Home � � Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “WikiLeaks Downed By Its DNS Service Provider”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “WikiLeaks Downed By Its DNS Service Provider”

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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “WikiLeaks Downed By Its DNS Service Provider”

WikiLeaks Downed By Its DNS Service Provider

Posted: 03 Dec 2010 01:14 AM PST


WikiLeaks has been struggling to fend off a DDoS attack ever since it started leaking secret embassy cables, and now it lost one more ally: its DNS services provider, EveryDNS.net.

According to a statement from EveryDNS.net, the services were terminated as the DDoS attack on WikiLeaks started to be a threat to the service itself and its other users.

“EveryDNS.net provided domain name system (DNS) services to the wikileaks.org domain name until 10PM EST, December 2, 2010, when such services were terminated (…) The interference at issues arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites,” the statement read.

This has effectively wiped WikiLeaks off the internet, which is now completely inaccessible. WikiLeaks has confirmed this on its Twitter account, putting emphasis on the fact that EveryDNS.net is a U.S. company. “WikiLeaks,org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks,” the tweet read.

Earlier, WikiLeaks tried to employ Amazon’s Web Services to enhance the site’s stability and protect itself from DDoS attacks, but that didn’t last long, as Amazon quickly dropped WikiLeaks from its servers.

WikiLeaks currently exists on the web only in the form of (mostly partial) mirrors, some of which can be found at wikileaks.info.

[via SkepticGeek]

More About: DNS, EveryDNS.net, trending, wikileaks

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How Retrevo Plans to Triple Its Revenue in 2011

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:41 PM PST


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. Once a week, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.

On Monday, consumer electronics search engine and review site Retrevo had the best traffic day in its four-year history. But unlike Cyber Mondays of the past, site visitors who were browsing the site’s comprehensive reviews also had the option to buy electronics without leaving the Retrevo site.

Over the past two months, the company has been dipping its toes into e-commerce — an industry that it plans to dive into fully next year. The site’s long-time sources of revenue have been advertising and cost-per-click fees it collects by referring its users to electronic retailer sites. Since launching e-commerce components, such as its daily deals, it has more than doubled its monthly revenue.

To complement the new strategy, the company is launching a new search engine today that allows consumers to search accessories, the major portion of its product offerings, by entering a specific electronic device they wish to accessorize.

Taking this leap into e-commerce was something of a risk for CEO Vipin Jain. E-commerce is a decidedly different industry than review indexing, and there was a question of whether or not readers who trusted the site for information would also trust the site with their money (the answer thus far appears to be that they will).

Mashable recently chatted with Jain about making the transition that he says is likely to triple annual revenue.

Building a Strong Frame

Retrevo built a 6-million-unique-users-per-month user base for its search and review engine before it decided to start selling products itself. And although selling electronics is turning out to be much more profitable than recommending them, the four years that it spent refining this system were an important component in building the site’s e-commerce success.

For one thing, customers already trust the site. “We probably would not have had this much success with e-commerce if we had not gone through building the trust with the information and reviews and recommendations first,” Jain says. “I think that where we are and where we think the company is going to be, I think that is a result of having that belief in the recommendation and the advice we are giving them. It is easier for them to open their wallets and give us money to buy products.”

It’s also unlikely that consumers would choose to buy from the site if it were just another Amazon-like retailer. The comprehensive reviews, which make it easy for people without a lot of technical knowledge to pick out a product, is the reason that people will continue to visit the site. And, as Jain sees it, the commerce component is a way of completing this easy-to-navigate experience. Instead of sending customers to a third-party site that might be confusing, users can easily complete their checkout where they started their search.

Changing Course

Earlier this year, when Retrevo started planning for the switch, they didn’t have any delusions about what a drastic change the company would be making. Retrevo sought new talent from online retailers like Newegg.com and eBay to help its team think in e-commerce terms.

“We were the king of the hill in our old world (CE reviews and recommendations),” Jain says. “E-commerce is full of potholes, and we are going against big guys such as Amazon. Amazon can be very aggressive when it comes to pricing for items that they want to move.”

Instead of competing with Amazon down to pennies, Retrevo’s advantage needs to come from helping customers buy the best products for their needs and get the most out of them. The accessory search engine that launches today, for instance, helps customers find the right accessories based on what devices they have. If the accessory doesn’t work with the device, the company will accept the return with no questions asked.

It would seem that selling and recommending devices on the same site might be a conflict of interest, but Vain insists that it is no more so than when the review site has hosted advertisers like Sony in the past.

“I think we have established over the years that Retrevo is a trusted place and the reviews and recommendations that we give you have not been influenced by any business model or revenue model,” he says.

Because being a reliable source of decision-making information about products is the key to its e-commerce strategy, it seems like much of Retrevo’s success or failure will depend on whether this statement holds true.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Chuck “Caveman” Coker, Dean Terry

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

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

Reviews: Flickr, Mashable

More About: accessories, bizspark, consumer electronics, Electronic reviews, electronics, retrevo, search engine, spark-of-genius, Vipin Jain

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The Mophie Juice Pack Plus Protects and Powers Your iPhone 4

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 10:50 PM PST


The fact that Apple locks its batteries into its devices isn’t just a design decision; it’s a statement. Apple products are made with some of the best batteries on the market.

Regardless of this fact, even the most conservative iPhone 4 user is going to have a day that pushes the limits of his phone’s built-in 1420 mAh battery. The Juice Pack Plus from Mophie — the same company that launched an iPhone-based credit card processing system earlier this year — adds an additional 2000 mAh battery within its shell, bringing the total onboard power to 3420 mAh and extending iPhone 4 use times by a large margin.

The case adds an additional eight hours of talk time, seven hours of Internet browsing, 11 hours of video playback and 44 hours of audio playback. By doing double duty as both a case and a backup battery, the Mophie Juice Pack Plus is one iPhone 4 case that’s actually worth its $100 price tag.

Reviews: Internet

More About: iphone, iphone 4, iphone 4 cases, mophie

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Marie Claire Arrives on the iPad

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 10:06 PM PST


Marie Claire launched its own iPad app Thursday, making its last six issues available to owners of the device.

The July to November issues are mere PDF scans of the print version of the magazine. The December issue is likewise primarily a PDF edition of the magazine, but but it adds a few additional features that make it far more interesting (and thus, worth writing about), such as a “living” (i.e. video) cover of actor Emma Watson, embedded behind-the-scenes video, a short film, an interactive quiz, 360-degree rotations of certain items and streaming music clips.

In terms of design and engagement, it’s not even close to the likes of Wired, Esquire or Martha Stewart Living, but the additions are nevertheless well done.

I especially enjoyed Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coales’s video address to the reader, which was so much more personable and engaging than the typical’s editor letter, and a short film entitled “The Suitcase,” which beautifully combines advertisers’ clothing with a light narrative to create new kind of fashion spread.

The December issue is available for $3.50 through the Marie Claire app [iTunes link]. Subscriptions are available for $10 per year through the app.

Screenshot Gallery





















More About: ipad, marie claire, media

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Ge.tt Offers Instant, One-Click File Sharing

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 09:23 PM PST


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Ge.tt

Quick Pitch: Ge.tt makes it extremely simple to share your files.

Genius Idea: File sharing is a ubiquitous practice on the web, but startup Ge.tt has released a tool for one-click, browser-based file sharing. This company offers a solution that doesn’t require the user to install anything or even create an account.

Ge.tt is as simple as it gets: Click the “Create share” button to select and upload files.

Ge.tt has a few advantages over the myriad other file-sharing services, but its instant-sharing aspect is its killer feature. As soon as you click to upload your files, you’ll see a Ge.tt URL — there’s no upload wait time — to then post to Twitter or Facebook or send via e-mail. Your files are available in the browser immediately, which means recipients don’t have to wait to access and download your shared files, either. Should you create an account, you’ll then have access to all of your shared files and will be able to see live statistics on views and downloads.

Each Ge.tt-uploaded file also supports a “view” option that allows anyone to look at all shared files, regardless of file type, in a browser without having to download files or worry about file extensions.

The startup is based out of Copenhagen, Denmark and is currently entirely self-funded. Co-founder and CEO Tobias Baunbæk says the team launched its file-sharing product on November 1 and purposely decided to operate under the radar to gradually test its technology. That all changed last week when users shared Ge.tt on Reddit and Hacker News, leading to a glut of user interest and 5,000 signups — an impressive feat considering users do not need to create accounts to use the service.

Ge.tt’s inadvertent success makes for a feel-good story, but it’s one that is still in its first chapter. Should users continue to flock to this simple file-sharing service, investors are likely to take notice. The startup is working to release paid accounts with premium features in early 2011, says Baunbæk. The more long-term goal is to release an API, something Baunbæk says is already in hot demand.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, flyparade.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

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

Reviews: Facebook, Hacker News, Twitter, iStockphoto

More About: bizspark, file sharing, Ge.tt, spark-of-genius, startup

For more Startups coverage:

By Traffic, Groupon Is Ten Times Bigger Than Its Nearest Competitor

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:31 PM PST


While we don’t have access to the internal financial documents of companies in the local/group coupon-buying space — one of the hottest verticals to emerge in 2010 — we can tell by looking at site traffic that Groupon exponentially outstrips its nearest competitors, LivingSocial and BuyWithMe.

These companies have spent a fair amount of time in the headlines lately, especially given recent rumors of a Google acquisition for Groupon. And LivingSocial just picked up a huge round of funding from Amazon, as well.

But according to traffic stats — and admittedly, there’s not an exact correlation between traffic and traditional factors of profitability — LivingSocial saw a boost over the summer that never turned into the hockey stick graph most companies like to see as an indicator of early, rapid growth. Rather, traffic briefly held steady then began to dwindle. Currently, LivingSocial sees about as much traffic as Groupon did this time one year ago.

Groupon, on the other hand, saw a dip in traffic in September, but it’s otherwise been on a steep incline since the beginning of 2010.

LivingSocial reports a userbase of 10 million to Groupon’s 12 million; by that metric, the companies aren’t that far apart. But again, startup-reported user metrics can create a deliberately hazy view of a company’s overall health.

A Google acquisition for Groupon could spell further trouble for LivingSocial, too. The former company’s ad spend would decrease by about $1 million per month, as its Google-placed ads would be free.

Still, there’s room for LivingSocial, BuyWithMe and other such startups in the market. As a smaller (in terms of traffic and users) company, it has the willingness and ability to work with small and medium-sized businesses in a way that Groupon may not any longer.

What do you make of these traffic numbers? We’d love to get your opinions in the comments.

Reviews: Amazon.com, Google

More About: groupon, living social, LivingSocial, location, startups, traffic

For more Business coverage:

Netflix Prepares to Open Its Wallet for Newer TV Content

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:07 PM PST


Netflix has built up a large library of catalog television content that can be streamed to subscribers on demand. Now, the company wants to get access to current episodes of primetime TV shows, and it’s willing to pay up.

The New York Post reports Netflix is in talks with production studios and is willing to pay up to $100,000 per episode for first-run TV content.

This is just one more sign that Netflix is shifting more and more of its focus onto streaming and on-demand content. Less than two weeks ago, the rental giant made a streaming-only plan available to U.S. customers.

Although Netflix’s catalog of streaming film titles is without much competition, it’s a different story on the TV front. The media-conglomerate backed Hulu Plus is starting to gain steam, following Netflix’s playbook both in terms of subscription pricing and licensing its service to a multitude of different device types.

The big advantage Hulu Plus has over Netflix is its access to lots of first-run TV content, which is typically made available the day after broadcast. Netflix, on the contrary, tends to be about a season behind for current shows.

It’s clear, however, that Netflix isn’t willing to cede the TV market to Hulu Plus. Last month, the service signed a deal with NBC Universal to carry Saturday Night Live the day after broadcast. If Netflix is willing to pay $70,000 to $100,000 per episode for first-run shows, which is what the Post suggests, it’s hard to imagine that many content producers would be turning that offer down.

Investing in Content

It’s not just television where Netflix is willing to whip out its checkbook, it is willing to pay for movies too. Yesterday the company announced that it had signed a pact with FilmDistrict to bring first-run movies to its streaming subscribers.

This is the same deal that Netflix signed with Relativity Media back in July. What this means is that feature films — in both cases these are smaller, independent titles — will hit Netflix rather than first going to premium cable channels like HBO or Showtime.

Again, these partnerships are meant to address the one major shortfall of the Netflix Watch Instantly product: Availability of new content.

Being able to deliver newer content more quickly will help solidify Netflix as the leader in this new wave of streaming distribution. It’s good to see that Netflix realizes the importance of gaining this access, even if it means having to pay up.

Reviews: Netflix Watch Instantly

More About: Film, filmdistrict, hulu plus, iptv, netflix, streaming tv, television

For more Entertainment coverage:

Why Amazon Dropped WikiLeaks

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:49 PM PST


Amazon has issued a statement explaining why it dropped WikiLeaks from its web servers.

Yesterday, we learned that the controversial whistleblower site had been kicked off Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company’s actions were praised by U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the House Security Committee, who said Amazon’s choice was “the right decision and should set the standard for other companies Wikileaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.”

But Amazon is insisting it didn’t remove WikiLeaks because of political pressure — or because of a recent series of DDoS attacks on the site.

“AWS does not pre-screen its customers, but it does have terms of service that must be followed,” reads a company statement. WikiLeaks was not following them.”

The terms of service state that content supplied by users must be owned by the user, or the user must have the right to publish it. The terms further state that published content should not “cause injury to any person.”

In a strongly worded section of its statement, Amazon goes a step beyond stating that WikiLeaks violated the terms of service, however.

It's clear that WikiLeaks doesn't own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren't putting innocent people in jeopardy.

Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments.

WikiLeaks is now being hosted by Bahnhof, a company with servers in France and Sweden. This particular company has some of the coolest-looking data centers we’ve ever seen, and they apparently have no problem with hosting WikiLeaks’ content.

What do you think of Amazon’s language in this statement? Should WikiLeaks be exercising more discretion when publishing sensitive documents? Let us know your opinion in the comments.

Reviews: Wikileaks

More About: amazon, AWS, bahnhof, trending, wikileaks

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“The Social Network” Snaps Up a Trio of Prestigious Awards, Is an Oscar Next?

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 06:06 PM PST


And we’re off! The awards season has officially kicked off with the National Board of Review’s cadre of honors, which David Fincher’s The Social Network handily swept.

Nabbing Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, The Social Network (a.k.a. “The Facebook Movie”) was heralded by NBR President Annie Schulhof as “a dramatic story that will stand up over time and appeal to many generations.”

Back when the film premiered in October, Mashable’s Christina Warren proclaimed: “As Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg is brilliant. I fully expect to see his name on the shortlist for Best Actor nominees when award season ramps up.”

Well, you might as well swap “Christina” for “Cassandra” (sans the whole curse thing). The NBR awards are considered a pretty good indicator of what’s to come when Oscar time rolls around, so we’ll see what transpires in the Academy in the coming months.

Images courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment

Reviews: Mashable

More About: facebook, Film, NBR, social network

For more Entertainment coverage:

Google to Block Piracy-Related Terms from Autocomplete

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 05:02 PM PST


If you were hoping Google would help you save precious seconds in your search for “Sex and the City 2 torrent,” prepare to have your hopes dashed. The search giant is cracking down on piracy in a few ways, including blocking piracy-related terms from autocomplete.

Google has blacklisted a few terms in its time, including “naughty words” and terms like “lesbian.” But this new measure goes beyond protecting children from hate speech and pornography.

Google General Counsel Kent Walker wrote today on the company blog that Google is instituting a new set of actions to help prevent copyright infringement.

In addition to providing more and better access to legally distributed content, such as YouTube clips from a movie posted by the studio itself, Google is also taking some anti-piracy measures. The company says they’ll improve the process for DMCA takedown requests, beginning with Blogger and Search content and eventually including all Google products. For responsible submitters, Google will act on requests within 24 hours. The company says they’re also trying to improve “counter-notice” procedures for people who believe their content was wrongfully removed from the web.

Google is also cracking down on sites that display copyright-infringing material while using AdSense.

Finally, the search company will start blocking certain terms in autocomplete. As walker wrote, “While it's hard to know for sure when search terms are being used to find infringing content, we'll do our best to prevent autocomplete from displaying the terms most frequently used for that purpose.”

That means that, like “lesbian,” “torrent” will soon be shifted to Google’s naughty list because more people use that term to search for illegal or inappropriate content than for legitimate, legal content.

The past couple years in particular have been a turbulent one for file-sharing and piracy. With Homeland Security seizing websites, the Pirate Bay getting slammed by a crippling lawsuit and even end users getting sued by the recording industry, voices like Richard Stallman’s are resonating more and more with the average Internet user. To many of us, these anti-piracy actions seem like an ad hoc, punitive solution to a systemic problem: The recording and film industries are still learning how to come to terms with — and make money from — the Internet.

What do you think of Google’s new position on piracy?

Image courtesy of expressmonorail.

Reviews: Google, Internet, YouTube, blogger

More About: autocomplete, filesharing, Google, piracy

For more Tech coverage:

The 5 Nominees for “Best Social Media Customer Service” Are… [MASHABLE AWARDS]

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 04:28 PM PST


This post is brought to you by Research In Motion, sponsor of the Mashable Awards’ “Best Social Media Customer Service” Category. RIM creates innovative wireless solutions, including the BlackBerry® wireless platform and the new BlackBerry PlayBook, coming soon. Learn more on the Inside BlackBerry Blog.

The Mashable Awards, our annual contest highlighting the very best the web has to offer, is entering its final round and we’re announcing the five finalists in the “Best Social Media Customer Service” category supported by BlackBerry. They are:

Eurail.com


Aramex


ZocDoc


Hewlett Packard


Boingo


You have from now until December 15 to pick your favorite. If you have questions about the Mashable Awards or the list of finalists, please post them to our GetSatisfaction page. Let us know which social media customer service was your favorite: You can vote once per category per day, so get voting!

The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas)

In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances.

Date: Thursday, January 6th, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)
Time: 7:00 – 10:00 pm PT
Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas
Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations
Socialize: Facebook, Foursquare, Meetup, Plancast, Twitter (Hashtag: #MashableAwards)

Register for Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage (Las Vegas - 2011 International CES convention) [Ticketed Event] in Las Vegas, NV on Eventbrite

Mashable Awards Category Sponsor:

Research In Motion is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. Through the development of integrated hardware, software and services that support multiple wireless network standards, RIM provides platforms and solutions for seamless access to time-sensitive information including email, phone, SMS messaging, Internet and intranet-based applications including the BlackBerry® wireless platform and the new BlackBerry PlayBook. For the latest on the BlackBerry PlayBook visit the Inside BlackBerry Blog.

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, lightkeeper

Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Internet, Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto

More About: best social media customer service, customer service, facebook, mashable awards, mashable awards 2010, social media, twitter

For more Social Media coverage:

LivingSocial Lands $175 Million Investment From Amazon

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 03:44 PM PST


LivingSocial just closed a massive round of financing totaling $183 million. Amazon has invested a majority of that sum — $175 million to be exact — but repeat investor Lightspeed Venture Partners has joined in with an additional $8 million.

This round is LivingSocial’s Series D; it brings their total funding to date to $232 million.

LivingSocial says it will use the newly acquired funds for rapid global expansion. Today, LivingSocial has a strong presence in the U.S. and a growing user base in Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Australia.

Currently, the group-buying site is reporting average revenues of $1 million per day and anticipates pulling in more than $500 million in revenue in 2011. Plus, in 2010 alone, LivingSocial has raised $227 million dollars, making it a heavily financed and very formidable competitor in the space.

The news comes amid exciting times in the local commerce space. Early today, eBay announced its acquisition of local shopping startup Milo, and Google is said to be offering up a $6 billion bid for Groupon. The investment is a strategic move on Amazon’s part to latch on to the local commerce space and is the first of its kind for the e-commerce site.

Reviews: Australia, Google

More About: amazon, funding, lightspeed venture partners, LivingSocial

For more Business coverage:

10 Free Holiday Icon Sets to Give Your Site a Wintery Makeover [GALLERY]

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 02:17 PM PST


If you really like to get into the spirit of things during the winter, then you might want to add some festive or seasonal design touches to your website or blog.

We’ve found a wealth of winter and holiday themed icons and vectors that will help you spread some cheer online or give your site a cool seasonal makeover.

So, have a look through the gallery below and let us know in the comments if you’ll be decorating your website for the holidays and how.


1. Winter Wonderland




Some bold icons and classic winter colors make this set ideal for sites with a more contemporary design.


2. Merry Tweetmas




If you want to wish your readers a merry "Tweetmas," then this graphic has you covered!


3. Christmas Social Media Icons




These icons will sort you out for most social media applications, donning a jaunty Santa hat and adding a nice sprig of holly.


4. Smashing Christmas Icon Set




We just love this set of icons that provides a witty take on holiday-themed graphics. The sweater is just genius.


5. Christmas Gadgets




This Christmas gadget icons are tons of fun, giving some popular consumer electronics a makeover for the holidays.


6. Season's Tweetings




This pack will give you bird-themed Twitter graphics for the entire year. We especially like the winter bird wrapped up in his warm woollies.


7. Glossy Ice Social Icons




If you want to add a wintery feel to your site, but not go overboard with Christmas decals, these simple, icy blue icons could be just what you're looking for.


8. Christmas Icons




There are some nice contemporary Christmas icons here that will add a festive feel to your site without being too fussy.


9. Twitter Balls




Another design that keeps it simple, to good effect, these "Twitter balls" offer a modern way to deck your virtual halls.


10. The Real Christmas RSS Icons




This set will let you Christmas-up your RSS feed options.


BONUS: Winterize Vectors




And finally, these 17 vectors that range from delicate snowflakes to colorful candy canes. Happy holidays!

More Design Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Free and Fun Twitter Bird Icons for your Website
- 10 Beautiful Free Hand-Drawn Icon Sets
- 10 Replacement Icons to Re-Beautify iTunes 10
- 20 Free Social Media Icon Sets For a More Shareable Website
- Top 10 Beautiful Minimalist Icon Sets

More About: Christmas, design, galleries, gallery, Holidays, icons, social media, web design, winter

For more Dev & Design coverage:

Zynga Acquires “Games With Friends” Maker Newtoy

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 02:00 PM PST


Zynga is continuing its quest for casual gaming domination with Thursday’s acquisition of Newtoy, Inc. The Texas-based mobile games studio is behind the popular Games With Friends series that includes titles like Words With Friends and Chess With Friends.

The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, but Newtoy’s office will (aptly so) become The Zynga With Friends Studio. It will continue to manage the Games With Friends franchise and will likely focus on building mobile titles for Zynga.

The acquisiton adds to Zynga’s already massive social gaming footprint, which serves more than 215 million gamers monthly. Its current stable of games include the omnipresent FarmVille, FrontierVille and Mafia Wars, as well as titles like Zynga Poker, Treasure Isle, FishVille and the newly launched CityVille.

Reviews: zynga poker

More About: farmville, frontierville, Games with Friends, Mafia Wars, Newtoy, video games, Zynga, Zynga with Friends

For more Social Media coverage:

The 5 Nominees for “Most Influential Social Good Champion” Are… [MASHABLE AWARDS]

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 01:45 PM PST

yahoo image

This post is brought to you by Yahoo!, sponsor of the Mashable Awards’ “Most Influential Social Good Champion” Category. Yahoo! is proud to sponsor this Mashable Award because Yahoo! is focused on connecting individuals to a community of millions so they can change the world together. That's How Good Grows at Yahoo!.

The Mashable Awards, our annual contest highlighting the very best the web has to offer, is entering its final round and we’re announcing the five finalists in the “Most Influential Social Good Champion” category supported by Yahoo!. They are:

UnCultured


John Cena


HardlyNormal


Chris Hughes


Charity Buzz


You have from now until December 15 to pick your favorite. If you have questions about the Mashable Awards or the list of finalists, please post them to our GetSatisfaction page. Let us know which social good champion was your favorite: You can vote once per category per day, so get voting!

The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas)

In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances.

Date: Thursday, January 6th, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)
Time: 7:00 – 10:00 pm PT
Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas
Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations
Socialize: Facebook, Foursquare, Meetup, Plancast, Twitter (Hashtag: #MashableAwards)

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Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto

More About: mashable awards, mashable awards 2010, most influential social good champion, social good, Yahoo

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Playlist-Maker Powered by YouTube, Last.fm & Billboard Amps Up Music Discovery

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 01:30 PM PST


There’s a new YouTube jukebox on the scene that combines Last.fm, Billboard and YouTube to create a playlist builder that should come in handy during all those parties you have planned this weekend. Or, you know, those lonely nights during which you’re ruminating about all the parties no one invited you to.

According to TorrentFreak, Tubeify is the brainchild of Tomas Isdal, a University of Washington PhD student who was growing weary of the way music is presented on YouTube.

"I came up with the idea roughly a year ago when YouTube signed an agreement with Time Warner, which meant that they now have license agreements with the ‘Big 4′ labels," Isdal tells TorrentFreak.

Despite the abundance of music on the video-sharing site, as we all know, the listening experience isn’t all that great. Videos stop playing while you’re searching for the next track, and there’s a ton of poor-quality clips out there, cluttering up the space. And, despite its revamped music page, functionality and playlist-building haven’t ever really been YouTube’s strong points.

Tubeify aims to remedy those issues. With a search functionality yoinked from Last.fm’s API, it’s pretty easy to find the tracks you want — and you can listen to music while searching (score). While searching, you can “Pin” songs you like to a sidebar for safekeeping until you figure out which playlist to add them to. Playlist building is also super easy, utilizing the drag-and-drop method.

Since YouTube has such an abundance of music (which isn’t all legally uploaded, but I digress), I was able to find pretty much anything I wanted to listen to — even Jeffrey Lewis’s “Couldn’t Take It Anymore” (which is a rad song). One can even add some historical levity to playlists by checking out Tubeify’s integration with Billboard, which (thanks to Billboard’s API) provides users with playable charts spanning back to 1964.

Users can also share tracks to Facebook, Twitter and e-mail — I for, one, shot off an e-mail to my friend Andi after discovering Lewis’s jam, since we’ve been trying to figure out the title for the last year or so.

The service is currently invite-only, but TorrentFreak has a ton of invites at the ready. Once you snag one, you’ll have to sign in through Facebook or Google.

I won’t be ditching my MOG account anytime soon — this is a browser-only tool and I love my mobile apps — but I could definitely see pulling up Tubeify at a party. Especially one replete with music snobs who are really into rough cuts and old jams.

Image courtesy of Flickr, gplex

Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Google, Twitter, YouTube

More About: Billboard, last fm, music, music discovery, web apps, youtube

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“CityVille” Launches: “FarmVille” Meets “SimCity”

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 01:22 PM PST


Last night, social game maker Zynga officially unleashed its latest creation, CityVille, upon the world.

CityVille, which is a variation of Zynga’s other successful Ville franchises (see FarmVille and FrontierVille), is the first global launch for a Zynga title, and is available in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

The game itself is basically SimCity meets FarmVille. The goal is to build up your own aspiring metropolis where you rule as mayor. You do this by building houses and businesses, expanding and maintaining roads and trading goods with your Facebook friends in neighboring cities.

CityVille is supposedly more social than any of Zynga’s other offerings — which probably means you’re called upon to harass your non-playing friends all the more to join the party.

Rather than the more open-ended nature of something like FarmVille, CityVille uses a series of guided tasks. That can mean building city hall and hiring staffers (either by paying in CityVille Cash or inviting friends) or planting and harvesting crops, FarmVille-style, at the local farm.

The game also lets friends open up business franchises in one another’s cities.

The obvious goal with CityVille is to recreate the success of FarmVille. We’re sure CityVille will do well, but I’m not convinced that the game necessarily has the addictive pull of harvesting crops.

The problem, as I see it, is that this is the type of game that requires both a lot of attention and a lot of forced interaction. Forced interaction doesn’t equate to social, at least not to me.

Still, who is to say what will and won’t be a hit. I fully expect that CityVille will rack up millions of players in no time. Let us know what you think of Zynga’s latest addiction, er, Facebook game, in the comments.

Reviews: Facebook

More About: cityville, facebook, farmville, social games, Zynga

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What’s Hot in Social Media This Week

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 12:58 PM PST

What's Hot in Social Media

Welcome to this week's edition of "What's Hot in Social Media," a series in which we revisit the week’s most popular stories concerning social networks.

We're keeping our eye on three interesting developments this Thursday.

Gowalla Integrates with Foursquare & Facebook Places

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em — location-based social network Gowalla has released version 3.0 of its iPhone app, which now integrates with two of its bigger and better-known rivals, Foursquare and Facebook Places. Using Gowalla, users can now broadcast their checkins on both networks, as well as Twitter and Tumblr, and even secure Foursquare badges and Facebook Deals. Users also now have access to a Universal Activity Feed, which aggregates checkins from Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook in real-time, so they can keep track of their friends no matter which location-based app they use.

Non-Profits Raise Awareness via Social Media for World AIDS Day

A number of non-profits turned to social media to raise awareness for World AIDS Day on December 1. Social media-active celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Seacrest, went silent on Twitter and Facebook as part of a $1 million fundraise. (RED) used Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, Eventful, Meetup and YouTube to create a map to highlight World AIDS Day activity across the globe. And the United Nations AIDS Program (UNAIDS) worked to make its hashtag — #PreventionRevoltion trend worldwide on Twitter to raise awareness, among others.

Anti-Fur Protesters Take Over DKNY's Facebook Page

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) staged an anti-fur protest on clothing brand DKNY's Facebook Page Monday. Thirteen different users changed their Facebook profiles photos to block letters and posted in quick succession on the DKNY's Page to spell out the words "DK Bunny Butcher" in protest of the brand's use of rabbit fur.

Reviews: Eventful, Facebook, Flickr, Gowalla, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, foursquare, social media

More About: dkny, facebook, Facebook Places, fashion, foursquare, gowalla, social media, world aids day 2010

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3 New Mobile Devices Poised to Make Waves Next Year

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 12:42 PM PST


Sometimes a device doesn’t get it right immediately. It might get rushed to market, or maybe some bugs just slip through the final tests. It’s expected, and it happens to the best of them.

Fortunately, modern hardware is a lot smarter than it was even a few years ago. Firmware updates are capable of squashing most bugs even after a device has hit the market. Even better, firmware updates also often add new features that can greatly expand the life cycle of a device.

The result from our perspective is that devices can sometimes show a lot of promise, but aren’t quite there yet. These three devices have piqued our interest in the past few months, but, for one reason or another, just didn’t meet their potential. We’ll be keeping an eye on them to see if they get it right.

T-Mobile myTouch 4G

T-Mobile already had a strong Android device in the G2, but the addition of the myTouch 4G gives T-Mobile a very formidable lineup. Where the G2 is focused on a streamlined Android experience, the myTouch 4G is about as tweaked out as Android comes.

The myTouch 4G carries many of the same internal components currently popular among Android devices. The phone is snappy and its 1GHz Snapdragon processor is well utilized. It’s also the second device to feature T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ (the first being the G2) and HSPA+ mobile broadband speeds are always appreciated.

The biggest problem with the myTouch 4G is its most advertised feature: video chat. The device features T-Mobile’s new Qik video chat capabilities, which are unfortunately a little complicated to set up. If you’re like me, it’s likely you’ll be doing most of your video chatting with your parents. It’s far easier to just fire off a couple of text messages to your friends than set up a chat session. If you do want to video chat with your parents, good luck getting them set up on Qik.

That said, if you’re looking for an Android device with a ton of features, the T-Mobile myTouch 4G is one of the most feature-heavy Androids on the market.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

The Samsung Galaxy Tab isn’t the iPad. That’s not up for debate. It is, however, an interesting implementation of the Android platform within a tablet environment.

Contrary to statements claiming that tablets don’t perform well at sizes under 10 inches, I’ve found the Tab’s size to be one of its most compelling features. Where the iPad, at times, feels unwieldy, the Galaxy Tab fits well in the palm of your hand.

It’s not always the fastest Android device (the myTouch 4G will load the same programs faster almost every time), but it does perform sufficiently. A lot of this could have to do with the fact that Android 2.2 (froyo) isn’t intended for tablet deployments, but the Tab is promising enough to think that a swift update to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) could be enough to solve some of its nagging issues.

Verizon Fivespot

Verizon is arguably the most reliable mobile carrier in the U.S., but its devices only work within the country use because the carrier’s current infrastructure is built on code division multiple access (CDMA). Because most of the world’s cellular communications are based on the global system for mobile communications (GSM), devices from carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile are often able to function in a wide array of countries.

In recent years, we’ve seen phones that support both CDMA and GSM protocols, but the Verizon Fivespot is the first MiFi-like device to include this functionality. So whether at home or abroad, you’ll be able to blanket yourself in a personal Wi-Fi network, from which you can connect up to five devices (hence the name Fivespot).

Of course, there is a downside. While $60 per month will get you 5GB of mobile broadband in the U.S., it costs $220 per month to add 200MB of international data on top of that. Nevertheless, the Fivespot is a solid option for anyone who appreciates the convenience of a MiFi and often travels abroad.

What’s Your Pick?

Which mobile devices do you feel show a lot of promise, but aren’t quite up to snuff just yet? Let us know in the comments.

More Mobile Resources from Mashable:

- 3 Magnificent Mobile Apps That Ruled 2010
- HOW TO: Develop a Branded iPhone App on a Budget
- 5 Excellent E-Card iPhone Apps
- Why the "Dumbphone" Market Is Still Ripe for Innovation
- Mobile Music: Top 4 Streaming Services Compared

Reviews: Android

More About: bug, firmware, Mobile 2.0, mytouch 4g, phone, samsung tab, T-Mobile, verizon fivespot

For more Mobile coverage:

Android Gingerbread User Interface Gets Quick Demo [VIDEO]

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:52 AM PST

Update: Google pulled the first video, but we’ve found a replacement. Unfortunately, it’s also on Youtube, so its life expectancy is short. We’re working on getting a local copy, and there’s a screenshot below showing the two UI changes mentioned.

Google’s Hong Kong group released this seemingly innocuous video last week, demonstrating Google Voice Search in Chinese. It went mostly unnoticed until it was realized that the device in the demo was running a build of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).

It happens fast (and it’s in Cantonese), but there are two key user interface (UI) differences to watch for. First, the top status bar is now cleaner and in a much less glaring black. It’s a minor tweak, but it definitely represents the honing of the platform.

Additionally, the launcher now seems to feature icons instead of the buttons found in Android 2.2 (froyo). If this is indeed the case, users will likely be able to swap them with any other icon, so phone and browser won’t necessarily need to be ever present in the launcher.

Not much is revealed beyond that, but it is an interesting early look at the next iteration of Google’s forthcoming mobile platform.

Here’s a screenshot that shows the two major UI changes seen in the video:


[via Android Police]

Reviews: Android, Google

More About: Froyo, gingerbread, google voice search, Hong Kong, voice search

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eBay Infiltrates Local Commerce With Latest Acquisition

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:37 AM PST


eBay has acquired local shopping startup Milo in a strategic move to infiltrate the increasingly significant local commerce market.

Milo is a local shopping search engine where consumers can look for products in stock at stores in their area. For retailers, Milo is a platform for driving online shoppers to offline stores. Before piquing eBay’s local shopping interests, the startup raised roughly $5 million and attracted the attention of notable investors including Keith Rabois and Ron Conway’s SV Angel.

“Local commerce companies like Milo are blurring the lines between in-store and online shopping," says Mark Carges, chief technology officer and senior vice president, global products, eBay Marketplaces. "By making accurate, real-time, local store inventory and pricing available to online and mobile shoppers, we see a huge opportunity for local retailers, small businesses and eBay sellers to reach more buyers, and for consumers to make more informed buying decisions."

The news was first reported earlier this morning by Business Insider, which claimed the startup was acquired by eBay for $75 million in cash. The acquisition was later confirmed by Milo, although its official press materials do not disclose the sale amount.

With a potential Google-Groupon acquisition on the horizon, and news that Amazon may invest in LivingSocial, eBay’s purchase comes at time when local commerce is more important and competitive than ever.

Image courtesy of Milo

Reviews: eBay

More About: ebay, local commerce, milo

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How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:22 AM PST

Corporate Twitter Image

Jamie Turner is the chief content officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. He is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media, now available at fine bookstores (and a few not-so-fine bookstores) everywhere.

Given the hundreds of social media tools available, and the thousands of different ways to use them in business, you’d think that getting Fortune 500 companies on board would be a complex and daunting task.

But it's not. The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.

These five social approaches, though different in many respects, all have one thing in common: Each of the Fortune 500 use them to generate a profit. After all, they're not using social media just to be social. They’re using it to make money.

In order to make money with social media, you have to set up your campaigns to be measured. And I'm not talking about simple metrics like number of followers or unique page views (although those are important). I'm talking about real metrics like leads generated, prospects converted and profits realized. Those are the kinds of metrics that enable you to track the success of your social media campaign on an ROI basis. And when you're tracking your social media campaign on an ROI basis, you're making your CFO happy (along with your CEO, your CMO and everyone else in your company).

1. Branding

Some companies use social media strictly as a branding tool. Typically, this means running a YouTube campaign that (hopefully) gets a lot of buzz around the water cooler. While using social media strictly as a branding tool might be considered “old-school” these days, it can still generate some positive sales growth.

Take Toyota as an example. Its YouTube mini-series featuring the Sienna Family has generated more than 8.3 million impressions. Those are not passive impressions fed to consumers during a TV commercial break, but engaged views attained through social sharing. When people share your commercial with their friends, they’re reinforcing your marketing for you, and it’s the best kind.

Of course, one of the most successful campaigns of this type is the Old Spice YouTube campaign that has more than 140 million impressions and, according to Nielsen, helped sales increase 55% in three months, and a whopping 107% during the month of July alone. Part of what made this campaign successful was that Old Spice set it up so it could quickly respond to viewers’ comments about the videos. By engaging the viewers in the videos, Old Spice improved the stickiness of the campaign and, best of all, enhanced the viral nature of it.

2. e-Commerce

If you can sell your product or service online, then you'll want to drive people to a landing page on your website where they can buy your goods. How can you accomplish this? Just do what Dell does. It tweets about special promotions for its folloers on Twitter. Right now, the DellOutlet account has 1.5 million followers. If you crunch some hypothetical but fair numbers on the back of an envelope, Dell's ROI might look something like this:

DellOutlet followers: 1.5 million

DellOutlet followers who actually see the promotional Tweet: 50,000

Followers who click on the link in the Tweet: 500

Prospects who purchase a computer based on the Tweet: 50

50 purchases x $500 computer = $25,000

That's $25,000 in revenue just for sending out a tweet. Not bad for a day's work. Of course you’ll have to put in the effort to build your Twitter community in the first place, but those are certainly resources well spent, given the potential return.

Pyramid Image

3. Research

Many companies are using social media as a tool to do simple, anecdotal research. Sometimes, this involves building a website that engages customers in a dialogue. Starbucks has done this famously with MyStarbucksIdea.com. When visitors land on the site, they're asked to provide new ideas to Starbucks on ways to improve the brand. Visitors can share ideas, vote on which ideas they like the best, discuss the ideas that have been submitted, and even see the results of their suggestions in action.

But you don't have to build an entire website to keep tabs on your customers' needs. Got a blog? Great. Ask your visitors to leave suggestions in your comments section. Have an e-newsletter? Terrific. Use the tools from ConstantContact, ExactTarget or MailChimp to include polls and surveys in your e-newsletter. Active on Twitter? Wonderful. Then use Twtpoll, SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo to drive people to a survey page on these sites.

The bottom line is there are plenty of ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your community's needs, using social media tools that are readily available to both you and the Fortune 500.

4. Customer Retention

A good rule to remember is that it costs three to five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Given that, wouldn't it be smart to use social media as a tool to keep customers loyal and engaged? That's what Comcast and Southwest Airlines do. They communicate via Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to help solve customer service issues.

When Frank Eliason at Comcast first noticed that people were making comments about his company on Twitter, he probably wasn't very happy. After all, if you're going to Tweet about your cable company, it’s likely a complaint. So Frank took things into his own hands and started Tweeting back to the disgruntled customers. His tweets offered suggestions and tips on how to fix the problems people were having with their services.

Research has indicated that if you take a customer in a heightened state of anger and help them out, they'll actually become brand advocates. In other words, they start promoting your brand to others because you reached out to them and helped them at a time of need.

That's what happened with Frank and Comcast. Customers went from being disgruntled to being brand advocates — all because they were pleasantly surprised when Frank reached out to them via Twitter and helped solve their problems.

If you find yourself reading negative comments in the blogosphere about your brand, don't shy away from them. Engage with them. You'll be surprised how effective it can be.

5. Lead Generation

If you’re having difficulty selling your product or service online, you may want to invest in a social B2B lead generation strategy. At my company, we use social media to drive prospects to our online magazine for marketers. When prospects get to the website, they can read a blog post, watch a 60-second video or download a white paper. Once we gather their contact information, we (gently) re-market to them by reminding them of all the great results our partner generates for its clients.

This hub-and-spoke system works like a charm. Why? Because B2B and professional service firms are often sold based on a relationship. Much of the decision process is based on a vendor's reputation and trustworthiness. What better way to build trust than by providing helpful, useful information to the client prospect via social media?

Diagram Image

Remember, when you're using this hub and spoke system, you don't want to limit yourself to just the big five (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and MySpace). You'll also want to use e-mail marketing, speeches, e-books, webinars, blogs, videos and other social media tools to build trust and awareness.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online
- Why Your Business Should Consider Reverse Mentorship
- 35 Essential Social Media & Tech Resources for Small Businesses
- 6 Ways to Score a Job Through Twitter
- 4 Misconceptions About Marketing in Social Games

Reviews: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube

More About: branding, business, engagement, facebook, fortune 500, small business, social media, social media marketing, twitter, video, youtube

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Libox for iPad Makes Accessing Your Music and Videos a Snap

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 11:15 AM PST


Libox, a company that is hoping to reshape the digital media sharing experience, just launched its new iPad app.

The free app [iTunes link] makes it super simple to access the media library on your computer from your iPad — no converting, transcoding or complicated setup required.

Many of us have pretty large media collections on our computers. Whether it’s a collection of albums and videos from iTunes, stuff one has downloaded or ripped from DVD, or gigabytes worth of photographs, most of us have our various media scattered over a bunch of different devices.

Even with advances in storage space, it’s simply not economical to keep a perfect copy of each media file you own on every single device you have. Plus, devices like smartphones and the iPad not only lack the storage capability to hold all your stuff — they also often don’t have the necessary codecs to play back everything you’ve got.

The app — and the service itself — aims to remedy this issue. What makes Libox different from other media serving solutions is that it is super easy to set up and use, and it’s designed to be multi-device and multi-platform. The service soft-launched in June with a web client and a desktop app, and in August, it introduced its iPhone app. Today, the company adds an iPad app to the mix.

How It Works

Libox is extremely easy to use. First, download the client app for Windows or Mac. This app then lets you add media folders to Libox that will be scanned and organized. Libox will scan the meta data and organize your files by things like artist, title, collection, etc.

You can browse your various media folders within Libox and manage and play media from within the client application. It’s basically like iTunes.

What makes Libox different is that when you go to Libox.com or pull up the Libox app for iPad, you can then access all of the content that you have shared with Libox.

That means you can be on another computer, pull up the web browser and start playing a movie or video file and it will start up instantly. Libox automatically handles the media transcoding so that the quality is optimal for your connection and the format is in something your other device supports.

You can also share collections or individual media files with your friends. They can then access the content in their web browser or download the actual file themselves.

If you install Libox on another PC, you can use it to keep your media files in sync. So your iTunes folder on one computer can better mirror another.

You might think that Libox would use the cloud to do this kind of serving, but it doesn’t. The one caveat with Libox is that you need to have at least one computer on and online for the service to work.

For sharing files within your home or for quick shares with friends, that’s really not a problem. However, keep in mind that if you want to watch a movie on your iPad and your laptop is packed away in your bag, it’s not going to work. Libox Founder and CEO Erez Pilosof, tells us a solution that will handle offline media is on the way.

The iPad App

As an iPad app, Libox is truly cool. It has the same user interface as the website and desktop client and works super fast. You can start playing back video and it will be transcoded in the best quality that it can, and playback starts immediately. Additionally you can browse and listen to music and look at photos.

The app also lets you share with friends or family members from within the application itself.

It works really well as a way to access video or music content, without having to go through the hassle of syncing iTunes. It also means you don’t have to convert all of your video files into something the iPad can play.

On one level, it’s similar to what AirVideo does — except you don’t have to bother configuring any sort of server or set up any port forwarding.

This Is the Future

What Libox is doing — making media easy to access and share — is what will happen in the future. I’m not sure if we’ll ultimately have solutions that integrate a cloud aspect for storage and redundancy or not. But the ability to access media regardless of its format, regardless of what type of device you are on, is the future.

Real Networks announced that it will be showcasing its own media management next week. Apple and Google are also investing in cloud-based sharing initiatives. In the meantime, Libox is available for Windows, Mac, iPhone and iPad. Android versions are coming soon.

Reviews: Android, Google, Windows

More About: ipad apps, libox, media management, media sharing

For more Tech coverage:

Foursquare Partnership Paves Way for TV Series

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 10:11 AM PST


Independent production company Endemol USA will develop a television series that incorporates Foursquare’s location-based mobile gaming platform and may emulate the competition and travel aspects of reality shows such as The Amazing Race.

Endemol has partnered with Foursquare on the television endeavor and has signed an exclusive development deal, according to a report from entertainment industry publication Variety.

As to series specifics, there are limited details at this time and the information available suggests that this partnership is still in a nascent stage.

“We hope that working on this project with Endemol will expose even more people around the world to the benefits of Foursquare,” co-founder Dennis Crowley told Variety.

From the sound of it, Foursquare may also find its way into existing Endemol content. “Endemol has a reputation for leading innovation in the television industry, and we look forward to integrating Foursquare into some of their new and already existing programming,” said Crowley.

A Foursquare representative also tells Mashable, “We’ll be working closely with Endemol on the development process.”

Without knowing more, it’s hard to say whether a television series that hinges on Foursquare activity will be a hit or miss with viewing audiences — though the startup’s nearly 5 million members could make for a captive audience. The suggested competitive race-style format, however, is one that seems to align nicely with Foursquare’s social checkin platform.

Reviews: Foursquare, Mashable, foursquare

More About: Endemol, foursquare, tv

For more Business coverage:

Billboard Launches “Social 50″ Chart to Rate Artists by Online Popularity

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 09:56 AM PST

Twitter Guitar Image

Musicians and fans will now be privy to a whole new metric of success, thanks to Billboard, who is today launching the Social 50, a chart that measures an artist’s popularity based on social networking activity.

Last March, we introduced you to Next Big Sound, a tool that gauges an artist’s popularity based on fan activity across sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, iLike, Wikipedia, Soundcloud, Reverb Nation, Pure Volume, OurStage, Vimeo, Bebo, Amie Street, Jam Legend and Virb.

Now the service is getting a shot of old media cache, as it will be providing data to Billboard that will be used to compile the weekly Social 50 chart.

Like NBS, the Social 50 will rank artists using such metrics as weekly additions of friends, fans and followers (depending on the network), artist page views and weekly song plays. Rankings are also influenced by measuring the ratio of page views to fans.

Predictably, artists present on the debut chart are largely mainstream, the top 10 including Rihanna (who holds the number-one spot and recently nabbed two Grammy nominations) and Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie,” YouTube darlings Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, and Twitter fave Nicki Minaj. Oft-parodied Ke$ha and social media-savvy Katy Perry also made the cut.

“We continue to adapt the way we chart the changing landscape of music,” says Billboard Editorial Director Bill Werde. “The Social 50 is yet another step in the evolution of Billboard and an important response to our changing times.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, deeAuvil

Reviews: Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Vimeo, Virb, Wikipedia, YouTube, iStockphoto, justin bieber, love

More About: music, social media

For more Entertainment coverage:

Huffington Post CEO: We Will Be More Valuable Than WSJ in 5 Years

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 09:38 AM PST


When asked whether The Huffington Post or The Wall Street Journal would be worth more in the next five years, Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau first skirted the question. When pressed again, he said, “I think probably [us].”

“I think it’s highly unlikely,” Dow Jones President Todd Larsen countered, while the two were on stage today at Business Insider’s Ignition conference in New York.

The two panelists, who were interviewed by Business Insider Editor-in-Chief Henry Blodget, discussed how they’re adapting and optimizing in an ever-changing news media landscape.

The Wall Street Journal, Larsen explained, is “focused on transforming into a digital-driven business, but is still investing in print.” The most important investment the Journal is making is not in the platform, but in the content. “Our focus is to get people to buy the Journal, and not focus on buying the print or the iPad edition, etcetera. We want to make it easy for consumers to pay once and get it all over the place, on any device they want.”

Hippeau expressed confidence about the The Huffington Post’s growth and its inherent appeal to younger generations. He’s focused on boosting its advertising revenues, which have remained low despite the fact that The Huffington Post’s audience is now larger than The New York Times, and on mobile. In particular, he’s keen to help brands understand how to optimize their advertising to make it relevant to audiences by tying it to current events and embracing The Huffington Post’s blog model, he said in a follow-up interview with Mashable.

Consumers might not think of The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post as competitors given the difference in tone, subject matter and audience demographics, but both expressed a desire to become the one-stop source for general news. “We don’t intend to be a stop on your journey around online news sources,” Larsen said. “We want readers to come to us for everything.”

Reviews: Mashable

More About: business insider ignition 2010, eric hippeau, Huffington Post, media, todd larsen, wall street journal

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New Twitter Search Tool Gives Marketers Insight into User Communities

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:33 AM PST


Social media analytics company PeopleBrowsr has launched its social search product ReSearch.ly. The new tool is designed to help brand managers and marketers find the 1% of Twitter users that matter most to them.

ReSearch.ly, at its core, is a Twitter search engine — albeit one that offers a few heretofore unseen search features to give brands insight into micro or niche Twitter communities.

The product allows users to search tweets around specified keywords. Once a search is initiated, tweets are shown in the left-hand portion of the application and users can filter the stream to show tweets from followers or those following, segment results by gender and breakout tweets by positive or negative sentiment. Results can also be narrowed by product-defined communities or location.

On the right-hand side, ReSearch.ly provides a graphical global overview of tweets for 30-day or seven-day time spans. Here, users will find a chart showing keyword volume fluctuation over time, a sentiment line graph and a sentiment pie chart. There’s even a word cloud highlighting common words housed within the tweets being dissected. In this area, ReSearch.ly also displays media related to tweets, including Twitpics and YouTube videos.

The company calls this technology “Viral Analytics,” and aims to help users track — in real-time — how information moves through the web.

The product also provides users with the opportunity to see degrees of separation from other Twitter users; this data can be exported to CSV.

In some ways, ReSearch.ly — which has a seven-day free trial — seems rather limited for its $99 per user, per month price tag. The unfettered access to Twitter data and the myriad of filters make for an interesting browsing experience, but there doesn’t seem to be much more you can do with the information you do discover.

Product Manager Brett Horvath says that’s because ReSearch.ly isn’t an engagement platform. “It’s a social search platform where you can find out what people are saying and map those [conversations] out,” he says. Hovarth also says its target audience — brand marketers and managers — are excited to pay for the product, which he believes provides them with unprecedented Twitter research tools.

PeopleBrowsr, as you may recall, started as a consumer-facing social application for managing Twitter and Facebook streams but has since switched to focus on enterprise-level data mining, analytics and brand engagement. The ReSearch.ly product represents the sum total of the company’s refined search technologies and its access to the full Twitter firehose.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sodafish

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto

More About: peoplebrowsr, trending, twitter, Twitter Search

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10 Compelling Music Videos Shot on the Apple iPhone

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:27 AM PST


We’ve previously looked at what the iPhone is capable of shooting in terms of still images, but this time around we’re delving into the video side of things.

With 720p recording capabilities, the iPhone 4 is a decent pocket camcorder, but can it make the cut when it comes to the type of filming usually reserved for a professional kit? If so, then the world of making music videos for artists with no budget could be about to change dramatically.

Although the quality of the music varies from amateur to pro, these videos all have one thing in common — they were shot entirely on an Apple iPhone. Have a browse through the gallery below and based on the evidence, let us know whether you think the iPhone is capable of making sweet music vids.

1. “Play” by BJSR

Shot on the 3GS, some clever motion panning helps this mellow little tune flow along nicely.

2. “Nancy Lee” by Vintage Trouble

This gorgeous video was shot, directed and edited by Emmy Award-winner Alen Petkovic. It was filmed in one day in July 2010, with the vintage look matching the song to great effect. Incidentally, one of the iPhone 4s used in the shoot (still containing the footage) was stolen soon after filming and was recovered thanks to the Apple’s phone tracking functionality, but that’s another story…

3. “This is the Moment” by Kevin Kaho Tsui

This iPhone 4 video keeps things simple, while the nice use of ambient light shows what the camera is capable of in low-light situations.

4. “Cascades” by Flakjakt

This fun video was a week-long “experiment” between the artist Flakjakt and Marty Martin. The song was composed especially for the iPhone shoot and filmed and edited in just three and a half days.

5. “Love Love Love” by Reyna Perez

Filmed on the iPhone 3GS, this atmospheric video makes the most of the earlier model’s camcorder limitations.

6. “Live in Your Light” by R. Vaughn

“No budget? No problem. We have an iPhone 4,” says the team behind this video. Shot and edited entirely on the device, this shows the potential that Apple’s mobile has to create a quality music video with a bit of get-up-and-go, some time and a phone.

7. “Garosougil” by Wonsuk Chin & Yang Jinseok

Wonsuk Chin is a Seoul-based film maker. This video for Yang Jinseok’s song was shot on and features the iPhone 4. Be sure to watch until after the credits for some behind-the-scenes stills.

8. “Solace” by Rana June Sobhany

This is about as Apple-flavored as musical endeavors come. “iPad DJ” Rana Sobhany’s “Solace” was composed entirely on an iPad and the video was shot entirely on the iPhone 4.

9. “Sarsaparilla Girl” by Dr. Pants

This colorful video was shot in just 48 hours from concept to final product. It was filmed at “POPS,” just off Route 66, which offers more than 500 different types of soda and a rather unusual, bottle-shaped landmark.

10. “Beyond Belief” by The Turnback

All but four seconds of this video were shot on the iPhone 4. The band describes its creation as “true guerrilla film making” as, apparently during the five hours of filming, they had to contend with rainstorms, mud and some curious cows.

More Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Useful Apple iPad Tips and Tricks
- 10 Captivating Time-Lapse Design Videos
- 10 Stories Beautifully Told with Animated Typography [VIDEOS]
- 10 Amazing Musical Instrument iPhone Apps
- 10 Cool Crowdsourced Music Video Projects

More About: ipad, iphone, iphone 4, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, music, music videos, video, videos

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Google Doodles Now Show Up on Mobile

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 08:07 AM PST


Are you a fan of Google’s everchanging logos, which the company refers to as “doodles”? Well, if you’re on the go, you’ll no longer have to wait until you reach your desktop computer to see them.

Google says all of the doodles featured on Google’s desktop homepage will now be available on Android 2.0+ and iOS 3+ devices worldwide. To see them, you simply need to open Google.com in your mobile browser.

That said, Google.com didn’t feature a doodle at the time this post was written, which is rarely the case lately. But fear not — we suspect you’ll only have to wait a day or two to be able to see a brand new doodle on your smartphone.

Reviews: Android, Google

More About: Doodle, Google, Mobile 2.0, smartphone

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Xmarks Saved by Password-Syncing Service LastPass

Posted: 02 Dec 2010 07:56 AM PST


Xmarks has been acquired by LastPass. The cross-browser password management service will be the new purveyor of the much-loved, but financially strapped, cross-browser bookmarking service.

Back in September, we were gutted by the news that Xmarks would be shutting down. That announcement led to a groundswell of support from Xmarks users and also opened up the door to various acquisition options.

Last month, the company announced that it was in the final stages of selling itself, assuring users that the service would remain alive and on-track. Today, Xmarks announced its new owner, LastPass.

Xmarks and LastPass actually have a lot of similarities; both use the cloud to make secure data accessible from various browsers and platforms. The pairing of the two companies makes an awful lot of sense.

Like Xmarks, LastPass started life as a free service. Unlike Xmarks, LastPass took the initiative to migrate to a paid option early in its lifetime. While the bulk of LastPass remains free, added features like USB-drive support, mobile apps and priority support are available for $12 per year.

LastPass CEO Joe Siegrist told Kara Swisher at AllThingsD that “we really want to figure something out that could keep [Xmarks] going.”

The first plan of attack is to introduce a premium version of Xmarks, styled after the premium LastPass offering. Xmarks users will get access to iPhone and Android apps, three months of backups that monitor and track every change in your bookmarks, priority support and the ability to sync open browser tabs across computers and mobile devices.

Users can even get a combo pack and subscribe to both LastPass and Xmarks for $20 per year.

We think this is the perfect partnership for Xmarks. LastPass has shown that it’s a company that has both a strong and secure data infrastructure and a viable business model. It helps that the two services are so complementary. Both excel at being cross-browser and cross-platform.

What do you think of the latest chapter in the Xmarks saga? Let us know.

Reviews: Android, LastPass, Xmarks

More About: bookmark synchronization, LastPass, password management, Xmarks

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