Mashable: Latest 27 News Updates - including “Google Maps for Android Get Updated Reviews and Search Result Filtering” |
- Google Maps for Android Get Updated Reviews and Search Result Filtering
- 3G Mobile Internet Comes to Mount Everest
- How Xobni Went From E-mail Add-On to Productivity Platform
- James Cameron on “Avatar 2″ and the Impending Environmental Crisis
- HOW TO: Protect Yourself From Firesheep With a VPN
- Mozilla Gives Firefox a New Add-On for Audio and Video Recording
- Flickr Now Lets You Sign Up With Your Google Account
- Mashable Is Hiring Editors and Reporters! Here’s How to Apply
- Adobe Demos Flash-to-HTML5 Conversion Tool [VIDEO]
- YouTube’s Burgeoning Promoted Videos Business
- Microsoft Posts Record Earnings, But Still Losing Billions on the Web
- 4 Ways to Improve Ad Performance on Facebook
- Where Do Americans Stand on Issues at Midterm Elections? [INFOGRAPHIC]
- Groupon Merchants Can Now Create Their Own Deals
- Twitter Debuts Official App for Windows Phone
- Charlie Chaplin Clip Contains Footage of “Time Traveler”? [Randomly Viral]
- What the Future Holds for B2B Social Media Marketing
- Box.net Ups Its Cloud Storage Offerings
- Facebook Now Tries to Tell the Story Between Two Friends
- Yelp Co-Founder on Recovering From Legal Controversy [INTERVIEW]
- See How Much Others Are Spending with Mint Data
- “FarmVille” Interruption Cited in Baby’s Murder
- Social Networks Are Not Killing Our Social Lives [STATS]
- 5 Tips for Startup Success from the CEO of Meetup
- When Are Facebook Users Most Active? [STUDY]
- The 3 Top Stories in Tech, Business and Social Media This Morning
- 12 Video Tutorials for Improving Product Photos
- “The Commuter”: A Short Film Shot Entirely With the Nokia N8
| Google Maps for Android Get Updated Reviews and Search Result Filtering Posted: 29 Oct 2010 05:29 AM PDT      Google Maps for Android has been upgraded to version 4.6, bringing several interesting improvements, most notably redesigned Place page reviews. Place pages now let users read “Reviews from around the web,” as well as “Reviews from Google users”, just like the Place pages on the desktop version of Google Maps. Search results can now be filtered with the “open now”, “neighborhood” and “related searches” categories. Finally, Latitude users can choose an option called “Real-time updating” in individual profile pages of their friends, which will speed up location updates from these particular friends. The option is experimental, Google says, and friends must have Maps 4.6 and Android 2.2 (or higher) for it to work. Google Maps 4.6 works on Android versions 1.6 and above, and is available here on in the Android Market. More About: android, Google Maps, Latitude, reviews, search results For more Mobile coverage:
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| 3G Mobile Internet Comes to Mount Everest Posted: 29 Oct 2010 01:59 AM PDT   Nepali mobile network operator Ncell has installed the first 3G base station at the summit of Mount Everest, giving visitors, climbers and people living in the Khumbu Valley the ability to make calls and wirelessly connect to the Internet. To test out the new facility, Ncell also made the world’s highest video call at 17,388 feet. So far, visitors of Mount Everest had to depend on satellite phones to make calls, but now they can do so through a standard GSM, 3G-enabled network. “The coverage of the network will reach up to the peak of the Everest,” Ncell Nepal chief Pasi Koistinen said to reporters in Kathmandu on Thursday. Ncell is a joint venture between private investors and Sweden-based telecom TeliaSonera. Ncell’s network currently covers less than one-third of Nepal’s population, but TeliaSonera said it planned to invest $100 million in the next year to extend coverage to more than 90 percent of the country’s population. “This achievement is as mighty as the altitude as 3G high speed internet will bring faster, more affordable telecommunication services to the people living in the Khumbu Valley, trekkers, and climbers alike,” said TeliaSonera CEO Lars Nyberg. Image courtesy of Rupert Taylor-Price, Flickr More About: 3g, broadband, internet, Mobile 2.0, Mount Everest, phone call For more Tech coverage:
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| How Xobni Went From E-mail Add-On to Productivity Platform Posted: 29 Oct 2010 12:45 AM 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.Xobni’s Outlook-enhancing social sidebar may seem like one of many tools on the market — think Rapportive, Liaise or Gist — aimed to improve inbox productivity, but the startup is maturing past the stage of simple utility and fast becoming a grown-up business. Now nearing 6 million total downloads, Xobni’s product arsenal includes a free Outlook plugin, a paid premium version, an enterprise offering, Xobni Mobile for BlackBerry and Xobni One, a contact-centric product that connects Xobni for Outlook with Xobni for BlackBerry. In an interview with Mashable, Xobni CEO Jeff Bonforte explains how the company has essentially reinvented itself to supersede the tools of the world and become a platform for personal productivity in e-mail. Personal and Social Relevance Part of Xobni’s appeal is that the tool provides users with time-saving and relevant information on contacts. The startup’s formula includes analysis of explicit information users share on social networks, but also taps into user’s implicit behaviors surfaced through communication patterns. “Our analytics engine helps us determine important information that you don't explicitly provide, but that improves your productivity,” says Bonforte. “We can determine if someone is important to you, how important they are, and how they relate to others in your network. We take those analytics to serve you the right information on your contacts at the right time.” The combination packs a one-two punch of information that really resonates with users, especially those willing to fork over $29.99 for premium features in Outlook and $9.99 for the convenience of Xobni on their BlackBerry. Evolving for Enterprise Demand Xobni was built with the professional Outlook user in mind. Bonforte admits that from the very beginning the startup saw a trend in enterprise adoption, but ran up against an unanticipated challenge — IT restrictions around user downloads. “Before launching our enterprise product, we had over 15% of employees from a very large enterprise (hint: Redmond) using the product. And this wasn't unusual. We have users in 85% of the Fortune 500,” he says. “But as we grew, we heard more and more that people were having issues getting Xobni on their machines because of IT restrictions.” The company responded earlier this year by releasing a paid enterprise product designed to allow IT departments to deploy and manage Xobni for small businesses or global corporations with thousands of employees. As a result, Xobni now has hundreds of enterprises paying to license its software. An E-mail Productivity Platform What started as a simple tool to boost e-mail productivity has graduated to become a platform of its own. Xobni has raised a hefty $32 million from top notch investors making repeat investments to finance its transformation. Funds have been allocated to deploy the enterprise product and build the cloud-based backend that has enabled the startup to move into the mobile space. “Additionally, we've developed a new platform recently that ports Google Gadgets to Outlook. This is a real win for developers who are looking to get into Outlook without the pain,” explains Bonforte. Xobni has also teamed up with Huddle, makers of collaborative workspaces, to integrate the product inside Outlook. Xobni provides fast access and powerful search around Huddle activity and documents. It’s these gadgets and Xobni additions that help make Outlook more of a productivity dashboard than e-mail client for users. But even with all of the product enhancements and new offerings, Xobni’s just now starting to become a money-making business. “We're in the millions, but not yet tens of millions in revenue,” reports Bonforte. The pressure is now on the startup to prove its business potential and attract more paying enterprise clientele. Images courtesy of Flickr, RambergMediaImages, Wonderlane, marioanima Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
More About: email, Outlook, spark-of-genius, xobni, xobni mobile For more Tech coverage:
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| James Cameron on “Avatar 2″ and the Impending Environmental Crisis Posted: 28 Oct 2010 09:26 PM PDT   On stage at a private event in Silicon Valley last night, legendary director James Cameron and Google CEO Eric Schmidt held a fascinating two hour conversation that touched on everything from the technology needs of the upcoming Avatar 2 film to the perils that face the environment if action isn’t taken. Eric Schmidt, acting as moderator, questioned Cameron on a plethora of topics in front of an audience of Silicon Valley movers and shakers for the Churchill Club Premiere Event. The conversation started with a video highlighting Cameron’s decades of accomplishments, including Terminator, Rambo, Alien, Total Recall, Titanic and of course Avatar. It quickly moved into a conversation about how he created the most expensive and most profitable film in human history. Cameron said that before he wrote the script for Avatar, he wrote the basics of the story and consulted with the artists. “Now my first step is to work with the artists,” Cameron told Schmidt on stage. He does this because he needs to see the characters and immerse himself in the art (primarily CG and Photoshop these days) before he can write a script, which is a far more specific document. Schmidt then asked Cameron about the technology he used (and in some cases invented) to create the Na’vi and the world of Pandora. The famous director described the motion capture technology used to capture the movements of the actors. Specific emphasis was paid on the facial capture rig that caught changes in an actor’s facial muscles, eyes and more. It wasn’t the rig itself that was groundbreaking, Cameron said, but the algorithms used to understand the actor’s emotions and facial movements. As for Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, Cameron didn’t reveal any of the plot details (Schmidt asked for the plot, Cameron responded by asking for Google’s source code). However, after the conversation, I asked the filmmaker what technologies he would have to invent in order to create both movies. While he mentioned that new CG would have to developed for Avatar 2’s underwater and ocean surface scenes, the real challenge he wants to tackle is increasing the frame rate of the sequel. Films are currently shot with a frame rate of 24 frames per second. His goal is to get it up to 48 or 60 frames per second, making it so that you get realistic shots at the time of shooting, rather than having to wait six months for editing. Rewriting the Contract: 3D James Cameron made an interesting point midway through the conversation — for work, many of us sit in front of our screens all day long. Yet when we want to relax… we watch screens. Sometimes we watch multiple screens. The acclaimed director saw this and decided that he wanted to “find a fundamental way to rewrite the contract between humans and their visual media.” His tool of choice, as many of you know, is 3D. Cameron sparked a new era of film with the spectacular 3D technology he created specifically for Avatar. The result has been a growing number of movies turning to 3D to enhance the movie experience. He believes that there will be no barriers to 3D ubiquity in the next five to 10 years. The first big breakthrough will be when it becomes mainstream in the home. He pointed out that there are already millions of 3D-capable TV sets out in the market (many of which we saw at CES 2010); he says the real barrier to 3D going mainstream in the home is the lack of TV programming in 3D. Discovery and ESPN may be jumping into 3D, but we’re still years away from seeing The Big Bang Theory in three dimensions. Cameron also believes 3D has to become a more comfortable experience to go mainstream. Google’s CEO took some time to explain to the audience the technology behind 3D glasses (polarized lenses help you see one image and then another in different view positions). Cameron believes we’re not far off from a time when we don’t need the glasses to watch 3D movies and TV shows. He says this will be especially important for gamers, who can sit up to eight hours in front of a screen at a time. The Nintendo 3DS is already a step in that direction. “We’re the Comet This Time”The vast majority of the conversation turned toward ecological issues when Eric Schmidt described Avatar as a narrative about the world’s ecology. “Why do you care so much about it?” Schmidt asked Cameron. “What is your responsibility and why are you using your significant perch?” “Any movie can be a teaching moment, but it has to be wrapped in powerful entertainment,” Cameron stated in response. He says part of the reason Avatar succeeded was that it spoke to the human psyche and heart. Specifically, it spoke to something he believes we all know: that we’re becoming disconnected from nature and that we are on a precipice. “If we don’t take control over our stewardship of our planet,” Cameron began, “the planet we bequeath to our children and our grandchildren will be in significant danger.” The next part of the conversation focused around the statistics supporting Cameron and Schmidt’s positions on the environment. They said that 70% of species will be extinct by the end of this century if we do nothing to stop the rise of world temperatures. Both men pointed out that while an average temperature rise of a few degrees would be devastating, the temperature rise would be three times as great at the arctic and antarctic poles. Cameron travels a great deal in order to bring awareness to his cause. He also intends to create several documentaries during the filming of Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 on the issue. He is also deeply involved in a project to create a vehicle that will reach the absolute bottom of the ocean, something that has been accomplished only once with a vehicle they described as a “gasoline-filled balloon.” While they covered a lot of ground (more than I can reasonably type up), there was one quote that really summed up Cameron and Schmidt’s thoughts on our treatment of the environment. It was in reference to the comet that killed the dinosaurs. “We’re the comet this time,” Cameron said. More About: Churchill Club, eric schmidt, james cameron, San Jose For more Entertainment coverage:
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| HOW TO: Protect Yourself From Firesheep With a VPN Posted: 28 Oct 2010 08:27 PM PDT   Think browsing the web at Starbucks is safe? Think again. A wildly popular new bit of malicious code called Firesheep is making the rounds among script kiddies and black-hat hackers; it allows them to access the cookies of any user on a non-password-protected wireless network. Once the ne’er-do-well in question is on the same public network as you, he or she can save and use your cookies to access your accounts (e-mail, Facebook and many other types of accounts, as well) through a point-and-click graphic interface. In the words of the person who created Firesheep, “As soon as anyone on the network visits an insecure website [Facebook, Gmail, etc.] known to Firesheep, their name and photo will be displayed [in the Firesheep interface]. Double-click on someone, and you’re instantly logged in as them.” For businesses with remote employees, Firesheep is a particular danger, as it potentially compromises your company’s data and accounts any time a worker logs in from a coffee shop, Internet cafe or other public network. The practice is known as session hijacking; if you’d like more information on how the code works, check out this post on Firesheep’s technical details. This code is being downloaded at an astonishingly high rate; although we don’t like to resort to scare tactics, we can’t currently recommend browsing on a network that isn’t password-protected. As long as the network you’re on has any kind of password — even a publicly available password or an obvious password — Firesheep won’t work on that network. However, if you’re using public Wi-Fi at a Starbucks, a hotel lobby, a college campus or anywhere else where you don’t have to enter a password before getting access to the network, you’re putting yourself at risk. Firesheep even works on airplanes, where the networks allow you some preliminary connection to the network before letting you browse the Internet. There is a safe way to access Wi-Fi on the go. It might give you a slightly slower connection; it might even cost you a bit of money. But until the general mess that’s been caused by Firesheep gets sorted out, it’s better to take a few precautions than to let some random black hat steal your Internet accounts. What’s a VPN?A virtual private network (VPN) is the easiest way (other than avoiding unsecure Wi-Fi altogether) to prevent yourself from a Firesheep-powered attack. VPNs create a private tunnel through the public network, protecting the user from any prying eyes (or packet sniffers) on his way from destination to destination online. VPNs were used a lot during the Irani election and protests; they’re also used a lot in China and in other areas where access to the Internet is restricted. Another group that uses VPNs frequently is corporations. Employees often need a safe way to access very private and sensitive information from a public network; VPNs provide security and access. (For more information on corporate use of VPNs, check out this HowStuffWorks article.) The downside of using a VPN is that you may notice a drop in your connection speed. You might also have to pay for your secure Internet access. The upside, with specific regard to Firesheep, is that you can sit elbow-to-elbow with a black hat hacker in a coffee shop and know that your data is safely encrypted. A Few VPNs to TryIf you’d like to protect yourself and have a more secure browsing experience from a public network, we recommend that you try some of these VPNs and use one every time you log onto a public Wi-Fi network. This is definitely one case where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Note: Need to set up a VPN on your iPad? Yes, yes you do. Here’s a tutorial that will get you through the process.
Cost: $33 per month for commercial use, free for noncommercial use Cost: FOSS Cost: $39.99 per year Cost: Starts at $7 per month If you have other VPN recommendations, please share them with our other readers in the comments, and safe surfing. Image courtesy of Flickr, ari. More About: firesheep, security, vpn For more Tech coverage:
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| Mozilla Gives Firefox a New Add-On for Audio and Video Recording Posted: 28 Oct 2010 06:11 PM PDT   Mozilla Labs has been working hard on browser-based audio and video — not just for playback, but also for recording. Labs’ newest creation, called Rainbow, lets developers access your hardware’s video and audio recording capabilities with a few lines of JavaScript. The files created are all in open-source formats, including Theora, Vorbis and Ogg (support for WebM and other formats are planned in the product’s roadmap). Once media is captured, files can be accessed via the DOM with HTML5 File APIs. Mozilla also wants to enable live streaming video capabilities for the add-on. Mozilla Labs employee Anant Narayanan wrote in a blog post today that the Labs team had “experimented with audio recording in the browser as part of the Jetpack prototype.” This development, however, is still a pre-alpha prototype at the moment. As such, it only works with Firefox nightly builds on Mac devices. Another Mozilla experiment we’ve liked a lot lately is Chromeless, a DIY tool for developers who want to create their own web browser UIs. In general, multimedia as part of the web browser experience is becoming increasingly experimental and interactive; we’re excited to see where Mozilla and developers take Rainbow in the near future. If you want to give it a whirl, you can check out the source on Github. More About: add-on, audio, Firefox, mozilla, Mozilla Labs, multimedia, rainbow, video For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Flickr Now Lets You Sign Up With Your Google Account Posted: 28 Oct 2010 05:06 PM PDT   Chalk up one point for Google and another point for Yahoo; Google-powered signups for Flickr accounts are a win-win. Flickr announced today that Google would be its first partner in its introduction of OpenID for new account signups. Starting today, anyone can sign up for a new Flickr account using their Google account. Existing Flickr users will still have to use their Yahoo identities to login, but Flickr says they’re working on making that easier and less frequent, too. This is great for Flickr and parent company Yahoo, as it makes it easier for current Google users to use the former photo-sharing site as opposed to Picasa, a Google-owned competitor. But it’s not exactly a loss for Google, since it removes a big reason to establish and use a Yahoo account. Of course, the real winner here is the OpenID community. Eric Sachs is on Google’s Internet Identity Team. He wrote today on the Google Code blog, “Google and Yahoo! are two of the many companies who have been involved with the OpenID community's efforts to improve the process for how users log in and sign up for online services… While Google doesn't yet support the use of OpenID for replacing passwords on its own sites, we're involved in the OpenID community's efforts to research how to best implement that type of support.” Interestingly enough, last month Google announced it would be using OpenID to allow Yahoo users to signup for new Google accounts, a clear swipe at Yahoo’s userbase. According to data gathered this summer, Google is the single largest “identity provider” across the Internet; Google represents the preferred sign-in option for 38% of users on sites with third-party sign-in options. Not surprisingly, Facebook holds second place, with 24% of users choosing that identity as a login option. Do you think Facebook-based Flickr signups are coming any time soon, or do you think the battle to dominate online photos is too tense to allow for that kind of integration just yet? More About: flickr, Google, openID, Yahoo For more Tech coverage:
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| Mashable Is Hiring Editors and Reporters! Here’s How to Apply Posted: 28 Oct 2010 03:45 PM PDT   Interested in joining Mashable’s growing editorial team? With offices in New York City and San Francisco, we’re always looking for talented writers and editors. Read on to learn more about our job openings and how to apply. Weekend Editor (NYC)The weekend editor is responsible for overseeing Mashable’s editorial content and community over the weekend, reporting directly to Mashable’s Editor in Chief. As such, the editor will write and edit content being published on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as work in-office with the NYC staff Monday, Tuesday and Friday to ensure continuity. This role requires: Benefits: Health insurance Business & Marketing Editor (NYC)With so much happening in the business and marketing realm relating to social and digital, Mashable is looking for an experienced editor to oversee our coverage of the space and take our growing business & marketing section to the next level. This role requires: Benefits: Health insurance Technology Reporter (San Francisco)Mashable is looking for a talented tech reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area to join its local team. The ideal candidate is passionate about technology and the digital realm, entrepreneurial with a record of successful editorial projects and has his or her own set of contacts. This role requires: Benefits: Health insurance If you don’t fit these roles…If you don’t fit these roles but feel you might fit a future role that could benefit Mashable, please go ahead and introduce yourself by e-mailing careers [at] mashable [dot] com. We recommend including a little information about yourself and why you’d like to work at Mashable, as well as links to relevant recent work, your social profiles and an updated resume. Reviews: Facebook, Google Analytics, Mashable, Twitter, WordPress, eXperience More About: editorial, jobs, mashable For more Social Media coverage:
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| Adobe Demos Flash-to-HTML5 Conversion Tool [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Oct 2010 03:22 PM PDT When we talked to Adobe’s Paul Gubbay about how the company sees Flash and HTML5, he made it clear that Adobe is very interested in supporting both platforms. At Adobe’s MAX conference the other night, that message was made manifest with a live demonstration of a Flash to HTML5 conversion tool, which is currently in the works. The tool is incredibly impressive in that it can convert full Flash animation into HTML5 on the fly. Adobe already offers HTML5 plugins for Illustrator CS5 and Dreamweaver CS5. Adobe also offers an Illustrator CS5 export tool for HTML5 and JavaScript. What makes this Flash tool different is that it not only supports animations, but elements within those animations. Watch the demonstration video to get an idea of how users will be able to take elements from within the newly converted HTML5 code to re-insert elsewhere on a web page. Those animations or interactions will now be viewable on all kinds of devices — including the iPhone and iPad. This is where we think that this HTML5 conversion tool has real possibilities. It’s one thing to be able to convert a movie or animation — that’s impressive — it’s the resources within those Flash files, however, that are potentially more useful. Adobe might be serious about wanting to push Flash and Adobe Air on mobile platforms like the BlackBerry PlayBook, HP’s webOS and Google’s Android, but that doesn’t mean that the company isn’t listening to its customers and providing cross-platform solutions that can work on the many different device types. Last week, for example, Adobe introduced a new HTML5 video player widget. What do you think of the ability to convert Flash to HTML5? Let us know. Reviews: Android, Google, adobe AIR, iPhone More About: adobe, adobe flash, Flash, HTML5, html5 video For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| YouTube’s Burgeoning Promoted Videos Business Posted: 28 Oct 2010 02:28 PM PDT   YouTube’s Promoted Videos program hit a major milestone this month, hitting half a billion views. This figure certainly lends more credence to recent conjectures that the video-sharing site might, in fact, be starting to generate significant revenue (if not profits) for Google. The Promoted Videos program launched two years ago, and, according to the YouTube blog, has seen a six-fold increase in viewers clicking on these creator-sponsored vids in the past year (advertisers basically pay to have these videos appear in search results, on the YouTube homepage and on video pages). This increase in engagement makes sense, considering the service got a boost a year ago with the addition of AdSense ad units. Promoted Videos has also gained exposure by expanding beyond the U.S. and bundling with YouTube’s Video Targeting tool. In addition, the site’s Promoted Video API in AdWords is currently in beta, letting agencies use Promoted Videos to manage campaigns across multiple clients. The profitability of YouTube has long been an issue — last year Credit Suisse projected that YouTube would generate only $240 million in revenue for 2009. With the report estimating YouTube’s expenses at $711 million per year, that’s a $471 million loss for Google. Still, at the beginning of this year, Google CEO Eric Schmidt foresaw YouTube turning a profit in 2010, and a Wall Street analyst recently said that YouTube may be closing in on $1 billion in annual revenue. Add to that the fact that the company recently reported that it was monetizing 2 billion views per week, and it seems like things are looking up for YouTube’s bottom line. While it would take you, the viewer, 2,853 years to watch every one of YouTube’s Promoted Videos, we’re embedding the first-ever vid below for your enjoyment. We give you, "Penny Pranks" by Office Max. Reviews: Google, YouTube More About: business, Google, money, promoted videos, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| Microsoft Posts Record Earnings, But Still Losing Billions on the Web Posted: 28 Oct 2010 02:00 PM PDT   Microsoft is out with its latest earnings report, with strong sales of Windows 7, Office 2010 and Xbox 360 helping push the company to a quarterly revenue record of $16.2 billion. The company's online division also posted sales growth — $527 million for the quarter versus $487 million during the same period last year – but lost a staggering $560 million. At that pace, Microsoft is losing more than $2 billion per year from its online ventures. Of course, the company is putting a more positive spin on the online numbers, noting in its earnings release that "for yet another quarter, Bing continued to grow market share, while achieving major milestones in implementing Microsoft's partnership with Yahoo." On a related note, Microsoft and Yahoo completed the migration of Yahoo advertisers to Microsoft's adCenter on Wednesday, a move that both companies hope will greatly benefit their top and bottom lines going forward. Still, the huge loss indicates that Microsoft has a long way to go in terms of building a profitable Internet business. Outside of that, Microsoft did report growth of 38% year-over-year for Xbox 360, with overall devices revenue jumping from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion for the period. This holiday season will be a key measure for that division with both the Microsoft Kinect motion controller and the first batch of Windows Phone 7 smartphones hitting stores. Reviews: Bing, Internet More About: bing, earnings, microsoft For more Business coverage:
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| 4 Ways to Improve Ad Performance on Facebook Posted: 28 Oct 2010 01:13 PM PDT   Matt Lawson is the vice president of marketing at Marin Software, the largest paid search management provider. Facebook advertising holds tremendous promise for marketers looking to reach targeted audiences online. Nowhere else do people willingly share such specific information about themselves – enabling marketers to target ads and evaluate performance based on details about consumers such as their age, interests, employers, location and even friends and relationships. Facebook advertising, however, is still relatively new, and advertisers are only beginning to experiment with Facebook ads. Even digital marketing experts, familiar with advanced targeting techniques in paid search and display advertising, are just now figuring out how to effectively run advertising programs on Facebook. To get your ads noticed by Facebook users, you'll need to tailor your ads to work within the Facebook experience. Facebook users spend an inordinate amount of time –- more than any other website — on the social network. They interact with friends, share information and connect with their favorite causes; however, despite all their actions, people aren't searching for products or services. That's why carefully selecting images, modifying calls-to-action and subtly changing messaging to reach Facebook users is important for success in this channel. Here are a few insider tricks you can use to take your Facebook targeting and ad performance to the next level. 1. Remember the User ExperienceMany marketers dive right into Facebook ads expecting to drive traffic from Facebook directly to their site, just as in paid search. While this may work for some, tailoring the experience to Facebook users typically delivers better results. Using Custom Pages or Applications on Facebook to capture traffic allows you to keep users within Facebook for a consistent browsing experience, resulting in lower bounce rates. Custom Pages, as part of your Facebook Page, make it easy for consumers to “Like" your product or brand. For every user who Likes your page, you can remarket to them over time with status updates about deals or upcoming events. Facebook Apps, on the other hand, provide the marketer with more control over the user experience, as well as the ability to gather detailed demographic data from user profiles. If converting traffic outside of Facebook is a requirement for you, consider tailoring your landing pages to social users. This could include writing different ad copy, the inclusion of Like and sharing buttons on your site and presenting user-generated content such as videos or reviews, as opposed to product information, for Facebook users arriving at your landing page. 2. Use Root Analysis to Expand Targeting Facebook users can list any terms they want to define their likes and interests, so in order to target a full audience of potential customers, you may have to do some investigating for those terms and phrases that go beyond your general keyword search. For example, using the targeting parameter "camping," your ad will not reach users who have listed "camping in the mountains" or "tent camping" on their profile. Root analysis is a useful way to discover people's likes and interests on Facebook to expand your audience and drive more conversions. Simply start with a root word and expand your targeting to include related interests. You can do this by typing the root word into Facebook's "Likes & Interests" targeting settings and then typing a single letter to find related terms. Using the camping example, entering "camping i" results in a list that includes "camping in California" and "I love camping." Adding these unique terms to your targeting criteria expands your audience, helping to discover additional valuable consumers and improve ROI. 3. Segment Your AdsWith 500 million users on Facebook, there are probably plenty of consumers that you want to reach with your ads. However, not all Facebook users are created equal. Breaking out your audiences to understand the value of each segment, and then adjusting your bids accordingly, will help you optimize your Facebook budget. Dividing audiences by age, location, and gender should help you find the segments most likely to convert, making each segment more valuable to you. As you measure the performance variance between your segmented advertisements, you can adjust your bids to improve the overall ROI for your Facebook ad campaigns. 4. Prevent Ad Blindness People use Facebook to interact with friends, share their photos and play games, not to look for products and services. Your ads need to grab their attention. Facebook users are inundated with content and typically scan images and text quickly, but there are tricks to modify creative to minimize ad blindness and increase click-through rates. The most successful ads include colorful, engaging images — and of course, a compelling and relevant offer. Adding borders to your photos in colors like orange or yellow, which contrast with the blue and white Facebook interface, is a simple way to pull the user's eyes in your ad's direction. Make sure to test early and often here, as the results will surprise you. The most-clicked ads are not necessarily the most aesthetically pleasing; they are often the ones that stand out on the page. Also, because ads can be served to the same users multiple times, it doesn't take long for users to completely tune out repeat ads, so you have to keep your approach creative and fresh. Rotating images and headline copy as performance drops over time can help boost click-through rates. ConclusionBy using the tips above to target and optimize your advertisements, you should have a head start in Facebook marketing. More importantly, by building competencies in this new channel, you can build sustainable advantage over the competition through superior targeting and optimization. Taking a wait-and-see approach may be the safe route, but now is the time to begin. The Facebook advertiser base is still relatively small in comparison to the Facebook audience. As a result, costs-per-click rates remain lower than paid search and other channels. As advertisers continue to shift dollars to Facebook, costs will rise, and advertisers that have managed to build a fan base early will be better positioned to reap dividends from their investment. What tips can you offer? What has worked with your own advertising experience on Facebook? Do you also zone out uninspired ads? Let us know in the comments below. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Facebook More About: ad, advertising, business, facebook, facebook pages, List, Lists, MARKETING, ROI, root analysis, small business, social media marketing, targeted, tips For more Business coverage:
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| Where Do Americans Stand on Issues at Midterm Elections? [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 28 Oct 2010 12:57 PM PDT
Yahoo has been busy gathering tons of data about Americans’ opinions on important political, economic and social issues as the U.S. approaches its midterm elections. The company has just released a map infographic showing how public opinion varies from region to region across the United States. In September, Yahoo’s 1.7 million respondents identified the nation’s most pressing issues, from the economy to the environment and beyond. For example, 65% of respondents from all over the United States say President Obama is "out of touch;" 56% think the U.S. will maintain its superpower status despite China's economic gains; and 53% say oil companies should be taxed more to fund alternative, green energy sources. Americans in this survey were conservative on immigration, favoring Arizona’s controversial new laws, and on the new health care law, saying it should be overturned in the courts. Now, Yahoo has gathered enough information to break down responses by state and geographic region. This infographic shows the most popular question for each region, along with a percentage split and the number of votes on that question from that region. Surprisingly, Upper Midwesterners and Californians roughly agreed on what was the most popular question for both areas. Respondents from California, Oregon and Washington were united with their Midwestern counterparts in thinking that a White House-level staff shakeup wouldn’t do a lot to help the economy. And respondents from the South agreed with people from the western U.S. that Charlie Crist, the independent governor and senate hopeful from Florida, represents a need for unaffiliated, independent politicians. Finally, when it comes to the current economic recession, many citizens are losing confidence in the idea of the American Dream. Forty percent of Northeastern and 46% of Midwestern respondents said the “Great Recession” has made the American Dream an outdated notion. This infographic is the third and latest in a series based on Yahoo’s Ask America data. Images were created by interactive agency JESS3. To vote and comment on Yahoo’s poll questions, check out the issues at the Ask America website. More About: JESS3, politics, Yahoo For more Tech coverage:
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| Groupon Merchants Can Now Create Their Own Deals Posted: 28 Oct 2010 12:18 PM PDT   Groupon has released a Merchant Center for Groupon Stores, its recently uncovered self-service platform that businesses can use to set up virtual store fronts to promote and run their own deals. The Merchant Center packs a host of information on the new product offering and appears to be open for business — interested parties can now sign up to set up their own Groupon Store and create deals. Should you sign up, Groupon claims you can have your first deal up and running in a few days’ time. Compare that to a month or longer if you go the traditional Deal of the Day route. Once your business has been verified, you can run deals as often as you want. While there are no up front fees, Groupon does take a variable commission. The commission is a 30% cut of sold Groupons for deals the site helps to promote, and 10% for the deals it doesn’t promote — merchants only get paid upon deal redemption (an important distinction). According to the Merchant Center, promoted deals have additional fees but will be matched with members and delivered via e-mail or displayed on a user’s homepage. Self-serve deals cannot be modeled after Groupon’s Deal of the Day “tipping point” formula, but merchants can limit the number of customers who can buy deals. Now that the self-serve Groupon Stores platform has opened its doors, we can watch to see if the product becomes the “future of Groupon” as it’s been described. What’s interesting is that the implementation of the product indicates that this will compete with the likes of Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, SCVNGR, Gowalla and Google when it comes to attracting small business attention. There’s also an active discussion on Quora around Groupon Stores with participants chiming in on whether this is a misstep for the company. “By moving into a self-service model Groupon has essentially turned itself into a coupon provider. As it is right now they are having difficulty maintaining a high level of deal quality (the real value proposition in the industry). When there is no moderation the quality of the deals will drop and people will stop buying,” says Quora user Eric Bernhard, whose answer is currently the highest rated.  [via Yipit] Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Gowalla, Yelp More About: groupon, groupon stores, MARKETING, small business For more Business coverage:
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| Twitter Debuts Official App for Windows Phone Posted: 28 Oct 2010 11:54 AM PDT   Twitter has just announced an official mobile app for Windows Phone. The application is available immediately for all Windows Phone 7 devices. Twitter also says this app is particularly fast and brings users “all of the features that you'd expect from Twitter.” Twitter mobile product manager Leland Rechis wrote on the Twitter blog that the UI for this platform is called Metro; the platform provides Pivots, which he says “are sort of like pages of the app.” “Pivots allow you to swipe left or right to view different categories or types of information within a single application. “For example, in Twitter for Windows Phone, you can swipe left or right to move from your timeline to mentions to direct messages,” he says.  Ever since Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie earlier this year, the company has been hard at work on developing official mobile apps for various platforms. Twitter for iPhone came to the App Store in May, and Twitter for Android rolled out in April, as did Twitter for BlackBerry. While some of the apps aren’t as full-featured as their third-party competitors, they do feature excellent graphics and the Twitter seal of approval, of course. In developing this app, Twitter’s engineers and their partners made some improvements to an open source REST API library, Tweet Sharp; those improvements will also be released as open source software. Windows Phone 7 was just made available to consumers earlier this month. Twitter was not one of the apps in the roster of pre-launch development partners, which included Pandora, Foursquare, Seesmic, Netflix and the Associated Press. Have you tried Twitter for Windows Phone yet? Let us know what you think in the comments. Reviews: App Store, Pandora, Seesmic, Twitter, foursquare More About: Mobile 2.0, twitter, twitter app, windows phone, windows phone 7 For more Social Media coverage:
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| Charlie Chaplin Clip Contains Footage of “Time Traveler”? [Randomly Viral] Posted: 28 Oct 2010 11:42 AM PDT Here’s something spooky just in time for Halloween: a YouTube video created by Irish filmmaker George Clarke has gone viral this week, as it purports to show a cellphone-toting “time traveler” attending the 1928 premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus. Take a look at the video above to hear Clarke wax philosophical about the clip — and to see it replayed over and over and over again — which comes from a DVD extra from the film and shows a woman ambling by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, hand to ear, chattering away. For some reason, Clarke seems convinced that the figure is a man. Maybe he knows something we don’t about the predilection of different genders for time travel? Oh man, this is just like the time Amy Smart foretold the coming of the iPad on an episode of Felicity… You know, a coincidence. Reviews: YouTube More About: charlie-chaplin, Film, viral video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| What the Future Holds for B2B Social Media Marketing Posted: 28 Oct 2010 11:17 AM PDT
Business-to-business (B2B) social media is a different animal. B2B and enterprise companies aren’t trying to convert millions of individual consumers into customers — they’re trying to convince a smaller group of companies with bigger budgets to buy their products or services. Social media’s power to spread a message across the web isn’t as relevant. That doesn’t mean social media doesn’t have a place in the B2B world, though. On the contrary, a lot of these companies have found social media to be extremely useful in generating leads, performing market research and establishing themselves as thought leaders. We’ve already written about ways to use social media for the enterprise, but now we want to explore a different topic: how B2B companies will use social media in the future. To do that though, we need to explore the current state of social media in the enterprise. What B2B Marketers Use Social Media ForWhile you might assume that B2B companies are less engaged in social media than their B2C counterparts, you’d actually be wrong. In a study of social media use conducted by Business.com last year, it was revealed that North American B2B companies are more likely to be using social media tools when compared to B2C companies. Here are some examples:
Why are so many B2B marketers using social media, though? According to a study analyzed by eMarketer, the majority of B2B marketers (60%) said they use social media to provide “thought leadership” for their brand. Another 49% said they used social networks to generate leads, 46% for customer feedback, 35% for advertising and 29% for market research. The inescapable conclusion is that the use of social media in a B2B setting is more popular than most people would expect. Businesses are mostly using it to develop thought leadership and customer service. Because of that, we’re not surprised to find that Twitter is often their tool of choice. Still, as social media strategist of the PayPal X Platform Sudha Jamthe told me in an interview, thought leadership and customer service are “low-hanging fruit” for B2B marketers. Social media is capable of so much more. What Tools Will B2B Marketers Use? B2B social media marketing is still very much in its infancy. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and most of the social tools we use today are just a few years old. Companies are just starting to really discover the power of social and what it can do for a company’s bottom line. In other words, there’s a lot of room for growth. So what’s next for B2B social media marketing? To find out, I consulted some of the best minds in the B2B social marketing space. Autumn Truong, manager of social media and corporate communications at Cisco, says that she sees social as one of the key channels to reaching influencers and building awareness about B2B initiatives. She specifically pointed to the social media efforts of Cisco’s executives (a big example: CTO Padmasree Warrior, who has nearly 1.4 million followers). Really though, it boils down to one thing Truong said during our interview: “How can we mobilize a captivated audience to do something on our behalf?” Truong believes the future of B2B social media marketing will focus on three key areas: video, mobile and engagement. She seemed especially excited by video’s potential to tell a story and spur new engagement. We wouldn’t expect anything less from her, though; Cisco is the owner of the Flip camcorder, after all. Social Media Shaping the Product PayPal’s Sudha Jamthe believes we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to B2B social media. While social media may be used for thought leadership and customer service today, she thinks its real power is in real-time feedback. PayPal is utilized by millions of consumers worldwide, but it also has countless merchants as customers and developers and small businesses as partners, all of which it wants to reach via social media. Sudha believes that a lot of B2B marketers are using it simply as a broadcast platform, when its real value is in making customers your partner. Her example was the PayPal Developer platform. She says that PayPal simply can’t know all of the potential APIs and feature requests its developer community wants and needs in order for them to build applications and products on its platform. The company has two primary options for getting feedback from them: market research or social media. The problem with market research though is its drastically high costs. Social media, on the other hand, can be a direct channel for customers to express what they really want. PayPal has used its social media accounts to communicate with developers, which has resulted in innovations such as PayPal Apps and its Micropayments for Digital Goods product. Jamthe believes that the future of B2B social media marketing is in companies’ ability to use social feedback to adapt their products based off criticism and comments. She also stresses though that social is going to become more integrated in not only B2B marketing campaigns, but in actual products. This will provide an even more direct way to solicit feedback and innovate based off of that. “In B2C, there are a lot of tools that measure the conversation,” she said. “How many conversations, what was the reach of my campaign? It doesn’t mean anything in a B2B setting. Talking to vendors, so what? It should be different for B2B, and it needs to be about real ROI. It translates to cost saving.” The ROI of B2B social media depends not only on tracking engagement, but on figuring out where it saves a company money. Jamthe argues that social media’s cost savings come in its ability to get market feedback and even new product ideas at a fraction of the cost. Three TakeawaysThere’s a lot to be excited about if you’re a B2B social media marketer, because we’re just starting to realize how powerful social media can really be for enterprise organizations. While today it may be about the social tools we use to spread our message, tomorrow it will be about the platforms utilized to engage in constructive and effective conversations. With that said, here are my three key points to remember about the future of social media for B2B companies:
How do you think B2B social media will evolve? What tools will we be using? Where is the true ROI in social media? It’s your turn to chime in. Series Supported by IDG Enterprise  The B2B Social Media Marketing Series is supported by IDG Enterprise. Understand how IT decision-makers are accessing information and how you can engage them with successful multi-channel programs. To learn more, download our white paper or listen to our webcast as IT marketers discuss the challenges of reaching customers in the current media environment and best practice frameworks for developing successful multi-channel programs. More B2B Marketing Resources from Mashable:
Images courtesy of iStockphoto, almagami & Flickr, Brian Solis Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto More About: b2b, b2b marketing, B2B Social Media Marketing Series, business, cisco, MARKETING, paypal, small business, social media, social media marketing For more Business coverage:
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| Box.net Ups Its Cloud Storage Offerings Posted: 28 Oct 2010 11:03 AM PDT   Cloud storage and collaboration platform Box.net has just announced some major storage upgrades for its business and personal plans. In the past, Box.net offered its free personal account users 1GB of storage. That cap has now been moved up to 5GB, which is one of the most generous free offerings from any cloud-based sharing service. Business accounts, which previously had incremental sizes on a per-user basis will now start out at 500GB for the shared workspace. For Box.net enterprise customers, Box.net will also now offer unlimited cloud storage for documents and files. We spoke to Box.net co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie about the new storage tiers and Box’s overreaching goals for making the cloud more infinite. Levie said that just as this growth in storage capacities has had an impact on consumers, it has also had an impact on data centers. It’s now possible for data centers to offer more storage for the same price. That’s why Box.net decided that now would be a good time to upgrade its offerings. Box.net was originally started as a cloud storage platform — similar in some ways to what Dropbox is today. However, over the past five years, the platform has evolved significantly. It’s less about indiscriminate storage and more about becoming a content management and collaboration platform. It’s more similar to something like Microsoft SharePoint both in its featureset and its scope. Box.net shared this comparison between its new cloud offerings, as compared to those of its competitors in the content management and collaboration space:  We should point out that you can actually hook Box.net up to Salesforce.com and Google Docs and Google Apps. Other Cloud UpgradesIn addition to bumping up its storage offerings, Box.net has also upgraded its cloud. Box.net just achieved SAS 70 II certification, offers 256-bit encryption and now has dual-data centers with 99.98% uptime. Box has also been working on making its search faster, adding to its mobile offerings and updating some of its workflow tools. Box.net wants to be a location-agnostic cloud server so that businesses large and small can access their documents from anywhere. After all, that is the promise of the cloud; rather than needing your own servers and intranets for document storage and collaboration, the data can be stored in the cloud, making it possible to access from more types of devices and from more locations. PricingBox.net’s pricing is as follows:
Do you use something like Box.net or SharePoint to share documents in your business? Let us know. Reviews: Dropbox, Google Docs More About: box.net, cloud collaboration, cloud computing, cloud storage, sharepoint For more Tech coverage:
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| Facebook Now Tries to Tell the Story Between Two Friends Posted: 28 Oct 2010 10:31 AM PDT   Facebook is rolling out a new breed of Pages called Friendship Pages that pull together the public wall posts, comments, photos (based on tags) and events that two friends have in common. The Friendship Pages feature was cooked up by Facebook software engineer Wayne Kao and then brought to life in an internal hackathon event. The Pages are designed to the tell the story of two friends on Facebook through their shared activity. “For those of us who have worked on it, the best part is the human side of these Pages. They can bring back memories, conversations and times spent together,” explains Kao. Friendship Pages are accessible from under the main photo on a friend’s profile Page and via links from related wall posts or relationship stories. The Pages are public to other members so long as they have permission to view both users’ profiles. Friendship Pages are said to be launching today, but are likely being delivered to members in a gradual rollout. We think the Pages are an interesting alternative way to organize Facebook activity around friends, though it does add another layer of complexity to the site.  Image courtesy of Flickr, Beatriz AG Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, pages More About: facebook, facebook friends, friendship pages, social media, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Yelp Co-Founder on Recovering From Legal Controversy [INTERVIEW] Posted: 28 Oct 2010 10:23 AM PDT   When Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons launched Yelp in 2004, they never thought that people would write reviews on the Internet for fun. Several business plan iterations later, Stoppelman now presides over the most robust collection of user-generated local reviews in the world. With more than 38 million unique visitors to the site per month and 11 million reviews, Yelp has influenced the way people make decisions about where they spend their money and, consequently, the way small businesses operate. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman recently spoke with Mashable about recovering from legal controversy, growing an evolving company and the future of local search.
More Business Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Google, Internet, Mashable, Yelp More About: business, business advice, entrepreneur, interview, Jeremy Stoppelman, q&a, Russel Simmons, small business, startups, yelp For more Business coverage:
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| See How Much Others Are Spending with Mint Data Posted: 28 Oct 2010 10:00 AM PDT   Intuit-owned personal financial site Mint.com has released a new product that presents the sum total of anonymous purchase information it has tracked over the years. The product, Mint Data, is a comparison spending tool that identifies what people actually spend, in aggregate, at specific merchants or across certain categories. Mint Data aims to be a real-time economic index where consumers can search to discover what their peers are spending and compare their own behaviors against national or regional averages. The tool dissects spending by retailer, category and region, and it highlights spending data by average price or popularity, where popularity is defined by the number of transactions per month. In San Francisco, for instance, the average purchase price for a restaurant expense is $35.74, with the average monthly expense totaling $294.69 per person. Users can also drill down to look at the most popular restaurants and the average purchase price at those places — La Boulange with an $11.13 average expenditure ranks first in San Francisco. With Mint Data, what we’re looking at is essentially a slick consumer-friendly user interface built on top of Mint’s purchase database that encompasses data from more than 4 million users. Mint Data may or may not be a scientific representation of the country’s spending habits, but with its large user base, there’s certainly a wealth of information that packs meaningful insight in the aggregate about consumer spending.  Image courtesy of Flickr, Darwin Bell Reviews: Flickr, Mint More About: finance, mint, mint data, personal finance For more Social Media coverage:
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| “FarmVille” Interruption Cited in Baby’s Murder Posted: 28 Oct 2010 09:23 AM PDT   A 22-year-old mother from Jacksonville, Florida, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for shaking her 3-month-old son to death after his crying interrupted her FarmVille game. The mother, Alexandra V. Tobias, was arrested in January and declared her plea on Wednesday before Circuit Judge Adrian G. Soud, The Florida Times-Union reports. She told investigators that she shook the baby, smoked a cigarette “to compose herself,” and proceeded to shake him again. The baby may have hit his head during one of the two shakings, she said. FarmVille, named one of the “worst inventions” in recent decades by Time magazine, has more than 60 million members, most of whom access the game through Facebook. Some players have found it so addicting that they’ve lost their jobs and racked up debts north of $1,000. Needless to say, it is Ms. Tobias — and not the game itself — that is responsible for the death of her 3-month-old son. This is not the first time that a virtual game has led to murder; in 2009, 28-year-old Joseph Johnson of Chicago was charged with first-degree murder after allegedly shooting his companion in the head while playing an Xbox game. Reviews: Facebook More About: farmville, murder, Zynga For more Social Media coverage:
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| Social Networks Are Not Killing Our Social Lives [STATS] Posted: 28 Oct 2010 09:09 AM PDT   For everyone out there bemoaning the death of social interaction at the hands of services like Facebook and Twitter, a new study released today by ExactTarget and CoTweet will ease your mind. According to this report, these social networking behemoths are not having a negative effect on face-to-face relations. Titled “Social Mythbusting,” the report is the seventh in the “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” research series from e-mail marketing provider ExactTarget and its social media management tool, CoTweet. The study was conducted in two phases: 1) A series of focus groups containing 44 people that centered around the reasons consumers cite for engaging with companies via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter — as well as the plusses and minuses of those tools, and 2) a survey taken by 1,506 U.S. citizens (ages 15 and older) that played off of themes addressed during the focus groups. This research revealed that despite concerns that social media is killing relations with our fellow man/woman, among people who report that they’re using Facebook more, 27% say they hang with friends in person more often as well. Thirteen percent say the opposite — that their face-to-face time has decreased. The report also found that among those who are using Twitter more and more, 46% say that they’re meeting up with friends more often, with 7% reporting declining personal time. Still, that leaves 60% of burgeoning Facebook users saying that Facebook has no effect on how often they meet up with friends, and 46% of Twitter users reporting the same. What do you think? Are Facebook, Twitter and the like making you more social?  Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lisegagne Reviews: CoTweet, Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto More About: cotweet, Exact Target, facebook, social media, stats, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| 5 Tips for Startup Success from the CEO of Meetup Posted: 28 Oct 2010 08:35 AM PDT
Then the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks took place. Heiferman, already established in New York City at the time, found himself talking to his neighbors more than he had in years. He began to start thinking about the importance of maintaining connections within one’s community, and he began considering ways to provide people with a chance to “self-organize” on a local level. That’s how Meetup, a site that now has 7.2 million members, came along. More than 75,000 local groups — featuring everyone from fashionistas, businesspeople and parents to specialized clubs like the Barefoot Hikers of Connecticut — coordinate meetings via the site. Heiferman admits he never really wrote up a business plan or extensively thought about funding during the initial days of forming Meetup, but he does credit some of the following ideologies for contributing to his startup’s success. 1. Focus on Solving One Puzzle at a Time
Heiferman says a good company asks itself one question when it’s getting started: “What puzzle am I solving?” He feels it’s important to stay focused on one task at hand, even when founders aspire to form a company that will offer a variety of services. “It always shocked me when I saw startups trying to solve two puzzles,” he says, recalling the days when he ran the New York Tech Meetup. “They’d be like ‘Yeah, we’re going to make this awesome geo-mobile thing, and it’s going to serve advertisers really well!’ ” In such cases, Heiferman says presenters would then go through the ways in which advertisers could benefit from such a product. But often, it’s more important to create a product that people want to use and to make sure that you’ve established that user base first. “You need some real strike of lightning and luck to get both at the same time,” he says, adding that major companies like Google and Facebook didn’t exactly start out with ready-made plans for a great advertising medium. 2. Build for Surprise
When Heiferman initially thought of forming Meetup, he never had any idea how diverse the site’s user base would become. Suddenly groups of witches, pagans, ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses — and even supporters of political candidates — began popping up. This included a then-obscure Illinois state senator named Barack Obama, who had decided he was going to run for the United States Senate. Obama’s team wound up creating a website — with Meetup’s logo located on the side — where it was stated that he would be campaigning via meetups. “Now we never thought that this would be used for politics,” Heiferman says. “It didn’t cross our minds. We didn’t think that way. But most of how people used Meetup were ways we didn’t think they would, and most of how we thought people would use it — they didn’t.” Because of this, Heiferman says it’s important to leave room for surprises while forming one’s business. Ultimately, it’s about what the people want and what uses they’ll be able to find for it. “If the product is good, and if it taps emotion and it taps a feeling, and it taps needs — hopefully it spreads around,” he says. 3. Work on What’s Most Fascinating to You
It’s less important to get caught up in the fervor of forming a startup and more important to work on a project that truly appeals to you. “I have never said to myself, ’I want to start a company; what should I start? I want to be an entrepreneur; what should I create?’ It just so happens that the things I wanted to be a part of didn’t happen to exist,” Heiferman says. If anything, he suggests going to work for a startup that’s doing something you want to do. “If there was a Meetup when I was going to start Meetup, I would have gone to work for them, not started it,” Heiferman says, pointing out that there are also sometimes opportunities to found a particular division within a company even if you haven’t started the overall operation yourself. “I think one of the most fascinating founder stories in months and years ahead are going to be the internal founders of important projects within companies,” he says. 4. Be a Maker and Builder of the Product
Heiferman spent the early days of Meetup sketching plans and implementing informal user tests. He was less focused on business development, investors, partnerships or public relations. He believes knowing his site thoroughly, from conception to launch, helped the final outcome become much stronger. “I’ll put it this way — if you’re starting a fashion label, you’re coming up with breakthrough fashion,” he says, emphasizing that one must truly know the project he or she is starting. Otherwise, he thinks it’s a huge mistake. “I see so many Internet entrepreneur wannabes who are doing anything but making. You’ve got to be a maker and builder of the product.” 5. Form a Killer Team
The team is key to supporting a product that will succeed. Heiferman pulled together a crew after considering a few points: what he wanted to accomplish, why he felt it was needed and what it needed to come to life. He assembled a team after talking to new people, while also relying on some longtime colleagues. In the end, he chose those he felt would help him with his goals. One longtime colleague was fellow co-founder and CFO Brendan McGovern, someone Heiferman had worked with since his days interning at Sony. “You need a team that’s going to care about this thing as much as you do,” Heiferman says. “There’s a fine balance between trusting those you have a relationship with and the convenience of people you have a relationship with, with being discerning about talent.” And a team does not refer to those you might outsource to get certain projects done. “I mean a team that you’re going to be the band of brothers with, together,” Heiferman says. “And sisters.” Series Supported by Egnyte  The Digital Entrepreneur Series is supported by Egnyte. The Egnyte Cloud File Server allows organizations of any size, from small businesses to large enterprises, to deploy online file storage, backup, sharing and collaboration, in one secure, centrally managed and easy-to-use solution. Egnyte employs a hybrid cloud model that enables fast local edit capabilities and offline access to files. It also offers mobile access to provide users with secure file sharing capabilities from their smartphones. For more information, please visit www.egnyte.com or call 1-877-734-6983 (1-877-7EGNYTE). More Business Resources from Mashable:
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| When Are Facebook Users Most Active? [STUDY] Posted: 28 Oct 2010 08:07 AM PDT   We know that users are spending increasing amounts of time online on social networks like Facebook, but when exactly are users the most active? Social media management company Vitrue just released a study that identifies the days and hours users are most active on the Facebook channels maintained by companies and brands. For the study, Vitrue analyzed Facebook post data from August 10, 2007 to October 10, 2010 from more than 1,500 brand streams — more than 1.64 million posts and 7.56 million comments in all. Shares and “likes” were not included in the study. Here are some of the big takeaways:
 Morning Posts Are More EffectiveAlthough most posts and comments appear around 3:00 p.m. ET, posts published in the morning tend to perform better than those published in the afternoon.  Vitrue’s data indicates that morning brand posts are 39.7% more effective in terms of user engagement than those published in the afternoon. Additionally, the top of the hour (:0 to :15 minutes) tend to see more interaction than other parts of the hour. The second half of the hour (:30 to :45 minutes) is the second most popular time for interaction.  This makes sense if you think about how meetings and breaks are scheduled. A quick check on Facebook before heading into another meeting or task might be more likely to happen at the top of an hour than in the middle or toward the end. Why This MattersUltimately, the goal for brands on Facebook is to be able to engage with their customers or potential customers and to promote a message. Last month, we looked at a study that broke down how users interact with brands on Facebook.  In that post, Mashable’s Adam Ostrow noted, “… 65% of Facebook users only access the site when they’re not at work or school — typically early morning or evening. That means that if you’re making social media only a part of a 9 to 5 work day, you might be missing out on connecting with consumers during the times they’re likely to be online.” Vitrue’s findings match that sentiment. Knowing when users are engaging and interacting with your page can be crucial to getting the most effective message across. To be clear, this data is going to continue to shift as usage patterns shift. There is more to knowing when users are active to designating a publishing schedule. After all, if all publishers pushed out content at the same time, users would be overwhelmed and the net gain might disappear. Still, following these type of usage patterns is an important part of maximizing the way brands and users can communicate. Image courtesy of Flickr, Yaniv Golan Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Mashable More About: facebook, facebook usage, social media usage, stats, trending, vitrue For more Social Media coverage:
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| The 3 Top Stories in Tech, Business and Social Media This Morning Posted: 28 Oct 2010 06:25 AM PDT   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. China Unveils World’s Fastest Supercomputer At the Annual Meeting of National High Performance Computing in Beijing, China unveiled Tianhe-1A, the world's fastest computer with a performance record of 2.507 petaflops. The $88 million supercomputer was designed by the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) in China. Motorola Posts First Growth Quarter in Nearly Four Years Motorola announced its first growth quarter since Q4 2006 in its third-quarter earnings report Thursday morning. The company posted a 6% increase in sales to $5.8 billion. Net income rose to $109 million — a substantial increase from the $12 million the company tallied in the same quarter a year ago. Facebook Lobbied to Kill Social Networking Privacy Act Between April and June of this year, Facebook reportedly spent more than $6,600 lobbying California state officials to kill the Social Networking Privacy Act, which aimed to impose civil penalties on social networks displaying home addresses and phone numbers of users under 18 years of age. Further News
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59 Reviews: Facebook, Firefox, Google, iStockphoto More About: china, facebook, first to know series, Motorola For more Tech coverage:
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| 12 Video Tutorials for Improving Product Photos Posted: 28 Oct 2010 06:02 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. If your company sells items online, product photographs will be a key factor in how well they sell. Professional-looking photographs make products look legitimate and allow customers a crisp and detailed view of their potential purchase. Hiring a professional photographer, however, can be pricey. These 12 tutorials will help you learn how to take your own quality product photographs. In most cases, the only investments required to implement these techniques are a desk lamp, some white poster board and Photoshop — all of which are much more economical purchases than a professional photographer’s time. Add your own tips for shooting great product photos in the comments below. Quick Tip Tutorials1. Kerry walks through a typical product shotKerry Garrison of Camera Dojo walks through a typical product photo shot. His overview includes how to adjust white balance and how to set up the camera. 2. Smick Product Photography TutorialAlthough this video has infomercial undertones, it’s still a helpful overview of how to take a decent product photo. Gavin Hoey demonstrates how to adjust aperture, ISO, and shutter speed settings for the best exposure. He also explains how this process should be adjusted for either a black or white background. 3. Taking Better Pictures for eBayIf you want to improve your product photos with minimal effort, this is a good place to start. The tutorial focuses on basic steps that are helpful even with a simple camera. Highlights include how to take the best point-and-shoot photo, how to create a basic white background in Photoshop, and how to add a border. Although the tutorial is intended for eBay sellers, it’s useful to anyone who needs to create a product photo. Tutorials for Better Lighting4. Photography Lighting Techniques: Product Photography LightingProfessional photographer Mark Bowers explains how to fill in shadows with a reflector and add fill light with silver material. It’s especially helpful that he explains lighting techniques for both light and dark objects. 5. Prophotolife.com’s Tabletop Studio Photography done with mirrorsOnly have one light? After watching this tutorial, it won’t be a problem. The video will teach you how to use objects like mirrors, poster board and small wooden blocks to set up a lighting system that creates professional quality product photos. 6. My StudioIn about one minute, this video shows you how to set up a home studio with items and lamps you’ll likely find around your home. 7. DIY Light BoxIn order to reduce weird shadows and over-bright areas, many professionals use light tents. This video shows you how to make your own light box with some foam board and masking tape. Another variation that opts for white paper and a cardboad box can be seen here. And if you’re more of a step-by-step instruction person, the Digital Photography School has a text version. Tutorials for Hard-to-Photograph Items8. Photographic Lesson: How to photograph jewelry for online auctionsMost tutorials about photographing jewelry involve a light tent, several lamps or esoteric photographic knowledge. Robert Morrissey, the author of Master Lighting Guide for Commercial Photographers, manages to pull it off with museum putty, a couple of pieces of folded poster board and some sunlight. This tutorial is helpful for non-professional photographers who want professional quality photographs without purchasing fancy equipment. Also included in this tutorial is a review of white balance and light sources. 9. Photographing Shiny Metal and ReflectionsIn order to photograph something shiny, you need to understand the “law of reflection,” which states that the angle from which a ray of light hits an object is the same angle that it will reflect off it. This tutorial teaches you how to apply this principle in order to avoid glare while still taking rich, well-lit photographs of reflective objects. 10. Photographic Lesson: How to photograph clothing for online auctionsRobert Morrissey, the creator of the jewelry tutorial mentioned above, also has some quick tips on photographing clothing. This time around, the big necessary purchase is a $6.50 piece of foam board. Morrissey walks through how to position a piece of clothing on the board and manage natural lighting to get a great shot. Photoshop Tutorials for Product Photos11. Using Photoshop to Prepare Images for eBay – Part 1 and 2This extensive step-by-step tutorial begins with unlocking the photo layer. Part one details how to rotate and straighten your product photo. Part two and three explain how to create a seamless white background using the path tool. No detail is left out, which makes the tutorial rather lengthy, but even photographers already comfortable with the process might pick up a new tip or two. 12. Cheapshooter.com – Quick White Background Fix in PhotoshopWhen you take a photo on a white background like a piece of poster board, there will still be shadows on the photo. In order to make the background pure white, you can follow this 10-second technique. This tutorial teaches how to use curves, a threshold layer and the paintbrush to create a professional looking background. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of Flickr Commons, Arty Smokes Reviews: Adobe Photoshop More About: business, ebay, how to, List, Lists, photography, Photoshop, product photos, small business, tutorial, tutorials, video, video tutorial, videos, youtube For more Business coverage:
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| “The Commuter”: A Short Film Shot Entirely With the Nokia N8 Posted: 28 Oct 2010 05:48 AM PDT   The Commuter is a nifty little action-packed film, directed by the McHenry brothers, and starring Dev Patel, Pamela Anderson, Charles Dance and Ed Westwick. Its distinguishing feature, however, is the fact that it was shot entirely with Nokia’s new flagship smartphone, the Nokia N8. Nokia announced the film one month ago and launched a contest for two lucky fans to appear in the film alongside the famous actors mentioned above. Interestingly enough, after the film has been completed and released, those fans aren’t mentioned on Nokia’s official blog; if we had to take a guess, we’d peg them as the lady in the elevator and the man with the sunglasses, drinking tea. In any case, if they do appear in the movie, their roles are very small. The seven-and-a-half minute long movie, however, is quite entertaining and looks amazingly good, considering it was shot entirely with a cellphone. The resolution of the video is 720p; the scenes shot in daylight look fantastic, while the interior shots are a bit grainy, but Nokia has definitely proven that the N8’s 12-megapixel camera is capable of doing great things. How do you like the movie? Do you think the Nokia N8’s camera has lived up to expectations? Please, share your thoughts in the comments. More About: Commuter, Nokia N8 For more Mobile coverage:
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Little more than a decade ago, Scott Heiferman — now the co-founder and CEO of Meetup, a social network for local groups — never saw himself as someone who cared much about regional communities. Having previously held roles as “interactive marketing frontiersman” with Sony and as founder of an online ad agency, he believed the Internet was going to make geographical boundaries irrelevant.
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