Mashable: Latest 28 News Updates - including “The World’s Fastest Supercomputer Now Belongs to China”

Unveiled today at the Annual Meeting of National High Performance Computing (HPC China 2010) in Beijing, Tianhe-1A is the world’s fastest supercomputer with a performance record of 2.507 petaflops, as measured by the LINPACK benchmark.

Tianhe-1A was designed by the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) in China, and it is already fully operational. To achieve the new performance record, Tianhe-1A uses 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 GPUs and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs. It cost $88 million; its 103 cabinets weigh 155 tons, and the entire system consumes 4.04 megawatts of electricity.

Tianhe-1A ousted the previous record holder, Cray XT5 Jaguar, which is used by the U.S. National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. It is powered by 224,162 Opteron CPUs and achieves a performance record of 1.75 petaflops.

According to Nvidia, Tianhe-1A will be operated as an open access system to use for large scale scientific computations.

Image courtesy of Nvidia

More About: china, computing, supercomputer

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The next major version of Firefox, originally slated for late 2010, has been delayed until early 2011.

The change has been announced by Firefox director Mike Beltzner. “Completing this work (on Firefox 4) is taking longer than initial estimates indicated as we track down regressions and sources of instability. As part of our commitment to beta users, we will not ship software before it is ready,” he wrote on the mozilla.dev.planning mailing list.

The Firefox 4 Beta Wiki has also been updated with a new release schedule.

Firefox 4 brings several major improvements, including a redesign of the user interface, HTML5 support, multi-touch functionality, hardware-accelerated HD video, improved support for add-ons through Jetpack and many others.

More About: browser, browsing, Firefox, Firefox 4, web

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Yahoo’s latest endeavor is as seasonally appropriate as it is educational. The tech company has just rolled out a cool zombie-themed game that teaches the principles of economics.

Called Shambling Hordes, this social game was developed by Yahoo Labs (specifically, David Reiley, John Morgan and the research engineering team at Yahoo). The game was developed because, as Yahoo’s researchers noted, “Zombies are awesome,” but it’s also supposed to help players master the principles of game theory, advanced mathematics, classical economics and budget allocation.

Here’s how Shambling Hordes works: In the zombie apocalypse, each player is a warlord leading a “shambling horde” of zombies. The warlords attempt to capture one another’s headquarters. As they advance, they engage in battles, with each horde divided into three groups. Hence, a warlord can win a skirmish if his zombies win two out of three fights.

It’s simple enough to play, but it’s also the kind of game that could also challenge you to use some strategy. A round of Shambling Hordes takes about 15 minutes, depending on the map you choose and how many battles you enter.

Yahoo says the game play is “grounded in some classical economics and game theory that should be familiar to anyone who's had a finite amount of anything (budget, advertising dollars, even candy) that they had to spread around in a competitive environment.”

If there’s anything we at Mashable love more than economics, it’s zombies. We are, moreover, quite fond of games, and we have to say that this game is fun, interesting enough for strategy-minded adults and perfectly fitting for the upcoming holiday.

Plus, there’s nothing like having your computer screen tell you, “Congratulations, you are the zombie master.”

Go give Shambling Hordes a try, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, flexgraph.

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Reviews: Flickr, Mashable

More About: economics, educational, gaming, online game, web game, Yahoo, zombies

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This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Fast Society

Quick Pitch: Fast Society is a free iPhone app that groups contacts into an instant, short-term team, combining group text messaging and one-touch conference calling.

Genius Idea: Ever attended a crowded show with a group of friends, only to notice that John-Boy has wandered away to the merch table, Esther (who is shorter than the rest) has been lost in a sea of concert-attending ogres and Marcel has passed out somewhere in the corner? Well, Fast Society is the perfect solution for those crazed, crowded situations.

Fast Society takes the group texting experience to the next level with conference calling as well as geolocation. The other week, we covered GroupMe, a mobile app that lets you create an SMS chatroom on any phone. The app is awesome in its simplicity, but its use-cases are still up for debate. Yes, group texting is fun and useful for a brief period of time, but after a while it either becomes, 1. Annoying, 2. Forgotten and replaced with another diversion.

Well, Fast Society Co-founders Matthew Rosenberg, Michael Constantiner and Andy Thompson set out to fix that issue after attending a Bloc Party concert during which their friends kept getting separated. While group texting would have been helpful in this situation, Rosenberg and Co. wished that they could create a specific group (i.e. the Bloc Party concert-goers) that would be able to converse for a specific time (i.e. the duration of the show). Enter Fast Society.

Fast Society’s more advanced interface makes it a much more useful app than GroupMe. After downloading the app, start by choosing a time frame for your team to be in communication (three hours to three days), and then add friends by searching through your phone book or adding a number. You can add anyone to your team, even if he or she’s on another carrier. People receive text messages alerting them to the creation of the team, and they can choose whether or not to join (you can also leave at any time by texting “leave”). Upon joining, they enter a kind of text chat room.

During the allotted time period, you can text your team (a process that works much the same as apps like GroupMe), call it via an instant conference call service and easily find and share your location via geolocation. Note: Those using the app can see others as a pinpoint on a map, but geolocation is a lot more barebones when you’re on another device. Still, you can text your location to your Android-using friends as well.

Once time runs out, so does the group, leaving you with a blank slate. That way, you won’t have any annoying text chain forever active on your phone.

Again, it’s a shame that this service is currently limited to iPhone users — at least in the fullest sense of the experience — but Co-founder Matthew Rosenberg told us they’re currently developing apps for Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. Once this opens up to other handsets, we can see this service coming in handy for much more than attending shows. From work events to group vacations, Fast Society has the potential to be a real boon to mobile users.

Right now, the current iteration is free, which begs the question: How do Rosenberg and Co. plan to make money?

“The next version of the app is going to have what we are calling ‘powerups’ in app purchases to enhance your experience,” Rosenberg says. “Longer groups, more people, and some other fun stuff I am not quite ready to share.”

Fast Society itself is rather an ambitious effort, as it is currently entirely self-funded. Still, the app managed to snag the role of the official mobile partner of New York’s CMJ Music Festival, which is quite the achievement and gained the team direct access to their target audience: Young, concert-obsessed music fans.

Will you test out Fast Society during your next event, trip or speed metal show?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Bliz

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Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

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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.

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Reviews: Android, iStockphoto

More About: android, cmj, fast-society, groupme, iphone, Mobile 2.0, music, spark-of-genius, startup, startup review

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After months and months of your cubicle walls contracting in on you like some kind of demonic fun house, it’s finally time for that most coveted of reprieves: a vacation!

Sun! Drinking! Ill-advised hookups with accommodating locals! (Hey, an exotic foreign bed beats the Four Elks Motor Lodge …)

While many of you may breeze out your office door, throwing around claims like “I’m leaving my laptop at home!” “No cellphone on this trip!” and “I might just stay and become Amish!” it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to completely divorce yourself from the technological realm the minute you pull on your fanny pack.

Why? Well, with the rise of the smartphone and the growing ubiquity of in-flight Wi-Fi, we’re about as addicted to tech as your average hipster is to heartache and broken dreams (read: very). Case in point: According to research from Xobni and Harris Interactive, 72% of people in the U.S. check e-mail during their time off.

Although we’re not advocating logging in to Gmail or Entourage while sunning on Hermosa Beach (that’s just indicative of a bleak, coffee-stained future), we’re all for staying at least a little plugged-in whilst unplugging.

Just remember, there’s a fine line between sharing your vacation with your associates at home and becoming that annoyingly tan, infuriatingly-drunk-at-3-p.m. layabout who texts pictures of sun-drenched beaches to her cubicle-shackled friends.

Read on for three ways to keep your clock-punching compatriots abreast of your holiday goings-on — without making them want to leap down the elevator shaft.

And so begins my Netiquette column — which I write with my Stuff Hipsters Hate co-blogger, Andrea Bartz — this week over at CNN.

Check out the column at CNN.com >>

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PeskyMonkey

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Reviews: Gmail, Xobni, iStockphoto

More About: cnn, netiquette, Stuff Hipsters Hate, vacation

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Thanks to rapid developments in consumer technology — namely, large-format touchscreen devices like the iPad, and soon, Android, BlackBerry 6 and Windows 7-based tablets — the definition of the e-book is quickly evolving. Soon, the word “e-book” will no longer connote dull, text-only transcriptions of popular print books on clunky e-readers, but richly colored, animated and interactive multimedia experiences that will leave their print counterparts looking lifeless in comparison.

The e-book medium broke new ground late last week when a little-known team of former video game developers in Vancouver, known as Loud Crow Interactive, released their first book for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit [iTunes link].

What makes Loud Crow’s version of Peter Rabbit so remarkable is the care and ingenuity with which the company has adapted the classic Beatrix Potter tale to the touchscreen medium. The original text, watercolor and ink illustrations, and sliding and pop-out features from early pop-out editions of the book (the team kept one of the original color copies in the studio, Founder and President Calvin Wang told me) have all been kept intact.

What the startup has added has only made the Tale even better and more immersive. The entire story is set to the soft piano keys of Debussy’s “Claire de Lune” (sure to activate the tear ducts of many a nostalgic reader) and read by a pretty, female English voice. Words are helpfully highlighted as they are read aloud, and young readers can click again on each word to have it re-pronounced. A pale grey ribbon tab at the top of each page can be pulled down to reveal a full thumbnail index, making it easy to navigate between spreads.

Tap little Flopsy and Mopsy, and they giggle; tap falling leaves or blackberries to enlarge and scatter them about the page; use your finger to lift up pots and the animals hiding underneath will emit tiny squeaks. Paper doll joints and tethered kettles can be swung about on their hinges and the iPad can be tilted to change the direction of gravity for falling leaves. Each page offers a new opportunity for engagement, making readers eager not only to discover what’s going to happen next in the narrative, but to find out what fun bit of interactivity awaits them as well.

The e-book/app is currently available for $4.99 in the U.S. App Store. (Loud Crow is still negotiating for reproduction rights from the original publisher in Europe.) The startup plans to release further pop-out books in the future, including a Christmas-themed e-book set to debut in 30 days.

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Screenshot Gallery

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Home screen.

Title page.

Drop-down index.

Click on falling leaves to enlarge.

Words are highlighted as they are read aloud.

Click on the falling blackberries to enlarge.

Double-clicking on the blackberries will cause them to burst and disappear.

Sliding wheels can be moved to trigger simple animations, just like in traditional pop-up books.

Rotate the iPad to shift the direction of the falling leaves.

Final spread.

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Video Walkthrough

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More About: children's books, ipad, ipad book, iphone, iphone book, iPod Touch, peter rabbit

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Between April and June of this year, Facebook reportedly spent more than $6,600 lobbying California state officials to kill the Social Networking Privacy Act.

The bill in question aimed to impose civil penalties on social networks displaying home addresses and phone numbers of users under 18 years of age. MarketWatch uncovered the expenses in reports Facebook filed with the California Secretary of State’s office.

The California bill was introduced by State Senator Ellen Corbett in February and passed by the California State Senate in April before ultimately meeting with opposition in the California State Assembly.

“Facebook's California lobbying report included an expense for dinner with the majority leader of the state Assembly, Charles Calderon, at a Sacramento restaurant in June,” according to MarketWatch. Calderon, however, voted to move the bill forward.

It doesn’t surprise us that Facebook would take an interest in state bills pertaining to Internet privacy, especially ones like the Social Networking Privacy Act which would have directly affected the social network’s operations.

In June, Facebook hired its first lobbyist, William Gonzalez, to represent the company’s interests at the state level.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Clinton Steeds

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Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Internet

More About: facebook, lobbying, politics, trending

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“Jon [Stewart] wants to harness the public’s frustration. I want to bombard the public’s frustration with gamma rays until it turns on its master with a lust for blood.”

So sayeth Stephen Colbert in support of his upcoming “The March to Keep Fear Alive,” a mock political rally taking place October 30 on Washington, DC’s National Mall. That rally is being met by Jon Stewart’s own mock political rally called “The Rally to Restore Sanity.” While the sides could not be more starkly drawn, the two rallies share an increasing awareness of how social media can help fans across the world become part of the sanity/fear-mongering/hilarity.

The two rallies, occurring at the same time and jointly held by Colbert and Stewart as one event, have managed to mobilize their fans and people across the country in just one month. In roughly 30 days, the event has spawned a number of sites and mini web-campaigns.

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Engaging Through Social Media

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The sites offer surprisingly robust options for such a quick turnaround. Fans of Stewart can head to the Sanity site for updates, merchandise (proceeds go to charity), and to see if rally signs are suitably “sane.” Fans of Colbert can head to the Fear site for its own Halloween-themed app called “Spooky or Dooky” where fans can upload and vote on people dressing up as their worst fears (examples include hippies, tanks and ninjas).

Both sites also have dedicated social good options, with Stewart offering a link to donate to the Trust for the National Mall and Colbert directing people to DonorsChoose.org. Rather than serving as simple news pages, the rallies’ individual websites have taken active roles in galvanizing their fans to participate while offering real value.

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The Main Attraction

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The event itself has loaded on social media features with a planned, uncensored livestream through Dailyshow.com, ColbertNation.com, and ComedyCentral.com that will also work on mobile devices. Foursquare badges will also be available on October 30 in both Sanity and Fear flavors.

Anyone somehow unable to access the livestream can follow the action through the live tweets from the competing Twitter accounts — @Rally4Sanity and @StephenAtHome — offering info up-to and throughout the event. Don’t like Twitter? Text RALLY or MARCH to 44686 for text updates or check out their Facebook pages: Sanity, Fear.

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How They Did It

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Social media is too often an afterthought — a detail stapled onto traditional media. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear has taken the most traditional form there is — speaking to a large group of people in person — and made it a social media vehicle. The websites each offer all the updates and news that users have come to expect from event sites. The addition of unique apps, like Stewart’s sanity signs or Colbert’s spooky costumes show a desire to engage the users.

“It’s hard to imagine pulling something like this off where you couldn’t have the underpinnings of Twitter or Facebook to rally the people that are participating,” said Erik Flannigan, EVP of digital media at Comedy Central/Spike TV.

The goal was to use social media to help fans feel like they were participating in the rallies.

“We want to memorialize what’s happening on the [National] Mall, not just what’s happening on stage” Flannigan said.

By reaching out to several social networks, the team at Comedy Central hopes to see the rallies trending in several fields, allowing users to connect however they like. Don’t have Twitter? Sign in with Foursquare, post to Facebook or simply snap a photo to share later.

Of course, it helps when your spokespeople are two of the brightest, funniest, fake-newscastiest people on television. The faux competitiveness of the event encourages fans to pick a side and fight for it. The naturally-engaged fans of Stewart and Colbert are prime examples of how to do social media right: Rather than selling a product, the shows and their respective personalities are building communities. There are currently 1,000 related meetups planned worldwide, while the email blasts for the two shows have jumped by more than 150,000 new subscribers, combined.

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Conclusion

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As a lampoon of the bipartisan silliness of American politics, Stewart and Colbert’s competing rallies were guaranteed to be a success. As a way of engaging with their audience, earning new followers and maximizing the reach of social media, The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear might just be setting the model.

What do you think of the rallies? What have they done and what could the event do better? Will you be participating? And more importantly, do you settle on the side of Sanity or Fear?

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Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, foursquare

More About: daily show, entertainment, funny, humor, jon stewart, march to keep fear alive, politics, Rally, rally to restore sanity, rally to restore sanity and or fear, stephen colbert, The Colbert Report, tv

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Photo-sharing site Flickr has just added a new feature that lets you find Flickr users you might know.

The new feature is similar (OK, exactly the same) to Facebook’s “People you may know” friend finder/recommendation service. Suggestions are based on your contacts and the people that they know. This is a pretty powerful way to find mutual friends and connections.

The new feature, which Flickr announced on its blog, can be accessed via the sidebar of the Flickr homepage, or from the new Find Your Friends page.

Additionally, Flickr has added Facebook to its list of services that you can cross-check for your friends and contacts. Flickr has long let you use Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail to find contacts and friends, but the Facebook integration is very cool.

If you are feeling anti-social — or just don’t want random people finding you on Flickr — you can prevent your name from coming up as a suggestion by using the existing “hide your profile from public searches” setting.

Do you still use Flickr or have you moved to Facebook or another photo-sharing service? Let us know.

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Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Gmail

More About: facebook, flickr, Photos

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If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable’s Job Lists section gathers together all of our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.

But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable's job boards are a place for socially savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space and beyond. Have a look at what's good and new on our job boards:

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Mashable Job Postings

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VP of Sales at Mashable in New York, NY.

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Events Content Coordinator at Mashable in New York, NY.

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Events Assistant at Mashable in San Francisco, CA.

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Events Manager at Mashable in New York, NY.

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Ruby on Rails Developer at Mashable in San Francisco, CA.

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Mashable Job Board Listings

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Sr. Director, Digital Marketing – EA Sports at Electronic Arts in Redwood City, CA.

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DevOps/Systems Engineer at The Motley Fool in Alexandria, VA.

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Manager, Project Management at Digitas Health in New York, NY.

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Digital Project Manager at Digitas Health in Philadelphia, PA.

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Sr. Community Manager – Racing at Electronic Arts in Redwood City, CA.

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Research Analyst at The Emerging Media Research Council in Raleigh, NC.

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Online Marketing Coordinator at Community Environment Council in Santa Barbara, CA.

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Social Media Guru at Homesav in Toronto, Canada.

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Social Media Manager at CareerBuilder in Chicago, IL.

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Social Media Manager at PETA in Los Angeles, CA.

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Meetup Everywhere Evangelist at Meetup in New York, NY.

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Social Web Editor at Prichard Communications in Portland, OR.

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People Manager at sweetgreen in Washington DC.

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Official T-Shirt Wearer at IWearYourShirt from anywhere.

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Web Developer at The BOSS Group in Plainsboro, NJ.

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Social Media Manager at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Priceton, NJ.

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Director of Social Media Strategy at Likeable in New York, NY.

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Web Developer at IMRE, LLC in Maryland.

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@JoinSquare at Square, Inc. in San Francisco, CA.

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Media Relations Specialist at Practice Fusion in San Francisco, CA.

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Research Executive at Blueocean Market Intelligence in Issaquah, WA.

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Sr. Marketing Manager at Fanscape in Los Angeles, CA.

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Content Producer – Social Media at roundhouse in Seattle, WA.

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Social Media Manager at 742 Commercial, Inc. in San Diego, CA.

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Manager, Project Management at Digitas Health in Philadelphia, PA.

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Director of Media Strategy and Distribution at Youth Radio in Oakland, CA.

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Web Developer at Youth Radio in Oakland, CA.

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Internet Marketing Director at World Vision in Federal Way, WA.

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Web Developer at DEC in New York, NY.

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Graphic Designer at World Vision in Federal Way, WA.

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Web Producer at World Vision in Federal Way, WA.

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Web Developer at comediva in Burbank, CA.

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Product Analyst at Metromix.com in Chicago, IL.

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New Media Production Associate at Moving Pictures Film & TV in Santa Monica, CA.

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Application Engineer at match.com in Dallas, TX.

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Senior Web Developer at TraderPlanet.comm, LLC in Wesley Chapel, FL.

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Senior Marketing Strategist at Wirestone, LLC in Sacramento, CA.

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VP, Conversation Analytics & Measurement at Edelman/StrategyOne in Chicago, IL.

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Software Engineer at Google in New York, NY.

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Director of Online Advertising Sales, Eastern at Synacor in New York, NY.

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Associate Manager, Digital Marketing at Hip Genius in New York, NY.

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Digital & Social Media Communications Director at NASCAR in Charlotte, NC.

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Marketing Associate at Sharethrough in San Francisco, CA.

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Manager Information Systems at a confidential company in Manhattan, KS.

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Web Developer at Forum One Communications in Alexandria, VA.

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PHP Developer at Blue Fountain Media in New York, NY.

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Social Media Sales Consultant at Meltwater Buzz in New York, NY.

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Front-End Developer at GlobalWorks in New York, NY.

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Senior Developer at GlobalWorks in New York, NY.

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Social Media Project Manager at Board of Jewish Education in New York, NY.

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Software Engineer at Google in New York, NY.

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Traffic Coordinator at appsavvy in New York, NY.

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Director of SEM and PPC at Jawa in Scottsdale, AZ.

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Product Marketing Manager at appsavvy in New York, NY.

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Digital Marketing Analyst at WebsiteBiz in Charlotte, NC.

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SEO Developer at WebsiteBiz in Charlotte, NC.

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Senior Software Engineer at HealthCentral.com in Arlington, VA.

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Sr. Associate, Regulatory Review at Digitas Health in New York, NY.

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Director, Media at Digitas Health in Philadelphia, PA.

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Product Managers at AOL in New York, NY.

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Software Engineer at R/GA in New York, NY.

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Social Media Expert at Primescape Solutions, Inc. in Washington DC.

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Mashable’s Job Board has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out at here.

Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($99 for a 30 day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace).

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang

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Reviews: Google, Mashable, iStockphoto

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The Web Development Series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here.

Tumblr is becoming an increasingly popular platform for blogging and personal publishing, thanks to its growing collection of themes, simple posting style and plethora of mobile options.

Although Tumblr has continued to beef up its feature-set, adding support for pages, user questions and user submissions, the platform isn’t as extensible or customizable as something like WordPress or Drupal. In a perfect world, there would be a way to combine the simplicity of Tumblr’s posting types and styles with some of the deeper customizations and options of WordPress.

We might not have reached the Holy Grail of Tumblr Meets WordPress harmony, but we’re a lot closer, thanks to a new plugin and iPhone app from WooThemes, a WordPress theme development firm.

Earlier this year, WooThemes started experimenting with bringing Tumblr-styled themes to WordPress. Tumblr-inspired design is taking off on lots of platforms, but what made Woo’s approach unique was the addition of a special QuickPress widget seated on the WordPress dashboard that made posting specific types of content — a la Tumblr — very easy.

Over the past few months, Woo has released more Tumblr-style themes using this QuickPress widget. Even better, WordPress 3.0 was released with support for custom post types, which makes adding special elements like a category icon or post-specific styling more automated.

This is great if you are starting a new site or want to redesign your blog – but what if you already have a pretty established site and a design you quite like? Wouldn’t it be great if you could add some of that microblogging functionality into your existing WordPress site? Read on for details on how to do that.

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The Woo Tumblog Plugin

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Last week, Woo introduced its free Woo Tumblog plugin. This plugin makes it possible to turn an existing theme into a Tumblr-like tumblelog.

You will need to do some editing of your theme files to get the Woo Tumblog plugin to work, because the plugin changes the way post title, thumbnails and post types are displayed. WooThemes has provided extensive documentation showcasing what you need to edit and add and has also included contextual help.

Woo also includes specific examples for what you need to do to add support for the plugin to the new TwentyTen theme included with WordPress 3.0.

You’ll need to change your permalink structure and add a few lines of code. It’s actually pretty straightforward. Our hope is that in the future, more theme developers will consider adding these hooks into their themes automatically.

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The QuickPress Widget

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Once you’ve enabled the plugin and made the changes so that different post types will appear a certain way, you can then post these types using the QuickPress widget on the WordPress dashboard.

This is what that looks like:

The end result is this post:

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Express: The iPhone App

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Beyond the plugin, WooThemes has also released Express [iTunes link]. The app is $4.99 but it is far and away the best WordPress mobile experience we’ve had to date.

You can use the app with any of the Woo microblogging themes or with your own theme if you install and enable the Tumblog plugin.

The app is super simple to use and you can easily post various types of content. It doesn’t support video uploading — something that the latest version of the WordPress iPhone app recently added, but it does make it easy to post various types of content and to moderate comments.

The app has already generated a lot of excitement in the WordPress theme community and lots of developers are signing up to add support for the app to their themes.

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What’s Missing

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As awesome as the new Woo Tumblog plugin and Express iPhone app are, there’s still a missing component that prevents true WordPress Meets Tumblr bliss from taking place. The bookmarklet.

I would argue that the bookmarklet is a huge reason why Tumblr and Posterous are so accessible. It’s just so easy to quickly post a link or an image or a brief comment when you can auto-generate that content from your web browser. Furthermore, the iOS bookmarklets make it possible to do this from within the Tumblr iPhone apps too.

WordPress has its own bookmarklet — Press This — but frankly it’s not very good. It’s buggy, it doesn’t give you all the options you have in the main editor and it certainly doesn’t easily support custom post types.

There are rumors that better Press This and QuickPress functionality will be coming to the next version of WordPress, but at this point, users are on their own. I’ve become so despondent with the lack of a real bookmarklet solution that I’ve toyed with creating something myself that will also work with WooThemes’ plugin. Sadly, I just don’t have a ton of time.

I’m not alone. I’ve received e-mails based on comments I’ve left regarding the need for a bookmarklet from others indicating that this is a must-have killer feature.

We’re so close — we just need this next piece to really make microblogging on WordPress viable and enjoyable.

WooThemes has done a lot of the heavy lifting by releasing the free plugin and also creating the iPhone app. Wouldn’t it be great if the open source spirit could help come up with a bookmarklet solution?

Do you use a microblog like Tumblr? Would you be interested in having more of those features natively in WordPress? Let us know.

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Series supported by Rackspace

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The Web Development Series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.

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More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:

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- 11 Trends in Web Logo Design: The Good, the Bad and the Overused
- Top 5 Web Font Design Trends to Follow
- 5 Tips for Aspiring Web App Developers
- Flash vs. HTML5: Adobe Weighs In
- 6 New Mac Apps for Designers and Developers

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Reviews: Drupal, Posterous, Tumblr, WordPress

More About: iphone apps, microblogging, tumblr, Web Development, web development series, woo tumblog, woothemes, Wordpress

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If you’re a Johnny Cash fan and you have some time to spare today, we highly suggest heading over to The Johnny Cash Project’s website to take part in the making of a truly innovative, crowd sourced music video dedicated to the Man in Black.

File this under: Amazing things that crowd sourcing can do. The Johnny Cash Project is a collective music video, fashioned from drawings done by you, the denizens of the web, to accompany Cash’s “Ain’t No Grave,” his final studio recording.

Visit the site to check out the video so far, and add to the project. The site features a drawing tool, which allows you illustrate a frame from the video. These images weave together to create an ever-changing work of art.

The brains behind this project, director Chris Milk, also spearheaded the HTML5 masterpiece “The Wilderness Downtown,” a music video created for Arcade Fire’s newest album, The Suburbs. This time, however, Milk appears to have used Flash to create his video.

This kind of visual storytelling hints at a truly interesting future when it comes to musical experience on the web. Yes, video may have killed the radio star, and the web might have killed the video star — but is there another kind of star on the horizon?

[via hypebot]

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Reviews: The Johnny Cash Project

More About: chris-milk, Flash, johnny cash, music, viral video

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Google Places is coming into its own with the just-introduced Place Search functionality that finally adds local search to Google’s growing database of places — more than 50 million locations, to be exact.

Place Search is built into the standard Google search experience, so a search for something like “Chicago museums” or “vegan restaurants” will return local Place Page listings that match those queries.

Listings now group all relevant links, and also include informational text snippets and highlight the number of reviews — on Google, Yelp and elsewhere — for each Place.

The technology is capable of predicting when your searches are for local, place-based information, but you can also manually start a Places search via the left-hand sidebar.

“We've made results like this possible by developing technology to better understand places. With Place Search, we're dynamically connecting hundreds of millions of websites with more than 50 million real-world locations,” explains Product Manager Jackie Bavaro. “We automatically identify when sites are talking about physical places and cluster links even when they don't provide addresses and use different names (’stubb's bbq’ is the same as ’stubbs bar-b-que’).”

Place Search is interesting for a number of reasons, but most significantly, Google searches are now more efficiently serving up local business listings. This makes Google’s Places database more visible than ever and more on par with Yelp.

Place databases are increasingly important as more mobile applications attempt to offer localized information. Yelp, Google and Foursquare all have their own database of places — each valuable in their own right. Then there’s the crop of services such as SimpleGeo and Twitter-owned GeoAPI, which outsource their own place databases to developers looking to build features on top of them.

Google will be rolling out Place Search in more than 40 languages over the course of the next few days.

Image courtesy of Flickr, kylesteed

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Reviews: Flickr, Foursquare, Google, Yelp

More About: Google, google places, place search

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Each month, our partner Visible Measures compiles a list of the top 10 most popular web video series, and we share those results with you and provide analysis. Visible Measures tracks views, comments and other data on web video.

If you’re looking for some video entertainment to watch online during your lunch break, this chart is a great place to start. Just find a show you’re interested in and click the play button to the right to check it out.

Alt-rock band Weezer invaded YouTube in September, making cameos in 15 web series. Three of them are in this list. And our wish was the web’s command as we longed for a new entrant to the chart and got one from Totally Sketch — but be warned that it’s definitely NSFW. Here’s the list!

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The Chart: September 2010

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	Rank	Last Month's Rank	Title	Studio	Genre	True Reach View Count	Change in Views	Sample Episode
	1 1 The Annoying Orange GagFilms Comedy 53,974,273 -17% Play 2 2 Auto-Tune the News Barely Political, Next New Networks News Parody 43,392,347 0% Play 3 3 Key of Awesome Next New Networks Comedy, Music 36,037,364 0% Play 4 4 Fred NA Comedy 35,887,980 8% Play 5 6 Happy Tree Friends MondoMedia Animation 19,477,635 5% Play 6 5 Smosh Deca TV Comedy, Sketch 18,726,276 -12% Play 7 NEW Totally Sketch Totally Sketch Comedy, Sketch 9,479,012 NEW Play 8 7 The Station The Station Comedy 8,541,008 -7% Play 9 8 Red Vs Blue Rooster Teeth Animation, Comedy 7,195,807 -12% Play 10 10 Potter Puppet Pals NA Sketch 6,531,149 26% Play

Global e-reading service Kobo has just announced that it is now offering subscriptions to digital magazine and newspaper consumers using the Kobo e-reader or the Kobo apps for iPhone or iPad.

Kobo is currently offering about two dozen newspapers and magazines from the U.S. and Canada. These include publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation and The Harvard Business Review.

Subscribers can get a 14-day free trial before committing to subscriptions, which are automatically delivered to the iPhone, iPad or Kobo e-reader.

Kobo’s news stand is similar in scope and pricing as those offerings from competitors Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, which both offer wirelessly delivered newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Titles are typically priced identically across the various stores.

The difference is that for most publications, Kobo also allows users to access subscription content from its iPad and iPhone apps. Last week, Amazon announced it would be making subscription content accessible from its Kindle apps “in the coming weeks.”

While it’s great that more periodical offerings are coming to Kobo and its reader and apps, we can’t help noticing that similar content shops, which all operate in their own walled gardens, are popping up all over the place.

In an ideal world, I would be able to subscribe to a digital edition of The New York Times for $19.99 per month and be able to access it on my iPhone, iPad, Kindle and from a Kobo reader or app.

Do you have any digital magazine or newspaper subscriptions?

More About: books, e-reader, e-readers, ipad, iphone apps, Kindle, kobo, magazines, nook

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As part of the ongoing Mashable Awards, we’re taking a closer look at each of the nomination categories. This is “Best Location-Based Service.” Be sure to nominate your favorites and join us for the Gala in Las Vegas! Sponsorships are available. Please contact sponsorships@mashable.com for more information.

While location-based mobile applications and services have been around for years, 2010 is proving to be a big breakout year. Trend benefactors include Facebook, Foursquare and big brands willing to take risks with location-based campaigns and checkin rewards programs.

We’ve rounded up what we believe to be the top five location-based services in a list that includes predictable names and lesser known upstarts. You’ll also notice that Facebook Places and Gowalla are both absent from our list. We found the former’s entry into the location space to have been more fanfare than substance and the latter struggling to emulate the rapid growth rates of its competitors.

Treat this list as a countdown beginning at the fifth most significant service and arriving at our top pick for location-based innovation. We encourage you to support your favorite location-based services by voting for them in the Mashable Awards.

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5. Yelp for Mobile

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Yelp is the original location-based service that redefined “local” for small businesses and their online customers. In 2010, Yelp continues to remain relevant with mobile applications that reach BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, PalmPre, Windows Phone 7 and most other smartphone users.

Yelp Mobile may not be the trendiest location-based service, but it’s arguably the most practical. Stats from September of this year show that Yelp Mobile generated 3 million unique visitors for the month and more than 1 million people created point-to-point directions to a local business.

We’re not partial, however, to Yelp’s also-ran checkin features. The startup should stick to what it does best — convenient and replete location-based business listings and reviews.

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4. Neer

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Newcomer Neer brings ingenious innovation around personal and private automatic location-sharing to Android device owners.

The startup launched earlier this year after incubating inside Qualcomm Services Labs. Creator Ian Heidt describes Neer as occupying "the middle ground between Foursquare and Google Latitude." That’s a technologically sound description, but we see Neer as the most practical application of location for actual real-world scenarios — like knowing if your kids made it to school.

Neer doesn’t bother with checkins, badges or other kitschy game mechanics. The service is designed so that you know where your loved ones and friends are, and vice versa. Since users have complete control over who can see their whereabouts — in place names, not physical addresses — there’s little to worry about on the privacy front.

The application is also designed with the average user in mind, meaning the user interface is both slick and uncomplicated.

As the space matures, location-based services will take inspiration from Neer and evolve past the pure novelty of checkins and location-sharing.

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3. Loopt

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Once the location app on everyone’s lips, Loopt has lost some of its luster to more buzz-worthy incumbents. But, Loopt continues to innovate around location and just last week updated its iPhone app to include deep integration with Facebook Places.

Loopt’s application is also the most aggressive of the big name players when it comes to automatic location-sharing, meaning it supports background location and proximity alerts for nearby friends.

There’s also the branded-rewards Loopt Star application, which has already demonstrated that it can push users to take action and drive them to their partners’ physical locations. With this formula, there’s certainly real revenue potential beyond just advertising.

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2. SCVNGR

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In just a few months time, SCVNGR has gone from an obscure mobile app for iPhone and Android to a formidable player in the location space with upward of 500,000 users. Now the Google-backed startup is said to be making millions thanks to more than 1,000 paying enterprise clients, which include the likes of Sony and Warner Bros.

As a service, SCVNGR differentiates itself with point-based challenges on top of checkins and interesting partners such as The Boston Globe, Minnesota Vikings, AT&T and the Smithsonian museums.

Just recently, the team redesigned the mobile apps to better surface user activity. Sophisticated Facebook Places integration also plays a significant role in the application experience and on the Facebook Place Pages for business owners.

Perhaps more interesting than the service itself is the 21-year-old whiz kid at the helm (pictured left in the photo above). Princeton dropout and serial entrepreneur Seth Priebatsch is barely old enough to drink, but this youngster is one huge overachiever with a grandiose vision for SCVNGR and the passion to make it happen.

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1. Foursquare

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Despite the emergence of Facebook Places months ago, Foursquare is still very much alive with its 4 million registered users. We think it’s safe to say that this startup continues to thrive because it’s more about people and places than it is about location.

We could rattle off Foursquare’s numerous partnerships, highlight its quirky badges or talk about its battles for mayorship, but what puts Foursquare atop our list is the fact that the service has created a phenomena around checkins, badges and rewards that’s been copied and adapted by countless other web and mobile services all trying to emulate Foursquare’s magic.

Foursquare’s recent restructuring of its iPhone and Android apps to highlight tips and to-dos point to a not-so-distant future when, co-founder Dennis Crowley explained, Foursquare will “reinvent what happens after the checkin.”

In many ways, Foursquare already reinvents what happens both before and after the checkin. Just look at how Jimmy Choo employed a pair of trainers to inspire a three-week frantic offline shoe hunt in London — with shoe sales jumping 30% around the time of the campaign — as proof of the concept. It’s the one campaign that Tristan Walker, Foursquare’s director of business development, speaks most highly of, even though the startup didn’t directly participate in the sale.

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What’s Your Take?

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Which location-based services do you use and recommend? Let us know in the comments or nominate them for the Mashable Awards.

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The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas)

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In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances.

Date: Thursday, January 6th, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)
Time: 7:00 – 10:00 pm PT
Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas
Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations
Socialize: Facebook, Foursquare, Meetup, Plancast, Twitter (Hashtag: #MashableAwards)

Thanks to our sponsors:

Mashable Awards Gala Partner:

From a group of 20 street performers at its beginnings in 1984, Cirque du Soleil is now a global entertainment organization providing high-quality artistic entertainment. The company has over 5,000 employees, including more than 1,200 artists from close to 50 different countries.

Cirque du Soleil has brought wonder and delight to nearly 100 million spectators in 300 cities on five continents. In 2010 Cirque du Soleil, will present 21 shows simultaneously throughout the world, including seven in Las Vegas.

For more information about Cirque du Soleil, visit www.cirquedusoleil.com

Mashable Awards Online Partner:

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Mashable Awards Partner:

Join us at the 2011 International CES®, the global platform for inspired ideas and innovation. With 2,500 exhibitors, CES continues to be the world's largest consumer technology tradeshow and always reflects the dynamic consumer electronics industry. The International CES is not open to the general public and all attendees must be in the CE industry to be eligible to attend the show. Register FREE for the 2011 CES with priority code MSHB, an exclusive promotion for Mashable Readers.

Mashable Awards Gala VIP Lounge sponsor:

Influxis specializes in the deployment of creative streaming solutions. Services include large scale deployment, mobile streaming, turn-key applications, and enterprise support with custom network options. With the unique combination of a worldwide network, knowledgeable developer support and nearly a decade of streaming media experience, Influxis is an essential partner to businesses, advertisers, developers, educators, and others who seek expertise in innovative streaming.

Sponsorships are available. Please contact sponsorships@mashable.com for more information.

Images courtesy of Ed Yourdon, MariShiebley, Flickr

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Reviews: Android, BlackBerry Rocks!, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Google, Gowalla, Mashable, Twitter, Windows Phone 7, Yelp, foursquare, iPhone

More About: android, blackberry, foursquare, geolocation, iphone, List, Lists, location-based, loopt, mashable awards, mashable awards 2010, neer, scvngr, yelp, yelp mobile

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Fredrik Larsson, the YouTube star who brought you the incredibly viral “TV Theme Song Medley,” is out with a new video — this one featuring seven minutes of theme songs from your favorite cartoons.

Featuring parts of Duck Tales, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Animaniacs, Inspector Gadget and — my personal favorite — Darkwing Duck, Larsson (a.k.a. FreddeGedde) has your entire childhood covered.

Forget Lykke Li — this guy is the real Swedish sensation. Someone sign this guy, already.

Check out the video above, as well as his first viral hit below, and let us know: What’s your favorite cartoon theme song?

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“TV Theme Song Medley”

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Reviews: YouTube

More About: freddegedde, humor, pop culture, television, viral video, youtube

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The long and illustrious history of moving pictures all started with the zoetrope. Then there was the thaumatrope, the flip book, and my personal favorite, the phenakistoscope. And now we have (drumroll please): The Internet.

People have been excited about moving pictures for ages. But achieving a passable animation has never been as easy or required as little talent as it does today.

Previously, we made some suggestions for sites where you can get your webcomic on. This week, we’re bringing you five excellent ways to tackle animation, the next step in your pseudo-artistic journey.

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1. GoAnimate

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For animators who would rather put in a little time rather than settle for a mediocre movie, GoAnimate is the way to go. The site offers enough customization to fully express creative genius, but it’s easy enough to master without any actual animation or technical skills.

For almost every component, the website offers a choice between complete customization and a library of already configured objects. Users can either choose a character or make a completely customized one; they can choose a soundtrack or upload one; they can have the computer speak the dialogue or record it themselves. All of these components are laid out visually on an easy-to-navigate timeline.

There’s also an interesting community feature similar to many social media sites. Users can collect followers, earn badges and send messages to one another. Personal dashboards track how many people view your animation, which is way more fun than feeling like you’re sending your brilliant clip into cyber thin air.

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2. Devolver

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Devolver streamlines the animation process into a quick, six-step multiple choice project. Choose your background, characters and one of four plots; type in some dialog; choose some music; and — voila! — you have an animated movie. Despite the extremely limited customization options, it’s actually not a bad looking cartoon.

It’s quick to e-mail your animation to a friend, but they will need to visit the Devolver site in order to watch the movie and there’s no option to download. This aspect, paired with the fact that the dialog is really the only thing you can customize, makes this site more like a more exciting way to send an e-mail message than an actual animation; much like a customized e-card. Still, there are a bunch of situations that could warrant this of animation — an inside joke, a prom date request… a marriage proposal.

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3. Animasher

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Instead of assigning actions to characters via a drop-down menu, Animasher users just hit a record button. Any movement that they create by dragging and dropping the images will be played back. Animators can compile multiple scenes of these moving images to complete a story.

It’s a pretty painless way to make a movie, but there are some drawbacks. The images move but aren’t actually animated, so it’s difficult to accomplish changing expressions. As a result, the animation comes out looking more like a puppet show than a movie.

Some tools that make the site more interesting are the ability to add your own images, record dialog with a microphone and add video clips. If you like the scrapbook-like look and process, there aren’t any better, free options out there without downloading or having actual software knowledge.

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4. Xtranormal

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As far as visual quality goes, this site is impressive (which is probably the cause of the slow preview load times). The workspace is a little different than the other animation sites mentioned in this article. All character movement, sound bytes, expressions and gestures are added directly into the script where you type the dialog.

Unfortunately, the site’s options for free use are limited. Sarah Palin is one of two default characters in the “Starz” theme, for instance, but any other choices require cash commitment before you’re able to publish your animation. The same is true for “premium objects,” like different backgrounds that you’re able to preview but not publish, unless you pay. As evidenced by the site’s YouTube channel, there are definitely opportunities to makes some pretty cool movies, but the free version seems limited.

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5. Voki

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You can’t create much of a story with Voki, but you can create an animated speaking avatar. The site is extremely easy to use. Just choose a character base (choices range from Uncle Sam to classic normal-looking people), adjust the background and colors, and add a voice. To put words in your avatar’s mouth, you can either call a number and leave a message, type out a greeting and let the computer generate a voice with the accent of your choice, or record a message with your computer’s microphone. When you’re finished, you can embed the code in your website or e-mail your message to a friend.

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6. Zimmer Twins

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Remember those choose your-own-adventure novels? This animation site applies the same concept to short cartoons. The site partners with Teletoon, a Canadian animation channel, to give children a starter in animation.

The site challenges you to use its animation tool to finish the stories, which chronicle the adventures of siblings Eva and Edgar. The best finished stories are then recorded by voice actors and turned into TV spots.

Which site was your favorite? What animation sites do you use? What features would you love to see in sites like these? Let us know in the comments!

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More Design Resources from Mashable:

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- 6 Free Sites for Creating Your Own Comics
- Top 5 Web Font Design Trends to Follow
- 6 New Mac Apps for Designers and Developers
- 9 Free Resources for Learning Photoshop
- HOW TO: Score a Web Design Job

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sage78

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Reviews: iStockphoto

More About: animasher, animation, art, cartoons, design, diy, Dvolver, free, goanimate, List, Lists, Voki, Xtranormal, Zimmer Twins

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Today, eBay CEO John Donahoe participated in a PayPal Innovate panel with Andreessen-Horowitz partner Marc Andreessen and focused on where things are headed in the mobile space. The Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher served as moderator for the discussion.

On the topic of mobile payments, Donahoe and Andreessen agreed — the time is now.

The discussion wasn’t focused around any one technology or service (other than PayPal), but Donahoe went on to boldly assert that “mobile is the safest way to pay,” gesturing with his mobile phone to indicate that this device will soon replace his wallet.

Donahoe’s argument was that there isn’t “a shred of financial information” stored on the mobile phone, which makes it a much safer entity to lose than the wallet by comparison. Donahoe believes we’re closing in on the day when the mobile phone will be both personal identifier and credit card, and eliminate the need for a wallet altogether — PayPal being your credit card replacement and the mobile phone being your wallet, in his mind.

Andreessen was also very adamant that mobile payments is blooming in a big way. He argues that we’re now at a time when the pace of innovation will explode to finally support scale and exciting new ways for customers to pay.

The mobile payments space is now extremely competitive, and we know from news announced yesterday on Mobile Express Checkout that it’s an area PayPal hopes to dominate. There’s also a number of startups ranging from Square to Boku (an Andreessen-Horowitz startup) to Venmo taking their own unique approach to mobile payment solutions.

As for credit card companies posing a threat to these fresh faces, Andreessen and Donahoe again are in agreement — that’s not going to happen.

Image courtesy of Flickr, b_d_solis

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Reviews: Flickr

More About: ebay, john donahoe, marc andreessen, mobile payments, paypal, paypal innovate

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As of today, ads on Yahoo are now being served by Microsoft, the latest integration to come of the search and advertising partnership the two companies signed last year.

What that means is that all advertising on both Bing and Yahoo search is now powered by Microsoft's adCenter (in the U.S. and Canada for now). That gives advertisers access to the combined inventory of both services, which accounts for about 27.9% of all searches according to the latest numbers from comScore.

Yahoo started serving search results powered by Bing back in August. However, it's important to note that the two companies are continuing to develop their own features around the same set of algorithmic search results. For instance, Bing recently launched Facebook integration that surfaces results based on what your friends have "liked."

For its part, Yahoo says that it "remains focused on delivering unique consumer experiences … and on increasing user engagement in our owned-and-operated search products to help drive high-quality traffic into the combined marketplace." To that end, the company unveiled some big changes to its interface earlier this month.

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Reviews: Bing

More About: adCenter, advertising, bing, microsoft, online advertising, Yahoo

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Josh Peters is a social media and Internet marketing consultant and the co-author of Twittfaced. He blogs at Shuaism and can usually be found hanging out on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

There’s nothing like the basics to help bring things back into focus when you feel lost. In “Marketing 101,” the acronym AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. This is the most simple and rudimentary of sales and marketing funnels and is still incredibly relevant today when it comes to social media and Internet marketing strategies.

Each section of AIDA represents a section of your sales and marketing process and can help you set your expectations, decide what to monitor, and visualize the relationships between each part. Understanding the flow of the tools and tactics will also help you get your measurements and analytics in line with your goals.

Here’s a closer look at the breakdown of this marketing funnel, some tips on how to apply it to your social media strategy, and a look at how the model is evolving in the social media age.

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Awareness

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Awareness is social media’s bread and butter. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and other networks are built for this. You can’t easily display your inventory via Twitter, set up a shopping cart on LinkedIn, or fill orders through YouTube. These networks are not going to be your point of sale. Instead, they are your communication and outreach tools — the spokes that lead back to your hub (sales page, blog, site, etc.) where you will be making your conversions.

Awareness can take many forms, but its main goal is getting people to know you exist and that you can solve a problem they might have. At this level, conversations, interaction and content are king. A few metrics you might want to measure around your brand are conversation frequency, increased mentions and sentiment.

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Interest

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Now that you have their attention, you need to get customers interested in your product. You can bolster interest with offers and compelling reasons why you’re better than the competition, and how you can solve customers’ problems. Features and benefits weigh heavily in this level, and social media can help you kick their interest into high gear.

If you’re running a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign and have some targeted landing pages set up for your products or services, those are what you want to link to — not your homepage. Even if you’re not utilizing paid ads, the same strategy of linking to targeted pages through social media is applicable. A few of the metrics you will want to look at here are CTR (click through rate), retweets (of deals and links), and conversations about specific products.

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Desire

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Social media can help bolster desire through communication and engagement, but to fully satisfy someone’s desire to buy, you need to have a site that is streamlined and optimized. Recently, I tried using a popular car rental site to make a reservation, but it was so difficult to navigate that I gave up, despite having a great discount code. The unmanageable user interface killed my desire in two minutes flat, and my business went straight to the competition. Your site makes a huge impression, and people will judge your company by it.

Take the time to go through your site and optimize the presentation and the shopping cart experience. Testimonials gathered from linkable social profiles are a great asset.

Take the customer from interest to desire with a clean, easy to navigate, info rich, and functional site. Some of the metrics that matter at this level are bounce rate, time on site, pages viewed and incoming links.

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Action

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Now that your customers are itching to buy your product, and their money is burning a hole in their PayPal pocket, you need to seal the deal. At this point, your site is your number one tool, and while social media can influence the action through the previous levels, it’s not going to have the same influence here. You need to make it easy and obvious for your customer to complete your desired action (purchase, sign up, lead form, etc.).

The action is also where you can finally calculate some of your end metrics, like conversion rate and ROI. This is where you can see how everything is performing and the final impact your work is having. Often, these are the metrics that your boss (and your boss’s boss) are looking for.

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New Additions to the Marketing Funnel

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Over the years, the traditional AIDA has evolved and added two extra levels. These levels represent not only a shift in the technology and methods that are used to market, but the people behind it.

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Loyalty

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How are you getting your customers to buy from you again? One very simple way to stave off any buyer's remorse is to follow up via the same social media you used to get customers in the first place. If you know they purchased via a link on Facebook, send them a Facebook message saying “thanks,” and provide them with your customer service contact info. 

Perform customer service on Twitter. Monitor the online conversations around people who are already using your product and see if they have any questions or problems that you can resolve quickly. You can build social loyalty programs and use the communities you create to keep customers coming back. This is where CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can play a leading role, and many social CRM solutions are emerging to fill that need. A few things you might want to monitor here are repeat buyers, the use of loyalty codes, sentiment of mentions post-purchase and sentiment of specific products.

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Advocacy

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Advocacy is the dream of any marketer. It’s the “sweet spot,” where your customers do your marketing for you. It’s when customers love your products, brand, services and people so much that they can’t help but talk about you. This is why you want to make it easy for people to share your brand. Any hindrance to this — be it a bad website interface or an anti-social company ethic — will really discourage this extremely valuable source of traffic and interest.

If it’s an option, I’m far more inclined to click on a “Tweet This” or “Like” button than I am to take the link, shorten it in bit.ly, and post it to my various social networks. Remove any barriers to advocacy and then both encourage and reward it. Some metrics to look at here are mentions, conversations and referrals.

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The problem with AIDA

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As you can see, the levels of our old friend AIDA can get a bit muddy, especially when it comes to the areas of awareness and interest. This has given birth to dozens, probably even hundreds, of fresh interpretations. The main thing to remember is how the funnels flow and to set your measurement and expectations accordingly.

You also don’t need to live and die by this funnel. People can easily skip a level or go through multiple levels at once. It’s not a perfect model, but then nothing is. But keep AIDA in mind as you shape your social marketing strategy. It should help you focus and prioritize your goals for success.

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More Business Resources from Mashable:

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- Social Media Marketing 101: In-House Team, Agency or Consultant?
- Why Social Media Is Perfect for Brand Ambassador Campaigns
- 4 Winning Strategies for Social Media Optimization
- Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses
- Should Your Company Have a Chief Marketing Technologist?

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Reviews: Facebook, Internet, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube

More About: AIDA, business, facebook, List, Lists, MARKETING, marketing funnel, small business, social media, social media marketing, social media monitoring, strategy, trending, twitter

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New York City’s landmark skyscraper, the Empire State Building, is now a part of the social media revolution with a newly launched Twitter account and Facebook Page.

The Empire State Building Company is behind the ESBObservatory Twitter and Facebook accounts. The accounts will be used to post photos, share building information, highlight pop culture tidbits and update fans on fun factoids about the famous office building.

The building is also fast-approaching its 80th anniversary, so the accounts will post updates in anticipation of the monumental day.

There’s something to be said for such a famous building having a social media presence, even though it isn’t necessarily breaking new ground here. The building company’s recognition of social media as important distribution and fan engagement channels certainly speaks volumes to how pervasive social media has become.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Magnus Nordstrom

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Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter

More About: empire state building, facebook, social media, twitter

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Apple confirmed Wednesday that the long-awaited white iPhone 4 won’t be available until spring.

“We’re sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone yet again, but we’ve decided to delay its release until this spring,” said Apple spokeswoman Trudy Miller.

Apple had previously stated that the white iPhone 4 would “not be available until later this year." This latest statement comes one day after we reported that the white version of the iPhone 4 had appeared in the Apple Store.

[via CNN]

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Reviews: Apple Store

More About: apple, Apple Store, iphone 4, white iphone

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Event ticketing company Eventbrite has just released a new version of its free iPhone app, Eventbrite Easy Entry. The app [iTunes link] now allows event organizers to check in attendees by scanning a 2D barcode on Eventbrite tickets directly from their iPhones.

This eliminates some of the hassle involved in the event checkin process. Eventbrite is using barcode-scanning technology powered by Quickmark to make it easier to get attendee data into the system.

The iPhone app works by connecting to a guest list from Eventbrite’s servers. Event staff can then check in attendees by scanning a barcode, looking up their names or browsing a list.

What makes the system awesome is that checkins are synced across multiple devices. That means events can have staff members at multiple entrance points without having to worry about having incomplete or unsynchronized data.

Other new features of the app include:

• Support for repeating events and customized sync settings
• A new checkin interface that makes it easier to switch between search, list and scan options
• E-mail, ticket type and payment info are displayed under an attendee’s name.

Event planners — how do you manage checkins and ticketing? Let us know.

Disclosure: Mashable’s events staff use Eventbrite for ticket sales for our events.

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Reviews: Mashable, QuickMark, iPhone

More About: barcode scanning, event tickets, eventbrite, iphone, iphone apps

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StumbleUpon has just rolled out an upgrade to its StumbleUpon Video product, adding support for third-party services like Hulu and TED, as well as adding personalized recommendations from your StumbleUpon friends.

If you’ve never used StumbleUpon Video, it’s similar to other video discovery services like Redux or ShortForm. Log in to the site and you’re treated to a selection of videos based on your topics of interest. Now you can also get your friends’ recommendations, which you can give a thumbs-up or thumb-down, and cycle through from the keyboard.

What separates StumbleUpon Video from some other offerings is that it can pump content in from a lot of different services. Historically StumbleUpon Video has supported services like Vimeo, YouTube, CollegeHumor and DailyMotion. In the past few months, StumbleUpon has added TED video to the mix to great success.

Starting today, StumbleUpon users can now also access and “stumble” Hulu content. The TED and Hulu aspects add some variety to the StumbleUpon Video platform and make way for more long-form viewing options.

Perhaps even more importantly, StumbleUpon has adjusted its recommendation engine, changing it from just recommending what was popular or well-rated in various categories, to integrating recommendations from your friends.

This makes a lot of sense in the context of longer-form content. For example, I really enjoy watching short-form programming and bits of content recommended by strangers. It can be a cool way to see absolutely bizarre and awesomely awful displays of humanity (or lackthereof). However, if I’m going to watch something like a TED talk or a TV show, I’m much more likely to give the content a chance if I know who recommended it.

We asked StumbleUpon if it had any plans to integrate with other social graphs and recommendations systems and the answer, for now, is no. This is understandable, but we think that this sort of recommendation engine could get even better if it could hook into Facebook or other services to help flesh out what you like and recommend.

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Video Discovery Has Big Potential

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For a content discovery service like StumbleUpon, it makes sense to focus more on video. ShortForm, one of the newer places in the video discovery space, is already reporting huge returns on user engagement and sustained visits.

Earlier this month, ShortForm announced it was already getting more than 200,000 visitors a month, with returning visitors watching for 10 to 30 minutes per session.

That sort of sustained viewership is important for advertisers, especially as more and more video content moves online. The sheer breadth of content offerings make curating or recommendation services even more beneficial to consumers, who can get a greater variety of content they want in one place.

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Mobile?

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StumbleUpon recently released a mobile app for iPhone and Android. These apps let you rate and recommend YouTube videos on the go, but the focus is currently on traditional websites. StumbleUpon also has an iPad app.

We asked StumbleUpon about plans for making mobile video recommendations easier and it’s on the horizon — but for now, the focus is on the desktop product.

Personally speaking, I’d love to see a StumbleUpon app for the iPad or the Boxee platform, with a big focus on video.

We think video recommendation services show a lot of promise and by partnering with big content providers like Hulu, StumbleUpon is doing a lot to further its development.

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Reviews: Boxee, Facebook, Hulu, StumbleUpon, Vimeo, YouTube

More About: shortform.tv, stumbleupon, stumbleupon video, stumblevideo, web video

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

So, you’re a small or medium-sized business, and you want to build a Facebook, mobile or web app. You’re undertaking something that’s both simple and ambitious, and you’re probably looking for a bit of help.

But do you use one of the many do-it-yourself tools online, or do you call in a professional? If you find you need a developer to work with you, do you reach out to a freelancer or do you call an agency? And when — if ever — do you need to hire your own full- or part-time, in-house dev to work on your website and applications?

Here’s a quick overview of the ins and outs of getting web work done as an SMB — as always, with tight budgets in mind. If you’ve got tips for other business owners or want to share your experiences with hiring developers, please leave us a note in the comments section.

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DIY Tools

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There are quite a few do-it-yourself options for the thrifty entrepreneur. If you’re not a perfectionist, and if your budget is small, building your own app with minimal support from professional developers might be a viable option. Most of these tools have a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) interface, which means even the techically challenged should be able to create a usable application without sustaining any brain strain.

These DIY tools are generally a lot less expensive than working with a pro — but caveat emptor, you get what you pay for.

Google’s App Inventor is a good example of a DIY tool. You don’t need a developer to use App Inventor, and you can create Android applications that use a smartphone’s features, including GPS and SMS.

If you’d like to capture the iPhone market, too, check out AppMakr, a web-based iPhone app maker, or SwebApps, another tool for building iPhone applications.

You can target multiple mobile platforms at once with tools like BuildAnApp, or you can look into the geolocation angle with a tool such as Socialight or Shout’Em.

There are also tons of tools for creating your own microsites, Facebook apps, social networks, blogs and more. Do a web search to find platform-specific tools.

The most important part of using a DIY tool is ensuring that your initial idea and strategy are spot-on before you embark on a potentially time-consuming process. It might be smart to double-check your plans with an experienced and successful mobile and online marketing expert before beginning your app creation.

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Freelance and Contract Developers

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The web abounds with job boards and classified ads, but how do you find out where skilled and reliable developers are lurking? How do you know who will be willing and able to work on your project?

We recommend checking out oDesk and Elance, for starters. If you feel like looking for offshore developer talent, you can try Softensity.

Our developer friends recommend checking out StackOverflow’s career section and LimeExchange, too.

You can also get great recommendations from your existing network; just be sure to research portfolios, websites and references thoroughly before making a decision to work with a particular developer.

When you’re working with a freelance or contract developer, make sure you have all your paperwork — from non-disclosure agreements to invoices and beyond — signed and sealed early in the process. This will protect all parties involved, ensuring your developer is treated fairly, your work is done in a timely manner and all expectations are met on both sides.

Also make sure that you’re communicating well with any web developers or designers you hire. One of the biggest keys to getting great work is being a great client. Have appropriate expectations, listen to the professionals in your employ and don’t micro-manage a design or development project.

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Dev Shops and Agencies

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If a mobile or social application is going to be a big part of your marketing strategy, you might want to go for the big guns. Development shops and agencies can help you with a wide range of app-related tasks, from figuring out what it is that you want your application to do, to measuring results.

Of course, prices will vary according to the quality of work and range of services offered. The fee schedule may also differ between agencies — some charge a subscription fee, others charge a one-time flat rate per app and still others will customize a quote based on your specifications. The type and number of platforms supported (including iPhone, Android and BlackBerry) will also vary.

TheyMakeApps.com is a good resource if you’re looking for a competent mobile dev agency. This directory was created by New York-based digital agency Kettle, “because it’s easier for Indiana Jones to recover the Sankara Stones than for someone with an idea for an app to find a decent app developer,” according to the site’s creators. Fees for these devs and shops run from under $5,000 to more than $20,000.

Another good resource is Appolicious’ directory. Here, developers and dev shops are organized by vertical so you can find a shop that has expertise in the kind of app you want to build.

As for web and social apps, for some platforms, you’ll want to have a special development team. Facebook in particular attracts a ton of great developers, and shops like SocialCubix and Avenue Social specialize in developing Facebook pages and apps.

Regardless of whether you’re building a mobile or a traditional web app, be sure to do your research when picking a dev shop. Familiarize yourself with the agency’s portfolio and get recommendations from colleagues whenever possible. Make sure your expectations in terms of pricing and services are realistic and agreed upon before making a commitment.

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In-House Developers

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Finally, if the worlds of web and mobile marketing are key to your organization’s success, you might want to hire a full-time or part-time developer yourself. This is a good choice if you need ongoing support and are ready to make a greater commitment to tech-based marketing than just a one-off mobile or social app. It’s also a good idea if you want a cohesive campaign that reflects your company’s goals, messaging and branding across multiple channels, from Facebook to smartphones.

Before you start looking around for a developer, decide and clearly state what you want and what you’re willing to give. You need to have rock-solid expectations of in-office or at-home work hours and specific skill sets your new employee should have — from languages and platforms to design and UX/UI abilities. You also need to be sure you’re offering fair benefits and salary. This research phase should take a significant chunk of time, but the more careful planning you do at the outset, the less time you’ll spend in a futile search to fill a vague or impossible job description.

When you’re ready to hire, you can start by looking around the aforementioned job boards, many or most of which have sections for both freelance and full- or part-time work. You should also screen recommended candidates from your local social sphere of acquaintances. You could even call a tech recruiter, but many of these agencies turn up less-than-stellar results.

Also consider creating a temp-to-hire or internship position if you want to tap young, recent-graduate talent. This will create a safe zone for mutual learning and app experimentation without draining your personnel budget.

Last, you will want to see whether your potential hire has technical chops. If you’re not going through a recruiter — and even if you are — you’ll want to set up something akin to a technical interview, wherein you assess the problem-solving and coding abilities of your candidate.

You can use tools like Codility to test coding ability — this site has a monthly subscription fee and can be used for the duration of your candidate search to determine skill levels and rank potential hires. Other sites that let developers solve computer science and algorithmic problems are CodeChef and Project Euler. You can also pay a bona fide hacker to screen candidates, but this is one phase where you don’t want to skimp. Hiring a bad programmer is a costly mistake and one that’s difficult to correct once it’s been made.

Let us know your tips and advice in the comments, and best of luck with your SMB’s mobile and/or social app!

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More Business Resources from Mashable:

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- Social Media Marketing 101: In-House Team, Agency or Consultant?
- Why Social Media Is Perfect for Brand Ambassador Campaigns
- 4 Winning Strategies for Social Media Optimization
- Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses
- Should Your Company Have a Chief Marketing Technologist?

Image credits: Flickr, goincase.

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Reviews: Android, Facebook, Flickr, Google

More About: app builder, app creation, app development, apps, business, development, Facebook app, mobile app, small business, smb, social app, web app, Web Development

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T-Mobile just announced that Samsung’s Android-based tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab, will be available in T-Mobile stores on November 10.

After Verizon and Sprint, T-Mobile is the third major U.S. carrier to reveal the launch date for the Galaxy Tab, and — unless AT&T spoils it for them — T-Mobile customers will get the chance to buy the device one day before Verizon customers and four days before Sprint customers.

In the announcement, T-Mobile mentions its fast HSPA+ mobile broadband network, which should go hand-in-hand with Galaxy Tab’s 3G chip, but it doesn’t mention the price. The mystery of Galaxy Tab is nearly solved, but until we hear from AT&T and learn the price for the device from T-Mobile, the puzzle won’t be complete.

More About: android, galaxy tab, samsung, T-Mobile, Tablet

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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 four particular stories of interest today.

MySpace Releases Major Redesign

MySpace has begun rolling out its biggest overhaul to date, set to finish in November. Everything from the redesigned homepage and newly streamlined profiles to the new Topic Pages suggest a transformation from a social network into a "social entertainment destination."

Barnes & Noble Unveils Full-Color, Android-Based Nook

Barnes & Noble has unveiled its successor to the original Nook, the NOOKcolor, a full-color, Android-based e-reader and touchscreen tablet. It's going to retail for $249 and is expected to start shipping on November 19.

The NOOKcolor features a 7-inch backlit IPS display and capacitive touchscreen. It weighs in at just under a pound and comes with 8GB of built-in memory, which can be expanded up to 32GB with a microSD card. It also features a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, a micro-USB port, built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and up to eight hours of battery (with the Wi-Fi turned off).

Apple Launches Online Store in China

Apple has launched an online store for customers in China. The store is currently stocked with iPhone 4s, iPads, iPods and Mac computers, complete with custom configuration options for the Mac, free personalized engraving on any iPod or iPad model, and free shipping.

White iPhone Delayed Until Spring 2011

Although white iPhone 4s became available for in-store reservation in the Apple Store App this week, Apple spokeswoman Trudy Miller has announced that the white counterpart of the popular smartphone will not, in fact, be made available for purchase until spring 2011. She declined to furnish reasons for the delay.

Further News

• Gmail has added a new "Labs" feature dubbed "Auto-advance" that allows users to automatically move to the previous or next conversation after archiving, deleting or muting an individual e-mail message.
• A number of photos of the fabled, Android-based PlayStation phone have been posted by Engadget.
• PayPal has announced the launch of PayPal for Digital Goods, a checkout solution that lets users manage payments online with just two clicks. The company also announced a major partner: Facebook.
• The size of Twitter’s staff has more than doubled since February; the company announced Tuesday afternoon that it has hired its 300th full-time employee.

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Reviews: Android, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter

More About: apple, barnes & noble, first to know series, iphone 4, myspace, nook, nookcolor, white iphone 4

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As we saw in 2008, the U.S. elections are a great time for web companies to showcase their wares. This year, Foursquare is getting in on the action, encouraging civic participation with the introduction of an "I Voted" badge, a digital version of the sticker often handed out at polling places around the country.

To pull this off — and create at least some sort of verification around voting — a number of organizations have partnered up, including Foursquare, Rock the Vote, Pew Center, Google and the Voting Information Project.

Eric Friedman, director of business development at Foursquare said in a statement, “We’re excited to work with such an amazing group of partners to harness the power of Foursquare to drive civic engagement through the 'I Voted' badge. With over 4 million users, Foursquare is now at the scale where checkins communicate a larger trend and we’re excited to make this data more accessible to the public.”

The result is that data has been collected for 107,000 polling places, and users that check in to them and include an #ivoted hashtag in their shout will get the badge. Several visualizations will accompany the project, including interactive real-time maps, data on the total number of checkins and other breakdowns like the gender of those who voted.

In all, the Foursquare project represents a smart geosocial twist on the efforts we saw in the 2008 Presidential elections, which included Twitter's #VoteReport, a mashup that let users share real-time info about polling places to try and make sure everyone was able to vote.

One of the goals of the 2010 project is to use the findings to develop even further advances when the 2012 presidential elections roll around. The project will live on the new Foursquare elections site and go live on Election Day, November 2.

Will you check in on Election Day? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, tastybit

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Reviews: Flickr, Google, foursquare

More About: 2010 election, election, foursquare, politics

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