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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Tech and Media Elite Gather for DLD 2011 [PICS]”

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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Tech and Media Elite Gather for DLD 2011 [PICS]”

Tech and Media Elite Gather for DLD 2011 [PICS]

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 03:52 AM PST

Technology and media moguls gathered in snowy Munich this week for the DLD (Digital – Life – Design) conference. The aim: To discuss the impact of the digital world on our society.

Highlights included a critique of The Social Network by Facebook’s founding president Sean Parker, Google’s Marissa Mayer discussing Open Innovation, Groupon’s Andrew Mason and Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley predicting the future of local deals, and a closing keynote from outbound Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Images courtesy Lisa Bettany.


HVB Forum





HVB Forum, dusted with a light coat of snow, was the venue for DLD 2011.


Inside DLD Forum




The venue is a maze, with talks and panels on two floors.


Lunch Break at DLD




The WSJ sponsored lunch for attendees.


At the WSJ Lunch





Attendees Network




Attendees gather during lunch.


Marissa Mayer on the Open Innovation Panel





Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Speaks





The Lufthansa Lounge





Groupon's Andrew Mason is Interviewed





Andrew Mason, Groupon





DLD 2011 Attendees





Interviews in the Lufthansa Lounge





Navigating the Maze of the DLD Venue





DLD Big Screens




Colored blocks were the conference theme.


Attendees relax downstairs




This area happened to have the most reliable Wi-Fi.


"The Communications Difference" Panel




Talking PR and marketing in the digital era.


More from "The Communications Difference"





Attendees Chat





The Mercedes-Benz Speaker Lounge





Andrew Mason and Dennis Crowley Panel Begins




Discussing Local Deals with Kara Swisher.


View from Above!





Upstairs at HVB Forum





Attendees on a Networking Break





The Wall




Attendees add messages about the conference.


DLD Staff Add to The Wall





Outside the Speaker Lounge





Dennis Crowley and Andrew Mason





Crowley and Mason Lead an Entertaining Discussion





Randy Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes





Randy and Chris discussed the theme of "Participation"





Microsoft Kinect on Display




More About: dld, dld2011

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Fan Page Hacked

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 02:51 AM PST


Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook fan page seems to have been hacked, with the hacker posting a message calling on the company to transform into a “social business”.

The message, seemingly posted on Facebook from Mark Zuckerberg’s account, was quickly removed (together with the fan page), but not quickly enough to go by unnoticed, receiving over 1800 likes and hundreds of comments in the process.

The message read: “Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus described it? [LINK] What do you think? #hackercup2011″

Facebook made no statement about the incident, but if Zuckerberg’s fan page was indeed hacked, it’s a big deal. If the Facebook CEO (more accurately, the PR team who’s handling the page for him) can’t keep his Facebook account safe from intruders, who can?

We’ve reached out to Facebook about the incident and will update the post when we hear back.

[via TechCrunch]

More About: facebook, hack, mark zuckerberg, security, sophos

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Babylon Aims to Be the Quora of Translation

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 01:02 AM PST


Translation software company Babylon will make a social play on Wednesday when it launches a new online community for language learning.

Babylon is touting the new site as the “Quora of Linguistics.” Like the popular Q&A community, each user will have a profile that lists their questions and responses. They can also vote responses up or down, search existing responses and “like” content using their Facebook profiles.

While Quora borrowed Twitter’s follow feature to create a personalized feed for each user, however, Babylon borrows Foursquare’s reward system. Users earn points and badges for activity on the site and can view inquirers’ and responders’ locations on a real-time world map.

Language is a nuanced art that is difficult to tackle with a mere online dictionary, and Babylon isn’t the first company to create a platform for its discussion. Other online translation services like FreeTranslation.com and WordReference.com already have translation forums, and Q&A communities like Yahoo Answers and Answers.com have hosted language help discussions from the onset.

But Babylon says it can bring more value to the table by giving the network of professional translators who work for its paid translation service an incentive to join the online discussion. Professional translators’ posts are marked, and anyone can contact their authors to assign paid translations.

Other questions will be answered by community members. With 72 million people across 230 countries already using some form of Babylon’s translation service or software, there’s certainly enough potential users to make the community a valuable resource.

Babylon

More About: Babylon, language learning, quora, translation

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Apple Store Is Down, Is the White iPhone 4 Coming? [UPDATED]

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 11:49 PM PST


Apple store has been down for the last couple of hours, and although there’s no official word from Apple on any upcoming products, the rumor mill is fully operational.

We’re hearing rumors that the white iPhone 4 is coming to the store, backed up by a mysterious tweet which even mentions the model numbers for both the 16GB and the 32 GB version of the device.

Officially, the white iPhone isn’t supposed to come before spring, but who knows, maybe spring has come a little early this year for Apple?

Update: The store is back online, but we don’t see a trace of the white iPhone or any other new product. It seems we’ll have to wait until spring after all. However, both the store and Apple’s homepage have undergone a subtle redesign, with the top menu becoming a bit more glossy.

More About: apple, iphone, Store

Twitter Now Worth $4 Billion

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 08:00 PM PST


Twitter’s market value has reached $4 billion just a month after it raised $200 million in funding.

According to SharesPost, a secondary market for buying and selling stock in privately held companies, Twitter‘s value has jumped to $4.0 billion, based on recent transactions. That is a $300 million increase in value in just over a month, based on the $3.7 billion valuation set by its funding round in December. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led Twitter’s most recent round of funding.

Twitter’s market capitalization will likely continue to rise in the near future. Several recent stock purchases on the private markets imply that Twitter’s value is over $6 billion. While these smaller transactions aren’t a definitive basis for defining Twitter’s value, they are a benchmark that can help determine whether a private company’s value is trending up or down.

Facebook is still the king of private markets, though. While its most recent funding round valued the company at $50 billion, its value on the secondary markets has skyrocketed to $75 billion.

Secondary markets for privately traded companies are currently the subject of an SEC probe over whether they violate SEC regulations.

More About: business, facebook, funding, secondary market, twitter

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Obama: “We Are a Nation of Google and Facebook”

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 06:55 PM PST


In addressing American innovation in the State of the Union Address, President Obama called America a nation of Google and Facebook. The mention is significant not only because Obama has been known for leveraging social media, but also the timing of the mention. Google announced many job openings today and the Associated Press reported that the company could hire more than 6,000 people this year. And it’s no coincidence that President Obama mentioned the word jobs 25 times in his address.

According to the transcript, President Obama said, “None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be, or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn't know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do – what America does better than anyone – is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It's how we make a living.”

The buzz on social media, especially Twitter & Facebook, is gravitating toward the subject of economy and technology, which isn’t a surprise. In a poll prior to the address on the U.S. Politics Facebook Page, when asked, “What is the most important theme for President Barack Obama to address during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday?” some 78% of the respondents said the "economy."

But what caught fire on Twitter was President Obama’s quote and reference to the Soviets beating America to space with the Sputnik, which became a trending topic. Obama said, “Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.”

“This is our generation's Sputnik moment,” he said. This quote was referenced in thousands of tweets.

Last year’s address was watched by 1.3 million people live on WhiteHouse.gov’s website, and it’s very likely that even more people will have watched the address live online.

Where are you watching the address this year? Let us know in the comments below.

More About: facebook, Google, president obama, social media, state of the union address, tech, trending

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Firefox 4 Beta 10 Available for Download

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 06:42 PM PST


Mozilla released the latest Firefox 4 Beta Tuesday night. This release, beta 10, comes just 10 days after Firefox 4 Beta 9 hit the web.

The release notes for Firefox 4 Beta 10, as with Beta 9, are pretty sparse. Some changes have been made to make the browser more stable and Mac OS X users should have better Flash support.

As Mozilla nears the finish line with this release, it is asking users to provide as much feedback as possible. Mozilla says that it has received over one million pieces of feedback over the course of the Firefox 4 Beta, but having more data always helps.

Users can offer up their reports on what’s working and what isn’t by clicking the feedback button on the top right of the browser or going to this site.

In our brief tests, the Flash performance in Firefox 4 Beta 10 appears to have improved in Mac OS X. Video plays better and consumes fewer resources. Likewise, most of our add-ons and plugins were compatible with this release.

As we’ve noted in the past, Firefox 4 is an important release for Mozilla. Beyond Microsoft, Firefox faces increasing competition from Google and its Chrome browser.

Still, we think Firefox has come a long way in the last few beta releases. The browser feels faster and more responsive, and some of the interface tweaks and add-on changes bode well for the future.

You can download Firefox 4 Beta 10 and try it out for yourself. Remember to give Mozilla feedback if you run into any problems.

What do you think of Firefox 4 so far? Let us know.

More About: Browsers, Firefox, Firefox 4, firefox 4 beta, mozilla

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Starbucks Kicks Off eGift Card Program Aimed at Facebook Community

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 06:01 PM PST


Starbucks is rolling out Starbucks Card eGift, a new way to digitally purchase and send Starbucks Cards to friends. With eGifts, available Wednesday, anyone can send a customized digital Starbucks Gift Card via e-mail or Facebook.

The Starbucks Card eGift experience is meant to be both a last-minute and convenient alternative for online shoppers who want to give the gift of Starbucks for any purpose or occasion.

eGifters can select from a variety of holiday, birthday or just-because designs, customize the card’s message, select an amount between $5 and $100, and pay with PayPal or credit credit. Users can also pull in friends from Facebook, sort by birthday, make advance purchases for auto-delivery on specified dates and send cards via e-mail or Facebook.

Recipients have the option of printing out the personalized card for in-store redemption, transferring the balance to their Starbucks Card or adding the gift as a new card in the Starbucks Card Mobile app.

The e-gifting experience is tailored to the brand’s enormous Facebook community, which has demanded additional ways to send Starbucks gifts, says Ryan Records, director of Starbucks Card. Starbucks previously released a Facebook application for a similar purpose, but Records says the new option, which was six months in the making, opens up the e-gifting experience to anyone.

The Starbucks Card program is a big business for the coffee retailer, which loaded $1.5 billion on cards in 2010. The company believes that digital gift cards could represent up to 20% of its gift card business, making this new avenue for Starbucks Card sales a potentially very lucrative addition.

More About: ecards, facebook, starbucks, starbucks card mobile

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Watch President Obama’s State of the Union Live [VIDEO]

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 05:52 PM PST

President Barack Obama is about to address Congress, the American people and the world in his State of the Union speech, and there are more online options than ever to watch the speech.

Attention on the speech is at a high as political pundits and regular citizens are looking to find out how the President will react to the political pounding the Democratic Party received at the polls last November.

Thanks to WhiteHouse.gov, we have embedded a live stream of the speech. It’s also available once again on YouTube and Ustream. A copy of the speech has also leaked if you’d like to follow along.

Update: We’ve also added a live Facebook chat widget to make it even easier to discuss the SotU:

More About: obama, state of the union, video, youtube

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NY Times May Start Its Own Version of WikiLeaks

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 05:13 PM PST


The New York Times is considering developing a system that will let anonymous leakers easily submit large and confidential files directly to the newspaper. Sound familiar?

While nothing is concrete yet, NYT executive Editor Bill Keller says that it could be similar to Al Jazeera‘s Transparency Unit, a system launched earlier this year that encrypts file submissions from anonymous leakers.

“A small group from computer-assisted reporting and interactive news, with advice from the investigative unit and the legal department, has been discussing options for creating a kind of EZ Pass lane for leakers,” Keller told Yahoo’s The Cutline.

The potential confidential leaking system is a direct response to the rise of WikiLeaks. The New York Times has worked with the secretive organization and its eccentric founder, Julian Assange. While it has been a strong partner for the Afghan Diaries, the Iraq War documents and the diplomatic cables leaks, we’re sure that NYT would rather have the exclusive on these leaks.

Not only that, but creating its own system would put the combative Julian Assange out of the equation. As The Cutline rightly points out, news organizations have had difficulties working with him. Assange attacked both NYT and The Guardian for their coverage of Assange’s personal life, even threatening to sue the latter after it leaked details about his sexual assault case.

Is this the start of a trend? Will other news organizations start their own mini-WikiLeaks websites? Will leakers still choose WikiLeaks when they could send their information to established news organizations like The New York Times? We’re going to find out soon.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Scallop Holden.

More About: al jazeera, journalism, media, new york times, the new york times, wikileaks

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Is AT&T Afraid of the Verizon iPhone?

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 04:10 PM PST


The launch of the Verizon iPhone is just a few weeks away but AT&T is still doing what it can to keep customers on their network — and buying iPhones.

With rumors of better data plan pricing and a more stable voice network, many existing iPhone owners are contemplating a network switch.

Now that AT&T has to share the iPhone spotlight in the US, the nation’s second-largest mobile operator is trying to differentiate itself from the new competition.

AT&T sent e-mails to some of its mobile customers (including me) Tuesday advertising the $49 iPhone 3GS. AT&T lowered the price on the iPhone 3GS earlier this month, just ahead of the Verizon iPhone announcement.

Reading the promotion’s ad copy, we had to chuckle because AT&T is using language that is similar to Verizon’s new campaign for the iPhone. Intentional or not, the opening salvo, “it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for,” reads as a direct response to Verizon’s message, “it begins.”

The more direct response to Verizon comes a bit later in the ad. In big, bolded type, AT&T points out that it is “the ONLY network that allows you to talk & surf on your iPhone at the same time.”

Touche. The ability to send voice and data simultaneously over the 3G network is one of the only technical differences between the iPhone on AT&T and Verizon. It makes sense that AT&T is promoting this advantage.

By focusing on lower-priced handset options and simultaneous voice and data, perhaps AT&T can keep existing customers happy (or at least happy enough to renew for another two years) and away from Big Red.

Frankly, we think the real test for AT&T won’t be on February 10 but this summer, when the next generation iPhone is expected to land on both carriers at the same time.

Verizon iPhone Ad

What do you think of AT&T’s response to the Verizon iPhone? Is a $50 iPhone 3GS enough to make you consider staying with AT&T? Let us know.

More About: att, iphone, trending, verizon, Verizon iPhone

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Picplz Now Automatically Copies Photos to Dropbox

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 03:37 PM PST


Another week, another new Picplz feature.

This time the Andreessen Horowitz-backed mobile photo-sharing startup is out with Dropbox integration, meaning all web, iPhone and Android users can automatically save copies of their images to the cloud-based file storage service.

The integration is immediate — no application update required. Once you connect your Dropbox account, Picplz will copy the raw image, with all metadata intact, and the filtered version over to your Dropbox account.

Picplz, by default, stores the raw image for each photo you take or edit through the service. It’s a functionality that sets it apart from Instagram, and allows users to collect their original, unfiltered photos.

Dropbox integration is a small but significant update, especially for those looking for a more permanent way to store and access their filtered and unfiltered Picplz photos via web, mobile or desktop.

Picplz continues to iterate at a rapid rate. In the last few weeks, the startup has added several third-party integrations and released much-improved iPhone and Android apps. CEO and founder Dalton Caldwell says the immediate future holds a public release of the API and additional revisions to the Android app.

More About: Dropbox, mobile photo sharing, picplz

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A Sneak Peek at Groupon’s New Hyperlocal Ad Campaign [PICS]

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 02:31 PM PST

Groupon

Group-buying platform Groupon is set to launch its first hyperlocal ad campaign through Wi-Fi and mobile ad network JiWire this week, and we’ve got an early look at the assets.

JiWire, the company that created the uber-popular Free Wi-Fi Finder app [iTunes link], is a mobile ad network that serves ads across many of the free public Wi-Fi networks frequently found at airports (JFK, Chicago O’Hare), hotels (Hyatt, Marriott), cafes (Starbucks) and other venues. Collectively, JiWire reaches more than 29 million U.S. consumers in nearly 4,000 cities every month.

Because JiWire knows precisely where its users are accessing its network, it can serve targeted ads — and, in this case, neighborhood-specific Groupon deals — based on their respective locations and the time of day. Ads like the ones below will appear after a user connects to one of his or her affiliated Wi-Fi networks and opens a browser window:

Groupon is quickly transforming from a “deal a day” platform to an “as many deals as we can reasonably sell a day” platform. The ability to increase impressions, distribute ads on a hyperlocal and reach travelers will help it increase the number of deals it is able to serve each day.

More About: advertising, groupon, groupon everywhere, hyperlocal, jiwire, location based advertising, MARKETING

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Sequoia Capital Raises $1.35 Billion

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 02:16 PM PST


Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital has secured more than $1.35 billion in capital commitments since last March, according to an SEC filing.

The filing, uncovered by Fortune, shows the total amount to be $1,358,000,000. A rep for Sequoia could not be reached for comment.

Sequoia, which was behind the launches of YouTube and LinkedIn, among other famed Silicon Valley firms, currently has an investment portfolio that includes PayPal, Cisco Systems and Apple.

Sequoia’s take is all the more impressive when you consider that venture capital firms overall raised $11.6 billion from investors in 2010, down 14% from $13.5 billion in 2009, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Silicon Valley region, where Sequoia is located, fared better. Its overall funding fell around 5%, to $5.7 billion in 2010 vs. 2009.

More About: sequoia capital, venture capital

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Kodak Loses First Round in Patent Lawsuit Against Apple & RIM

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 01:57 PM PST


The U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled against Kodak in its case against Apple and Research in Motion (RIM).

In January 2010, the imaging and photography giant filed a complaint with the U.S. ITC against Apple and RIM, alleging that the phone makers infringed on a Kodak patent involving image previews.

The AP reports that the ITC went against Kodak in its preliminary ruling, finding that the iPhone and camera-enabled BlackBerry devices do not violate Kodak’s patents. The agency has until May 23 to either alter this determination or let the ruling stand.

In a statement to the AP, Kodak’s Chief Intellectual Property Officer Laura Quatela said, “We fully expect the ITC commission will ultimately rule that the patent claim at issue is valid and infringed by Apple and RIM.”

These types of patent lawsuits are often used to negotiate licensing agreements. Before filing suit last year, Kodak said it had attempted to reach an agreement with both Apple and RIM, but to no avail.

It’s a tactic that has worked before. In December 2009, the ITC ruled in favor of Kodak in a patent suit against Samsung and LG. This is significant because that lawsuit concerned the same image-preview patent that is at the heart of the dispute with RIM and Apple. After losing the preliminary ruling, Samsung and LG both negotiated one-time royalty payments with Kodak.

Kodak is also suing Apple in U.S. District Court over patent infringement. In April 2010, Apple countersued Kodak in those cases.

Image courtesy of Flickr, walknboston

More About: apple, blackberry, Kodak, lawsuits, patent lawsuit theater, patents, RIM

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Kids Act Out “The Social Network”

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 01:54 PM PST

Landline TV’s Kids Reenact series — now dubbed Kids Act Out on AOL Video — is back with five new episodes depicting children taking on the Oscar nominees for Best Picture.

Now while you may be sick to death of The Social Network parodies, we have to say, Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue is given a whole new dimension when uttered by a cast of folks who haven’t quite nailed the intricacies of enunciation yet.

The kids also lent their acting chops to other nominees: The Fighter, 127 Hours, The King’s Speech and Black Swan.

More About: aol, humor, pop culture, social network

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11 Recommendations for the Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 01:43 PM PST

“Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune,” entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said. But where is one to start? Amazon returns 12,146 book results for the term “entrepreneur,” and most people who define themselves as such are too busy to even begin making a modest dent in that sum.

We asked venture capitalists and entrepreneurs for the books that they would recommend entrepreneurs keep in their shelves. The 11 recommendations we got back include some expected startup classics like Jessica Livingston’s Founders at Work, but also a few surprising novels and creative takes on business strategy.


On the Road by Jack Kerouac





"Part of being an entrepreneur is about the journey from idea to business. There is no better book about journey and exploration than On The Road." -- Andy Weissman, Founder and COO, Betaworks


Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt




"This book is absolutely critical to understanding real economics, explains it in a way that is not just tolerable, but entertaining, and is desperately needed because entrepreneurs usually don't learn real economics until it's too late." -- Frank Speiser, Co-Founder, SocialFlow


Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston




"The stories of founders in the earliest years of their companies are detailed enough to be good learning and written well enough to be a good read." -- Ross Fubini, Advisor, Kapor Capital


Influence by Robert Cialdini




"Influence really helps you counter your impression of why people behave a certain way. All the key emotional and psychological reasons why people make decisions are in there, which is immensely helpful when making a product or getting customers because people don't behave as rationally as you would expect." -- Dan Porter, CEO OMGPOP


Everything I Know About Business I Learned From Monopoly by Alex Axelrod




"Axelrod teaches entrepreneurs how to start and run a business using a game that everyone grew up playing (the book will also make you a better monopoly player). For example, in order to explain scarcity and competition, he uses the number of houses in Monopoly (once they are all used, you can't build houses anymore, which reduces your competitors' chance at success)." -- Jay Levy, Partner, Zelkova Ventures


What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly




"Kevin was the founding editor of Wired Magazine. His first book, Out of Control (covering co-evolution, hives, artificial life and the power of biological processes), is perhaps my favorite book of all time. His next book, New Rules for the New Economy, was a great primer during our early Internet investing days. His latest book traces the analogy between our technological creations and evolutionary progress, and helps provide a framework for the likely technological vectors for the future." -- Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson


Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Piersig




"I believe the best early stage entrepreneurs are completely obsessed with their products. Piersig's classic book is the best explanation of quality, both philosophically and practically, of any book I've ever read. It has had profound influence on how I think about 'how I do things' and I believe it is a critically important book for every entrepreneur to read. It's best read quietly, slowly, and with lots of thoughtful contemplation." -- Brad Feld, Managing Director at Foundry Group and Author of Do More Faster


It's Your Ship by Michael Abrashoff




"The book follows a naval captain and how he turned the worst ship in the navy into the top performing by using business strategies or strategies that can be applied to business. Given that the book is based on the military and not a typical business, it provides for an interesting read and a great perspective on how to apply management theories in any environment." -- Jay Levy, Partner, Zelkova Ventures


Lean Thinking by James Womack and Daniel Jones




"Those of us building digital companies often underestimate the lessons we can learn from brick-and-mortar businesses. This book gives great insight into the origin of lean thinking, understanding how to think about a company, identifying value streams and relentlessly focusing on what's important." -- Tony Haile, General Manager, Chartbeat


The Remains of Day by Kazuo Ishiguro




"At Benchmark we have the opportunity to work with so many interesting companies early in their life cycle, and we see that those founded by entrepreneurs with far-reaching visions are often the most successful over time. The Remains of the Day encompasses, for me, a reminder to always dream big and swing for the fences." -- Matt Cohler, General Partner, Benchmark Capital


The Startup Game by William H. Draper III




"The Start Up Game has it all — a captivating story from one of the greats, great advice for the entrepreneur, the importance of free markets, and a novel model for non-profits. [It's a] total winner by a man who has big shoes to fill." -- Tim Draper, Founder and Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (and, notably, the author's son)

More About: books, entrepreneurs, List, Lists, startups

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Google to Make 2011 Biggest Hiring Year Ever

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 01:19 PM PST


Who says there are no jobs out there? Not Google. Recent changes at the top nonwithstanding, the company is planning to make 2011 its biggest hiring year in its history.

According to a Google blog post that went up today, the company added 4,500 employees in 2010, the biggest increase since 2007, when it added 6,000.

“We're looking for top talent—across the board and around the globe — and we'll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves,” Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, wrote in the post.

The post goes on to note that “the vast majority” of Google employees stay with the company “building their careers and taking on new challenges within the company.” Though the post didn’t name a figure, The Associated Press reports that Google plans to hire more than 6,200 new employees. The AP story speculates that U.S. President Barack Obama may mention the hirings in his State of the Union address tonight.

The hunt for new talent comes after Google gave all its employees a raise of 10% or more plus a $1,000 cash holiday bonus in November. Google also posted a 29% jump in fourth-quarter profits in its most recent quarter, which ended December 31. Revenues rose 26% year over year.

Despite Google’s success, not everyone in the industry is in hiring mode. Yahoo for instance, announced today that is cutting 1% of its workforce.

More About: Google, Yahoo

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HOW TO: Follow Davos Using Social Media

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 12:44 PM PST


On Wednesday, 2,500 world government leaders, heads of international businesses, and academic leaders will gather in Davos, Switzerland in an attempt to “shape the global agenda and catalyze solutions” (read: save the world).

The ambitious 37 global risks that the hosting organization, the World Economic Forum, identified earlier this year include topics like environmental issues, terrorism, and the financial crisis.

Attendance at the annual meeting is by invitation-only, but there are still many ways to participate through social networks:

  • Twitter: Follow this list of 400 participants who will be tweeting from Davos and this
    list of about 200 journalists who will be reporting from the event.
  • Facebook: Randi Zuckerberg, the marketing director of Facebook, will be conducting live interviews at Davos that will be streamed on the World Economic Forum’s Facebook Page.
  • YouTube: Ask a question on YouTube. Participants will be posting video responses to these questions as well as sharing their impressions of the meeting on the WEF’s YouTube channel.
  • Flickr: A selection of the best photos from Davos will be available on the World Economic Forum’s Flickr page and available for use under the creative commons license.
  • Scribd: If you want to dig deeper into the issues, you can find select reports from the meeting on Scribd.
  • Mobile Apps: Keep track of social media output from Davos across multiple networks using the meeting’s Android and iPhone apps.

Mashable’s CEO Pete Cashmore is attending the summit. He will be posting his observations and photos later in the week.

Image courtesy of Flickr, World Economic Forum.

More About: conferences, davos, Events, leaders, WEF

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Free Music Service Keeps Fans Updated About New Indie Bands

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 12:25 PM PST


Not everyone has incredibly cool friends who constantly send them intriguing new music — that’s why mySpoonful could be a handy resource for people looking to discover bands.

San Francisco-based startup MySpoonful launched today with a website and e-mail newsletter that aims to be “Daily Candy for indie music.” Three times a week, the startup will choose a new artist, write up a bio for the band in question and send users a free MP3 for download.

“MySpoonful is perfect for people who don't have a lot of time, but still want to keep up on new music,” says Dan Cohen, mySpoonful co-founder and CEO. “We’re like the web version of the employee at the indie record store that always knows what new bands to listen to.”

Cohen used to work at Yahoo and Google, and Editor-in-Chief Stacy Horne is a producer and curator for indie music festivals such as CMJ Music Marathon in New York and Treasure Island in California. The team doesn’t have any investors yet — it’s self-funded at present. Cohen, Horne and a team of writers are responsible for choosing the artists and assembling each newsletter. Artists can submit their tunes, though.

In terms of monetization, mySpoonful makes its bone via ads, sponsored e-mails and music sales via links to more artist tracks (provided on the site and in e-mails). Right now, the startup does not have mobile apps, but it does have a mobile site from which users can download MP3s.

So how does the team find new music? Cohen tells us: “I’ve been so busy with the release of mySpoonful, that I’ve actually been relying on our own site and newsletter to stay on top of new indie music…. When I’m not launching new services, and have a bit more time (which is less common these days), I like to go to live shows, talk to friends in the indie scene, and read music magazines and blogs.”

Granted, the idea of a newsletter featuring free downloads is not exactly novel — I get weekly downloads from online record store Insound, myself — but any tool that aids busy people when it comes to music discovery is worth checking out.

How do you currently discover new music? Would you add mySpoonful to your arsenal of search tools?

Photo courtesy of Flickr, freeloosedirt

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Google Acquires Telephony Startup SayNow

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 12:16 PM PST


In the wake of new Google Voice announcements, we’ve just learned that Google has acquired SayNow, a startup in the telephony space. The terms of the deal have not yet been released.

In a brief annoucement on its website, SayNow’s co-founders write, “Through the web, smartphones, and even land lines, our products brought communities together through the power of voice. And as Google has some of the best voice products in the world, we believe combining forces with the Google Voice team will let us innovate in new and unexplored areas.”

The company has been around for a while, but it hasn’t been on our radar since 2006, when it released a MySpace widget for bands that let fans click to leave musicians a voice message.

According to the SayNow website, the company started out to create “voice-based experiences that are fun and social” — a goal similar to those of many current startups like Fotobabble and Twaud.io. However, SayNow says that the development didn’t stop with social audio apps. “Along the way, we reinvented the way phone calls are made today.”

That last statement puts SayNow in direct competition with Google Voice, making the company a prime target for acquisition.

The Palo Alto-based startup boasts 15 million users — including celebs like Soulja Boy and NFL coach Mike Ditka — and just like Google Voice, its platform can be used for voice messaging, user-to-user conversations, and group calls. SayNow also integrates its calling services with social and mobile platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Android and iPhone. The company has released APIs and claims a robust ecosystem of third-party apps.

There’s no word yet on whether SayNow will be shuttered or whether product development will continue, but we can’t imagine the former Google Voice competitor will be operating as an independent product for very long following the acquisition.

More About: acquisition, Google, Google Voice, SayNow, telephony

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Adaptive Bit Rate Video Streaming: Why Delivery Will Matter More Than Codec

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 11:58 AM PST

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Greg Philpott is the founder and president of mDialog, an innovator in the fast-evolving mobile video sector. Greg has worked in media and technology for the past 18 years, and is pioneering work in Internet video and Digital Asset Management across a number of companies in the media and entertainment industry.

Though H.264-based MPEG-4 is currently the video format of choice for big video publishers and distributors such as MLB, iTunes and Netflix, premium video publishers and broadcasters generally don't deliver their video assets via an H.264 progressive download. They require secure streaming protocols to deliver or stream their video assets to the video player.

At a high level it goes something like this: Video can be encoded into different formats such as H.264-based MPEG-4 or VP8 based WebM; the video is delivered or streamed using one of several possible streaming formats/protocols such as HTTP Live Streaming, Smooth Streaming and HTTP Dynamic Streaming; finally, players implemented in HTML5, Flash and Silverlight receive these streams and play them out for the viewer.

In this post we'll focus on the approach to Adaptive Streaming that Apple is supporting. The technology, called HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), allows you stream live or on-demand video to devices like Apple's iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch without the need for a specialized video streaming server — any HTTP web server will do the trick. While created by Apple, the specification has been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the first step on its path to becoming an Internet standard.

Here's a partial list of key features that benefit video publishers, advertisers, viewers and even mobile carriers.

The Basics

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HTTP Live Streaming is backed by Apple, Smooth Streaming is backed by Microsoft and HTTP Dynamic Streaming is backed by Adobe, but they all have one thing in common: They each use the MPEG-4 H.264 as their inputs. I believe the real story isn't which video format will be supported by HTML5, but more importantly, when it comes to premium video, which video streaming format will be supported.

All three delivery methods are forms of Adaptive Bit Rate Streaming. This delivery method will have a massive impact on every aspect of Internet video delivery because it allows the stream to actually adapt the video experience to the quality of the network and the device’s CPU.

In other words, the video stream can increase or decrease the bit rate and resolution of the video (its quality) in real time so that it's always streaming the best possible quality the available network connection can support. The better the network connection, the better the video image quality. The fact that the stream handles all of this complexity means the mobile video viewer doesn't have to do anything; everything is left to the stream and the player.

So how does this all work? To prep your video content for HLS, you start off with a high quality version of your video and encode multiple copies of it using MPEG-4 H.264. These copies are at various bit rates and resolutions ranging from lower quality renditions appropriate for slower 3G connections, up to extremely high quality renditions suitable for fast devices on fast networks. The renditions are then wrapped into MPEG-2 Transport Streams and chopped up into 10 second segments or chunks. It's these segments that are eventually streamed to an HTML5 Video Player on a mobile device, browser or set-top box, and because the player receives the video in 10 second chunks and can detect the quality of the network connection, it can switch to a higher or lower quality video segment every ten seconds if bandwidth conditions change.

Real Cost Savings

HLS saves the video publisher and the receiving viewer's data plan money. HLS is a true video stream, which means it only delivers a few segments of video as it plays. For example, if a viewer watched five minutes of streamed video, their data plan is only dinged for five minutes of data consumption. In contrast, a progressive download of a video could result in only five minutes of actual view time, but 20 minutes of downloaded video passed to their iPhone.

This is a big problem for everybody involved. The viewer's data plan gets charged for video they didn't actually see, the publisher pays their CDN for video delivery that's never consumed (or monetized!), and the carrier's network gets congested delivering video that it really didn't have to.

Another major cost consideration for the video publisher is they don't have to pay for and maintain specialized and proprietary video streaming servers. HLS uses an ordinary HTTP server, and if they are publishing a website, they already have one.

Security

The HLS specification has provisions to ensure security of the stream, which is great news for broadcasters or publishers who want to stream licensed content. The entire HLS streams can be encrypted using AES-128; you can even encrypt each rendition or even a group of segments using unique keys. Because the streams themselves are encrypted, you can deliver the content over normal HTTP, rather than SSL, which keeps the speed fast. The keys can be hidden and protected using authentication, tokens and signing. All of this makes it much more difficult for people to use your content in ways you don’t want them to, while ensuring that the stream is efficient and the goals of HLS are still met.

Live Streaming

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Another big advantage of HLS is you can stream live video content to iOS devices. Streaming live video to tablet devices like the iPad is very compelling. The iPad is basically a personal TV that you can take anywhere. The tablet as a TV is an idea that's not lost on the major broadcasters and cable companies. Now that premium Video on Demand is established on the iPad as a viable business model, the live re-transmission of linear broadcasts to the iPad via HLS is a natural progression.

Live HLS encoding requires an additional step in the publisher's workflow (to encode the live feed in real time). That's where encoding appliance companies like Inlet Technologies or Elemental Technologies come it. They have developed turnkey products that handle all of the complexities of creating a HLS stream and delivering it to the cloud.

Real-Time In-Stream Ad Delivery

Last, but certainly not least, is how HLS provides the publisher with a unique opportunity when it comes to in-stream ad insertion. Recall how HLS is a stream of ten-second segments of video; those segments can be created in such a way that a video ad can be injected into the content stream so that it plays out seamlessly for the viewer. The viewing experience is basically identical to watching a commercial on broadcast TV.

Injecting the "ad stream" into the "content stream" is a new concept several major broadcasters such as Canadian Broadcaster Global TV have adopted. The traditional delivery mechanism for pre- or mid-roll video ads is to perform a (disruptive) video player switch.

You see this a lot with your typical web video players: While watching a video, the stream goes blank while another player is presented, and a spinner or buffer is shown until the video ad stream is cued up and ready for playback. Then when the ad is finished, that player is closed and the feature content player is opened and a spinner presented until the feature content is cued up and ready for playback.

With HLS, you have the opportunity to do all your video content switching in the stream rather than within the video player. Additionally, you can take advantage of the adaptive nature of HLS to further ensure the video ad gets presented so the viewer never sees spinners or buffers as the ad loads. The ad experience is seamless.

Disclosure: The author’s company develops in-stream advertising technology.

The Future is Adapting

All of this is a bit reminiscent of the "video codec" wars of a few years ago. Back then, Apple, Microsoft and Adobe were all promoting different video encoding technologies (MPEG-4 H.264, VC1 and On2). Each produced good looking video, but it was a major headache for video publishers. The industry eventually settled on H.264 once it reached mass adoption, but it's still a horse race when it comes to Adaptive Video Streaming. One thing is for sure: Adaptive Bit Rate Streaming is the future of video delivery across all device types, from PCs to smartphones to set-top devices.

Will HLS win out over other Adaptive Streaming solutions? It's still early, but one would think that the open spec and submission to the IETF would give it a leg up on the competition, just as it did for H.264. If HLS is going to take off as an Internet video streaming standard, it has to expand beyond just iOS devices.

Android, Google's mobile OS is now capable of playing HLS video thanks to a company called Nextreaming, which has built a robust HLS player SDK for the Android platform. And HLS is no longer a just a mobile video play. Roku, which makes one of the leading set-top streaming players, now supports HLS. Perhaps, most importantly, several major video publishers such as ABC, Netflix and Hulu are taking advantage of HLS in their iPad Apps. One thing is certain: You will be seeing a lot more adaptive video in 2011.

More Web Video Resources from Mashable:

- Why the Future of Online Video Is in Serious Trouble [OP-ED]
- Why Webcasts Are Perfect for Tapping Into Emerging Markets
- The 10 Most Innovative Viral Video Ads of 2010
- 4 Ways to Find Legal Music for Your YouTube Videos
- 12 Fun Hacks for Getting More Out of YouTube

Images courtesy of chelzdd, n i c o g r a p h i c

More About: adaptive bit rate, Guide, h.264, html, HTML5, mobile video, streaming, streaming video, tech, technology, video, Web Development, web video

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Facebook CTO: We’re Focused on Mobile in 2011

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 11:39 AM PST


Facebook CTO Bret Taylor says that the company will be focusing on mobile in 2011, specifically when it comes to delivering a consistent user experience across mobile platforms.

At the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco today, Taylor revealed to Inside Network‘s Justin Smith that Facebook will be re-implementing many of its mobile websites and applications so they feel the same, no matter how they’re accessed.

At the moment, Facebook has a ton of different mobile platforms. Not only does it have applications for iPhone, Blackberry and Android, but it also has m.facebook.com (its feature phone site), touch.facebook.com (its touch-based site) and 0.Facebook.com, a lightweight website with no data fees, designed for countries where wireless access is expensive.

With so many different mobile platforms, it’s easy to see why Facebook users can feel overwhelmed when trying to access the site via mobile. Taylor says one of Facebook’s goals in 2011 is to standardize the look and feel of all of these applications and mobile websites. HTML5 will play a critical role in creating a consistent user experience, he said.

Taylor also discussed the health of Facebook Places, its geolocation and geosocial product. “We’re focused on rolling it out to as many people as possible,” Taylor said, adding that Places is, “going really well.” He also said that the company will have some interesting stats to release soon.

At the end of the fireside chat, Facebook’s CTO said that one of the most interesting things to watch this year will be the convergence of mobile and social. “My sense is that mobile devices are inherently social… [mobile devices are] already filled with your contacts and your friends, and they also have access to your location,” he said.

More About: bret taylor, CTO, facebook, facebook platform, social gaming

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Tumblr Gets Official Downtime Image [PIC]

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 11:31 AM PST


Tumblr has finally gotten its own “fail whale.”

Inspired by the blogging service’s occasional downtime spells as of late (something both Twitter and Foursquare struggled with in earlier days), Oatmeal comic artist Matthew Inman decided to create a special image for its “Tumblr is down page” — which founder David Karp has gratefully agreed to use.

Inman (whom we interviewed Monday) posted a letter asking Tumblr to “please oh please” use his image, which features three (rather) cute green monsters eating Tumblr’s servers. “We may have forgotten to feed the TumblrBeasts who live in our server closet, which often results in unexpected downtime due to gnawing and/or mutiny,” it reads. (Tumblr has since modified the text to “Tumbeasts.”)

Approximately four hours after tweeting the message to @tumblr, Inman said he received an e-mail from Tumblr’s founder agreeing to use the artwork.

Welcome, Tumebeasts, to your new home. May you grow hungry and mutiny on Tumblr’s servers none too often.

(P.S. They’re on Twitter.)

[via RWW]

More About: david-karp, matthew inman, The Oatmeal, tumblr

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The History of Content, From Cave Paintings to Flipboard [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 11:23 AM PST


Remember when newspapers were king? How about the golden years of radio? Or when carrier pigeons ruled the roost? These content vessels often seem like bygone relics of a simpler time.

In a charmingly illustrated infographic, we peruse the history of content, from cave paintings to the digital era’s Flipboard. A lot has happened in the time between town criers and the Kindle, but our creation and consumption of news-related content has remained a constant factor for most cultures throughout human history.

As the newspaper industry undergoes violent changes, and more and more publications optimize for modern form factors, we wonder what format content will appear in next.

Have a look at this infographic, which was created by digital marketer Philip Sheldrake and illustrator Nic Hinton, and let us know what you think the future of content holds.



More About: content, history, infographic, media, newspapers

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Facebook Cut Platform Spam By 95% in 2010

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 11:05 AM PST


Facebook CTO Bret Taylor revealed that the social networking site has cut spam on its platform by 95%, while cutting platform policies and rules by half.

Taylor discussed the roadmap for the Facebook Platform at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco. On stage with Inside Network‘s Justin Smith, the Facebook CTO started by discussing the current health of the social gaming market.

“Gaming and apps have been growing like gangbusters,” the former Friendfeed co-founder said. As one might expect, he was very bullish on the state of social gaming and the Facebook Platform especially. Part of the reason it hasn’t degraded, he argued, was Facebook’s efforts to decrease application spam.

“The reaction by some to the decisions we have made as a product team, as a platform team, were not universally positive,” he added, referring to its 2008 and 2009 crackdowns on application spam, which also hurt app virility. The result was that spam on the Facebook Platform dropped by 95% last year, and that’s with fewer policies regarding developers and the platform. Taylor says that automated technologies and detection are the primary reason why it has needed fewer official rules to keep spam at bay.

More About: bret taylor, CTO, facebook, facebook platform, social gaming, Zynga

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Google Voice Now Supports Phone Number Porting

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 10:44 AM PST


If you’d like to port your existing phone number to Google Voice, you can now do so for $20.

For current Google Voice users, this means you’ll no longer have to remember and use two separate numbers, one direct line and one Google Voice line, to get all of Google Voice’s features, including visual voicemail, conference calling, call screening and more.

Last year, when Google Voice was still invite-only, Google announced some similar features that allowed users to use their own phone numbers with Google Voice, but it wasn’t a full number porting and didn’t bring the full depth and breadth of Google Voice features.

Actual number porting was rumored to be “coming soon” last week; and as of today, it’s live and available for all current Google Voice users. The feature will be available for new Google Voice users in the coming weeks.

The process of porting is a bit of a rigamarole at the moment. Your mobile provider has to cancel and restart your service, and during the porting process (which can take up to three days), you might miss a few SMS or MMS messages.

Here’s a brief video from Google showing roughly how the process will work.

More About: Google, Google Voice, porting, telephony, trending

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Twitter Blocked in Egypt As Protests Turn Violent [Updated]

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 10:30 AM PST


Update: Instead of confirming or denying reports of Twitter being blocked in Egypt, Twitter launched a new @TwitterGlobalPR account this afternoon that points to HerdictWeb, a website by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University that crowdsources reports of inaccessible webpages.

“We’re not the experts on how Twitter is being used in highly developing situations 1000s of miles from our comfortable HQ in SF,” the company tweeted. “The experts are those using Twitter on the ground and those coordinating with them around the world.”

So far about 10 of those people have submitted reports of Twitter being down to HerdictWeb. Mark Belinsky, the co-director of the nonprofit Digital Democracy, told CNET that it’s still hard to tell whether the site’s inaccessibility is due to an overload of traffic or government action.

As anti-government protesters and police clash in Cairo today, reports indicate that the Egyptian government is making an effort to censor Twitter and other websites.

As with the protests in Tunisia throughout the last month (which at least partially inspired the Egyptian uprising), the protest in Cairo was organized using Facebook. The Christian Science Monitor reports that more than 90,000 people signed up on a Facebook Page for the protests in the past week, though the turnout appears to be much smaller than that.

Another similarity between the Egyptian protests and the Tunisia uprising: People on the ground have been using Twitter to post photos, video feeds and other information about the protests using hashtags like #Jan25, #EgyRevolt and #Egypt.

But now some reports indicate that Twitter as well as some websites reporting live on the demonstrations have been blocked in Egypt. Vodafone Egypt also confirms that Twitter is down in this tweet.

We have reached out to Twitter for confirmation and will be updating this article as we hear more.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mtrommer

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Stealth Startup Decide Looks To Reinvent E-Commerce With Industry Veterans

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 10:00 AM PST


Decide, a stealth e-commerce startup based in Seattle, is lifting the curtain ever so slightly Tuesday to reveal details of a $2.5 million Series A round and to share a bit more about its pending product and company vision.

In a blog post published earlier today, CEO Mike Fridgen discloses that Decide, which owns the domain by the same name, is building “a revolutionary new shopping service that will bring unprecedented levels of transparency to electronics shopping.”

Little else is known about the startup, apart from its anticipated launch in the spring and the combined online consumer shopping background of the 16-person team. Started by Farecast founder Oren Etzioni — also a partner at Madrona Ventura Group — the Decide team is composed of engineers, product marketers and computer scientists with previous experience at Farecast, Zillow and Amazon.

“The team has a shared passion for empowering consumers with information and deep experience in solving complex consumer problems through data and technology,” says Fridgen.

The Series A round announced Tuesday was closed last year. Investors include early stage venture firm Madrona Venture Group — an early backer in Amazon — and Seattle-based angel investors, including Rich Barton, co-founder of Zillow and founder of Expedia.

With a combination of travel, search and e-commerce veterans and a killer domain name, Decide looks to be a startup to watch in the year ahead.

More About: decide, ecommerce, Madrona Venture Group, Rich Barton, series a, startup

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Startup Uses Tweets to Predict Purchases [EXCLUSIVE]

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 09:53 AM PST


A social analytics startup claims it can isolate tweets that are potential sales leads.

Launching in beta on Tuesday, Viralheat‘s Human Intent simplifies lead generation by helping businesses pinpoint social media users on the cusp of making purchasing decisions.

Human Intent aims to eliminate the need to manually read and parse through large amounts of tweets and other social updates to determine potential sales leads. Instead, users set up keyword searches and the product automatically sorts through social updates to identify those that express potential purchasing intent.

All of this data can be viewed in Viralheat’s current dashboard setup, and can be exported to Excel or Salesforce. In the future, brands will be able to engage directly with consumers from Viralheat, but the product currently links directly to consumers’ social updates, where social reps can go to respond.

Viralheat’s CTO & co-founder Vishal Sankhla told Mashable that the company started working on Human Intent last year after seeing that a number of its users were monitoring keywords to gain insight into purchasing intent, using phrases such as “looking to buy a bed” or “looking to buy a phone.”

The algorithm mixes sentiment analysis, language processing and predictive analytics to decide where a user may be in the purchasing process. It identifies people looking to buy something, people complaining about an existing product they own or perhaps looking for a replacement, or anyone who may have an issue with a service they currently use, Sankhla explained. The algorithm also has built-in filters for intent actions by verticals. Sankhla noted, “Autos leads are not the same as finance leads, insurance leads, electronic leads, software services leads, etc.”

For higher accuracy, the product includes a spam filter, which removes retweets and mentions that are not relevant. Finally, the algorithm learns through human curation. If it makes a mistake, users can mark tweets that should or should not be identified as leads. As more feedback rolls in, the algorithm improves.

While the algorithm isn’t perfect, Sankhla says that the team is focused on increasing accuracy. Meanwhile, the product in its current form will help marketers “narrow down to a much smaller set of potential leads, rather than just looking at all the tweets that come in.”

Launching in beta, Human Intent will only be available to existing customers at no additional cost (for now). Once the product launches in full, pricing and availability will be announced, and beta users will receive a discount.

Founded in 2009 with the goal of democratizing social media analytics, Viralheat‘s core product is a social media analytics tool that scours the web, including social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and YouTube, to monitor mentions of a brand and assess the success of social media campaigns by measuring influence, sentiment and virility. Current Viralheat users include Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Nokia, ESPN and eBay, among others.

Viralheat’s pricing is based on supporting “enterprise grade features without the enterprise price tag.” Three price points are available: basic ($9.99 per month), professional ($29.99 per month) and business ($89.99 per month). Unlike similar tools in the marketplace, Viralheat allows unlimited mentions for all price points. So, if you set up your profile to monitor all mentions of “laptop,” for example, you can rest assured that you won’t be charged for the unpredictable number of social updates that flow in containing the word “laptop.” Human Intent now enables users to better sort through social updates and act upon those that are potential leads.

For a closer look at Human Intent, check out the demo below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, hammondovi

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