Mashable: Latest 24 News Updates - including “Find and Redeem Location-Based Coupons on Your iPhone or Android” |  |
- Find and Redeem Location-Based Coupons on Your iPhone or Android
- Ustream and Zac Brown Band Team Up For First Multiview Concert Stream
- Pocket-Sized Keyboard Lets You Type and Go
- Best Buy: Notebooks Aren’t Dead
- Google Voice Apps Return to the iOS App Store
- Weekend Gaming: Halo Reach [OPEN THREAD]
- Flash vs. HTML5: Adobe Weighs In
- Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Drama Edition
- Pedigree Donates Dog Food for Blog Posts
- Facebook to Change How You Process Friend Requests
- Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters
- How the Web Can be Harnessed for Social Good
- Hipstamatic Goes Analog with New Print Service
- Rotten Tomatoes Makes Your Facebook Friends Movie Critics
- Social Good Summit and UN Week Starts Monday
- Why Social Media Is a Game-Changer for Causes
- Moviefone Turns 20
- Vevo Ranks Number One Among Music Video Viewers [STATS]
- “Catfish,” a.k.a. “The Other Facebook Movie,” Opens Today
- How To Get Involved with the 4th Annual Mashable Awards
- How Social Good Has Revolutionized Philanthropy
- Is the iPad Devouring the Notebook Market?
- HOW TO: Hire a Designer or Developer
- Top 4 Stories in Social Media and Mobile This Morning
- Simplify the Mockup and Annotation Process with Draftboard
| Find and Redeem Location-Based Coupons on Your iPhone or Android Posted: 17 Sep 2010 09:27 PM PDT      This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Shooger provides consumers with coupons and deals via SMS or mobile app. Genius Idea: Even in today’s checkin-centric world, research shows that when it comes to location-based apps, consumers really just want more mobile coupons. One way to get them is through Shooger. Shooger is a mobile coupon platform that specializes in helping consumers find local and national deals on their mobile device. The service currently makes a free iPhone and Android application (and soon BlackBerry) that antes up location-based coupons that shoppers can redeem right from their mobile phone. As a Shooger user, you can browse and clip the coupons you like on the web or via mobile app — logged in users can sync clipped coupons between web and mobile. You can also follow the merchants that interest you most to get a real-time deals feed to more quickly siphon through the app’s thousands of deals. Shooger was also built with the social web in mind, so you can share the coupons you like with friends on Facebook and Twitter. Just this week, Shooger introduced a way for business owners to add barcodes and QR codes to the mobile coupons it offers through the service. Business owners can leverage the upgraded functionality to track in-store redemptions, and even limit the number of redemptions per person. Right now this an iPhone-only feature, but barcode and QR code support is also coming to the Android app in the near future. Most of Shooger’s 100,000 plus coupons come from coupon companies such as Valpak, but the startup has engineered a pretty slick mobile experience that makes accessing, sharing and redeeming coupons while out and about a breeze. Plus, by introducing barcode and QR scanning functionality, Shooger is likely to attract more independent business interest from local retailers.   Image courtesy of For Inspiration Only, Flickr Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Android, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, iPhone More About: bizspark, Mobile 2.0, mobile coupons, QR Codes, shooger For more Mobile coverage:
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| Ustream and Zac Brown Band Team Up For First Multiview Concert Stream Posted: 17 Sep 2010 08:01 PM PDT   Country music group the Zac Brown Band will be joining the ranks of Diddy and Lil Wayne this Sunday, September 19 when they become the next celebrities to team up with Ustream. The band will stream a live show from Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and it will be the first time a concert streams using Ustream's new Multiview technology, allowing fans to choose which angles of the show they'd like to watch online. Ustream says there will be five different cameras at the famed concert venue, as well as a mixed feed of the shots from those cameras, which means that there will be six different options for viewers to choose from during the show. The company developed the experience for the Zac Brown Band as its first partner, and representatives say others in the music industry have expressed interest in using the new technology. Fans who choose to tune into the livestream will also be able to use Social Stream, a Ustream feature that will allow them to chat via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and AIM. Here’s what it will look like:  The livestreamed concert, titled "Best. Concert. Ever.," is one way for the Zac Brown Band to promote its new album, You Get What You Give, coming out September 21. Users will be able to tune in starting 10 p.m. ET at the band's site or on their Ustream channel. According to a statement on the band's website, frontman Zac Brown says this is the first time the group is reaching out to those fans who can't make it to the show. But other than that, it's business as usual. "When people come to our show, we want to blow them away every time. So for us, this is no different," Brown says on the site. While this is a first for Ustream, multi-camera concert livestreams have been done before. YouTube and Vevo kicked off a five-concert series with a New York City Arcade Fire show in August. It will be interesting to see how Ustream's service compares to the YouTube/Vevo pairing, and it will also be interesting to see if these multi-camera livestream events become standard parts of the music industry. Have you ever tuned in to similar livestreamed concerts? How does it compare to the actual live experience? Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, aim, ustream More About: concerts, live video, livestream, music, social media, ustream, web video, zac brown band For more Web Video coverage:
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| Pocket-Sized Keyboard Lets You Type and Go Posted: 17 Sep 2010 06:51 PM PDT   With the release of iOS 4, Apple mobile devices finally support bluetooth keyboards. As such, we knew it was only a matter of time before aftermarket products like the Jorno would begin to appear, providing us with a convenient way to crank out long form content when on the go. The Jorno mobile keyboard features bluetooth connectivity, making it compatible with the latest Apple iOS mobile devices, among many others. Additionally, its keys are just 15% smaller than those of the standard desktop keyboard. This allows the device to maintain a comfortable typing experience, while significantly reducing space. The Jorno’s unique design enables it to conveniently fold down to pocket size for easy storage and transfer. And its detachable cradle allows portable displays to be held securely in either portrait or landscape mode. Given its unique features, the Jorno makes for a compelling alternative to products like Apple’s iPad Keyboard Dock. It will be available later this fall and is currently available at $79 on pre-sale until October 31, when it spikes to $99. More About: apple, iOS, ipad, ipod, Jorno, Mobile 2.0 For more Tech coverage:
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| Best Buy: Notebooks Aren’t Dead Posted: 17 Sep 2010 05:24 PM PDT   Is the notebook going the way of the dinosaur? Not a chance, says Best Buy. Earlier today, a report made the rounds, depicting the decline of notebook sales since the launch of Apple’s wildly popular iPad tablet. According to the report, U.S. retail notebook unit growth rose by 70% in December 2009 while it actually shrank by 4% in August 2010. The story gained further traction after Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn was cited in a report from The Wall Street Journal. In the story, he told the Journal that “internal estimates showed that the iPad had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs, especially netbooks, by as much as 50%.” Except Best Buy is now saying that the comments weren’t quite accurate, and the company has released a statement to set the record straight:
The statement pumps up computers as a core part of Best Buy’s line of products. What it doesn’t do though is refute the stats credited to him in The Wall Street Journal’s report. It’s clear though that the iPad is transforming the entire computer market in its favor, and no statement from Best Buy is going to change that. More About: apple, best buy, ipad, laptops, microsoft, netbooks, Notebooks For more Business coverage:
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| Google Voice Apps Return to the iOS App Store Posted: 17 Sep 2010 04:31 PM PDT   After banning all Google Voice-related apps from the App Store, Apple’s Google Voice moratorium appears to be over. Apple has just approved GV Connect [iTunes link], a $3 native Google Voice app for the iPhone. This comes fourteen months after Apple removed all Google Voice apps from its App Store — including fan favorites GV Mobile and VoiceCentral — and refused to approve Google’s official app. That ban led to an FCC inquiry and the creation of an HTML5-specific web app to sate iPhone users. In light of those changes, a number of developers have either re-submitted their apps or received communication from Apple indicating re-submission and approval could be possible. With the release of GV Connect, it seems like only a matter of time before other apps (like GV Mobile+) will make their way back to the App Store. Why a Native App MattersBoth Google’s official Google Voice web app and the well-made BlackSwan VoiceCentral web app bring Google Voice to the iPhone. However, because these are web apps and not native apps, the system address book isn’t the same. Other features like push notifications and masked calling are also unavailable, although it’s unclear if anything short of an official app will bring some of those features. For that reason, many users who jailbreak their iPhone devices have used various Google Voice apps from Cydia. For users who rely on Google Voice as a central number, having a dialer that can directly access your address book is a pretty big deal. Now that iOS supports multi-tasking, doing things like sending SMS messages and switching between a call and a web browser should be easier too. We haven’t downloaded GV Connect (we’re waiting for GV Mobile) but are excited that Apple’s more lenient policies seem to mean bringing back useful apps to users. Reviews: App Store, Google, Google Voice More About: apple, Google, Google Voice, gv connect, gv mobile, iphone apps, voicecentral For more Mobile coverage:
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| Weekend Gaming: Halo Reach [OPEN THREAD] Posted: 17 Sep 2010 04:20 PM PDT   The release of Halo Reach made this a big week for gaming. Some of you may have, no doubt, already plowed through it in one epic late night session, but I’m sure many of you have been sitting on the game since Tuesday, preparing for a weekend gaming marathon. Whatever category you fall in, I’d like to invite you to partake in our Halo Reach weekend open thread. Please share with us your tips, critiques, (good-natured) smack talk and anything else you have to say about the game. More About: halo reach, open thread, video games, Weekend Gaming, Xbox 360 For more Tech coverage:
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| Flash vs. HTML5: Adobe Weighs In Posted: 17 Sep 2010 03:13 PM PDT   Much has been written about the next wave of web technologies, namely HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3. A big part of this conversation has surrounded the impact that these new technologies will have on older technologies like Adobe’s Flash. We’ve written a lot abut the HTML5 vs. Flash “war,” primarily in the context of Flash’s use in mobile and Flash as a video wrapper. I personally have taken the position that at least when it comes to mobile devices, Flash is at a disadvantage in terms of its abilities and capabilities when compared to newer technologies that can better harness hardware and software optimizations. The world of technology moves really, really quickly. To give you an idea of just how fast things can move, when I started working on this piece last month, Apple was still anti-Flash as an IDE for iOS development and Adobe’s set of HTML5 authoring tools was limited to Dreamweaver. In the last week and a half, Apple has updated its developer guidelines and Adobe has issued an HTML5 add-on pack for Illustrator CS5. I point out these recent changes because it indicates just how fast this industry is moving and that speed, inevitably, can impact the choices that designers, developers and end-users end up making. How Adobe Sees HTML5 The mobile web is exploding. I’ve often compared what we are seeing happen on smartphones with the micro-computing revolution of the 1980s, only at a much faster pace. Adobe’s Paul Gubbay agrees, and he thinks we are witnessing a rebirth of sorts of the web. For Adobe, a company that has made its name in creating tools and technologies to drive digital creativity forward, this is exciting. “As a technology company, this kind of movement in any direction is interesting to us because of the opportunities it affords us,” say Gubbay. Here too, Adobe sees lots of opportunities “because of the real focus on mobile.” When asked where Adobe sees HTML5 and CSS3 are headed, Gubbay pointed out that there are several areas where these new technologies really make a lot of sense:
However, Adobe still doesn’t see HTML5 as a catch-all for every project. Gubbay and I discussed that while there are lots of great looking one-off HTML5 or CSS3 demonstrations, in many cases, these are proofs of concept and not ready to be used in real projects. Google’s Chrome Experiment with Arcade Fire is actually an exception in this space. What makes that experiment and presentation so great is that it is useful, it works, and it is a complete project. It’s not a one-off example. It’s real world. Still, even when these experiments do have real-world uses, the reality is HTML5 isn’t always optimized for all environments. You need not just the latest browser (or latest version of a specific browser), you need enough RAM and enough resources on your computer. These are CPU and GPU intensive tasks. As a result, even on the iPad and iPhone, not all HTML5 or CSS3 demonstrations will work as well as they should. This is a very real limitation that will eventually get better, but it needs to be taken into consideration. Where Adobe Sees FlashOn the other hand, because Flash has years and years of tooling and frameworks and a robust ecosystem behind it, it remains a viable choice for many implementations. When building an RIA designed for the desktop, in most cases, Flash does make more sense. Not only is it more capable, the performance is usually going to be better. However, we should note that on mobile, this isn’t always the case. Even with Flash 10.1 for Mobile, Flash content needs to be optimized for mobile devices. Flash video and Flash animation designed for the desktop doesn’t really work the same way on mobile platforms. Developers need to re-configure and re-optimize those projects and specifically target mobile devices. Why Not Just Use HTML5 for Mobile?I asked Gubbay, why should developers — especially when targeting mobile devices — use Flash at all? If they have to re-target for mobile devices, why not just rebuild in HTML5? Gubbay said that it becomes a decision based on budget and the desired level of richness. For some developers, making the jump to HTML5 makes more sense. If the bulk of your visitors are going to be accessing content from an HTML5-enabled smartphone, HTML5 may be the better choice. Likewise, for consumer video or smaller-scale productions, using HTML5/H.264 or Web-M to encode content and play it directly through the web browser may make more sense than using Flash Video for Mobile. However, for developers who need to provide DRM, efficiencies in services, or do more elaborate masking, Flash is going to be the better bet. In other words, it’s all about what a project needs. Still, even with Flash as a now accepted IDE for iOS development, for web applications, HTML5 is clearly at an advantage for more device types. How Adobe Wants to Approach the Market Gubbay made it very clear to me that Adobe listens to its customers and that the company wants to provide them with the tools that they need. If that means Flash or Flex or Adobe Air, great. If that’s HTML5, that’s a space Adobe wants to invest in too. Adobe has already released some add-on packs for Dreamweaver CS5 and Illustrator CS5 that add in HTML5 support. I asked Gubbay if Adobe had plans for an HTML5-specific authoring tool and he couldn’t comment. On the side of Flash, if Adobe could find a way to utilize some of the existing support, frameworks and tools that have been built around ActionScript and help users move more fluidly to jQuery, HTML5 and other technologies, I think the company could have a winner. An HTML5-specific authoring tool, as an example, that isn’t an add-on, but can integrate using Bridge with other Adobe apps to take advantage of scripts and actions developed around Flash could be really helpful. Furthermore, making more mobile specific Flash development tools that are better tuned to mobile devices so that new content created in Flash is mobile rich, is something I definitely expect to see Adobe invest in. So Where Are We Now?We’re at a cross-roads of sorts in terms of web technologies. The new wave of technology is here; it’s developing quickly and innovations are happening all of the time. On the flip side, there are still hundreds of millions of users that are using browsers and devices that aren’t necessarily ready for those tools. After speaking with Adobe, it’s clear to me that the company does want to offer solutions for both sets of developers. I was impressed with the company’s candor in discussing mobile and the admission that Flash on mobile isn’t quite there yet. Going forward, we see Flash as continuing to be a great tool on the desktop, but on mobile and on other platforms, HTML5 is coming up fast. Adobe has no plans to sit this one out, and we fully expect to see more solutions from the company. For current developers, sadly, making the decision to go Flash or HTML5 is still going to be difficult. It’s still at the “depends on the project” stage. For video and mobile content, HTML5 is winning. For more rich and interactive content, Flash has a huge advantage that isn’t going to be displaced anytime soon. These uncertainties aside, this is an exciting time to be a web user, web developer or web designer. More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: ActionScript , Google, adobe AIR, iPhone More About: adobe, adobe flash, apple, design, development, Flash, HTML5, paul gubbay, trending, web design, Web Development For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Drama Edition Posted: 17 Sep 2010 03:00 PM PDT   Had any epic meltdowns this week? You know, of the crying in your cube, trashing your computer, screaming at God variety? Well, you little Drama Queen, you, then this week’s YouTube roundup has you covered. That’s right, the theme is: Drama. Now stop torturing everyone with your anguished, anguished soul and go out into the sunshine. Breathe in the sweetness of nature. Dance into the loving arms of the impending weekend. Wander the avenues of your soul. Everything — yes, everything — will be all right (Probably). Dawson's Creek - The Final MontageKaren Hartline: Dawson's Creek was the show of choice in our sorority house. So much so that we turned off the house phone and told people to leave the living room for talking. Will Joey choose Dawson? Is it Pacey? And [SPOILER] Jen dies??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Erica Swallow: This kid obviously has issues of some sort. The Godfather: Part III - Cinema lessonsBrett Petersel: I know I am going to get a lot of backlash for this: I never saw The Godfather Part I or II. Life goes on, people, life goes on. My parents took me to see this wreck of a film back in the day (1990). I'm not a great actor (some of my ex-girlfriends might dispute this) but this one scene in the film had us crying (tears of laughter, that is). To this day my family still talks about this one part of the film when Mary Corleone (played by Sofia Coppola) is shot. She mutters the word "Daddy" to Al Pacino's character, Don Corleone, and then slumps to her death on the steps outside. Both the faces and screams of those around her made it very implausible. Lucky for us, Sofia Coppola has not been in front of the camera many times since, but she has both produced and/or written such films as Lost In Translation and The Virgin Suicides. My So-Called Life - Angela & Jordan Hallway SceneRadhika Marya: There's nothing like your first love, teen angst, unrequited love and slow motion shots set to earnest rock. THIS is drama. Dramatic LookBen Parr: So what if everybody's seen it already? Dramatic Gopher FTW! Scarface School PlaySarah Kessler: My grade school went with Hansel and Gretel... The Michael Cera School of ActingBrenna Ehrlich: If Cera used the Meisner Method, it would mean he has no soul. Tornado in Brooklyn 9.16.2010Brenna Ehrlich: Last night there was a tornado in my hood. I reacted a little less strongly than these dudes. image courtesy of iStockphoto, Choreograph Reviews: YouTube, iStockphoto More About: favorite-youtube-videos, Film, television, video, viral video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| Pedigree Donates Dog Food for Blog Posts Posted: 17 Sep 2010 02:54 PM PDT   These days, big brands usually look to the big social networks like Facebook and YouTube, or fresh new geolocation apps like Foursquare and SCVNGR, to create buzz for their campaigns. Pedigree, however, has turned to a somewhat older social medium for its latest promotion: the blogosphere. Pedigree’s “Write a Post, Help a Dog” promotion is simple: Write a blog post about its adoption program between now and September 19, and the company will donate a twenty-pound bag of dog food to a shelter. In addition, Pedigree will donate one pound of dog food for every “Like” it receives on its Facebook Page. We think this is a fantastic way to motivate people to spread the word — and, better yet, share their passion for — a great cause in a cost-effective manner. It’s also sure to generate a good deal of press for Pedigree among dog lovers, given that it’s already appeared on nearly 200 blogs by the time of this writing. What do you think of the promotion? What other social tools or platforms do you think Pedigree could take advantage of to further its success? [via I Love Rescue Animals] Image courtesy of Flickr, Nicki Varkevisser. Reviews: Flickr More About: blogging, blogosphere, MARKETING, pedigree, social good For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook to Change How You Process Friend Requests Posted: 17 Sep 2010 02:27 PM PDT   On Facebook, you have two options for processing friend requests — confirm or ignore. Today, we’re learning that Facebook is replacing the “Ignore” button with a “Not Now” button, that when clicked, will place the friend request in a separate section called “Hidden Requests.” Inside Facebook was first to report on the new “Not Now” option, and Facebook has since confirmed that it is indeed replacing the current “Ignore” option for all members and will be rolling it out to everyone in the next few days. The “Not Now” alternation will change how you process friend requests moving forward. You can continue to confirm requests as usual, but if you’re not interested in friending a wannabe connection, you’ll now need to click the “Not Now” button. That action will not ignore the request, but hide it, relegating it instead to a new “Hidden Requests” menu for future processing. “If you choose 'Not Now', the other person will never be notified that you have hidden their request and you'll have the option to take action on it at some time in the future if you want to. Their request will remain in a pending state, meaning they won't see the option to add you as a friend. They will just see the 'Awaiting Friend Confirmation' text as if you hadn't taken any action on the request at all,” says a spokesperson for the company. You can return to the “Hidden Requests” menu to revisit all requests you previously marked “Not Now,” and can then either choose “Confirm” or “Delete Request.” Should you delete the request, you can also optionally mark that you don’t know the person in question, and that behavior will block the individual from requesting your friendship in the future. Facebook wants members to take advantage of the latter option to prevent friend request abuse. “This helps our systems get better at detecting unwanted behavior on the site and we can use that information to prevent abuse from that person in the future,” says the Facebook representative. For most of us, the new “Not Now” option will be a welcome change that should go a long way in helping us process requests a bit faster. Removing requests completely, however, is a tad more complicated and now takes two additional steps. Will you be welcoming the “Not Now” button with open arms or were you happy with the “Ignore” option? Share your thoughts on the pending change in the comments.  Image courtesy of Inside Facebook Reviews: Facebook More About: facebook For more Social Media coverage:
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| Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters Posted: 17 Sep 2010 02:04 PM PDT
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| How the Web Can be Harnessed for Social Good Posted: 17 Sep 2010 01:50 PM PDT   Adam Conner is the Washington DC Associate Manager for Privacy and Global Public Policy at Facebook, where he focuses on government and political outreach. You can follow him on Twitter @adamconner. It has been 10 years since the Millennial Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by United Nations member states with the aim of eradicating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics and developing a global partnership for development by 2015. At the same time, the world has experienced the maturation of the information web, and more recently, the meteoric rise of the social web. The information web now makes a wealth of content available to people around the world in real time. The social web connects people with family, friends, causes and interests in ways not possible before. Importantly, the social web helps individuals, their friends and friends of friends organize information and take action. This changes people's relationship not only with governments and non-profit organizations, but fundamentally alters the way they can approach the world's challenges, no matter how large or small. This completely alters how people engage through elementary school bake sales, global earthquake relief efforts and everything in between. The MDGs were adopted before the social web existed. It would be four years before Facebook would connect a college campus, five years before YouTube would broadcast its first video, and six years before short code messaging would inspire the launch of Twitter. The focus of the MDGs is achieving the eight main development targets by 2015, but the initiatives' drafters seem to have thought very little about how those involved could enlist ordinary citizens in the pursuit of those goals. The social web presents an opportunity to do just that — to harness the power of individuals and connections to help address these critical issues. Today, hundreds of millions of people use social networking everyday. Members of this global community have repeatedly demonstrated that their interests in causes are important to them and their friends.  One example is Jonathan Glynn, a pilot from Long Island who decided he could not stand idly by as Haiti struggled to rebuild after the devastating earthquake. He flew there to lend a hand after finding a groundswell of support on Facebook. Glynn's friends and their friends allowed him to fundraise and start a group called Wings Over Haiti to provide emergency supply transport and more. Another more personal example is how for the last two years on my birthday, my friends have raised thousands of dollars using Causes for Holt International, the adoption agency my parents used to adopt me. A generous donation showed up in Holt's mailbox one day — a gift representing the charity of friends who cared enough about what was important to me to take action.  These are just two examples of the power of the social web. It is amazing to think that this dynamic medium is still new, and we are just getting started. Identifying the world's challenges and arriving at solutions for them in a social way is the challenge now before us. This is not to say that the social web can fix the serious challenges outlined in the Millennial Development Goals. But people around the world can and should be a part of the solution, and the social web makes it more possible. It all starts with the click of a mouse. Brought to you by the Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit  This post was brought to you by the groundbreaking Social Good Summit. On September 20, as global leaders head to New York for United Nations Week — including a historic summit on global issues known as the "Millennium Development Goals" (MDGs) and the annual General Assembly — Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation will bring together leaders from the digital industry, policy and media worlds to focus on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world's most intractable problems. Date: Monday, September 20, 2010 More Social Good Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, YouTube More About: facebook, facebook causes, help, internet, Millennial Development Goals, non-profit, nonprofit, social good, social media, UN For more Social Media coverage:
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| Hipstamatic Goes Analog with New Print Service Posted: 17 Sep 2010 01:20 PM PDT   One of the coolest photo apps for the iPhone is Hipstamatic. The $1.99 app makes it easy and fun to take awesome-looking photos with a vintage look and feel. Today, the team behind Hipstamatic [iTunes link] has introduced the new HipstaMart Print Lab as a way for iPhone users to order real analog prints of their best Hipstamatic images. Check out this teaser video that describes the process: To order prints, just download the latest update to Hipstamatic from the App Store. Now after you create or access a stack of photos, you’ll see a new icon that looks like a wrapped package.  Click it, and you’ll get an option to order 4-inch or 7-inch prints. Right now you can order nine 4-inch prints for $4.99 and 24 4-inch prints for $9.99. A three-pack of 7-inch prints is $7.99 and nine 7-inch prints are available for $19.99 Right now, HipstaMart is only shipping to the United States but plans to add other countries soon. To us, this makes one of the best apps for the iPhone that much better. I’m a huge fan of Hipstamatic and its add-on packs of various lenses, flashes and film types because the processing effects are just so great. I’m a reformed toy-camera junkie who used to spend way too much time and money using a Holga (and a modded Holga Polaroid) and either getting my film developed or developing it myself. The only real advantage those cameras had over what I can do with Hipstamatic was that at the end of the day, I’d have a real tangible photograph. At this point, the novelty of using a toy camera aside, I can’t really see why I would ever go back to the days of tracking down parts and accessories on eBay and from European distributors. I’ve ordered some prints and can’t wait to see how they turn out. Have you used Hipstamatic? What do you think about making digital photos analog? Reviews: App Store, iPhone More About: digital photography, hipstamart, hipstamatic, iphone, iphone apps, photography, toy cameras For more Mobile coverage:
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| Rotten Tomatoes Makes Your Facebook Friends Movie Critics Posted: 17 Sep 2010 12:55 PM PDT   Flixster-owned movie review site Rotten Tomatoes is now using Facebook’s Instant Personalization features to tailor site content for each visitor upon arrival. As a select Facebook partner, Rotten Tomatoes is now able to instantaneously greet logged-in Facebook members with featured content personalized by the visitor’s movie preferences, and the public Facebook behaviors of themselves and their friends. The new personalization features can be seen in the “Movies Your Friends Like,” “Friends Activity” and “Movies Recommended For You” sections. Facebook members can also share what movies they want to see back with Facebook without having to log in to Rotten Tomatoes or go through the process of linking the two accounts. “Flixster users have contributed more than 2.5 billion movie ratings across all of our applications, and through our partnership with Facebook we'll help users sift through all of those ratings and instantly find the ones from people who matter the most to them,” says Flixster CEO and Co-founder Joe Greenstein. Altogether, the new Rotten Tomatoes experience taps into Facebook and Flixster activity for a rich experience that one-ups the original purpose of exposing users to reviews and ratings from movie critics. When it comes to movies, a friend’s two thumbs up can mean more than a movie critic’s review. The new Rotten Tomatoes lets users take both factors into consideration. When Instant Personalization first launched, both Pandora and Yelp were featured partners that offered an experience more acutely aware of Facebook friend activity. The personalization features were celebrated by some and berated by others who felt their privacy was at risk. Facebook released simplified privacy controls to combat concerns and make it easier for Facebook members to opt out of Instant Personalization. Instant Personalization remains opt-in by default — meaning you have to explicitly opt out if you do not want your public Facebook activities to be shared with Facebook partner sites including Rotten Tomatoes. If you’re of the ilk who can appreciate how Facebook friends’ Likes and movie reviews can help enhance your movie discovery process, however, then you’ll certainly appreciate the Facebook-tailored Rotten Tomatoes experience.  Image courtesy of Flickr, epSos.de. Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Flixster, Pandora, Rotten Tomatoes, Yelp More About: facebook, facebook open graph, Film, instant personalization, Open Graph For more Social Media coverage:
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| Social Good Summit and UN Week Starts Monday Posted: 17 Sep 2010 11:22 AM PDT   Mashable has been working with the UN Foundation and 92nd Street Y to produce a series of events that we hope will break the mold of the traditionally closed structure of UN Week, which starts Monday. (Tickets are going quickly.) We have an amazing lineup of speakers coming to the stage and are excited to announce that Edward Norton, Award-winning actor and founder of Crowdrise and Geena Davis, Academy Award-winning actor and founder of See Jane, will be joining us. Geena Davis will also be interviewed by Soledad O'Brien, anchor and special correspondent at CNN. The Mashable and 92Y Social Good Summit brings together people who are directly working on solving the world’s most intractable problems through the frameworks of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Through Mashable and our audience, we are aiming to bring the new media and social media worlds into the events, whether in person or via live stream, to help spread mass awareness and support for solutions to the MDGs. Mashable needs your support for the UN Foundation, its initiatives and the world. Ways To Get Involved
Social Good Summit Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit: The current agenda and schedule for the Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit in partnership with the UN Foundation* 12:00 p.m. – Registration Digital Media Lounge
Date: Tuesday, September 21 to Friday, September 24, 2010 Some highlights on the schedule for the UN Week Digital Media Lounge.* Full schedule can be found on the Digital Media Lounge site. Tuesday, September 21 Wednesday, September 22 Thursday, September 23 Friday, September 24 Organizations involved include: Representatives from the following NGO's will be present throughout the week: In Partnership with Livestream is the most powerful live broadcast platform on the Internet. Producers can use the Livestream browser-based Studio application to create LIVE, scheduled and on-demand internet television to broadcast anywhere on the web through a single player widget. Our service comes in two flavors Free (ad-supported) and Premium (white-label, no-ads, pay for usage). Unique features include the ability to mix multiple live cameras, imported videos clips, and overlay graphics. With Livestream, producers can broadcast live from a mobile phone; use a customizable flash player with integrated chat; and develop a branded channel page on www.Livestream.com that incorporates interactive chat. Supporting Sponsors Blackbaud is the leading global provider of software and services designed specifically for nonprofit organizations, enabling them to improve operational efficiency, build strong relationships, and raise more money to support their missions. Since 1981, Blackbaud's sole focus and expertise has been partnering with nonprofits and providing them the solutions they need to make a difference in their local communities and worldwide. For more information, visit www.blackbaud.com.  Johnson & Johnson is committed to helping achieve the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in the areas of maternal and child health by applying innovative mobile technologies. The rapid proliferation of cell phones has made it possible to provide timely health information in even the most remote locations. In February 2010, Johnson & Johnson launched Text4Baby in the U.S. through its partnership with the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB). In September 2010, we announced a five year initiative with our affiliate, BabyCenter, focusing on mobile health outreach to mothers in six countries starting with China, India and South Africa. Ticketing Partner <At Eventbrite, we're passionate about bringing people together around a live experience. Whether it’s a photography class or a sold-out concert, an inspiring conference or an air-guitar competition — we’re true believers in the magic of events and the power of connecting people. Our service allows everyone to discover events and experience the excitement of bringing them to life. We do this by making it incredibly easy to create, find or attend an event. We help you manage the hard stuff — such as registrations and selling tickets — and we set you up with the tools to help your event spread virally through social networks. It’s event management, search, and promotion all coming together for the first time. We call it social commerce. Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Mashable, Twitter, social media More About: 92y, digital media lounge, mashable, mgd, new york city, social good, social good summit, un foundation, UN week For more Social Media coverage:
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| Why Social Media Is a Game-Changer for Causes Posted: 17 Sep 2010 11:19 AM PDT   Susan Smith Ellis is the CEO of (RED), a brand designed to engage business and consumer power to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. You can follow (RED) on Twitter: @joinred. We live in a world where the average person spends 13 hours online every week. Imagine if we used just a fraction of that time to take a stand on an issue that really mattered. Possibilities just like that will be addressed on Monday when Mashable, 92Y and the United Nations Foundation host the Social Good Summit. The Summit will let world leaders and those in the fields of digital, policy, and media, focus on addressing the world's challenges by way of technology and social networks. I'm fortunate enough to be speaking at the Summit as the CEO of (RED), the largest business sector contributor to the Global Fund, and the leading financier of global health programs around the world. At (RED), we rely heavily on social media every day to engage more people in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. This Summit comes at a turning point for global health. Next week, the world's attention turns to New York for United Nations Week; world leaders will convene to discuss the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and how we can get closer to meeting these vital targets around poverty and global health –- all by 2015. Then in October, the Global Fund seeks replenishment funding for its programs for 2011 through 2013 -– make or break years for the MDGs. It will take the collective power of governments, foundations, NGOs and the private sector to keep these global efforts alive. It will require all of us to be smart and innovative in addressing these challenges, looking to resources like social media to make these goals a reality. The Impact of Social Awareness Campaigns We know that social media connects us as never before. The ability to disseminate real time information and to have it spread at warp speed has brought the world closer together. (RED) uses social media to carry the message for us. This strategy has already helped us achieve real results in our mission to raise awareness and funds for HIV/AIDS in Africa. Take the last World AIDS Day, for example. For the first time Twitter changed the color of its tweets, and over half a million went red, with thousands of Facebook profiles following suit. In a single day, this kind of momentum allowed us to drive a global conversation that involved hundreds of thousands of people, provoking thought, dialogue and action — both online and off — around our cause. As the name of the Mashable Summit suggests, social media is emerging as a tremendous force for social good. Thanks to social media, (RED) has an audience of 2 million people who engage with us daily and help carry the (RED) message. We have turned the web (RED) through the support of innovative partners such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Mashable, and we raised $100,000 in just four and a half hours when Yahoo's Penalty Shootout Game turned (RED). The scope of the involvement and the capacity for our online actions to help change the world are without boundaries. Now more than ever, social media has the ability to transform possibilities into results. We can all choose to amplify our voices and our social media presences to effect social change. If you're in New York, you can start by attending the Social Good Summit on Monday. If not, you can still participate by checking out the live stream coverage from the event. And anyone, no matter where you are, can participate in Social Good Day on Thursday September 23. (RED) has teamed up with Mashable to declare Social Good Day — a call to everyone to get involved and attend or organize a meetup in your community to celebrate, share, engage, and discuss how to create solutions for the world's challenges by using social media for the common good. Check to see if there is already a meetup underway in your area, and if not, organize your own. I personally invite you to get together and ask yourselves: How can I use social media to help eliminate AIDS in Africa? Brought to you by the Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit This post was brought to you by the groundbreaking Social Good Summit. On September 20, as global leaders head to New York for United Nations Week — including a historic summit on global issues known as the "Millennium Development Goals" (MDGs) and the annual General Assembly — Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation will bring together leaders from the digital industry, policy and media worlds to focus on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world's most intractable problems. Date: Monday, September 20, 2010 More Social Good Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Facebook, Google, Mashable, Twitter More About: AIDS, awareness, change, charity, millennium development goals, philanthropy, Red, social good, social good summit, social media, United Nations For more Social Media coverage:
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| Posted: 17 Sep 2010 10:37 AM PDT   “Hello and welcome to Moviefone.” For most of us, those familiar words played a huge role in our movie discovery process during the ’90s and early ’00s. Today, the once-iconic movie-hotline-turned-web-and-mobile-service celebrates its 20th birthday. Parent company AOL is commemorating the day with a relaunch of the Moviefone.com site and new mobile applications that focus on Facebook integration, better movie recommendations, and improved access to show times and tickets. The relaunch of the website and the enhanced mobile applications may not be enough to reclaim the movie throne (Moviefone was once such a staple of pop culture that it became a hilarious plot device in a Seinfeld episode), but it’s a step in the right direction. Of course, AOL is not relying on the relaunch alone to attract moviegoer attention. As part of the 20th birthday celebration, Moviefone is also giving away 20,000 free film tickets in 20 days; one lucky winner will even get free tickets for life. What’s your favorite Moviefone memory? Will the relaunched website and enhanced mobile apps for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android be enough to draw you back to the brand? Share your thoughts in the comments. Reviews: Android, Facebook, iPhone More About: aol, Film, moviefone, Movies For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Vevo Ranks Number One Among Music Video Viewers [STATS] Posted: 17 Sep 2010 10:10 AM PDT   Music video-viewing site Vevo came out on top during the month of August, scoring the number-one spot among video viewers in the Music category, and the number-two spot in the Entertainment category, after YouTube. According to comScore’s monthly Video Metrix data for August 2010, 49 million unique U.S. viewers tuned into Vevo in August, 94% of whom stayed to watch videos. “That's really important to us,” says Vevo’s General Manager Fred Santarpia in a blog post. “You see, it's one thing to have people drop by, decide the party isn't happening and then bounce right out to the party across the street.” Since its launch back in December, Vevo’s number of viewers has grown by 65%, to 151 million unique viewers per month. Video views are up as well; the site boasts 1.4 billion views per month, with 9.5 billion video views worldwide since launch. As you can see from the chart below, that’s where Vevo is really shining — by attracting unique video viewers.  Interestingly enough, when talking about its competitors on its blog, Santarpia highlights Vevo’s prominence in the digital music sphere and goes right for the MTV comparison: “In fact, our audience is more than twice the size of our #2 competitor (you can peek at the chart below to see who) and watching nearly twice as many videos,” he says. The chart he refers to is below:  The rivalry between Vevo and MTV is really heating up of late. A mere month ago Universal Music Group and Vevo both pulled their music video content from MTV over licensing disputes. And just last week we reported that MTV recently became the most visited music site, according to comScore. MTV had more than 53 million unique visitors last month, while Vevo had 49 million (as we noted above). The difference, though, is the number of uniques who were actually viewing video. While Vevo had 46.2 video-viewers (the 94% we mentioned above), MTV only had 18.8 million video-viewers. So while more people may be visiting the website, they’re not all watching video. And that makes sense: MTV.com is a multi-purpose website; it’s not all about videos (a common complaint about the entity that is MTV itself). Vevo is basically focused solely on video content. Still, as MTV's Director of Communications, Kurt Patat, told us last week: “Almost half of VEVO's traffic comes their YouTube site as well as artist sites like LadyGaga.com. The MTV Music Group includes the MTV brands, as well as VH1 and CMT, and other rollup sites like WMG." Translation: Vevo gets some help in terms of views by way of other sites, while MTV doesn’t have that level of support. So while Vevo really is proving itself in the realm of online music — pulling in viewers and rocking out with its rather successful concert series — it’s safe to say that MTV isn’t rolling over and dying any time soon. Still, it may take a redefining of its goals in order to draw viewers away from Vevo when it comes to music. Reviews: YouTube, video More About: ComScore, mtv, music, stats, vevo, video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| “Catfish,” a.k.a. “The Other Facebook Movie,” Opens Today Posted: 17 Sep 2010 09:55 AM PDT
That’s one of the questions raised by the much-buzzed-about documentary Catfish, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is making its way into select theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Austin and San Francisco beginning today, September 17. The documentary, shot by New York City-based filmmakers Ariel Schuman and Henry Joost, follows the unfolding of a friendship between Ariel’s 24-year-old brother, Nev, and an 8-year-old girl from Michigan named Abby. Their first interaction takes place via Facebook message in late 2007, in which Abby asks for Nev’s permission to create a painting from a photograph he had shot for a newspaper. The message eventually lead to the exchange of further Facebook messages, e-mails, texts, phone calls and physical gifts with the rest of Abby’s family, as well as a long-distance romantic relationship with her 19-year-old sister Megan. Increasingly, however, details about the family’s life fail to add up, and so the three 20-somethings take a road trip to Michigan to uncover the truth. Although there’s been some debate about how much of the documentary is real, and how much may have been staged for the cameras, it’s a charming and, at times, poignant caveat about the nature of our online relationships. Have you ever formed a long-distance friendship or romantic relationship with someone online? Catfish TrailerReviews: Facebook More About: catfish, facebook, facebook movie, Film For more Entertainment coverage:
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| How To Get Involved with the 4th Annual Mashable Awards Posted: 17 Sep 2010 08:55 AM PDT   The Mashable Awards nominations will launch on September 27, so get ready to nominate the best! Last week, Mashable announced the fourth annual Mashable Awards (formerly known as Open Web Awards) and asked you to help shape the categories that will become the 25 final categories for nominations beginning September 27. We want you to get involved and ready to nominate! How to Get Involved
The website launch and nominations period will officially begin on September 27, but before we get started we want you, our readers, to have a say in the categories. Based on ideas and suggestions from our editorial team and previous comments from you over the years, we've come up with the following 18 categories. However, these categories are not set in stone and we want your opinions. Suggestions, praise, ideas, complaints and conversations are all welcome! The Current Categories1. Best New Gadget Suggested Categories under Consideration
Online Timeline:Nominations: September 27 to November 29 The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas)In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands, and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances. Date: Thursday, January 6, 2011 (during International CES Convention week) We look forward to your feedback. Stay tuned to Mashable for more details, the launch of the Mashable Awards platform and website and please feel free to ask any questions below. Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Mashable, Twitter, social media More About: gadgets, mashable, mashable awards, open web awards, social media, social media management, web video For more Social Media coverage:
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| How Social Good Has Revolutionized Philanthropy Posted: 17 Sep 2010 08:22 AM PDT   The term “Social Good” has been bandied about, but pinning down exactly what it means in concrete terms can sometimes be tricky. Is social good the same as “the common good”? Is it the same as normal fundraising? Is it just online giving, or is it particular to social networks and web trends? Social good is equal parts online fundraising and advocacy via social networks. While the Internet has been used before by non-profits and charities to raise money, social good implies more than just money changing hands. Social good campaigns often combine the ability of the Internet to find, introduce and bond communities around a common interest. That interest, in this case, is usually a problem worth fixing. Where social good starts to get fuzzy is just how that problem gets fixed. Social good campaigns can be about building safe, entirely free, online support communities, spreading awareness through updates, raising cash, or a combination of all three. There are concerns that social good is less effective at raising money than traditional fundraising — that smaller online donations and campaigns only cannibalize the already shrinking philanthropy market. Still, others see it as a new, rapidly growing field, ripe with opportunity. Ultimately, social good is defined as much by its process as the end result. It is, however, more than just fundraising by using social media. So what is it? While it’s impossible to suss out every nuance of the phrase, we spoke with four non-profits in the social good space to better grasp what social good does well. They collectively and separately saw it in terms of community building, public advocacy, wide-reaching awareness, and low-cost social impact. Community Time Social networks are all about building communities, and social good is no different. Livestrong has long been on the social good radar with their active Facebook communities and online forums. “It has really helped us with our fundraising and recruiting efforts for our events,” said Brooke McMillan, Livestrong’s online community manager. “But it’s not our first task. Our first task is to have people become part of our community” That community can lead to direct donations, but it’s through genuine interaction. Social networking enables non-profits to better know their donors and build long-term giving relationships. Sometimes the community is the end goal, as with Livestrong’s anti-stigma campaign. McMillan said their highest readership days are when people share personal stories. “We’ve actually seen that our international Facebook fans are sharing their stories and speaking about their personal stories online,” McMillan said. “It’s a great way to spread the message of talking about cancer in a forum that’s safer than in a country [where they] might not be able to do that.” While these discussions were initially a way to convert Facebook fans into donations, McMillan now sees those forums and social good as “the actions of the people in the community you’ve built… if the organization builds a place that the community comes to, the good will come out of it.” Charity and Advocacy Social good is especially useful for mobilizing a large group of like-minded people. While this has normally manifested itself in flash mobs or group-buying, there’s a lot of potential for increasing public advocacy to solve pressing problems. “Having 10 million people is more important than 10 million dollars,” said Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org. “For advocacy you need to mobilize people, and the web helps you mobilize people like never before.” Rather than see the community as the end goal, Rattray sees it as an important resource in the social good tool belt. “… People’s voices are more important than their pocketbooks.” That mobilization, however, is earned. The goal is to find and cultivate life-long donors that feel invested in your organization. Donations for things like charity runs and other short-term projects are often given because a friend has asked for money, Rattray said. With long-term social good campaigns, companies can aggregate all those small donors and treat them like a larger donor. This is especially important for smaller non-profits with limited resources for donor outreach. That earned trust can pave the way for advocacy and systematic changes. “The goal is not to make people happy about donating but to make change in the world and hopefully there’s a synergy between the two,” Rattray said. Social Awareness Philanthropy has always been a balance between raising money and raising awareness for a cause. For Mike McCamon, chief community officer for Water.org, social media is making both possible at the same time. Much of that comes from raising awareness through social media: “It’s always been my theory that someone’s got to have an itch for me to scratch before I can scratch it,” McCamon said. “The goal is to use social media in a very passive way to spread the viral news — here’s the problem and here’s a company that is solving it — and people will self-select.” Social good can bring attention to a cause and the companies trying to solve it without blindly canvassing for donations (or “the ask”). “I want to build a relationship with someone over the next couple of years,” McCamon said. That support can take the form of sharing social space online. Last year, Water.org launched an initiative with ONE campaign called oneWEEKforWATER where users could volunteer their Twitter accounts much like in-stream advertising. Instead of product ads, Water.org would broadcast information or promotions for its charities. 100,000 people came to the site with 15,000 signing up to volunteer. Much social networking is based on raising personal social capital, and campaigns like oneWEEKforWATER helped users by associating with a good cause. Water.org also benefited by reaching thousands of new fans through social friend networks. Receiving an update in a highly personal way, from a friend’s recommendation, can have more reach than traditional blind mailings. Given its success, Water.org plans to repeat the campaign later this year. While awareness is important, McCamon remained practical about the intent of social good: “The end purpose of all of this is to solve a problem and to do that we need to raise money. Everything we’re doing in these social media channels, at the end of the day, is to help them donate.” Saving Some Dough Perhaps one of the best things about social good is its comparative cost. Social good, unlike traditional fundraising often requires far less money and resources to launch a viable, successful campaign. It’s because of this that many smaller operations have taken to social media to promote and support their causes. That grassroots mentality drove Meaghan Edelstein to launch Spiritjump.org. Diagnosed with cancer, she initially started the site as a way to reach out to other patients. The site took off, despite starting on a budget of about $20. “You can reach a large group of people in a very short time, virtually for free,” Edelstein said. “And you can’t do that in traditional fundraising.” Basing a non-profit on small transactions helps in a number of ways. Where larger companies might throw large fundraising events, low budget outfits can provide some financial transparency: “Mailings are expensive. Galas are expensive. Contributors are on to that and they don’t appreciate that,” Edelstein said. “They want to know their money is actually making a difference and not going to throwing parties.” It also makes it easier to give. People don’t like writing a check for $5, but online, it’s much easier to just click a button and donate a dollar, Edelstein said. “You can reach out to people once a month, and yeah, it might be a dollar, but if you have a million fans and only half donate a dollar a month, that adds up.” Moreover, large corporations are starting to get into cause marketing online. Non-profits with an online strategy could be missing out on a huge source of revenue. As much as philanthropy often relies on money changing hands, Edelstein sees social good as “being conscious of what’s around you. It’s not necessarily writing a check.” Those other intangibles include community building and creating a real discourse around a problem. Social good also comes down to a feeling of participation. Donations are one-off payments — they are essential but finite. Social good, via social media, can help make those donors feel like they are part of the organization and part of the solution. It’s a win-win, where non-profits receive sustained donations and donors feel involved and engaged. If you don’t take those steps, said Edelstein, your audience won’t be there when you call for action. Traditional fundraising certainly isn’t going to go away (nor should it), but social good does present a new set of philanthropic tools that can benefit donations, advocacy, and online communities. When asked about whether social good will stay separate from fundraising, Edelstein responded: “At some point it’s all going to be the same thing. It has to be.” Brought to you by the Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit This post was brought to you by the groundbreaking Social Good Summit. On September 20, as global leaders head to New York for United Nations Week — including a historic summit on global issues known as the "Millennium Development Goals" (MDGs) and the annual General Assembly — Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation will bring together leaders from the digital industry, policy and media worlds to focus on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world's most intractable problems. Date: Monday, September 20, 2010 More Social Good Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Mashable, Twitter More About: awareness, change.org, charitable giving, charity, livestrong, oneweekforwater, online giving, philanthropy, social good, spiritjump, water.org For more Social Media coverage:
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| Is the iPad Devouring the Notebook Market? Posted: 17 Sep 2010 07:38 AM PDT   Fact: The growth of the notebook market has been slowing down ever since Apple’s iPad was launched. And although other factors are likely at play, iPad’s meteoric rise is probably the main reason why U.S. sales of netbooks began declining in August 2010 for the first time in more than a year. The numbers paint a clear picture: According to Fortune, year-over-year sales of notebooks rose steadily every month in the second half of 2009 and the first three months of 2010. In January 2010, U.S. retail notebook unit growth rose 29%, but in April 2010, when the iPad was launched, growth cut sharply to 11%. In July, it rose only 2%, and in August it fell by 4%.  Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty claimed that the iPad is at least partially responsible for the decelerating growth of the notebook market, saying that Apple’s tablet “had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs by as much as 50 percent.” This might just be the beginning, because throughout 2010, notebooks and later the iPad had virtually no competition. Now, consumer electronics giants such as Dell and Samsung have entered the tablet market, with HP and others to follow. If these upcoming tablets prove to be worthy competitors to Apple’s offering, the notebook market might experience an even bigger hit. More About: apple, ipad, netbook, notebook For more Business coverage:
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| HOW TO: Hire a Designer or Developer Posted: 17 Sep 2010 06:41 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. Hiring designers or developers can be one of the most difficult things for non-technical business people to do. In many cases, it may be necessary, of course, to hire someone to create your website, build custom systems, or design your sales collateral — all the more necessary if you aren’t a designer or developers yourself. But how can small business owners hire someone that’s right for the job if they don’t really understand what goes into that job in the first place? How can you do your due diligence even when you don’t completely grasp the type of thing you might be hiring someone to do? Here are four tips that will help you hire a designer or developer and make sure you’re getting what you paid for. 1. Seek Recommendations Any search for developers or designers should start with your peers. Ask your friends and colleagues for recommendations of people they have worked with in the past. Do you like the website of the hardware store down the street from your restaurant? Find out who made it and how much it cost. Did you overhear a business owner at the last Chamber of Commerce meetup mention their new, custom-made order database? Ask them who made it and if their experience with the developer was positive. Even if you’re hiring someone full-time, rather than a freelancer, you can still seek recommendations from your peers and from the job candidate’s peers. Niche communities like Working With Rails (a community for Ruby on Rails developers) and LinkedIn allow members to endorse one another. While other sites, such as Dribbble (a community for graphic designers), can give you a sense of how others in the industry view the person you’re considering hiring for a job. Also, don’t be hesitant to ask for recommendations from the designer or developer directly. “Don’t be afraid to ask for references from a developers’ or designers’ previous clients,” said freelance web developer Richard Session. “I was asked this recently by a new client and I think the information they received about me helped put me over the top in winning the contract.” 2. Ask Lots of QuestionsAsking questions is important for any hiring process, of course, but it’s especially important when you’re hiring for a position or project you don’t quite understand on a technical level. When hiring a freelance developer or designer, be sure to inquire about each candidate’s process. When will you receive deliverables? When will payments be due? How will rights be assigned? Knowing how a freelancer works beforehand and avoiding miscommunication will save time and headache in the long run. You also want to make sure you understand what tools the person you’re hiring uses and what formats your project will be delivered in. If your designer sends you AI files when your printer requires EPS, you’ll need to know up front if the designer you’ve chosen can deliver what you need in the specifications you require. There’s also a huge difference, for example, between a site built on a common backend like WordPress and a custom solution created by the developer, said Session. While the latter might offer more flexibility, the former will be easier for a future developer to work with and modify. Be specific in talking about what you want, and don’t be afraid to ask your job candidate to clarify or explain things you don’t understand. If he can’t explain to you what he’s talking about in a way that satisfies you, that might be an indication that you need to hire someone else. When hiring someone for a full-time position, web developer Daniel Tenner, the CTO and co-founder of Woobius, has a good list of the types of things you should look for. (Though Tenner’s article focuses on hiring developers, it applies generally to designers as well.) The chief characteristic you should look for in a new hire is passion. You want to hire someone that’s passionate about design or development, gets excited about new technologies or techniques, and does this stuff in his spare time. 3. Learn the Basics You’re hiring an expert for a reason, but it’s still important to learn the basics. Knowing the difference between PHP and Ruby (they’re both backend web programming languages), or knowing when to use CSS and when to use tables (the former is for front end code on websites and the latter is for displaying tabular data) will go a long way toward helping you hire the right person for the job. You might never be able to debate the merits of various JavaScript frameworks with your potential hires, and that’s okay. But you should be able to understand what they’re talking about when they tell you they plan to use JavaScript to animate transitions between images in a slideshow on your site — you should be able to decide if that’s something you even want. There are plenty of places around the Internet where you can learn a little bit about web development or graphic and web design. If you’re hiring a designer, for example, you might want to take a look at some beginner Photoshop tutorials. Armed with knowledge of the basics, you’ll be better equipped to interview a prospective hire (and your BS detectors will function at a higher and more accurate level). 4. Get Help from FriendsEven with a firm grasp of the basic concepts behind web design and development, it can be next to impossible for a non-technical small business owner to evaluate code or compare quotes from competing applicants. That’s why it can be extremely helpful to have a friend or colleague that can act as a mentor and help you pick out quality applicants. “Get a mentor/advisor in the applicable field if you’re at all unsure of what you’re looking for,” said Kyle Bragger, founder of web design and developer community site Forrst. According to Bragger, non-technical business owners can “benefit from having someone in your corner, so to speak, who’s able to help you through the ever-so-important process of finding tech and design [employees].” Of course, not everyone has access to someone who knows enough about web design or development to sufficiently evaluate a project quote or job application. If you don’t have a friend or colleague in your corner that’s able or willing to lend a hand, one way to meet such a person is to attend tech meetups in your local area. You may even find someone you’d like to hire for a job at such a gathering and skip the middleman altogether! If you’ve recently hired a designer or developer, add your hiring tips in the comments below. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, hidesy, and Flickr, winsordi Reviews: Flickr, Internet, LinkedIn, PHP, WordPress, iStockphoto More About: business, designers, development, job, jobs, small business, web design, web designers, Web Development For more Business coverage:
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| Top 4 Stories in Social Media and Mobile This Morning Posted: 17 Sep 2010 06:37 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. Facebook Places Launches in the UK One month after its U.S. debut, Facebook’s geolocation service, Facebook Places, has begun gradually rolling out to users in the UK. See our field guide to learn more about how to use Places from your mobile device. Notebook Sales Now Declining, Thanks to iPad Although growth of notebook sales has gradually slowed down over the last six months, a report issued by Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty late Thursday revealed that notebook sales actually began declining in August, followed by a similar drop in September. Huberty says that the iPad is at least partly responsible for the trend [via Fortune]. Samsung Tablet Coming to Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile Samsung announced Thursday that its forthcoming tablet device — and the only we’ve seen thus far that really has a competitive shot against the iPad, in our opinion — will be made available on all four major U.S. wireless carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile) in time for the holiday season. The seven-inch Samsung Tab will begin shipping within a few weeks. It will run Android 2.2 (a.k.a. Froyo) and sport a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 16GB of onboard memory, a rear-facing, 3-megapixel camera capable of HD video captures, a 1.3-megapixel on the front for video chat, a battery that lasts up to seven hours of continuous video playback, Flash support and more. It also weighs approximately half as much as the iPad. Samsung has not yet relayed any pricing details, which will vary by carrier. Verizon, Sprint Will Not Carry Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 at Launch When Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Phone 7 launches internationally later this year, it will be only made available on GSM networks. The company has decided to delay the CDMA version until the first half of 2011, instead directing its resources towards finishing the rewrite of the phone’s OS. As a result, neither Sprint nor Verizon will be carrying the device when it launches in the U.S. “We had to make some trade-offs,” Senior Product Manager Greg Sullivan told CNET. “Even Microsoft doesn’t have unlimited resources.” Further News
Disclosure: Samsung is a Mashable sponsor. 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: Android, Facebook, Foursquare, Mashable, Windows Phone 7 More About: att, facebook, Facebook Places, first to know series, ipad, Mobile 2.0, netbooks, notebook, samsung tab, samsung tablet, sprint, T-Mobile, verizon, windows phone 7 For more Mobile coverage:
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| Simplify the Mockup and Annotation Process with Draftboard Posted: 16 Sep 2010 08:59 PM PDT  This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Draftboard is a better way for designers to manage and collaborate on their mockups. Genius Idea: Created by two talented Canadian teenagers, Draftboard is a web app designed to make the mockup and annotation process easier for designers, their colleagues and their clients. Although there are tools out there that aim to make the mockup, annotation and feedback process easier to manage — ProofHQ and Notable are two that come to mind — many designers still end up e-mailing or IMing drafts or screenshots of designs to their clients, colleagues or long-suffering friends. (Yes, I’m talking to you, Dan Benjamin.) The problem with this method is that it’s hard to track how a design has progressed. My friend Dan might send me 15 or 16 separate screenshots on a given day asking for my feedback. It’s not always easy for me to look back at different revisions to see where the design is headed or how it has changed.  This is what Draftboard is designed to address. The web service is simple to use and well thought out. After you sign up for an account (1GB single project accounts are free, accounts with additional features and storage start at $12 per month), you can upload a GIF, JPG or PNG file as a draft. That draft can then be viewed, commented on and annotated. Subsequent revisions of that draft can then be uploaded, as well as other drafts for other parts of the project. If you need to upload a PSD, EPS or AI file, you can do that too. Those files will be available for download, but you can’t interact with them directly within the web app. In addition to leaving notes and annotations, and tracking changes, Draftboard also lets users add links to articles and other websites as “inspiration.” That’s a really great feature because oftentimes you might see some elements that you like or want to incorporate into a project, and this helps keep everything in one place. The one feature we wish Draftboard would add is support for PDF files. Especially for wireframes, PDFs can be commonly used, and the ability to interact or annotate a PDF would be great. Likewise, the ability to leave notes associated with a link for inspiration or a thumbnail would also be cool. As it stands, Draftboard is a lightweight, easy-to-use tool for web designers. We’re impressed with how the app works and that the brains behind it are so young. Designers, what tools do you use to better collaborate with colleagues or clients? Let us know. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
More About: annotations, draftboard, mockups, notable, proofhq, web design tools For more Dev & Design coverage:
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