Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Android Surpasses Apple as the Leading OS on Mobile Ad Network” |
- Android Surpasses Apple as the Leading OS on Mobile Ad Network
- iOS 4.3 Developer Build Reveals “Find My Friends” Feature and More
- Could 2010’s VC Fundraising Slump Cause Issues in 2011? [STATS]
- Participation In Real-Time Social Media Increased 20% in 2010
- A Closer Look at Dell’s Touch-Based Stage UI [VIDEO]
- MySpace Confirms Sale Is Likely in the Near Future
- Startup Reinvents Restaurant Wait Lists with Text Messages
- Handcrafted Bamboo Frames Turn Instagram Photos into Keepsakes
- HOW TO: Buy & Sell Music Directly on Facebook
- Joomla 1.6 Offers New Features for Designers & Admins
- Online Radio Ad Network Raises $8M
- Are We Too Obsessed With Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]
- HANDS ON: 10 New Tablets Ready to Challenge the iPad [VIDEOS]
- Work for Mashable and Other Great Social Media Companies
- Now You Can Watch Music Videos on YouTube’s Android App
- Should You Name Your Startup After a Meme?
- John Cena Voted “Most Influential Social Good Champion” [MASHABLE AWARDS]
- Social Gaming Will Generate $1 Billion This Year [STATS]
- HOW TO: Create a World-Class Online Community for Your Business
- Startup Secures Funding to Bring Gesture Recognition to More Living Rooms
- Wolfram Alpha Takes on Education With Algebra, Calculus & Music Theory Apps
- Buffalo Wild Wings Gets Interactive With SCVNGR Promo
- Treadmill Allows You to Take a Virtual Run Anywhere on Google Earth [VIDEO]
- 6 Web Pioneers on What the Internet of the Future Will Look Like
- DEMO: BlackBerry Playbook Tablet [VIDEO]
- Vevo Comes to Android
- AMBER Alerts Now Available on Facebook
- Google’s Hotpot Recommendation Engine for Places Arrives on iPhone
- How Social Data & Mobile Tech Can Improve the Retail Experience
- Baynote Gets $13 Million in Funding to Make Websites Smarter
| Android Surpasses Apple as the Leading OS on Mobile Ad Network Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST      Mobile advertising network Millenial Media announced today that the Android OS has surpassed Apple’s iOS as the leading smartphone OS on their network. The news lends further support for a prediction Gartner Research made in September that the open-source Android OS would be the leading smartphone OS by 2014. Android phones outsold iPhones for the first time in early 2010, and a report from Nielsen recently revealed that Android increased its share of new smartphone buyers between January and November while Apple's share remained about steady and BlackBerry's decreased. Part of Android’s advantage is that it runs on devices from multiple manufacturers, while Apple’s and RIM’s operating systems run only on their devices. Apple is still Millenial network’s leading manufacturer with about 21% market share. At least on Millenial’s network, however, Android is getting a lot of attention from advertisers. Android ad requests grew 141% from Q3 to Q4 of 2010 while Apple requests grew 12% and RIM requests grew 60%. Android apps also dominated, accounting for 55% of revenue from application platforms. These stats only apply to Millenial’s network, which the company says reaches about 80% of the mobile phone-carrying U.S. population. But given past trends, we wouldn’t be surprised to find out that other networks are seeing similar shifts in smartphone market share. It will be interesting to see if next month’s release of the iPhone for Verizon can pull iOS back into the lead.  More About: android, blackberry, iphone, marketshare, Mellenial Media, OS, smartphone
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| iOS 4.3 Developer Build Reveals “Find My Friends” Feature and More Posted: 13 Jan 2011 01:41 AM PST   The freshly released iOS 4.3 developer build has a lot of people digging into it, and now we’re starting to see some interesting details about the next iteration of Apple’s mobile platform. Settings for a new feature dubbed “Find My Friends,” tied to Apple’s MobileMe service, have been unearthed in the build. Apple promised to improve the MobileMe service in 2011; perhaps turning it into a location-based social network such as Google Latitude or even Foursquare is what’s in store for users who choose to dish out $99 a year for a MobileMe subscription. Other interesting new functionality revealed in the iOS 4.3 developer build includes AirPlay video support for third party apps and personal hotspot support for the iPhone. The iPad will gain multitouch gestures, which let you switch between apps and go back to home screen by using 5-finger swipes and pinches, as well as the ability to set the iPad mute switch back to being an orientation lock. The multitouch gestures feature on the iPad immediately raised some interesting speculation about the future of the iPad and the iPhone. BGR claims that they’re the first step towards ridding the iPad of the home button. Rumor has it that Steve Jobs originally wanted the iPhone and the iPad to be completely devoid of physical buttons, and it’s possible that the company found a way to replace its functionality with these new multitouch gestures.  [via MacRumors, Engadget, BGR] Images courtesy of Cristiano Betta on Flickr, MacRumors More About: apple, iOS, iphone, Mobile Me For more Mobile coverage:
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| Could 2010’s VC Fundraising Slump Cause Issues in 2011? [STATS] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 11:44 PM PST   While 2010 was a good year for startups to raise money, the past 12 months haven’t been so kind to private equity. In fact, venture capital fundraising was at a seven-year low at the end of the fourth quarter. A recent report from Dow Jones shows a 14% drop in funds raised by VC firms in 2010, down to $11.6 billion for the year collected by 119 funds. In 2009, 133 funds collected $13.5 billion. Across all private equity sectors, of which VC is just one, 336 funds raised around $86 billion in 2010, showing a 16% decrease from 2009. The one segment of VC that didn’t suffer in the fundraising category was late-stage funds, which actually raised 68% more than they did in 2009. This accounts for $1.5 billion raised by eight funds. However, as low as these numbers are, we’ve also seen good things in VC in 2010. For example, exits, including IPOs and acquisitions were up for the year. Web-based startups alone accounted for 62 aquisitions worth a total of $4.1 billion — almost double both the number of deals and the dollar amount of all deals in both 2008 and 2009. And the fundraising done by startups made a definite comeback from the longstanding recession and its effects on the startup world. Still, both VCs and funded CEOs are optimistic about 2011. Most think it will bring more investments, more acquisitions and more good news for web and IT companies. But is this optimism justified vis-à-vis the VC fundraising slump? Will investors move with caution into 2011? And will VCs be able to raise more funds in the coming months? In the same survey of VCs and CEOs, the investors were divided on whether fundraising would fare well or poorly in the year to come. However, the majority felt that smaller VC firms would do better than their larger counterparts.
Image courtesy of Flickr, emdot. More About: Dow Jones, investment, startups, vc, venture cap For more Business coverage:
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| Participation In Real-Time Social Media Increased 20% in 2010 Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:48 PM PST   Social media consultancy Trendstream released a report on Tuesday that suggests participation in the social web is shifting from a place to create personal content to a place to share professional content in real time. The report is part of an ongoing web study called the Global Web Index, which surveyed a total of 51,000 consumers globally at three points between July 2009 and September 2010. During this time period, the number of people who reported participating in static online conversations decreased. Blog writing declined by 4%, and forum participation decreased by 11%. Participation in real-time social networks and microblogs, however, both grew by 20%. Platforms like Twitter and Tumblr arrived a bit later than social networks like Facebook; although the two groups of real-time social media are growing at a similar rate, social networks still dominate the real-time social web. The percentage of consumers who said they updated their social network profiles daily was twice the percentage that said they updated their microblog. And while more than half of participants in the study said they had ever updated their profiles on a social network, only 29% reported ever using a microblog. As the relatively new concept of microblogging evolves, it is becoming more about sharing professional content rather than creating personal content. The number of people who said they linked to news stories and the number that posted updates about a particular product on their microblogs both increased by more than 10% this year, but people who posted updates about personal photos decreased 5%. This shift is also reflected in the design of popular social media platforms. Twitter now asks “What’s happening?” rather than “How are you doing?” Facebook, which becomes more microblog-like with every redesign, has removed the “username is” preface from its status updates. The potential for social media — which the surveys found has about a 50% participation rate in even the least engaged markets — lies not in expansion but in the direction it grows. If social media continues to become focused on real-time conversations around professional content, it could become a more powerful distribution channel than print, television, radio or static web pages ever were. Image courtesy of Flickr, rishibando. Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, blog More About: real-time web, social media trends, Trendstream For more Social Media coverage:
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| A Closer Look at Dell’s Touch-Based Stage UI [VIDEO] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:02 PM PST Dell is working on a new piece of software called Stage, a visual experience and user interface for all its touch devices. The UI uses a “tiles” format for sifting through your applications, music, photos, videos and other multimedia. It’s currently available on the Dell Streak tablet (which runs on Android 2.2) but will be available on a lot of Dell’s other Android and touch-based devices very soon. We asked Dell’s Angela Blair to give us a walkthrough of the Stage UI at CES 2011. While we’ve played with Stage before on Android, we haven’t had a chance to play with it on Windows. Iit’s a gorgeous user experience, though we’re not sure how necessary it will be when the Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” OS for tablets is available on more devices. Check out the video if you want to see Stage in action. Reviews: Android, Windows More About: CES, CES 2011, ces2011, dell, Dell Stage, demo, UI, user interface For more Tech coverage:
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| MySpace Confirms Sale Is Likely in the Near Future Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:28 PM PST   MySpace has confirmed that parent company News Corp. is looking for a way to unload its flailing social web property. MySpace’s decline has been well chronicled, but the company hit its lowest point yet when it laid off 47% of its staff yesterday. While MySpace tried to claim that its new design shows promise, the reality is that there is no way to sugar-coat slashing half of your staff. That’s not all, though. Today, MySpace CEO Mike Jones has confirmed what we’ve suspected all along: The company is looking for someone to buy the failing property before it’s too late. "News Corp. is assessing a number of possibilities including a sale, a merger and a spinout [sic]. The process has just started,” MySpace’s Rosabel Tao recently told Bloomberg after a company-wide briefing from Jones. At this point, there’s little doubt that News Corp. wants to unload the money-draining Internet property. News Corp. could once justify its MySpace acquisition just from the hundreds of millions that Google paid it as part of its multi-year search deal. However, while MySpace renewed its ad deal with Google last month, we hear that the terms were shifted significantly in Google’s favor. In the old deal, MySpace was guaranteed around $900 million in search revenue. In contrast, there is no guaranteed money at all in the new deal. MySpace’s revenue stream has been greatly reduced, and no redesign will bring Google’s money back. A few weeks ago, we predicted that News Corp. would sell MySpace this year. We just didn’t expect that the media company was looking to offload its toxic Internet asset so soon. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Image based on photo by Flickr user derralynsarkohemo. Reviews: Flickr, Google, Internet, MySpace More About: business, facebook, Mike Jones, myspace For more Business coverage:
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| Startup Reinvents Restaurant Wait Lists with Text Messages Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:41 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.
Quick Pitch: Diner Connection sends text messages to restaurant patrons to let them know when their table is ready. Genius Idea: A few years back, Shawna and Geoffrey Simpson vacationed in Waikiki. The couple was prepared for two-hour wait times at popular restaurants, but one evening they were handed a coaster-sized pager they could only carry up to 200 feet away. Ironically, the restaurant parking lot, which was out of the pager’s range, had a very lovely view of the beach. Instead, the couple was forced to wait inside with no view, cooped up next to other hungry patrons. Another bad experience years later inspired the couple to do something to improve the restaurant wait experience. They had the idea to send text messages to patrons to alert them when their tables are ready. Soon thereafter, Mr. Simpson attended a Startup Weekend in Tulsa and decided he could use Twilio’s communication platform to power the text-messaging restaurant idea. When a rough, early version of the application went on to win a Twilio developer contest, the Diner Connection business was officially born. Publicly launched in September 2010, Diner Connection offers web-based wait-list management, reservation management and SMS marketing services to restaurants in the United States. The service starts at $99 per month with a free trial period and helps restaurants replace their costly pager system with a text-based system that messages customers when their tables are ready.  The system is set up to better satisfy the needs of waiting customers and help restaurants more efficiently manage wait lists and reservations. “Customers give their cell phone number, and then they can wait wherever they’re comfortable,” explains Shawna Simpson, Diner Conneciton president. “Comfortable and relaxed customers will spend more money,” she says. Diner Connection’s wait list and reservation tools are accessible via any web-enabled device, though the company plans to release a native iPad app for restaurant management and a consumer-facing iPhone app for reserving tables at nearby restaurants. Restaurants can also use Diner Connection widgets on their websites to allow customers to reserve tables on the web. Part of Diner Connection’s monthly fee allows restaurants to send their diners targeted SMS marketing messages on nightly specials or discounts. Customers can opt out of the messages at any time, but Simpson acknowledges that this is one area where she needs to better educate participating restaurants on best practices. The reservation side of the business brushes up against OpenTable’s popular but more hardware-intensive offering. The SMS wait-list product seems to be the biggest selling point for restaurant owners. Ryan Parrott (@chefrp on Twitter) at the Iguana Mexican Grill in Tulsa — which can run a wait time as long as two and half hours on a Tuesday night — speaks enthusiastically of the text-based wait-list service. “Our customers love it,” he says. “They think it’s high-tech and cool.” Parrott explains that the service frees up customers to go shopping at a neighboring store or grab a cocktail at nearby bar while they wait. “Sending a text message allows people to be more mobile and more comfortable,” he says, “and it helps all the nearby businesses.” With most patrons carrying mobile devices, a text-based wait-list management system is a no-brainer idea, and Diner Connection’s primary challenge will be in getting the word out about its service. The young startup has roughly 30 restaurant customers, most of whom are located in the Tulsa area. It faces competition from Textaurant, ReadyPing and traditional pager providers. The startup simply consists of a husband and wife team, but Mrs. Simpson explains that the company is going after $500,000 in funding to hire a sales team and fuel expansion. Series Supported by 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: Twitter More About: Diner Connection, spark-of-genius, startup, text messages, twilio For more Startups coverage:
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| Handcrafted Bamboo Frames Turn Instagram Photos into Keepsakes Posted: 12 Jan 2011 07:03 PM PST   Instagram has become a mobile photo sharing hit in part because it can turn everyday photos into digital keepsakes. Now, freelance photographer Shane Rich has developed Boo Box — a handmade, four-inch bamboo shadowbox frame — to turn your favorite Instagram photos into more permanent collectibles. Boo Box frames, created by Hatchcraft, come in light (Lion), mixed (Tiger) or dark (Bear) shades of bamboo. Photos are printed using archival inks on Hahnemuhle bamboo paper. The paper photos are laminated in clear UV protectant to safeguard against fading. Interested parties need only supply the Instagram photo URL (or upload a photo); the Boulder-based company will do the rest. The end result is a keepsake that beautifully displays and protects each Instagram photo. Each Boo Box costs $20 plus shipping, a price point that makes the product an affordable gift option. Perhaps the only downside is that frames are made-to-order. The current lead time is just two days, but should Boo Box grow in popularity, the time it takes the small company to fulfill orders will likely increase. Boo Box maker Shane Rich caught the attention of this Instagram addict when he mailed two Boo Box samples featuring two of my very own Instagram photos to Mashable’s San Francisco office (as pictured below). The surprise package included the frames, a personalized letter and press release. It was certainly a well-crafted and well-received pitch for the Boo Box.  Reviews: instagram More About: boo box, hatchcraft, instagram, photo For more Social Media coverage:
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| HOW TO: Buy & Sell Music Directly on Facebook Posted: 12 Jan 2011 06:30 PM PST   If you’re in a band or if you’re a big music fan, you’ve probably despaired over the state of music on Facebook. Unlike with MySpace, music and recording artists just aren’t a huge part of Facebook. Certainly, it’s easy for a band to create an online presence on the ubiquitous social network, but other than throwing up a simple page or two, there just aren’t a lot of integrated tools for musicians to connect with potential fans. This includes opportunities for buying and selling music on Facebook. Fortunately, we’ve just found an excellent new way for bands and fans to do exactly that: listen to, market, buy and sell music directly from a musician’s Facebook profile or page. Moontoast, a startup we’ve been watching for some time now, has just take the wraps off Impulse, a new way for musicians to use Facebook. With Impulse, fans can listen to a band’s songs directly on the band’s page through an integrated music player. They can share the music they find on Facebook and Twitter, and they can buy albums or single tracks directly from the artist without ever leaving Facebook. Artists can track what their fans are buying and sharing, as well, allowing them to make more informed decisions in the future. In the near future, Impulse will also be used for selling physical goods, including autographed items, physical/digital packages and more. We would even speculate that the platform might include a show ticketing solution, but that’s not something that Moontoast has confirmed. Setting up a Moontoast Impulse music store on Facebook is easy and leaves you with a simple, uncluttered interface for your Facebook page. It processes payments through Paypal and allows you to upload custom images and choose a custom color. We see this product as a boon to indie artists and major labels alike, and we can’t wait to see where Moontoast goes with it. Here’s what Impulse looks like on an artist’s Facebook page:
Originally, Moontoast launched in early 2009 as a platform for giving and receiving lessons online. Based in Nashville, TN, and co-founded by guitarist Bucky Baxter, the startup was almost guaranteed to have a strong foundation in music. This social, musical pivot makes perfect sense for Moontoast. What features do you think would make Impulse even better and simpler for musicians and music fans on Facebook? Let us know in the comments. Image based on photo by Flickr user davidwilsonclarke. Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Impulse, MySpace, Twitter More About: e-commerce, facebook, impulse, moontoast, moontoast impulse, music, musicians, sell music, startup For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Joomla 1.6 Offers New Features for Designers & Admins Posted: 12 Jan 2011 05:58 PM PST
Along with WordPress and Drupal, Joomla helps make up the group of “big three” open source CMS applications. According to statistics from W3Techs, Joomla powers 2% of the web and holds 11% of the CMS market. Joomla is used for front facing and internal sites for companies like eBay, Citibank, General Electric, IHOP and more. With Joomla 1.6, the goal was to make the package more user-friendly and powerful. Joomla 1.5 was released almost three years ago and a lot of work has gone into this most recent release. In the future, the Joomla team will be adopting a six-month release strategy, meaning users won’t have to wait as long between updates. We’ve spent some time playing with Joomla 1.6 and exploring some of the new features and improvements offered with this version.  Here are some of the big new features of Joomla 1.6:
Joomla still hasn’t caught up with WordPress in the ease-of-use department, but as a CMS, it can be considerably more powerful. The new ACL feature is great for large scale sites with lots of users. For designers, we think the addition of template styles and layout overrides will make customizing and changing smaller aspects of a page or site faster. For end users, there aren’t a lot of dramatic differences, but on our localhost, the software seemed faster and snappier than an identical Joomla 1.5 instance. Have you ever used Joomla when designing or developing a website? What do you think of this CMS? Let us know in the comments. Series supported by Rackspace  The Web Development Series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why. More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: Drupal, Joomla, WordPress More About: CMS, content management systems, drupal, joomla, web designers, web dev, web development series, WordPress For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Online Radio Ad Network Raises $8M Posted: 12 Jan 2011 04:52 PM PST   TargetSpot, an advertising network for online audio ads, has just announced an $8 million Series C. Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, CBS Radio and Milestone Venture Partners all participated in the round. This startup connects national brands and local advertisers alike to the online radio and video audience. TargetSpot offers advertisers a self-service advertising platform as well as traditional ad account executives. Campaigns featuring audio, display and pre-roll video ads are placed across TargetSpot’s network of online properties, which it says are in the thousands. Advertisers can also target consumers by geography, demographics and even listening preferences. They also get the benefit of real-time analytics. The funds raised in this Series C will be used to grow the startup’s advertising technology, expand its network of properties and hire more salespeople. In a release, Fred Wilson said, “TargetSpot has been a pioneer in developing the digital audio advertising market. Its early investments created the largest network of its kind, incorporating many of the leading online radio groups and pureplay music streaming companies. “The funding will help us accelerate TargetSpot's growth trajectory by expanding our advertising product lineup on both the web and mobile platforms.” The startup hasn’t taken funding since March 2008, when it raised an $8.6 million Series B. All current investors, with the exception of CBS Radio, also participated in the previous round. That alone serves as evidence that the traditional media outlet is taking online radio (and online radio advertising) quite seriously. CBS Radio is also one of TargetSpot’s distribution partners. Image courtesy of Flickr, jschneid. Reviews: Flickr More About: advertising, bain capital, fred wilson, funding, MARKETING, milestone, online radio, series c, targetspot, union square For more Business coverage:
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| Are We Too Obsessed With Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 04:03 PM PST   Facebook profiles are like belly buttons: Everybody’s got one. Perhaps that statement’s still a bit of an exaggeration, but by the numbers, we (that is, Internet users around the globe) are becoming more obsessed with Facebook by the day. One out of every 13 Earthlings and three out of four Americans is on Facebook, and one out of 26 signs into Facebook on a daily basis. We could rattle off stats like until the cows come home, but instead, we’d like to show you this fascinating infographic from SocialHype and OnlineSchools.org. Here, in a visual nutshell, are some highlights about Facebook usage, 2010 trends, adoption numbers and a great deal more. Take a good look at this information (or click here for the full-size version), and in the comments, let us know what you think about our global fascination with Facebook. Is Facebook an amazing connective medium? A plague that preys on the easily addicted? A little bit of both, or something else entirely?
Header image courtesy of Flickr, tsevis. Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Internet More About: facebook, infographic, stats, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| HANDS ON: 10 New Tablets Ready to Challenge the iPad [VIDEOS] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 02:40 PM PST   One of the standout trends of CES 2011 was the tablet. No fewer than 80 tablets were on display from manufacturers from across the globe, each hoping to take a piece of the growing market, led by the iPad. Most of the tablets, unsurprisingly, were running Android. With details of Android 3.0 Honeycomb just starting to eke out in earnest at the show, most tablet makers were instead running customized versions of Android 2.2 or 2.3. By the time many of the tablets we looked at hit the market, we expect that they will ship with Honeycomb. We’ve compiled a video gallery of some of our favorite tablets from the floors and hotel suites at CES. While most of these run Android, the BlackBerry PlayBook and the Windows 7-based ASUS Eee Slate EP121 also made strong showings. The first Android 3.0-based tablet, the Motorola Xoom, was one of the big stars of CES, and we can’t wait to see it do more than running demos. One of our surprise favorites of CES 2011 was the ASUS Eee Transformer. As someone who previously wasn’t sold on the concept of a detachable netbook/tablet combination, I have to say, I like ASUS’s approach in this space. 2011 is going to be a great year for tablets — Android or otherwise — and we look forward to watching these devices come to market and seeing what other surprises are in store for us from other manufacturers. Do you plan on buying a tablet in 2011? Let us know in the comments. Motorola Xoom and Android Honeycomb DemoThe Motorola Xoom will be the first tablet to hit the market running Google's tablet-specific version of Android, codenamed Honeycomb. Mashable's Ben Parr already gave his thoughts on the tablet, and while we wish that more of the actual software (rather than just a demo loop) had been on display, we have high hopes for this dual-core tablet and for Honeycomb. Motorola really spurred the Android revolution in the smartphone space. Let's see if the company can do the same thing with tablets. Detailed Demo: BlackBerry PlayBook TabletBlackBerry announced its QNX-powered tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, last fall to much fanfare. As one of the few non-Android tablets at CES, we were curious to see the device up close and personal. As you can see, the device is fast and has an interesting user interface. More than just supporting Flash video content, RIM also supports apps written in Adobe Air. RIM might be trying to position the PlayBook as a business tool, but we think this dual-core tablet has more innate appeal to home users. We're just waiting for the company to announce pricing and availability information. ASUS Eee TransformerASUS had a very solid showing at CES 2011, with no less than four tablets on display. Our favorite of the bunch was the ASUS Eee Transformer. This 10.1-inch tablet was displayed running Android 2.2, but ASUS says it will ship with Honeycomb. The Tegra 2 chipset was fast and the screen was responsive. The big standout feature of this tablet is that it can connect to a docking station of sorts that will turn the tablet into a bonafide netbook. Not only is the resulting package still very lightweight, it doubles the battery life to 16 hours (8 hours on the tablet, 8 on the keyboard). It also features seemingly standard Android-tablet features like front and rear cameras. While lots of companies had keyboard/tablet hybrid models on display at CES, we most liked ASUS's approach with the Eee Transformer. VIZIO VIA Tablet and Mobile Phone Demo at CES, 2011We've already shared some of our thoughts on VIZIO's VIA tablet and smartphone series, but we think this 8-inch tablet deserves another mention for not just having a unique form factor (not 7 inches, not 10.1), but for having a very attractive Android skin. The software on the demo unit was still being tweaked, but we liked some of the hardware features like three speakers for stereo sound in landscape and portrait mode, built-in IR ports and an HDCP compliant HDMI port. Dell Streak 7 DemoDell made an impressive showing with its Streak 7 4G tablet at CES 2011. This 7-inch, dual-camera tablet looked a lot like some of the other 7-inch tablets we saw at CES, but we appreciated the thought Dell put into making sure the device could connect with other components in the home. The big question for Dell will be how quickly it can get Android 3.0 on its tablet, lest it repeat the same mistake it made with the Dell Streak 5 (shipping with the antiquated Android 1.6). ASUS Eee Pad MeMO CES 2011Another ASUS tablet on display at CES was the Eee Pad MeMO. This 7-inch tablet looks very similar to the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but it has a few tricks up its sleeve. Not only has ASUS said that the Eee Pad MeMO will support Android 3.0, the device features a capacitive touch stylus that will let you take notes on the fly. Perhaps it was the demonstration unit, perhaps it was all the hordes of people that used the device before us, but we had problems getting the stylus to respond well on the screen. This was reminiscent of other capacitive styli we've tried to use over the years (the new paintbrush stylus notwithstanding), which just never seem to work right. More disappointingly, the addition of a digitizer or additional overlay for the stylus also impeded our finger movements on the device. Again, this was CES; it's possible that final shipping versions will be better. Form factor aside, the stylus gimmick wasn't much of a draw. Still, we liked the spec layout of the device and we look forward to seeing it with Android 3.0 Panasonic Tablet to TV at CES 2011Panasonic took a slightly different approach to the tablet mania, highlighting how you can use its innovative new accessory tablet with its line of connected television sets. ASUS Eee Slate CES 2011At last year's CES, Microsoft made a big production of showcasing a bunch of Windows 7-powered slate PCs. Twelve months later, most of those devices never hit the market. That didn't stop ASUS from adding some variety to its Android-centric lineup with the Eee Slate EP121. This 12.1-inch LED-backlit tablet comes with a stand-alone, full-sized bluetooth keyboard and runs Windows 7 Home Premium. It also includes a stylus (that unlike the ASUS Eee MeMO, actually works well). Under the hood, this device -- which has some heft and is far larger than other tablets on the market -- has an Intel Core i5 processor and an SSD with 32GB or 64GB of storage, plus 4GB or RAM. In other words, this is a power-packed laptop in the form factor of a tablet. We were impressed with the device's speed and with the stylus -- the touch input wasn't bad either. Our only hesitation with this sort of device is battery life and real-world portability. The tablet is nice, but I'm not sure how different this is from traveling with both a small notebook and an iPad (or other tablet computer). For individuals that want a full-functioning computer that can double as a tablet, who understand that they are giving up some portability and battery life, this might be an interesting compromise. Dell Wireless Living Room and Streak 7 DemoDell's Angela Blair shows us how the company's new technologies allow you to wirelessly transfer media between devices in your home. ASUS Eee SliderThe final ASUS tablet we played with was the Eee Slider. Spec wise, this is the same as the Eee Transformer but instead of detaching from the keyboard, a spring-bound keyboard is built-in underneath. The keyboard isn't a bad size -- though we didn't like the keys on it as much as on the Transformer. The demo unit wasn't as responsive as the Transformer, but since the two share the same internals we expect the final Android 3.0-shipping product to really fly. It features dual cameras, a Tegra 2 powered chipset and a beautiful 10.1-inch IPS display. Our only hesitation with the Slider is that the bulk added on by the keyboard takes something away from the device. It's still relatively thin and lightweight, but we're not sure how often people will actually end up using the keyboard. From a travel standpoint, I could see myself more willing to use the Transformer (and leave the keyboard base behind when I'm on the go) rather than the Slider. Reviews: Android, Windows More About: android, Asus, CES 2011, ces2011, List, Lists, motorola xoom, playbook, roundup, tablets, video, videos, vizio, xoom For more Tech coverage:
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| Work for Mashable and Other Great Social Media Companies Posted: 12 Jan 2011 02:33 PM PST
If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable’s Job Lists section gathers together all of our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter. But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable’s job boards are a place for socially savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space and beyond. Have a look at what's good and new on our job boards: Mashable Job PostingsCopy Editor at Mashable in New York, NY. Editorial Assistant at Mashable in New York, NY. Regional Sales Director at Mashable in San Francisco, CA. Regional Sales Director at Mashable in New York, NY. Ad Ops Manager at Mashable in New York, NY. VP Product at Mashable in San Francisco, CA. Mashable Job Board ListingsCustomer Service Representative at Stickam Worldwide, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA. Java Developer at Stickam Worldwide, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA. ActionScript Developer at Stickam Worldwide, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA. Community Manager/Social Strategist at Firebone in Chicago, IL. Chief Digital Officer at a confidential company in San Diego, CA. Interactive Marketing Coordinator at Jekyll Island Authority in Jekyll Island, GA. Sr. UI Engineer at LEVEL Studios in Cupertino, CA. Director, Marketing Operation at Digitas Health in Philadelphia, PA. Sr. Account Manager, Affiliate Advertising at Adknowledge, Inc. in Santa Monica, CA. Interactive Strategist at NAS Recruitment Communications in Cleveland, OH. iOS Developer at Mutual Mobile in Austin, TX. Web Designer/Developer at NAS Recruitment Communications in Cleveland, OH. Frontend Engineer at Zuberance, Inc. in San Carlos, CA. Sr. Director, Social Media Marketing Programs at Zuberance, Inc. in San Carlos, CA. IT Project Manager at WebPT in Phoenix, AZ. Head of Marketing at WebPT in Phoenix, AZ. VP Marketing at Bishop-Wisecarver Corporation in Pittsburg, CA. Senior QA Specialist at WebPT in Phoenix, AZ. Digital Media Internship at Global Fund for Children in Washington DC. Marketing Campaign Manager at Yoh/SAP in Newton Square, PA. Interactive Media Manager at Tocquigny in Austin, TX. Search Engine Marketing Manager at Tocquigny in Austin, TX. Front End Web Developer at Gin Lane Media in New York, NY. Back End Developer at Gin Lane Media in New York, NY. Social Media Producer at Boston Globe Media in Boston, MA. Intern at Ameredia Inc. in San Francisco, CA. Social Media Producer at Gluttony in New York, NY. Blogger/Writer at US Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC. Executive Director, Online Strategic Communications at US Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC. Senior Project Manager at NAS Recruitment Communications in Cleveland, OH. Digital Art Director at The Integer Group in Des Moines, IA. Director of Social Media Strategy at Likeable Media in Boston, MA. e-Communications Assistant at Animal Humane Society in Minneapolis, MN. Developer at Taggers Inc. in Palo Alto, CA. Account Executive, Affiliate Advertising at Adknowledge, Inc. in New York, NY. Senior Account Executive, Web Content at Adknowledge, Inc. in FL. Junior Sales Associate at Synaptic Digital in New York, NY. Traditional & Digital Media Planner/Buyer at aka in New York, NY. Campus Outreach at Intern Sushi in Los Angeles, CA. Lead Web Developer at Buddy Media in New York, NY. Web Developer at ACLU in New York, NY. SDET at Tableau Software in Seattle, WA. Account Planner at Martin|Williams Advertising in Minneapolis, MN. SaaS Engineer at Tableau Software in Seattle, WA. Lead iPhone Engineer at NAVTEQ, Inc. in Cardiff by the Sea, CA. Social Media Marketing Coordinator at SMITH Advertising in Fayetteville, NC. Product Manager at Gerson Lehrman Group in New York, NY. Manager, Social Networking at NBC Universal in Universal City, CA. Product Marketing Manager at TIBCO Software in Palo Alto, CA. Manager, Innovations Reports at Initiative in Los Angeles, CA. Global Editorial Director at Mirrorball in New York, NY. Marketing Manager at VEVO in Santa Monica, CA. Freelance Production Assistant at Logo/MTV Networks in New York, NY. Server Admin/Web Developer at First Showing, LLC in Sherman Oaks, CA. Senior Web Designer at Samaritan’s Purse in Boone, NC. Digital Marketing Manager at Elsevier in Burlington, MA. Acquisition & Social Media Marketing Manager at art+culture editions in New York, NY. Senior Graphic Designer at All Things Media, LLC in Ramsey, NJ. Web Developer at Interactive Partners in New York, NY. Digital Media Strategist at M Booth & Associates in New York, NY. Web Engineer(s) at TED Conferences in New York, NY. Production Development Associate at TED Conferences in New York, NY. TEDx Post Production Manager at TED Conferences in New York, NY. Partnership Coordinator at TED Conferences in New York, NY. Sr. Interactive Designer/Sr. Information Architect at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in New York, NY. Digital Strategist at Stern + Associates in Cranford, NJ. Social Media Strategist at Goldin Solutions in New York, NY. Project Manager, Interactive at All Things Media, LLC in Ramsey, NJ. Drupal Developer at NJI Media in Alexandria, VA. Email Marketing Technical Implementation Consultant at ListEngage, Inc. in Framingham, MA. Website Developer at Vitalicious in New York, NY. Web Developer at Pixorial in Englewood, CO. Business Development at Pixorial in Englewood, CO. Senior Producer at ModCloth in San Francisco, CA. Digital Strategist at Fluid in New York, NY. Web & Interactive Developer at Bean Creative in Alexandria, VA. Senior Quality Engineer at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. Web Architect at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. Buzz Builder/Marketing Intern at Likeable Media in Boston, MA. Mobile Communications Manager at The Humane Society of the United States in Gaithersburg, MD. Engineering Manager at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. Director of Engineering at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. E-Commerce Operations Manager at The Vermont Country Store in Manchester Center, VT. Marketing Associate at Manhattan GMAT in New York, NY. Executive Level Position at BusinessDictionary.com in Fairfax, VA. Sales & Marketing at Tonner Doll Co., Inc. in Kingston, NY. Senior Systems Administrator at Synacor in Atlanta, GA. Buzz Builder/Marketing Intern at Likeable Media in New York, NY. Microsoft Software Development Engineers at Microsoft in Redmond, WA. Interactive Sales Account Executive at deviantART in Chicago, IL. Mashable’s Job Board has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out at here.
Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($99 for a 30 day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace). Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang Reviews: Mashable, fluid, iStockphoto For more Social Media coverage:
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| Now You Can Watch Music Videos on YouTube’s Android App Posted: 12 Jan 2011 02:00 PM PST   Right on the heels of Vevo’s arrival on Android, YouTube is announcing that it is bringing Vevo’s full line of music videos to the YouTube Android app. It has also announced that, beginning Wednesday, it will start delivering pre-roll ads for Android. Devices running Android 2.2 or higher can download the new YouTube 2.0 application. The big new feature of the app is its ability to play official music videos from the likes of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna. Music videos offered in Vevo’s mobile app will work on YouTube for Android, and the same U.S. and international restrictions that apply to Vevo videos will apply to those on YouTube’s Android app. Vevo is a joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media. In addition to these record labels, Vevo also has a licensing deal with EMI for its content. Warner Brothers, the fourth of the “big four” record labels, has opted for a partnership with MTV Networks instead. The YouTube Android app comes with several additions to enhance the mobile music video experience, YouTube Mobile Product Manager Andrey Doronichev explained in a conference call earlier today. Music videos are now clearly labeled with a “music note” badge, and music videos also contain artist bios, track listings for a particular artist and a list of related artists.  As part of the YouTube 2.0 for Android launch, the Google-owned video service is also introducing pre-roll ads for thousands of its partners — not just Vevo music videos. Don’t be surprised if a pre-roll add pops up before you can watch that video from Shane Dawson, iJustine or Philip De Franco. Pre-roll mobile ads will definitely upset some users, but it’s an expected move from a company looking to monetize its vast content library. YouTube has been testing mobile ads for a while now, but today’s launch is by far the biggest push YouTube has made into mobile advertising. YouTube reports that it now exceeds 200 million views on mobile per day, which is double the amount it had in July 2010. It clearly thinks that mobile is the next big frontier for video, and it wants to make sure that Vevo’s very popular collection of music videos are part of that expansion. Doronichev couldn’t provide any timeline for the launch of music videos on other mobile platforms, including iOS and the mobile website, only saying that the Android app is the company’s testing ground for new mobile features. Reviews: Android, Google, YouTube More About: android, Google, music videos, vevo, youtube, YouTube Mobile For more Mobile coverage:
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| Should You Name Your Startup After a Meme? Posted: 12 Jan 2011 01:41 PM PST   What do you do when you want to build up buzz for your startup without revealing an iota of what its purpose is? Name it after one of the most divisive memes on the Internet, of course: Hipster. So what is Hipster? We don’t know. The service is currently in stealth mode, the only info available being a “Coming Soon” page featuring a picture of your city and a call to sign up for more information. One is also asked to refer the service to three friends in order to gain swifter access. According to founder Doug Ludlow (who we wrote about four years ago for creating GroupMe predecessor Zemble), Hipster had been in a small closed alpha in Boulder, Colorado up until yesterday. (If you do a bit of digging on Hacker News you’ll see folks commenting on the alpha, which they liken to “Quora meets Foursquare” — so there you go.) Ludlow wouldn’t tell us any more about the startup yet — he has applied to Jason Calacanis’s Launch Conference, and can’t say anything until he knows whether he’s made the cut. However, he has agreed to fill us in when he can, so stay tuned.  Putting functionality aside for a moment, let’s focus on the name, which came to my attention after TechCrunch discoursed on the matter the other day. “Hipster” is an extremely controversial term in some respects (believe me, I’m supposed to be an expert on it, apparently) — as Ludlow says, “Some people hate the name, some people laugh when they hear it” — but it is also representative of a rather popular Internet meme. Remember, we named “Hipsters” one of our favorite memes of 2010. And memes — of late — have spelled money for many companies. In recent months, we’ve seen several companies hitching their wagons to the meme/viral culture train — the Travelocity Gnome appeared on Chatroulette, as did that Last Exorcism chick, the Double Rainbow Guy shilled for Microsoft, and, most recently, golden-voiced homeless man Ted Williams was in a commercial for Kraft. “Hipsters,” for their part, have most notably shown up in a commercial for Honda. The adoption of the term by companies makes sense; “hipster,” as a word, has had a steadily growing presence on the web in the past year or so — take a look at Google Trends — and we’ve seen a proliferation of humor blogs, videos and parody songs bubbling across the web in the past 12 months as a result (still, the term seems to be plateauing of late, so Ludlow might want to speed up his reveal). For SEO’s sake alone, calling your service “Hipster” is a pretty shrewd move. Case in point, Ludlow says: “[Signups have] been insane over the last 15 hours. We’ve had close to 3,700 signups now. At the rate we’re going, we’re going to hit 10,000 by the end of the day.” While we can’t attribute the growing interest in the startup to the name alone, it’s safe to say it’s providing a goodly amount of the attention — given that no one knows what the startup is. So far, the divisive nature of the name seems to be doing well for Ludlow (aside from the few e-mails expressing broad disdain for hipster culture), but is the assignation of the term a wise choice in the long run when it comes to business? We asked a few experts for their input on this particular memefication: The Naming ExpertWhat’s in a name? Well, when you’re a business — everything. Yes, startups with admittedly silly names have more than succeeded (Twitter, anyone?), but naming your startup after a counterculture, or the meme that it has spawned, seems a little risky. To see how “Hipster” rates when it comes to staying power, Mashable turned to Nina Beckhardt, president of The Naming Group (an agency whose employees have crafted names for Walmart, Target and Puma). After being presented with the little information we have and the name itself, she told us that Ludlow is really going to have to amp up the humor of the term if he wants to succeed, playing off of the tongue-in-cheek quality of the word. “From what I can see in terms of their current pre-launch marketing tactics, this attention-grabbing, too cool for school (the categorical summation of most hipsters), just-you-wait-and-see type of witholding strategy, the name has real promise,” Beckhardt says. “That is a strategy that a hipster might choose.” Still, in order for the business to succeed, it has to offer more than the temporal popularity of the word, Beckhardt says. “The offering’s equity must hold strong and grow no matter how the definition morphs or how centrally or peripherally it remains in our lexicon over time. Again, it’s a bold move. The success of the name is ultimately dependent on execution and delivery of the offering.” The Marketing ExpertAs we mentioned before, the application of a meme to a marketing campaign is nothing new. Still, we began to wonder how successful these campaigns really were. David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, tells us that it’s a fine line when it comes to the marriage between marketing and memes. “A lot of marketers can get publicity, but it's not always good publicity,” he says. “Then there's the trick of capitalizing on it. Do people remember that Microsoft did the Double Rainbow spot, and then do they know what product Microsoft was promoting? (Answer: Windows Live, which I had to Google –- I didn't even Bing it.)” “For Hipster, I'm especially curious if the site is ultimately hip, ironic, snarky, Brooklyn-esque, or in any way remotely related to its name,” he adds. “Hipster will probably do well attracting signups, based on the buzz I'm seeing already. But without any context, who knows if any of these people signing up will actually care about the site once it launches.” So again, it all depends on how the product stacks up against the initial popularity of the meme. The Hipster(?)So how do the denizens of the counter culture feel about the whole thing? Will they embrace it in the same way many a hipster (and non-hipster) has embraced the similarly monikered Hipstamatic iPhone app? Well, it’s not like I can go downstairs to my local coffee shop and ask one of the “freelance graphic designers” looking at Facebook on their laptops (because no one would admit to being one), so instead I turned to Carles, founder of Hipster Runoff and the de facto father/mother(?) of the whole hipster blogging movement. (S/he also wrote a post on the service.) “There is no way that this web gimmick service can add any sort of value 2 any1’s life,” s/he tells us via e-mail. “After the success of the hit Mark Zuckerbro mockumentary ‘My Social Network–Plz friend me and Tag Me In Fotos,’ more people than ever are trying to start web startups that will not only make them rich, but also make them global icons. It seems as thought the era of ‘people starting buzzbands’ 2 be relevant, rich, & famous is over, and the era of ’starting bloggable web startups’ has begun. I am positive that this CEO has visions of a ‘Groupon-like valuation,’ but it is more likely that this initial wave of blog coverage will be the only value that ‘Hipster.biz’ will be able to cultivate.” So that’s a “no,” then. Image courtesy of Flickr, Jack Newton Reviews: Bing, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Hacker News, Internet, Mashable, Twitter, foursquare More About: hipster, hipsterrunoff, humor, pop culture, startup For more Startups coverage:
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| John Cena Voted “Most Influential Social Good Champion” [MASHABLE AWARDS] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 01:16 PM PST
Mashable readers, you spoke loud and clear, voting five strong nominees as finalists for the category: UnCultured, John Cena, Hardly Normal, Chris Hughes and charitybuzz. Cena is actively involved in a variety of wish-giving and grief support charities including the Kids Wish Network and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Executive VP of WWE Interactive, Brian Kalinowski, accepted the award on behalf of Cena, saying:
From Mashable and our readers, congratulations and hats off to Cena for his philanthropic achievements! Photo by Nick McGlynn The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas) In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event brought 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 celebrated 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 included acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, in addition to special guest presenters and appearances. Mashable Awards Category Sponsor:
Reviews: Facebook, Mashable More About: john cena, mashable awards, mashable awards 2010, open web awards For more Social Good coverage:
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| Social Gaming Will Generate $1 Billion This Year [STATS] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 12:37 PM PST   Social gaming is poised to become a billion-dollar industry this year, according to new research from eMarketer. Approximately 62 million U.S. Internet users — that’s 27% of the total Internet-using population in the U.S. — will play at least one game on a social network on a monthly basis this year, a 15% increase from 2010, the research firm claims. The rate of spending on virtual goods and branded advertisements will outpace the growth in users. Consumers are expected to spend $653 million in virtual goods in 2011, up from $510 million last year. Lead generation offers will generate $248 million, and advertising will bring in $192 million, up from $120 million in 2010. Virtual goods have historically been the biggest generator of revenue, and they will continue to make up a 60% share in 2011 and 2012, eMarketer says. (Just last month, Electronic Arts told us its Pet Society game sells 90 million virtual goods per day.) Advertising revenue will make up more than 20% of developers’ revenues by 2012, narrowly surpassing revenue brought in by lead-generation offers for the first time.  “Even though fewer than 6% of U.S. social gamers spend money on virtual items, these avid players will produce revenues of $653 million in the U.S. alone this year,” says eMarketer’s Paul Verna. “This is the largest segment of the social gaming economy, and one that marketers are increasingly turning to as a branding vehicle,” he adds. We’ve certainly noticed an increased level of interest in branded virtual goods among major marketers this year. In July, organic foods maker Cascadian Farm sold 300 million virtual organic blueberries in Zynga’s smash hit FarmVille, for instance. In August, Honda turned to Cie Games’s Car Town to promote the U.S. launch of its latest sport hybrid coupe, the Honda CR-Z. More recently, Sony Pictures turned to Zynga’s Mafia Wars to build buzz ahead of the film premiere of The Green Hornet on January 14. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, rubenhi Reviews: 2010, Internet, iStockphoto, pet society More About: advertising, cie games, MARKETING, social gaming, Zynga For more Business coverage:
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| HOW TO: Create a World-Class Online Community for Your Business Posted: 12 Jan 2011 12:26 PM PST   Name the companies that set the standards for social media use in business. Nothing coming to mind immediately? Me neither. Telligent, an enterprise collaboration software company, believes that some day the same answer will immediately occur to both of us. “We think that if you give [leaders in corporate social media use] a little more time, you won’t even have to do research,” says Cecilia Edwards, Telligent’s senior director of strategy. “This stuff is going to start rolling off of your tongue…some of these leaders will start being known as the definitive world-class leaders. They’re going to start setting the norms in industry for how to do this well.” Edwards and Telligent CTO Rob Howard are releasing a white paper today that delineates what these standard-setting communities of the future will look like. The report is primarily based on their own insights, research by industry analysis and the results of an informal survey they conducted. According to their research, here are nine steps businesses must take in order to make their online communities world-class. 1. Identify Business ObjectivesDon’t pour resources into creating an online community without defining what business objectives you want it to accomplish. The purpose could include support, digital marketing or networking, but there should also be some way for community members to meet their objectives. "When you look at a very successful community, what made those communities successful was that the businesses were accomplishing their objectives — support, for example — but the members of those communities were also accomplishing their objectives — finding the answer to their question and also connecting with other members who shared the interests and passions,” explains Howard. 2. Emphasize Being PersonalHoward and Edwards found that a personal touch was an important factor in an online community’s success. Simple things like completing profiles, putting actual pictures in for avatars and posting comments that don’t sound like they’ve been run through a PR filter can help achieve this effect. The import thing is “letting the community and the customers really self-identify with the company that is running the community,” Howard says. 3. Create a Culture of BelongingLike guests arriving to a dinner party, successful online communities make sure to welcome their new members adequately. For example, when people join, they are greeted with a welcome message and are immediately connected with someone else in the community (for instance, the site’s manager). 4. Be a Source of Relevant ContentOne way to help community members reach their objectives is to become a great source of content about a topic that they’re interested in. Seventy-six percent of respondents to Telligent’s unofficial survey said that finding answers quickly was extremely important to them; 56% ranked identifying relevant information and 55% ranked identifying experts as equally important. 5. Leverage the Wisdom of the CrowdWorld-class communities will use the information exchanged on their networks to improve their products and transform the way that they’re doing business. Doing so sometimes involves allowing community members to answer each other’s questions instead of being the first to jump into the conversation. 6. Highlight Influential MembersInfluential members in a community have a direct impact on the behavior of other users in the community. By engaging and highlighting your biggest fans, you’ll empower them to help shape and grow your community. 7. Reward Members in Pixels, Not PenniesIf Foursquare has taught us anything, it’s that people will do a lot for a little digital recognition. Making a leader board, developing badges, or another effort to reward participation with recognition in the community will be an important component of a world-class community. 8. Establish and Enforce GuidelinesCreate a policy that clearly identifies what community members can and can’t do, as well as how violations of the policy will be handled. For an example, see Mashable’s commenting guidelines. 9. Give Members PrivilegesThe privileges for non-members and members should be different, thus providing an incentive for people to join the community. Some examples might be giving members access to special content, access to new information, discounted products, or just access to groups of other members in the community. You can read the full white paper on Telligent’s website. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Franck-Boston More Social Media Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: foursquare, iStockphoto More About: business, MARKETING, social media, Telligent, world-class community For more Business coverage:
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| Startup Secures Funding to Bring Gesture Recognition to More Living Rooms Posted: 12 Jan 2011 12:16 PM PST   PrimeSense, makers of the gesture recognition software that powers Microsoft Kinect, has received funding through the $1.1 billion Silver Lake Sumeru fund. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Silver Lake’s private investment firm typically makes large scale investments and most recently participated in Groupon’s massive $950 million round of financing. The Israeli startup’s name has been overshadowed by Microsoft and its highly popular Kinect device, though the device’s success proves the viability of gesture recognition technology. The PrimeSense name will become more widely recognized once the technology, which is capable of tracking both body movements and gestures, becomes a part of more applications and moves into new markets. The startup demoed its latest developments in 3-D gesture control at CES. PrimeSense technology is being integrated into TV sets, set-top boxes and computers to allow users the ability to interact with and control devices. “The company is the global leader in gesture technology with a talented management team, experienced board, and partnerships with some of the world's premier technology companies,” said Paul Mercadante, managing director of Silver Lake Sumeru. “We look forward to working with PrimeSense to realize its significant growth potential.” In previous funding rounds, PrimeSense raised around $30 million from Canaan Partners, Genesis Partners, Gemini Israel Funds and other investors, according to The Wall Street Journal. More About: funding, Silver Lake Partners, startup For more Startups coverage:
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| Wolfram Alpha Takes on Education With Algebra, Calculus & Music Theory Apps Posted: 12 Jan 2011 11:40 AM PST   Wolfram Alpha is on a mission to develop an “app for every course.” The company launched its first three subject-specific iPhone apps on Tuesday, and all three — Algebra, Calculus, and Music Theory — look to be promising educational tools. The apps are based on Wolfram Alpha’s computational search engine, which can do things like solve integration problems, calculate flying times between cities or plot a person’s life on a timeline. In 2009, the company attempted to wrap the engine’s whole experience into one $50 iPhone app. Several months later, Wolfram dropped the app’s price by 96% and launched a mobile-optimized website. The new subject-focused $2 to $3 apps make a better package for the power of the engine. Educational apps are usually flashcard, textbook or calculator substitutes: They make games that help with memorization, are references for information, or give you the answer. What’s exciting about Wolfram Alpha’s new apps is that they sometimes give you not just the answer, but a step-by-step explanation of how they arrived at it. Instead of just spitting out an answer and a line for a one-variable equation, for instance, the Algebra app shows each step of the equation. Both math apps could stand in for an expensive graphing calculator, and they provide more detailed information. The music theory app not only shows you correct chords and intervals, but allows you to hear them as well. True, Wolfram Alphas’s new apps make it even easier for students to cheat on homework. But they also give self-motivated learners an easy way to experiment with the relationships in equations by switching numbers and watching how results change — the purpose many homework assignments are meant to serve in the first place. Apps for chemistry, physics, astronomy, multivariable calculus, accounting, and statistics are in the pipeline.    Reviews: Apps More About: algebra, apps, education, math For more Tech coverage:
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| Buffalo Wild Wings Gets Interactive With SCVNGR Promo Posted: 12 Jan 2011 11:34 AM PST   SCVNGR is linking its location-based gaming platform to the game of basketball in a new deal with restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar. The chain, which has more than 700 locations in the U.S., is working with SCVNGR for a promotion — running now through March — that lets customers complete challenges on their smartphones and win prizes, like Buffalo Wild Wings and Coca-Cola, which are redeemable on the spot. Such challenges, like snapping a photo with a fan of an opposing team, earn fans points that go toward winning the grand prize of a trip to see the NBA finals with Scottie Pippen, formerly of the Chicago Bulls. The promo is the latest for SCVNGR, which earlier this month launched a multi-city promotion for the Nissan Juke and before that, executed a New Year’s Eve program with American Eagle and a Black Friday-themed promotion with Coca-Cola. More About: Buffalo Wild Wings, MARKETING, scvngr For more Business coverage:
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| Treadmill Allows You to Take a Virtual Run Anywhere on Google Earth [VIDEO] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 11:03 AM PST During CES last week, Panasonic connected a Nordic Track treadmill to the Internet, and the result is a stationary run using Google Maps that feels real. A Panasonic Viera Connect HDTV displays Google Maps and communicates inclinations of hills and valleys to the treadmill. The machine is smart enough to incline itself at the appropriate times, matching those hills every step of the way. Imagine the ability to simulate an actual run anywhere on the planet. Take a run up Mount Vesuvius, or peer over at Bill Gates’s house while you sprint through his neighborhood with nary a security guard in sight. Of course, it’s all virtual, so you may never need to leave your house again. Reviews: Google Maps, Internet More About: ces2011, Nordic Track, Panasonic Viera Connect, Treadmill. Fitness, Virtual Running For more Tech coverage:
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| 6 Web Pioneers on What the Internet of the Future Will Look Like Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:57 AM PST   Throughout 2010, I made a habit of wrapping up interviews with what I am sure was perceived as a cruelly broad question: “What do you think the future Internet will look like?” The responses I received varied a great deal, but usually began with something along the lines of “Wow. That’s a big question.” And it is — one with an answer that is surely beyond the capacity of a single person’s imagination. But at some point in the past, when these six people were faced with the same question, they got at least part of it right. Barry Glick digitized location when he launched MapQuest. Jeremy Stoppelman bet on local tips and reviews with Yelp. And Steve Case literally brought America online. Here’s what the people who shaped today’s Internet have to say about its potential for tomorrow. Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL
I think that it will continue to evolve. In 25 years it has gone from a first phase, which was really a pick and shovel phase, to simply building the basic platform, the basic technology, the basic network, the basic tool to do well. The second 10 years really was about expansion and really taking it to the mainstream. And … the last few years, and I think the coming decade really, will be about — now that the internet really is ubiquitous, people are relying on it in increasingly habitual kind of ways — how do you not just create Internet businesses, but create businesses that can impact every aspect of people's lives using the Internet as a tool. …Someday it would be great if instead of being e-mail, it would just be called mail. Instead of being e-commerce it will just be called commerce, just because it is so ubiquitous that it is just taken for granted, much as we take for granted electricity or water or other kinds of utilities. We're not quite there yet. But we're getting there. When you get there, it's less of a focus on the Internet and a particular technology or industry because that's faded into a part of your daily life. It's more focused on what you can do with that and how it impacts important things: education, transportation, health care, communication — big things that affect people's everyday lives. We just scratched the surface in terms of the Internet as a platform to disrupt those non-Internet businesses. Ryan Ozimek, President of Open Source Matters
I think that the needs of the world, especially the world that we [Joomla!] play in, have moved beyond the content management system or inventing the next cool feature for commenting on a blog. I think what I'm excited about and where I see the future of the Internet going is more mobile, more focused on the cloud, and more about building really easy-to-use platforms that people can use to build the next generation of software that hasn't even crossed our minds yet. Jeremy Stoppleman, CEO of Yelp
If you really go far out there, ideally computing sort of fades away as something that you even notice. There's talk of augmented reality and all that. But really what it gets to is that computing blends itself into our lives in such a way that it's just always there. Whenever we have a question, the answer is just sort of presented to us and it's done so in a way that is very unobtrusive. And some of the early things we've seen [with augmented reality], for instance with our Yelp Monocle Feature, you hold up a phone and see what businesses are ahead of you down the street. But I think that's a primitive version of “I'm thinking about what is down the street and somehow it is presented to me just automatically, without me necessarily even holding up a phone.” There's just some way that it's presented to me with technologies that I'm not even going to speculate [about] because it will just sound silly. I think that the best technologies are the ones that we don't really even have to think about. Over time, as the Internet matures, it will become something that is completely inter-woven [into] the fabric of our lives and not even something that we specifically tap into, but is just always presenting information to us. Dries Buytaert, Drupal Founder
Initially people added a blog to their main website. I think the future is much more integrated, where social is part of everything you do, every website. If you sum it up, it’s more websites within a single organization, more different devices that need to consume those websites with different experiences, and more social things. If I think about all of those things, it definitely feels like there's going to be more complexity. More sites, more devices, more social, all of those things. So it's definitely going to be a more complex future, and that excites me in a way, because what I'm starting to see is that a lot of these organizations are starting to spend their dice on a single platform to manage all of that complexity around the web and to manage those experiences. Barry Glick, Founder of MapQuest
In a way, I think the future of the internet will basically go away in the same sense that you couldn’t really ask the question, what is the future of electricity? I think certainly in the developing world and in parts of the world the Internet hasn’t reached, that’s certainly going to be part of the future, to get to be as ubiquitous as possible. Right now the Internet has been very computer oriented. There’s been this association, like you need a computer to be connected, and I think that’s rapidly, of course, going away. You need a handheld device, and in the future you need a home entertainment system, TV, all connected to the Internet. So I think the Internet is going to be the invisible present power supply, and the boundary between some things that have boundaries today, like telephones, will go away. Television will go away. It will be the Internet, and there will be different display devices and different user interface or interaction devices, but that’s kind of how I see it. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Founder If I were to wish for two things, they would be as much bandwidth as possible and ridiculously fast browser engines. More Tech Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, iqoncept Reviews: Internet, Joomla, Yelp, iStockphoto More About: Barry Glick, Dries Buytaert, drupal, future, internet, Jeremy Stoppleman, joomla, List, Lists, MapQuest, matt mullenweg, steve case, web, WordPress, yelp For more Tech coverage:
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| DEMO: BlackBerry Playbook Tablet [VIDEO] Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:18 AM PST Research in Motion is set to enter the tablet space with the BlackBerry Playbook, which weighs in at less than a pound and sports a 7-inch touchscreen. There’s also a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, paired up with a 3-megapixel front-facing cam for videoconferencing, a likely use-case for RIM’s business customers. We got a chance to check out the device last week at CES, where BlackBerry Marketing Manager Jeff Gadway demoed some of the features of the Playbook. Let us know how you think it compares to iPad and the plethora of new Android tablets in the comments. Disclosure: RIM was a sponsor of Mashable Awards. Reviews: Android More About: blackberry playbook, ces2011, tablets, Video Demos For more Tech coverage:
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| Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:14 AM PST   We had to wait four months for the Android counterpart to the preexisting iPhone app, but it’s finally happened: Vevo has come to Android device. However, it’s still lagging. Translation: It’s slow. Not debilitatingly so, but slow enough that the ADD-addled among us (read: Anyone super into tech, like Mashable’s readers and employees) are likely to get thoroughly distracted by something shiny by the time a given video loads. Much like the iPhone version, the Android app opens with a carousel of top music videos, which you can choose to watch right off the bat. (Among them is a vid from Jessie J, the first artist in Vevo’s emerging artist program, Lift. Smart move, Vevo.) Choosing a video leads to an intro screen where you’re presented with a random music fact (it would be better if the fact pertained to the video you were about to watch) to tide you over while your video loads. If you would rather not watch the latest Ricky Martin video, featured on the intro carousel, you can also search by video (choosing from top videos, video premieres and newly released videos), artist (top artists or new artists) or playlist (selecting top playlists, video charts or celeb picks). And as an added bonus, you can search using Voice, which is something the iPhone app lacks. Users can also buy songs via Amazon, and share them via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook. (Artist pages also get a dash of social by featuring their latest tweets and a link to their Twitter feed.) As with the iPad app, clicking on any of these options will pause the video, which is rather annoying. Now for what the app lacks: 1). The Music Maps feature, which — in my humble opinion — is one of the coolest aspects of the iPhone app. To refresh your memory, this feature lets you see what videos are most popular in your region. According to Vevo, this feature will be added to the app in due time. 2). The ability to make playlists in-app. This is a big omission, but Vevo says that this feature is “coming soon” as well. Also — as with the iPad and iPhone app — you can’t log in to the app with your Vevo info to access playlists, ratings and histories, but those features are forthcoming with all apps. Have you had a chance to check out the Vevo app yet? (It’s now available for free in the Android Market.) What do you think? Reviews: Android Market, Facebook, Mashable, Twitter More About: android, ipad, iphone, music, vevo, video For more Entertainment coverage:
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| AMBER Alerts Now Available on Facebook Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:39 AM PST   U.S. Facebook users will now be able to receive AMBER Alerts — the notifications issued when a child is abducted — on the social network, the result of a new partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Details of the new program were made available Wednesday morning, one day before the 15th anniversary of the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, whom the alert system was named after. Facebook has set up 53 AMBER Alert pages — one for each of the 50 states, along with pages for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. Interested Facebook users will be able to sign up for alerts pertinent to their individual states. The notifications, which will appear on news feeds as they’re issued, can also be shared with users’ Facebook friends. Prior to the creation of these pages, certain police departments already used the social network to push out notifications about AMBER Alerts, which are typically issued in what law enforcement officials deem the most serious child abduction cases. Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, spoke about one of these instances during the press event announcing the new Facebook alert system, which was held in Alexandria, Virginia this morning. Early last month, the Virginia State Police posted an AMBER alert for 12-year-old Brittany Mae Smith and suspected abductor Jeffrey Easley on its Facebook page, after the girl’s mother was found murdered. The department kept updating its page with information about the case as it chased leads throughout the country, and days later, Smith and Easley were found alive in San Francisco after a woman recognized them. “It really doesn’t take a seasoned investigator to tell you what the odds are of a 12-year-old girl to be safely returned after being missing for five days,” Flaherty said, adding that social media had allowed the department to pursue the case outside its borders. He, along with others involved with implementing the new Facebook system, believes the AMBER Alert pages will enhance law enforcement’s ability to find missing children. The Facebook AMBER Alert pages are part of an opt-in system, which means users will not receive banner notifications about AMBER alerts. “We are very sensitive to people considering this as spam, and our message to the public has been: One, you are not going to be inundated,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Allen said that the program is geographically targeted, which means news about a child missing in Seattle will not appear to those who have signed up for Virginia’s AMBER Alert page. However, if there is a hint that a child or abductor may be in another area, then the alerts may be issued in more than one state. Though this particular initiative is U.S.-focused, there are hopes for the effort to go global. Allen said other countries are working with Facebook to create similar programs. According to the official AMBER Alert website, 525 missing children have been recovered via the system. Watch the full press conference announcing the new AMBER Alert pages below: Reviews: Facebook More About: AMBER Alerts, Children, facebook, parenting, social media For more Social Media coverage:
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| Google’s Hotpot Recommendation Engine for Places Arrives on iPhone Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:29 AM PST   Google upgraded the Places experience on iPhone with a native app release Wednesday that includes its new Hotpot recommendation engine. The app is designed to help users discover and rate nearby places. It mirrors the Hotpot functionality in Google Maps for Android and works in conjunction with Hotpot on the web to include reviews and ratings from friends. After downloading the app [iTunes link] and logging in, the Google Places with Hotpot for iPhone app highlights popular search categories (though you can add your own too) such as restaurants, ATMs and gas stations. Clicking on a category reveals nearby places with Place Page info, including ratings and reviews. Results are personalized based on your previous ratings, with the app’s ultimate aim to serve each user with personally tailored recommendations according to their individual tastes. As such, the app experience is highly focused around getting users to add their own ratings and reviews. Google has long been pushing Google Places as a way to discover nearby places on the web, and more recently on mobile. The location-focused product is an important one that competes with the likes of Yelp and Foursquare for the attention of consumers and local businesses. By baking Hotpot into the Google Places for iPhone experience, the company can inspire even more mobile users to contribute to its place-based recommendation engine.  Reviews: Android, Google, Google Maps, Yelp, foursquare More About: Google, google hotpot, google places, hotpot, iphone For more Mobile coverage:
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| How Social Data & Mobile Tech Can Improve the Retail Experience Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:56 AM PST   Sandeep Bhanote is CEO of Global Bay Mobile Technologies, a provider of next generation mobile retail software to top retailers including Guess Jeans, True Religion, City Sports, and many others. For more information, visit globalbay.com or follow @GlobalBay on Twitter. Do you remember when your favorite retailer didn't have a website? Can you imagine not being able to find your favorite store online today? Unthinkable, right? It's not surprising that today's shoppers are becoming increasingly digitally savvy. Adoption rates for smartphones and tablet devices are continuing to explode, ensuring that new mobile and social media technologies become a natural extension of a retail brand's strategy. This tech also represents a sea change in how retailers must approach operations and consumer interactions within the four walls of a store. The good news is that forward-looking retailers are already integrating digital, mobile and social media technology into their brick-and-mortar sales strategies as a means to connect with these digitally savvy consumers and drive real value to their bottom line. Here are five ways retailers will be using mobile and social media to change the way we shop in 2011, both in-store and online. 1. The Apple Store Experience… Everywhere By supporting the ability of store associates to check out and service customers anywhere in the store, the "Apple Store Experience" has earned its reputation as one of the most effective in retail. Mobile Point-of-Sale (POS) is a reality that can help eliminate long lines at checkout, reduce lost sales due to walkouts, and increase sales by providing an exceedingly personalized retailer-to-consumer interaction. Further, low-cost mobile POS devices provide retailers the opportunity to sell products outside the four walls in new venues such as pop-up stores, kiosks, special events and more. 2. Driving Store Traffic Through Location-Based ServicesThere is no doubting the impact location-based services have had on retail in the past year. With the goal of driving additional traffic to the store, many retailers have integrated popular tools such as Facebook Places, Foursquare, SCVNGR and others into consumer-facing applications for the iPhone, Android and other mobile devices. These tools allow retailers to easily notify potential customers of exclusive offers and deals that can only be redeemed through a visit to the store. The integration of location-based services is an easy way for retailers to engage digitally savvy customers through social media and increase store traffic. Expect to see continued growth in this space 2011. 3. Personalized Shopping Opportunities Tools like the iPad have changed the game for retailers. Its intuitive interface and rich graphics have been integrated into retail software that empowers sales associates with information where they need it most –- at the point of customer contact. No more dragging the customer to the front of the store to find a terminal and “search” for items. Imagine an associate in a luxury apparel store being able to schedule one-on-one shopping appointments with his top customers on the fly. If a particular item is not in stock, an associate can pull it up on his tablet and have it shipped directly to the customer. Using the iPad for personalized selling provides retailers with the ability to view the customer's shopping history, product preferences, past purchases and favorite items –- and use this information to suggest relevant accessories and matching outfits based on items the shopper already owns. 4. Establishing New Online Communities of Loyal ShoppersMost retailers have already jumped on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon to offer consumers inside brand information, exclusive deals and incentives to visit store locations. Now that retailers have existing communities of loyal “fans” of their brand, how can they translate that into increased sales? One way is to seamlessly integrate a mobile aspect into the social media presence. For instance, mobile applications where consumers can send branded coupons or gift certificates to friends and family are becoming popular. Another great example is JCPenney’s implementation of a store where shoppers can complete transactions within its branded Facebook Page. Other innovations include quick apps that allow consumers to scan a barcode with their phone's camera and share product information with their friends through social media. 5. Interaction Between E-Commerce and Store Systems Next-generation retail mobility tools that are being incorporated by retailers are "smarter" than they were in the past. But what does this mean in the real world? Retailers now have the ability to integrate data from POS store systems to provide a comprehensive view of customer data, sales history, inventory management and product availability. By linking these previously disconnected aspects of retail technology, devices and store systems can now "talk" to each other to easily identify customer data with inventory and product information, leading to a more well-rounded and efficient selling experience. With these new "smart" retail technologies, shoppers can now browse products in-store while a sales associate uses a mobile device to flag select items for the consumer to view later on the retailer's website or on a mobile device. Not Acting Is Not an OptionChanging consumer behaviors –- combined with new, affordable technologies and easy-to-use “brand appropriate” mobile devices –- are putting increasing pressure on retailers to step up their game in a big way. Failure to act on a comprehensive social media and mobile strategy is not an option for retailers, and those who do not act run the risk of being left behind and will be forced to play catch up. Imagine a retailer without a website today, and you will have a sense of the importance of getting this right. More Social Media Marketing Resources from Mashable:
Images courtesy of Flickr, Kominyetska, nabekor, and iStockphoto, enot-poloskun. Reviews: Android, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, foursquare, iPhone, iStockphoto More About: business, commerce, List, Lists, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, retail, social media, social media marketing, trending For more Business coverage:
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| Baynote Gets $13 Million in Funding to Make Websites Smarter Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:37 AM PST   Baynote, a firm that offers personalized recommendations to online shoppers based on their profiles and web activity, announced Wednesday that it has raised $13 million in new funding and has hired a new CEO from SAP. The company, which lists Dell, Intuit, Urban Outfitters and CA Technologies among its clients, received $13 million in Series C financing led by SingTel Innov8, the investment arm of Singapore Telecommunications Limited. In addition, Doug Merritt, a former management team executive at SAP, has become CEO of the company, replacing Mike Backlund, who will continue to work with Baynote as senior vice president of worldwide field operations. Founded in 2004, Baynote is known for harnessing the wisdom of crowds to recommend products that a consumer visiting an e-commerce site is apt to like based on the preferences of other like-minded visitors. In recent years, however, Baynote has sought to broaden its services beyond reviews and recommendations to help personalize all interactions with customers across the web, social media and email. The company’s last funding announcement was in 2007, when it received $10.8 million in Series B round. More About: baynote, e-commerce, SingTel Innov8 For more Business coverage:
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