Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Propeller Goes the Way of the Dodo” |  |
- Propeller Goes the Way of the Dodo
- iPod nano Becomes a Dancing Robot [VIDEO]
- Jack Dorsey on Downtime, Errors and Trust [VIDEO]
- Umovement: A Wikipedia for Social Good
- TK-421 iPhone Case Has a Flip-Out Keyboard
- Facebook Engineer Explains “Worst Outage in Over Four Years”
- The Fall of Blockbuster, the Rise of Netflix, Redbox and Online Video
- Obama Administration to Boost Transparency on Foreign Aid with New Site
- Facebook Now Worth More Than Dell, eBay, Yahoo or Starbucks… on Paper
- Access Your Business Documents from Your Android Device
- Regarding That Facebook Phone That Still Isn’t Being Developed
- Disney Makes Social Media the Centerpiece of Theme Park Ad Campaign
- Cheezburger Network Builds Online Empire Around Coffee Breaks and Cats
- Life After Microsoft: 15 Startups Founded By Ex-Employees
- iPhone App Uses Image Recognition to Help You Master Wine Selection
- 3 Small Cause Campaigns That Won Big With Social Media
- Earn Badges on Foursquare, No Checkins Required
- Facebook Down Again [UPDATED]
- Watch Cat Videos on YouTube with Distant Friends
- Social Media: The New Battleground for Politics
- Mashable Invites You to See “The Social Network” in San Francisco
- Verizon Invests in Location-Based Mobile Platform
- Kindle for Android: Now with Voice Search, Annotations and More
- Never Lose Anything Again: USB Drive Doubles as a Paperclip
- Happy Social Good Day From Mashable & (RED)
- 5 Beautiful Tumblr Themes for Small Businesses
- SCVNGR Releases Facebook Places Application for Businesses
- LIVE: Watch the UN Week Digital Media Lounge [VIDEO]
- Joaquin Phoenix Is Back on Letterman, and He’s a Lot Less Crazy [VIDEO]
- Top 3 Stories in Social Media and Business This Morning
| Propeller Goes the Way of the Dodo Posted: 24 Sep 2010 04:02 AM PDT      Remember Propeller? Back in the day when Digg was all the rage in the social media world, and Netscape.com – once a hugely popular online destination due to its connection to Netscape, the web browser – was having an identity crisis, it seemed like a good idea to turn Netscape.com into a Digg-like site, and that’s how Propeller was born. Initially, what later became Propeller was available on Netscape.com, but AOL decided to spin the Digg-like bit into a separate site and turn Netscape back into a more traditional portal. Alas, it was not to be. Digg-like sites – which once numbered in the thousands – were notoriously unsuccessful, with a few notable exceptions, such as Reddit. Propeller was not among those exceptions. Just like many other similar sites, it failed to gather a large following, despite serious efforts, which included hiring a team of social media experts to manage the various aspects of the community. Now, AOL has informed users via a message on the front page of the site that Propeller will be shut down on October 1st. Judging by the sad state of the site (most stories have one or two votes, meaning that pretty much everyone has abandoned the site), few will miss it. In hindsight, the problem with Digg clones is that they’re just like forums. Anyone can set up a forum, but if there’s no community to post there, it will be empty – it’s as simple as that. The demise of Propeller marks the final fall of the curtain for an era in which many thought that every implementation of a cool new way to communicate online will automatically be successful. Lesson learned: without a community, most communication tools are useless. [via Crenk] More About: aol, digg, Netscape, propeller For more Social Media coverage:
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| iPod nano Becomes a Dancing Robot [VIDEO] Posted: 24 Sep 2010 02:09 AM PDT   Love your new iPod nano? How would you like to see it dance around like a little robot? As you can see in the video below, with a little technical wizardry, it can be done. A hacker called PachimonDotCom has already turned both the iPhone and the iPad into dancing robots, and now he’s done it to iPod nano. Getting the nano to display an animation was done with a simple trick, since the nano is not iOS-based and doesn’t allow the installation of third party apps. It does, however, display animated GIFs, and that’s how the eye animation was created. Making the robot move was a bit trickier. As explained by PachimonDotCom, he used “the sound from headphone jack as PWM signal that controls the servo motors!” Pretty ingenious if you ask us. Also, check out the video of the dancing iPad and iPhone below. [via Kotaku] More About: apple, ipad, iphone, ipod, ipod nano, Robot, video For more Apple coverage:
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| Jack Dorsey on Downtime, Errors and Trust [VIDEO] Posted: 24 Sep 2010 01:26 AM PDT   At DEMO in Silicon Valley, Jack Dorsey took the stage to talk about Square, the incredibly hot mobile payments hardware that’s raising as much interest as money in the world of tech startups. Square’s origins go back to early 2009, when Dorsey and his partners began working on the product: a mobile phone-connected piece of hardware that would transmit credit card information and process payments via the phone’s audio jack. His company quickly raised a sizeable Series A that included $10 million from Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital and a few choice names from Silicon Valley’s elite engineers and entrepreneurs, such as Kevin Rose, Marissa Mayer, Dennis Crowley and Biz Stone. Square launched a pilot program in December 2009, and they’ve been slowly bringing more customers into the beta ever since. Square’s iPad app was released in April, and the company rolled out iPhone, iPod touch and Android apps just a month later. But the company’s growth has hardly been meteoric — something Dorsey explained in detail during his talk. “We’re going to make sure that Square is known for… its trustworthiness,” he told attendees at DEMO. “We’re not at the risk of losing 140 characters, we’re at risk of losing a sale.” The man makes a good point. We’ve become accustomed, sad as it is, to periodic downtime and outages for sites such as Twitter (where “fail whale” sightings still abound) and Facebook (which experienced its worst downtime incident in four years just today), but the world doesn’t turn on these social applications and our fervent desire to share our goings-on with others. We’d be far more accurate in stating that the world, to a large extent, revolves around commerce. And if you’re doing a startup that drives commerce for tens or hundreds of thousands of small businesses, you can’t afford outages, downtime, persistent bugs, glitches or any of the minor flaws we see so often in other web and mobile apps. Take a look at the video below, and in the comments, let us know what you think about Dorsey’s slow-growth approach to a financial startup. Reviews: Facebook, Twitter More About: commerce, jack dorsey, Square, startups, video For more Mobile coverage:
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| Umovement: A Wikipedia for Social Good Posted: 23 Sep 2010 10:42 PM PDT Everyone’s heard of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Red Cross or Oxfam, but fewer people are aware that the long tail of NGOs adds up to 1.5 million entities in the United State alone According to Kamran Elahian, co-chair of of UNGAID and co-founder of Global Catalyst Partners, smaller organizations across the world are doing amazing work but lack a global voice. But Elahian plans to give smaller NGOs that voice through Umovement, part of his plan to “democratize the world of philanthropy.” “It’s a grassroots movement to allow any non-profit organization, any NGO, any individual which has any project in any part of the world that help [the] UN MDGs to achieve their goals, to be introduced on this site and to use web 2.0, web 3.0 technlogies to get promoted.” Elahian, while onstage at Mashable and 92Y’s UN Week Digital Media Lounge Thursday, estimated that there are 20 million NGOs worldwide that could benefit from a centralized, Wikipedia-like website that could serve as a hub of information as well as ease the donation process. The site is organized under goals such as ending poverty or reducing child mortality and is completely free for any organization to use. Each NGO is given a uniform landing page designed to give brief overviews of their projects and links to donate or volunteer. Further, Elahian is banking on the power of crowdsourcing, much like Wikipedia, to breed success. Organizations or their individual projects can be rated or commented on by any user. Rather than police the success of individual projects, Elahian believes that their base of users will help monitor and promote the most successful or important causes. The site also hopes to make social media more accessible to smaller organizations by providing a “Uki,” a banner to promote specific projects that can be embedded nearly anywhere, and other tools to maximize social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Also, the site operates in 50 different languages using an automatic translator. While the resulting translations might not be “the work of Shakespeare,” according to Elahian, it will go far to expanding the scope of the site. Watch the above interview for a deeper look at how Umovement plans to reinvigorate the NGO space and level the playing field for charities across the world, and let us know what you think of this project in the comments. More About: kamran elahian, mdg, mdg goals, ngo, non-profit, umovement, UN week, un week digital media lounge, United Nations For more Social Good coverage:
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| TK-421 iPhone Case Has a Flip-Out Keyboard Posted: 23 Sep 2010 08:31 PM PDT   If you're an iPhone user who has looked on in envy at the physical keyboard attached to your friend's BlackBerry or Motorola Droid, then you're in luck. ThinkGeek, purveyors of stuff for smart masses, announced today an iPhone case with a compact flip-out keyboard. The TK-421 is even smaller than the Jorno keyboard that we saw last week and is available in sizes compatible with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. The keyboard connects to your iPhone via the Bluetooth keyboard support built into the latest versions of iOS, making it incompatible with the iPhone 3G. The keyboard features a magnet clasp to keep it in place and is powered by a rechargeable battery that charges via a separate USB cable. It will be available this holiday season for $50. More About: bluetooth, iphone, keyboards, mobile devices, thinkgeek For more Tech coverage:
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| Facebook Engineer Explains “Worst Outage in Over Four Years” Posted: 23 Sep 2010 06:36 PM PDT   Facebook Software Engineering Director Robert Johnson was kind enough to explain to a curious public exactly why Facebook went down earlier today, calling the mishap “the worst outage we've had in over four years.” In a brief blog post, Johnson discussed today’s downtime, which began around 11:30 a.m. PST. The site wasn’t functioning again for most users until around 3 p.m. PST. Today’s outage was unrelated to another period of downtime yesterday, when issues with a third-party networking provider caused problems for some users trying to connect to Facebook. Johnson said the downtime today was caused by “an unfortunate handling of an error condition” involving an automated system designed to verify configuration values in the cache and replace invalid values with updated values from the persistent store.
The automated system for correcting configuration values has been turned off for now, and Facebook is reportedly exploring more, ahem, “graceful” methods of handling this in the future. Johnson also notes that getting the feedback loop to stop was “quite painful,” saying that the entire site had to be turned off to stop traffic to a particular database cluster. We don’t envy Facebook the at-scale disaster the site has just survived; 500 million users and a feedback loop adds up to some nasty business however you slice it. And Facebook’s downtime problems aren’t nearly as persistent and severe as those of other social media staples out there. If you have any opinions on the subject — or horror stories of your own to share — please leave us a comment and let us know about them. Reviews: Facebook More About: developers, downtime, engineering, facebook, trending For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| The Fall of Blockbuster, the Rise of Netflix, Redbox and Online Video Posted: 23 Sep 2010 05:03 PM PDT   You may have heard by now that Blockbuster has filed for bankruptcy. While the company will continue to operate and intends to be back in business once it has completed Chapter 11 proceedings, it will likely shed at least 1,000 of its 3,000 U.S. stores along with countless customers in the process. According to Blockbuster’s pre-arranged plan, the company will cut its $1 billion debt down to $100 million or so. The proceedings include a $125 million deal that will keep Blockbuster’s stores afloat for now. Most of the company’s debt is to major movie studios — the company owes Fox $21.6 million; Warner Brothers, $20 million; Sony Pictures, $13.3 million; and the list continues. As expected, Blockbuster tried to soften the blow as much as possible by calling the process a “pre-arranged recapitalization.’ As Mashable’s Jolie O’Dell quipped earlier today, it’s like calling an eviction a “pre-arranged relocation” when you haven’t been paying the rent. Absolutely nobody should be surprised. The once-mighty king of video has been on the decline for years, as a lovely graph from The Consumerist points out. On the other hand, the fortunes of Netflix, Redbox, Hulu and others have been on the rise. It’s the same thing that’s been happening to the newspaper and publishing industries; new and more efficient business models have emerged that have made their models increasingly obsolete. Netflix’s rental-by-mail model and Redbox’s $1 DVD kiosks have clearly won, but so have the online video distribution models that Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and others have pioneered. In a word, Blockbuster is the past; Netflix, Redbox and online video are the future. No amount of pre-arranged recapitalization will fix a fundamentally broken business model. Image courtesy of Flickr, RocketRaccoon Reviews: Flickr, Hulu, YouTube More About: bankruptcy, blockbuster, hulu, netflix, ONLINE VIDEO, redbox, youtube For more Business coverage:
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| Obama Administration to Boost Transparency on Foreign Aid with New Site Posted: 23 Sep 2010 04:15 PM PDT The United States government is planning to launch a website that highlights much of its assistance to foreign countries. Though a particular launch date for the site has yet to be announced, Raj Shah — administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — said this is part of the Obama administration’s plan to use social media and technology to establish a more transparent government. Shah talked about the future site and the administration’s use of new media during an onstage discussion with UN Foundation President and former Senator Timothy Wirth at Mashable and 92Y's UN Week Digital Media Lounge Thursday morning. Shah said he hopes the site can be built into a platform that will allow people to see what programs are being used to provide assistance, as well as eventual outcomes and results. He feels that making such information easily available could inspire people to help those struggling with poverty, hunger, illness and other obstacles. “If they can see a $10 investment saves a child because they can sleep under a bed net, as the UN Foundation has made possible, or if they can see that for $15 or $20, we can save a year of life through basic immunization… I’m convinced people will want to do more,” Shah said, adding that this could help thousands or millions of people around the world. Shah isn’t the only official that has been discussing the potentially significant role social media, and other forms of digital technology, can play in helping individual countries — and the United Nations itself — achieve particular development goals. President Obama also touted the importance of promoting communication tools, as well as “a free and open Internet, so individuals have the information to make up their own minds,” during his address to the UN General Assembly this morning. The use of such online media has played a large role in the Obama administration going back to the 2008 presidential campaign and continuing with efforts like the White House’s current YouTube channel. Shah said transparency will continue to remain part of the administration’s focus, and that it’s still learning how to use various new media technologies out there to achieve its goals. For more information about USAID and the UN Foundation’s current projects, watch the video above. Reviews: Internet, Mashable More About: social good, social media, USAID, video For more Social Good coverage:
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| Facebook Now Worth More Than Dell, eBay, Yahoo or Starbucks… on Paper Posted: 23 Sep 2010 04:03 PM PDT   Did you know that Facebook is worth more than Research in Motion, Starbucks, Dell, Yahoo, Adobe, Intuit or eBay? That’s according to a wide variety of investments and valuations that have shot Facebook’s stock into the stratosphere. Although Facebook is a private company, investors have been buying and selling shares of the Silicon Valley darling in private transactions and through services such as SecondMarket and SharesPost for some time now. Facebook’s actual value depends on who you ask, though. Forbes thinks it’s worth $23 billion. SharesPost pins its value at $26.3 billion. And finally, The Financial Times says it’s a $33 billion company. These valuations are based on real-world trades and transactions. Still, you can’t help but be bewildered by Facebook’s soaring worth. In February 2009, Facebook valued itself at $3.7 billion. By November 2009, it tripled to $9.5 billion. And since then, it’s more than tripled again in value, if you rely on these private transactions for Facebook’s valuation. Facebook’s Value in Perspective Let’s reflect on Facebook’s $33 billion valuation relative to publicly traded companies. If Facebook is worth $33 billion (just play along), then what companies does it trump in value? We wondered that too, so we referred to the NASDAQ to find out. While Facebook still has a ways to go before it surpasses Google, Microsoft or Apple, it does beat or even dwarf some of the world’s most iconic companies. Oh, and we’re talking about companies with tens of thousands of employees (for comparison, Facebook has roughly around 1,500). Here’s a short list of the companies that are worth less than Facebook, as well as their current market capitalizations:
Heck — Yahoo and Adobe could announce a merger and its value would barely equal the value of Facebook. If you divided Facebook’s worth between its 1,500 employees, you’d end up with $22 million per employee. Note that eBay has 15,000 employees and Starbucks has more than 120,000. Breaking Down the Numbers
Facebook is still a private company that hasn’t completely figured out the profit equation. While it should surpass $1 billion in revenue this year, its infrastructure costs are also high. eBay, while not as sexy, brought in $2.215 billion in revenue during just the second quarter of this year. Facebook is benefiting greatly from both hype and high expectations for its future ability to generate revenue and dominate markets. There are legitimate reasons for the optimism and high valuation, though: it has more than 500 million users, rapid growth and Silicon Valley’s best and brightest talent. It would be silly not to applaud Facebook for everything it has done, and all signs point to its value continuing to go north, not south. Here’s our word of caution, though: Facebook’s ultimate worth won’t be established until the day it has its IPO. There’s a lot that could happen between now and then. Until that time, don’t forget to put Facebook’s rapidly growing valuation in perspective. Image courtesy of Infosthetics Reviews: Facebook, Google More About: facebook, Facebook Valuation, mark zuckerberg For more Business coverage:
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| Access Your Business Documents from Your Android Device Posted: 23 Sep 2010 03:35 PM PDT   Cloud storage and collaboration platform Box.net has just released its Box for Android app to the Android Market. Like the Box for iPhone and Box for iPad, Box for Android lets users access, share and manage business content on-the-go all from their Android device. The app is pretty similar to its iPhone and iPad cousina, allowing users to browse files and folders, preview documents, media and web documents and share links to a file or folder via e-mail. However Box for Android includes the ability to search for files and sort your results directly from the app — a feature the iOS version doesn’t currently support. Additionally, because Android has a more visible file system, it’s a bit easier to upload files and folders that are already on your Android device directly to Box.net. You can do this in iOS, but it sometimes requires the use of external programs like GoodReader.  Android is taking off in a big way with consumers and that trend is extending to business users too. Despite all this growth, the number of apps for business users in the Android Market is limited when you compare those offerings to iOS or even BlackBerry. More vendors are working on getting Android versions of their apps into the marketplace, but Box is one of the first non-Google cloud companies that we’ve seen take on this growing sector of the market. When I spoke to Box.net’s co-founder and CEO, Aaron Levie, he noted that mobile is an important part of Box’s overall vision for cloud collaboration. As smartphone usage continues to grow, having access to your files and documents wherever you are becomes more and more important. This is where Levie sees Box’s real advantage over more traditional content management and collaboration platforms. Because Box.net takes place on the cloud, gaining access from mobile devices doesn’t require the headache that dealing with internal firewalls and on-site networks.  Mobile access is actually one of the best arguments for using cloud content and collaboration systems. That’s why the big cloud companies like Box.net, Salesforce.com and Google are investing so heavily in mobile. For Box, coming to Android doesn’t stop with just the mobile app. Just like Box has OpenBox Mobile APIs available to iOS developers to integrate with their own programs, Android developers will be able to connect their apps to Box for Android. That means that photo applications or sound recording apps can build in the ability to save directly to a Box folder or access content from those folders, in addition to offering to save or access content from an SD card. We hope that Box for Android is the beginning of a new trend to bring more business-focused apps to the platform. Do you use your Android device for business? What apps do you use to access files and documents? Let us know. Reviews: Android, Android Market, Google More About: android, Android apps, box.net, business-apps, cloud computing, mobile business For more Mobile coverage:
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| Regarding That Facebook Phone That Still Isn’t Being Developed Posted: 23 Sep 2010 03:32 PM PDT   It’s been four days since Facebook denied rumors that a Facebook phone was in development. We still believe that the social networking giant doesn’t currently have a branded mobile device in the works, but it’s worth re-examining the situation. TechCrunch yesterday conducted a thorough interview with Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding the rumor. A crucial part of the discussion occurs when Zuckerberg says:
The statement is a concise overview of Facebook’s current approach to mobile, especially as it pertains to hardware. It outlines Facebook’s strategy to develop applications for prominent mobile platforms and, when it makes sense, work toward deeper mobile integrations for enhanced social experiences. The story should have ended there — but, of course, it didn’t. Bloomberg decided to get involved, writing, “Facebook Inc. is working with mobile-handset manufacturer INQ Mobile Ltd. on two smartphones that may be carried by AT&T Inc., according to three people familiar with the matter.” Bloomberg’s report was enough to make TechCrunch question its own interview with Zuckerberg. The chain reaction has sent everyone back to speculating about the Facebook phone. The thing is, Facebook has been working with INQ for a couple of years now — it’s well-known that the companies share a common investor in Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing. When INQ Mobile released the INQ1 back in December of 2008, the level at which Facebook was integrated led many at the time to describe it as “the Facebook Phone.” Zuckerberg was even quoted in a statement from INQ saying, “We are really happy to be working with INQ to bring its customers a deeply-integrated Facebook experience on the new INQ1 handset.” In the two years since the INQ1 was released, Facebook has made a major play for mobile audiences. According to Facebook’s stats, Facebook Mobile currently has more than 150 million mobile users accessing the site with at least 200 mobile providers working to deploy and promote Facebook Mobile products. This isn’t a surprise; by all accounts, mobile is the next big digital frontier. Facebook may very well release a phone some day, but that day isn’t today and now isn’t the time. What we have here is some exaggerated excitement over a relationship that has been around for years. So is Facebook still working with INQ? Yes, most definitely. But Facebook and INQ continuing to work with one another doesn’t mean that they’re preparing to release a Facebook Phone anytime soon. More About: facebook, Facebook Phone, INQ, mark zuckerberg, TechCrunch For more Mobile coverage:
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| Disney Makes Social Media the Centerpiece of Theme Park Ad Campaign Posted: 23 Sep 2010 03:28 PM PDT   Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is using user-generated content at the centerpiece of its new “Let the Memories Begin” campaign. By re-purposing user-submitted photos and videos from entertainment and resort venues, Disney is hoping to craft a campaign that helps recapture the good memories individuals have of going to Disney World or Disneyland. Television ads will start airing this week. For future advertisements and promotions, Disney is asking users to submit their own memories online using YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and DisneyParks.com/Memories. Check out this TV spot below to get a sense of what Disney is doing. As with all aspects of the campaign, the footage is from real families. Beyond the advertising campaign, Disney will begin to incorporate family memories into its theme parks with its “Let the Memories Begin” nighttime experiences starting January 2011. At Disney World in Orlando, guest photos will be projected against the spires of Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom. At Disneyland, the backdrop will be the “It’s a Small World” facade. Producers are estimating that as many as 500 photos will be used at each location each day. From a marketing perspective, using user-generated content is absolutely brilliant. What better way to get people to visit the parks and resorts than to remind them of the magic of the experience? Not only does it make the end products more compelling and heartwarming, but it’s a great way to get individuals to reflect upon their own Disney-flavored memories. What do you think of the campaign, and Disney’s decision to employ user-generated content to trigger memories of past park experiences? Disney CommercialImage courtesy of Don Sullivan Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube More About: disney, disney world, MARKETING, theme parks, user-generated content For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Cheezburger Network Builds Online Empire Around Coffee Breaks and Cats Posted: 23 Sep 2010 02:58 PM PDT    This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Every Thursday, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.The Cheezburger Network exists to make every person happy for five minutes a day. With 15 million individuals visiting a Cheezburger property at least once per month, it’s likely that one of their 50 sites — whether it be the popular Lolcats, FAIL Blog, Failbook or The Daily What — has carved out a special place in your daily online routine. For us humor consumers, we visit for the LOLs. CTO Scott Porad describes our behavior as the “coffee break pattern,” where we escape the mundane for a few minutes, and our Cheezburger reprieve helps us get through the rest of the day. According to Porad, that’s the most commonly reported use case, and the primary reason why the 3-year-old startup has been able to remain profitable for every quarter since its 2007 launch. What follows is the history behind the successful user-driven blog network, and a detailed look at how the company plans to continue to evolve and grow. Say Cheez I can has cheezburger debuted as a standalone site a little more than three years ago, when Ben Huh swooped in and took the site over from its original owner. Huh had the wherewithal to apply the site’s magic — user-driver humor — to a plethora of a different subjects. Shortly thereafter, a network was born. Today, the network receives 15,000 user content submissions in the form of funny or compromising photos and videos per day, and publishes roughly 2% of those submissions to one of their network sites. Cheezburger’s network effect is felt the world-round; together all 50 sites generate more than 350 million page views per month. Page views, and advertising by association, are just one part of the Seattle startup’s success. The company has managed to build a strong brand name that extends beyond the blogs to the company’s LOLmart store, shirt of the day program and print products of the book and greeting card variety. More Cheez Please Still, advertising is a big money maker for the company. If you’re wondering how (or if) the startup can attract premium advertisers with the type of content they publish, you’re not alone. We posed that question to Porad during our interview, and he says the answer is “more quality content.” Now, don’t laugh. That’s not a joke. Content is serious business for the Cheezburger Network — it is the business. And MQC (the internal acronym for more quality content) is a three-letter saying that makes the rounds at the company’s Seattle headquarters on a daily basis. Producing MQC has been the biggest driver of growth for the company and will continue to play a significant role in its growth strategies moving forward. “Eighty percent of our focus is on producing great content,” explains Porad. To ensure MQC, Cheezburger is decelerating its new site release cycle — which once involved releasing two new sites per week. “Users would prefer to visit a few bigger sites over visiting lots of little sites,” says Porad. Believing in the MQC mantra and delivering content that advertisers actually deem worthy of the quality label are two entirely different things. Porad did admit to the fact that the startup goes through ad networks to sell most of its onsite advertising, and that they have needed to take extra time to educate the ad networks on why it’s safe and advantageous for them to match advertisers against their content. One selling point Porad mentioned was that each piece of LOL or Fail content posted to the site goes through three or four different editors prior to publication. As unbelievable as high quality low-brow content may seem, advertisers are taking notice. Cheezburger Network has even recently started to expand its advertising initiatives and go after advertisers directly with its small in-house sales force. The team is selling premium ad buys to the likes of TBS, who recently worked with the network on a special promotion around the Neighbors from Hell television series. Together, the companies tied the show to the Why Do I Live Here Cheezburger site, a marriage made in content marketing heaven. Content is clearly king at the Cheezburger factory, but content can take the shape of products too. In fact, Porad stressed that they’re focusing a lot of their energy on LOLmart, which is is undergoing a big redesign in time for the holiday season. Plus, on the print side, the startup will soon release yet another book (previous titles have skyrocketed to become New York Times bestsellers) titled Teh Itteh Bitteh Book of Kittehs, a LOLcat Guide 2 Kittens. If anything, the Cheezburger Network’s success in both online and offline markets proves that the business of making people laugh is no laughing matter. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Images courtesy of Cheezburger Network More About: bizspark, I Can Has Cheezeburger, lolcats For more Social Media coverage:
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| Life After Microsoft: 15 Startups Founded By Ex-Employees Posted: 23 Sep 2010 02:14 PM PDT   Not only did Microsoft practically invent the industry-standard interview technique, but it’s grown by about 88,593 employees since the company started in 1975. The software giant knows how to pick tech candidates with potential by now. And it turns out that much of what makes a good tech employee is also what makes a good tech entrepreneur. Inevitably, some Microsofties decided they’d rather try to be Bill Gates than work for him. In 35 years, ex-employees have created a bevy of impressive new companies. We’ve rounded up 15 of the most interesting ones below. 1. Cupidtino Yes, Cupidtino, the dating site for Apple fans, was co-founded by ex-Microsoft program manager Mel Sampat (oh, burn). According to the site, "Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common — personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, taste, and a love for technology." 2. PicnikPicnik is an easy photo editing website that was recently acquired by Google. The co-founders, Darrin Massena and Mike Harrington, both worked as development managers at Microsoft, where they "took turns managing each other." CEO Jonathan Sposato also worked at Microsoft as a senior manager in the consumer division. Before joining Picnik, he started a desktop application app company called Phatbits, which was also purchased by Google. 3. DocVerseDocVerse is a company that was created by ex-Microsoft employees to share documents created on Microsoft software. But it was recently purchased, as so many startups are these days, by Google. The service allows real-time sharing and editing of Microsoft Office documents. The plan after the acquisition was to "combine DocVerse with Google Apps to create a bridge between Microsoft Office and Google Apps." 4. Cranium Whit Alexander and Richard Tait, the founders of the popular board game Cranium, met at Microsoft. In an unusual move for ex-Microsoft employees, they took their startup business offline. The idea was to develop a board game that offered so many activities that everybody would be good at some portion of it. Their success allowed them to put a hefty $77.5 million price tag on the company when they sold it to Hasbro Inc. in 2008. 5. Stack Overflow Joel Spolsky, a former member of Microsoft's Excel team, is the co-creator of this popular Q&A site for programmers. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Fog Creek Software, the author a blog that has been translated into more than 30 languages, and has written four books on software development. Technically that’s at least two more startups for the ex-Microsoft team, but we figured he could only be on the list once. 4. Glassdoor Glassdoor is a database of anonymously posted information about salaries, interviews, and jobs. You can search by region, position, or even by a specific company (there are, for instance, currently 441 Microsoft interview posts, with questions, on the site). Since the only way to get full access to salaries and reviews is to post one of your own, the content is constantly growing. Robert Hohman, the co-founder and CEO, started his career at Microsoft. Rich Barton, the other co-founder, is also an ex-Microsoft employee. But he co-founded Zillow.com which we’ll cover later in this post. 7. RealNetworks In 1995, RealNetworks created the Internet's first audio streaming program, RealAudio. RealAudio led to RealVideo, which is today known as RealPlayer. Founder Rob Glaser worked at Microsoft for about 10 years prior to starting RealNetworks. 8. SymformPraerit Garg and Bassam Tabbara are another co-founder pair that left Microsoft together. Their company, Symform, provides online storage for small businesses at a low cost by allowing them to trade inexpensive local storage for cloud storage. Data is divided into fragments, encrypted and sent to random nodes in the system. It's more affordable than traditional online storage companies because there is no data center infrastructure. 9. Hawthorne LabsCo-founder Shubham Mittal worked for both Microsoft and Google before starting Hawthorne Labs, which earned his company coveted spots on both ex-employee startup lists. Hawthorne Labs’ first product, Apollo, is a newspaper for the iPad that learns what articles and sources you enjoy and helps you discover new content based on your personal preferences and viewing history. 10. Zillow.com Zillow.com provides a “zillion” data points about real estate, the market for the place you rest your head at night (zillion + pillow = zillow). Users can look up information on 93 million homes as well as search homes for sale, homes for rent, recently sold homes, and mortgage solutions. Co-founder Rich Barton founded Expedia.com within Microsoft in 1994. The other co-founder, Lloyd Frink, also worked at Expedia before it spun off of Microsoft. 11. Valve Valve is the creator of Steam, the world's largest online gaming platform. The company also creates its own games. The first one, Half-Life, has been named the “Best PC Game Ever” by PC Gamer on three separate occasions, and has won more than 50 “game of the year” titles. Founder Gabe Newell spent 13 years at Microsoft before founding Valve in 1996. According to his profile on the Valve site, his greatest contribution to Half-Life was his statement, “Cmon, people, you can’t show the player a really big bomb and not let them blow it up.” 12. Corbis Bill Gates isn’t exactly an ex-employee of Microsoft, but he’s not really an “employee” now either. Therefore Corbis, the image resource site he founded more than 20 years ago, qualified for this list. While Corbis will likely never live up to its older sibling, having offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia and customers in more than 50 countries worldwide is nothing to scoff at. 13. iLike Co-founder Ali Partovi joined Microsoft by way of acquisition when he sold LinkExchange for $265 million in 1998. He founded iLike, a social music discovery site, with his twin brother Hadi, who had also been on the founding team of the company Tellme Networks (also acquired by Microsoft). Nat Brown, a third co-founder, worked for Microsoft but never sold anything to them. iLike was acquired by MySpace in 2009. 14. SwipelySwipely, which launched publically just last month, aims to be "an online service that turns purchases into conversations." In other words, it automatically shares your credit card purchases across your social networks. Founder Angus Davis was acquired by Microsoft along with his first startup, Tellme Networks, in 2007. He left to start Swipely in 2009. 15. Kashless, Inc. Companies often give discounts to big groups. With Kashless’s Tiprr, you can get the group discount without necessarily knowing the members of your group. Like Groupon, users receive a daily e-mail with local deals. Unlike Groupon, the deal gets better as more people opt in. The company also runs Kashless, the website, which facilitates recycling by hosting posts for free stuff. The ex-Microsoft founder of the company, Martin Tobias, previously founded a digital media services company called Loudeye Technologies. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Smitt Reviews: Australia, Google, Ilike, Internet, RealPlayer, Stack Overflow, Steam, blog, iStockphoto, picnik More About: bill gates, Corbis, Cranium, Cupidtino, docverse, Fog Creek Software, Glassdoor.com, ilike, Joel Spolsky, Kashless, List, Lists, microsfot, picnik, Real Player, realnetworks, Richard Tait, stack overflow, startup, startups, swipely, Tippr, valve, zillow For more Business coverage:
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| iPhone App Uses Image Recognition to Help You Master Wine Selection Posted: 23 Sep 2010 01:54 PM PDT   Snooth, one of the largest wine ratings and reviews sites on the web, recently launched a $4.99 iPhone app to satisfy the neediest of wine enthusiasts. Snooth Wine Pro [iTunes link] incorporates image-based wine searching, which allows users to scan wine labels to learn more about or purchase a particular wine of interest. In fact, there’s a whole slew of options once you’ve scanned a wine label, including the ability to:
The image recognition technology is powered by TinEye, a reverse-image search engine, and uses specialized digital image fingerprinting to find image matches. Snooth’s Engagement Manager Jesse Chemtob explained, “Since most wine labels are on a curved surface, it can also find images that are slightly rotated, warped, cropped, blurred, have skewed colors, or those that are taken in poorly lit areas.”  Snooth catalogs 2.2 million reviews and 1.2 million wines on the site, making it the world’s largest wine database. Of those wines, 820,000 are searchable via the image recognition technology. If you’re not quite ready to make a whopping $4.99 purchase for an iPhone app, check out the free, ad-supported version [iTunes link] also launched last week in the iTunes Store. Chemtob noted that it was “totally rebuilt from the ground up” and includes all of the features of its premium version, except the oh-so-cool image-based wine search functionality. You can still use the location-based store search (with maps and directions), purchase wine, view your wines and reviews offline, and browse by color, price, region, and varietal. That’s still a win for most wine lovers. Android and BlackBerry fans, jealous yet? I thought so. Chemtob said that Snooth is happy to launch apps on other mobile operating systems if the numbers are right: “Pending adoption, engagement, and user support we'd love to roll out to other devices and platforms in the near future.” For all of you would-be purchasers who are still wary of the price tag, check out Snooth’s current contest. The company is giving away one brand new iPhone 4 loaded with Snooth Wine Pro and six promo codes to download the Snooth Wine Pro app for free. Enter by September 30 via Twitter or by signing up for Snooth and referring your friends. Let us know what wine apps you’re using to find, review and purchase wine in the comments below. Reviews: Android, BlackBerry Rocks!, Snooth, Twitter More About: iphone, iphone app, iphone application, iphone applications, iphone apps, mobile application, mobile applications, mobile apps, snooth, Snooth Wine Pro, wine For more Mobile coverage:
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| 3 Small Cause Campaigns That Won Big With Social Media Posted: 23 Sep 2010 01:03 PM PDT   Frank Barry, professional services manager at Blackbaud and blogger at NetWits ThinkTank, helps non-profits use the Internet for digital communication, social media, and fundraising so they can focus on making an impact and achieving their missions. Find Frank on Twitter @franswaa. Non-profit organizations are leading the way when it comes to creatively harnessing the power of social media. A report by The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth shows that the largest U.S. non-profit organizations continue to outpace Inc. 500 businesses and higher education institutions in their familiarity, use and monitoring of social media. In fact, 93% of the top U.S. charities have a Facebook page, 87% have a Twitter profile, and 65% have a blog. Why does this matter? Because the rapid growth and adoption of social media is helping non-profits in their quest for change — they truly are using social media for social good. But what about the little guys? The social web can give smaller players a big voice if they know how to leverage it. Here are three inspiring success stories of small non-profits who met or exceeded their goals with the help of social media. 1. Create a Video, Start a MovementDarius Weems and the Darius Goes West project will inspire you. Suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), Darius and 11 of his best friends decided to head out on a cross country road trip from Atlanta to Los Angeles, where Darius hoped to have his wheelchair spiffed up by MTV's Pimp my Ride. Though his wheelchair did not get pimped by MTV on that trip, there was a far better outcome that even Darius couldn't have imagined. The 25-day trip resulted in memories, experiences and 300 hours of video which were turned into a documentary that has impacted thousands of people around the world. That very same documentary has now raised over $2 million for DMD research. According to the Darius Goes West team, "We had offers from distributors, but, in the end, we decided to self-distribute our film. By opting to self-distribute, we bear the responsibility for marketing, but we also have the power to devote $8 of every DVD sale to promising DMD research." It's apparent that social media has played and continues to play a significant roll in helping to raise both awareness and money for DMD research through Darius and his friends. Here's a snap shot of their social media footprint: They’ve accrued close to 700,000 views on YouTube, collected more than 14,000 Facebook fans, obtained roughly 2,000 Twitter followers, and raised almost $45,000 through Facebook Causes and FirstGiving. 2. Empower Your Supporters to be Free Agent Fundraisers Well known cycling blogger Elden Nelson did something incredible a few months ago — he raise more than $135,000 in less than 10 days for LIVESTRONG and World Bicycle Relief using his blog, Twitter and Friends Asking Friends. It all started when Nelson sent Lance Armstrong's racing team manager, Johan Bruyneel, an open cover letter as if he were applying for a job. Nelson, who dreamed of becoming a pro cyclist, reached out to Bruyneel, with low expectations on its return. But through the power of social media, Bruyneel did see it, and he challenged Nelson via Twitter and his blog to raise $50,000 for LIVESTRONG and $50,000 for World Bicycle Relief. Nelson took on that challenge and completed it in less than two days. Without the ability to quickly connect and mobilize his network using social media, this wouldn’t have been possible in such a shot amount of time. Nelson tweeted numerous times as the story unfolded, as did Bruyneel, @livestrong, @livestrongceo and @lancearmstrong. Those three accounts combined have over 3.5 million Twitter followers. Add to that the numerous blog posts, Facebook status updates and YouTube videos, and you get a social media-fueled fundraising phenomenon like we've never seen. 3. Raise Funds by Creating a "Heartspace" Mothers Day 2010 brought about quite a few online fundraising initiatives, but none were more impressive than the To Mama with Love campaign created by the passionate folks at Epic Change and a host of great volunteers. The goal was simple — raise money to support Mama Lucy in her efforts to educate children in Tanzania. Mama Lucy is a change agent who saved her own income and used it to start a primary school in Tanzania, believing that education is the key to transforming a country gripped by poverty. Over the last six years, Mama Lucy has grown the school from one classroom with fewer than 10 students, to a school that now serves more than 300 children at eight grade levels. The initiative was simple but powerful. Supporters were encouraged honor their own mothers by making a donation and then creating a virtual scrapbook or “heartspace” on the site, including photos, videos, notes, and artwork. They could then share their "heartspace" with their mother, friends and family via Twitter and Facebook, or via a customized e-card. Using social media as the primary communication and engagement mechanism, Epic Change was able to raise close to $17,000 and provide a safe home for 17 children in Tanzania, while also encouraging more than 300 mothers along the way. They did all of this in about a week’s time with a staff of two. So you see, social media has truly enabled non-profits both large and small to reach out and make some real change. Tell us about the social cause campaigns you’ve donated to in the past in the comments below. More Social Good Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndrewJohnson Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, iStockphoto More About: campaigns, charity, Darius Goes West, facebook, livestrong, non-profit, social good, social media, To Mama With Love, twitter, World Bicycle Relief For more Social Good coverage:
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| Earn Badges on Foursquare, No Checkins Required Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:45 PM PDT   Foursquare announced Thursday that users can now earn badges for completing tasks as well as checking in. To start, the social gaming startup has partnered with RunKeeper, an app that enables users to track and share information about their workouts, to award users for executing challenges that can’t be registered simply by checking in at venues. For instance, if users record a run of 26 miles and 385 yards with the app, they will be rewarded with a Marathon badge, which will show up on both their Runkeeper and Foursquare profiles. (I’m personally excited to unlock that one on October 31.) Foursquare is all about getting people out of their homes and exploring the real world, so the new initiative aligns well with the team’s mission. It also enables users to share more about their activities and accomplishments, in addition to their whereabouts. But the real benefits will be had by Foursquare, which will be able to attract users of other popular apps to its network, as well as offer new kinds of incentives-based opportunities for marketers. If you’re a Foursquare user and not into working out, don’t worry; additional task-related badges are on the way. Foursquare has promised to announce new badges “with a handful of carefully selected partners…soon.”  Image courtesy of iStockphoto, blublaf. Reviews: Foursquare, RunKeeper, iStockphoto More About: foursquare, geolocation, runkeeper, social gaming For more Mobile coverage:
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| Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:32 PM PDT   Update: Facebook says it has resolved the problem that caused the social network to go down. We have details at the end of this post. - After issues at a third-party networking provider took down Facebook for some users on Wednesday, the social networking site is once again struggling to stay online. The company reports latency issues with its API on its developer site, but the problem is clearly broader than that with thousands of users tweeting about the outage. On our end when we attempt to access Facebook, we’re seeing the message: “Internal Server Error – The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.” Facebook “Like” buttons also appear to be down on our site and across the Web. We've reached out to the company and will update when we know more. Update (3:45 p.m. ET): Facebook tells us that, “We're currently experiencing some site issues causing Facebook to be slow or unavailable for some users. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. This is unrelated to yesterday's outage.” Update #2: AlertSite notes via e-mail that, “Facebook started experiencing problems at around 2:30 PM EST. Between 2:30 PM EST and 3:30 PM EST Facebook only had 38.46% availability with sky high response times of up to 60 seconds reported from one of our monitoring locations. Over the last hour, AlertSite has recorded errors in all 12 of its monitoring locations throughout the US.” Update #3: Facebook has just tweeted that the problem has been fixed. “We’ve resolved the tech issues that caused the site to be unavailable for some people. Everyone should now have access.” Reviews: Facebook More About: facebook For more Social Media coverage:
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| Watch Cat Videos on YouTube with Distant Friends Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:01 PM PDT   Remember that scene in When Harry Met Sally when the eponymous duo is watching a movie together over the phone? Now you can do that with YouTube videos — but most likely at work, with your friends… and with your headphones in. YouTubeSocial is a new toy from viewing party software company SocialVision, and is an alum of the I/O accelerator program. Basically, it’s a viewing party platform that lets you tune into YouTube vids with your friends, complete with chat capability in the sidebar that lets you discuss said video with your fellow watchers. Mashable’s Jenn Van Grove and I watched some cat videos, as you can see below.  There are a few different ways you can share a video via the platform — you can send a URL to the friend in question, type “social” into any YouTube URL (which takes you straight to YouTubeSocial) or log in via Facebook (this method still seems a bit buggy). At the moment, the project seems merely like a fun diversion. (I mean, come on — are you really going to sit around watching YouTube videos with your friend remotely?) Still, we could see this platform being used to full advantage during events such as Vevo’s live-streaming concert series, as well as other live events, such as presidential addresses and the like. With everyone from Weezer to Hasbro hopping on the YouTube train, it will be interesting to see how YouTubeSocial is received. What do you think of YouTubeSocial: toy or tool? [via TechCrunch] Reviews: Facebook, YouTube More About: video, web app, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| Social Media: The New Battleground for Politics Posted: 23 Sep 2010 11:33 AM PDT   Geoff Livingston co-founded Zoetica to focus on cause-related work, and released an award-winning book on new media Now is Gone in 2007. Control of the House of Representatives hangs in the balance of the 2010 Congressional election. A recent forecast published on The New York Times website anticipates a two-out-of-three chance for a change in power. The election has become a war, with battles being fought locally and nationally, in person, on the news, and online with social media. With new media at hand, elections become a time for innovation, and online engagement can lead to enormous influence. We’ve seen this with Barack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008, and more recently with the British general election. During the last debate between the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Labour party, 154,342 tweets appeared containing various terms from the debate, and coming in at 26.77 tweets per second from 33,095 different people. I sat down with both the GOP and the Democratic social media team leads to learn more about their efforts for the upcoming election. While both parties are playing it close to the vest as they move toward the final weeks, we managed to get a look inside their social media strategy, discuss the tools they are using, and review their tactical execution. The Weigh-In For the 2010 general election, early indicators show the “Grand Old Party” (GOP, short for the Republicans) leading the Democrats with the highest follower counts when it comes to official social channels. On Facebook, the Republicans have 180,000 fans while the Democrats have 120,000. On Twitter, the Republicans have 18,000 to the Democrats 13,000. On YouTube, the differential is even more drastic, with the GOP commanding a 17,000 to 2,000 lead. In addition to these statistics, it should be noted that the Democrats are also operating the Barack Obama Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages, with 13 million, 5 million and 200,000 followers each. However, it’s unclear whether the Barack Obama properties for 2008 are successfully impacting the larger Democratic party’s efforts, given his decline in popularity and the larger issues shaping the 2010 election. Strategies After the effort demonstrated by the Obama campaign in 2008, it only makes sense to see community listening and crowdsourcing become the primary strategy of the 2010 GOP effort. In addition to these core social media tenets, the GOP is focusing on influencers and bloggers that are self-identifying as advocates. These influencers range from relatively anonymous stay-at-home moms to Tea Party Co-Founder Brooks Bayne. “This RNC listens to folks,” said Todd Herman, chief digital strategist, Republican National Committee. “We insisted on a listening platform. It's not at all unusual for [Chairman] Michael Steele to ask me to put him in touch with a participant on our gop.com site or on Twitter.” The efforts show real promise. A recent awareness campaign hit the web with $16,000 behind it, and GOP influencers propelled the message to the fore of Twitter with a related hashtag. Links circled the blogosphere through the deployment of more than 22,000 widgets. The effort leaked onto Facebook and turned into a fundraiser, eventually netting about $1.6 million, including eight online donations of $16,200 a piece. The Democrats, in turn, have focused on a localized strategy of canvassing and using social tools to make peer-to-peer connections. The hyperlocal approach, with a stress on individual action, is bolstered by the existing Obama accounts which support the party’s platform. The combined effort is being called Organizing for America (OFA), and uses visual branding elements from the 2008 presidential campaign. “Our end goal is to make a turn-out happen,” said Natalie Foster, director of new media for the DNC. “Our online innovations are driven towards that: Boots on the ground and face-to-face interactions. We use those for organizing and messaging via dialogue.” Strategy Analysis Both strategies have strengths to consider. The GOP’s listening and focus on crowdsourcing are more in line with the core principles of successful social media campaigns. Herman cited several instances where individual GOP representatives went so far as to introduce legislation on the House floor that was suggested by their constituents online. While none of these bills have passed, Herman thinks it’s only a matter of time before one becomes a law. “The Democrats seem to be sticking with the tactics that brought them into power, whereas the GOP, as the challenger, is exploring more innovative ways to tap the power of new media,” said Shana Glickfield, co-founder of the BeeKeeper Group, a Washington, DC public affairs firm. “Both are effective and embrace the strengths of technology and community, but I see the Republicans getting the added bonus of attracting blogger and mainstream media attention for innovating in the campaign space.” Tools Perhaps the most exciting development for the Democrats is the party’s use of mobile. The OFA iPhone app lets party supporters find people living in their immediate vicinity to canvas. In addition, it provides canvassing tips. Not enough? The Democrats are also using text messaging to activate mobile phone users and have them place calls to potential voters. To execute mobile canvassing and activism, the Democrats are using an open API in their VoteBuilder database via middleware such as MongoDB. The Democratic Party has made its widget available on Open Dems. The party expects to unveil a couple more surprise applications using the API this fall, says Josh Hendler, the DNC’s director of technology. The GOP is using its Points API to create a social CRM solution and database called Blender. This effort mixes its Voter Vault database with traditional records in order to match them against peoples’ social media accounts and facilitate conversation. The API is available on developers.gop.com. Using the system, interested party advocates can volunteer for canvassing phone calls or social contacts from their home using volunteer.gop.com. The site features immediate opportunities that any would-be canvasser can take on. In addition to its own use, the GOP is licensing the system out to candidates at rates much lower than traditional political CRM solutions. Both parties have their own developers at their disposal and they have both deployed a wide variety of additional tools. These efforts include widgets, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube videos, search engine optimization tactics, automatic tweets and social messaging. Tools Analysis Both parties are doing some great work and are deploying tools and leveraging their databases via APIs and developer teams. The one major differentiator remains the Democratic Party’s use of mobile tools, which have drastically helped canvassing both via app and mobile web use. These tools match the party’s strategy. It remains to be seen how they will impact voting. “The Democratic Party leads the technology charge, going all the way back to Bill Clinton with his fax strategy and Howard Dean harnessing the power of the Internet to build the Deaniac movement,” said Julie Pippert, one of the Momocrats, a group of Democratic bloggers. “In 2008, Obama’s Internet and social media strategy were unarguably key factors in his successful election. … [they are] moving forward to the next best step in mass collaboration on social networks and through using new technology such as iPhone apps.” Tactical Execution Strategies may be great, tools can bring an advantage, but in the end, results are created by the how well the individual technologies are used. The best use of social media for a party is to engage its online stakeholders to create their own movements through empowerment, and have them go out and rally their own social networks. One example is the RNC Women site, with its slogan, “You Asked, We Listened.” Featuring all of the female candidates, this effort seeks to provide women in the party with a unique voice. The community manager is RNC Co-Chairman Jan Larimer, who has used the Ning-powered network to activate 3,000 social media-enabled women across the country. The apex of Larimer’s community development was a 15-city tour. “There wasn’t a person in that room who wasn’t tweeting and Facebooking,” said Todd Herman. “It’s incredible to see this from the GOP perspective, a party that wasn’t supposed to get social media. People are using it to activate their own networks.” The RNC Women site is just one example of how the GOP has used community to rally influencer groups. In addition, the main GOP site is a hotbed of activism. The Democratic social media properties showcase popular Facebook posts from Barack Obama, some of which have received thousands of comments. In this way, they’re using social media to empower one-on-one local engagement. With the Democrats’ online effort, there is less focus on empowering others to become brand advocates. This is a likely indicator of why the GOP has a larger follower base across the board on social media sites. The difference is best seen on my.barackobama.com, home of the OFA effort. While there’s great encouragement on the Democratic OFA site to get the vote out and canvas via mobile, calls to action for local group activity are nowhere near as prevalent as on the GOP sites. Navigating through the site to attend local events and volunteer activities takes more steps than on the GOP site. That being said, according to the Democratic Party’s Natalie Foster, over five million people have taken action with OFA since the 2008 election, and much of that action has been generated via my.barackobama.com. Tactical Analysis It’s arguable that both parties are executing well on their strategies. Of the two, the Republican party’s efforts — focusing on the core through crowdsourcing and listening efforts, and then empowering the core to push out on a national and local level — are most likely to create groundswells of activity across the web. It’s a populist approach that can make local bloggers into national party voices, and creates encouragement across the entire country for local races. Generally, the Democrats are fascinated with the local, but are not encouraging a national community, leaving that to the primary Obama social media accounts. Perhaps that is fitting for an election that is all about local congressional representatives and not the president. However, the larger Barack Obama accounts are being used in a messaging-focused approach that is less likely to make local Democrats feel empowered to talk about their issues and be featured by the party as individual leaders on social media sites. “Both parties are canvassing, and getting the right people to the polls, and reaching people,” said Albert Maruggi, founder of Provident Partners and the former RNC Press Secretary for 1988 presidential election. “This, however, is a very different election. 2008 was a simple choice to change direction or not. In the fall of 2008, President Bush’s approval ratings were in the mid 20s and today President Obama is in the mid 40s. This election cycle is about issues, regardless of sentiment about the president. “So in this election, hitting on economic and health care issues are working, which seems to fit with the Republican social media strategy,” Maruggi continued. “Why bring personality into the mix when only 15% of homeowners expect the value of their home will increase?” The GOP might have have larger swings of grassroots activism on social media sites during the 2010 election season, but the Democrats could upend the stakes if the party returns to its 2008 strategy and reinvigorates its core. The Barack Obama sites have impressive follower counts and could turn such a strategy into a winning advantage. More Government Resources From Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, iodrakon Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto More About: barack obama, congress, democrats, election, elections, facebook, gop, ofa, politics, Republican, social media, twitter, youtube For more Social Media coverage:
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| Mashable Invites You to See “The Social Network” in San Francisco Posted: 23 Sep 2010 11:13 AM PDT   Dying to see The Social Network? Live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Then Mashable cordially invites you to a private screening of the upcoming movie on Monday, September 27 in San Francisco, just days before its theatrical debut. We’re giving away 140 tickets to the first readers to RSVP on our Eventbrite page. The movie chronicles the story of the rise of Mark Zuckerberg from hacker to billionaire CEO. In 2003, as a Harvard undergrad, Zuckerberg sat down at his computer to program what would become a global social network and a revolution in social media. Six years later. Facebook has surpassed 500 million users, and Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history. Date: Monday, September 27. Doors open at 6:00 p.m., movie begins at 7:00 p.m.  Come and enjoy the new movie with us. Check out the full-length trailer below: Reviews: Facebook, Twitter More About: Events, facebook, Facebook ovie, Film, mark zuckerberg, movie, the social network For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Verizon Invests in Location-Based Mobile Platform Posted: 23 Sep 2010 11:09 AM PDT   Verizon is showing an active interest in mobile commerce and location-based applications via its investment arm, Verizon Ventures. Wednesday, the group announced that it had participated in Geodelic’s recent $7 million Series B round. This follows a similar $400,000 investment in CardStar’s mobile loyalty management platform. Geodelic positions itself as a location-based mobile platform for brands and consumers. The startup has consumer-facing iPhone and Android applications that offer visual, location-based place search powered by its own relevance engine. The Geodelic mobile application is a slight reinterpretation on ideas already present in the likes of Where and Around Me, so users can browse nearby surroundings and flip through places in a carousel-like fashion, view venues on a map or check out a list view instead. Places are also categorized by type — think movies, bars and nightclubs, banks, coffee shops, etc. — with top navigation icons offering users a browse-by-type experience. The application also incorporates checkins for its own stab at consumer loyalty. The service’s most interesting feature is the newly lauched GeoGuides. Application users can activate GeoGuides to add additional layers of context to their visual place searches. The LAX Airport guide, for instance, will include more detailed information on airport surroundings. The GeoGuides feature is also marketed at brands and advertisers looking to distribute their own place-centric branded guides. To date, Geodelic has raised roughly $10.5 million in Series A and B rounds. Verizon Ventures’s participation was in the latter round. The exact amount of the investment is unknown, but Verizon’s heightened interest in the mobile location space is certainly something to watch.  Reviews: Android, iPhone More About: funding, geodelic, investment, series b, verizon, verizon ventures For more Business coverage:
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| Kindle for Android: Now with Voice Search, Annotations and More Posted: 23 Sep 2010 09:11 AM PDT   Amazon has released a free upgrade for its Kindle for Android app. The new edition brings a number of convenient features already available on Kindle devices and other mobile apps, including the ability to perform full-text searches of e-books by type or voice, browse Wikipedia, and lock screen orientation in portrait or landscape mode. Users can now also add notes and highlights to the text, which will automatically sync with their e-readers and Kindle apps on other mobile devices. In addition, users can now access further information, including summaries and discussions, about the books they are browsing or reading from Shelfari, the book-focused social networking site Amazon acquired in 2008. Although the new app is a significant upgrade from the original edition, it still lacks some of the functionality of apps for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, such as support for embedded audio and video clips. Nor does it allow you to change font styles or navigate a book by page number, two small but nevertheless appreciated features offered by Barnes & Nobles’s e-reading app. Those deficiencies aside, we believe that the additions — in particular, voice search, automatic sync and annotations — make it the most robust e-reading app now available for Android users. What do you think of the upgrades? Does the app offer enough in terms of functionality to make it your reading platform of choice, or do prefer to read a printed book or on a device with a larger screen? Reviews: Android, Shelfari, Wikipedia, iPhone More About: amazon, android, Android App, e-reading, Kindle, kindle app, Mobile 2.0, nook, nook app, shelfari, trending For more Mobile coverage:
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| Never Lose Anything Again: USB Drive Doubles as a Paperclip Posted: 23 Sep 2010 08:49 AM PDT
This little drive, which is apparently “weightless” and comes in an array of colors to rival the rainbow, will not only hold your digital files, it also doubles as a paperclip, so that you can tote your resume, grocery list and epic novel IRL as well. As denizens of the tech and social media world, we over here at Mashable admittedly don’t have much need for paper clips (or USBs, for that matter) when it comes to toting documents — especially since Google Docs is adding more and more Microsoft Word-like features. Still, we can see how this drive (which comes in 2GB and 4GB sizes) would be a nifty addition to any office that is not yet paperless. Also, I can totally see myself storing my all-important “during meeting” doodles thusly. [via Wired] Image courtesy of Verbatim Reviews: Google Docs, Mashable More About: gadgets, Hardware, usb, Verbatim For more Tech coverage:
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| Happy Social Good Day From Mashable & (RED) Posted: 23 Sep 2010 08:04 AM PDT   Can social media be used to make the world a better place? We believe it can, so we’ve declared today Social Good Day. Mashable and (RED) invite you to join the social media for social good movement by taking part in Social Good Day. We want you to get involved, so we’ve gotten together with our friends at (RED), who work to eliminate AIDS in Africa, to invite you to attend or organize a meetup in your community to celebrate, share, educate and engage in a discussion on how social media can be used to tackle some of the world's social challenges and issues. We're interested in unleashing fresh thinking about how social media can raise awareness and create solutions for social issues around the world. It starts with each community coming together and contributing ideas and, more importantly, solutions. At the Mashable & 92Y Social Good Summit in partnership with the UN Foundation, we heard leaders share their solutions to some of the world’s biggest social challenges, and are continuing the discussions in the UN Week Digital Media Lounge. Whatever community you’ll be participating in we want to know: “What’s your solution?” Let the world hear your ideas through social media! How To Join #SocialGood Day
Suggestions of Things To Discuss
Facts and Resources to Consider:
#SocialGood Day TweetsOur Partners(RED)’s primary objective is to engage the private sector in raising awareness and funds for the Global Fund, founded to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Companies whose products take on the (PRODUCT) RED mark contribute a significant percentage of the sales or portion of the profits from that product to the Global Fund to help finance AIDS programs in Africa, with an emphasis on the health of women and children. Since its launch in the Spring of 2006, more than $150 million has been generated by (RED) partners and events for the Global Fund. (RED) money is at work in Swaziland, Rwanda, Ghana, Lesotho, Zambia and South Africa, and supports programs that have reached more than 5 million people. For more information, visit www.joinred.com. The UN Foundation, a public charity, was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner's historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities. We are an advocate for the UN and a platform for connecting people, ideas and resources to help the United Nations solve global problems.
92Y: Since 1874, 92nd Street Y has been serving its community and the world in a remarkable way, providing exceptional programs across the spectrum—in the arts and culture, Jewish life and education, health and fitness, personal growth and travel, and in classes for adults, families and children. A unique, multifaceted nonprofit institution, 92nd Street Y serves more than 300,000 people annually, from newborns to centenarians, and 4.5 million people through its website and variety of online venues. Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, Mashable, Twitter, YouTube More About: mashable, meetup, Red, social good, social good day, un foundation For more Social Good coverage:
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| 5 Beautiful Tumblr Themes for Small Businesses Posted: 23 Sep 2010 07:26 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. Having a blog is a great way for small business owners to communicate with their customers and to give their business a voice. There are tons of blogging platforms and services out there, but one of the growing favorites is Tumblr. Quite often, Tumblr is considered a micro-blogging service because you can use it to quickly post links, videos, quotes, audio files and pictures. Tumblr also lets users easily re-blog content from other Tumblr sites. Because it’s lightweight, easy to use, and has support for multiple users, many businesses big and small are turning to Tumblr to power their blogs. Because Tumblr is hosted, you don’t have to worry about server maintenance or being hacked and you can even configure the URL to match a domain you already own. There are hundreds of great themes that you can use with Tumblr to give your blog or site its own unique look. Here are five of our favorites for small business owners. 1. Just Plain Theme Tumblr’s own Peter Vidani has designed nearly twenty themes for the platform and all of them are clean and easy to customize. With Just Plain Theme, Vidani offers exactly what is advertised, a very simple two column Tumblr theme with support for pages, advanced features and Disqus comments. Check out Kickstarter’s customization on its blog to get an idea of what you can do. With a little bit of custom CSS editing, you could make Just Plain Theme a lot more unique! 2. Brand New Day Brand New Day by Roy David Farber and Hunson is a great looking two-column theme. The theme includes support for people that you follow and you can really go nuts customizing the colors. Check out The Travel Channel’s modification. The theme colors match the Travel Channel logo and the sidebar includes links to other social media properties. 3. Scaffold Scaffold is a feature-rich premium Tumblr theme from Mark Harding. It’s $9 but packs a huge punch in terms of features, customization options and is frequently updated. We love the vertical navigation sidebar that moves as you scroll down the page, as well as the juxtaposition of how posts are displayed. Tons of users are doing some amazing things with Scaffold, check out Diedrik Dijkstra’s modification. By adding some texture and a new background, the theme takes on a whole new look. 4. Headline Headline is a great looking magazine theme for Tumblr. It has three columns and some really nice typography, plus support for pages and links to other sites. As with all Tumblr themes, the real power comes with personal customizations. Check out MashableHQ, the Tumblr that chronicles office life at Mashable, to see what we did with the Headline theme. 5. Rank & File Rank & File is another premium theme and it is also $49. What you get for $49 is a beautifully designed magazine-theme that could easily power an entire website. The theme supports pages, includes links to your various social media profiles and supports comments via Disqus. You can even customize the header with your own logo or graphic. Your PicksDo you use Tumblr for your small business blog or website? What are some of your favorite themes? Let us know in the comments. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Disqus, Mashable, Tumblr More About: blog, blogging, BLOGS, business, small business, theme, themes, tumblr For more Business coverage:
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| SCVNGR Releases Facebook Places Application for Businesses Posted: 23 Sep 2010 07:00 AM PDT   Today SCVNGR, a relative newcomer in the mobile location-based game space, is releasing a Facebook Places application that businesses can use to highlight their SCVNGR rewards and challenges on their Place Page. The application is the first of its kind and positions SCVNGR as the only third-party — as well as the only location-sharing service, period — to release something so tightly integrated with the Facebook Places experience. The app is a Place Page add-on for businesses using SCVNGR. Once installed, it will sit prominently in the left-hand menu section of the Place Page. Visitors can then click it and tab through three sections: Rewards, Challenges and How to Play. For businesses using SCVNGR, the application is a no-brainer to install — literally just a click of a button — that promises reach to millions. The install also guarantees greater harmony between Facebook Places and SCVNGR. SCVNGR has mapped all user activity — checkins, challenges, rewards and photos — back to the Facebook Place Page, rather than to the SCVNGR Place Page. “Because SCVNGR has all this premium activity (challenges, not just checkins), our location-based activity items get surfaced far more often in Facebook’s activity algorithms, meaning that we get more placement, comments and likes,” says CEO Seth Priebatsch. When coupled with SCVNGR’s previous Facebook Places integration features and do-it-yourself rewards system, the application completes the loop and turns the Place Page into something much more than a repository of checkins. “Since traditional Facebook Pages are already getting more hits than most companies’ own websites, I’m pretty sure that Facebook Place Pages will be equally (if not more) important. Local businesses tend to have pretty weak websites and with all the inbound traffic Place Pages will get, I’m predicting that Facebook Place Pages will become the canonical online representation of most local businesses. And SCVNGR’s Facebook Place Page widget really improves those pages,” explains Priebatsch.  Watch This StartupGoogle-backed SCVNGR, while still young — just like its 21-year-old CEO — has the potential to become a huge mobile hit. We’ve been closely tracking the company since its consumer launch (SCVNGR operated in stealth mode going after enterprise customers for more than a year) and have been impressed by the Boston-based company’s agility, its brand partnerships and its ability to stand out in a very crowded market where Foursquare rules as mayor. But SCVNGR is picking up serious steam. Recently, the startup garnered 100,000 mobile downloads in just 48 hours, which is no small feat. As such, the company’s profile is starting to rise in both tech and mainstream media circles. On Sunday, SCVNGR and its CEO were profiled extensively in a piece that made the front page of the Sunday New York Times Business section. Perhaps when it comes to location, it still is anybody’s game. Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Google More About: checkins, Facebook Places, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, scvngr For more Mobile coverage:
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| LIVE: Watch the UN Week Digital Media Lounge [VIDEO] Posted: 23 Sep 2010 06:59 AM PDT Mashable is proud to be working with the United Nations Foundation and 92nd Street Y to host the first ever UN Week Digital Media Lounge this week. Today’s lineup includes an exclusive up-close-and-personal briefing by USAID Administrator Raj Shah, Senator Timothy Wirth and a live stream of President Obama and Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's opening General Assembly remarks. The conversation about the world's biggest challenges no longer belongs to a small set of voices — it is a global conversation with an increasingly online pulse. As the world's leaders convene in New York, the UN Week Digital Media Lounge offers a dedicated venue that is completely wired and accessible to today's top online voices and up-and-coming bloggers. The Lounge brings the conversations from this historic UN Summit out of the halls of the UN and into the 92nd Street Y, where digital media will deliver it to the world. A comprehensive agenda will give bloggers the chance to interact with thought leaders on the most important global issues. We’ve also added 100 slots for the week to allow more media and bloggers to attend. Thursday Agenda9:00 a.m.- Lounge Opens 9:30 -10:00 a.m. – Oxfam's "breakfast with the world" 10:45 a.m.: An exclusive up-close-and-personal briefing by USAID Administrator, Raj Shah. 11:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. -Live big-screen broadcast of President Obama and Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's opening General Assembly remarks 11:30 a.m.: Senator Timothy Wirth live in the Lounge. 12:30 -1:00 p.m. – Free digital massages! 1:00 -2:00 p.m. – SPECIAL CNN ANNOUNCEMENT 2:00 -4:00 p.m. – Sessions TBC 4:00-4:30 p.m. – EXCLUSIVE! Link TV "ViewChange" Film Contest Finalists premiered! 5:30 p.m. – Cocktails & Conversation 6:30 p.m. – Lounge Closes Reviews: Mashable, Skype More About: digital media lounge, social good, un foundation, UN week For more Social Good coverage:
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| Joaquin Phoenix Is Back on Letterman, and He’s a Lot Less Crazy [VIDEO] Posted: 23 Sep 2010 06:38 AM PDT   A year and a half after his hilarious (and slightly disturbing) appearance on The David Letterman Show — which subsequently became something of a meme on the web and elsewhere — Joaquin Phoenix is back, beardless, elegantly attired and definitely more communicative than the first time. Things don’t start very smoothly, though; Letterman goes right at Phoenix with some very direct questions at the very beginning of the interview, and for a minute it seems that Phoenix is back in his nodding-and-muttering mode. Soon, however, it develops into a very interesting interview that reveals a lot about Phoenix, his mental state and the new documentary about Phoenix’s life entitled I’m Still Here. It also poses some new questions about the enigmatic actor and the last two or so years of his life. We won’t spoil it for you; check out the videos below and tell us what you think in the comments. More About: david letterman, entertainment, interview, Joaquin Phoenix, show, video For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Top 3 Stories in Social Media and Business This Morning Posted: 23 Sep 2010 06:20 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. Twitter to Release Real-Time Analytics Dashboard in Q4 At the Sports Marketing 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, Ross Hoffman, a member of Twitter’s development team, revealed that Twitter plans to release a real-time analytics dashboard by the end of the year. The dashboard is being built by the team behind Trendly, which the microblogging service acquired in June. The product, which will be available for free (although it is not clear if it will be available only to marketers or to everyone, or if the company plans to roll out a premium version in the future), will allow users to track popular tweets and influential users in their network, among other things. LinkedIn Acquires ChoiceVendor Online business networking site LinkedIn has acquired ChoiceVendor, a San Francisco-based startup that provides peer-to-peer ratings and reviews of B2B service providers in the U.S. Financial terms of the acquisition — which appears to be talent-based — have not been disclosed. Mark Zuckerberg Now Richer Than Steve Jobs According to Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg is now the thirty-fifth richest American. The publication estimates that the Facebook founder and CEO is now worth $6.9 billion. Steve Jobs is ranked 42nd on the list with an estimated net worth of $6.1 billion. In addition, Zuckerberg is expected to announce a $100 million donation to the Newark public school system on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Friday, just ahead of the premiere of The Social Network (a.k.a. “The Facebook movie”) on October 1. 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, LinkedIn, Twitter, harry potter More About: choicevendor, facebook, first to know series, linkedin, mark zuckerberg, steve jobs, twitter, twitter dashboard For more Social Media coverage:
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We’re not here to rip on Facebook or say that it is not worth $23 billion… or $26 billion… or $33 billion. We’re here to put those numbers in perspective, though.
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