Mashable: Latest 25 News Updates - including “iPads Dominate Holiday Gifts in Mashable Poll”

In a recent poll of holiday gift recipients, iPads accounted for a full 22.7% of all gadget or hardware gifts, making iPads the single largest category in our gift poll, outstripping the nearest runner-up by nearly 14% of votes.

That runner-up was Amazon’s Kindle — not surprising considering that the Kindle is the best-selling product in Amazon’s history.

In third place in the Mashable holiday gift poll were Android smartphones, another device category that’s had a blockbuster year by any standards.

But while Android smartphones continue to grow and dominate the mobile scene, Android tablets are just getting started. These gadgets accounted for around 2.5% of our holiday poll.

And while Windows PCs and Windows Phone 7 devices fared relatively poorly when compared to their Google- and Apple-made counterparts, Microsoft had a killer showing in the gaming department. The Kinect for Xbox has been predicted as the smash hit of the year for some time, so this is hardly a surprise to those who follow video game console happenings.

Here are some handy graphs and charts showing some of the more interesting Q4 showdowns in our poll.

More About: android, Gadget, gift, ipad, Kindle, kinect, smartphone

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Name: Cloud Shopper

Quick Pitch: Cloud Shopper asks your Facebook friends to review products you’re interested in purchasing. If you’re buying a gift or deciding between similar products, you can share a list of potential items.

Genius Idea: The majority of consumers rely to some extent on social networks to guide them in their purchase decisions, according to a 2009 survey by Gartner research firm.

Cloud Shopper aims to organize the way people solicit this advice. Users can browse products (pulled from Amazon.com), and select those they’d like to start a conversation about. They can either create a Facebook wall post asking for comments on that specific item or compile a list — let’s say, “possible gifts for Suzie” — and share it with friends. When friends click on the Facebook link, they’re directed to a commenting section where they can review each product. Products each user likes are kept in a tabbed section for others to browse.

But why not just create a wall post or a Facebook question when soliciting shopping advice from your Facebook friends? The best reason is a feature that is due for release in about two weeks, which will let users solicit advice from specific friends in their networks. So, for instance, if you were thinking about buying a camera, you could ask only your photographer friends for advice. If you’re shopping for a birthday present for John, you can share your potential gift list exclusively with your and John’s mutual friends.

Another cool feature of the site is that it pulls information about a product into its dashboard from multiple other sources like Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. We’ve seen similar functions work well on product sites like Retrevo, and having the information handy while browsing and commenting is convenient.

Cloud Shopper’s site, which launched on December 15, is still suffering from its newness. When Facebook friends click on the products you’re asking them to review, for now they land on a page that is less than intuitive to navigate. Options like Facebook Poll and Facebook Question integrations are also still on the way.

The idea could have some weight if the promised features pan out. People like to discuss purchasing decisions — if that weren’t true there wouldn’t be so many peer-written review sites — why not take friends’ advice instead of a stranger’s? The success of the self-funded company, however, depends more on its users following through with Amazon purchases. Collecting a fee on a significant number of referrals could be a task equally as tricky as building a network.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

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

More About: Cloud Shopper, Crowdsource, facebook, shopping

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The $2.5 billion, 10-year deal includes computer networks, hardware, software, peripherals and “everything that’s plugged into the wall,” as NASA spokesperson Michael Sweigart told Bloomberg.

HP is taking over many services currently provided by Lockheed Martin.

Hewlett-Packard has had an interesting year, one perhaps most significantly marked by a CEO-shakeup saga. In early August, HP ousted then-CEO Mark Hurd following sexual harassment claims. Shortly after Hurd’s firing, he was hired as Oracle’s new co-president.

Still, while the company’s leadership saw some big changes, it finished the year strongly, reporting decent fourth-quarter revenue growth. We’re sure a hefty contract from NASA will help the company’s financials as well as help direct attention away from CEO issues and toward what looks to be a promising new year.

More About: HP, NASA, trending

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Kodachrome’s demise was first announced in June 2009. Kodak cited a decline in sales as photographers had traded their old film for digital memory cards — or, in some cases, newer films. This meant that the company also stopped producing the chemicals needed to develop the film.

As The New York Times reported Wednesday, there was a time when there were about 25 labs in the world that could process Kodachrome film. But the number of labs began to decline a few years ago when the last Kodak-run facility in the U.S. closed, followed by another closure in Japan and another in Switzerland. Dwayne’s Photo was the last place still developing Kodachrome, but last week, the lab opened the last of the chemicals used to process the film.

Even though Kodachrome saw diminishing sales toward its end, this is the end of an era for a number of photographers and photography buffs. The film — currently trending at number seven on Google in the U.S. — was noted for capturing rich color and light in a way that many say cannot be replicated by digital cameras or apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram. As Paul Simon noted in his 1973 song — titled, “Kodachrome,” of course — ”You give us those nice bright colors/ You give us the greens of summers/ Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day.”

The film was used to take some world-famous photographs, including Steve McCurry’s National Geographic 1985 cover image of a young Afghan girl. Incidentally, Kodak gave McCurry the last roll of Kodachrome last year. The photographer, who hand-delivered the final roll to Parsons after he finished shooting, has posted some of the last 36 frames on his blog.

Meanwhile, as the Times noted, the last roll to be processed at Dwayne’s Photo belongs to owner Dwayne Steinle. The final frame will feature all his employees standing in front of the business wearing shirts that commemorate the film’s official retirement.

More About: camera, film camera, kodachrome, Kodak, photography, trending

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The new NOOKColor, apparently, is a particularly popular seller, as B&N says that it was the number-one selling gift of the holiday season.

Much like Amazon, Barnes & Noble is not actually reporting any specific numbers here, merely referring to “millions of NOOK eReading devices sold,” but the announcement is still indicative of the growing popularity of e-readers and books. In fact, the company also reports that it now sells more digital books than physical on BN.com (which Amazon did last year).

Still, it would be interesting to see specific sales numbers to better compare the popularity of the two devices — afterall, Amazon is reporting that one Kindle device (the Kindle 3) is its bestselling device, while B&N is reporting that its entire line of Nook e-readers has topped the charts.

More About: amazon, barnes and noble, books, business, e-reader, Kindle, nook

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RunKeeper Pro [iTunes link] was the second top-grossing health and fitness app in the App Store in 2010, according to Apple. It made headlines earlier this year when it announced a partnership with Foursquare, enabling RunKeeper users to earn Foursquare badges for completing certain fitness challenges, such as running a 5K or a marathon.

So why is FitnessKeeper forgoing a month’s worth of revenue? To increase its userbase, mainly. “Monetization is important to us, but most important is making an incredible system for our users… and getting as big an engaged community as possible using the RunKeeper platform,” Jacobs says.

A bigger userbase could provide greater leverage with advertisers and other partners, for one thing. Furthermore, the increase in downloads should also keep RunKeeper Pro in the App Store’s top 10 list when the price goes back up — a strategy Electronic Arts has employed several times by reducing the cost of its games to $0.99 over holiday periods — so revenue for the month won’t be completely lost.

More About: FitnessKeeper, jason jacobs, runkeeper, runkeeper pro

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After the season's last hurrah on New Year's, what emerges is a renewed sense of spirit for the coming year –- and sometimes a desire to undo everything that has just been done. This is precisely why most people hit the ground running on January 1 with a resolve to lose weight, get in shape, walk the dog more, and so on.

The following roundup contains apps that can serve as trusty sidekicks to help you keep those resolutions you swear you'll actually follow through on this year. In addition to personal health, other common resolutions include managing finances more efficiently, quitting smoking, finding a better job and finding love. There are obviously many more apps out there for each category, but I've hand-picked twelve to help you get 2011 off to a good start. Happy New Year!

Losing Weight

Lose It!

Lose It is a great, easy-to-use app that provides users with features for managing and tracking their weight loss and fitness goals. With an extensive database of foods and nutritional information available, you can simply scroll through the options and log what you have consumed for the day to get a total calorie count. The app also tracks calories burned through fitness and shows where you've gone over or under your caloric requirements for weight loss each day.

Cost: FREE

Go Meals

A dieter's dilemma: You're eating out at a restaurant and have no idea what the best choices are that are still suitable for your dieting needs. Go Meals is a helpful app for those moments when you're out at P.F. Chang's and want to know if the Mongolian Beef is less caloric than the Orange Peel Beef (it's not). This app also includes thousands of listings for grocery store foods and provides full nutritional information for foods you eat on a daily basis. When an item has been chosen, you can save them to "Today's Plate" and keep a log of your caloric, fat and protein intake. A very handy tool.

Cost: FREE

Getting in Shape

Fitness Free

This is a great free app that provides photographs and detailed steps for each of its more than 320 exercises. Essentially every major muscle group is reflected and you can use this app to get good ideas for triceps, quads or any other body part that you want to improve. There is also a section offering a small selection of pre-bundled, three-day workouts, or you can select exercises of your choosing and create your own customized workout.

Cost: FREE

iPersonalTrainer

iPersonalTrainer prompts users to create a workout and select which muscle groups they want to work by pointing to them on a (very buff) illustrated man. The app then takes you to a page with instructional videos for each exercise along with tips for good technique. The app also includes a Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator, weight tracker and progress log so you can keep track of your workouts while you get that hard body.

Cost: $.99

Organizing Finances

Pay Off Debt

Pay Off Debt provides a good template for users to track and manage all current balances and debts. Using an intuitive interface and the debt snowball method, this app lets you prioritize debts and see estimated times left to pay off each one. You can plan monthly payments for each and view progress bars as you begin chipping away at what's owed. Based on your payment schedule, the app will also provide you with a date for when you are completely debt-free.

Cost: $3.99

Mint

Mint is a free app that automatically syncs all of your financial information directly from your online banking accounts, eliminating the need to manually enter all information. You can set up budgets and categories with spending limits on each; track your incoming and outgoing income; track investment accounts and more. The app also alerts you to things like large purchases, when a check clears, or if you go over budget. In addition, security measures are in place to lock iPhone access if lost or stolen.

Cost: FREE

Quitting Smoking

MyQuit Coach

MyQuit Coach is a highly-personalizable plan to help smokers quit. Users can set the parameters for the plan and upload personal photos and inspirational motivators to stay on track, and the app awards users with achievement badges when quitting goals have been reached. The app also connects to Facebook, Twitter and LIVESTRONG for additional moral support and information for users.

Cost: $3.99

Quitter

Quitter is an app that takes a slightly different approach. This lets users track progress by reminding them how long they've been smoke-free and how much money they have saved thus far. Users can refer to the app on a daily basis and keep track of how long they've gone without smoking and what they would have spent if they had continued.

Cost: FREE

Getting a Better Job

Monster.com Jobs

As one of the largest job search sites available, the Monster.com app is a great complement for anyone with a Monster account (which is free to register) and gives users access to the same listings they'd find online. The app automatically syncs with your web-based account and enables you to access saved job listings, resumes, saved searches and more from your iPhone. You can also use the iPhone's built-in GPS system to locate jobs near you.

Cost: FREE

What Color is Your Parachute?

You've found the job you want, but the next step is the interview. The expression, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression," couldn't be truer when it comes to this opportunity, which is likely the only time you have to sell yourself and demonstrate why you are a fit for the job. The What Color is Your Parachute? app is a complement to the eponymous job-seekers' "bible" and walks users through the job interview process and how to nail it. Tips on interview questions and questions to ask are featured, as well as top 10 mistakes to avoid. It's a good read for anyone who is preparing for a big interview.

Cost: FREE

Finding Love

Dating DNA

Unlike other dating apps that require you to have an existing subscription to its web-based site, or are sketchier and only use GPS-navigation to track "singles near you," Dating DNA is a free app and service that matches people based on compatibility scores. When you are deemed compatible by the app, based on both your ratings, you are then able to view each other's profiles and connect. The app also provides "at-a-glance" compatibility scoring and dating potential indicators to help you determine if your potential mate is worth pursuing.

Cost: FREE

Love Survival Kit

If you need help in the love department and are looking for advice on what to do in certain situations, wikiHow's Love Survival Kit is a good resource to have. There is plenty of information and dating advice for categories like “Awkward Situations” (ex. Escape Cuddling in Bed); “Breaking Up” (ex. Keep a Friendship After a Breakup) or “Relationship Skills” (ex. Stop Being Needy). Some of articles can be more funny than useful, but then again, sometimes with dating, people need all the help they can get.

Cost: FREE

Which apps did you find most useful? How do you plan to jumpstart your New Year’s resolutions? Let us know in the comments below.

More iPhone Resources from Mashable:

- 10 iPhone Apps for the Global Foodie
- 10 Useful iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks
- 10 Incredible iPhone Portrait Photographs
- 10 Incredible iPhone Photographs
- 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]

Image courtesy of spapax

More About: 2011, App, apple, apps, iphone, iphone app lists, iphone apps, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, new years, resolutions

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Six of the 10 most-shared web pages were mainly videos or photos, but only three news stories made the list. Jokeroo.com and nypost.com pages were the most prevalant sites, earning three and two spots respectively.

1. Texas Mayor Kills Teen Daughter, Kills Self (AOL News): In July, the mayor of Coppell, Texas, shot and killed her 19-year-old daughter before turning the gun on herself.

2. Paper Cuts – Rolls (Behance.com): Paper scenes set inside of paper rolls make excellent photographs.

3. Awe-Inspiring Scenes from Mother Nature (happied.com): A collection of breathtaking landscape photography.

4. Sniper Kills Qaeda from 1.5 Miles Away (nypost.com): A British sniper set a world sharpshooting record by taking out two Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan from more than a mile and a half away.

5. Super Heroes vs. the Westboro Baptist Church (Comics Alliance): Attendees of San Diego’s Comic-Con staged a humorous counter-protest in response to the annual protests of Westboro Baptist Church.

6. WereBox (Hooda Math): A strangely addicting puzzle game.

7. Brazillian Samba Baby (Jokeroo.com): Baby gets down.

8. Hilarious World Cup Dive (Jokeroo.com): Italian player Daniele De Rossi bites the dust during a World Cup game against Paraguay.

9. Day in Photos: June 18, 2010 (nypost.com): Nahanni Johnstone kisses her 8-year-old daughter, Chloe, both covered with oil during a Global Day of Action demonstration in Toronto.

10. Chinese Susan Boyle (Jokeroo.com): “I Will Always Love You” sounds like Whitney Houston, but definitely doesn’t look much like her.

Which of these pages would you share? Tell us in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, flyparade

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“Mainstream media continually complains that Twitter is full of useless dreck — but it’s not, at least not to its users,” says Michael Bernstein, MIT researcher and co-founder of Who Gives a Tweet?

“But, we don’t really have a great sense of what it is that people value in their feeds. Is it news and links? Opinions? What ways do people tweet that inevitably just anger their followers? And more, how would a stranger who doesn’t know you see your feed, in comparison to someone who already follows you?” he adds.

That’s the purpose of the study, which Bernstein recently launched with Paul André from Southampton and Kurt Luther from Georgia Tech.

Getting in on the action — and getting your own tweets rated — is simple. Just visit the Who Gives a Tweet? website, sign in via Twitter, rate a couple of your friends’ tweets, and wait as strangers (courtesy of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk) rate yours (as well as any friends who have already used the service).

After a while, you’ll receive a DM with your results, which will reveal just how boring — or riveting — you are to friends and strangers alike. Admittedly, my results were mixed. Lesson learned: Stop randomly posting links to Twitter sans context.

Bernstein and Co. are hoping to take the results they gather from Who Gives a Tweet? and turn it into academic research. Granted there’s already tons of apps and studies out there that gauge Twitter prowess, but it’s certainly interesting to see a handful of individual tweets graded by real people.

How do your tweets stack up?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sdominick

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According to the People’s Daily, the official publication of China’s Communist party, Skype and all other Internet-based calling services — apart from state-owned China Unicom and China Telecom — are now illegal.

If true, Skype would be the latest in a long list of Western-based Internet services to be banned in China, a list that includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Hotmail, WordPress, Foursquare and TwitPic, among others.

Professor Kan Kaili at Bejing University of Post and Telecommunications told The Telegraph that it would be very difficult to enforce that kind of ban, as Chinese users could still download Skype and similar programs from websites outside of China.

“It is very unlikely that they will manage to shut Skype down,” he said. “Skype is the market leader, but there is also MSN and Gmail Talk. The children of Chinese government officials, who are studying abroad, use these services to call home, so I do not think anyone is going to cut the lines. Even if they take a strict approach, such as getting local operators to block the broadband services of people who use Skype, people will still find a way around it.”

Skype, however, denies any knowledge of the rumored ban. “Users in China currently can access Skype via TOM Online, our majority JV partner. TOM Online offers local versions of Skype for Windows, MAC as well as mobile platforms such as Symbian and Windows Mobile. More details can be found at skype.tom.com,” a spokesperson for the company said.

“Our folks in Asia have… not received any notification to this point,” he added.

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There’s never been a more exciting time to be a web designer; but being a member of this fast-paced, persistently metamorphic profession, I’ll probably end up saying this at the end of every year until I retire.

But with the web design industry abuzz with new specifications like HTML5 and CSS3, and cutting-edge frontiers like the mobile web, I can’t help but wonder what the future will look like in the new year. Here are four predictions for the future of web design.

1. Mobile Web Goes Mainstream

The mobile web has been the dominant subject in web design for the past 2+ years. A quick peek at Dribbble, a social media site where designers share their projects, will show you that many of us are working on mobile device apps and interfaces.

However, it’s still safe to say that most websites have given little to no attention to their mobile web presence. Most of the innovative mobile device web designs we’re seeing are on big, industry-leading, tech-centric sites such as Amazon.com, Google, and Digg, or niche sites targeted toward web designers (such as A List Apart).

Where we’re not seeing mobile web design implementations are in run-of-the-mill company and corporate sites. Small- and medium-sized businesses, Fortune 500 companies, and government websites are sadly falling behind instead of in line.

However, companies are beginning to see the rewards of meeting the needs of mobile device users. In the years to come, there will be a significant shift in attention toward the mobile web presence in all websites.

There are already several mobile web tools you can use for creating a mobile web version of your site; it’s time companies seriously look into implementing these cost-effective and relatively simple solutions as either a stop-gap solution or a permanent one.

2. Web Design as a Profession Will Become Specialized

Web designers are increasingly contending with many roles and tasks. What used to be just HTML, CSS and designing static brochure sites for the desktop has extended to designing web-enabled solutions for mobile devices, web apps, rich Internet application (RIA) interfaces, content management systems (CMS) and much more.

We’re tasked with making harmonious designs that carry a website’s brand across all platforms and situations — designs that establish the company’s brand whether it’s being viewed in a 28-inch desktop monitor or an Android smartphone.

This leads to two things. Job security is one, but the other is the need to distribute these tasks so that we can specialize and excel in one specific area.

In the future, there will be greater stratification of the role of web designer. Right now, web app designers, mobile app designers and traditional website designers are clustered under the umbrella title of “web designer.”

Just as the profession of being a doctor and the field of medicine are branched out into sub-fields such as oncology, dentistry and neurology, we may see a similar division in the field of web design. I can see specializations such as mobile web designer, content management system designer (with further sub-specializations such as WordPress theme designer or Drupal theme designer), and RIA interface designer becoming a reality and being in demand as we move forward.

3. Simpler Aesthetics for Websites

There’s been a sweeping trend in the way new websites are being visually designed. Web designers are forgoing complex visuals and overdone design techniques, opting instead for clean and simple web designs with a high attention to detail, a greater emphasis on typography — with the help of web fonts and the upcoming open web font format (WOFF) specifications — and stronger interaction design for richer and more captivating user experiences.

Not only that, but simpler aesthetics means lighter web pages, which translates to a better experience on mobile devices where Internet connectivity is lower in speed and less reliable when compared to the traditional broadband connection, and where screen sizes are too small to fit excessive design elements. This web design trend of “less is more” seems like it will extend, if not dominate, the aesthetic tastes of web designers in the near future.

4. Web Design Will Replace Print Design (Even More)

Print designers are typically tasked with brand identity design, such as logo design, letterheads, business cards and other print materials.

However, companies are seeing the great opportunities and effectiveness of business networking online. Businesses are a lot more concerned about their brand’s visibility on the web. Business cards are being replaced by social networking profiles on Twitter and Facebook. Newsletters, brochures and company letterheads sent out by snail mail are being dismissed for HTML e-mails and e-newsletters.

We’ll be witnessing design budgets earmarked toward traditionally print-based branding materials shift toward web design solutions such as Twitter profile page designs, Facebook fan page designs and HTML e-mail and e-newsletter template designs.

Where Do You See Web Design Heading?

If you’re a web designer or are in a related profession, what changes do you see us heading toward? If you’re not a web designer, what things do you want to see in web designs, and what things do you want to become history? Share your thoughts in the comments.

More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Predictions for Web Development in 2011
- 5 Free Annotation and Collaboration Tools for Web Projects
- 8 Tools For Easily Creating a Mobile Version of Your Website
- Hacker Web Design: Words of Wisdom for Building Great Apps
- 5 Design Trends That Small Businesses Can Use in 2011

Image courtesy of Flickr, Mike Rohde.

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Very similar in execution to the LendMe feature built in to the competing Barnes & Noble Nook platform, borrowers can access books from the Kindle apps for Mac, PC, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and of course, the Kindle itself.

Amazon has a pretty comprehensive page set up explaining the Kindle loan process, but we’ve put together our own guide to help users get started.

Loans Are Initiated on the Web

The first thing to understand about the Kindle loan process is that all of the management aspects take place in the web browser. While we imagine that Amazon will release future software updates for its devices and various apps to make it possible to lend out a book from within a device, users need to use the web browser as of right now.

Fortunately, Amazon has made this process pretty simple. Not every Kindle book supports the lending feature; it is up to publishers and rights holders to determine what books can be loaned out or not. To find out if a Kindle book is lendable, just look at the product details section of any Kindle book page.

Underneath the ASIN code is a label titled “Lending.” Lendable books are marked “Enabled” and that means users can safely lend away their e-books.

For Kindle books users have already purchased, a yellow indicator will appear at the top of the product page with the words “Loan this book to anyone you choose.” As long as a user is logged in to his or her Amazon.com account, this heading should appear on every eligible Kindle book already in the user’s collection. Clicking the “Loan this book” link will initiate the lending process.

For users who have lots of Kindle books, the easiest option is probably to go to the Manage Your Kindle page and scroll down to the bottom where it says “Your Orders.” Clicking on the plus sign next to a title will show you order details and also, if the book is eligible, a “Loan this book” sign.

Loans Are Sent via E-mail

Clicking on the “Loan this book” button or hyperlink will take users to a page that completes the loan process.

Lenders will need to provide the recipient’s e-mail address and name and if they want, they can also include a personal message.

Recipients will then get an e-mail from Amazon.com offering a link to accept the lended title. If the user already has a Kindle device, he or she can even choose where to send the title via Whispernet.

Borrowers have seven days from the date of the first e-mail to choose to accept a loan. Once accepted, the book is readable for 14 days.

While on Loan, Books Are Not Accessible to the Owner

Amazon issues the same restriction as Barnes & Noble when it comes to book lending: Once a book is on loan, it is not accessible to the owner. Trying to read a book will show a “This title can not be downloaded because it is on loan” message.

We’ll be honest, we find this practice sort of annoying. After all, the copy is digital, so what does it matter if the owner and borrower can access the title at the same time? Still, from a digital rights perspective, this probably makes copyright holders feel more secure — and truthfully, it isn’t like we can still read our physical books when we loan copies to our friends.

Amazon does have a nice feature in its “Manage My Kindle” section that allows borrowers to remove a loaned title from their collection. If this is done before the 14 day loan period, reading rights return to the owner. Borrowers can still pull up the loaned title in their archives but will be alerted when the loan period has ended and given a link to purchase the book.

Notes for International Users

Right now, only users in the United States can lend books to other users. However, if the intended recipient is in another country, as long as the book is accessible in their region, those users can still receive the book.

Much like the music industry, the world of e-books still has different rules and agreements with regard to international availability. Some companies, like Kobo, focus on making all titles accessible in all regions, but the biggest publishers generally have different agreements in different areas.

We hope Amazon will work on bringing the lending feature to international users in the near future.

You Can Only Lend Once

Yet another feature Amazon has borrowed from Barnes & Noble is the fact that once a book has been loaned out once, it cannot be loaned again. To us, this is much more annoying than not being able to read a book while it is on loan.

While I could understand placing a limit on the number of times a title could be loaned out (off the top of my head, five seems acceptable), I really don’t see how limiting the number of times a title can be loaned out does anything to deter piracy (if that is the aim). It’s not like there aren’t programs that can break Amazon’s DRM scheme and convert e-books into ePub or PDF.

Still, the ability to lend titles — even with its current implementation — is a great boost to the Amazon ecosystem. Amazon’s strategy of getting its apps on as many devices as possible is one of the most compelling parts of its platform. Yes, the other e-book sellers have by and large followed suit, but Amazon’s ubiquity in the e-commerce space gives it the sort of power that few other services can counter.

As someone who has already become addicted to the ability to gift Kindle books to my friends and colleagues, I can see myself embracing this new feature in full force.

What do you think about the new Kindle lending feature?

More About: amazon, books, e-readers, e-reading, ebooks, how to, Kindle, kindle lending, nook

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The web will continue to generate data at an explosive rate. It will generate even more now that mobile devices have created yet another path to reach that data. For example, mobile traffic alone is predicted to exceed more than two exabytes per month by 2013. There are more than 90 million tweets per day and more than 60 billion images on Facebook. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Out of this bounty of data emerged "data science" and a plethora of new tools to deal with the size and speed of information. Hadoop, Hbase, Cassandra, MongoDB, NodeJS, Hive, R, and Pig are just a few of the tools and techniques that have emerged to wrestle the growing juggernaut of data. The explosion in new tools and the demand to implement them has far exceeded the number of data scientists available.

When we look at the insight and intelligence that companies like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have been able to mine about the preferences and behaviors of their users, it is no surprise that data scientists are in high demand. It is not just social media data either — financial, CPG, marketers and even governments are turning to the new skills and techniques to answer new business questions.

The rapid rise in demand and the shortage of trained experts has led to the emergence of tools to democratize access to big data. Innovative startups like Datameer and Factual have simple spreadsheet interfaces for doing basic slicing and dicing. Larger players like Google have launched FusionTables to allow slicing and visualization of medium (100MB) data sets.

The Challenges of Big Data

This sprawling mass of emerging data brings with it a host of challenges. As we slice and dice data, how do we keep track of the many permutations that it creates? What bits are meaningful and validated? How do we move beyond just counting and binning the data and answer more meaningful questions for businesses?

As a technology community, we've done a brilliant job of crowdsourcing data, making its creation and curation a social enterprise. We've even made the creation of code social through the open source movement and tools like Github. Yet for all our innovation, we've done little to harness the collective Internet community to analyze the data we create. While our analyses and visualizations are elegant and often beautiful, they are too often built in isolation.

If we were to peer into the not too distant future, how could we use the collective to analyze data and archive its evolution to let others further examine particular pieces of data and run in new directions? Let's watch an analysis evolve socially as many hands look for patterns across a large data stream.

We'll start with a chunk of data comprised of all tweets mentioning "Walmart" during Black Friday, November 26, 2010, using hypotheticals. “John” examines the data and extracts all the tweets that came from mobile devices and plots them on a map:

He posts the results and data on his blog so others can extend or tweak the analysis. “Kate,” one of his readers, checks out the data and thinks it looks cool, but finds it too hard to see a pattern with so many dots on the map. Kate then takes John's data and forks it with her own analysis, counting all the tweets about Walmart in each county:

Seeing Kate's analysis, another reader, “Bill,” wonders what the relationship is between tweets about Walmart and their store location. How often are Walmart stores nearby when someone is tweeting about Walmart? He finds that 67% of the variation of tweets is explained by the number of Walmarts located in each county.

Another potential reader, “Lauren,” a Walmart Marketing VP, finds this pattern very intriguing. This analysis shows that when a promotion is sent to people discussing Walmart, there is a high likelihood that a store is nearby to redeem it. Next, her mind runs to other variables she could plug into the equation: population, demographics, competitor mix, weather, traffic, etc. She could fuse and filter the collection of contextual data — for example, if someone is tweeting from a mobile device a mile from a Walmart, and the location has a density of 30- to 40-year-old single moms, as well as a forecasted heat wave — in order to target advertisements.

Leveraging these dynamic results, Lauren can query into the inventory analytics and immediately push out a promotion for kiddie pools and squirt guns. She can automate this algorithm to generate new promotions based on the streaming data and adjust to inventory levels in real time.

Answers Included

One of the early premises of Web 2.0 was that data would be "the Intel inside" and firms like NAVTEQ that provide data would be the big winners. Today we are seeing crowdsourcing increasingly commoditize data, and projects like OpenStreetMap replacing the NAVTEQs of the world. As the market moves up the chain, the future value will be the meaningful questions we can answer with data. This will mean more focus on the “science” side of "data science." The more social and collaborative we make the science, the better the answers we'll create at a scale that is needed for an explosive market.

More Data Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Predictions for Online Data in 2011
- Facebook vs. Google and the Battle for Identity on the Web [OP-ED]
- How a Physically Aware Internet Will Change the World
- What You Need To Know About Data Portability
- How Online Retailers Can Leverage Facebook's Open Graph

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, fpm

More About: analytics, business, data, geo-location, MARKETING, social media

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Topping all three of the lists in the electronics category is the company’s bestselling product in history, the third-generation Kindle.

The bestselling and most wished-for book on all of those Kindles this year was Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Paperback buyers appeared to be a bit further ahead in the series; the bestselling and most wished-for tangible book on Amazon in 2010 was Larsson’s second bestseller, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Unlike the most popular books people bought for themselves, the most popular books and e-books given as gifts this year were both non-fiction. The most popular gift book was Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, and the most popular e-book was Decision Points by George W. Bush.

The top-grossing movie of 2010, Toy Story 3, was also the most popular movie gift. The Blind Side was the bestselling movie and Inception was the most wished-for movie this year.

Taylor Swift’s Speak Now topped the music category on both wished-for and gift lists, although Susan Boyle’s The Gift outsold the album in 2010. Considering the demographics of most Taylor Swift fans, it’s unsurprising that Speak Now did outsell The Gift as an MP3 album.

While the highest number of gamers may have purchased and added Call of Duty: Black Ops to their wish lists, they were most likely to end up with Nintendo Wii game Just Dance 2 as a gift this year.

The most interesting item to top Amazon’s sales lists was the Chia Obama Handmade Decorative Planter, which was 2010’s most popular health and personal care gift (despite being related to neither health nor personal care). Check out the full list at Amazon.com.

More About: amazon, Bestselling products, e-commerce, gift

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The results indicate that music, software and apps were the most popular purchases among a group of 755 Internet users surveyed between October 28 and November 1. Digital music and software were tied at 33%, while 21% of survey respondents said they bought apps for their cellphones or tablet computers.

Meanwhile, 18% said they have paid for digital newspaper, magazine or journal articles. This is a number somewhat higher than the amount of users who paid for TV shows and movies, digital photos and e-books. Only 7% paid for podcasts, while 5% paid for access to services like online dating sites. The survey addressed 15 different kinds of online content; 6% of those responding said they paid for other types of material not mentioned on the list.

The survey also yielded some other notable findings: 23% of Internet users pay for subscription services, versus the 16% who pay for downloading a file or the 8% who pay to access streamed content. In addition, most Internet users (66%) tend to use only one method of access and payment.

Here’s a proper breakdown of the survey results, followed by a graph that shows the number of online content types purchased by Internet users:

• 33% of Internet users have paid for digital music online.
• 33% have paid for software.
• 21% have paid for apps for their cellphones or tablet computers
• 19% have paid for digital games.
• 18% have paid for digital newspaper, magazine, or journal articles or reports.
• 16% have paid for videos, movies, or TV shows.
• 15% have paid for ringtones.
• 12% have paid for digital photos.
• 11% have paid for members-only premium content from a website with other free material.
• 10% have paid for e-books.
• 7% have paid for podcasts.
• 5% have paid for tools or materials to use in video or computer games.
• 5% have paid for "cheats or codes" to help them in video games.
• 5% have paid to access particular websites such as online dating sites or services.
• 2% have paid for adult content.

Image courtesy of Flickr, clrcmck

More About: apps, music, Pew Internet & American Life Project, pew survey, software

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We're keeping our eye on seven interesting developments this Thursday.

Facebook Surpasses Google As Most-Visited Website in 2010

Facebook was not only the most searched item of the year, but it passed Google as America's most-visited website in 2010, according to a new report from Experian Hitwise.

44% of Online Sharing Occurs Through Facebook

44% of online sharing occurs through Facebook, according to recently released data from AddThis. That number does not include shares performed through Facebook's "Like" button, which means the actual, universal percentage of shares through Facebook is likely higher.

New Jersey Mayor Uses Twitter to Help Residents Through Blizzard

Newark Mayor Cory Booker turned to Twitter during the blizzard that hit the Tri-State area earlier this week, letting citizens know about the city's cleanup efforts and personally digging out the cars of those in need.

Social Media Not a Big Factor in Holiday Purchases

A recent survey found that only 5% of online holiday shoppers were primarily influenced to visit top retailer sites by social media channels.

Tron Still King on Twitter, Despite Box Office Rivals

Although Little Fockers and True Grit claimed first and second place at the Christmas box office, Tron: Legacy proved most popular on Twitter.

Kanye West’s “Monster” Video Hits the Web

In what looks like another epic leak, Kanye West's video for his hit single "Monster" (ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver) has hit YouTube.

Twitter Falsely Reports Deaths of Entertainment Celebrities

The Twitterverse was abuzz over the holiday weekend with rumors about the deaths of singer Aaron Carter and actor Charlie Sheen, both of which proved to be false.

More About: cory booker, facebook, Google, social media, twitter

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Excentric, a 50-person shop based in Lisbon, is the creator of The Digital Story of Nativity, a 3-minute film that retells the the birth of Christ via social media tools like Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as if it were experienced in 2010. According to a report in Advertising Age, the video has received more than 9 million views and has had the biggest viral video debut since Old Spice’s “Responses” campaign in July.

The reason? “It’s very clever and very well executed,” says Mike Arauz, senior strategist with Undercurrent. “Most importantly it connects with two extremely engaged and passionate online audiences: People interested in the Christian faith, and people interested in the Internet.”

“And of course, the timing was right,” he adds.

The success of the video has been a big surprise to Miguel Figueiredo, partner/CEO of Excentric, who says he came up with the idea to show the agency’s clients what was possible via video. “We wanted to prove to our markets that we were able to make viral videos and this is a process that can be managed and have great results,” he says. Excentric’s clients include Vodaphone and Unilever.

Figueiredo said he challenged his agency in late September or early October to create a viral video. It took about three weeks to come up with the idea and another three weeks to create the video. On the morning of December 7, the agency released the Portuguese version of the video in its native country. The timing was very important. “It was very intentional. We released it early in the morning,” he says. The next day was also the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holiday in Portugal, which meant many people had some time on their hands. Excentric released an English version of the video on December 13. “By that time, a lot of people were asking for an English version,” Figueiredo says. A week later, ABC News wrote a story on the video and the next morning, The Huffington Post picked it up.

Close to a month after the initial release, Figueiredo says he’s gotten inquiries from all over the world from potential clients about his shop. The publicity may be priceless, but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t thought of the financial implications. Figueiredo says if he had done the video on behalf of a client, he would have either charged based on the number of views, “which in this case would have been fantastic for us,” or he would have charged a flat fee of $50,000. If a client had taken him up on the latter, that would have come out to about $.06 per view. As it stands, though Figueiredo couldn’t ask for a better Christmas present.

More About: Digital Story of Nativity, Excentric, viral videos

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As noted by Fortune, the new SEC filing indicates that the company could still have plans to raise an additional $450 million for this funding round. This was first disclosed in an amended certificate of incorporation filed last week.

The SEC filing doesn’t list any new board members, meaning that the identities of the participating investors isn’t clear. As Fortune notes, however, media reports indicate that the newest backers could include Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price and Fidelity.

Digital Sky Technologies (DST), a Russia-based investment firm, is also believed to be a big part of this new round. DST led Groupon’s $135 million Series C round back in April. Other high-profile DST investments include Zynga and Facebook.

The SEC filing may not name new investors, but it does shed some other light on some of Groupon’s plans. The filing indicates that approximately $345 million of the investment will be used “to pay for shares repurchased by the Issuer in a tender offer for shares held by, among others, certain of the persons named in response to Item 3 above and/or their respective affiliates.” In other words, existing shareholdres will have the chance to cash out.

Fortune reports that Groupon shareholders have already received a letter offering to buy back up to 15% of current stock holdings.

The ascent of Groupon was one of Mashable’s biggest surprises of 2010. Some of us may still be unsure of the longterm viability of the group-deal phenomenon, but with consistently massive funding rounds and no signs of slowing down, Groupon has asserted itself as a major player in the tech industry.

More About: DST, funding, groupon, vc

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Update: West’s camp have contacted us saying that they have no comment. They say they are investigating the “leak,” which confirms that the release was not intentional on West’s part.

In what looks like another leak, Kanye West’s video for his hit single “Monster” (ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver) has hit YouTube. The video is rather rough, poorly synced and seemingly unfinished, which indicates that West did not intend for the vid to hit the web today.

Note: This video is NSFW.

Fans have been anticipating the release of this epic (and gory) video for weeks now, after being given a sneak (leaked?) peek at the making-of in early December, followed by a preview soon after.

Kanye’s album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, oozed online weeks before its November 22 drop date, so it’s no small wonder that the accompanying videos would get a similar treatment — especially when the disc has been on every end-of-year-album list across the web.

Although some are speculating that this was an intentional leak (we’ve reached out to West’s camp for comment), we doubt it. The rough-cut quality of the vid — complete with time code — juxtaposed against the spectacle that was West’s 35-minute hip hop film Runaway presents too sharp a contrast. “Monster” appears to be an epic-in-the-making, even in the rough cut, so we doubt that West — who has previously been extremely vehement about leaks — would be kosher with an unfinished version making it to the web.

We’ve also reached out to one of the alleged leakers to see if we can find out where the video came from.

Image courtesy of Flickr, MTV Music

More About: kanye west, monster, music, trending, video

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Whether you want to improve your existing skills or learn new ones, we’ve provided plenty of web design and development resources in the past year.

Here we recap the best posts that fell into this creative category. These include a wealth of tutorials, resources, galleries, interviews and more.

Have a read below for a look back at Mashable’s Dev and Design resources from 2010, and be sure to keep coming back next year for more.

Mobile Development Resources

Whatever mobile platform(s) you favor, we’ve got you covered.

• 8 Tools For Easily Creating a Mobile Version of Your Website
• HOW TO: Start Developing for iOS, Android or Windows Phone 7
• HOW TO: Make Your Mobile Websites Act More Like Native Apps
• HOW TO: Develop iPhone Apps With Staying Power
• HOW TO: Optimize Your Mobile Site Across Multiple Platforms
• 5 Things to Consider When Designing Your Mobile App

Icon Resources

From minimal to festive, here’s a roundup of great icon galleries.

• 10 Free and Fun Twitter Bird Icons for your Website
• Top 10 Beautiful Minimalist Icon Sets
• 10 Beautiful Free Hand-Drawn Icon Sets
• 20 Free Social Media Icon Sets For a More Shareable Website
• 10 Free Holiday Icon Sets to Give Your Site a Wintery Makeover [GALLERY]

Resources for Web Developers

PHP tips? Check. Apps for developers? Check. Online resources? Check.

• 5 Free Android Apps for Web Developers
• 10 Free Services to Monitor Your Site's Uptime
• 5 Fantastic iPhone Apps for Web Developers
• 11 Outstanding Online Resources for Web Developers
• 11 Delicious TextMate Themes for Designers and Developers
• 4 Key Web Developer Community Resources
• A Beginner's Guide to Integrated Development Environments
• 5 Cross-Platform Mobile Development Tools You Should Try
• 7 Awesome CSS3 Techniques You Can Start Using Right Now
• HOW TO: Implement Google Font API on Your Website
• 5 Tips for Developing a Global-Friendly Website
• 10 Popular Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers
• 8 Experts Break Down the Pros and Cons of Coding With PHP
• 10 Beginner Tips from PHP Masters
• 10 Intermediate and Advanced Tips from PHP Masters
• 10 Tools for Distributed Developer Teams
• 7 A/B Testing Resources for Startups and Solo Developers

Apple-Related Resources

The iPad made an impact on dev and design this year. Here’s why.

• How the iPad Is Influencing Web Apps
• 6 New Mac Apps for Designers and Developers
• 10 Beautiful and Usable iPhone and iPad Interfaces
• How the iPad Is Transforming Web Design

Photoshop Resources

Photoshop is one of the primary tools in the digital designer’s belt. We got you up and running with the imaging software in 2010.

• 8 Photoshop Tutorials for Retouching Your Profile Pic
• 9 Free Resources for Learning Photoshop
• 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started With Photoshop
• 10 Fantastic Photoshop Tutorials on YouTube
• 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started with Adobe Illustrator

Career Resources

Whatever career path you’re following in the online dev and design world, these articles can help.

• 5 Tips for Aspiring Web App Developers
• HOW TO: Be a Hybrid Designer/Developer
• 6 Job Search Tips for Aspiring Programmers
• HOW TO: Score a Web Design Job
• 15+ Great Ways to Find Web Design and Development Work
• 5 Fantastic Free Tools to Showcase Your Portfolio

Web Design

We’ve offered a wealth of design-related resources this year — dive in!

• 5 Simple Social Design Tips From the Masters
• 10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers
• 10 Tools for Getting Web Design Feedback
• 5 Quick Tips to Solicit Useful Design Feedback
• Top 10 Resources for Design Inspiration
• 17 Fresh Web Tools for Working with Colors
• 5 Design Trends That Small Businesses Can Use in 2011
• Top 5 Web Font Design Trends to Follow
• 10 Free Web UI Kits and Resources for Designers
• 8 of the Best Chrome Extensions for Web Designers
• 4 Game-Changing Trends in Web App Design
• 11 Trends in Web Logo Design: The Good, the Bad and the Overused
• The Future of Web Fonts
• 10 Free Wireframing Tools for Designers
• 40+ Web Design and Development Resources for Beginners

Interviews

From iconic designers to icon designers, we’ve talked to some rather interesting folk during the past 12 months.

• Susan Kare: Interview With an Iconic Designer [GALLERY]
• Twitter's Creative Director Talks Design, UX and Inspiration
• 4 Winning Web Design Tips From Ryan Carson of Carsonified
• The Origin of Twitter's "Fail Whale"
• CSS Inventor Talks About the Web's Visual Future [VIDEO]
• Essential Web Design Advice From a Wireframing Master [INTERVIEW]
• The 10 Founding Fathers of the Web

Fun Resources

It’s not all work, work, work as we add a little fun with these light-hearted articles.

• 7 Captivating Works of Crowdsourced Art
• Top 10 Accessories for Typography Nuts [PICS]
• 10 Captivating Time-Lapse Design Videos
• 6 Free Sites for Creating Your Own Animations
• 21 Creative Blogger Bio Pages
• 35 Entertaining 404 Error Pages

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HTML5 Resources

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HTML5 was big news this year; here are four resources to get you caught up.

• Top 5 Developer Questions About HTML5 Answered
• 5 Tools For Integrating HTML5 Video in Your Website
• HOW TO: Export Your Illustrator Images to HTML5 Canvas
• HOW TO: Get Started with HTML5 Boilerplate

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Resources for Bloggers

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WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger users will all find something to like in this list.

• HOW TO: Make Your WordPress Blog More Like Tumblr
• 10 Fresh Blogger Templates for Any Application [PICS]
• 5 Hot Design Trends for Aspiring Bloggers
• 8 of the Best Premium WordPress Themes
• 10 Beautiful and Free WordPress 3.0-Ready Themes
• 10 Terrific New Tumblr Themes
• 11 Ways to Speed Up WordPress
• Top 10 Ways to Tweak Your WordPress Theme
• HOW TO: Add Facebook "Like" Buttons to Your WordPress Blog
• 10 Beautiful Free Blogger Templates
• HOW TO: Secure Your WordPress Blog
• 7 Superb Social Plugins for WordPress
• 14 Fantastic Free WordPress Themes
• HOW TO: Build a More Beautiful Blog

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Social Resources

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Finally, here’s a social take on the dev and design world.

• 75+ Social Media Resources for Artists and Designers
• 9 Essential Social News and Bookmarking Sites for Designers
• 5 Better Ways to Read "Hacker News"
• 15 Developer/Hacker Women to Follow on Twitter
• 7 Hackathons Around the World and on the Web
• 10 Web Design Bloggers You Should Follow
• 20 Resources for Displaying Twitter Updates

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Reviews: Apps, Mashable, PHP, Tumblr, WordPress, blogger

More About: apple, design, dev, dev and design, icons, jobs, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, resources, tech, tools, Web Development

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The agency, which was founded in 2004, specializes in online fundraising and social networking, and has a roster of non-profits, political candidates and causes, while also doing work for corporate clients such as HBO, AT&T and National Geographic.

The shop is best known for Obama for America, the candidate’s 2008 presidential campaign, which included an e-mail campaign that engaged more than 13.5 million supporters, and a program where supporters could earn game-style “points” that inspired them to become more deeply involved. The agency claims 130 employees and has grown more than 30% per year since its founding, according to an announcement.

WPP, meanwhile, owns some of the top advertising agencies in the world, including JWT, Ogilvy and Grey.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

More About: advertising, barack obama, Blue State Digital, MARKETING, WPP

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Facebook Surpasses Google As Most-Visited Website in 2010

Facebook was not only the most searched item of the year, but it passed Google as America's most-visited website in 2010, according to a new report from Experian Hitwise.

RIM Denies Playbook Battery Issues

After early reports about the poor battery life of Research in Motion's upcoming tablet, the BlackBerry maker promised that the final version of PlayBook will have a battery life comparable to its competitors.

Advanced Trojan Attacking Android Devices

An advanced new Android trojan named Geinimi has been found in the wild, mobile security firm Lookout reports. The trojan is possibly the most sophisticated piece of Android malware so far; however, it is available only through infected apps, which have thus far been found only in third-party Chinese app stores.

Further News

• It's official: Skype has quietly rolled out an updated version of its iOS app that brings two-way video calling to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
• 44% of online sharing occurs through Facebook, according to recently released data from AddThis.
• A recent survey found that only 5% of online holiday shoppers were primarily influenced to visit top retailer sites by social media channels.
• Foursquare is teaming up with Bravo for the cable channel's inaugural New Year's Eve special Watch What Happens Live: Andy's New Year's Eve Party starring Andy Cohen.
• Popular presentation-sharing website Slideshare posted its annual Zeitgeist summary Thursday, bringing some interesting data to the fore.
• According to recent reports, digital magazine sales are on the decline. A closer look at the data, however, reveals that sales are not nearly as bad as they appear.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

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Reviews: AddThis, Android, Facebook, Google, Skype, foursquare, iStockphoto

More About: android, blackberry playbook, facebook, Google, malware, RIM

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Popular presentation-sharing website Slideshare posted its annual Zeitgeist summary Thursday, bringing some interesting data to the fore.

For instance, presentations written in Japanese have the highest average number of slides (42), women use fewer slides than men in their presentations and the longest presentation uploaded in 2010 is 1,937 slides long.

This year’s report also laid out some data about the 1,000 most popular presentations on its site this year:

• Popular Presentations Use a Lot of Slides: The total number of slides in the top 1,000 slide decks has about 63 slides per presentation. The average number of slides for all presentations is 19.
• Popular Presentations Use Few Words: Popular presentations use about 24 words per slide.
• There’s Something About Keynote: While only 2% of all presentations were made in Apple Keynote this year, almost 16% of those in the top 1,000 were made in Keynote.

If you’re interested in digging deeper into what makes a presentation so good that people want to share it, check out the most popular presentations of 2010. Eighty-two slide Social Media for Business came in first, followed by Steal This Presentation, which is appropriately a presentation about how to give presentations.

The entire Zeitgeist slideshow is available below:

More About: presentation, slideshare, stats, Zeitgeist

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The survey, conducted by market research firm ForSee Results, found that only 5% of online holiday shoppers report that they were primarily influenced to visit top retailer sites by social media channels. Meanwhile, 19% were prompted by promotional e-mail and 8% were driven by search engine results.

While social media may be an underwhelming driver, according to the report, mobile is increasingly becoming a factor. Fourteen percent of shoppers have used their phones to access the website or mobile app of a major retailer. However, only 2% of mobile shoppers actually bought something over their phones.

The report paints a picture of a series of media outlets that contribute to purchases. Nearly half of the visitors to an online retailer’s website go to research, not to buy. About one-fifth of shoppers research online and then buy in a brick-and-mortar store.

ForSee’s survey was based on about 10,000 responses from consumers from November 29 to December 15. The report also found Amazon.com and Netflix tied for the highest satisfaction score and six online retailers, including BestBuy.com and Target.com, tied for last. The results are tabulated on a 100-point scale. Here is the full list:

More About: amazon, best buy, Mobile 2.0, social media

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It's that time of year. We just wrapped up the holiday festivities, which were full of buying employee gifts and taking clients out for holiday celebrations. The accounting department wants everyone to submit their expenses before year-end. We can't procrastinate any longer. Besides, getting our expense reports submitted means some extra money for the holiday season.

But I think we can all agree that expense reports are possibly the last thing any of us want to be doing at this time of year (or any time of year, for that matter).

Luckily, there are plenty of mobile apps that make it easier to track and submit expense reports. Here are seven handy apps specific to the iPhone.

1. Expensify

Expensify (free) offers the ability to create photo receipts and iPhone expense reports, and it integrates with Expensify’s website for instant reimbursement. It also can connect with QuickBooks. Great for people who travel and want to record expenses as they are incurred.

2. Fresh Xpense Capture

Fresh Xpense Capture (free) allows you to record your expenses (including photo receipts) as they occur. Expenses can be submitted using a variety of different formats such as SMS, IM, Twitter and e-mail. They are stored on the Xpenser website (sign up is free), where they can be imported to Excel, Quicken or MS Money.

3. Out of Pocket

Out of Pocket ($1.99) allows you to record your out-of-pocket expenses including photo receipts. Then you can export your expenses to FreeAgent or IRIS OpenBooks (optional). Out of Pocket also provides search capabilities, for those times when you're trying to remember a date or expense description.

4. Shoeboxed Receipt Tracker

After you snap a photo of your receipt, Shoeboxed Receipt Tracker (free) automatically enters the date, total, payment type and category. It generates expense reports that can be sent from your iPhone as well as exported to QuickBooks and Quicken.

Shoeboxed also provides a fee-based service that enables you to mail in receipts (and other documents) to be scanned and uploaded to your online Shoeboxed.com account.

5. ProOnGo Expense

ProOnGo Expense (free) allows you to not only track receipt and mileage expenses, but it also enables you to time expenses. This is very useful for consultants or professionals that operate on a billable hour basis. ProOnGo also integrates with Quickbooks. For an extra cost, a receipt reader service is available.

6. JetSet Expenses

Another app that offers billable expense recording is JetSet Expenses (currently on sale for $4.99). It allows tracking of billable expenses, reimbursable expenses and non-reimbursable expenses. JetSet focuses on business travelers by offering international settings along with airline, hotel and rental car databases.

7. iReceipt

Don't need a bunch of fancy options? iReceipt ($1.99) provides a simple, basic service. Record your expense details or take a photo of your paper receipt. Then e-mail yourself a text-generated expense report.

Your Picks

Do you manage your business expenses on a mobile device? If so, let us know which services you use in the comments below.

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After early reports about the poor battery life of Research in Motion’s upcoming tablet, the BlackBerry maker said in a statement that the final version of PlayBook will have a battery life comparable to its competitors.

Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu raised concerns about PlayBook’s battery, claiming that it can power the device for only "a few hours," (for comparison, Apple claims 10-hour battery life for its iPad) noting that the issue probably forced RIM to push the PlayBook launch to May 2011.

RIM was quick to deny this, claiming that PlayBook devices that were available for testing to Wu and others were early beta units without any power management.

"Any testing or observation of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented. RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook's battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life," said the company in a statement.

While “comparable battery life” doesn’t sound too exciting, we’ll have to wait for the final version of the device to assess its battery’s performance.

Disclosure: RIM is a sponsor of the Mashable Awards.

More About: battery, blackberry playbook, playbook, RIM

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