then “Toolbars,” then the “Customize” option, and you can drag and drop a number of extra icons to the top of your browser for easy access.


5. Change the Default E-mail Setting


When you click on “Send Link” or “mailto:” links in Firefox, the browser will load up your operating system’s default e-mail program (so likely Outlook in Windows or Mail on a Mac). But it’s quite often the case that these aren’t the mail programs you want.

You can stop the annoyance of Firefox loading up a default mail program by changing your preference in settings, and it’s really easy if you use Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

Go to “Tools,” “Options,” “Applications” and scroll down until you see “Mailto” on the left. Now, just hit the drop-down menu and select the e-mail program you’d like to use in the future. The next time you click on a mail link in a webpage, it will load up your preferred e-mail program.


6. Save a Search Shortcut


You can save time on sites you search regularly so that you can quickly start a search process on that site from anywhere on the web. To get this set up, right-click on the site’s search box and select “Add a Keyword for this Search.”

Once you assign a keyword to a site search, you can simply type “keyword + search term” in your Location Bar to search that website. So, for example, typing “Mashable + Social Good” will search Mashable.com for that content, once the keyword is set up. This will save you the extra steps of loading the site, finding the search box and entering the term.


7. Change the Default Font Size


You can ensure you’re never left squinting at tiny text on your monitor with an option that forces sites to display text at a minimum font size.

Although it should be noted that this may cause some sites to display erroneously, if textual clarity is more important to you than web design purity, go ahead and make the changes — your optician may thank you for it!

Go to “Tools,” “Options,” then “Content” and then click on the “Advanced” button next to “Fonts & Colors.” You can then select a minimum font size from the drop down menu. Rest easy knowing that you’ll never be presented with a sea of 6 pt. text again.


8. Learn Some Shortcut Keys


There is a whole load of mouse and keyboard shortcuts in Firefox, but we’ve highlighted the ones we find most useful:

  • Control + Enter — adds .com to the end of text in the Location Bar
  • Control + Shift + T — reopens the last tab you closed
  • Alt + D — highlights the text in the Location Bar
  • Control + Page Up/Down — Moves to previous or next tab
  • / — Quick find

9. Set Up Multiple Homepages


It’s true, you can have more than one website as a homepage. You can configure Firefox to load your webmail, favorite news site and social network of choice as it starts.

To set this up, simply load up the sites you want as your homepages, go to “Options,” then “General,” and then hit the “Use Current Pages” button.

Now, the next time you start Firefox, you’ll be productive from the get-go.


10. Clear a Single Site From Your History


We’ve all done it — typed “Facbook” instead of Facebook. And now the browser loads up the wrong site every time. However, this need not be the case, as Firefox offers a clever way to delete one site from your browsing history rather than forcing you to clear all your recent activity.

To tidy up any typos in your web tracks, go to the “History” menu, click on “Show All History,” and then type the name of the site you want to get rid of in the “Search History” box. When it has loaded, simply right-click on the site and select “Forget About This Site.” Now it’s no longer history — it’s ancient history.


More Firefox Resources from Mashable


- Back to School: 10 Must-Have Firefox Extensions for Students
- 10 Firefox Add-ons to Beautify Your Browser
- 16 Great Music Add-Ons for Firefox
- 40+ Add-Ons for Managing Firefox Tabs
- 20+ Great Twitter Tools for Firefox


Reviews: Facebook, Firefox, Gmail, Mashable, Windows

More About: Browsers, Firefox, how to, how tos, List, Lists, mozilla, productivity, shortcuts, tips, tricks

For more Tech coverage:


Non-Threaded Conversations Coming to Gmail, E-Mail Purists Rejoice

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 09:01 AM PDT


Google will today announce the ability to disable Gmail’s conversation view e-mail threading feature. Conversation view has been one of its most hotly debated features since the service launched in 2004.

Google will be rolling out conversation view settings over the next several days. It will first be available to Google Apps users who have selected “Enabled pre-release features” for their organizations.

Even with the release of a toggle for conversation view, it’s doubtful that the debate over its effectiveness will end any time soon. Fans of conversation view cite its ability un-clutter inboxes by threading conversations based on message connections. Naysayers, however, have complained that threading is simply a distraction that complicates the way e-mail has worked for nearly 20 years in clients like Outlook.

What side of the argument do you fall on? Are you a threaded conversation advocate or an e-mail purist?


Reviews: Google

More About: Conversation View, gmail, Google, Outlook, Threading

For more Tech coverage:


10 iPhone Apps for the Global Foodie

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 08:01 AM PDT

iPhone Food Image

Do you “eat to live” or “live to eat?” Regardless of your munching motto, in this day and age, there are endless food options available, and those that were once considered unusual and exotic are now mainstream. Sushi drive-thru, anyone? Yes, it actually does exist. With curious palates and a willingness to experiment, amateur eaters and gourmands alike literally have a world of food at their disposal.

However, entering a new culture and food experience can be a little daunting. Unrecognizable smells, cluelessness about food pronunciations, and ingredients that you haven’t seen before can leave even an adventurous eater longing for the nearest burger joint.

Luckily, there’s an app for that.

Here are 10 iPhone apps that can help guide anyone through uncharted food territory and set the stage for enjoyable eating adventures.


1. Global Eater Food Dictionary


You're at an authentic Indian restaurant and you hear fellow diners contemplating ordering either dhaal or ghost curry. Huh? You can sneak a peek at the Global Eater Food Dictionary app while you snack on some naan bread and realize that they're discussing lentils or lamb. With food definitions from cuisines all over the world including France, Spain, China, Thailand, Mexico and others, you can rely on this handy guide as a reference whenever you're food-confused.

Cost: $0.99


2. Yum Cha Dim Sum


Those push carts with the steaming bamboo baskets are such a beautiful sight and smell. But when that cart comes by with the mile-high stack of steamers, the lids come off and it can be hard to know what exactly you're looking at. The Yum Cha Dim Sum app is a great dim sum decoder, and even provides color photos, calorie counts and key ingredients for a variety of dim sum fare.

Cost: $2.99


3. 365 World Recipe


Imagine following a new international food recipe for every day of the year. That would be an ambitious goal, but with this app, even the loftiest cooks can achieve this. Although it is a very simple app with no photographs, the variety of recipes is impressive. Some samples from the month of October include Austrian Baked Eggs, Swedish Baked Fish, India Beef Curry, and much more. There's also an option within the app to send each recipe via e-mail.

Cost: $0.99


4. Sushipedia


Sushi is so commonplace now (please refer to earlier drive-thru reference), but with myriad raw fish options such as hamachi, kanpachi and mebachi, not to mention the numerous maki sushi options, you begin to realize that sushi goes far beyond California rolls. Sushipedia is a great app that provides color photography of sushi varieties, descriptions and even fun facts –- and it's free.

Cost: Free


5. GlobeTipping


For those fortunate enough to travel internationally and experience these cuisines in their native countries, it is important to know how to tip appropriately, since each region is different. Did you know that tipping is not the norm in restaurants in Indonesia and is even considered an insult in China and Japan? Now you do. The GlobeTipping app is a must-have app for any world traveler.

Cost: $0.99


6. 42 Restaurants


True foodies will be able to appreciate all this app has to offer. 42 Restaurants features recipes, descriptions, chef bios and stunning photography from some of the world's most highly-rated restaurants. The lengthy listing includes Le Gavroche in London; Picholine in New York; Tantris in Munich; La Rosetta in Rome and 38 more. Each restaurant features a recipe that has been hand-picked by each head chef (many of whom who have earned Michelin stars) and with the beautiful photos of each locale, this app offers the next best thing to being there. A lite free version is also available, but only includes four restaurant descriptions.

Cost: $4.99


7. Korean Cuisine


Korean food has grown in popularity, thanks in part to celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay who make bulgogi (marinated, grilled beef) and side dishes like kimchi (pickled cabbage) on the Food Network. Like all world cuisines however, it goes far beyond the two or three dishes it is best known for. With some similarities to Chinese and Japanese food, but still quite different, Korean food is still a mystery to many. With this free Korean cuisine app, users can learn more about the ingredients in 52 different dishes, how to make them, and how to eat them.

Cost: Free


8. FoodFinder


What are you in the mood for tonight? Cambodian, Ethiopian or how about some Peruvian? Whatever your palate fancies can be located with the FoodFinder app. It provides an A through Z listing of foods from every country you can imagine, and then maps the restaurant nearest you via Google. FoodFinder also provides phone numbers for each restaurant so you can place and order or reservation directly from the app.

Cost: Free


9. Mexi-Pedia

What's the difference between a burrito and a chimichanga? The latter is a fried version of the former. The Taco Bell chihuahua actually did a good job of improving the Mexican food vernacular in pop culture, but there's so much more to the cuisine than the fast food chain offers. The Mexi-Pedia app provides overviews of popular Mexican dishes and includes color photography as well.

Cost: $0.99


10. iCooking Moroccan Cuisine


The iCooking Moroccan Cuisine app is one of many by this app developer featuring recipes from regions all over the world. Any cook who wants to try different recipes should look into the iCooking series which features 16 different apps on foods like BBQ, Chinese, French, Greek, Indian, Spanish and more. This app in particular features 50 popular Moroccan dishes and is well-organized with photos, ingredients and preparation tips.

Cost: $0.99

If you find some tasty recipes or discover a delicious restaurant via the social web, let us know in the comments below.


More iPhone Resources from Mashable:


- 10 Useful iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks
- 10 Incredible iPhone Portrait Photographs
- 10 Incredible iPhone Photographs
- 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]
- 5 iPhone Apps to Help You Learn to Dance

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, phreakanature


Reviews: Google, iPhone, iStockphoto

More About: apple, apps, cooking, Food, iphone, iphone apps, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, trending

For more Apple coverage:


New Twitter Design Based on the Golden Ratio [IMAGE]

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 07:27 AM PDT


From Pythagoras to Darren Aronofsky, the Golden Ratio — an irrational mathematical constant found in everything from art to architecture — has come pretty far. Lately, it was apparently the basis of the design for the new Twitter.

Check out the above picture from Twitter's Creative Director Doug Bowman, found on Twitter’s Flickr page. According to the caption: “To anyone curious about #NewTwitter proportions, know that we didn’t leave those ratios to chance. This, of course, only applies to the narrowest version of the UI. If your browser window is wider, your details pane will expand to provide greater utility, throwing off these proportions. But the narrowest width shows where we started, ratio-wise.”

Personally, I think the inclusion of the mind-bending and mythical ratio is rather elegant (but then I have a weird obsession with hypertexts like Fibonacci’s Daughter). What do you think of the new Twitter design?

[via Laughing Squid]


Reviews: Twitter

More About: design, golden-ratio, New Twitter, trending

For more Dev & Design coverage:


Tech Entrepreneurs Discuss “The Social Network” [VIDEO]

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 07:16 AM PDT


On Monday, Mashable hosted screenings of The Social Network in both New York and San Francisco. At our New York event, we followed up our screening with a panel that discussed several of the prominent themes of the film –- how to protect your idea, building a team and scaling an Internet company -– as it related to the panelists’ own endeavors and other aspiring entrepreneurs.

Joining me on the panel were David Karp (founder of Tumblr), Soraya Darabi (co-founder of Foodspotting) and Ben Fisher (co-founder of Lean Startup Machine and Adopt a Hacker). Check out the videos of our discussion below, as well as tweets about the movie from our audience of readers, friends and partners that attended the screenings.

Also be sure to check out our official review of the movie and microreviews from the Mashable staff.


Tech & Entrepreneurship Panel



Audience Reviews: #MashTSN



Commentary on Entrepreneurship




Though many reports have characterized the movie's portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg as negative, Mashable CEO and Founder Pete Cashmore comments on the larger message of the movie and entrepreneurship.


I'd Poke It




Annie Colbert, managing editor of Holy Kaw-Alltop, gives a beautifully concise review: "I'd poke it."


Amazing, Conflicting




Connie Preti, a graduate journalism student, touches on the complex dynamics of the movie.


Engaging, Remarkable Pacing




Without getting into the accuracy of the movie, Blake Robinson, Mashable's Tech & Gadgets editor, points out the entertaining factors of the movie.


Most Likeable Characters: Lawyers




David Bill, the CTO at CoTweet, commented on the characters in the movie, noting the most likeable ones are the lawyers. That's a zinger.


Love-Hate Zuckerberg & Parker




Jon Crawford, founder of Storenvy, points out the complex character structure.


Makes Zuckerberg Look Bad




Jonathan Dube, former Online News Association president, thinks the movie did indeed make Mark Zuckerberg look bad.


A Real World Revenge of the Nerds




Christopher Renz, brpr Group "chief geek" & agency director, says the movie is a must see, real Revenge of the Nerds.


Surprisingly Sympathetic to Zuckerberg




Steve Raikow, digital media developer at Porter Novelli and creator of Anckr.com, says the movie is really good, but not great.


Reviews: Mashable, Tumblr

More About: entrepreneurship, the social network

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Top 3 Stories in Tech, Mobile and Social Media This Morning

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 06:39 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.

iPhone 4 Sales Off to a Galloping Start in China

Although sales of the iPhone 3GS in China were less than spectacular — not least because the version that appeared in China lacked Wi-Fi support — the iPhone 4 appears to be a success in the country thus far.

While it took more than a month for China Unicom to sell 100,000 iPhone 3GS devices when they arrived in China last year, it has only taken four days for the mobile carrier to announce that it has sold that many iPhone 4 devices, in addition to the 200,000 pre-orders the company said it received.

Apple, which is selling the iPhone 4 for about $150 less than China Unicom and without a two-year service contract, has not yet revealed how many devices it has sold directly in China yet.

Skype’s Next Version to Feature Deep Facebook Integration

Facebook and Skype are working to deeply integrate their networks and services on Skype accounts, sources familiar with the matter have told AllThingsD.

Skype users will be able to log in with their Facebook credentials to text, chat and call their Facebook friends directly within the service. The new features should go live when the new version of the service, Skype 5.0, emerges from beta in a couple of weeks.

Kobo Announces New Wireless E-Reader

Kobo, an e-book retailer and and device manufacturer, today announced a new, Wi-Fi-enabled e-reader.

The $139 device features an upgraded processor, sharper eInk screen, longer battery life and additional storage.

While its specs aren’t as good as Amazon’s Wi-Fi-enabled e-reader, also available for $139, it has the advantage of distribution through Borders retail locations in the U.S., as well as Indigo Books & Music and Walmart in Canada. The Kindle 3 is currently carried at brick-and-mortar Target and Best Buy locations in the U.S.

Further News


Series supported by HTC EVO 4G


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.


Reviews: Facebook, Skype, Twitter

More About: amazon, apple, borders, china, china unicom, first to know series, iphone 4, Kindle, kobo, Skype


How Popular Is the iPhone, Really? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 06:23 AM PDT

When it comes to tech news coverage, sometimes it seems like Apple is the biggest phone manufacturer in the world. While it is true that the iPhone is a very popular smartphone, Apple’s overall share in the mobile phone market is still very low compared to giants such as Nokia and Samsung.

The folks from BillShrink have created a nifty infographic that puts many facts about the iPhone into perspective. Check it out below; an even bigger version is available here.


More About: apple, iphone, Mobile 2.0, mobile market, smartphone

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