Mashable: Latest 7 News Updates - including “Top 10 Food Shots From Foodspotting’s 1st Year [PICS]”

It’s the first birthday of Foodspotting, an iPhone photo app and website that concentrates on pictures of the foods available at restaurants, rather than the restaurants themselves.

The app’s official launch was a year ago today (January 15), and since then, it’s collected 250,000 images of dish recommendations. This week, Foodspotting received $3 million in funding from BlueRun Ventures, and over the past year has enjoyed 550,000 downloads of its app and 300,000 visitors to its website each month. It’s released a beta version of its Android app, and boasts partnerships with household names such as the Travel Channel, Whole Foods and Zagat.

In addition, Foodspotting offered us a fun fact: Half its 7-person team has a food-related last name, such as Grub, Cao (pronounced “Chow”) and Tang.

The location-based app finds pics of foods available nearby, beckoning users with their steamy goodness, or repelling them with their grossness — either way, users get a good look at what they’ll eat, rather than reading a menu and taking their chances. And, the app can snap iPhone pics, encouraging users to leave evidence for those who are wondering what dishes are served in a restaurant.

Foodspotting calls January 15 “World Foodspotting Day,” with more than 100 meetups all over the planet. Find one near you, and if you contribute a pic of a cake, you’ll get a birthday badge.

In the meantime, let’s feast our eyes on Foodspotting’s Top 10 greatest hits, the 10 most popular foods photographed by users of the Foodspotting iPhone app, here in all their mouth-watering goodness:

10. Assorted Cheeses

From the Cowgirl Creamery Artisan Cheese Shop in San Francisco

9. Deep Dish Pizza

Zachary's Chicago Pizza, Oakland, CA

8. Ice Cream Sandwich

Diddy Riese, Westwood, CA.

7. Double Animal Burger

In N Out Burger, Hollywood, CA

6. Morning Buns

Tartine Bakery, San Francisco

5. Pommes Frites (French Fries)

Pommes Frites, New York, NY

4. Secret Breakfast Ice Cream

Humphry Slocombe, San Francisco

3. Pastrami Sandwich

Katz's Delicatessen, New York, NY

2. Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Bi Rite Creamery, San Francisco

1. Shack Burger

Shake Shack, New York, NY

Images courtesy of Foodspotting

More About: Android apps, birthday, Food, foodies, foodspotting, gallery, iphone apps, pics, trending

This week, I had a chance to review the Nomad Brush, a beautiful, handcrafted stylus designed for painting and sketching on the iPad.

The stylus feels and looks like an actual paintbrush, complete with a 5.5-inch wooden handle and a mix of natural and synthetic fibers selected for their conductive properties. When I first came across this demo video of the stylus last week, I was skeptical that the iPad‘s touchscreen surface would be able to pick up the stylus’s soft bristles, but I’m happy to report that the iPad easily responds to the touch. It allows for free-flowing brush strokes much like a real paintbrush, and an elegance of line I was previously unable to achieve using my fingers or a regular stylus.

Since we’ve only used the brush for a day, we can neither guarantee that it will work a year or even a month from now with heavy use, nor whether the bristles will hold their shape. (As a side note, we’re still looking for a way to keep those bristles intact while traveling; I plan to use my standard canvas brush holder in the meantime.) Given how much we plan to use the thing, we should have a pretty good idea of how it holds up by the time the brush goes on sale in early February.

The Nomad Brush was conceived by Don Lee, a 39-year-old architect based in New York. After 14 years as an architect, Lee decided to take a year-long break from his profession “to rejuvenate [his] creative side,” he explains.

As part of the rejuvenation process, Lee took up sketching on the iPad. “The finger is by far the most efficient way to navigate the iPad, but when it came to sketching, I just couldn’t get used to it,” Lee says. “As a problem solver by nature, I started to tinker and found a solution, and that’s how the Nomad Brush came about.”

At launch, only a black version with a 5.5-inch handle will be available for purchase, followed by a version with a white handle. In the future, Lee plans to create additional versions with varying brush head sizes and handle lengths. Pricing has not yet been disclosed, though given that each stylus is hand made, we expect it will be a bit pricier than the typical stylus.

In the meantime, check out our hands-on video below.

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Video

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More Gadget Demos from Mashable:

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- HANDS ON: 10 New Tablets Ready to Challenge the iPad [VIDEOS]
- Hands On With Vizio's Android-Powered Devices [VIDEO]
- DEMO: BlackBerry Playbook Tablet [VIDEO]
- Hands On With Vizio's Android-Powered Devices [VIDEO]
- Nintendo 3DS: Hands-On and First Impressions [PICS]

More About: apple, demo, Gadget, hands-on, ipad, ipad stylus, nomad brush

If you’re like us, you’re using Dropbox for all kinds of unusual tasks. But we wanted to go further, so we asked the experts at Dropbox to tell us their most unusual, unexpected and crazy ways to use this versatile software tool.

If you’re not familiar with Dropbox, it’s free desktop synchronization software that lets you store a copy of a file on your computer and then access that same file from anywhere. You can store up to 2GB for free. Go over that amount, and it’ll cost you $10 a month for 50GB and $20 a month for 100GB.

Here’s the scoop from our experts for three different levels of Dropbox users:

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For Beginners Only

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Before we get to the advanced techniques, one Dropbox expert suggested that we focus on the basics. Beginners, this is for you; advanced users, you already know all this stuff, go ahead and skip to the next section.

Sync between two computers: This is the most basic task, where you install the Dropbox application onto two computers and synchronize files between them.

Undelete: We were so relieved when we first discovered this feature. Simply go to the Dropbox website, click the arrow that appears to the right of the file when you position your cursor over it, and select Previous Versions. Look at that — it’s your own Time Machine.

Share a folder to collaborate: We do this all the time here at Mashable, where everyone has access to the same files, and if someone else is working on that file, it lets us know so we won’t overwrite each other.

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For Astute Users

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Now that we have the basic techniques out of the way, here’s where our team of Dropbox experts get into the intermediate stuff:

Learn the keyboard shortcuts: Just like any application where you’re a power user, you can work much more efficiently with shortcuts, jumping all over the place by pressing just a few keys. For example, you can show/hide deleted files just by pressing “d.” Move up a directory with the letter “u.” Check out all 13 keyboard shortcuts here.

Password/Vault synching: Apps such as 1Password, KeePass and Tiny Password will let you store your secrets in your Dropbox, and then access them from any other device where you have these applications installed. Or, do like we do and use LastPass, a browser plug-in that performs all the synchronization in the cloud for you itself.

Sync between desktop and iOS device: Here’s what one expert called “beautiful, quick syncing,” where you never have to click “save” to save your notes. Mac users, he recommends using Notational Velocity on the desktop and PlainText on any IOS device to sync notes through Dropbox. For PC users, you can store notes in .txt format (using an applet like Notepad) and save them in Dropbox, where you can open them using the PlainText app (which we love) on your iOS device.

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For Smarty Pants Users

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Now we get into the advanced techniques. Here’s the most unusual tip we got from our experts, this from one of Dropbox’s sales team:

Sync music for your car: As our expert tells it, “I’m using Dropbox to sync a small netbook in the trunk of my car with my music library, and then have that connected to my head unit for playback. Anytime I’ve added new music to the library on my home PC, the next time I get in my car I will set my Android phone as a mobile hotspot, use that to hook the netbook up online, and I have the local Dropbox account on the machine selectively synced out of every folder except my music. It syncs the new music while I’m driving around and I now have way more songs in my car than I could ever fit on an iPod, including my favorite new edition of Arcadio.”

Chrome data syncing: Chrome browser users, try moving your Chrome data file to Dropbox, and your entire session — everything, including windows and settings, opens just how you want on any other computer. Our expert warns of a downside, though: conflicted copies of your settings files if Chrome is open on two computers at the same time. Here’s more info for the adventurous.

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For Techno-Gods Only

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Abandon all hope all ye who enter here, well, unless you’re a techno-guru. Here’s the granddaddy tip of them all, a way to get remote desktop access to all of your machines by using Windows Server 2008, straight from the upper echelons of Dropbox:

Compute anywhere: “One of the lesser known features of Windows Server 2008 R2 (and the currently-in-beta Windows Home Server “Vail” which is based on R2) is called RemoteApp. Basically it allows you to launch a self-contained streaming instance of an application that is installed on the server and delivered via
a remote desktop session where you only see the app on the client side.

“It’s cool because, on a Windows machine, it can be run one of two ways: via an RDP file, or taking it a step further, using an MSI installer package which makes it look like the app is installed on the local machine, complete with file associations. You can also run multiple instances from multiple remote locations at the same time. This is particularly cool for special file types like PSD’s where it may not be convenient or possible to install the app on the remote machine.

“Tying in to Dropbox, I had two folders: one called RDP and one called MSI. I was able to take my apps with me anywhere and if it was a Windows machine I had control of, I was able to “install” the remote app as well. The end goal was to be able to remotely launch a single copy of iTunes from anywhere and possibly even map the USB ports (you can set that up when you make the MSI) so I could sync my iPhone remotely. It was also great for controlling apps that needed some horsepower (i.e. Handbrake) from much more underpowered devices.”

Commenters, let us know how these tips worked for you, and tell us more ways to get the most out of Dropbox.

We’d like to thank all those at Dropbox who helped us prepare this post.

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Reviews: 1Password, Android, Apps, Chrome, Dropbox, LastPass, Mashable, Windows

More About: Dropbox Tips, expert tips, file sync, hacks, how to

Wikipedia is just the latest in a long line of encyclopedias. In fact, encyclopedias have been around in some form or another for 2,000 years. The oldest, Naturalis Historia, written by Pliny the Elder, is still in existence.

How do I know this? I looked it up on Wikipedia, of course. Is it true? Possibly.

Ten years after its founding, it’s hard to imagine what life was like before Wikipedia. When I was growing up, our family had a dusty set of encyclopedias that were at least 10 years old, which is fine if you’re looking up dinosaurs, but not so good if you want to know, for instance, who the current president of the Congo is. But though the limitations of the old encyclopedias were obvious, they were authoritative in ways that Wikipedia is not.

Like most people, I’ll take the tradeoff. I have no desire to go back to the days of printed Funk & Wagnalls. If someone would have told me back in 2001 that, within a few years, there would be a comprehensive, free online encyclopedia, I wouldn’t have believed them. Why would someone do that? How?

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Origins

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By now, we all know the story: Two Ayn Rand devotees, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, created Wikipedia in January 2001. The founding can be traced to a post by Sanger entitled “Let’s Make a Wiki” that was intended as a feature to Sanger and Wales’s other project, Nupedia. Wiki, Sanger explained in the post, was derived from “wikiwiki,” a Polynesian word for “quick.” “What it means is a VERY open, VERY publicly editable series of web pages,” Sanger wrote in the post.

As often happens, the feature grew out of proportion with its original intent. Wales, who was originally against the idea of a Wiki, became a strong proponent of it, while Sanger, who became estranged from the project in 2002, now charges that Wales hogged the credit for the venture. (Wales could not be reached for comment. To his credit, Sanger is mentioned as a co-founder on Wikipedia’s entry about its founding.)

Rooted in open source thinking, Wikipedia contributors began penning a voluminous number of entries (the site claims there are now 17 million such articles), which began showing up in Google searches, furthering the site’s growth and notoriety. Meanwhile, a subculture developed around Wikipedia, with self-appointed guardians doing their best to make sure entries were accurate and free of vandalism. As an authoritative 2006 Atlantic article on Wikipedia noted, “A study by IBM suggests that although vandalism does occur (particularly on high-profile entries like ‘George W. Bush’), watchful members of the huge Wikipedia community usually swoop down to stop the malfeasance shortly after it begins.”

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“Truth” on the Internet

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All of this made Wikipedia a pretty good reference, but one that you’d be wise not to take completely at face value. Wikipedia works best as an introduction to a subject. Since the articles usually cite references, readers can investigate further whether the claims are actually true. Despite this, Wikipedia soon earned a reputation for loopy reportage, an aspect best expressed in The Onion headline “Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence.”

Such criticism, though, has it backwards. Wikipedia is, in the best-case scenario, an antidote for the echo chamber of the web. After all, good luck finding “truth” on the Internet. Facts may be facts, but they’re subject to so much spin that it can be hard to get a handle on what’s objectively real.

All the more reason why the idea of Wikipedia is laudable, albeit a bit impractical. Though Jimmy Wales could have made a fortune selling ads on the site, he decided to make the Wikimedia Foundation a non-profit charitable organization. But someone has to keep all those servers running and pay those 50 full-time staffers, which is why Wales appeared in a ubiquitous banner ad on Wikipedia asking for donations. The site eventually collected $16 million.

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The Future

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Can Wikipedia sustain itself for another 10 years? As The Economist recently pointed out, the number of Wikipedia’s English language contributors fell from 54,000 in March 2007 to 35,000 in September 2010, but here Wikipedia may be the victim of its own success. As the site gets more comprehensive, there are fewer entries that need to be written. One thing’s for sure — if Wikipedia ever does go away, it will be hard to believe it. After all, where will we go to confirm such a thing?

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More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

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- 9 Ways to Get More Out of Quora
- The Future of the Social Media Strategist
- 6 Web Pioneers on What the Internet of the Future Will Look Like
- HOW TO: Use Advanced Twitter Search To Find a Job [VIDEO]
- Why Marketing Threatens the True Promise of Social Media

Image courtesy of Flickr, quartermane.

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Reviews: Flickr, Google, Internet, Wikipedia

More About: Opinion, trending, wikipedia

Who’s up for a friendly game of Nike+ Tag? Let the games begin, Nike+ GPS users — there’s an update now available for your iPhone app, letting you compete against your friends.

It’s available for download from the iTunes App Store as a free update to existing Nike+ GPS app users, or it’ll cost you $1.99 for a new purchase.

While there’s no physical tagging going on, the object of the game is like you might expect: Don’t be “it.” Runners compete against each other, and whoever runs the slowest, the shortest distance, or starts running latest in the day is designated as “it.”

How does it work? Nike explains it:

• • After a run, a Nike+ GPS App user is prompted to Play Tag
• • The user can invite – or "Tag" – as many Nike+ friends and email contacts as they choose
• • The user can customize the message that goes to friends
• • The user sets a game of Tag based upon either distance (person who runs shortest distance is IT), time (person who runs for the shortest amount of time is IT), or order (person to run last is IT).
• • Tag begins once the user invites his/her friends
• • Once Tag begins, the game will continue until each runner has taken part, or up to three days, whichever comes first
• • The Nike+ GPS App tracks each time a runner is IT and NOT IT
• • If no one other than the initiator takes part, he/she is not IT, the game just dissolves after three days

Unfortunately, if you’re a Nike+ iPod user using a watch or shoe sensor, you won’t be able to play this new game of Tag. According to Nike, the two apps were developed by completely different teams, and they use different technology. Unlike the Nike+ iPod system, the Nike+ GPS software doesn’t use that sensor that fits into a shoe or is built into watch, but uses the iPhone’s GPS to gauge location, speed and distances.

Take a look at the cute video Nike produced in association with this app:

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Reviews: App Store

More About: app store, apps, Fitness Apps, free downloads, iphone, Nike+ GPS, Nike+ Tag, Tag, trending, Update

Wow, what a week. Last weekend the whole team was busy preparing for both the Mashable Awards Gala in Las Vegas and CES 2011 happening just next door. We’ve crowned your favorite picks from the past year and also previewed all the fancy new technology from the CES showroom.

Take a look through our roundup of tools and resources from the past week or so, including the future of the social media strategist, a slew of demos and hands-on gadget reviews and some insights into mobile retail.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.

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Social Media

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• HOW TO: Use Advanced Twitter Search To Find a Job [VIDEO]
  In this screencast, we’ll show you how the Advanced Twitter Search feature can help you find a job by using hashtags, geolocation and a little ingenuity.
• How the NCAA Stays on Top of the Social Media Game [INTERVIEW]
  There’s been a lot of discussion of the rules around professional athletes using social media, but what about collegiate athletes? We spoke to the NCAA’s managing director of communications.
• Top 6 Private Sale Sites for the Best Travel Deals
  Satisfy your need for discount travel with sites like Jetsetter, SniqueAway, Tablet Hotels, TripAlertz, Vacationist and Voyage Privé.
• 5 Key Tips for a Successful Social Media Content Strategy
  These five content strategy techniques will build better relationships and earn your brand better results on the social web.
• Mashable Awards Gala Recap & Photos
  Congratulations to all the nominees and winners of the Mashable Awards.
• 4 Online Platforms for Personalized Style Advice
  Whether you’re looking for advice from pros, strangers, or your friends, these four digital communities can give you a sounding board.
• The 2010 Mashable Awards Winners [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Take a look at this year’s Mashable Awards winners as voted for by you, the readers.
• Is Twitter a Touchdown for Social Good?
  Twitchange, which sells off celebrity Twitter presences for charity, is set to launch a social good campaign championed by NFL star Troy Polamalu.
• Social Media and Subpoenas: A Broken System That Puts Journalistic Sources at Risk
  Shield laws protect journalists and their sources, but communication via social media can be seized via subpoena, as we’ve seen in the case of WikiLeaks and Twitter. How can this loophole be addressed?
• Are We Too Obsessed With Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Here, in a visual nutshell, are some highlights about Facebook usage, 2010 trends, adoption numbers and a great deal more.
• HOW TO: Buy & Sell Music Directly on Facebook
  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.
• The Future of the Social Media Strategist
  Inspired by Altimeter Group’s report on the “Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist,” we sparked debate in the Mashable community on the future of this career.
• The 5 Biggest Video Game Flops of All Time [COMIC]
  These are really bad.
• 9 Ways to Get More Out of Quora
  Businesses and non-profits can glean a wealth of information from Quora. Here are a few ways organizations large and small can tap into this active community.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Tech & Mobile

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• HANDS ON: Intel's Unreal Interactive Graphics Experience at CES [VIDEO]
  Intel has a gorgeous installation at its CES booth, and our own Christina Warren is there to guide you through the graphical techno-thrills.
• HANDS-ON: Motorola Xoom and Android Honeycomb [VIDEO]
  Mashable’s Ben Parr gets his hands on the new Motorola Xoom tablet, the first device with the Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” OS.
• Nintendo 3DS: Hands-On and First Impressions [PICS]
  We got another chance to play with the 3DS behind closed doors here at CES. This time, we could really explore some of its features, as well as take more pictures of the device.
• 5 Hip Bluetooth Headsets
  We’ve hand-picked five classy Bluetooth headsets that will keep you connected on the go, without attracting unwanted attention from the Style Police.
• 40+ Things You Need to Watch in 2011
  Now that the calendar has flipped to 2011, Mashable’s editors have put together a master list of the sites, apps, companies, and gadgets to watch for this year.
• 9 Top-Notch iPod Nano Cases
  We’ve found some cool cases for the new nano – wrist-based and otherwise – to give you a great selection of coverings to choose from if you’re looking to protect your iPod.
• Why the Verizon iPhone Doesn't Spell Disaster for AT&T
  Verizon will debut the iPhone on its network next week. What impact will it have on AT&T, and how will it respond?
• DEMO: Motorola Atrix 4G Dual-Core Android Smartphone [VIDEO]
  Android phones made a splash at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but few generated as many waves as the Motorola ATRIX 4G.
• 9 Sites To Find Mobile Apps From Mashable & Others
  Here’s a list of the different places you can find our iPhone, Android and iPad [iTunes] apps, as well as discover other neat apps for your device.
• Why Filesharing Companies Are Starting to Lobby Washington [INTERVIEW]
  We interviewed RapidShare spokesman Daniel Raimer about the decision to hire a Washington lobbyist and the company's ongoing disputes with the movie, music and credit card industries.
• How WordPress Themes Actually Work [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Ever wondered how WordPress actually works? Take a look at this infographic and find out.
• 5 Reasons Connected TV Could Flop in 2011
  Fear, uncertainty and doubt are all reasons that consumers have been wary about purchasing their first “smart TVs.” Here’s a look at what can be done to overcome the trend.
• 5 Clever iPhone Accessories That Make Gaming More Fun
  Whether you want the feel of a real wheel for driving games, improved grip for fierce fragging action, or fun with some novelty docks, here are five peripherals to enhance your iGaming.
• HANDS ON: Dell's 4G Streak 7 Tablet
  In our demo videos, we see the Streak 7 as a great device for connecting to all the other devices and media in your home.
• iPhone Faceoff: AT&T vs. Verizon
  Spec wise, this phone is virtually identical to its AT&T brother, but the difference in network technologies means that there are a few differences in what the phone can do.
• Hands On With Vizio's Android-Powered Devices [VIDEO]
  Vizio is embracing Android in a big way. Last week, the company showed off an Android-based tablet and smartphone, as well as a Google TV-powered HDTV.
• Who Owns Your Data?
  From searches to tweets to frequent flyer numbers, the trail of data we leave on the web can be long. The tough question is, who owns all of it? And what does this ownership represent?
• 6 Web Pioneers on What the Internet of the Future Will Look Like
  Founders of AOL, MapQuest, Yelp, Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla! respond to the question: “What is the future of the Internet?”
• HANDS ON: 10 New Tablets Ready to Challenge the iPad [VIDEOS]
  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. Check out our videos testing some of the best.
• 10 iPhone Apps for Music Lovers
  Music is an important part of our lives, and these 10 iPhone apps, which have mostly flown under the radar, deserve props for making it easier to enjoy the tunes we love.
• Why Google Acquired eBook Technologies
  Google has made its first acquisition of 2011 with eBook Technologies, a company that focuses on hardware & software distribution of e-books and e-book readers
• Learning Ruby: Expert Advice for Absolute Beginners
  We have polled six experts in the Ruby community – developers who have come highly recommended and respected by their peers – for tips, tricks and code snippets that will help get you started.

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Business

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• Top 9 Job Sites to Bookmark for Your Career Search
  Looking for work, or perhaps a career change? Here are nine top job sites – some old stand-bys, and a few fresh options you may not have considered.
• Why Mobile Shopping Could Be As Big As Online Shopping
  Research from ForeSee Results suggests that mobile shopping is off to a start similar in many ways to online shopping.
• 5 Creative Facebook Places Marketing Campaigns
  These 5 Facebook Places campaigns illustrate how businesses can use the service, from offering simple discounts for checkins to multi-step rewards programs.
• Making Data Relevant: The New Metrics for Social Marketing
  A structured approach to capturing, measuring, analyzing and refining marketing strategies in near real time is essential to executing a successful social campaign.
• How Social Data & Mobile Tech Can Improve the Retail Experience
  Online commerce has felt the effects of Web 2.0, but what about the shopping experience in brick-and-mortar stores? Here’s a look at what’s in store in high-tech retail.
• HOW TO: Create a World-Class Online Community for Your Business
  Check out these nine tips on establishing and maintaining a community where potential customers feel engaged and empowered by your brand.
• Should You Name Your Startup After a Meme?
  What do you do when you want to build up buzz for your startup without revealing iota of what its purpose is? Call it “Hipster.”
• 5 New Paradigms for a Socially Engaged Company
  Business teams that are engaged at all levels have proven to be more effective. Here’s a look at 5 factors that influence company culture and how to refresh them.
• How a Digital Bible Became a Breakout Business
  Glo’s interactive digital Bible is not only enhancing an ancient text, but also has the potential to revolutionize educational texts across every topic.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Image courtesy of DawgHouse Design Studio

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Reviews: Android, Bluetooth, Drupal, Facebook, Google, Internet, Joomla, Mashable, Rapidshare, Twitter, Wikileaks, WordPress, Yelp

More About: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, small business, social media, tech, technology, twitter

The BlackBerry Storm 3 has been whispered about and wondered about for months, but now there’s a murky trio of spy pics of RIM’s elusive smartphone for you to peruse.

A massive leak uncovered many of the mysteries of this upcoming smartphone from Research In Motion, said by BGR to be on its way in September.

With its Storm line, Blackberry bumbled the buggy first launch and nailed the second, so if the Storm 3 is anything like its respected predecessor the BlackBerry Storm 2, it might be worth the wait.

Looking a lot like last year’s iPhone with a bulbous back, the most impressive feature of the alleged BlackBerry flagship is the highest-resolution screen ever seen on a BlackBerry, 800×480 pixels, big numbers that mean its resolution is getting close to iPhone’s lofty “retina display” territory.

Check with BGR for the entire list of specs, but suffice to say this will be running a 1.2GHz CPU — it’s unknown if it's a dual-core chip, but that’s plenty quick for smartphone these days. Now all we need to find out is how much this handset will cost and which service providers will be likely to carry it.

What about it, commenters? Will it be worth it to wait until September for the BlackBerry Storm 3?

Images courtesy of BGR

Disclosure: RIM was a sponsor of Mashable Awards.

More About: BlackBerry Storm 3, pics, rumors, Spy Shots, trending

Last Saturday, the world was shocked by the news of the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona that killed six and wounded 13, among them Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Twitter exploded as real-time reports flooded in, showcasing the network’s ability to spread news quickly, though not always accurately. A few major media outlets had reported that Giffords had died, and the online world took some time to sort out the facts. On top of that, discussions of whether or not partisan rhetoric had a hand in inciting the violence fanned the flames of a social media firestorm. All these factors pushed the news item into the number one trending spot for the week.

Soccer is back in at number two after a few weeks out of the spotlight. This time, it wasn’t just excitement on the field, but the activities of the athletes on Twitter itself that spurred the chatter.

A particularly interesting trend pops up in the number three slot. “Alay Style,” a method of spelling that incorporates odd capitalization, numerals and syntax, seems to have grown in popularity across the web. The phenomenon apparently stems from the Facebook profile of a teenager from East Java. It doesn’t get much more viral than that.

And on a humorous note, the recent broadcast of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace on UK television reminded people just how much they disliked a certain CGI character from the much maligned prequel. Discussions of the broadcast brought the topic in at number four. Tastes in film aside, the trend shows once again that TV (old media) is still a powerful force around which mainstream discussions coalesce online — Twitter being a regular beneficiary.

For the full list of top trends, check out the chart below, compiled by our friends at What The Trend. Because this is a topical list, hashtag memes and games have been omitted from the chart.

You can check past Twitter trends in our Top Twitter Topics section, and read more about this past week's trends on What The Trend.

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Top Twitter Trends This Week: 1/8 – 1/14

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ricardoinfante

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Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto

More About: Gabrielle Giffords, soccer, social media, Star Wars, Top Twitter Topics, trends, twitter, twitter trends