Mashable: Latest 7 News Updates - including “Algeria Suffers Some Internet Disruptions As Unrest Intensifies [UPDATED]” |
- Algeria Suffers Some Internet Disruptions As Unrest Intensifies [UPDATED]
- Will Sports Illustrated’s Subscription Plan Rescue Digital Magazine Sales?
- Social Networking Americans’ Valentine’s Day Plans [INFOGRAPHIC]
- 4 Small Business Mobile Predictions for 2011
- Our World, Slowed Down 100 Times [VIDEO]
- Digg Bans RSS Submissions
- Crowdsourced Map Shows Real-World Cellphone Signal Strength
- Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week [CHART]
| Algeria Suffers Some Internet Disruptions As Unrest Intensifies [UPDATED] Posted: 12 Feb 2011 02:51 PM PST      Update: Though there are reports of alleged access to the Internet being cut off, sources from within the country are reporting they have access with slight disruptions in some areas and Renesys reports services are running “normally.” — Protests in Algeria intensified today, and the Algerian government responded by blocking access to Facebook accounts and blocking Internet service providers across the country, according to The Telegraph. In a volatile situation similar to that which brought down former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the Algerian government has dispatched 30,000 riot police in Algiers, and is resorting to tear gas and plastic bullets to try to discourage dissent, according to The Telegraph. Algerians are calling this uprising the “February 12 Revolution,” as they protest government corruption, massive unemployment, housing problems and poverty. They would like to oust Algerian President Abdelaziz Boutifleka, whose police forces are also trying to silence journalists, according to The Telegraph. From what we’ve seen so far, shutting down the Internet and blocking access to Facebook is not going to work. We’re thinking this is just one of many revolutions that are about to sweep the Middle East. Photo courtesy The Telegraph/EPA More About: Abdelaziz Boutifleka, algeria, censorship, corruption, facebook, internet, protests, shutdown, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Will Sports Illustrated’s Subscription Plan Rescue Digital Magazine Sales? Posted: 12 Feb 2011 02:11 PM PST   At a press event in New York City Friday, Sports Illustrated and parent company Time Inc. announced a new subscription plan that spans the web, and several major mobile and tablet devices — excluding, notably, the iPhone and the iPad. To subscribe, Sports Illustrated readers will need to elect one of two subscription options at si.com/magazine (see below), and then download the apps through the Android Marketplace. Google will take an undisclosed cut of sales, Time EVP and Chief Digital Offer Randall Rothenberg said. The subscription options are as follows:
Current print subscribers will have free access to all digital properties through the end of their current plan. Those who prefer to read Sports Illustrated on their iPhones or iPads can continue to purchase and download single issues of the magazine through the apps [iTunes link] designated for each device. Time Inc. executives believe digital magazines have not yet reached their selling potential, largely because they have not been able to reach an agreement with Apple on a subscription model through the App Store. The issue is not the 30% revenue cut Apple insists upon — although we can’t imagine that publishers are particularly happy about that — but that Apple won’t share enough subscriber information with publishers. “Without [the subscription plan], there were lots of questions and complaints about [the magazine] being too expensive,” Sports Illustrated Group Editor Terry McDonnell explained. “It [has been] very problematic for a company like this,” he added, noting that the magazine’s first priority is to make access as easy as possible for consumers. Time doesn’t want to cut the price of single issues, however. “We’re confident at some point we’ll be able to sell subscriptions successfully through the iTunes store,” Rothenberg said. The company wants to maintain the current price difference between single issues, and issues purchased in bulk through monthly or annual subscriptions. Digital bundles are, we believe, a step in the right direction, but until apps for the most popular tablet device and one of the most popular smartphone platforms are included in the subscription bundles, Sports Illustrated‘s digital reach will be limited. More About: android, galaxy tab, ipad, ipad magazines, iphone, magazines, media, Sports illustrated, tablet magazines, tablets, time, Time Inc For more Media coverage:
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| Social Networking Americans’ Valentine’s Day Plans [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 12 Feb 2011 01:13 PM PST   Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and lovers from coast to coast are getting ready. Here’s an infographic built using data from 400 Facebook and MySpace users that might give you insight into love in America, circa 2011. It’s a good thing we posted this infographic today, because 36% of you plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day this weekend, probably tonight. Have fun! Buried in the data are some interesting anomalies, too. For instance, notice that 16% of the single people have their current relationship status on Facebook as “dating,” “engaged” or “married.” On the other hand, 0% of the married respondents called themselves “single.” Good move, fellow married people — you know what’s good for you.
Infographic created for Mashable by Lab 42 More About: Facebook Status, infographic, love, trending, valentine's day For more Social Media coverage:
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| 4 Small Business Mobile Predictions for 2011 Posted: 12 Feb 2011 12:31 PM 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. This year saw a staggering growth in consumer mobile usage, and with the smartphone industry growing at an unprecedented rate, 2011 could prove to be an unparalleled year in terms of mobile innovation and expansion. With more than 70% of the world’s population owning a mobile phone, it’s time for small businesses to pay attention to mobile and begin planning their mobile strategy now. Below are four predictions on how the growth of mobile will affect small businesses in 2011, with key takeaways on how you can get started with each one. 1. Mobile Payments Allowing your customers to buy with speed and confidence is essential for any small business owner, but with the pace of modern life, it’s now increasingly important to let your customers buy at their convenience. Mobile payments mean a retailer of any size can accept and process credit card payments, all with a smartphone, an account and corresponding app. Mobile payments can aid in expanding business and increasing revenue for a small business simply by using their existing smartphone. There are already several options available to any small business interested in accepting mobile payments, including:
While in 2010 mobile payments became a talking point, in 2011 making and taking payments directly from your mobile phone looks set to be the future of commerce. 2. Location, Location, Location Location-based services and marketing have seen a huge growth this year, especially within social media, with services such as Gowalla, Foursquare and SCVNGR. But they have yet to be taken up on a large scale by small businesses. The launch of Facebook Places and Deals, however, could push location mainstream, as most small businesses already have some type of Facebook presence, and the network already has half a billion users. In 2011, location-based services will prove a powerful, relevant way to create a location-based loyalty program, offer specials and perks, and leverage verified checkins to attract new customers. Over the next year, businesses will be able to offer real measurable rewards (and not just “fun”) for consumers, pushing the trend into the mainstream. Services like Yelp are now offering checkin offers for businesses, meaning that businesses can offer Yelp users special deals for checking in at their places of business. With checkins tied to Twitter and Facebook when a user checks in, it puts your business in front of a lot of eyeballs. This is just the latest example of how a small business can take advantage of location-based services to reach the masses. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, also recently revealed that the microblogging service is working on a “self-serve process to advertise on Twitter, where a local coffee shop can advertise on the service looking for Twitter users in the area.” When combined with the plethora of third-party Twitter apps available, it means small businesses could potentially reach a large slice of their target market and demographic. Using location-based marketing to proactively deliver messages and reach potential customers based on their geographic locations will enable small businesses to increase foot traffic and profits. With services like Geotoko now offering a way to quickly and easily build and measure location-based deals and promotions, it means creating a campaign needn’t be overly complex. Partnering location-based incentives and marketing with mobile payments could prove to be a killer move for many small businesses in 2011. 3. Mobile Websites In 2011, every website should include a mobile version, as consumers continue to shift their behavior to regularly using the mobile web. As mobile traffic increases exponentially, it makes sense for small businesses to craft mobile-friendly sites to ensure they don’t miss out on mobile traffic, and more importantly, sales. Mobile and smartphone optimized web design will also be key to driving online sales, so now is the time to invest in designing your site for the mobile masses. For small business owners, considering your audience and user behavior for the lifecycle of your site is essential, and creating a professional mobile experience is key to this. Making this experience fast and efficient is an excellent way to improve your site’s effectiveness and make purchasing products as easy as possible. Optimizing your website for mobile browsers no longer has to be a painful or difficult process, as there are a slew of services which make the task easier, including:
With the mobile web estimated to overtake desktop Internet in usage by 2015, it’s time for small businesses to get ahead of the competition and cultivate a great mobile website experience now. 4. Small Business Apps With more than 25 billion mobile apps estimated to be sold in 2011, up from 10 billion in 2010, the coming year looks set to be the year of the app. Smartphone applications have changed the way many businesses operate, and small businesses will begin turning to creating apps that enhance the way customers interact with their products and services. These apps will also prove to be an affordable way to boost profits. There will be a distinctive shift from viewing apps as a fun buzz word to becoming an integral part of a small business’s marketing plan. Having your business app front and center on a consumer’s smartphone is a tremendous marketing opportunity to improve customer service, attract new customers and open up the possibility of creating a revenue opportunity. It’s important to note it may be wise to firstly make sure your website is mobile optimized before embarking on a dedicated app, as it will give you firsthand knowledge of building and refining a great mobile experience and effectively utilizing touchscreen navigation. You can then use your mobile website to graduate users to your native app to provide value beyond your regular desktop and mobile website. Many applications have hit the market with no real strategy behind them, with many apps being deleted within 72 hours of being downloaded. It’s therefore important to identify the user case, define goals and create an app that provides real value. Ultimately asking “what do my customers want?” will enable you to decide if developing a native mobile app is the correct route for your small business. For small businesses, where budgets are restricted, there are a multitude of options available, including DIY Tools, services such as iPhone App Quotes and dedicated developers such as those listed on They Make Apps. These four trends are a look at how the mobile experience will shape small business plans in 2011. Let us know what you’d add in the comments below. Image courtesy of Flickr: Randy Kashka, AxsDeny More About: 2011 Predictions, business, Mobile 2.0, predictions-2011, small business For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Our World, Slowed Down 100 Times [VIDEO] Posted: 12 Feb 2011 11:54 AM PST Come with us into a world where everything is slowed down more than 100 times. Thanks to an expert videographer and editor named Tom Guilmette and a Vision Research Phantom Flex camera, we get a peek into an alternative universe — the same one we inhabit, but where the temporal element has been distorted in a variety of ways. According to Guilmette on his Vimeo site:
Most video ambles by at somewhere between 24 and 30 frames per second when it’s shot and viewed, but when you play back this 2,564 frame-per-second video at the usual speed of 24 or 30fps, things are slowed down so much, you can see things you’d never be able to detect in real time. I’m always amazed at the way extreme slow motion techniques can turn everyday occurrences into mind-bending art. Beyond that, I’m impressed with the way Guilmette makes his video so entertaining with convincing sound effects, music and sharp editing, further playing with speed differences to create an astonishing timescape. Want to shoot one of these yourself? Get yourself a Phantom Flex camera, available for rental for $3000 a day. More About: Digital Cinema, Slow Motion, Tom Guilmette, trending, video, Vision Research Phantom Flex camera For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Posted: 12 Feb 2011 11:04 AM PST   In a letter to publishers, Digg product manager Mike Cieri announced that the troubled social news website will no longer accept content submitted via RSS. The ability for publishers to submit all of their stories to Digg automatically using an RSS feed seemed like an efficient way to open up a firehose of content for Digg. However, Cieri says this idea had unintended consequences. According to Cieri, “Most RSS-submitted content is not performing well on Digg.” He says the site’s analytics show that only a mere 4.5% of Digg’s “Top News” content comes from the RSS submissions. He adds that the ability to submit an RSS feed to Digg “has been heavily abused by spammers and has been a constant drain on our technical resources to identify and fight off spam content.” Cieri praised the manual method of submitting stories to Digg, saying that manual submissions “ensure that quality content appears on Digg.” With this move, the site takes yet another step back toward the old version 3.0, the site design that was in use before radical changes resulted in a user revolt and a 24% decline in U.S. visitors in the first 11 weeks. In response, Digg has slowly added back features that readers missed, such as the ability to bury stories, and last month’s overhaul that included the return of user profiles and story statistics. Since that first fateful redesign last summer, Digg has laid off more than a third of its staffers. I’m just wondering why Digg stubbornly refused to modify its obviously unpopular redesign after it became apparent that it was resulting in large percentages of its readership turning away. After a few days of this, why didn’t Digg simply revert to the old version and its rules that seemed to be working pretty well? If not a few days later, why not a month later? Comments? Here’s the full text of the letter we received from Digg product manager Mike Cieri:
More About: digg, redesign, RSS Submissions, User Revolt, Version 4.0 For more Social Media coverage:
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| Crowdsourced Map Shows Real-World Cellphone Signal Strength Posted: 12 Feb 2011 09:23 AM PST   Want to know just how strong your cellphone signal is? It turns out there’s a map and an app for that. OpenSignalMaps uses Android smartphones as probes, crowdsourcing locations of cellular towers and their strength. Finally, you’ll get a real answer to why those calls keep dropping when you pass through certain areas. Developed by Staircase 3, the company plans to create accurate signal maps with its Android app and OpenSignalMaps website. The company says the beta version of its Android app OpenSignalMaps has been downloaded more than 80,000 times, as you can see by its maps, the crowd of Android users has already contributed millions of signal strength readings. The app is still in beta, so there’s still a few missing pieces of data. For instance, in our area here in the Midwest, it looks like AT&T towers are considerably underrepresented. Perhaps that’s because AT&T customers use more iPhones and other cellphones than Android smartphones. As the app’s user base expands, so will the validity of its data. Will there be an iPhone version? We asked the OpenSignalMaps developer that question, and will update this post when we get a response. Take a look at the gallery and you’ll see how OpenSingleMaps, a Google Maps mashup, shows its data two different ways: pinpointing cell towers and then showing a heat map of cell coverage. I’m thinking this is already useful, but the company plans to expand the site to let users compare download speeds on various networks, and track the rollout of Verizon and AT&T’s 4G networks. OpenSingleMaps could become even more valuable if thousands of additional users download the Android app, voluntarily functioning as data acquisition units for the already large database (the company says it doesn’t retain any of your personal data). If Staircase 3 could combine its data-driven approach with the user generated cellphone signals of a site such as SignalMap, this could be a comprehensive crowdsourced signal strength measurement device. Finally, we’d have a source of real-world information to counteract the questionable maps we see from wireless providers. Heatmap Example Full Interface Heatmap San Francisco Heatmap San Francisco Towers Manhattan Towers Android App Screenshot 1 Android App Screenshot 2 The Android app. SHowing the direction and strength of an AT&T tower. Android App Screenshot 3 The Android app. This AT&T tower was sending a weak signal More About: Android apps, Cellular carriers, crowdsourcing, Google Maps, mashup, OpenSingleMaps, signal strength, trending For more Mobile coverage:
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| Top 10 Twitter Trends This Week [CHART] Posted: 12 Feb 2011 07:27 AM PST   Remember all of the Super Bowl banter — the smack talk, the color commentary, and the commercial cheers/jeers — that filled your Twitter feed last weekend? Turns out it didn’t hold a candle to the Holy Trinity of American pop: Britney, Gaga and Bieber. The anticipated release of Spears’ new album generated so much tweetable heat that it stayed in the top 10 trends for seven days straight, and lands the number one spot on our list this week. Only then does the Super Bowl make an appearance at number two, followed very closely by Lady Gaga at number three, whose newest single just “dropped” (as the kids say) this past Friday. And Justin Bieber’s fans sent his name into the number four slot with a frenzy of tweets about his upcoming 3D movie. And the latest news from the tenuous situation in Egypt? The topic, after its last few weeks in the social media spotlight, has fallen to number 10 on this week’s chart, despite the country’s ongoing political developments. 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. Top Twitter Trends This Week: 2/4 – 2/10 Image courtesy of iStockphoto, 123render More About: britney spears, Egypt, justin bieber, Lady Gaga, List, Lists, social media, Super Bowl, Top Twitter Topics, trends, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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