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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Nokia CEO: Why We’re More Relevant Than Ever”

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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Nokia CEO: Why We’re More Relevant Than Ever”

Nokia CEO: Why We’re More Relevant Than Ever

Posted: 16 Feb 2011 04:52 AM PST


Facing a chorus of disapproval over its Microsoft deal, Nokia tried to switch focus today — by vowing to deliver Internet service to three billion new customers.

CEO Stephen Elop faced an uphill battle in Barcelona this morning when he took the stage for his Mobile World Congress keynote. The Microsoft-Nokia deal to put Windows 7 on a (still theoretical) new generation of Nokia smartphones has been pilloried in the press and on the stock market. Elsop may well be facing a rebellion on the part of shareholders and unions later this year.

Mobile carriers seem equally nonplussed. Yesterday, Verizon CTO Tony Melone said his company did not need to offer any future Nokia-Windows smartphones. Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and RIM BlackBerrys were enough ecosystems for him. Google CEO Eric Schmidt took an I-told-you-so approach in his keynote yesterday, revealing that he had implored Nokia to choose Android instead.

So in his keynote, Elop played to Nokia’s one remaining strength: global reach. “You’ve heard a lot about smartphones this week, but they’re only one part of our strategy,” he said. Elsop showed a map of the world with one pixel of light for everyone currently using a Nokia phone; it blazed brightly on every continent. “We believe there is an opportunity to make that much brighter,” Elsop said.

The Nokia Series 30 and 40 phones may be thoroughly outmoded in the sophisticated, smartphone-toting West. Nevertheless, Elop said, Nokia ships a whopping one million of these old-school mobiles every day. For millions in the developing world, they’re the only viable communications platform.

“Eighty percent of people around the world are within cell phone range, but only 20% of the global population is online,” he said.

By the end of the year, Elop said, Nokia would add maps and instant messaging to Series 40 phones, and ship millions more developer kits so that local vendors in the developing world could create applications relevant to their region.

It’s certainly a noble goal, and Elop surrounded himself with pictures of Nokia phones doing good work in the developing world — mapping new sources of fresh water in Kenya, boosting educational services in the Philippines. A billion people on the planet have no bank account but do have a mobile phone, Elop said, and that is certainly an enormous opportunity for a service like Nokia Money.

But if Nokia can’t simultaneously impress the Western world with a new range of smartphones, it may not be too many years before that pixel map goes completely dark in the U.S. and Europe — where phones like the series 30 and 40 are unlikely to hang on for much longer.

More About: Microso, Nokia, smartphone, social good, windows smartphone

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1000Memories Raises $2.5 Million to Help Digitally Memorialize Loved Ones

Posted: 16 Feb 2011 04:17 AM PST


1000Memories, a web service that helps digitally honor the memory of a loved one, has announced that it has closed a $2.5 million series A round of funding from Greylock Partners.

1000Memories gives friends and family an online destination to memorialize the recently departed. Its founders started the company after experiencing the impact of a death on Facebook and realizing that it wasn’t a sufficient or effective way to remember loved ones.

The company, originally funded by Y Combinator, has attracted a great deal of attention since its graduation from the startup accelerator’s program. Not long after its debut in August 2010, the company raised a $500k angel round from an all-star list of investors including Caterina Fake (Flickr), Paul Buchheit (Gmail, FriendFeed), Ben Ling (Google), Keith Rabois (Square, Slide), Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Chris Sacca and others. Its $2.5 million series A was not long after, a deal that closed in late 2010.

Greylock partner David Thacker will join 1000Memories’ board of directors as part of the new round of fnding. The startup also says that LinkedIn founder and Greylock partner Reid Hoffman is also providing the startup with strategic advice. In fact, the firm’s experience and background in social networking is the primary reason its team chose to go with Greylock over other firms. “We felt like they understood our product the best,” co-founder Rudy Adler said.

The company says it will use the fresh infusion of funds to hire more engineers and “make the best product possible.” Adler says that it will be converting the founding team’s San Francisco home into the company’s first official office. The team’s goal is to turn 1000Memories into one of the best storytelling platforms on the web and fill in a gaping problem currently affecting the social web.

More About: 1000Memories, funding, Greylock partners, ron conway, y combinator

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Facebook Promises Deep Integration on “Dozens” of Devices

Posted: 16 Feb 2011 03:16 AM PST


Hot on the heels of two recent device launches from INQ and HTC, with both companies adding Facebook integration and (in case of HTC’s Salsa and ChaCha) a physical Facebook button to their smartphones, Facebook promises many more devices to bring similar functionality this year.

“In addition to these new phones from INQ and HTC,” writes Facebook’s Charles Wu in an official blog post, “you’ll also be seeing similar deep Facebook integration on dozens of other devices over the course of this year. Some manufacturers will be highlighting Facebook as a part of their phones’ on-screen interfaces, and others will use our brand as an element of the device hardware itself.”

We’ve seen both approaches in the past, and Facebook – while shunning the thought of an official “Facebook phone” – seems to be intent on helping device manufacturers integrate Facebook with their phone’s software.

Facebook’s approach to this integration is a bit more high-key than Twitter’s, whose CEO Dick Costolo recently said that Twitter is “like water” and that “Twitter already works on every device you're going to hear about this week.” We’re fine with either approach; we’re not sold on the concept of the “Facebook button,” but we definitely believe that the smartphones of the future must have deep social network integration.

“We believe almost anything is better when it’s social, and this year we’ll continue to invest in new technologies so you have a great Facebook experience no matter where you go,” concludes Wu.

More About: facebook, Facebook Phone, htc, INQ, integration, phone, smartphone, social networking

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Become a Record Label Employee With Crowdfunding Site

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 10:48 PM PST


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

Name: My Major Company

Quick Pitch: This online, fan-funded record label — which recently launched in the UK — mixes traditional A&R and crowdfunding.

Genius Idea: You know how your one friend in that kind of terrible synth band raised a ton of money on Kickstarter to go on “tour” (a.k.a. a road trip to Jersey, Maryland and maybe New York)? That was a wash, huh? Well, My Major Company adheres to the Kickstarter model in some respects, but diverges in ways that contribute to quality control and reward fans for their loyalty and money.

The first iteration of My Major Company launched in France in 2008. The premise was basically that fans and artists could join the service — fans as investors, because they were called upon to contribute money to an artist in order to get his career off the ground. According to CEO Paul-Rene Albertini — ex-CEO of Warner Music International — the model was very successful, launching 10 bands. Albertini counts Gregoire — a popular musician in France — as the service’s most exemplary artist.

My Major Company — which plans to expand to more countries come summer — just recently launched in the UK, where the model has changed slightly. In the UK so far, the service has mixed in a little more traditional A&R, selecting around 12 musicians to feature that fans can invest in.

Unlike services like Sellaband — where fans can help bands tour or buy a van, etc — MMC has a more overarching goal: to launch the career of an artist.

An artist must raise 100,000 pounds (around $161,200.12) in order to reap the benefits of funds raised. With that money they can release an album, go on tour and market their music. Fans can also interact with the bands, who can ask investors for advice with regard to the production and release of the album.

Fans, in turn, receive 40% of all revenue their bands raise, bands get 20%, and MMC gets 40%. Still, the 40% that MMC rakes in can also be allotted to the band if they need more cash for another project.

Albertini sees a need for MMC due to the shrinking music industry. “This generation needs professional support to monetize,” he says. “Record labels cannot sign the 10 artists that they used to sign, now they sign two. So we offer a solution whereby we can take on more artists, but we put the same muscle behind them to break them into the market professionally.”

He adds that the time is right for such a movement, given the nature of this new crop of artists. “There’s a new generation of artists out there, the DIY generation,” he says. “I personally think that the new generation of artists is savvier than it has ever been in the past. They have access to all possible information and all sources of information through the web. They know how to position themselves out in the world.”

Right now, the UK service is more of a closed society — think Crowdbands, which chooses which artists fans can interact with — this means artists can’t just apply to be featured on the site. Two such artists have already been funded (more info on those bands here). Still, Albertini says that MMC will open up to the wider community soon.

What do you think of this investment model? Would you dish out cash to a promising band if you got a piece of the pie in the end?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, shulz

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

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

More About: music, My-Major-Company, spark-of-genius, startup

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IBM’s Watson Dominates Humanity in Jeopardy

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 10:11 PM PST


IBM supercomputer Watson has defeated two of the Jeopardy‘s greatest players, and it wasn’t even close.

In the second day of Jeopardy‘s three day “Man vs. Machine” special, Watson wiped the floor with Ken Jennings (a 74-time champion) and Brad Rutter (a 20-time champion). Ken Jennings ended day two with $4,800 and Brad Rutter ended with $10,400, while Watson took home $35,734 in prize winnings. Out of 30 answers, Watson was first to buzz in on 25 of them, getting all but one of them right.

Very little stumped IBM’s artificial intelligence project. It even knew about Saturday Night Live‘s Church Lady character. Watson got an answer about art wrong, and it was stumped on an answer about a theft of a Titian portrait, though nobody had the correct response.

Jennings and Rutter did beat Watson in Final Jeopardy though; they knew which city’s largest airport is named after a World War II hero and second largest after a World War II battle. While the human players responded correctly with “What Is Chicago?”, Watson demonstrated its confusion with five question marks after its response of “What Is Toronto?????”

It didn’t matter, though; Watson knew it had the lead and only risked $947 on its final response of the evening.

Watson, named after IBM’s iconic founder, is a project seven years in the making. Its DeepQA software powers its hundreds of simultaneous algorithmic calculations, which help the machine parse human speech patterns, check them against its vast database of knowledge, and provide a most likely answer and a confidence level for that answer. To run all those algorithms, Watson is powered by 90 32-core IBM Power 750 Express servers and 16 terabytes of memory.

Wednesday concludes the three-day Jeopardy Man vs. Machine challenge. Can Jennings and Rutter pull off a comeback and redeem the human race? Who are you rooting for?

More About: IBM, Jeopardy, Sueprcomputer, watson

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Doxo Raises $10 Million for Paperless Billing

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 09:00 PM PST


Digital file cabinet and paperless billing startup Doxo is announcing a $10 million in Series B financing Wednesday. The round was led by new investor Sigma Partners and included participation from previous investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and Bezos Expeditions.

Doxo’s ultimate aim is to help people go paper-free with service providers. Users can theoretically receive, organize, pay and file all of their bills in a single place, while service providers can work with the startup to help customers go paperless.

We first looked at Doxo post private beta launch in October. Back then, the startup felt like a very early stage company with a mission larger than the size of its britches. For starters, most users need to manually download their bills and account information from providers and then upload them to Doxo — that doesn’t exactly introduce convenience into the bill management process.

Investors seem sold on the idea, however. Perchance, that interest is piqued by the provider side to Doxo’s service.

“Businesses spend more than $30 billion each year on mailing bills and other documents and need an innovative approach to drive paperless adoption,” says Doxo’s newest board member and Sigma Partners managing director Greg Gretsch. “We see Doxo as a critical catalyst to address this challenge.”

To that end, the Seattle-based startup just signed on Puget Sound Energy as a partner provider. The utility company’s customers can now use Doxo to go paperless.

Doxo’s latest $10 million round adds more cushion on top the $5.25 million the startup raised last year. The fresh funds will help the company hire new team members, ramp up sales efforts and finance additional product development.

Image courtesy of Flickr, canonsnapper

More About: Bezos Expeditions, doxo, funding, Mohr Davidow Ventures, paperless, series b, Sigma Partners

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Startup Lets Anyone Invest in Socially Conscious Upstarts

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 08:06 PM PST


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

Name: 33needs

Quick Pitch: 33needs helps socially conscious startups raise money through small investments from ordinary people.

Genius Idea: Crowdfunding is changing the way ideas, projects and even films get funded. The model gives people the power to vote with financial donations for the ideas they want to see come to life. 33needs is a two week-old startup with a similar purpose, but on its platform, those who contribute funds become investors in the startups, instead of just becoming donors.

As seen with Kickstarter, startups can set up shop on 33needs to raise a set amount of funding in an allotted period of time from a community of unknown contributors. Unlike Kickstarter, 33needs startups have a social mission — though they’re still for-profit — and contributors can help them raise funds by making financial investments in denominations of their choosing.

The investments are not your traditional equity plays. Instead, contributors get a percentage of revenue for a set amount of time. For instance, a startup could offer its 33needs investor community 5% of its revenue over the course of three years.

33needs takes an all or nothing approach to social investing. If a startup reaches its goal, 33needs takes 5% of the funds raised. If the startup fails to raise the funds specified, investors get their money back and 33needs also walks away empty handed.

The crowdfunding model has been proven time and again, but 33needs approach is still being vetted by Internet denizens. Two weeks post launch, there’re no successful funding stories to report.

Founder Josh Tetrick, however, points to More than Me as a socially conscious startup that may hit its goal before the allotted time runs out — there are just 15 days remaining. The company aims to manufacture laptop slip covers, sell them on college campuses and use the proceeds to fund the education of girls in Liberia. It has accrued $1,231 in funding from 34 investors, but needs to reach $3,000 in order for the round to close.

“In just two weeks, they have attracted 34 impact investors, picked up three interns and have been approached by a handful of places interested in eventually selling their product,” says Tetrick. “For us, it goes beyond just the money; it’s also about helping the startups build a community of supporters around their idea.”

Ironically, 33needs is itself exploring traditional venture funding. The startup is a bootstrapped initiative, but is in talks with venture capital firms.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Samya_Photography

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

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

More About: 33needs, crowdfunding, social good, spark-of-genius

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App Developers Unhappy With Apple’s New Subscription Service

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 06:40 PM PST


Dissension against Apple’s new in-app subscription policies is growing, with streaming music service Rhapsody openly opposing the new policy while publishers mull potential courses of action, including litigation.

Earlier today, Apple launched its long-rumored subscription service, giving iOS application developers the ability to integrate recurring monthly subscriptions within their apps. The caveat though is that Apple will require a 30% revenue cut for in-app subscriptions and sign-ups.

Workarounds aren’t allowed, either; if a publisher offers a digital subscription outside of its iOS app, it must offer the same subscription offer at the same price or less to customers who wish to subscribe within the apps. Developers also are no longer allowed to provide links that prompt customers to purchase content outside of the app.

The changes are not sitting well with some developers, though. A representative for the Online Publishers Association, which represents Time, Bloomberg and other media outlets, expressed reservations about Apple’s new policies. A Sony exec recently said Apple is holding publishers ransom. The policy changes are a hot topic of conversation on popular developer community Hacker News. And finally, WSJ reports that Apple could face antitrust scrutiny for exerting “anticompetitive pressures on price.”

None of that compares to the statement Rhapsody President John Irwin made today, though. In no uncertain terms, he called Apple’s plan “economically untenable” and even hinted at a potential lawsuit.

From his statement:

“Our philosophy is simple too – an Apple-imposed arrangement that requires us to pay 30 percent of our revenue to Apple, in addition to content fees that we pay to the music labels, publishers and artists, is economically untenable. The bottom line is we would not be able to offer our service through the iTunes store if subjected to Apple's 30 percent monthly fee vs. a typical 2.5 percent credit card fee.”

However, it’s the last line that’s the most ominous:

“We will be collaborating with our market peers in determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development.”

Will developer ire die down or escalate as the June deadline approaches for developers to update their apps? Our guess is this is probably just the beginning.

Image via Flickr, fPat

More About: apple, In-app subscriptions, iOS, iOS apps, publishers, rhapsody

Just How Open Is Your Internet? [INFOGRAPHICS]

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 04:22 PM PST

world image

America, the champion of democracy and freedom, actually has more Internet censorship than some countries in Africa and South America according to an infographic based on Internet censorship research conducted by the OpenNet Initiative.

The U.S. and Canada are listed as “some censorship” along with much of Western Europe. Russia and Australia ranked lower as “Under Surveillance,” while China and parts of the Middle East ranked at the bottom for “Pervasive Censorship.”

As for what kinds of content is censored, the research found that “blogs” were the most censored content at 20% while “militant groups” only ranked at 1%. Surprisingly, locally focussed NGOs tied for third-most censored at 9%.

content image

Even though the research from OpenNet comes from top minds at at The Citizen Lab, University of Toronto, and the Harvard Law School, it raises some inherent problems with defining “censorship.” For example, screening out child pornography and illegal file sharing technically registers as “censorship” even though most people wouldn’t consider that a human rights offense. It would be naive, however, to assume that all that surveillance was well-intentioned, especially when applied in countries that restrict social networking sites or limit access to the Internet.

Perhaps that’s why locally focussed NGO’s sometimes rank so highly in types of censored content. Quashing protest or opposition is much different from removing illegal content. Even still, it’s strange to see local efforts so outrank international NGOs, regional NGOs and even independent media.

It’s also possible that the results could be skewed by the quantity of people on the Internet and their available bandwidth.

venn image

The OpenNet research and the infographic (created by a Design & Technology MFA candidate at Parsons, NY) is imperfect. Still, it offers an interesting glimpse at how “developed” countries stack up against the rest of the world and what content — if any — is targeted for censorship. You can sign a petition against censorship at the bottom of the graphics page.

Let us know your thoughts and conclusions in the comments below.

More About: censorship, government, infographic, infographics, ngo, ngos, non-profit, social media, trending

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Britney Spears Builds YouTube Buzz With Super-Short Video Teasers

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 03:16 PM PST


Fans have decided that Britney Spears is good in small doses.

The performer’s super-short teasers for her new video “Hold It Against Me,” seem to be building some buzz and getting her name circulated again. According to YouTube, the teasers have been getting good traffic despite their short length and are building interest for the video’s release on Thursday.

For instance, a 5-second teaser (embedded below) released on February 4 has gotten close to 2.5 million hits on YouTube so far, despite offering no music and little coherency. Meanwhile, the 11 clips she’s released since then — all of similar length — have gotten a total of 10 million views, according to YouTube Trends.

The video tease came after Spears released the audio of “Hold It Against Me” back in January, a clip that has so far gotten 5 million views. Spears’s consistent release of new material also helped maintain her position as the top Twitter Trend topic last week.

As YouTube’s research indicates, Spears is building a lot of buzz for her next album, which is due in March. On the other hand, Spears’s popularity on Facebook is lagging. Spears currently has 8 million Facebook fans vs. 28 million for Lady Gaga and 20 million for the Oreo-crushing Lil Wayne.

What do you think? Is Britney or whoever’s running her YouTube campaign a marketing genius or does this reek of desperation?

More About: britney spears, youtube

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How Open Data Initiatives Can Improve City Life

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 02:21 PM PST


Major city governments across North America are looking for ways to share civic data — which normally resides behind secure firewalls — with private developers who can leverage it to serve city residents via web and mobile apps. Cities can spend on average between $20,000 and $50,000 — even as much as $100,000 — to cover the costs of opening data, but that’s a small price to pay when you consider how much is needed to develop a custom application that might not be nearly as useful.

Here are a few examples of initiatives that are striving to make city governments more efficient and transparent through open data.

1. Apps4Ottawa – Ottawa, Quebec

Careful to adhere to security and privacy regulations for their open data program, the City of Ottawa started sharing data in several areas: geo-spatial (roadways, parks, runways, rivers, and ward boundaries); recreation facilities; event planning; civic elections data; and transit, including schedules. Other data the city is pursuing includes tree inventory, collections schedules for garbage, recycling and compost, and bike and foot paths.

Ottawa aligned their first open data contest, Apps4Ottawa, with the school year (September 2010 to January 2011 ) to involve colleges and universities as well as residents and local industry. Categories for the contest included “Having Fun in Ottawa,” “Getting Around,” “Green Environment/Sustainability,” “Community Building,” and “Economic Development.” The winner is scheduled to be announced later this evening.

Guy Michaud, chief information officer for the City of Ottawa, said their open data efforts have already spurred economic development and is meant to be good for local entrepreneurs. The city receives no revenue through the apps, and the developers can sell what they create. In turn, Ottawa residents get improved services from applications that are created, with better access to city data and more user-friendly formats and platforms.

2. CivicApps.org – Portland, Oregon

After tracking Vivek Kundra’s efforts at the federal level with data.gov, Portland, Oregon launched CivicApps.org, a project initiated out of the mayor’s office to bring a more localized approach to the open data movement. Skip Newberry, economic policy advisor to the mayor, say that the project’s main objective is to improve connections and the flow of information between local government and its constituents, as well as between city bureaus. To call attention to the release of public data, they also launched an app design contest, highlighting the tech talent in Portland’s software community.

According to Rick Nixon, program manager for the Bureau of Technology’s Open Data Initiative for the city of Portland, CivicApps.org took a more regional approach to cover the multiple layers of local government: County, Metro, TriMet, and the City of Portland, all of which collect and maintain various kinds of public data. Data sets released include regional crime, transit, infrastructure (i.e. public works), and economic development programs. Additional projects, such as the PDX API, have been launched in order to make the raw data from CivicApps more useful to developers.

In addition to developer-specific apps, a number of transit related apps — bike, train, bus, mixed modes — were also developed. A very popular and established transit app, PDXBus, was re-released as open source under the rules of the CivicApps contest. Other popular apps helped provide residents greater awareness of their surroundings such as where to find heritage trees, where to find urban edibles, and where to locate each other during disaster relief efforts.

3. CityWide Data Warehouse – Washington, DC

For years, the District of Columbia provided public access to city operational data via the Internet. In keeping with the mayor’s promise to be transparent, the program CityWide Data Warehouse was launched, and provides citizens with access to over 450 datasets from multiple agencies. The first two datasets released were service requests from the mayor’s call center, including trash pickup, pot hole repair, street light repair, snow removal, parking meter issues and crime data.

According to David Stirgel, program manager for Citywide Data Warehouse, the project looks for data that be of interest to the widest possible audience and which will remain reusable over time. Some of the applications that have come out of the program include Track DC, which tracks the performance of individual District agencies, and summary reports that provide public access to city operational data. Some of the applications built by companies and individuals using the data include Crime Reports and Every Block.

In 2008, the District Mayor’s office, the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, and digital agency iStrategyLabs launched Apps for Democracy, an open code app development contest tapping into District data that cost $50,000 and generated 47 apps. The contest was repeated in 2009. Over 200 ideas and applications were submitted, and the winner was an iPhone and Facebook app called Social DC 311. It could be used to submit service requests, such as reporting potholes and trash problems. An honorable mention was given to FixMyCityDC. Unfortunately, neither app is maintained today.

4. NYC Data Mine – New York, NY

NYC BigApps 2.0 is part of an initiative to improve the accessibility, transparency, and accountability of city government. According to Brandon Kessler, CEO of ChallengePost, the company and technology powering the NYC BigApps 2.0 Software Challenge, Mayor Bloomberg challenged software developers to use city data from the NYC.gov Data Mine to create apps to improve NYC, offering a $20,000 in cash awards to the winners.

The second annual challenge closed its call for submissions at the end of January 2011 and opened the vote to the public. Voting ends on March 9. Requirements included that the software applications be original and solely owned by the entrants, that they use at least one of the datasets from the NYC.gov Data Mine, and be free to the public throughout the competition and for at least one year after the challenge. The panel of judges reads like a “who’s who” of New York tech luminaries, and includes Esther Dyson of EDVenture, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter, and Kara Swisher of All Things Digital. One of the first year’s winning apps was WayFinder, an augmented reality Android app which allows users to point their phone in a direction and see which subways and Path trains are in front of them.

5. DataSF – San Francisco, California

Like other city governments, San Francisco’s goal for their DataSF program was to improve transparency and community engagement as well as accountability. Ron Vinson, director of media for the city’s Department of Technology also stated potential for innovation in how residents interact with government and their community. With an emphasis on adhering to privacy and security policies, the city can stimulate the creation of useful civic tools at no cost to the government.

Before launching, they reached out to Washington, DC to identify the most popular datasets, and learned that 20% of the datasets represented over 80% of the downloads. With this information, they went out first with crime, 311, and GIS data. They also allowed the public to request data through a submissions mechanism on the website where others could vote on their suggestions. This input is now required reading for the city administrator thanks to an executive directive and open data legislation.

Since launching in August 2009, DataSF has accumulated over 60 applications in its showcase. According to Vinson, the city stays engaged with their tech community by participating in local unconferences and meetups.

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Veni

More About: app development, apps, data, government, List, Lists, open data, Web Development

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Intel Faces an Uphill Battle to Get Its Chips onto Smartphones

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 02:01 PM PST


Intel CFO Stacy Smith has something to say to British smartphone chip designer ARM: Our new chips are better than yours.

During his keynote at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Smith discussed the company’s strategy for 2011 and beyond, especially in the mobile space. The Intel CFO made it clear that the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and mobile devices is an opportunity, not a challenge, to Intel’s dominance of the chip space. Instead of shipping “hundreds of millions” of silicon-based chips, Intel now has the opportunity to ship “billions of units.”

That was when Smith pulled out an envelope from his jacket and showed off Intel’s new mobile smartphone chip, Medfield. The Atom-based chip, revealed at Mobile World Congress yesterday, reduces its processor to 32 nanometers, down from the 45 nanometers of the Moorestown chip.

The key though is that Medfield supports Google’s Android OS. In fact, Smith says that it has twice the performance capability of an ARM chip in the same device. The company is also touting its battery life as superior to ARM-based chips. They are in production now and should be in phones later this year.

Intel has an uphill battle in the smartphone market, though. ARM has a major lead in the mobile chip market, thanks to its low-power architecture and slew of partners (Qualcomm being the leader). The vast majority of new Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices utilize chips built on ARM’s technology. And now that Nokia has decided to adopt Windows Phone 7 as its primary OS, Intel has lost yet another partner in the smartphone market.

Even if Intel’s new Medfield chip indeed “blows ARM out of the water,” you can bet that the British firm will come back with new chip designs of its own. So while there are more devices than ever utilizing silicon chips, Intel is going to have to get creative to convince mobile device companies to drop ARM for its offering instead.

More About: android, arm, enterprise, intel

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Watch Fashion Blogging Icon Bryanboy 24 Hours Live During Fashion Week [VIDEO]

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 01:55 PM PST

Beginning 9 a.m. Wednesday, February 16, the doings of fashion-blogger-turned-industry-icon Bryan Grey-Yambao, better known as Bryanboy, will be streamed for 24 hours live on kanonvodka.com.

The initiative is designed to give online viewers a glimpse into the admittedly fabulous life of an industry figure who, only a few years ago, was very much an industry outsider. Bryan began blogging from his family home in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, at the age of 17. Now he claims to make more than $100,000 per year from advertising on his personality-driven blog and appearance fees.

Viewers will be able to tweet questions to Bryan throughout the day, as well as vote on what parties he should attend.

“I wish I could live stream my life all the time,” he said at the Diesel Black Gold Fall Winter 2011 show on Tuesday afternoon. “It would be a lot easier than uploading images to my blog.”

More About: bryanboy, fashion, fashion week, kanon organic vodka, MARKETING, new york fashion week, nyfw

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10 Online Tools and Tips for the Budding Entrepreneur

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 01:31 PM PST

piggy bank image

Scott Gerber is a serial entrepreneur, syndicated columnist, public speaker and author of Never Get a “Real” Job. The content of this post was sourced from the Young Entrepreneur Council, a non-profit led by the world’s top young entrepreneurs. You can submit your questions to this group on YoungEntrepreneurCouncil.com.

Budding business owners should go virtual wherever and whenever possible. In a fledgling startup, the last thing you need to worry about is excessive infrastructure or expensive overhead. It’s already a difficult enough task to generate income and garner clients. Why spend that precious revenue on something as useless as an office space?

Your ego might try to get the best of you, telling you that your business needs that fancy schmancy corner office with a city view. But unless your ego has a few hundred thousand dollars to cough up for rent and amenities, kindly tell it to shut up.

Plain and simple: The vast majority of startups — and more established businesses for that matter — don’t need a whole lot. In the last several years there have been a multitude of virtual business services that have become essential to millions of business owners. But in a world of apps and redundant SaaS, which programs and services are best for your business? I asked a panel of successful young entrepreneurs what virtual tools they use to stay lean, effective and productive.

1. Cloud Computing is Essential

kabani imageAs someone who has built a completely virtual company with 25 employees, I can honestly tell you that reliable cloud computing is essential. And, the more you can consolidate web services, the better. We use Google Apps Premiere which, aside from being an excellent substitute for an exchange server, also includes the ability to store and share documents, create groups, and share a calendar.

- Shama Kabani

Company Name: MarketingZen

Twitter: @Shama

Facebook: Shama Kabani:

2. “Virtual” Doesn’t Mean “Alone”

macneil imageWhether you work in an office, at home, at a coffee shop, or on a beach, people are your most valuable asset. Elance.com can be a virtual entrepreneur’s human resources department for hiring and managing people who can offset your strengths. Use it to find your logo designer, website developer, virtual assistant, and other people who can help you build a successful virtual business.

- Natalie MacNeil

Company Name: Imaginarius

Twitter: @NatalieMacneil

Facebook: Natalie MacNeil

3. Project Management is Essential

dwivedi imageI love BaseCamp. It has made us [nearly] 100% virtual! It has every possible feature for project management, and other products from 37signals’ suite [can] add whatever else you fancy! It’s inexpensive and easy to use because once you’ve subscribed, anyone, e.g. your clients, vendors, and employees, can simply join in via web without … downloading or signing up.

- Devesh Dwivedi

Company Name: BreakingThe9to5Jail.com

Twitter: @Break9to5Jail

Facebook: BreakingThe9toJail

4. Know the “Must-Haves”

lautman imageI have a completely virtual business at this point and the services that are [an] absolute must for me are Gmail for e-mail, dropbox.com for online storage, skype.com for international calling and IM, Google Voice [for] calling into the U.S. when I am abroad, Google Docs to share Documents in real time and — yes — Facebook, which allows me to stay connected to my business and personal contacts no matter where I am in the world.

- Louis Lautman

Company Name: Young Entrepreneur Society

Twitter: @louislautman

Facebook: LouisLautman

5. Take Advantage of Subscription Services

mickiewicz imageIt’s cheaper and easier to create a virtual office than ever before. Start off by getting a mailbox at a local UPS or FedEx Kinko’s, get setup with a toll-free phone number through Grasshopper.com, register a professional domain name at NameCheap.com, and get business cards and marketing material from VistaPrint or PrintingForLess.com.

- Matt Mickiewicz

Company Name: 99designs

Twitter: @sitepointmatt

6. Keep Your Systems Simple

healy imageI currently run one of my businesses virtually and I believe it’s increased efficiency and substantially lowered costs. Some web services I suggest are GotomyPC for international access to one base hard drive, and Evernote for paperless document and image management. More features are not always better. Remember, keep your systems simple.

- Kent Healy

Company Name: DontGetBurnedBlog.com

Twitter: @Kent_Healy

Facebook: Kent Healy

7. Utilize an Online Fax Service

bodi imageFaxing is still a huge part of running a business, but if you do this activity online it can save you a bit of money. You don't need a printer, toner, or ink and it makes it easy to transfer if you move rather than setting up a new line every time. I recommend Grasshopper or eVoice to help your small business stay mobile and on the go. Both services are awesome and help you with everything you need.

- Ashley Bodi

Company Name: Business Beware

Twitter: @BusinessBeware

Facebook: Ashley Bodi

8. Make Use of Virtual Offices

ruby imageAfter a year and a half in business, I moved into my first office at Stark Office Suites. It was the best decision I ever made. I was able to move in and start working immediately without worrying about Internet or phones, and I even have a receptionist answering calls for me. If you are on a shoestring budget, utilize services like Stark Office Suites or Regus, which will keep your overhead to a minimum.

- Kris Ruby

Company Name: Ruby Media Group LLC

Twitter: @sparklingruby

Facebook: Kris Ruby

9. Outsource Your Engineering to oDesk — For Cheap!

bahn imageIf you’re building a web-based business, I highly recommend that you go to oDesk.com to hire low-cost engineering talent. oDesk is a directory of international contractors. Take some time to interview and vet the engineers with high ratings and lots of logged contract hours — it’s a good filter for finding good talent initially.

- Eric Bahn

Company Name: Beat the GMAT

Twitter: @beatthegmat

Facebook: Beat The GMAT

10. Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

saunders imageBefore buying anything, make the best use of what you already have at your disposal. For instance, your current software, e-mail provider, phone service, and office equipment may be most — if not all — of what you need to start. Also, you can begin with free web services like ZOHO CRM and upgrade after your business has earned the cash to pay for new purchases.

- Elizabeth Saunders

Company Name: Real Life E®

Twitter: @RealLifeE

Facebook: Time Coaching

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- How Brands Can Make the Most of Facebook’s New Pages
- 5 Tips to Strengthen Your Company's Social Media Voice
- Why Permission Marketing Is the Future of Online Advertising
- Why Influencer Marketing Needs to Go Beyond Follower Counts
- 10 Online Strategies for Your Next Product Launch

Image courtesy of Flickr, SimonTheSnowman

More About: business, virtual tools, web apps

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What Happened Tuesday at Mobile World Congress

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 12:35 PM PST


The Mobile World Congress Series is supported by Snapdragon by Qualcomm. Inside your smartphone beats the heart of a dragon.

This being Barcelona, it seems fitting that day two of Mobile World Congress kicked off with a little ChaCha and Salsa. Those are the names of HTC’s new phones with Facebook buttons (not to be confused with the so-called Facebook phone from INQ, which can only be viewed by appointment, behind glass and beyond a velvet rope). HTC deluged the show with six products in all, five Android phones and a 7-inch Android tablet, the Flyer.

HTC wasn’t alone. Everyone seems to be joining the Android tablet party. Samsung and LG unveiled theirs yesterday; today it was the turn of HTC, Huwei and ViewSonic. Huwei’s entry was the Ideos Slim S7, which as the name suggests is yet another 7-inch tablet, running the very retro Android 2.2. ViewSonic, which already offers 7-inch and 10-inch tablets, launched a 4.1-inch ViewPad, also running Android 2.2. Which begs the question: How small can a tablet get before it’s simply a large smartphone with connectivity disabled?

Riding high on the waves of Android adulation at the show — there’s even an entire “Android village” stuffed with giant green robot icons, one of which you can slide down — outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the stage for his keynote address. He promised updates to the Android OS every six months or so, and that from now on, Google would combine the best features of the smartphone OS and the tablet OS. Which could well mean a lot more blurring of the lines between tablet and phone. Meanwhile, Sony Ericsson has been blurring the lines between phone and PlayStation, and we took a look at the result.


LG Optimus 3D





Formula One Racecar





Motorola Pro





NTT Docomo





NTT Docomo





Panasonic Lumix





Samsung Galaxy S Wi-Fi 5.0





Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1




Series Supported by Snapdragon by Qualcomm

The Mobile World Congress Series is supported by Snapdragon by Qualcomm. Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset platform is redefining mobility by offering an optimal combination of mobile processing performance, powerful multimedia, wireless connectivity and power efficiency. The Snapdragon family of chipsets is designed to power a new generation of advanced smartphones, tablets, and other smart devices.

More About: mobile phones, Mobile World Congress, Mobile World Congress Series, MWC, MWC2011

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Lil Wayne Crushing Oreo’s Attempt at Facebook Record

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 12:33 PM PST


That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Oreo’s attempt to set a Guinness World Record for Facebook “likes” appears to have been in vain now that Lil Wayne has weighed in. The rap star tapped his 20 million Facebook fans to challenge Oreo’s attempt this afternoon and within an hour got close to 200,000 “likes,” trouncing Oreo’s 56,615 at the same time.

Compare:

Since Lil Wayne started his attempt at least four hours later than Oreo, he has the time advantage, too. It’s unclear, however, if Lil Wayne needed to register with the Guinness people before the event, as the Oreo team had. Reps from Guinness could not be reached for comment and a Kraft rep declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Mazy Kazerooni, Lil Wayne’s digital manager, says that the idea was to show the star’s social media prowess. “I want people to think ‘Bieber, Gaga and Lil Wayne.’ The traffic we do is ridiculous and no one really knows,” Kazerooni says.

More About: facebook, lil wayne, oreo, trending

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Evernote Competitor Catch.com Raises $7 Million

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 11:33 AM PST


App developer Catch.com announced on Tuesday that it has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Excel Venture Management.

The company’s flagship product is note-taking app Catch Notes, which allows users to capture text, images and locations to create a “private feed” virtual notebook. The company is also behind the popular Android Compass app and AK Notepad app. All together, its Android apps have been downloaded more than 13 million times.

Catch.com’s open API is integrated into a number of top apps including Free Dictionary, BBC News, DailyHoroscope and Favorite Recipes.

The company, founded in 2008 as Snaptic.com, raised a $2.3 million seed round last June that was also led by Excel. It says it will use the new round of funding to accelerate growth of its notes apps.

Catch.com isn’t the first virtual note-taking developer with an API to grab investor attention. In October, Catch.com competitor Evernote raised $20 million in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital to expand internationally.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, chieferu

More About: Catch.com, evernote, Excel Venture Management, funding

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PayPal Founder: Facebook Could Become One of the More Valuable Companies in the World

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 11:19 AM PST


Max Levchin — Google VP of engineering and founder of PayPal and Slide — argues that Facebook will become a serious contender to become one of the more valuable companies in the world if it can “successfully replace core messaging.”

At the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco, Levchin and Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley answered questions about “game-changing technology.” During their fireside chat, the moderator raised the question of Facebook’s unprecedented growth and its impact.

“Facebook has all but successfully monopolized White Pages,” Levchin said, explaining that when you want to find and connect with someone, you go to Facebook. Unlike the White Pages though, Facebook also has information on a person’s interests, likes and social graph.

That alone has turned Facebook into a $50 billion company. However, Levchin says that that becoming the repository for personal information could result “in Facebook successfully replacing core messaging.” If it becomes the web’s primary communication platform, it could become one of the more valuable companies in the world.

Levchin quickly stressed that Facebook’s business shouldn’t be confused with demand generation or demand discovery — a.k.a. search, Google’s specialty. The PayPal co-founder says that he’s read that social graph signals have not been particularly effective in optimizing search-related advertising. Benchmark Capital’s Gurley agreed, arguing that social signals might deliver untargeted ads at inappropriate times.

In fact, Levchin argues that Twitter may be a better advertising platform because following a brand or expert on Twitter is more likely to deliver credible information and advice than your friends, who are likely not experts in biking, finance or other subjects. Gurley, on the other hand, believes there may be a middle ground between search and social by bringing together people with similar interests. For instance, a combination of search and social could help fans of biking in the same city find each other and swap advice and stories.

Levchin and Gurley also discussed the issues facing Microsoft, a lumbering tech giant whose core software businesses are being attacked by the likes of Apple, Google and countless startups. “I think it’s a classic problem of having a massive revenue stream,” Levchin said, explaining that companies with giant revenue streams tend to protect their investments rather than innovate and adopt new and risky business models.

At the end of the firside chat, Gurley made the argument that Google’s Android OS is one the most “disruptive moves in the history of business.” Unlike Microsoft and other software makers, Google gives away its software and sometimes even pays companies to use it. Gurley argues that this is a defensive move by Google to protect its search business. Google makes money off advertising in Android searches and wants to make sure its mobile search business interests are protected. The venture capitalist compared Google’s strategy to protecting a castle by charring all surrounding earth in a 250 mile radius, making it impossible for anybody to come near it.

Updated with correction to Levchin’s quote on Facebook as one of the world’s most valuable companies.

More About: facebook, Google, max levchin, paypal

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Want To Play at SXSW? Crowdsourced A&R Site Can Help You Out

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 11:01 AM PST


Are you a metal musician with the desperate urge to scream your heart out in Austin come March? Well, thanks to SignMeTo, the Roadrunner Records social network that lets fans take a crack at the A&R realm, you have a shot. Unless you’re terrible.

SignMeTo launched in 2010 to allow artists to get recognition via their fans. Basically, bands can sign up for free, and fans vote artists up for the chance to be heard — and signed — by Roadrunner Records.

Now the service will be helping one unsigned band make it in Austin, where it will play at the third annual Full Metal Texas showcase on March 17.

Basically, all a band needs to do is sign up for the service (it’s free) and tag its profile with “Full Metal Texas.” Fans can then vote their favorite bands up the Full Metal Texas chart, after which a panel of reps from Roadrunner and Full Metal Texas will choose a band to rock out in the South. The band will also receive $1,000 — apparently to get to Austin and back (err — have you all seen ticket prices of late?).

The winning band will be announced on March 9.

What do you think of the notion of crowdsourcing acts for Southby? Will you enter?

Photo courtesy of Flickr, George E. Norkus

More About: metal, roadrunner-records, signmeto, sxsw 2011

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5 Top Social Games and Why They’re So Successful

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 10:24 AM PST


The Social Gaming Development Series is supported by Level 3 Communications, an international provider of fiber-based communications services. Level 3 is committed to carrying digital media from anywhere to anywhere, in whatever format needed.

Around 68.7 million Americans will be playing social games by 2012, according to analysis firm eMarketer. A number like that might seem unreal, but it makes perfect sense. There’s something extraordinarily appealing about logging into Facebook or picking up your smartphone and instantly playing a game alongside countless other people across the world.

But why do the best social games work so well? How do they manage to connect us in ways we wouldn’t have thought possible just ten years ago? Let’s look at five of the most popular social games and try to figure out why they’re hits.

1. FarmVille

FarmVille is doing a lot of things right, really — that’s why close to 10% of all Facebook users play FarmVille. But one of the most ingenious mechanics in Zynga’s farm simulation game is the neighbor system. It’s easy enough to harvest crops and build up your farm alone, but when you do it with your Facebook friends, your productivity skyrockets exponentially. And if you’ve ever hopped onto your news feed only to be subjected to a deluge of FarmVille updates, you know just how tempting it can be to click around and see what the fuss is all about.

Either this is a metaphor for real farms, where workers have to cooperate to stay alive, or it’s just a ploy to get people to recruit one another so Zynga can harvest all of your money. The gaming company has used the social promotion lessons it learned from FarmVille to launch CityVille last year, which has already become the most popular game on Facebook with almost 100 million users (twice that of FarmVille).

2. Zuma Blitz

PopCap’s addictive ball matching game is fun to play in both short and long doses, but its real strength lies in its scoreboard. As you go about your business in Zuma’s Incan temple, you’ll see a set of rankings on the right side of your screen. Those rankings are constantly updated with your friends’ high scores, allowing you to talk smack as you compete with one another for slot number one. It’s a brilliant, simple, and effective technique that keeps players hooked for one simple reason: Bragging rights.

3. Words With Friends

Imagine if Scrabble was available on your phone 24/7. Now imagine that instead of playing against a computerized opponent, you could compete with any of your friends whenever you wanted, picking when to play each word at your own personal discretion. That’s Words With Friends.

Scrabble has always been immensely popular, so it’s easy to see why online Scrabble is just as lauded. Words With Friends works because it successfully emulates a classic game that everybody already understands — no need to worry about learning complicated new rules or devising intricate strategies. It’s just Scrabble!

4. Mafia Wars

Between The Godfather, The Sopranos, Goodfellas, and the countless other mob stories that have been both critically and commercially acclaimed over the years, it’s not hard to see why a game like Mafia Wars works. Though this Facebook mob simulator — which lets you recruit friends and form your own criminal organization — can’t be fairly compared to any of those classic pieces of pop culture, it’s certainly an impressive game that you can sink way too much time into. Teaming up with your buddies in order to fight mobsters, perform “jobs,” and pretend to be criminals is way more fun than it should be.

5. World of Warcraft

Sure, when you think World of Warcraft, you might picture the nerdier set — those who may have sacrificed hygiene and sleep to reach one more experience level. But the truth is that WoW is populated with players of all sorts of backgrounds, from rural housewives to NFL punters. The game currently boasts over 12 million subscribers, mostly because of its social capabilities. Instead of just fighting monsters or leveling up a character by yourself, you get to do it with thousands of other players and interact with them in many different ways ranging from personal e-mails to public online chats.

Most strikingly, World of Warcraft allows you to live a veritable second life. Girls can pretend to be boys; boys can pretend to be girls; human accountants can pretend to be elven mages. You can make friends and enemies, form relationships and even take on an entirely new persona. For better or worse, some people enjoy socializing on WoW more than real life, which may make it the most powerful social game out there. Oh, and Mila Kunis plays it, which might be a good reason to start.

Series Supported by Level 3

The Social Gaming Development Series is supported by Level 3 Communications, an international provider of fiber-based communications services. Level 3 is committed to carrying digital media from anywhere to anywhere, in whatever format needed. Its services can connect content from creation to consumption, over one of the world's most scalable end-to-end networks.

More Social Gaming Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Predictions for Game Mechanics in 2011
- 4 Misconceptions About Marketing in Social Games
- 6 Emerging Social Games Taking the Web by Storm
- HOW TO: Advertise Inside Social Games on Facebook

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, rubenhi

More About: farmville, Mafia Wars, social gaming, Social Gaming Development Series, words with friends, world of warcraft, zuma blitz

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Eric Schmidt: We Tried To Convince Nokia to Switch to Android

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 10:13 AM PST


Google’s Eric Schmidt closed up this busy Tuesday with the last keynote of the day at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and he did it by sharing some very positive (but also quite vague) thoughts, some stats and a new video-editing application, created specifically for Honeycomb-based tablets.

“Android is the fastest growing mobile platform in the world,” said Schmidt, emphasizing Google’s goals of making information more accessible to everyone, helping us do everyday tasks better and spend more time with the people we love.

Although most of what Schmidt said has been taken from the utopian mobile future playbook that’s always the topic of events such as the MWC, when you’ve got Google backing up those words they have a bit more weight.

Being incredibly careful to add “with your permission” every time he tackled the subject of privacy, Schmidt said that sharing information about ourselves will make search better. He mentioned the concept of autonomous search: For example, your phone might be searching for and delivering to you important information about your surroundings as you walk down the street.

“In the future,” said Schmidt, “You’re never lost. You’re never lonely. You’re never bored. And you’re never out of ideas.”

As for the recent partnership of Microsoft and Nokia, Schmidt said that Google “certainly tried” to convince Nokia to make the switch to Android. It seems that Microsoft was more convincing this time around.

The auditorium also got an exclusive peek at a new video-editing Android app aimed specifically at Honeycomb-based tablets such as the Motorola Xoom or the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The app lets you add still images to a video, apply various effects such as zooming, panning and fading out, underline all that with a music score, and quickly share it on YouTube. The last bit didn’t work at the live presentation, but to be honest, due to the huge amount of people constantly accessing Wi-Fi during MWC, most of the presentations failed with that regard.

Schmidt also shared a couple of interesting stats: Smartphones sales surpassed PC sales last week; Chrome has more than 120 million active users; and 35 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute, he said. Furthermore, according to Schmidt, YouTube has more than 2 billion views per day, and its revenue doubled in 2010.

More About: android, eric schmidt, Google, honeycomb, Mobile World Congress, MWC, MWC2011, video editing

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Bonnaroo 2011 Lineup Announced By Vevo & Conan O’Brien [VIDEO]

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 09:54 AM PST

The Bonnaroo 2011 lineup is officially on the table, courtesy of an announcement today on Vevo presented by Coco himself, Conan O’Brien.

The main artist lineup — which includes mystery band the Arcade Fire — hit Vevo today in the form of a video featuring social media savant Conan O’Brien. O’Brien doesn’t utter any band names per se, but he does repeat the word “Bonnaroo” copiously. The full lineup can be found at Bonnaroo.com.

Last year, the festival took a much more elaborate route for its lineup announcement, partnering with MySpace (R.I.P. perhaps soon) and participating bands to reveal the acts throughout the day. Personally, I’m glad that this year’s method is a bit simpler — and decidedly bereft of cuckoo clocks.

More About: bonnaroo-2011, conan o'brien, vevo

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HANDS ON: Sony Ericsson’s “PlayStation Phone”

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 09:36 AM PST


The Sony Ericsson booth at Mobile World Congress is much like any other at the week-long event in Barcelona: neon lighting, shag carpeting and racks of phones on large plastic stands. But most of the phones are looking distinctly unloved. Just one of their brethren is getting all the attention — the Xperia Play, informally (and more appropriately) known as the PlayStation Phone.

The Xperia Play is an Android phone where the slide-out keyboard has been replaced by slide-out PlayStation controls for easy gaming. Yesterday, Sony announced the Xperia Play would be available sometime this spring worldwide; in the U.S. it will be carried on Verizon. Some 50 games, many of them classics from the PlayStation One, will be ready at launch, according to Sony Ericcson. You’ll be able to buy them through a virtual PlayStation store, accessed via the Android Marketplace.

I had the opportunity to take the Xperia Play for a test run, and I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable I found it. I’ve owned several PlayStations in my lifetime, but I’ve never been much of a fan of the platform. I had zero interest in the PSP, the pricey portable gaming platform that has been losing out to the more innovative (and cheaper) Nintendo DS. Neither seemed like devices I had room to carry around. I’m not alone: In December, a report by research firm Interpret showed a significant rise in smartphone gaming and a decline in PSP/DS use.

But the Xperia Play isn’t merely a PSP with phone functionality added on. It has been redesigned from the ground up. On the surface, it looks and acts like a respectable, regular touchscreen phone running Android 2.3, or Gingerbread. It wouldn’t immediately tip your boss off to your status as a gamer. Wait until the boss goes out of the room, however, and you can slide out the panel with the game buttons. This has triggers on the back, and a pair of touchpads that act as joysticks.

I found the touchpads actually easier to handle than joysticks or the D-pad (arrow keys). Moreover, I was surprised to learn, the screen itself remains touch-sensitive when in game mode. This means that games for the Xperia will have more kinds of input at their disposal than a Sony PSP, a Nintendo DS or an iPhone. For that matter it has more potential inputs than a PlayStation3, or any other console.

Of course, whether all those inputs are used in games depends on game developers. Only a few of the launch games I sampled — which included FIFA 10, Asphalt 6 and Bruce Lee — were optimized for the touchpad joysticks. Then again, it took iPhone game developers a while to catch on to all the possibilities inherent in that device, and now you’d be hard-pressed to find an iPhone game that doesn’t use the accelerometer. The Xperia Play designers deliberately left out an accelerometer, convinced that gamers don’t want to swoop their phone around the room while playing. Perhaps that was one input too many.

More About: android, sony, sony playstation, Sony PSP, trending, Xperia

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Apple’s New Subscription Model & What it Means for Publishers

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 09:31 AM PST


As promised with the release of The Daily, Apple has formally launched a new subscription feature for content publishers.

This means that magazine and newspaper publishers will be able to offer in-app subscriptions to customers. Price and subscription length can be set by the publisher and consumers will be charged using their iTunes account. Renewals and cancellations will take place through iTunes. In exchange for handling payment processing and the logistical backend of the system, Apple will get the same 30% revenue cut it gets from other in-app and App Store purchases.

Magazine publishers have been clamoring for a subscription model from Apple since the iPad was first announced, back in January of 2010.

As we noted in September, magazine and newspaper publishers have been at odds with Apple over the company’s terms for offering in-app, iTunes handled subscriptions. Looking at Apple’s official announcement, it appears that the company has agreed to at least compromise on two of the biggest points of contention: revenue share and subscriber data.

Although Apple will take its 30% revenue cut for in-app subscriptions and sign-ups, the company points out that publishers can also cultivate and acquire digital subscribers outside of the app itself.

From the Apple:

For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple.

There is a caveat, with this new policy, however:

…Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

In other words, there is nothing preventing Time Inc. from offering iPad-compatible digital subscriptions to Sports Illustrated outside of the Sports Illustrated app, provided the company also gives users an opportunity to subscribe within the application itself.

Earlier this month, the Sony Reader app for iOS was reportedly not accepted into the App Store because it violated some of Apple’s policies. At the time, it was unclear if the cited policy violations would extend to other e-book applications like those from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Because Apple’s latest remarks concentrate on subscription content, it still isn’t clear to us if these new provisions also apply to other types of apps. We don’t know if this means that applications — like Amazon’s Kindle app that sell purchases a la carte — must now remove links to outside web stores. The Kindle app for iOS received an update Monday and, for the record, the link to the Amazon Kindle website is still in the app.

As for subscriber data, Apple will allow customers to provide publishers with name, e-mail and zip code information at the time of subscription. This is optional, and all personal information will be governed by a publisher’s privacy policy, not Apple’s.

Beyond Magazines and Newspapers

Magazines and newspapers are clearly the focus of the new subscription feature, but Apple stresses that the subscription service is available for “all publishers of content-based apps on the App Store” and this includes music and video.

This raises interesting questions about what impact this policy will have on apps from music subscription services like Spotify, Rdio, MOG and Rhapsody, as well as video subscriptions from Netflix and Hulu Plus.

If we had to guess, we would say that those applications will now be able to offer users a way to subscribe to the services using iTunes (and Apple will get its 30% revenue cut) or to sign in with an existing account.

Apple’s gamble, it appears, will be that services like MOG and Netflix will be willing to lose out on some subscription revenue from app-created subscriptions, in exchange for the ability to serve iOS customers.

That’s likely a good gamble, given the well-established base of iOS subscribers. However, this is a value proposition that may decline as Android devices continue to gain steam and other platforms like webOS and Windows Phone 7 attack the market with more vigor.

A Win for Consumers

Fundamentally, the ability to subscribe to content using iTunes is good for consumers because it creates a more cohesive experience. It also means that publishers will be more likely to investigate offering various subscription options for multiple device types — whether those subscriptions are gained using iTunes or through a third-party website.

For publishers, losing out on 30% of subscriber revenue may be a tough pill to swallow, but Apple has at least conceded on some terms that will make it possible to acquire customers through non-in-app means.

More About: app store, apple, digital magazine subscriptions, ipad, ipad magazines, magazines, publishing

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Dell Rumored To Be Interested in Buying AMD [REPORT]

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 09:04 AM PST


A report in Barron‘s aired a rumor that chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices is an acquisition target for Dell.

The rumor was credited with boosting AMD’s stock price 5% yesterday. The report noted that “there’s not a lot of color on the rumor at this point.” Nevertheless, the story has taken on a life of its own as Bloomberg attempted to suss out the rumor and got insights from industry experts on its plausibility.

“There’s no management team there,” Wedbush Securities analyst Patrick Wang told Bloomberg, adding a takeover is a “far-fetched possibility.”

This morning, AMD’s stock price was down slightly.

Nevertheless, as Wang notes, there is a management vacuum at AMD now. Robert Rivet, the company’s chief operating officer, and strategy head Marty Seyer announced last week they are leaving the company. CEO Dirk Meyer announced on January 10 that he was also leaving.

Meanwhile, Dell has missed targeted earnings for six of the past eight quarters, and analysts are watching the company’s ability to shore up its margins with lower component costs. The company is expected to report its fourth-quarter earnings after the market closes today. Dell has about $14 billion in cash on hand.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group, says that the rumor doesn’t make much sense. “I just have this hard belief that Dell making a run against Intel is just something they wouldn’t do,” says Enderle. Though buying a chipmaker would give Dell a price advantage over its rivals, it would also cut down AMD’s production, eliminating economies of scale, Enderle says. “The math just doesn’t work out.”

Image courtesy of TechFreep.

More About: AMD, dell, intel

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8 Educational iPhone Apps for Small Business Owners

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 08:13 AM PST


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Companies are always looking for effective and efficient ways to conduct training. We all know training is important and essential for growth. For many companies, it's about finding the right programs at the right price and being able to deliver them without completely disrupting the operation.

Technology has helped to change the way we view training. What, in the past, could only be delivered in a classroom has moved online. And now with more people using smartphones, companies can take advantage of mobile training options.

Here are a few possibilities in the mobile learning app area to consider.

1. Learning To-Go by INTERSOG

INTERSOG offers a wide variety of apps including Pocket MBA, Pocket CFO, Pocket Manager, Full Business Learning Course, Full Finance Business Course, and Dictionaries of Business Terms. Courses include a course book, flashcards and tests.

Cost: Ranges from free to $9.99

2. Sandler Training

Sandler offers sales and sales management training via its mobile app. The product can stand alone or be used as a supplement to its training system. A free app is also available with limited content.

Cost: $4.99

3. Skill-Pill

If you're in the market for something that can be customized, Skill-Pill (a free app with paid content) provides two-minute videos (called "pills") on a broad spectrum of business topics (100+ topics available). The "pills" are designed to reinforce concepts that a person already knows. Companies can create customized content, use generic content that is already available or a combination.

Cost: Free app, paid content

4. Lynda.com

Some mobile learning apps provide a portal to their existing content libraries. For example, Lynda.com offers an online training library in 3D, audio, video, photography, graphic design, web and interactive design, business and development. It is a subscription-based service with monthly and annual options. The app is free and allows users to access the online content from their subscription.

Cost: Free, but you must have a Lynda.com subscription

5. CellCast Widget

Another app that provides a portal to online content is CellCast Widget. The app integrates access to the Onpoint Digital mobile library, which contains hundreds of topics such as change and innovation, sales and marketing, leadership and management.

Cost: Free

6. Busuu

If you're looking for language training, the busuu language community offers free online courses in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. The free version has 20 complete learning units and additional paid content is available. The app also provides opportunities to practice in their online community. The busuu Language Apps cover vocabulary, key phrases and everyday topics from the beginner level to advanced.

Cost: Free

7. Curatr

Want to use your own content? No problem. Curatr is an online learning platform that transforms your e-learning into a social game. An enterprise edition is available for a fee.

Cost: Free (basic edition)

8. Cisco WebEx Meeting Center

Many people already enjoy the learning options available via WebEx meetings. Don't forget you can bring those features to your iPhone using the Cisco WebEx Meeting Center.

Cost: Free

BONUS: iTunes U

iTunes U offers programs from some of the top colleges and universities around the world. Some of the programs include the Ohio State University’s Lunch and Learn Series on Wellness, Yale University’s course on Financial Markets, or Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series.

The introduction of mobile learning apps doesn't mean classroom training is dead or dying. Training decisions are very specific to each individual business and its needs. It does mean business owners have more options and that will only benefit organizations.

Are you using any iPhone apps for training? Let us know in the comments.

More iPhone App Resources from Mashable:

- 10 iPhone Apps for Music Lovers
- 10 iPhone Apps for Wine Enthusiasts
- 10 iPhone Apps for the Global Foodie
- 10 iPhone Apps for a Better Night's Sleep
- 10 Great iPhone Apps for Growing a Garden

More About: apple, apps, business, education, iphone, iphone apps, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, mobile apps, small business

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Oreo Tries To Set Guinness Record for Facebook Likes

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 07:59 AM PST


The race is on for Oreo to achieve a somewhat obscure boast: a Guinness World Records entry for Facebook likes.

The brand started pursuing this goal at 9 a.m. ET today and hopes to establish a new record since no current one exists. Guinness World Records people, however, set the bar at 45,000 likes within a 24-hour period. This morning, the Kraft-owned brand started the ball rolling with a post asking the brand’s 16.6 million fans to set the “likes” record. An hour or so later, Oreo seemed well on its way with more than 30,000 likes.

A rep for 360i, the agency that worked on the project, says Oreo has a lot of global fans and that this is a good way to get everyone on the same page, so to speak. “We wanted something that was truly global and that all our fans could participate in,” the rep says. Oreo is one of the top five most-engaged brands in social media, according to Famecount.

Oreo’s social media push is the second high-profile use of Guinness by a marketer this month. Last week, Mitsubishi released videos on YouTube showing its Outlander and Outlander Sport all-wheel drive vehicles breaking five Guinness World Records in 24 hours.

For Oreo, the stunt is a clever use of social media that is not without its risks; falling short of the goal could be embarrassing. Since that prospect seems unlikely, the attempt will no doubt spur copycat attempts. For future record breakers, here are a few social media areas that Guinness tracks.

Image courtesy of QSR Magazine

More About: 360i, facebook, oreo

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Everloop Brings New Social Network for Tweens to 56,000 Schools

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 07:31 AM PST


A new social network that aims to be a Facebook alternative for children between the ages of 8 and 13 is launching on Tuesday. Schools, brands and investors are already on board.

The network, Everloop, operates much like Facebook (virtual currency, photo albums and games included), but requires verified parental permission to join. Parents can also select which of their child’s actions on the site they would like to be notified about, and have the option to restrict features like IM and friend suggestions. All activity on the site is monitored by the company to prevent inappropriate behavior.

These key features make Everloop compatible with The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits websites from collecting information from children under the age of 13 without parental consent. Most tweens bypass this law on other social networks by simply lying about their birthdays. Schools, on the other hand, generally block social networks like Facebook and Twitter for the same reasons that unsupervised public platforms make some parents of tweens nervous.

Because it is COPPA-compliant, Everloop can be used in schools. In April, a partnership with Internet safety education program i-Safe will bring the platform into about 56,000 schools. I-Safe will incorporate a white-label version of the network into its curriculum in order to demonstrate social media skills (and get parents to sign over permission to use Everloop sites in the process).

Everloop is not restricting itself to schools as other child-safe social networks like Edmodo have. Nor is it ignoring brands that are clamoring for the attention of its demographic. The network has already partnered with virtual concert site Planet Cazmo and other children’s brands that are eager to share their content on a platform that kids already go to rather than build one of their own. Branded goods, such as stickers that children can use to decorate profile pages, are also in the works.

This business model has persuaded vFormation and other angel investors to put $2.5 million into the company. But will the platform persuade kids to move from Facebook to Everloop?

While various national news stories have made it clear that Facebook isn’t age appropriate for tweens, its also clear that the line between “age appropriate” and “not cool” is delicate. Everloop argues that the content on their site will be more appealing to children than content designed for adults on other social networks. (FarmVille for sixth graders?) The company has been successful with pitches to investors and partners, but convincing tweens to make the site their online home base might be its toughest sell yet.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pixdeluxe

More About: Children, education, everloop, Kids, schools, social media

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The 3 Biggest Stories in Tech, Mobile & Social Media This Morning

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 06:59 AM PST

Social Media News

Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today.

Apple Extends App Store Subscriptions to All Publishers

Apple has extended the same subscription service used by The Daily for all publishers of content-based apps, including magazines, newspapers, video, music, etc.

HTC Launches 7-Inch Tablet

HTC has launched a powerful, 7-inch aluminum tablet called the Flyer. It has a 1.5 GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage space, a 5-megapixel camera on the back and an additional 1.3-megapixel one on the front.

HTC Announces 5 New Android Smartphones

HTC announced a slew of Android-based smartphones in Barcelona Tuesday, including two with dedicated Facebook buttons.

Further News

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

More About: android, apple, Flyer, htc

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HTC Upgrades Android Lineup With Desire S, Wildfire S and Incredible S

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 06:43 AM PST


Besides the new tablet and the Facebook-enabled phones, HTC has today announced three new Android phones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The phones are upgrades of the most popular devices in the company’s Android lineup: Desire S, Wildfire S and Incredible S.

The Desire S is perhaps the most interesting of the three, given that the original HTC Desire was one of the most powerful Android devices on the market for the majority of last year. The new version comes with a Qualcomm 1 GHz 8255 Snapdragon CPU, 768 MB of RAM, a 3.7-inch WVGA display and a case built out of a single block of aluminum. It has a 5-megapixel camera with HD video recording capability, and another 1.3-megapixel camera on the front for video calls.

Unlike the Incredible S, which will launch with Android 2.2, the Desire S will immediately launch with Android Gingerbread (2.4) as its operating system.

The Wildfire S is HTC’s low- to mid-range Android device, with a smallish 3.2-inch HVGA screen, which makes it one of the smallest Android smartphones. It will be coming in three colors: black, purple and white.

Finally, the Incredible S has a 4-inch Super LCD screen with an 800 x 480 pixel resolution, a 1 GHz CPU and 768 MB of RAM (just like the Desire S), and stereo surround sound (whatever surround means in the context of a phone). The back camera is an 8-megapixel unit capable of recording 720p HD video with dual-LED flash and autofocus, and the device also has a 1.3-megapixel front camera for video chats.

All three phones will become available in major European and Asian markets during Q2 2011.

These three smartphones wrap up our initial coverage of HTC’s new devices, which leave us strangely unsatisfied. While all of the phones HTC has shown today are definitely capable, none of them are really at the top of the smartphone food chain when it comes to sheer power (none of the devices feature a 1.2 GHz CPU, which has become quite common in high-end Android smartphones).

HTC’s tablet, on the other hand, has power to spare, but its 7-inch form factor and the fact that it lacks Honeycomb give us pause. Are you satisfied with what HTC has had to offer at the MWC this year? Let us know in the comments.

More About: android, htc, MWC, MWC2011

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