Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Sharp to Launch Two 3D Android Handsets” |
- Sharp to Launch Two 3D Android Handsets
- OpenTable Seated 15.4 Million Diners in Q3 2010
- Do Freelancers Do Best on WordPress, Drupal or Joomla?
- Use Your Phone Number to Make Online Purchases
- Control Last.fm with Xbox Kinect Gestures
- Twitter Bot Auto-Debates Climate Change Critics
- Qik Video Chat Gets Native Android App On T-Mobile
- WordPress Celebrates 1 Million Mobile Users
- Animoto Grows to 2 Million Users
- 50+ Immediate Social Media and Web Development Job Openings
- Mark Zuckerberg on Why Facebook Will Never Build a Phone [INTERVIEW]
- Twitter For Android Gets an Update
- Two Ways Developers Will Interact With Google TV Viewers
- Google Helps Auto-Tune Your Web Server
- 5 Tips for Improving Your Social Customer Service
- SurveyMonkey Adds $100 Million in Financing
- A Glimpse at the Future of Foursquare
- Online Behavior Tracking and Privacy: 7 Worst Case Scenarios
- Mark Zuckerberg: The iPad Isn’t Mobile
- Local Deals Come to Facebook Places
- Facebook Makes Signing Into Mobile Apps Incredibly Easy
- Facebook Is Updating Its iPhone and Android Apps
- Facebook Making a Big Mobile Platform Announcement [LIVE]
- Today’s Facebook Announcement Is All About Places
- The “Bury” Button Returns to Digg
- New Browser Extension Generates 2D Barcodes On the Fly
- Groupon Lets Merchants Process Deals With Smartphones
- Push Notifications Startup Raises Another $5.4 Million
- Did Facebook Popularity Predict Election Results?
- 10 Intermediate and Advanced Tips from PHP Masters
| Sharp to Launch Two 3D Android Handsets Posted: 04 Nov 2010 02:04 AM PDT      How do you feel about the idea of a 3D display on a phone? Having to wear a pair of special glasses to be able to enjoy 3D content on a mobile phone doesn’t sound very practical, but Sharp has a solution in the way of two glasses-free 3D Android handsets. Bearing the names Galapagos 003SH and 005SH, both handsets sport 1GHz Snapdragon CPUs, Android 2.2, and a 3.8-inch 3D-capable display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution. The main difference between the two phones is the full QWERTY keyboard on the 005SH, but 003SH makes up for it with a slightly better camera, a 9.6 megapixel model capable of recording 720p video, while 005SH sports a (still formidable) 8-megapixel camera. With 3D currently being all the rage in the world of video entertainment, the technology will inevitably start spilling into the world of smartphones, which – in today’s world of handsets with large touch screens – are just as much mobile entertainment platforms as they are phones. While we don’t know much about the 3D capabilities of Sharp’s upcoming devices, a glasses-free 3D display sounds like the right path in the context of smartphones. And if you’re wondering about the lack of 3D content for these devices, Capcom has announced the 3D versions of their games Mega Man, Ghosts ‘n Goblins: Gold Knights, and Resident Evil: Degeneration for Android, and the first smartphones to feature these games will be the 003SH and 005SH from Sharp. The 003SH is coming to Japan’s Softbank this December, and the 005SH is due February next year. [via Engadget] Reviews: Android More About: 3D, android, Mobile 2.0, Sharp, smartphone For more Mobile coverage:
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| OpenTable Seated 15.4 Million Diners in Q3 2010 Posted: 03 Nov 2010 11:57 PM PDT   Online and mobile reservation service OpenTable released its third-quarter financial results, which showed significant year-over-year gains in revenue, restaurant installations and total seated diners. Most notably, the publicly traded company posted $24.5 million in total revenues for Q3 2010, a 44% increase over the same quarter last year. OpenTable is also reporting a 52% increase in year-over-year diners with 15.4 seated diners for this past quarter. The company now says it has an client base of 13,025 restaurants in North America — a 26% increase since September 30, 2009. CEO Jeffrey Jordan also revealed in an interview with Barron’s West Coast Editor Eric Savitz at the FASTech conference earlier today that OpenTable will now focus on international expansion efforts in the U.K., Germany and Japan. In September, OpenTable acquired U.K. competitor TopTable for $55 million. Jordan disclosed that the deal was nine months in the making, but now that it’s closed, the company can work to aggressively expand beyond its existing 2,000-restaurant base in the U.K. One thing we found particularly insightful is the fact that OpenTable generates a significant majority of traffic from its own mobile applications and website. Jordan shared that, in aggregate, the company’s numerous syndication partners — Yelp, Zagat, Google, CitySearch etc. — only generate a fraction of OpenTable reservations, 5% to 10% to be exact. OpenTable shares saw a 10.78% bump today following yesterday’s financial report, closing at $68.02. All signs indicate that OpenTable is a financially sound company. Plus, while Jordan wouldn’t reveal financial specifics around the company’s newly started deal initiative, he did go so far as to say that Spotlight has, “generated interesting revenue pretty quickly.” Image courtesy of Flickr, Robert Scoble Reviews: Flickr, Google, Yelp More About: earnings, opentable For more Business coverage:
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| Do Freelancers Do Best on WordPress, Drupal or Joomla? Posted: 03 Nov 2010 11:11 PM PDT   Some very interesting stats have just emerged about the freelance and contract market for CMS developers and designers. In its quarterly market report, freelance site DoNanza discovered that even though WordPress devs, designers and SEO pros are in greater demand than their Drupal or Joomla counterparts — and even though WordPress outnumbers Drupal and Joomla in the number of projects for each CMS — Drupal web professionals on average make around twice what WordPress pros make per project. The full report, called the State of the Work-From-Home and Freelancing Economy, looked at CMSes used by various professionals in a range of web-work specializations. It also ranked the most requested job skills right now. On average, all CMS projects in DoNanza’s universe grew almost 50% quarter over quarter. The number of WordPress projects grew 61%; Joomla projects grew 38%; and Drupal projects grew 26%.  And that’s just growth. When you look at the actual number of projects, WordPress projects account for six and a half times the number of Drupal projects. (The actual number of Joomla projects was almost exactly between the other two CMSes.)  However, Drupal projects have higher budgets. The average WordPress project pays the freelancer in question around $455, while a Drupal freelancer makes around $915 per project.  If we extrapolate based on those numbers, we can see that WordPress still accounts for the lion’s share of the CMS/freelance economy, even through Drupal wins on potential earnings per project.  Another interesting section of the report detailed the most requested skills for developers, designers and other web professionals. Among the 50 top skills, the biggest rises and drops are indicative of trends in the market. For example, .NET dropped 6 rankings, and MySQL sank 4 places. However, Android soared 20 full percentage points, and jQuery jumped 16 positions. Another big gainer was iPad, which rose 12 places. Check out the full report to get all the rankings. If you’re a dev or designer working with one or more of these CMSes, do these stats and budgets line up with your real-world experience? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of slinky2000. Reviews: Android, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress More About: CMS, contractor, developers, drupal, freelance, joomla, Wordpress For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Use Your Phone Number to Make Online Purchases Posted: 03 Nov 2010 10:27 PM PDT   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.
Quick Pitch: Use your mobile phone number instead of your credit card to buy online. Genius Idea: Online shopping once required a credit card. Boku makes it possible to make purchases online using a mobile phone number instead. Instead of keying in your credit card number, address, and security code, all you need to make a purchase using Boku’s payment option, Paymo, is your phone number. Because the cell phone carriers charge merchants fees as high as 35% for this kind of transaction, Boku started out by exclusively targeting virtual goods. The production cost for such goods is minimal, and therefore their retailers can typically afford the high carrier fees. The company has since expanded to providing its payment option for online services like dating sites and for digital goods like music downloads. Co-founder Ron Hirson says that the company next aims to expand as a payment method for pay-walled content. Eventually, as carrier rates come down, it aims to be an easy checkout option on ecommerce sites and for frequently purchased physical goods like fast food, coffee and transit. Boku launched in 2008 when Hirson, Mark Britto and Erich Ringewald — all of whom had founded and sold other companies at this point — acquired mobile payment companies Paymo and Mobillcash. Since then, they’ve raised more than $40 million in three rounds of funding and have partnered with carriers in 64 countries, most recently Brazil and Israel. While Boku faces competition from companies like Zong, onebip and Fortumo they claim to have the largest reach. Their partnerships with more than 200 carriers gives them access to about 2 billion potential customers. How successful Boku will be at making their payment method an option on more of these 2 billion people’s purchases will depend largely on carrier fees. The high fees that carriers currently charge merchants will unlikely outweigh the convenience that Boku provides their customers. Partnerships with Vodafone in the UK and AT&T in the US have inched Boku closer to becoming a plausible option for a wider variety of goods by creating higher price points, which allow consumers to make larger purchases and lower carrier fees. With the company already making about one transaction every second, we’re not making an astounding prediction by betting on its success. Boku was smart to target the global market from the start. There are about 5 billion mobile phones worldwide, and — especially outside of the United States — not all of their owners have credit cards. Enabling these people to make online purchases increases merchants’ potential customer pools. Boku also takes advantage of three things the world is becoming increasingly obsessed with: online shopping, convenience and secure payments (eBay CEO John Donahoe recently pronounced mobile the safest way to pay online). Although Boku declined to comment on rumors that both Apple and Google want to acquire it, we understand why they’d be interested. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Google More About: att, bizspark, Boku, Erich Ringewald, Fortumo, Mark Britto, mobile payments, onebip, paymo, Ron Hirson, startup, vodafone, Zong
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| Control Last.fm with Xbox Kinect Gestures Posted: 03 Nov 2010 09:18 PM PDT   Last.fm has announced that its Xbox service will be functional with new Kinect motion controller. With the Kinect system, Last.fm listeners will be able to control their music through both motion and voice. A station can be queued by hovering a hand over its respective Last.fm tile. Users can also use voice commands like “Xbox, play,” and “Xbox, stop,” to control the audio. David Goodman, president of CBS Music Group, said:
The question we have is: How might Last.fm with Kinect be put to use in crowded rooms or at parties? With everyone flailing spastically, it’s likely that the music will begin cycling wildly. While there is probably some sort of lock to prevent this from happening, it could entirely reinvent the “random play” function. The XBox 360 Kinect bundles will be available tomorrow, November 4. More About: kinect, last fm, Xbox 360, XBox live For more Tech coverage:
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| Twitter Bot Auto-Debates Climate Change Critics Posted: 03 Nov 2010 08:27 PM PDT   As anyone interested in the recent midterm elections can attest, arguing with people who’ll never agree with you is an exhausting hobby. At least one developer has found a way to answer his would-be debaters without having to engage in a tiring, dead-end debate himself. When it comes to climate change, many people find themselves at odds with certain facts to the point of disputing the validity of said facts. The developer in question (that would be Australian systems architect and entrepreneur Nigel Leck) got tired of arguing on Twitter with people who believe climate change is not occurring, so he built a bot that scrapes Twitter for certain strings of words then responds to the author of the offending tweet with a pre-packaged link containing a science-based counter-argument. The dialog (or should we say rhetoric?) between climate change skeptics and those in the opposite camp is apparently so formulaic that Leck’s bot can carry on an exchange with a real human for dozens of tweets. He hopes to make the auto-debate even more realistic and accurate in the future by parsing data from other climate change debaters on Twitter.  One thing the bot can’t do, however, is detect irony. If, for example, I sarcastically tweeted something like, “With weather like this, there’s no way global warming can be real,” the bot would respond as if I truly thought climate change was an unlikely theory. However, the bot does whitelist people when they respond that they don’t disagree with the bot’s science-based point of view. Named “Turing Test” (after computer scientist Alan Turing’s famous criteria for machine intelligence), the bot can be found on Twitter at @AI_AGW. If you could build a bot to conduct debates on your behalf — be those arguments religious, social, political, culinary, what have you — what issue would you choose as the most tiresome subject worthy of auto-debate? Image courtesy of Flickr, warmnfuzzy. Hat tip: Technology Review. Reviews: Flickr, Twitter More About: artificial intelligence, climate change, developer, Science, turing, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Qik Video Chat Gets Native Android App On T-Mobile Posted: 03 Nov 2010 06:40 PM PDT   Qik just got a major shot in the arm from T-Mobile. The companies announced today that T-Mobile Video Chat powered by Qik will be the first service to offer native integration with the Android address book. The address book integration will enable users to view their contacts and see whether they are available for video chat. Video chats can then be established directly from the address book in a native interface that will come preloaded on T-Mobile devices with video capabilities. The Qik video chat service works over both T-Mobile’s 3G network and Wi-Fi. In addition to conducting video calls, users will also be able to send and receive video messages using the service. T-Mobile Video Chat powered by Qik will first be available on the new T-Mobile myTouch. It is, however, expected to roll out to additional devices as front-facing cameras become more prevalent. Many T-Mobile subscribers using devices without front-facing cameras will be able to receive video messages. Reviews: video More About: android, myTouch, qik, T-Mobile, video chat For more Mobile coverage:
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| WordPress Celebrates 1 Million Mobile Users Posted: 03 Nov 2010 04:45 PM PDT   WordPress has just announced a huge milestone for its mobile apps: The leading blogging service now has one million users across all its mobile platforms. The first WordPress mobile app was built for iPhone in 2008. Since then, the company has launched BlackBerry and Android apps for WordPress blogging on the go. It’s even allowed for posting via SMS and phone-in, voice-to-text blog posting. But reaching one million users is just the beginning; the makers of WordPress plan to continue expanding the platform’s mobile site. That expansion continues today with Nokia. The WordPress app first appeared in the Nokia Ovi store a few days ago, but WordPress is announcing its official launch today. Here’s a brief demo video: WordPress mobile staffer Isaac Keyet wrote on the WordPress blog today, “We've made sure the Nokia app has everything you love about WordPress on any other mobile device… You can, of course, write and edit posts and pages, manage your comments queue and keep an eye on your blog's statistics while on the move. “If a seagull just snatched your hot dog and is making a run for it, you can snap a picture of the commotion or even record a video describing how it felt and how much you're suing for. All from within the app.” Are you one of WordPress’s 1 million mobile users? How do you feel about the mobile blogging experience overall? Reviews: Android, BlackBerry Rocks!, WordPress, blog More About: automattic, Mobile 2.0, Nokia, ovi, Wordpress For more Mobile coverage:
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| Animoto Grows to 2 Million Users Posted: 03 Nov 2010 04:24 PM PDT   Online video creation service Animoto has reached two million registered users, CEO Brad Jefferson announced at the FASTech conference in Redwood City, CA, on Wednesday morning. The milestone achievement highlights continued growth for the startup as it works to extend its product to third-party applications. Animoto converts roughly 10% of users into pro customers, Jefferson said. It allows all users to create 30-second clips free of charge, but charges $3 per video, $5 per month or $30 per year to remove the restriction. It’s this freemium model which has helped the company maintain profitability since 2008. In recent weeks Animoto has also forged significant partnerships with the likes of Adobe and Bon Jovi. The former relationship means that Photoshop.com and Lightroom users can instantly create Animoto videos from their media content with a single click of the button. The latter partnership with Bon Jovi represents a way for the startup to bring four signature Bon Jovi tracks to Animoto users. Users can also participate in the “It’s My Life” contest for a chance to win tickets or a signed Gold record. Just a few days ago, Animoto also released a new plug-in for Apple Aperture allowing users to start Animoto video projects from within the application. In a conversation with Mashable, Jefferson spoke of these types of partnerships and application plug-ins as the future of the service and hinted at many more deals on the horizon. “We want our service to be where the photos are,” he said. Reviews: Mashable More About: animoto, startup, video For more Business coverage:
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| 50+ Immediate Social Media and Web Development Job Openings Posted: 03 Nov 2010 03:25 PM PDT 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: Mashable Job PostingsTech Reporter at Mashable in San Francisco, CA. Business & Marketing Editor at Mashable in New York, NY. Weekend Editor at Mashable in New York, NY. VP of Sales at Mashable in New York, NY. Events Content Coordinator at Mashable in New York, NY. Events Assistant at Mashable in San Francisco, CA. Events Manager at Mashable in New York, NY. Ruby on Rails Developer at Mashable in San Francisco, CA. Mashable Job Board ListingsDigital Account Manager at MELT in Atlanta, GA. Associate Digital Account Director at MELT in Atlanta, GA. Director, Integrated Marketing & Social Media at eHarmony in Santa Monica, CA. Public Relations Specialist at Ameredia Inc in San Francisco, CA. Director, Social Media Communications at Sony Corporation of America in New York, NY. Interactive User Experience Manager at Raised Media in Halifax, NS, Canada. Web-Based Project Manager at Raised Media in Halifax, NS, Canada. Recruiting Coordinator at Constant Contact in Waltham, MA. Social Media and User Community Leader at OSIsoft in San Leandro, CA. Account Executives at Conversation in New York, NY. Partner Manager at Studio One Networks in New York, NY. Digital Marketing Specialist at Balise Motor Sales in West Springfield, MA. Freelance Social Media Consultant at CareerBuilder in Chicago, IL. PR/Marketing Intern at Howcast in New York, NY. Community Development Specialist at McNett Corporation in Bellingham, WA. Chief Technology Officer at SabioQ in Austin, TX. Director of Social Media, Bing and MSN at Microsoft in Bellevue, WA. Product Manager, Marketing at Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, WA. Category Mgr International at Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, WA. Associate Director, Project Management at Digitas Health in New York, NY. Product Manager, Innovation at Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, WA. Product Education Specialist at Bazaarvoice in Austin, TX. Social Media & Marketing Manager at SheSpeaks Inc. in New York, NY. Account Management at Powered, Inc. in Austin ,TX. Social Media Marketing Manager at M80 in Washington DC. Director of Engineering at Buddy Media in New York, NY. Online Marketing Coordinator at Explorica, Inc. in Boston, MA. Flash Developer at Bean Creative in Alexandria, VA. VP Marketing at Mindflash.com in Palo Alto, CA. Front End Developer at Teach for America in New York, NY. Web/Interactive Programmer at Bean Creative in Alexandria, VA. Manager of Social Media at Bloom Avenue in New York, NY. Social Media Strategist at Sierra Club in San Francisco, CA. Senior Digital Marketer at Padilla Speer Beardsley in Minneapolis, MN. Senior Online Producer at IIR USA in New York, NY. Head of Acquisition Marketing at Playfish in Redwood City, CA. SVP MArketing at Digitas Health in New York, NY. Digital Producer at roundhouse in Portland, OR. Online Production Coordinator at GLAAD in New York, NY. Online Marketing Associate at ManhattanGMAT in New York, NY. PT Online Marketing Associate at ManhattanGMAT in New York, NY. Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International in London, UK. International Management Trainee at Meltwater Group in Washington DC. Client Success Director/Account Manager at Bazaarvoice.com in Austin, TX. Experienced Facebook Developer at enter:new media in New York, NY. Sr. Manager, Strategic Partnerships at Playfish in Redwood City, CA. Senior Engineer at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. Vice President of Portal Products at Synacor in Los Angeles, CA. PHP Developer at Synacor in Los Angeles, CA. Senior Database Administrator at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. Engineering Manager at Synacor in Los Angeles, CA. Engineering Manager at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. Product Manager, Identity Management at Synacor in Buffalo, NY. Systems Architect at Synacor in Los Angeles, CA. 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 Reviews: Mashable, iStockphoto For more Social Media coverage:
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| Mark Zuckerberg on Why Facebook Will Never Build a Phone [INTERVIEW] Posted: 03 Nov 2010 03:09 PM PDT   We can put the Facebook Phone rumors to rest; Facebook’s CEO has explained exactly why the company will never build its own mobile hardware. I had the chance to question Mark Zuckerberg, Head of Mobile Products Erick Tseng and Senior Director of Local Sales & Marketing Emily White during an intimate roundtable discussion following today’s Facebook mobile event. We covered a lot of ground during our half-hour interview (I’ll have more posts on monetization, Facebook as a platform and the impact of Places on small businesses soon), but our discussion of the “Facebook Phone” near the end definitely caught my interest. “First of all, we’re not a hardware company,” Zuckerberg responded unequivocally to a question from Reuters’s Alexei Oreskovic. “Second of all, our goal is not to sell anything physical; our goal is to make it so that everything can be social.” Zuckerberg’s response isn’t a surprise; Facebook has said from the beginning that it is not building a phone. What is interesting, though, is that Zuckerberg explained his rationale for why building a phone would be a bad idea for the company he built. “It would be pretty silly for us to go after a strategy that focused on selling a small number of phones,” Zuckerberg said. His explanation was twofold. First, if the company built a phone, it would only control a small percentage of the market. Even if it sold 10 or 20 million phones, that’s still a really small chunk of the mobile pie. Second, such a strategy risks alienating the partners Facebook needs to make mobile more social. So Facebook is not building a phone. What is it doing? “We’re constantly working on deeper and deeper integrations,” Zuckerberg said. He cited Single Sign-on as an example of bringing deeper Facebook integration to Androids and iPhones. Zuckerberg also pointed out the Facebook integration on Windows Phone 7 as an example of a deeper integration that was not built by the company, but by a third party (in this case, Microsoft). Some users have even mistaken it as a “Facebook Phone” because of the depth of its Facebook integration. In the end though, Zuckerberg wanted to make one thing clear to us. “We don’t sell hardware,” he stated. “That’s just not what we do. And it’s really damaging for us if that rumor is out, because then the people we actually partner with think we’re actually competitors.” Reviews: Facebook, Windows Phone 7 More About: android, Erik Tseng, facebook, Facebook Deals, Facebook Places, iphone, mark zuckerberg, Mobile 2.0 For more Mobile coverage:
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| Twitter For Android Gets an Update Posted: 03 Nov 2010 02:50 PM PDT   Twitter for Android users, get ready for a major update that brings more details, speed and punch to Twitter’s official Android app. We tried out the updated Android app in-office and there’s a ton of new features that we think will make tweeting easier, faster and more customized. According to the Twitter Blog — where the update was revealed — changes include:
What do you think of the updates? What do you wish would have been included? In the meantime, here’s some screenshots of the new app:   Reviews: Android, Twitter More About: android, Mobile 2.0, twitter For more Mobile coverage:
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| Two Ways Developers Will Interact With Google TV Viewers Posted: 03 Nov 2010 02:33 PM PDT   Dan Neumann is a senior platforms strategist at the New York office of Organic. He specializes in leveraging emerging digital platforms to advance the business interests of Organic’s clients, including Bank of America, Intel, PUR, Iams/Eukanuba, Philips, Hess, Sony Playstation, Nike Canada, and Hilton Worldwide. Connected devices increasingly offer developers two ways to make content available — through a browser via an optimized website or through a native application. Opportunities to integrate with online social activity, play games and view web-based content through platforms like Google TV, which arrived for the majority of U.S. televisions in October by way of a standalone Logitech set-top box and Sony's latest Blu-Ray player, should be exciting for developers, publishers and advertisers given that the television is the most watched, most ubiquitous screen in the U.S. According to Nielsen's Q1 2010 Three Screens Report, America's 292 million television owners spent an average of 158 hours a month watching TV, compared with just 25 hours spent online. However, determining whether to develop a native app or an optimized website will be the first challenge for interested parties. On tablets and mobile phones, the general rule of thumb is that straightforward content delivery is best handled through the browser, while more intricate concepts that might require access to local storage or specific inputs from the platform’s API are better executed as native applications. This line of thinking can be extended to Google TV and other connected device platforms. It will take some time before we know whether Google TV will sink or swim, but the extension of Android and the Android Market to U.S. televisions in 2011 will undoubtedly have significant implications for popular web and mobile apps, not to mention almost all gaming platforms. Where apps go, users often follow, so publishers and content creators ought to watch the growth of Google TV very closely, and if they're already producing or aggregating unique video content, begin to experiment with “lean-back” delivery. Here are some things to consider when choosing between optimizing a website or creating a native application. Website OptimizationFor developers used to thinking in terms of computer or phone screens, the first thing to understand about optimization for Google TV is that the greater distance between user and screen requires an entirely new approach. Critically, designers will need to ensure that text is legible, images are rendered at high enough resolutions and that users can navigate with the direction pad on a remote control. The handful of sites already designed for Google TV are all widescreen, they do not have any content 'below the fold' and their interface elements are all oversized. In addition to new requirements, site optimization will present new opportunities for designers. Text input will be far less tedious as every GTV remote will have a QWERTY keyboard, and according to Google's optimization guide, "Sound is now a viable interface element." This reference to the fact that many desk/laptop users either don't have speakers or leave sound turned off may not seem revolutionary, but a lot can be done when designers are given a whole new sensory input with which to work. Just think; when was the last time sound or speech prompted you to upload a profile picture or notified you that a new post has been added to a blog you were perusing? Site optimization is the easiest way to gain some experience with Google TV right out of the gate. In fact, it's currently the only option given that the SDK is not scheduled for public release until early next year. Optimizing a site will give developers and designers a chance to familiarize themselves with the new interaction paradigm imposed by the dynamics of greater distance between screen and user, multiple screens and QWERTY input devices. Native Apps Lots of people were unhappy to discover that the latest generation of the Apple TV would not support iOS apps; and while many expect that it will in the future, consumers are ready now. Apps in the living room viewed on large screens interacted with through smartphones or wireless mouse/keyboard combos potentially represent a new era for the most ubiquitous screen in the world. It's not hard to imagine an application that dynamically displays ads for items used or worn by television characters in a live broadcast (a concept championed by companies like Evenhere, but, to date, not yet fully realized). A native application for Google TV could make this type of interactivity a reality. Such an app could be tremendously valuable to both advertisers and publishers. Of course, before that can happen, the producers of that TV content will need to make data about the items used in the show available to developers, and deals like that don’t always come easily, or for free. Just how much control connected device app platforms like Google TV will give native app developers is still unknown, but it's almost certain that the holiest of holy — the sequential relationship between advertising and broadcast TV content — will likely be upended in favor of an online style model where advertising and content compete for eyeballs on the same screen at the same time. Apps will enable entirely new TV watching experiences, characterized by social connectivity and interactivity. Contextual awareness relative to whatever is being watched will enable developers to tailor experiences around broadcast content in real time. But, the overall intelligence of an application's contextual behavior will, at first, be limited by the amount of metadata appended to a given piece of content. More Tech & Gadget Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, acprints Reviews: Android, Android Market, Apps, Connected, Google, iStockphoto More About: Apple TV, apps, blu-ray, connected devices, Google, google tv, logitech, Logitech Revue, sony, television, tv, youtube, YouTube Leanback For more Tech coverage:
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| Google Helps Auto-Tune Your Web Server Posted: 03 Nov 2010 02:07 PM PDT   Google has announced that it is launching a new module for the Apache HTTP server called mod_pagespeed that will perform many speed optimizations automatically. This means that rather than having to fine tune your server configuration for every site you setup, you can instead install the Apache module to optimize automagically. In a blog post announcing the new module, Google notes that it has seen mod_pagespeed reduce page load times by up to 50%. Here’s some of what mod_pagespeed does:
Google will be working with Go Daddy to get mod_pagespeed running on many of its servers. It is also working with Contendo to integrate mod_pagespeed into its CDN. When it comes to getting mod_pagespeed running on your own web server — Google has released it for many Linux distributions (CentOS, RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora), but you can also download the source and compile it for your platform as necessary. If you don’t control your own server or slice, you’ll need to ask your web host to look into adding mod_pagespeed to its setup. Check out this video to see mod_pagespeed in action. Image courtesy of Flickr, mayhem. Reviews: CentOS, Flickr, Google, Ubuntu More About: apache, apache module, Google, page speed, website optimization For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| 5 Tips for Improving Your Social Customer Service Posted: 03 Nov 2010 01:37 PM PDT   Maria Ogneva is the Director of Social Media at Attensity, a social media engagement and voice-of-customer platform that helps the social enterprise serve and collaborate with the social customer. You can follow her on Twitter at @themaria or @attensity360, or find her musings on her personal blog and her company’s blog. Back in the day, if you wanted support from a business, you had to go to where the business's reps were. Be it via an 800 number, support forums, e-mail or chat, the business would set the rules about how quickly your inquiry was addressed. But with social media growing as a real-time support channel, the picture looks quite different these days. Customers are taking back control, and businesses increasingly have to assist on consumers’ terms. I chatted with a colleague of mine, Brian House of IBM, about the different types of people searching for social support, and we discovered that most can be put in one of two categories. The first is the “social media native.” These are people who use social media, specifically Twitter, as their main point of contact with companies and brands. These types are social media-savvy and reach for Twitter to share their everyday thoughts and opinions, which often overlap with their use of products and sentiment about brands. The second type is the “last resort social media user.” This type of customer is more dangerous to a business because she is likely frustrated with the brand’s traditional support channels and has resorted to the public forum of social media to voice negative sentiment. She is not happy and won’t hesitate to share her opinion with friends. Social support is no longer a luxury, but a necessity in today's business climate. It’s an opportunity to maintain engagement with the savvy users in category one and stay on top of potentially damaging chatter from those in category two. To ensure that you are successful, here are five tips and considerations that you need to think through before engaging in social support. 1. Influence Is Not as Important for Social SupportWhen it comes to social marketing, influence matters pretty much everywhere — except for support. If Jim and I both bought a product, having a higher Klout score than Jim does not entitle me to better service. What if Jim is a frequent and loyal buyer and I'm not? How does that change things? Too often, companies start to freak out when someone with a lot of followers or a high Klout score starts screaming bad things about them. You should help these people, of course, but not at the expense of helping others. 2. Real-time and Complete Information Is CrucialSocial data, especially on Twitter, flies by at a million miles an hour. Blink, and you’ll miss something important. As noted above, if you’re committed to helping everyone, regardless of status, it's crucial that you get all of your tweets, as they happen. Make sure that your listening tool is able to surface tweets immediately and bring them to your attention in a way that allows you to act quickly and easily. As far as completeness of data, you should learn the difference between Twitter API and Twitter Firehose. Firehose gives you every single tweet, while API gives you a limited version. You should ask your Twitter data provider or listening service what kind of access they have. 3. Get on the Same PageYou need to be working from the same customer record as everyone else in the company, regardless of what department or satellite office they are in. Furthermore, this record should be dynamically updated whenever anyone touches that customer. Fragmentation of data is a problem, and the social customer isn't going to be very forgiving if you tell her to call or tweet back later because the representative can't access the data from another department. It’s a process and a technology problem at the same time. Invest in a CRM system that can unify the traditional customer record and the social record, and make sure that it’s easy to access, use and update. CRM implementations that are mandated from the top down tend to fail if the end users can’t work with it. 4. Collaborate InternallyYou can't expect to give the customer an excellent social support experience if you aren't social internally. Solutions to a customer problem can come from anywhere in the company. Perhaps even more important is the need to collaborate quickly. You need to set up the right tools and processes to do that. Remember, the social customer doesn't like to wait. You can't create a great overall social service experience if you’re providing a sub-par experience via a traditional support channel. Train your staff appropriately and empower them to be awesome everywhere. Take a page from the playbook at Zappos, a company that is immensely successful because it is extremely customer-oriented in every part of its business. The Zappos service experience is equally awesome via Twitter, phone or chat. 5. Private vs. PublicService in a social channel can get dicey when you work in a highly regulated industry. Be aware of what’s appropriate and legal to say and do online before you engage in social support. If a support engagement requires that you obtain a customer account number, social security number or any other private information, make the connection in public, but move the conversation over e-mail or the phone to gather sensitive information. One major benefit of serving your customers in public is that others can see it happening. Consistent public customer service can earn you a reputation as a service-oriented company, and that’s always good. Just make sure that once you start the process of helping someone, you don't drop the ball. Just because you went into a private channel where no one else can see you doesn’t mean you can then slack off on service. Practice excellence all the time, in private and in public. The TakeawayMake sure you are always listening, responding, creating value for your customers and really helping. Work with full and real-time information, get everyone on the same page internally, share information, and most importantly, strive to become customer-centric in social and traditional channels. Don’t forget those traditional channels — 800 numbers, e-mails and online chat are just as important. You need to be where the customer is, whether they are calling or tweeting, or both. The benefits of service vigilance in social media are tremendous, and not taking an active role can destroy your brand. Embrace social service, because it’s not going anywhere any time soon. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sodafish Reviews: Twitter, iStockphoto More About: business, customer service, customer support, List, listening, Lists, small business, social crm, social media, support, twitter For more Business coverage:
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| SurveyMonkey Adds $100 Million in Financing Posted: 03 Nov 2010 01:16 PM PDT   Web-based survey platform SurveyMonkey has announced that it closed $100 million in senior debt financing led by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. SurveyMonkey was founded in 1999 and currently processes more than 25 million survey responses per month. The borrowed funds will be allocated to cover existing operating costs and debt, as well as position SurveyMonkey to make future acquisitions. “SurveyMonkey continues to be the market leader in providing online survey tools for individuals, corporations, non-profits, governments and schools and we believe there is incredible opportunity for growth in front of us. This new capital structure will help us achieve our expansion plans,” said CEO Dave Goldberg on the financing news. Other banks participating in the massive financing effort include JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Royal Bank of Canada, Webster Bank, N.A. and Zions First National Bank. More About: bank of america, debt financing, funding, surveymonkey For more Business coverage:
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| A Glimpse at the Future of Foursquare Posted: 03 Nov 2010 12:49 PM PDT   Foursquare CEO and co-founder Dennis Crowley spoke on how the location-based service plans to dominate “what happens after the checkin” at Wednesday’s ad:tech conference. Crowley delivered his remarks on the same day Facebook made several major announcements about its Places product. While Crowley still sees the checkin as a necessary component of Foursquare’s service, he believes the real value of location-based services begins after that entry point. “We talk a lot about what’s after the checkin,” explained Crowley. “What’s after, in the first version at least, [is] ‘ok, let’s do tips.’ So, when you check in to some place, we can surface up relevant content that will maybe sway what you order at dinner. Or, let’s do the game mechanics that will take the place [of tips] if we don’t have any tips at that place. At least you’re earning points and collecting badges for the experiences you’re having.” That’s the Foursquare we now know, but what’s in store for the future? Crowley noted that the Foursquare team is busy coding away on a couple products that we can expect by the end of this year or early next year. He sprinkled his chat with a few hints, giving us insight into what’s to come. Here’s a look at what he discussed. Customized RecommendationsAs the web and mobile continue to get more personalized, we’re seeing more and more services tailoring their offerings to individual users — Foursquare is no exception. Crowley discussed the possibility of a smarter algorithm that would make customized recommendations based on a user’s checkin history. “Every checkin should mean something,” he stressed. “Foursquare should get smarter every time that you continue to check in. We should be able to offer special deals that you may be interested in and we should be able to offer recommendations for the type of things you should do next.” Crowley discussed a few instances where a customized recommendation system would be useful:
We’ve been hearing a lot about personalized recommendation tools recently. On Tuesday, for example, Bizzy launched a personalized recommendation engine that helps users figure out where to go and what to do based on users with similar interests. We noted that large players, like Foursquare, could easily introduce recommendation tools on top of their services, mitigating the value of startups like Bizzy that are trying to carve a space based on customized local recommendations — it looks like that’s a reality we may be seeing sooner than expected. The Instant CheckinCrowley made reference to the possibility of one day being able to instantly check in when you enter a familiar establishment:
He noted that the only barrier to having these features is the need for technology advances: “Problem number one is that GPS isn’t good enough. Problem number two is that if you keep that feature on, your battery lasts four hours. So, when GPS gets better and batteries get better, we’ll be in good shape.” Brand DiscoveryBuilding upon the idea of a smarter algorithm that would make recommendations based on where you’ve been, Crowley illustrated a future where brands would also be fused into that experience:
As it is now, there are very limited ways to discover a brand on Foursquare, so this seems like something that brands can get excited about. Better Deals and SpecialsDuring the Q&A session, an audience member asked Crowley about how Foursquare is attracting businesses to adopt the platform. He approached the question by discussing common misconceptions about Foursquare specials and discussing the improvements we may see in the near future:
What do you think about these possible changes in the Foursquare experience? How can the service differentiate from Facebook Places, which just announced a slew of new features today? Reviews: Foursquare, Twitter, foursquare More About: adtech, dennis crowley, foursquare, lbs, location, location-based, location-based apps, location-based networking, location-based service, location-based social network, location-based startup, startup, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Online Behavior Tracking and Privacy: 7 Worst Case Scenarios Posted: 03 Nov 2010 12:13 PM PDT   If you’ve never been targeted by an ad because of your online behavior, then you’re probably just not paying much attention. According to an informal survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), more than 80% of advertising campaigns in 2009 involved tracking of some sort. The advertising business, in short, loves online tracking just about as much as privacy advocates hate it. Privacy advocates argue that online tracking undermines citizen rights and feels a little too big-brotherish for comfort. Their concerns were part of what led the FTC to release a report last February urging advertisers to evaluate their policies and beef up their privacy efforts. The industry’s response has been to improve self-regulation — largely by adding opt-out buttons to online behavioral advertising. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left wondering what the big deal is. We might be slightly creeped out when a particular ad follows us around the Internet, but is that really a debate worth getting worked up about? We spoke with experts on both sides to find out the very worst that could happen is if online tracking goes unchecked, or if regulations to control it are instated. 1. Consumers Remain Ignorant of TrackingIn an August 2010 study about Internet users’ understanding of behavioral advertising, Aleecia McDonald asked survey participants to imagine that an ad company determined what ads to show to them based on the history of prior websites that they visited. Only 51% of participants recognized that this was something that “happens a lot right now.” When she asked them to imagine that ads served by their e-mail providers were based on the e-mails they sent and received, they were even less aware. The majority of participants didn’t understand that this practice commonly occurred, and almost 30% believed that it would never occur. One participant in the study said that behavioral advertising sounded like something her "paranoid" friend would dream up, but not something that would ever occur in real life. This ignorance about the prevalence of online tracking, privacy advocates say, leads people to treat the web as though they’re anonymous and makes them unable to protect themselves from unwanted tracking. “Consumers treat the search engine box like their psychiatrist, their rabbi, their priest, their doctor,” explains Christopher Soghoian, a privacy advocate who studies data security and privacy as a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University. “People type the most intimate things into search engines and other websites primarily because they think they're anonymous. They type in things on WebMD that sometimes they wouldn't even ask their own doctors… And in fact, we are not anonymous, these sites are tracking us.” 2. Online Tracking Evolves Past the “Creepy Line” Google CEO Eric Schmidt once was quoted saying, “There is what I call the creepy line. The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” This begs some questions: What is on the other side of the creepy line, and why does Google get to decide where it is? Right now, companies that collect data about what users do online claim that they do so only in very broad categories that help them determine what ad they should serve. This is probably true in the case of most advertisers. But data companies like Rapleaf — whose habit of selling Facebook IDs was only recently exposed — are clearly starting to cross the line. In the worst case scenario, a lack of regulation would lead companies to push the envelope when it comes to what they track. “If the data is there, it is potentially something that could be obtained by government law enforcement authorities without you knowing about it,” explains John Simpson, a privacy advocate with the non-profit Consumer Watchdog advocacy group. “It could potentially be subpoenaed in civil trials again… The issue is that people don't realize the tracks that they leave when they do these routine things.” 3. Privacy Solutions Require You to Opt Out — Not In — And Nobody Notices Advertisers say they have made an effort to stop tracking people who don’t want to be tracked. In response to the FTC’s call to improve self-regulation, leading advertising trade organizations introduced a self-regulation program that urged advertisers to include an "Advertising Option Icon" on targeted advertisements that would allow consumers to opt out of online tracking. The advertiser would still collect information about the user, but the company would agree not to leverage it when choosing which ads to display. Because most people aren’t aware that they’re being tracked and advertisers would still collect information, Soghoian finds this to be an unsatisfying solution. “If consumers are to effectively evaluate the pros and cons of this process, they need to know that it's happening, know at least to some extent how it's happening and who [is] conducting it.” he says. “And I think those three bits of information are missing right now.” If customers are hardly aware that they’re being tracked, how will they know to opt out? Previously, sites like the Network Advertising Initiative and Firefox plug-in TACO (Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out) have provided opt-out cookie solutions for Internet users who don’t want to be tracked. None of the participants in McDonald’s study had ever heard of them. Soghoian and other privacy advocates would much prefer an opt-in solution. 4. Privacy Solutions Require You to Opt In — And Kill the Ad IndustryOpt-in, however, would effectively derail the advertising industry’s behavioral advertising strategy (which, if we consider the IAB’s aforementioned survey, accounts for about 80% of current online campaigns). Mike Zaneis, the IAB’s vice president of public policy, calls opt-in an “unworkable” and “inappropriate” standard. “In the United States, we only require opt-in as a choice for truly sensitive data categories such as certain uses of medical information or financial information,” he says. He doesn’t believe that general marketing information deserves the same treatment. After all, the FTC’s February report suggested that “some form of prominent notice and opt-out choice may be sufficient.” Advertising is approximately a $450 billion global industry, and one of the few quickly recovering ones to boot. Shutting down online tracking with an opt-in policy could slow that growth — not to mention handicap U.S. firms in competition with agencies unencumbered by any U.S. privacy legislation. “You can certainly imagine if you overnight flipped the switch and turned off all of the targeting –- not the tracking –- but just turned off the targeting, that you're going to have a negative impact,” Zaneis says. Soghoian believes that opt-out is an appealing choice for advertisers because it won’t be used. “[Advertisers] want to be able to offer an opt-out so that they can say they're doing it, but then not actually have any consumer use it,” he says. “A good analogy is that Google has been using this opt-out with Google Street View for a while. And now that more than 200,000 people in Germany have said, ‘I don't want my home in Street View,’ Google is freaking out — because that's a significant amount of people.” 5. Individuals Leverage Online Tracking Using your computer on an unprotected wireless network has always left your online world vulnerable to hackers. But before last month, it at least required some technical prowess to pull it off. The launch of Firefox plugin Firesheep brought this kind of hacking to the mainstream. Now anybody in any coffee shop with a shared unprotected network can download the tools to hijack your sensitive information with a click. Since October 24, when it was uploaded to a popular sharing site, the plugin has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. Firesheep has nothing to do with online tracking other than to provide a cautionary tale. “What it shows is that something that was known for 10 years that was difficult, but easy enough for technically skilled users to do, suddenly becomes a major deal when the tools to make use of it become mainstream,” says Soghoian. “And by that same token, you know, tracking is already happening. Right now it is limited to those people who will pay for it and those people who know the details. In the not-so-distant future, it will be not so difficult to track people or, more importantly, it will be even easier to use the data from sites like Rapleaf.” The buds of easy-access online tracking are visible in plugins like Rapportive, which let you “see everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.” In a worst case scenario, these plugins would develop to a point where you would be able to see anybody’s online activity. 6. The Internet Gets ExpensiveZaneis points out that part of what makes many of our favorite websites free is the targeted advertising that is sold on them. User data has become the number one factor that advertisers take into account when searching for a media partner, and the Network Advertising Initiative released a study that found behaviorally targeted advertising secured more than 2.5 times as much revenue per ad as its non-targeted counterpart. Fewer targeted ads could mean less profit for both advertisers and websites, making pay walls more prevalent. Simpson understands the risk of lost ad revenue, but he would prefer a solution to this problem that mimics a grocery store discount card: you can choose between not being tracked or getting a discount. “People understand that the [grocery store] is obviously keeping track of the food that they buy, but they're getting it cheaper,” he says. “And if they're using those cards, they're willing to give up some of their information for cheaper prices. The thing about what's going on online is nobody really understood what they were giving up.” Soghoian thinks the whole argument is a bit ridiculous. “The web was free for the last 15 years before they were tracking people, and it will continue to be free after they track people,” he says. 7. Personalization on Websites DisappearsIn response to the negative press that Rapleaf received from, in the company’s words, “inadvertently passing Facebook and MySpace IDs to ad networks in a small minority of cases,” CEO Auren Hoffman wrote in a blog post: “We believe that a more personalized world is a more helpful, efficient, and respectful world. Today, Rapleaf customers help people receive useful product recommendations, enjoy higher levels of customer service, engage directly with candidates running for office, see better ads, receive less spam, and view relevant content.” It’s true that cookies enable the personalized “hello” and book recommendations that greet you when you log into Amazon’s site. And heck, if you’re shopping for a car, you might want to see car ads on every site you visit. Banning online tracking altogether would do away with much of the personalized goodness on the Internet. Simpson agrees that people might want to be tracked in some cases. But he says that the best way to decide that they want to be tracked is to have them opt in. What do you think? Have targeted ads just become part of the Internet ad space or are they an invasion of privacy? Let us know in the comments below. More Privacy Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, hidesy Reviews: Facebook, Firefox, Google, Internet, iStockphoto More About: advertising, behavioral advertising, Interactive Advertising Bureau, online privacy, privacy, Rapleaf, Simpson, Soghoian, tracking, Zaneis For more Tech coverage:
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| Mark Zuckerberg: The iPad Isn’t Mobile Posted: 03 Nov 2010 12:01 PM PDT   Waiting on the edge of your seat for Facebook to release an iPad app? You’re going to have to wait a while longer. Moments ago at Facebook’s mobile press event, I asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Mobile VP Erik Tseng whether the company is building an iPad app and when we could expect it to be released. The resulting exchange was extremely entertaining. This is an excellent summary of our first exchange over Facebook for iPad:  After a bit more back-and-forth between Zuckerberg and me, Tseng stepped in to explain that Facebook is still trying to figure out its approach and strategy for tablet devices. Because tablets are a new form factor, it requires a new approach. The real hint to Facebook’s iPad plans, though, is that Tseng focused on the form factor and not iOS. This could mean that Facebook’s looking to build an HTML5 version of its website optimized for tablets. At the very least, Facebook seems intent on keeping a consistent experience across all tablet devices. In the meantime though, Tseng points out that Facebook is accessible via the iPad through the official website (which is pretty darn functional) and through touch.facebook.com. Zuckerberg eventually took back the microphone to explain that he doesn’t have anything against Apple, but that he doesn’t think of the iPad in the same class as the iPhone or Android and wanted to focus the event on that. In other words, the iPad app isn’t imminent, but clearly the company has thought about it and is working on a version of Facebook designed for the tablet. Reviews: Android, Facebook, iPhone More About: facebook, ipad, mark zuckerberg, Mobile 2.0 For more Tech coverage:
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| Local Deals Come to Facebook Places Posted: 03 Nov 2010 11:43 AM PDT   The rumors are apparently true — at an event today at Facebook headquarters, the social networking site revealed that it will, in fact, be launching a deals service for Facebook Places. Watch out, Foursquare. Deals is a new application within Facebook’s iPhone app (which just got a refresh) that lets you find deals at nearby businesses. There are four types of deals: Individual Deals (for discounts, free stuff or other rewards), Friend Deals (where you and a pal claim something together), Loyalty Deals (for the regulars) and Charity Deals (which allow you to donate to a cause). The service is only available in the refreshed iPhone app, but Android users can access deals via touch.facebook.com (as they did when they wanted to use Places before the Android refresh). So how does it work? Users can find deals by looking for the yellow icon when go to check in using Places (see below). Simply click on the deal to claim it, and then show it to the cashier to cash in. Deals claimed will be shared on your News Feed, which will allow your friends to reap the same benefits if they so choose.  Right now, Deals will be rolling out in the U.S. over the next few days, but Facebook says it will be expanding over time. Currently, a ton of businesses are offering deals, including Chipotle, GAP and 24 Hour Fitness. You can check out more details on the Facebook blog. Facebook has also posted a video to show other merchants how they can start using the Deals platform. This announcement is sure to be a big game-changer when it comes to the future of geo-location services. Keep an eye on Mashable for further analysis. Reviews: Android, Facebook, Mashable More About: deals-platform, facebook, foursquare, gowalla, places, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook Makes Signing Into Mobile Apps Incredibly Easy Posted: 03 Nov 2010 11:25 AM PDT   Already quickly becoming a login standard across the web, Facebook is now making moves to do the same in the mobile world. At a press conference today in Palo Alto, the company revealed a new platform feature than enables developers to add single click Facebook sign-in to their mobile applications. A number of major partners have already implemented or are planning to add the option, including Groupon, Yelp, Loopt and social gaming giant Zynga. Previously, Facebook offered Facebook Connect for iPhone and Android. Single sign-on, it would appear, offers a somewhat simpler experience that, much like the Open Graph API on the web, enables users to be persistently logged in via their mobile device and simply click a Facebook branded "login" button on apps that implement the option. From there, apps and mobile sites would conceivably be able to add similar functionality to that we see in web apps, like the ability to "like" stories or interact with friends. We're still live at the Facebook press event and will update when we know a bit more about the specifics. Reviews: Android, Facebook, Yelp More About: facebook, facebook mobile, Mobile 2.0 For more Mobile coverage:
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| Facebook Is Updating Its iPhone and Android Apps Posted: 03 Nov 2010 10:59 AM PDT
A goodly portion of Facebook’s 200 million mobile users will be pleased to know that Facebook for Android will now come equipped with Groups and Places integration — which is good news, considering Android users previously had to check in via the Facebook mobile site. On the Apple side, Facebook Places for iPhone is getting the ability to add photos to checkins and better tagging, which should enhance the experience for those already using the service in-app. These updates are not available yet, but should be soon. We’ll be testing them out here at Mash headquarters when they hit the App Store and Android Market, and will let you know our thoughts soon. Reviews: Android, Android Market, App Store, Facebook More About: android, facebook, iphone, places For more Mobile coverage:
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| Facebook Making a Big Mobile Platform Announcement [LIVE] Posted: 03 Nov 2010 10:40 AM PDT   Facebook is set to make a major mobile announcement, and it’s most likely about Facebook Places and the Facebook mobile platform. Not only is the press here at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, but Facebook has also invited a slew of developers and representatives of major brands, including the Golden State Warriors basketball team and location-based companies TripIt and Brightkite. Mark Zuckerberg has just taken the stage to discuss the new Facebook Mobile platform. Here are my live notes: Facebook Mobile Announcement: Live NotesAll times are in Pacific Standard Time 10:37 AM: Zuckerberg is on stage. He says that 200 million people are using Facebook’s mobile platform. 10:39: Facebook’s iPhone app is on the vast majority of iPhones, Zuckerberg says. 10:39: Some new updates to Places are coming. Better tagging and sharing photos are coming out in this release. 10:41: Facebook is refreshing the Android app with Places and Groups integration. 10:42: “Our platform: A Horizontal Approach.” Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows and Mobile Web. 10:44: Facebook has three pillars for its mobile platform: single sign-on, location APIs and its Deals Platform. Looks like we were write about Facebook launching a platform for brands to offer deals via Facebook Places. 10:46: Facebook Write API announced. This is exactly what we reportedearlier today. 10:48: Facebook is pivoting its mobile strategy from begin about mobile apps to being a broader mobile platform. 10:49: Single sign-on. It removes the need to ever type in a username or password. You just have to click the “Login” button inside an app or another website and you’re logged in. 10:50: Mihir Shah, VP of Mobile for Groupon, is now on stage. He’s giving a demo of Facebook integration in Groupon Mobile. 10:51: Single sign-on is being demonstrated. He clicks the “Sign in with Facebook” button, and after he allows Facebook access to Groupon, you’re done. “This was literally a few minutes of work, three lines of code for our developer.” 10:54: Zynga is on stage. And it just announced that it is making its debut on Android with Zynga Poker. 10:55: Single sign-on is demonstrated once again. 10:58: Facebook has announced an update to its mobile SDK. This will let developers start building apps on this new mobile platform. 10:59: Dave Federman of Facebook is on stage to talk about the Places API. 11:01: Now open to everyone: Read API, Write API and Search API. You can read where your friends are, write and publish checkins, and search for relevant places. 11:02: Now Facebook is demoing Yelp’s integration of the Write API. 11:05: Loopt is demoing the app. And it keeps crashing when they try to checkin with Facebook. Ouch. 11:08: Facebook is back on stage. The goal was to make it simple for any developer to integrate with the Places API via the Open Graph. 11:11: Facebook is now discussing the Deals Platform. 11:12: Deals is a new application within the iPhone app it looks like. You can see within Places what place are offering a deal. It’s easily scannable. Users can then check in, “claim” the deal and then it’s unlocked. The deal is posted to your Facebook wall. 11:14: Facebook is showing off the Deal workflow for businesses. It’s one page. You choose the type of deal you want. There are four: Individual, Friend, Loyalty and Charity deals. 11:15: One of the first big Fb Places deals: GAP is going to give the first 10,000 people who check in with Places a free pair of jeans. Anyone after that gets 40% off a regularly priced item. 11:18: Other deals: Palms is giving a third day stay free. Golden State Warriors will invite anybody who checks in to an upcoming an “exclusive event” after a future game. Alamo Drafthouse is giving free souvenir. 11:19: 22 launch partners. Reviews: Android, Brightkite, Facebook, TripIt, Windows, Yelp, friend, zynga poker More About: facebook, facebook mobile, iphone, live, MobileF For more Mobile coverage:
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| Today’s Facebook Announcement Is All About Places Posted: 03 Nov 2010 10:29 AM PDT   Facebook is set to make a major mobile announcement, and from what we’re hearing, it’s not going to be a Facebook Phone. We learned last night that the press wouldn’t be the only guests attending today’s announcement; the company had also invited a slew of developers and brands to attend the event as well. Representatives from the Golden State Warriors, TripIt, Brightkite and others are also at Facebook headquarters for today’s launch. What we’ve been told is that today’s announcement regards Facebook Places. Specifically, it seems like Facebook is finally ready to release its Facebook Places Write API. On September 19, the social network released the Read API, which lets developers access users’ checkin data. The Write API, which lets developers actually push checkins to Facebook, was only released to a few select companies such as Foursquare and Gowalla. We expect a lot of new Facebook Places apps to be announced. We also expect Facebook to announce a program for brands to provide rewards through Facebook Places. We’ll be covering the event live though to let you know exactly what’s up. Reviews: Brightkite, Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, TripIt More About: facebook, Facebook Places For more Mobile coverage:
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| The “Bury” Button Returns to Digg Posted: 03 Nov 2010 10:07 AM PDT   Another much-requested feature has returned to Digg, as the social news site looks to recover from the version 4 fiasco: the bury button. The button — which is essentially the opposite of the "Digg" button and helps push a story out of the system — appears to be live on all stories. Digg founder Kevin Rose hinted that the feature might be coming back in a tweet last month, and newly appointed CEO Matt Williams recently apologized to users for the botched version 4 launch and promised many of the features that users loved about the old Digg — including the bury button — would be making a comeback. The company has been in a tailspin since the launch of version 4 back in August, with traffic deteriorating, key executives leaving and a large round of staff cuts. At this point, the focus at Digg seems to be squarely on stopping the bleeding and appeasing the community that helped the site grow to a valuation of north of $200 million in its heyday. h/t @msaleem Reviews: Digg More About: bury button, digg For more Social Media coverage:
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| New Browser Extension Generates 2D Barcodes On the Fly Posted: 03 Nov 2010 09:48 AM PDT   ScanLife, maker of mobile barcode scanning applications, is today releasing a browser extension that lets users generate 2D barcodes — EZCode, QR code and Datamatriz — for any website, URL or image as they browse. The ScanLife Browser Extension is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. Once installed, users can either click the “Add to ScanLife” button while browsing or right-click on an image or link to automatically generate the code of their choosing for the entity. Generated codes can be downloaded or shared on Facebook. Extension users can sign up with ScanLife or log in to their existing accounts to access and manage all previously generated codes. Business account holders can also access analytics for code scans. With barcodes — especially QR codes — and scanning applications becoming more prevalent and recognizable, ScanLife’s new tool makes it easy for marketers and consumers alike to experiment with generating barcodes for web pages, images and links as they browse.  Reviews: Chrome, Facebook, Firefox, Internet Explorer More About: barcode scanning, browser, QR Codes, scanlife For more Tech coverage:
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| Groupon Lets Merchants Process Deals With Smartphones Posted: 03 Nov 2010 09:42 AM PDT   Daily deals juggernaut Groupon has just introduced a new mobile redemption-tracking app to streamline and improve the merchant experience. The app, which is available now in the Android Market and will be available soon in the App Store, allows merchants to scan and verify Groupons using the built-in camera on their mobile device. Like Eventbrite’s latest app, the Groupon Merchant App is designed to speed up the redemption and redemption tracking process. Redemption and purchase data is transmitted to the existing server on Groupon.com so that business owners can track redemptions and customer check amounts in real time.   This will speed up processing and reduce the number of errors associated with hand-entering coupons or using paper notes. Merchants can just scan the barcode on the Groupon and the database will be updated automatically. Groupon also plans on launching more comprehensive merchant analytics tools. These tools will offer merchants a way to stay in touch with new Groupon customers. It’s great to see Groupon offering better tools for its merchants to deal with Groupons and manage new customers. It’s also yet another example of how mobile apps have transformed the smartphone into the ultimate gadget Swiss army knife. Merchants — are you excited about the ability to scan and process Groupons with an iPhone or Android app? Let us know. Reviews: Android, Android Market, App Store More About: Android apps, barcode scanning, groupon, groupon merchant app, iphone apps, merchant apps For more Mobile coverage:
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| Push Notifications Startup Raises Another $5.4 Million Posted: 03 Nov 2010 09:18 AM PDT   Urban Airship, a company that provides push messaging and in-app purchase content and notifications for thousands of mobile apps, just announced that it has closed its Series B funding round for the amount of $5.4 million. This brings Urban Airship’s total venture capital investment to $6.5 million. The round was led by Boulder’s Foundry Group. True Ventures and the Founders Co-op — both of whom participated in Urban Airship’s Series A in February — also joined the Series B. Push notifications are a pretty common part of modern mobile applications. It’s a great way for an app to communicate with the user without necessarily running in the background, it can be used in lieu of SMS messaging to deliver news and content, and it can also alert users of newly posted content, new deals and promotions — even geographically relevant information. Urban Airship created a platform with a goal to make adding push notifications to BlackBerry, iPhone and Android apps easy and seamless. Its AirMail Push product is already in use by apps like Dictionary.com for iPhone [iTunes link], Gowalla and even Mashable’s iOS apps [iTunes link]. Urban Airship also offers an AirMail Inbox service that can stand in for MMS or standard e-mail blasts. It’s a way to transform push notifications from opening an app to instead opening a message that looks more like an e-mail or graphic rich page. Urban Airship also offers tools for in-app purchases, making it easy for users to be notified of their in-app options and confirm their purchases. For content publishers that offer subscription content — think magazines and newspapers — these notifications can also be utilized to let users know when an issue is available for download or when another component of their subscription is ready. Newsweek recently started using the In-App Purchase subscription module in its iPad app. Being Platform Agnostic and Offering Developers OptionsThe big advantage of using something like Urban Airship, rather than implementing your own push notification services, is time. Apple, as an example, has very specific rules about how push notifications can be used. Additionally, maintaining your own server that can deliver persistent, real-time messages and scale based on traffic and usage can be costly and time consuming. Because Urban Airship already has the backend in place for the three biggest smartphone platforms — in terms of app usage — it’s a compelling option for developers. Additionally, the first 1 million push messages sent each month are free. The platform agnostic nature — at least from a developer standpoint — means you can use one service to power and manage your push notifications, rather than having to maintain separate servers or services for each device type. The Future of Push: LocationThe real potential for push notifications, we think, goes beyond letting users know what’s new in an app or even if something is available for purchase — it’s all about location. As we’ve noted with apps like Foursquare, Loopt and SCVNGR, location-aware apps have real potential. Location allows content publishers to give context to their messages. For instance, if I’m downtown and I get an alert that X store is having a sale, and that message is delivered based on my location — that message has more meaning and is more useful. That’s one reason that Living Social is using Urban Airship to deliver its deals data. Having a server-side platform that can deliver customized messaging and offer in-app purchasing options is a valuable service. By positioning itself as something that can be used on multiple platforms and offering affordable platform tiers, we expect Urban Airship to continue to succeed. Reviews: Android, BlackBerry Rocks!, Foursquare, Gowalla, iPhone More About: android, blackberry, in-app purchases, iOS, push notificaitons, urban airship For more Mobile coverage:
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| Did Facebook Popularity Predict Election Results? Posted: 03 Nov 2010 08:58 AM PDT   Tuesday's election in the U.S. was a huge event online, and now Facebook is taking a look at the results of some of its efforts and politicians’ use of the social networking site in their campaigns. For starters, Facebook says that more than 12 million people clicked the "I Voted" button that sat atop the news feed Tuesday — that’s more than double the number that did the same during the 2008 election. Of course, Facebook is several orders of magnitude bigger now than it was then, so that number's not especially surprising. More interesting, however, is that Facebook says that Page popularity was a good predictor of election night victory. Writing on the U.S. Politics on Facebook Page, the company says: "The Facebook political team’s initial snapshot of 98 House races shows that 74% of candidates with the most Facebook fans won their contests. In the Senate, our initial snapshot of 19 races shows that 81% of candidates with the most Facebook fans won their contests." To be sure, there's likely a strong correlation between candidates’ overall campaign strategy and likability and the number of Facebook fans they're able to accumulate leading up to the election. Nonetheless, there's also much to be said about the ability to communicate and interact with those fans during a campaign — not to mention the "endorsements" from friends that come by way of "likes" — a trend we think will only continue to gain importance in future elections. How did social media sites play into your election decisions? Did you follow any candidates on Facebook? Let us know about your experience in the comments. Image courtesy of Twitpic, adamcurry Reviews: Facebook, Twitpic More About: 2010 election, election, facebook, politics For more Social Media coverage:
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| 10 Intermediate and Advanced Tips from PHP Masters Posted: 03 Nov 2010 08:24 AM PDT
Well, if you happen to be one of those more seasoned PHP developers, this post is for you. Our expert panel has returned to offer helpful hints and suggestions for those of you who have long since passed the “beginner” milestone and are on your way to becoming true masters of the art and science of PHP. Feel free to ask questions and leave your own suggestions in the comments — the lovely people we interviewed in this post are quite likely to pop in and reply to you directly. 1. Elizabeth Naramore: Stay Current
“Keeping up to date on what’s going on in the PHP world can really help you be a better developer,” she said. “If you stay in your comfort zone, coding the same way you always have, and don’t keep up with newest releases, changes, and other pertinent news, you are doing a disservice to yourself and your employer. Also, taking time to play with and explore new ways of doing things can help improve your skills. Listen to podcasts, keep up with blogs, take time to learn new skills and experiment.” And of course, open source isn’t just good for beginners looking to get their feet wet. Naramore notes, “Taking time to contribute to an open source project not only helps you hone your own skills, it helps you help others, and allows you to give back to the community.” 2. Keith Casey: Interact With Others’ Code
“Explore other projects. It’s a great way to find new ideas and approaches to problems. And sometimes you may be able to submit bug reports or patches. Participate in — and eventually lead — code reviews. It’s humbling to have your code criticized in a group, but it’s powerful and educational to see others’ strategies.” Casey also backs up Naramore’s advice to keep educating yourself. “Find something you don’t know and learn it,” he said. “Exploring the ins and outs of a supporting tool or related concepts, regardless of the language, will give you new ideas to apply. Or it may help you notice your own bad ideas sooner. Either way, you win.” 3. Eamon Leonard: Give Back
“I think if you’re intermediate or advanced, you’ve probably benefited from the experience of others, be it from reading development blogs, going to conferences, etc. I think when you get to the intermediate/advanced stage as a PHP developer, you have a duty to give something back to the community. “This can be as simple as writing a blog post on how to solve a particular problem, or may be running a workshop at an unconference. This can help an intermediate or advanced developer in many ways, most notably by extending their circle of developer contacts, improving their own development style by conversing with other developers, and perhaps even finding a leadership-type role in the community.” 4. Lorna Jane Mitchell: Ask Questions
“Never be afraid to ask questions. There are mailing lists, forums and IRC channels — plus, of course, the real-life user groups — and if you have already looked for an answer and you understand what question to ask, people will always jump in and make suggestions. “This is how I’ve always kept learning in the years I’ve been using PHP.” 5. Chris Cornutt: Help the Noobs
Of intermediate developers, he says, “These are the folks that have made it past their second or third PHP application and know their way around the language. They’re the ones that should be looking at the beginners and helping them with some of their first steps. The mid-range folks remember more clearly what it was like when they hacked away at a script for hours just to get a basic CRUD interface working.” “Since it’s the most fresh on their minds, they’re the best to help,” he adds. “As an added bonus, they’ll learn a few things in the process. There’s no other one developer that has the same experience as you, so help them out and keep an open mind.” He also reminds intermediate and advanced PHP developers that now that they have some legitimate skills under their belts, there’s no excuse for lazy hacks or code Band-Aids. “That’s the lazy developer in them coming out… You’ve come a long way in your development and know how things work (maybe even the PHP internals!), and you should spend the time to really get into a problem and fix it.” Along with the so-obvious-yet-no-one-does-it-well tip, “Document your code,” Cornutt also tells advanced devs, “There’s another tip I’d highly recommend that can only help you in the long run: unit testing. There are great tools for it in PHP (like PHPUnit and SimpleTest) and it can really make a difference in the stability of your application.” 6. Abraham Williams: Keep It Simple
“Don’t try to over engineer. Clean, modular code is important, but it is easy to try too hard and try to abstract too much. For me it works better just to get the code down and progressively make small improvements. Maintain lots of tests.” He also echoes the sentiments of his peers, saying, “Most importantly be active in your local and digital community.” 7. Demian Turner: Use Better Tools
For developers who are moving out of the “beginners” level, he recommends using better IDEs, unit tests and static analysis tools to become a better coder. “Don’t be afraid of using an interactive debugger, available in decent IDEs like PHPstorm and also Netbeans and Eclipse if you have the patience — this is the best way to understand what the code is doing. “Don’t be afraid of unit tests — not only will you have an easier time maintaining your code base, but often unit tests are the best form of documentation for a codebase and will allow new devs to get up to speed fast. Use some of the available static analysis and IDE tools to help you refactor your code — good code is not subjective!” 8. Stuart Herbert: Maintain Your Code
One of the tips he says helped him along his way to becoming an expert PHP coder is: “Maintain your own code so that you can learn from your mistakes. Refactor early, refactor often.” He also agrees with Cornutt that teaching others is a good idea, and he concludes his advice with an admonishment to make sure you follow standards and get up to speed on source control. 9. Maggie Nelson: Monitor Your Code
“Use FireBug, FirePHP and YSlow add-ons for Firefox. These will help you judge your web app’s front-end and back-end performance. “Profile your code. Try some in-depth tracking of what your PHP is doing. If you don’t understand something, read documentation and talk to other developers, but don’t leave any questions unanswered. The more you know, well, then the more you know. Try Xdebug for starters.” She also reminds devs to keep an eye on error reports. “Look at your application logs and strive for clean logs. PHP has many levels of error reporting — use them accordingly. Take advantage of what your application tells you, and fix problems as you see them. A clean log means less hairy debugging under emergency conditions.” Finally, she notes that although you might be happily settling into life as a PHP dev, there’s more to web development than PHP. “Don’t ignore other languages only because you love PHP. PHP is simply one of the tools for building applications. Try other languages, different data storage options, even a new code editor once in a while. As new needs emerge, new technologies will grow. Be familiar with them. “Sometimes PHP will be the best tool for the job, but sometimes it won’t be. Learn to recognize the difference.” 10. Michael Maclean: Work With Others
“Don’t work in isolation. Go and have a look at what other people are doing. Read blogs, Twitter, go on IRC, whatever. If there are conferences or user groups in your area, go to them and speak to other people. That way, you can keep up with what’s happening and find out what interesting things other people are doing.” He also says devs should stay curious and maintain a hacker’s state of mind about all the tools they use. “Don’t just use whatever framework you’re working with — go and poke around inside and see how it works. You might learn something on the way.” Series supported by Rackspace  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. More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:
Image credits: Header image courtesy of laughingsquid. Stuart Herbert photo courtesy of Rob Allen from PHPUK 2009. Reviews: Eclipse, Firefox, Flickr, Gentoo Linux, PHP, Python, Twitter More About: advanced php, advanced php tips, developers, intermediate PHP, intermediate PHP tips, php, php tips, Web Development, web development series For more Dev & Design coverage:
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Name: 
Not long ago, we offered you 
Naramore is a SourceForge employee and founded 
Casey founded a software shop and does a lot of work in the unconference circuit. For more seasoned PHP developers, he recommends a rather social program of getting your hands dirty with other developers’ code.
Leonard runs Ireland-based software company 
"Lornajane," as Mitchell is more commonly known online, is a PHP consultant, developer, writer and speaker. She advocates a Curious George/Georgia approach to continuing development of your PHP skills.
Cornutt runs 
Williams is a developer and self-styled "hacker advocate." He tells PHP devs to keep things simple and focus on incremental improvements in a code base rather than reinventing the wheel.
Turner has been working with web and open source projects since 1996. He runs 
Herbert has been coding PHP since 1999. He’s also been writing about PHP for several years and has contributed greatly to Gentoo Linux.
Nelson is a PHP developer currently employed by 
Maclean is a PHP and Python developer based in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. His advice lines up with what Naramore and Casey advised.| You are subscribed to email updates from Mashable! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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