Posts
Mashable: Latest 24 News Updates - including “Windows 7 Reaches 10 Percent Market Share” |  |
- Windows 7 Reaches 10 Percent Market Share
- Twitter Explains Recent Phishing Attack
- Online Video Ad Network BrightRoll Raises $10 Million
- Music Consumption Faceoff: Subscription Vs. Ownership
- Add Private Notes to Tweets and Group Emails With Bccthis
- State of the Internet Explained In One Giant Infographic [PIC]
- 10 Fabulous Valentine’s Day Gifts for Your Beloved Geek
- Spotify CEO: Twitter Is One of Our Biggest Traffic Sources
- Google Nexus One: Now With Multitouch
- 3 New Ways to Measure the Social Web
- Budweiser Urges Fans to Vote for Super Bowl Ad Via Facebook
- WordPress Launches on Android
- Revision3 Viewers Watched 1.5 Billion Minutes of Web TV in 2009
- Civilization Comes to Facebook This June
- Glue Introduces a New Way to Target Influencers
- Super Bowl XLIV Gets an Official Hashtag: #SB44
- Tomorrow: Mashable NextUp NYC, The Future Journalist [Social Media Week]
- More Google Search Features Come to Gmail
- What a Google Chrome Tablet Might Look Like [PICS]
- Mashable Joins the Social Media Advertising Consortium
- Prop 8 Trial Re-enactments Circumvent Supreme Court’s YouTube Ban [VIDEO]
- 5 Social Media Tips for Better Corporate Social Responsibility
- YouTube Makes $10,709.16 From Movie Rental Trial Run
- Does Facebook’s Doppelganger Week Violate TOS?
- Google Announces Recipients of Focused Research Grants
| Windows 7 Reaches 10 Percent Market Share Posted: 03 Feb 2010 01:58 AM PST 
Initial sales numbers and market share reports have shown that Windows 7 is on the right track, but today it’s obvious that it will be one of the most successful products in Windows history, as it already caught 10 percent market share, approximately 3 months after it arrived on the market. Windows Vista currently holds around 20% market share, while the nine years old Windows XP is (still) between 60-70%. In other news, Internet Explorer 8 recently became the world’s most popular web browser with 25.6%. Love it or hate it, it’s a good thing, as it means that less and less people are using the dreaded IE6. Reviews: Windows, Windows Vista Tags: microsoft, operating systems, Windows 7
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| Twitter Explains Recent Phishing Attack Posted: 03 Feb 2010 12:55 AM PST 
Recently, Twitter admins discovered a surge of followers to some suspicious accounts, decided to investigate, and discovered that a number of accounts were compromised through an intricate attack involving torrent-related sites and forums. Here’s Twitter’s explanation of what went down:
Well, folks, I guess it all boils down to the same old advice: never use the same email/password combination on multiple sites. Reviews: Twitter Tags: hack, security, torrent, trending, twitter
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| Online Video Ad Network BrightRoll Raises $10 Million Posted: 02 Feb 2010 09:00 PM PST 
The funding news means that BrightRoll — which distributes video ad campaigns via an extensive online publisher network — has raised $16 million to date, and they will use the additional funds to improve the technology behind their service. If you’re unfamiliar with BrightRoll, it’s because the company’s name is secondary to the brands they serve. They power online video for the likes of Toyota, Sony, Shell, Audi, ABC, Microsoft, HP, and Walmart, among other big brand clients. Now that Quantcast puts BrightRoll’s monthly reach at 55 million unique visitors — which the company points out is more than Hulu — chances are you’ve been exposed to several BrightRoll-powered advertisements without even knowing it. As online video views across the web continue to climb, we can safely presume that the premium video ad network’s online reach will continue to grow. Reviews: Hulu Tags: brightroll, money
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| Music Consumption Faceoff: Subscription Vs. Ownership Posted: 02 Feb 2010 07:13 PM PST 
Since we have new music on the brain, we wanted to pose a relevant question for this week’s Faceoff Series head-to-head matchup. Which music consumption model do you prefer: subscription or ownership? It’s no surprise to anyone that the third answer — or how the majority of music consumption happens today — is, “Neither; I get my music for free.” But the statistics are starting to show that fans are still eager to support artists, and that even the people who increase their free music consumption tend to also increase their paid music consumption at the same time. So if and when you do spend money on music, how do you like to do it? Do you need to own every album in your collection or does the all-you-can-eat, on-demand subscription model seeing a renaissance with services like MOG and Spotify pique your interest? Which model do you think is better? Let us know in the poll below. Reviews: Spotify Tags: business models, music, p2p, social media, subscription, web faceoff
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| Add Private Notes to Tweets and Group Emails With Bccthis Posted: 02 Feb 2010 05:31 PM PST 
Quick Pitch: Bccthis is an innovative technology that provides new levels of communication for email, micro-blogging and social networking services. Genius Idea: If you’ve ever worked in an environment that shares a group mailing list, you know that at some point, side conversations about a certain topic start to take place off-list with a number of the participants. Sometimes you might want to add more background details or make clarifications, other times you’re — we’ll admit it — making fun of something the author of one of the threads said. Bccthis is a tool that embraces the fact that private conversations often form around public streams. They’ve created an Outlook plugin, a Twitter web-app, and soon, a BlackBerry application, to streamline these types of conversations. The Outlook plugin adds in a separate body and recipient field to a message. The Twitter app — via a bookmarklet — lets you bcc people on a tweet in the form of direct messages. You can see the Twitter features in action in this video: Once you’ve started a Bccthis conversation, you can view it in its entirety online and you can also invite others into the discussion. We like the idea of having an easy way to annotate or create separate conversations around a public system. While using Bccthis on your corporate e-mail account might not be the best idea, we can see it being useful for creating separate discussions without clogging up a larger feed. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines)." Reviews: PHP, Twitter Tags: bccthis, Outlook, software, twitter
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| State of the Internet Explained In One Giant Infographic [PIC] Posted: 02 Feb 2010 04:02 PM PST 
The focus is on exactly who uses the Internet, and how often. It breaks things down by gender, age, income level, and nationality. It even serves up average broadband speeds for both landline and mobile users at the bottom. Some of this stuff surprised us a bit — For example, desktop computers are still much more common than laptops. You wouldn’t guess that in day-to-day life in the developed world — at least not when it comes to personal use. Here are some of the other points (the image itself is farther down):
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| 10 Fabulous Valentine’s Day Gifts for Your Beloved Geek Posted: 02 Feb 2010 02:39 PM PST 
We’ve taken the liberty of rounding up some gadgety, geek-worthy gift ideas that really say “I have human emotions for you,” but in a cooler, more robot-like voice. 1. Internet Chat Pillows If you intend on snuggling up next to your favorite geek this February 14th, consider these clever throw pillows that are full of plushy Internet goodness. They come in three flavors — chat heart pink, chat heart red, and a Mac lovin’ logo tribute — and are a great way to express your feelings, outside of emoticons, of course. 2. Valentine’s Themed Zunes If your favorite music nerd hasn’t yet settled on an MP3 player, consider Microsoft’s current line of Zune devices, now highly customizable with some gorgeous Valentine’s Day designer themes. You can choose the pattern, the underlying color, and even add a mushy inscription to the back. Your entire design is instantly visualized right on the website. Once complete, ship the custom Zune to your sweetheart, or to yourself first so you can pre-load it with Barry White tunes. 3. Pink and Blue Wii Remotes Currently available for pre-order, and available in stores on February 14th, these adorable pastel Wii remotes let your gamer-geek girlfriend know that you really care…about clobbering her in virtual tennis. If that special someone has yet to add players three and four, these little dandies, complete with Wii Motion Plus, might be just the ticket. 4. “Tweet Me” Sweetheart Candies Even if you insist on keeping it classic this Valentine’s Day, those iconic, chalk-flavored Sweethearts candies have a new spin that’s sure to please your favorite social media geek. As we previously noted, Twitter and Sweethearts have teamed up and thrown a new flirty phrase into the mix: “Tweet Me.” They’ve even devised an iPhone app that will send a personalized digital Sweethearts box to your beloved Twitter fiend for display on his or her profile. 5. Geeky Love T-Shirts You just can’t go wrong with T-shirts. Well, you can, but not with these delightfully graphic, geek-approved, love-themed designs. Personal favorites include a brontosaurus and giraffe in embrace, a budding romance between a cookie and milk, and the palpable ache of a nerdy crush. 6. 8-Bit Necktie Send your husband/boyfriend/secret tech support crush to work in this exquisitely nerdy necktie that any longtime gamer would be proud to don. With this, your geek-squeeze can scorn the young hotshots at his office, with their high-resolution business wear, and explain that back in his day he only had 8 bits (16 if you were lucky), and he didn’t complain about it. 7. Temporary Geek Tattoos Let’s face it. Your darling may be a hardcore geek, but he’s not that hardcore. If the thought of getting a “w00t!” tramp stamp is appealing but just too permanent, consider these temporary tattoos full of Interweb and gaming geekdom. The 16 tats come in a nice little hardcover book, and would guarantee instant clout at hacker bars, if there were such a thing. 8. Photoshop Magnets For the design-nerd in your life, check out these fabulous Photoshop magnets that recreate the program’s customizable workspace right on your fridge. Your Adobe-nut will thrill as he arranges layer lists and color palettes all over the freezer door. All you need is a photo with his head on Fabio’s body to complete the motif. For the uber graphics nerd, check out the Illustrator magnet set as well. 9. Tripletz  Geeks have feelings — lots of them. If you want to score big-time thoughtfulness points this V-day, scrap the drug store greeting card and shimmy on over to Tripletz.com for some artfully old-school correspondence. As their website explains, Tripletz is “making mail fun again.” Create a three-part message on the website by choosing a set of custom designed postcards. Each card has a word or phrase with an illustration, for instance: I, Love, and You. Your recipient will receive one card each day, anonymously if you so choose (great for those secret admirer types), with the third card completing your message and revealing your identity, along with any other sentiments you’d like to include. The site’s user interface is drag-and-drop simple (so even non-geeks can partake), and you can even upload and share your own card designs by registering an account. 10. Geeky Dreamboats If you don’t have a geeky Valentine this year, you can still gush over the awkward musings of actors like Michael Cera and Andy Samberg with the book Geeky Dreamboats. With full color photos, detailed profiles, and a puffy cover (great for late night squeezing?), this offering is sure to provide enough geeky swoon until next year. More gift guide resources from Mashable:
Images courtesy of iStockphoto, busypix, suslayev Reviews: Adobe Illustrator, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: gadgets, geek, Gifts, List, Lists, nerd, shopping, shopping list, Valentine, Valentines
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| Spotify CEO: Twitter Is One of Our Biggest Traffic Sources Posted: 02 Feb 2010 02:23 PM PST 
Although there were no major announcements surrounding the question on everyone’s mind, “When will Spotify launch in the U.S.?”, we wanted to break out a few of the more important talking points, relevant not just to musicians and folks in the industry but to the majority of us as consumers of music in some way, shape or form. Music Business- People listen to more music than ever by a more diverse cadre of artists. There has to be a way to monetize it, both giving consumers what they want and getting artists paid. - Access Everywhere could be a much bigger business than we’ve ever seen. People value their music library. Portability is key: If you could access all of that in a legal way wherever you go, that’s something people are willing to pay for. - There are billions of transactions on peer-to-peer networks every day. Even if we could figure out how to get pennies from each one, music would be a bigger business than it’s ever been. Spotify Stats- Spotify now has more than 250,000 subscribers in the seven countries where it’s rolled out. It’s growing by a couple of thousand subscribers per day. - Subscription users get the client without ads, the mobile client (rolled out for iPhone, Android, Nokia phones and more to come), better audio quality and exclusive tracks. - Eight million tracks cleared and licensed. Users can also buy tracks a la carte, and even subscribers actually also buy tracks. - Seven million users have created 100 million playlists. Each playlist can be shared by e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. Thirty percent of playlists contain albums, counteracting the idea that the album is dead. - Twitter is one of Spotify’s biggest traffic sources. People are discovering much of their new music through Twitter referrals. - The next major trajectory of Spotify will be social. We didn’t know this in the beginning, but social is the key. People are sharing their music across borders, and musicians are gaining popularity outside of their home markets. People can discover new artists based on similarity to music they already like, and take advantage of the long tail. Exposing New Artists- New artists are breaking on Spotify: One unnamed Swedish act had zero airplay and tiny record sales, but a million plays on Spotify. When they booked their next tour, they sold out 10 shows within hours and the fans in the audience already knew the lyrics. - Spotify’s front page generates huge exposure for unknown artists. The “What’s New” section includes a mix of 50% established artists and 50% randomly generated new artists. In Europe, three million people see this page per day and get exposed to on average 40 new artists per day. Artists featured in “What’s New” get an immense amount of new traffic. - Spotify has a ton of data that can help artists, labels and managers figure out who and where their fans are — and how to monetize them. The next step for Spotify is data transparency: becoming that platform where artists can access the data. This is the kind of data iTunes doesn’t share. Subscription Model- Subscription is a model that consumers don’t really understand yet, and will take some time to build. There’s a lot of skepticism from past experiments like Rhapsody. What’s different now is that both broadband and mobile are ubiquitous, and there will be a lot more music consumption across a range of devices. - We want to open up the platform to various kinds of payments. It shouldn’t matter if you’re on Verizon or AT&T or whatever carrier — you should be able to pay through them. Users who aren’t subscribers still buy lots of tracks a la carte, and even subscribers also still buy tracks. - Spotify’s vision is to be “the cloud that everyone’s talking about” — hear a track somewhere, find it on Shazam and get it on Spotify. You should have it immediately on your car stereo, too. When you get home, it’s already on your playlist. It’s your music library wherever you go. What do you think of the subscription model for music? If you’re in a country where Spotify currently operates, what do you think of the service? Reviews: Android, Facebook, Rhapsody, Shazam, Spotify, Twitter Tags: itunes, music, new music seminar, social media, spotify, subscription
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| Google Nexus One: Now With Multitouch Posted: 02 Feb 2010 01:49 PM PST 
Bloggers have speculated that Google and other folks working on Android phones have been hesitant to implement the pinch-to-zoom multitouch feature in their devices because Apple supposedly holds a patent on it. Nobody’s sure whether or not the patent would actually hold up, or whether Apple would dare take anyone to task for using it. Other phones — including the Palm Pre — have gone ahead and taken the risk, and they haven’t experienced cripplingly adverse legal consequences yet. It’s possible that Apple itself is not sure that it could win the battle, or that there’s a “mutually assured destruction” aspect to the situation; Apple has likely traversed into some gray areas as far as patents go, too. Other features in the new software update include more reliable 3G connectivity, and several updates to Google maps: search suggestions, a night-time screen mode and synchronization of starred items with maps.google.com. The software update also added the Google Goggles application to the All Apps menu. The app lets you capture images on your camera and use them to search the web. Reviews: Android, Google Tags: android, Google, multi-touch, nexus one, trending
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| 3 New Ways to Measure the Social Web Posted: 02 Feb 2010 01:18 PM PST 
When most people think of web analytics, they think about pageview tracking; basically, measuring which pages on a website are being viewed. Pageview tracking is a well-established technology, but it’s no longer meeting the needs of many of the most well-known companies in social media. Companies like Facebook, Zynga, Slide, and RockYou are spending tons of resources building their own internal analytics tools. There’s a reason for this: Social media is highly competitive, and the biggest advantage you can have is data. To improve and grow, these companies need to gather as much information as they can, and they need more than simple pageview tracking. In the following sections I will cover three of the most important things to measure for social applications. 1. Funnel Analysis: Measuring Conversion RatesOne critical kind of analysis that social apps require is called Funnel Analysis. This is a way of measuring conversion rates, which is the lifeblood of all applications. The term “conversion rate” refers to the total number of visitors who came to a site, compared to the number of visitors who did a desired action (such as creating an account or purchasing an item).  What Funnel Analysis gives you is a more granular way of analyzing conversion rates. Instead of simply looking at signups divided by total visitors, you figure out the steps that have to be taken to get a user to sign up and measure the individual conversion rates between steps. As you can see from the image above, there’s often a pretty steep dropoff between each step, giving you the namesake funnel shape. (Note: the image uses made up stats and is for illustration purposes only.) This more granular look at conversion rates can have surprising results. Let’s take a look at Twitter’s signup funnel: 1. Hit homepage As you can see, the signup process is pretty complicated, and will benefit from detailed analysis. We might find, for example, that there’s a huge dropoff rate (a “dropoff” occurs when many of the people who made it to one step don’t make it to the next) at the “Add e-mail friends” step. Once we’ve discovered a dropoff rate like this, we have to figure out the root cause. The dropoff rate at the “Add e-mail friends” step could mean that users are unsure how to continue, causing them to leave, or they might not want to add their e-mail information. We would have to test to make sure. Ultimately, Funnel Analysis is about finding and improving trouble spots in a website. With continual analysis, changes can be measured and ideas can be tested over time. 2. Engagement Tracking: Measuring What People Do
Think about this: Sites exist today on which you never actually change the page. These are highly interactive sites, but they are impossible to track with pageviews, so traditional analytics tools are useless. This will only become more common as time goes on and more companies develop highly interactive applications and adopt AJAX loading techniques. 3. Visitor Retention: How Many People Come Back?This next technique measures a fairly complex but extremely valuable metric for successful web applications. You can think of Visitor Retention as a measure of how “sticky” your site is. What we’re really measuring is the percentage of people who come back again and again. The most common way of approaching this is to look at a group of users from a single time period (a week, for example) and track their behavior over time. Here’s an example of a retention table that should help clarify things:  Each row shows the weekly retention rates for a single group of users (sometimes known as a “cohort”). The first row, for example, is the cohort seen between December 7 and December 13, 2009. We can see that 15.15% of the users in that group came back after 1 week, 13.4% after 2 weeks, and so on. This is crucial information, particularly for social applications, because most of the value lies in the size of the community. An application with low retention is like an empty shell — many installs but few active users — and you don’t want to build an empty shell. You want a thriving, vibrant community. Retention is a huge factor in building a strong community for a few reasons: You don’t have much of a community if everyone is a newcomer (so more old users is a good thing), and the nature of retention is such that you get disproportionate returns on any increases you make. Without going into too much detail, an example would be that increasing retention by 33% might give you 50% more users in the long run. Twitter is again a good example for us, as the network has been plagued by low retention rates. Twitter may seem successful now, but their low retention rate is troubling. In the past, companies that seemed to be extremely successful (think early Facebook apps) ultimately lost their edge because they couldn’t retain their users. It’s entirely possible that Twitter itself could be a fad. With such low retention, I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised — but it is still too early to tell. ConclusionThere’s a lot to learn about analytics from the frontrunners in social media. The intense competition has resulted in many new and innovative ways to track and analyze visitor data. We covered three such concepts in detail today: Funnel analysis, which lets you track conversion rates across whole parts of your site, engagement tracking, which is becoming more relevant than pageviews, and visitor retention analysis, which helps you understand and optimize the number of repeat visitors you get. More business resources from Mashable:
Images courtesy of iStockphoto, cyrop, Elfstrom Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: analytics, business, data, metrics, small business, social media, social networks, web apps, Web Development
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| Budweiser Urges Fans to Vote for Super Bowl Ad Via Facebook Posted: 02 Feb 2010 01:07 PM PST 
Assuming that you remain a fan after voting, Bud can now send you updates and info about its product. Also, the fact that you became a fan of the beer will show up in your personal feed, which could prompt friends to wonder why and click on the link as well. Once you become a fan, you can vote for one of three videos: “Payment” (which deals with how Bud is “currency” among men), “Attention” (which plays on the theme of snagging the eye of the elusive bartender) and “Fence” (a semi-nonsensical vid about the friendship between a cow and a horse and the fence that comes between them). Once you vote for the ad of your choice (I picked “Fence”) Facebook asks you if you would like to post your vote to your wall. This a rather smart move on the part of the social networking site and Bud — now your friends can comment on your choice and click through to make their own.
Although Bud may be the biggest advertiser on the block this Super Bowl, it’s hardly the only company making use of social media. Pepsi decided to nix traditional commercials in favor of a mammoth social media campaign, and Inside Facebook reports that Coca-Cola and Doritos (a division of PepsiCo) have also gotten into the Facebook ad game. Even shunned ads — like the infamous ManCrunch spot and GoDaddy’s “Lola” — have managed to make use of social media (by going viral) to get some of that Big Game ad glitter. It’s official: Super Bowl ads are getting more buzz that ever before — and the game has yet to begin — and it’s all because of the power of the web and social media. What’s your favorite campaign so far? Reviews: Facebook Tags: budweiser, coca cola, doritos, facebook, MARKETING, money, Pepsi, social media, Super Bowl ads, viral video
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| Posted: 02 Feb 2010 12:34 PM PST 
Check out the video WordPress has created: If parts of WordPress for Android seem familiar to veteran Android users, it might be because it’s based on the popular wpToGo app. WpToGo actually served as the foundation for WordPress for Android, and the separate project will be discontinued, with all future efforts moving toward this new “official” client. If you want to contribute to the WordPress for Android development process, you can check out dev.android.wordpress.org. What’s your favorite blogging app for Android? Let us know! Reviews: Android, WordPress Tags: android, Android apps, Mobile 2.0, software, Wordpress
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| Revision3 Viewers Watched 1.5 Billion Minutes of Web TV in 2009 Posted: 02 Feb 2010 12:23 PM PST 
Those milestone viewer engagement metrics are being touted by the company today, who also asserts that it upped revenue by 30%, introduced 10 new shows and signed major brand advertisers like Ford during its successful 2009 web TV season. Revision3 credits its 2009 success to the growing popularity of shows like Tekzilla and Scam School. Of course, the hit Diggnation series — which celebrates its fifth season this year — could also be credited for the network’s impressive engagement metrics. While the numbers are no doubt impressive, we should note that YouTube reached the one-billion-views-per-day milestone in 2009. Of course the two sites differ drastically in purpose and business model, but it’s still interesting to compare the viewership numbers side-by-side. Reviews: YouTube Tags: diggnation, revision3, web series
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| Civilization Comes to Facebook This June Posted: 02 Feb 2010 12:08 PM PST 
The Facebook platform game — called Civilization Network — was announced a few months ago, and both gamers and the press noted that Civilization and Facebook seem like an excellent match. It’s easy to picture the addictive-but-relaxing, turn-based gameplay of Civilization IV or Civilization Revolution adapted to the same platform that plays host to FarmVille — and we all know how huge that game is. Unfortunately, some fans of the series had gotten the impression from the original announcement that the game would be coming sooner. Not so. Meier said he’d be looking for beta testers “soon” and that the “full game will be available next year.” Game publisher Take Two Interactive didn’t say whether or not the beta will be open to everyone. If you want to know more about the game, you’re pretty much out of luck; not much has been announced yet. You can become a fan on Facebook to receive future updates, though. For now, here’s what Meier said about it.
Reviews: Facebook, game Tags: Civilization Network, facebook, games, online games, Sid Meier, software
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| Glue Introduces a New Way to Target Influencers Posted: 02 Feb 2010 11:54 AM PST 
The Guru system was initially about bragging rights, but starting today, Gurus will be given some new powers and abilities to enhance the community experience. GetGlue Gurus can:
Guru GiveawaysGuru Giveaways is a new program that GetGlue is launching with some industry partners, and it’s a pretty innovative approach to advertising. Here’s how it works: A company or brand can sponsor a giveaway for an upcoming product, say a book or movie. Using Glue’s recommendation algorithm, dozens of related items will be listed and each Guru of those related items will have the chance to win a free copy of the book or album or ticket from a random drawing. Multiple items can be given away, so a new drawing might take place every day.  This is interesting for two reasons. First, it is an effective way for advertisers to target not only potentially interested, but also influential users. Gurus know their topics and have influence — both in their personal streams and on the Guru page. These are the ideal consumers. So on this front, this is good for advertisers. For end users, this is a way to be rewarded for being passionate about stuff. Plus, users might end up becoming aware of a new movie or book that they otherwise wouldn’t have heard about. Still, it’s not in-your-face advertising. I know that as a consumer, I’m much more likely to check out a product if it is not only targeted correctly, but if it is done in a way that doesn’t interfere with what I’m trying to do. Integrating Giveaways into the social game of GetGlue strikes us as pretty smart. Users can also choose to promote new items on their GetGlue pages or on their own sites. That means if you want to tell the world how much you love your favorite artist or book, you can — either with a widget, a link on Twitter or Facebook or with a mention on your profile page.  What we’ve always liked the most about GetGlue is that it has a strong social recommendation engine. It’s enjoyable to get suggestions and see stuff that other users like, just like it’s fun to share what you’re interested in with others. By making the discovery platform more of a game and integrating giveaways into that game, we think GetGlue is addressing the business end of the semantic web in a pretty smart way. You can install a GetGlue plugin for Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer, and you can sign up for a free account at GetGlue.com. How do you get recommendations online? Let us know! Reviews: Chrome, Facebook, Firefox, Foursquare, Internet Explorer, Twitter Tags: getglue, glue, MARKETING, semantic web, social discovery, social recommendation, software
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| Super Bowl XLIV Gets an Official Hashtag: #SB44 Posted: 02 Feb 2010 11:03 AM PST 
The NFL is highlighting the user-tagged Super Bowl content on its new Tag the Super Bowl site, which offers a visually stimulating and unfiltered interactive view of tweets and images that football fans are sharing on Twitter and Flickr with the #SB44 hashtag. The media-rich microsite (check out the screenshot below) is just a collection of tagged content (including tweets from the NFL’s official Twitter account), but it departs from the norm by displaying content in a grid that you can drag to explore, and by featuring select photos and tweets on the left-hand side. Tag the Super Bowl is one part curated content and one part social media football art. We do think functionality and filtering could be improved to offer a more tailored experience to site visitors, though. What we find especially interesting is that the NFL is notorious for being a bully about the rights to its content, which makes this engineered social media strategy around the Super Bowl quite refreshing. Of course it’s not as if the NFL is altering the licensing rights to its content or broadcasting the game live to the web, but one can hope that social media will continue to push the NFL in new directions, bridging the gap between what the NFL believes to be a major entertainment commodity and what most of us would like to enjoy on our own terms. For an another unique perspective on this year’s game, you might consider checking out Chad Ochocinco’s OCNN — Ochocinco News Network — which will include an array of opinions, videos, tweets and photos from Ochocinco and other football stars, all of which will be posted to the player’s social media sites.
[via SocialTimes] Reviews: Flickr, Twitter Tags: flickr, MARKETING, nfl, social media, sports, Super Bowl, twitter
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| Tomorrow: Mashable NextUp NYC, The Future Journalist [Social Media Week] Posted: 02 Feb 2010 11:02 AM PST 
Join us for networking and a conversation and Q&A with Sree Sreenivasan (Professor and Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor of DNAinfo.com) and Vadim Lavrusik (new media journalist and digital media graduate student at Columbia University Journalism School). DetailsLocation: 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013 Socialize: Facebook Event Page Pricing: $20 in advance, $25 at door. Tickets on Sale Now. Food and drink: Snacks will be served. Open bar after presentations. Full cash bar and food menu available Schedule
A Conversation and Q&A with:
Sree Sreenivasan is a tech evangelist and skeptic specializing in explaining technology to non-techies. He is a professor and dean of students affairs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches in the digital media program. Sreenivasan is contributing editor at DNAinfo.com, a Manhattan-news startup he helped launch in 2009 with Joe Ricketts, the founder of Ameritrade and whose family just bought the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. He also has been a fixture on NYC-area television. For more than eight years, he served as technology reporter for WABC-TV and WNBC-TV and now occasionally appears on various TV shows (on CNN, NBC’s Today Show, CNBC and elsewhere) to talk tech. He has written articles for The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Rolling Stone, National Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes and Popular Science. You can find him on Twitter at twitter.com/sreenet and on the Web at sree.net.
Vadim Lavrusik is a new media journalist and social media consultant studying digital media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where he is launching NYC 3.0, a tech start-up news site as part of his Master’s project. He's reported for publications like the Star Tribune, The Minnesota Daily, the Mpls./St. Paul Business Journal and most recently was a guest feature writer for Mashable.com, where he covered trends in news media, and contributed to Poynter Online's E-Media Tidbits. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/lavrusik and the Web lavrusik.com. Thanks to our Sponsors
Thanks to our Partner “SMAC – the Social Media Advertising Consortium fosters collaboration throughout the entire social media ecosystem, diving deep into critical issues and staying ahead of this constantly evolving industry. By bringing together buy side, sell side, and research professionals to develop relevant standards, comprehensive research and definitive measurement tools, our goal is to grow revenues and increase engagement. SMAC members are groundbreakers. Entrepreneurs. Thought leaders. Together, we form a community that feeds off each other's creativity, creating an environment for learning and discovery.”Reviews: Mashable, Twitter Tags: Events, nextup, nextupnyc
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| More Google Search Features Come to Gmail Posted: 02 Feb 2010 10:34 AM PST 
Many Google employees get to spend 20% of their time brainstorming and executing their own personal pet projects. Engineer Adam de Boor used his time to add several new functions to Gmail’s Google search field. Many of these features were already available in the regular Google search engine, but you couldn’t use them in the limited Gmail widget.
Finally — and this deserves a special note because it actually exists outside the widget — there’s now a “Search” button in the toolbar when you’re composing an e-mail. If you select text then click on that button, the widget will pop up and show you the search results. Pretty nifty. Reviews: Gmail, Google Tags: gmail, Google, labs, Search, software
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| What a Google Chrome Tablet Might Look Like [PICS] Posted: 02 Feb 2010 10:05 AM PST 
Apparently, these mockups went live on Google’s developer site last Monday (two days before the iPad announcement), but no one noticed. To be clear, these are mockups and concepts — not actual products. However, the ideas in these mockups and UI concepts might be used in real products in the future. The concept UI for a Chrome-based tablet device is interesting. You can see the whole set of photos here and check out the video concept below: As CNET notes, the Chromium project (that’s the open source component that makes up Chrome) states on its Form Factors Exploration page that the primary focus for Chrome OS is still netbooks, but that it is conceivable that the platform could scale to a number of different devices and corresponding input options. Why Chrome OS Makes Sense in a TabletSome may question why Chrome OS would be a target for tablet or media pad devices rather than something like Android, but I think that a web-centric OS is the perfect complement to the tablet form factor.  A few months ago I wrote a piece about the Chrome OS announcement:
After seeing what Apple has planned for the iPad, I think more and more companies are going to warm to the idea of offering an Internet-focused tablet or media pad. Chrome OS is in a great position to power some of those devices. What do you think about Google’s tablet concepts? Let us know! Reviews: Android, Chrome, Google Tags: Chrome OS, google chrome, google tablet, Hardware, ipad, trending
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| Mashable Joins the Social Media Advertising Consortium Posted: 02 Feb 2010 10:04 AM PST 
SMAC defines their objectives as:
Together, with input from our staff and readership, we will help SMAC and our fellow members define and promote best practices, measurement and standards for social media. Throughout 2010, Mashable will work with SMAC to add our thought leadership into the conversation. If you’re interested in learning more, SMAC has created a wonderful Wiki, "Learn to Talk SMAC," that's a collection of standard social media related terms and their definitions. We invite you to take a look and if you want to lend a hand, feel free to contact them. Reviews: Mashable Tags: advertising, announcements, SMAC, social media, social media advertising consortium
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| Prop 8 Trial Re-enactments Circumvent Supreme Court’s YouTube Ban [VIDEO] Posted: 02 Feb 2010 09:27 AM PST 
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that John Ireland and John Ainsworth are using court transcripts, information from bloggers and professional actors to mastermind a re-enactment of trial proceedings for a YouTube-viewing audience. The pair strongly believe that their video portrayal of the trial will give Americans “a chance to judge for themselves, based on the evidence that was presented.” Both filmmakers are working on a shoestring budget, but they were still able to attract and secure SAG talent despite being unable to compensate actors for their time. They have reportedly cast “attractive” parties to portray both sides. In fact, Gregory Itzin — who’s appeared in everything from Twilight to 24 — plays the role of defense witness, David Blankenhorn. According to the Chronicle, Ainsworth and Ireland are committed to presenting an unbiased version of trial events, pulling directly from official transcripts and even seeking guidance from legal experts David Cruz and Linda Hirschman. You can expect new trial re-enactment scenes to be posted online to marriagetrial.com every two to three days, and we’ve embedded the day one trial videos below. Ireland and Ainsworth plan to complete their video coverage by the end of February. You may recall that the Chief U.S. District Judge Waugh Walker initially ruled in favor of YouTube trial coverage, but the Supreme Court overruled that design as the trial — which puts the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and the definition of marriage under the microscope — was getting underway. The proceedings have currently halted and closing arguments are slated for next month. Reviews: YouTube, twilight Tags: legal, prop 8, Proposition 8, social media, web video, youtube
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| 5 Social Media Tips for Better Corporate Social Responsibility Posted: 02 Feb 2010 09:05 AM PST 
In December, I read a story about social scientists who believe that humans have evolved to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive. This was called "Survival of the Kindest." The theory states that sympathy is our strongest human instinct, and helping others is critical to the survival of the whole species. These days, corporations are starting to have the same realization. Thanks to a social media culture that reveres transparency and demands accountability, companies today are seen through the critical lens of the Triple Bottom Line: People, planet and profit. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) states that businesses should act as stewards of society, the environment, and the economy. The social media spotlight brings accolades and new business for companies that give back, while brands behaving badly are pilloried in online communities like Twitter and Facebook, followed by the mainstream press. Creating a CSR strategy has become a primary challenge for CEOs. Fortunately, social media can be an invaluable resource for companies willing to commit to becoming better corporate citizens. Here are 5 steps to develop a CSR culture using social media. 1. Commit & Lead A CSR strategy begins with a long-term vision and commitment from the top of the executive food chain. The CEO's vision should be shared through social media channels so supporters can engage with the brand, provide feedback, and become evangelists. Jeff Swartz, CEO of Timberland is the embodiment of CSR leadership. As the CEO of his family's business since 1998, Swartz has been a long time activist for social and environmental issues. Swartz leverages Twitter and other social channels to engage communities and rally support for social justice on many fronts. 2. Listen & Learn It's important to assess the needs of the communities where you do business to determine which social issues to address. Employees that live and work in the community know the areas of greatest need. Many companies provide assistance to neighborhood programs like school breakfasts, books for libraries, or food banks, and reap the community rewards. The work humanizes the brand while strengthening the community. For more CSR ideas, search Twitter hashtags #CSR, #sustainability, and read Business Ethics, the Magazine of Corporate Responsibility. You can also follow CSR news on Twitter, leading CSR blogger David Connor and Social Giving pioneer John Wood from Room to Read. 3. Innovate Some companies leverage social media to encourage spontaneous and innovative ways to help others. Last month, Meg Garlinghouse, Senior Director of Yahoo For Good wrapped up a successful campaign called Random Acts of Kindness. Users and Yahoo employees were asked to update their status with stories about helping others, which were then shared across the Yahoo network. The CSR campaign received over 300,000 status updates and global participation from 11 countries. Other companies showed their support for CSR by giving employees the time to participate in volunteerism. Patrick Vogt, Chairman and CEO of digital marketing technology company Datran Media, provided 3 additional days to employees specifically for volunteerism this year, for example. 4. CommunicateTalk about what you are doing with CSR. CEOs can use social channels to tweet, blog and post updates about CSR initiatives. Make it a key topic at board meetings, employee meetings, press briefings, and trumpet it through all marketing channels. It's critical to communicate CSR positions on your website to encourage brand enthusiasts to get involved. As Tim Sanders stated in Saving the World at Work, studies show that when you witness or hear about an act of compassion, you are more likely to emulate it. The CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, Ben Verwaayen, communicates his vision for CSR on his website. "It is vital for all companies to act in a socially responsible manner and to be good corporate citizens. This involves more than ethical behavior; it means that all employees must become involved and demonstrate the company's concern for society." 5. Invest As it turns out, doing good is good for business, and more companies are realizing the benefits of Socially Responsible Investments (SRIs). According to the Social Investment Forum (SIF), a trade association advancing the practice of socially responsible investments, about two thirds of socially responsible mutual funds in the U.S. outperformed industry benchmarks during the 2009 economic downturn, most by significant margins. ConclusionSocial scientists believe that we are wired to be kind. It would seem that they are right, especially in light of the recent outpouring of generosity to Haiti. In today's world, admiration is bestowed upon companies that look beyond short-term financial goals to engage in long-term commitments for the betterment of society. As John D. Rockefeller once said, "Think of giving not as a duty, but as a privilege." More business resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, cjp [Image Credit: **CRT**] Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: business, corporate social responsibility, List, Lists, small business, social good, socialgood, twitter
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| YouTube Makes $10,709.16 From Movie Rental Trial Run Posted: 02 Feb 2010 08:55 AM PST 
The films were available for 10 days, and YouTube said it collectively got 2,864 views at $3.99 apiece. Nearly half those views were for one film; The Cove received 1,103 views. By contrast, six million Netflix subscribers stream movies online, and millions of iTunes users have bought or rented movies through that service. Of course, Netflix and iTunes each offer a lot more than five movies. It’s understandable that obscure, art house independent films would not make a large impact, but we expected more from films that were plugged on both the official YouTube blog and several other tech, web and film blogs. YouTube has been talking with major TV studios and other independent filmmakers, pitching a deal that would let them decide how much they want to charge someone to view their films. Once there are some bigger films available, we’ll have a better idea of how successful YouTube’s rental ambitions will be. To be fair, YouTube doesn’t think the Sundance test drive was a failure. YouTube rep Chris Dale was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “It definitely exceeded our expectations given all the barriers.” Reviews: YouTube, iTunes Tags: Film, Google, News, sundance, video, youtube
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| Does Facebook’s Doppelganger Week Violate TOS? Posted: 02 Feb 2010 07:11 AM PST 
CNET brought up the point this morning, and a look at the site’s TOS reveals that the (sometimes) flattering pics may not be legally cool:
So unless people have been trolling Creative Commons for snaps, it’s likely that they’re violating Facebook’s rules. As far as we know, the site hasn’t taken any action to quash this trend (Full Disclosure: As you can see above, I gleefully took part in it as well). Of course, using a picture of celeb in lieu of your own image is nothing new. In fact, using unlicensed images is really nothing new — blogs, Twitter accounts and social media site users do it all the time. The sheer magnitude of people taking part in this meme — along with the high visibility of the TOS violation — is what’s noteworthy. Still, we really doubt that any measures will be introduced to put an end to the trend, which is only encouraging more interaction with the social networking site. This whole deal is supposed to last a week, anyway. Which is good news for all you Facebook stalkers out there whose efforts have been foiled by pictures of Lou Diamond Phillips and Johnny Depp (dream on, bros). Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: doppelganger week, facebook, social media, trending
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| Google Announces Recipients of Focused Research Grants Posted: 02 Feb 2010 06:51 AM PST 
In this round, Google has awarded grants to 12 projects led by 31 professors at 10 universities. One of the realms of research is, interestingly enough, privacy — in its history, Google has often been a target of critics who claim the company hasn’t done enough to protect user privacy. The list of awarded researchers is below: Machine Learning * William Cohen, Christos Faloutsos, Garth Gibson, and Tom Mitchell, Carnegie Mellon University Use of mobile phones as data collection devices for public health and environment monitoring * Gaetano Borriello, University of Washington and Deborah Estrin, UCLA Energy efficiency in computing * Ricardo Bianchini, Rutgers, Fred Chong, UC Santa Barbara, Thomas F. Wenisch, University of Michigan, Sudhanva Gurumurthi, University of Virginia Privacy * Ed Felten, Princeton Reviews: Google Tags: Focused Research Awards, Google
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It’s official: Microsoft got it right this time. After the mistake that was Vista, Windows 7 was greeted like the second coming, and it many ways it really was better than its predecessor: less annoying, faster, smoother, more compatible with various pieces of hardware and software.
Yesterday, we wrote that Twitter 
Online video advertising network 
Mashable was in attendance at today’s 
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details 
Name: 
Loving a geek isn’t hard to do, what with the social awkwardness and the over-zealous online gaming. Shopping for one however, can sometimes be a challenge. Throw in that added pressure to be extra thoughtful on Valentine’s Day, and you’ve got quite the conundrum (that’s geek for “problem”).
We’re here at the 
Tim Trefren is one of the founders of 
As I mentioned earlier, pageview tracking is becoming less and less relevant for many web companies. Instead of the basic unit of measurement being the pageview, they are starting to track more directly relevant things, like the actions people are taking. Twitter, for example, may want to know how many tweets the average person sends and what they are searching for, not how many pages they viewed. Pageviews are just a way of approximating the information we really want, and as the web grows more interactive, they become less and less relevant.
At the very beginning of this year, we reported on rumors that a 
In 2009, Internet television network 
A few months ago, we wrote about the changes to AdaptiveBlue’s 
This year the NFL wants you to “Tag the Super Bowl #SB44″ so that it can collect and aggregate tweets and Flickr photos from fans around the world.
Less than 
Sree Sreenivasan – Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor, DNAinfo.com.
Vadim Lavrusik – Online journalist and M.S. candidate in Digital Media at Columbia Journalism School
“Pepsi believes in the power of people and their ideas to make positive change. That's why Pepsi is giving away more than $20 million this year to fund good ideas, big and small, that move communities forward. The 
“
Apple might have dominated the news last week with its 
Mashable is proud to announce that we have joined the 
Ann Charles is Founder and CEO of 
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