Mashable: Latest 21 News Updates - including “How Facebook Beat Google in 2010” |
- How Facebook Beat Google in 2010
- The Top 8 Web Development Highlights of 2010
- Mashable 2010 Year in Review [INFOGRAPHIC]
- HOW TO: Create Custom QR Codes for Your Digital Life
- Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Year
- HOW TO: Your Get Your Old PC Running Like New Again
- New CMS Makes Creating and Managing Smaller Websites a Snap
- Airlines’ Buzz Scores Nosedive After Snowmaggedon [STATS]
- Sexy, Super-Thin Samsung Displays Coming to CES
- Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters
- Delicious’s Loss Is Startups’ Gain As Users Jump Ship
- The First Rule of Social Media: Know Your Audience [COMIC]
- Tom Selleck Predicts the Future of Tech via a Series of ’90s AT&T Ads
- 5 Predictions for Startups in 2011
- Android App Sends Texts to Wrong Recipients
- 3 Tools Realtors Can Use to Increase Sales on the Web
- HOW TO: Explain Twitter to Your Parents
- HOW TO: Get More Out of Your Web Fonts
- MySpace to Make Major Layoffs?
- 6 Predictions for Social Networks in 2011
- Facebook by the Numbers in 2010 [STATS]
- Google Doodle Rings in the New Year — Roman Numeral Style
| How Facebook Beat Google in 2010 Posted: 31 Dec 2010 05:26 PM PST
How was Facebook able to outplay the former web champion, and can Google make a comeback in 2011 and beyond? Facebook, once easily dismissed as the next social networking fad, has seemingly discovered Google’s weak spots. What are they, and can Google regain ground here? That’s the topic of my CNN column this week. Read the full column on CNN.com >>Reviews: Facebook, Google For more Social Media coverage:
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| The Top 8 Web Development Highlights of 2010 Posted: 31 Dec 2010 04:34 PM PST
In the comments, we’d love to know what stories stood out most to you this year, partly to indulge our sense of gratuitous end-of-year nostalgia and partly to help us hone our coverage for 2011, when we hope to bring you more fascinating web dev news than ever before. What were your favorite dev-related headlines of 2010? 1. The Release of Rails 3.0Early in February, the Ruby on Rails core team took the wraps off Rails 3.0, a long-awaited release of the popular Ruby framework. Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson wrote on the Rails blog, “We've had more than 250 people help with the release and we've been through almost 4,000 commits since 2.3 to get here. Yet still the new version feels lighter, more agile, and easier to understand. “It's a great day to be a Rails developer.” 2. Salesforce’s Acquisition of HerokuEarlier this month, Salesforce bought Heroku for a staggering $212 million, giving another token of legitimacy to the growing Ruby community as well as to cloud-based programming tools. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said at the time, "The next era of cloud computing is social, mobile and real-time… Ruby is the language of Cloud 2, and Heroku is the leading Ruby application platform-as-a-service for Cloud 2 that is fueling this growing community. We think this acquisition will uniquely position Salesforce.com as the cornerstone for the next generation of app developers." 3. Facebook’s Release of HipHop for PHPIn February, Facebook rolled out HipHop, an internal open-source project intended to speed up PHP for large-scale applications. HipHop isn’t quite a compiler. “Rather,” wrote Facebook engineer Haiping Zhao, “it is a source code transformer. HipHop programmatically transforms your PHP source code into highly optimized C++ and then uses g++ to compile it.” The project was the culmination of two years of work by a small team of engineers; in the end, it got a thumbs-up from PHP creator Rasmus Lerdorf, who said, “”I think it is a cool project and it will certainly be a good option for some sites.” 4. The Rise of Node.jsNode.js has been around for a couple years, but 2010 was the year awareness and use of the JavaScript framework really blew up. Commits have grown, as has the number of committers. Traffic to the project website has steadily climbed through the year, and downloads for Node.js from GitHub have predictably grown, as well. As the organizers of the annual Node Knockout wrote, “It's at the bleeding edge of a technology stack that allows developers to blur the lines between software, the web and the new like never before.” 5. Microsoft’s Release of Visual Studio 2010The latest version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio, a big release by any standards, launched this year to impressive reviews from all corners of the web. InfoWorld said the release “marks a major advance in functionality and ease,” and The Register wrote, “It is hard not to be impressed by Microsoft’s tool suite.” The IDE was overhauled, completely rewritten from the ground up. Support for Silverlight was added, and Microsoft also took this opportunity to release F#, a new programming language developed by Microsoft Research. 6. Facebook’s Release of the Open Graph APIFacebook and social app developers have long wrestled with Facebook integration for third parties. In the spring at its f8 developer conference, Facebook rolled out a brand new model for tapping into the social web, and it did so to unprecedented fanfare. Dubbed the Open Graph, Facebook’s changes brought instant gratification and familiarity for Facebook users as they surfed the web — and they brought a fast and easy way for devs to integrate with the social network, as easy as a single line of HTML in many cases. 7. The Android/Java/Oracle SagaWhat a year it’s been for Java! Not only is the language a key part in the programming stack of the fastest-growing mobile OS out there; it’s also the star of a big, potentially spendy lawsuit between two of the giants of the tech industry. Sun, which developed the language in-house back in the dark ages, was acquired by Oracle. That deal became official in January, and Oracle wasted no time in getting litigious with Google over that company’s use of Java in the Android platform and the Dalvik virtual machine that stands in for the JVM on mobile OSes. The lawsuit began in August with Oracle claiming that Google “knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property.” Google quickly countered that it was shocked — shocked! — that Oracle would make such claims over an open-source technology. It followed with the assertions that Oracle’s patents are unenforceable and that if there had been "any use in the Android platform of any protected elements" of Java, Google itself "is not liable" due to the face that such violations would have been committed by third parties and without Google's knowledge. We’ll continue to keep an eye on the lawsuit and on Java’s role in the Android platform throughout 2011. 8. Apple Declares War on FlashTensions between Apple and Adobe ran high this year, beginning in January when the iPad launched without support for Flash. Then in February, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs told employees why: “No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.” These were the words that launched a thousand blog posts. Throughout the spring, the two companies waged a war of words — and one sweet antitrust inquiry with the Department of Justice over Apple’s banning of Flash for iPhone app devs. Steve Jobs dropped the bomb of the year in a passive-aggressive missive on Flash in which the Apple co-founder stated that Adobe’s programming technology “no longer necessary” and waxed hypocritical about open technologies. But while he may have been passive-aggressive and hypocritical, he also may have been right. With HTML5 making a strong showing early in its lifetime, it was only a matter of time before a public figure of Jobs’s stature would make a statement or two about the death of Flash. Of course, this tension has made for a convenient cozying-up between Google and Adobe along the way. What Are Your Picks?Again, let us know in the comments what your favorite stories of 2010 were — and Happy New Year from the geeks at Mashable! With special thanks to our Twitter friends who made suggestions for this list: Jordan Runnin, Leon Gersing and Jeremy Bray. Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, Mashable, PHP, Twitter More About: 2010, developers, News, programming, Web Development For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Mashable 2010 Year in Review [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 31 Dec 2010 03:57 PM PST      This year for Mashable can be summarized by one word above all others: growth. Our monthly pageviews hit 35 million, an increase of 94% from 18 million same time last year. We hired 22 new employees (and we’re still hiring), opened offices in New York City and San Francisco, won 3 Webby Awards, and reached more than 3,400,000 followers across our social sites. All of this success, of course, could not have been possible without you. We are so thankful for our readers. It’s because of your readership, your sharing, your comments and your support that we’ve been able to grow. This coming year, we hope to continue to grow and improve our content and service to you. Here is the Mashable year in review by the numbers.  Wishing you all of the best in 2011! Pete Cashmore, Adam Hirsch, Adam Ostrow, Sharon Feder, Stacy Green, Vadim Lavrusik, Brian Dresher, Frederick Townes, Lauren Rubin, Andrew Reedman, Karen Hartline, Josh Catone, Todd Wasserman, Charlie White, Ben Parr, Stan Schroeder, Brenna Ehrlich, Jennifer Van Grove, Jolie O'Dell, Christina Warren, Lauren Indvik, Matt Silverman, Radhika Marya, Amy-Mae Elliott, Zachary Sniderman, Sarah Kessler, Erica Swallow, Emily Banks, Meghan Peters, Evan Wexler, Jehangir Irani, Brett Petersel, Tamar Weinberg, Kate Hayden, Stefanie Rennert, Louis Dorman and Ada Ospina. Reviews: Mashable More About: announcements, infographic, mashable, social media For more Social Media coverage:
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| HOW TO: Create Custom QR Codes for Your Digital Life Posted: 31 Dec 2010 03:08 PM PST   The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: JumpScan provides a custom “all-in-one” QR code to link your physical and digital world. Genius Idea: QR codes have been all the rage this year for big brands, and now ordinary consumers and small businesses can get in on the fun, too. JumpScan lets users create customized QR codes that combine all your contact information, including social media profiles, for on-the-go sharing. Think of it as a QR-powered iteration of Flavors.me or About.me especially intended for mobile phones. It’s also a lot like a next-gen version of Contxts and similar services, but it uses your phone’s camera instead of SMS for a smoother experience with fewer actions between meeting and contacting a person. As a user, when you sign up for a JumpScan account, you’ll get to create a mobile landing page by entering your contact information. You can add your e-mail address, phone number, Facebook profile, Twitter and Flickr feeds and more. Once you generate your own code, anyone with a smart phone can snap a picture of the image to be automatically redirected to your own JumpScan page. We can see this going over really well on the business cards of the digerati, making the rounds at social media meetups and large conferences. The startup is also pitching its codes as a great option for SMB advertising. Here’s a quick demo video showing how the app works: Jumpscan was founded in 2010 and recently scored some funding from an economic development agency in North Carolina. What do you think of JumpScan so far? Would you use the QR codes from this company for maintaining and sharing your contact info? Image courtesy of Flickr, mattedgar. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Contxts, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter More About: jumpscan, qr code, QR Codes, startup For more Startups coverage:
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| Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Year Posted: 31 Dec 2010 01:44 PM PST   If everyone would kindly take a moment away from Googling the lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne” and swilling cheap champagne directly from the bottle, we’re about to get all nostalgic over here. It’s been an eventful year in a particular sector of our lives — replete with pathos, passion and that most noble of creatures: cats. The sector to which I refer, of course, is YouTube. That’s right, folks, we’re about to unleash 11 of our favorite vids from the-soon-to-be-extinct year. (11! Like 2011! And that wasn’t even on purpose!) So finish up that list of resolutions you’ll never go through with, strap on your sequins/top hat, and let us usher you into the next decade. Who knows what untold wonders await us on that horizon? (Probably more cats.) BED INTRUDER SONG!!!Jay Irani: I know it's obvious, but I laughed my arse off all year long Idiot With a TripodCharlie White: I love this one -- Roger Ebert thinks it deserves an Oscar. The guy shot and edited it in about a day Know Your Meme: Antoine Dodson / Bed IntruderErica Swallow: "Bed Intruder Song" is my favorite video of the year, but since we've all seen that, here's a nice investigation of the video phenomena by Rocketboom's Ellie Roundtree. You can run and tell that, homeboy. Eduard Hil` - VocaliseTodd Wasserman: Trololo, though I guess it technically came out late last year. McDonald's Bag CatLauren Indvik: Video of the year is too daunting a task, so I'm sharing my favorite of the week. I present: McDonald's Bag Cat. Mad Men Theme Song ... With a TwistRadhika Marya: I loved the Old Spice Guy and other big hits like everyone else, but I also loved some smaller gems like this mash-up of RJD2's "A Beautiful Mine" (a.k.a. the Mad Men theme) and pop/jazz standard "Nature Boy." Lovely music, and beautifully shot in one take. Dude You Have No Quran, Auto-Tune RemixCharlie White: We were quoting that "Dude you have no Koran" guy for weeks, especially after we heard the remix, skillfully done and hilarious. "Wishery" (Disney Remix)Zachary Sniderman: A smart, nostalgic remix with an equally whimsical video. How To Be AloneCharlie White: This one was beautifully done. DJ Earworm, "United State of Pop 2010"Christina Warren: Every year the excellent DJ Earworm creates an epic mashup of the year's top 25 Billboard hits -- and this year's is awesome, as always. Little Jamie Falls DownBrenna Ehrlich: My choosing this video just about sums up why I should never have children. Image Courtesy of Flickr, stuartpilbrow Reviews: Flickr, YouTube More About: favorite-youtube-video, Film, music, video, youtube For more Web Video coverage:
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| HOW TO: Your Get Your Old PC Running Like New Again Posted: 31 Dec 2010 01:21 PM PST   Michael Smith has been the IT Manager at TrialPay for three years, where he supports a wide variety of computer systems for 100 employees. TrialPay works with more than 10,000 companies in social games and software, including CNET, which is offering a special "New Year, New PC” bundle. Now that the new year is upon us, many people may be thinking about dumping their slower, outdated hardware and starting with a clean slate. But why shell out hundreds, if not thousands for a new system? There are several ways to give your PC a makeover that will get it running as good as new for much less. Here are four things to try. 1. Do More With LessRunning too much software on your computer can eat up your hard drive space and degrade performance quickly. Be efficient when selecting software; only get what you need and use one solution instead of two when possible. Here are a few areas where you can cut corners: Antivirus software: Choose an antivirus product that protects your computer from viruses, spyware and adware. There's no need to purchase a separate solution to protect your computer from each when most of the top brands offer comprehensive protection. Using just one application for protection will decrease the number of programs running on your machine at the same time. PDF tools: The top PDF tools offer more features than the average consumer actually needs. Try the lite version where possible, or try Foxit's PDF Creator. It's a great, lightweight alternative that uses less space on your hard drive and won't slow down your computer. File compression utilities: File compression utilities allow you to compress files to reduce their size and open compressed files without using a lot of disk space. By using the software to compress your files, you can actually get more mileage out of your hard drive and backup drive instead of purchasing a larger one. An uninstaller program is also a nice add-on to the products above ― it can help remove all of the "helper files" related to software programs that you might not be able to remove on your own. You can find several highly rated freeware or shareware programs at Download.com. Disclosure: Foxit Software’s e-commerce platform is provided by Trial Pay. 2. Add More RAM to Boost SpeedWhen you run any application on your computer, it uses part of your RAM (Random Access Memory). When you don't have enough RAM, your computer runs significantly slower. Adding more RAM to your computer can give you an easy speed boost. Newer applications require more RAM, so even if you don't run a lot of applications at once, an older PC might need an upgrade. Crucial has a great tool to help you determine exactly what you need. Just enter the make and model of your PC, and Crucial tells you your current system specifications and the maximum RAM capacity that your computer can handle. It even provides excellent guides to help you install RAM yourself and troubleshoot problems, and it’s also a great place to get good deals on memory. The installation process is straightforward (and even easier for laptops than desktops), so you can do it yourself. HowStuffWorks.com has created easy-to-follow installation videos for installing RAM. The desktop RAM video is here, and the laptop RAM video is here. 3. Move to the Cloud Using more than 80% of your hard drive space can make your computer sluggish over time. Most experts agree that you should leave about 15% to 20% of your disk space free. If you're maxing out your hard drive space, you don't need to buy a new computer or install a larger hard drive. Instead, you can move your files to the "cloud," which is a set of technologies and services that allow you to do normal computing tasks over the Internet in real time. For example, instead of storing your pictures on your hard drive (which could take up several gigabytes of space), you can put them on a photo-sharing site (Picasa, Facebook, Photobucket, etc.) or a free online file storage tool like DropBox. Online backup solutions are a great way to get more mileage out of your hard drive. You can look at online backup solutions, such as Mozy, SugarSync or Carbonite, or you can get an external hard drive with backup software. For some excellent advice on setting up an external hard drive backup system, check out this Lifehacker guide. Online backup solutions are the most convenient way to store your files because you can access them from any computer, as long as you have a good Internet connection. External drives can be heavy and cumbersome when traveling, and you risk losing all of your files if the drive is damaged or misplaced. However, online backup solutions are more costly than external drives. Most services charge a recurring monthly or yearly fee, whereas external drives are a one-time expense. 4. Wipe Your ComputerIf your computer still doesn't perform as good as new after trying the previous tips, consider restoring it to its factory settings. Identifying and repairing every issue affecting your computer's performance can be time-consuming and difficult (even for advanced users). Starting from scratch allows you to remove everything lurking in your system that might be slowing it down. In fact, it's the only way to be completely sure that you've removed harmful viruses or trojans. Before wiping your computer, make sure you have an effective backup solution to store your documents, media files (video, photos, music, etc.), web browser settings, bookmarks, saved game files, and any other files that you can't do without. Browser settings and bookmarks can be exported directly from your browser. Game files are trickier because every game is different. You might be able to copy the files from your game's program directory file, but you should visit the official website for each of your games for specific instructions. Then, identify the programs that you want to keep on your computer (games, antivirus software, Office, etc.). You will need to locate the installation disks, product keys or download links for each program that did not come with your computer when you purchased it. Most computers come with a recovery disk, so when you're ready to take the plunge, just pop in the disk and choose the "Restore" option. However, some computers don't have recovery disks. Instead, this information is stored on a small portion of the hard drive that is partitioned from the rest of your data and will not be erased upon restoring the computer. See the manual that came with your computer for further instructions as this process will vary. In any case, make sure you have your Windows product key. This key might be printed on a sticker somewhere on your computer or in the materials you received when you purchased the computer. You may be asked for this when restoring your computer. For a more comprehensive tutorial, this Lifehacker guide has an excellent step-by-step guide for restoring your system. The entire process could take you all day, so be prepared to spend a lot of time on this. More Tech Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pavlen Reviews: Carbonite, Dropbox, Facebook, Internet, Lifehacker, Photobucket, Picasa, SugarSync, Windows, iStockphoto More About: backup, cloud computing, List, Lists, online backup, pc, RAM, tips, tools, Windows For more Tech coverage:
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| New CMS Makes Creating and Managing Smaller Websites a Snap Posted: 31 Dec 2010 01:00 PM PST  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: PageLime is a hosted CMS for designers. It allows you to manage assets on your site by logging in to a web app that’s hosted on its servers. Genius Idea: Pagelime is a simple CMS with a graphical interface that can easily hook into websites created with PHP, Java, Ruby, ASP or just straight XHTML/CSS. The system makes it easy for designers to create sites, while making content regions editable by clients. The new iPhone app lets designers and clients access many of the Pagelime backend features on the go. As we’ve noted in the past, a lightweight CMS can be a great fit for small business users who want a simple website, without necessarily needing the hassle or complexity of a more extensive content management tool. This is exactly the market segment that Pagelime is targeting. To be more specific, Pagelime targets the website designers who are asked to build these more simple client sites. Pagelime is a hosted CMS and it works by connecting to an existing domain and web server. By adding in CSS classes to designated elements of your site’s pages, you can make those blocks editable in a WYSIWYG editor hosted on Pagelime. Likewise, you can also enable features like image galleries, manage the SEO settings on a page and add server-side includes.  This ends up being a very nice tool for web designers who want to deliver a solution to a customer, without having to worry about either customizing or building a CMS. Pagelime has a variety of pricing options — starting with a free plan that lets you create three different sites. For $19 per month, users can create up to 50 sites and use Pagelime more as a white label service, with their own logo, colors, domain and various reselling tools. For $69 per month, a user can create unlimited sites and designate an unlimited number of administrators. Pagelime recently released its first mobile app, Pagelime CMS for iPhone [iTunes link]. Pagelime’s iPhone app isn’t intended as a replacement for the web app, but it does allow designers and their clients to extend the Pagelime platform. Users can add and edit pages or templates, make changes to editable areas, preview and publish changes, all from the app.  We think Pagelime has an interesting approach to content management, especially for smaller sites and for designers who don’t want to spend too much time dealing with backend code. If you’re looking at an alternative solution for maintaining or creating smaller websites, Pagelime is worth a try. What are your favorite lightweight content management tools? Let us know. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: PHP More About: CMS, content management, iphone apps, pagelime, web design tools For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Airlines’ Buzz Scores Nosedive After Snowmaggedon [STATS] Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:43 PM PST   Online buzz scores for United, American Airlines and USAirways lost a bit of altitude in the wake of Snowmaggedon, but no lasting damage was done to the brands, according to a report from YouGov’s BrandIndex. The report, based on an online survey of 5,000 people every day online, showed that buzz scores for those airlines, plus Delta and JetBlue, took a bit of a nosedive after the December 26 East Coast storm, which resulted in hundreds of canceled and delayed flights across the country. Ted Marzilli, senior vice president and global managing director of BrandIndex, says the airlines’ buzz scores are mostly collateral damage. “People are just taking out their frustrations somewhere,” he says. “You’re going to blame the airline that’s not getting you from Point A to Point B.” BrandIndex’s rankings are based on a 200-point scale. A +100 means a consumer has a totally positive view of a brand while a -100 means the opposite. BrandIndex is based on averaging all those scores. While United’s 16-point drop during the last week is signifcant, Marzilli says, it’s nowhere near the freefall Southwest experienced in February 2008, when the carrier was found to be flying Boeing 737s that it had said it had grounded because they hadn’t been properly inspected for fuselage cracks. That incident prompted Southwest’s buzz score to go from +75 to -40 in a week and it took the airline about six months to recover, Marzilli says. In contrast, most of the airlines affected by the snowstorm are likely to recover much quicker, Marzilli says. More data from the report below: More About: american airlines, snowmaggedon, united airlines, USAir For more Business coverage:
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| Sexy, Super-Thin Samsung Displays Coming to CES Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:31 PM PST   They’re thin, unusually attractive, and some are remarkably flexible. Yes, supermodels, but also Samsung Mobile Display’s next-generation video screens, debuting next week at the Consumer Electronics Show. While they won’t be available on smartphones or HDTVs yet, Samsung’s two prototypes will be flaunting some impressive tech, according to GizMag. The smaller of the two is a 4.5-inch flexible display that’s just 2mm thick, and it can be curled up like a Fruit Roll-Up, winding up into the diameter of a McDonald’s drinking straw. The larger of the two displays won’t be flexible, but the 19-inch prototype rocks a mind-boggling resolution that’s four times higher than your garden-variety HDTV. What would you do with this transparent video screen that still lets light shine through even when it’s turned off? These two screens are the first examples of the next generation of Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) technology. The displays have a super-thin organic layer of luminescent material that uses less energy and delivers higher contrast and better color than conventional LCD displays. Non-transparent versions are commonly used now in mobile devices, and big-screen varieties are on their way to a home theater near you. Sony’s offered a display with an earlier generation of the technology for the past three years, but the steep $2,500 retail price (you can get it for $1800) for the Sony XEL-1’s 11-inch screen is a tough sell. Even though it’s not cheap, I can tell you from firsthand experience that its little screen has unmatched color saturation, contrast and sharpness. Sony’s good at this technology, showing the most impressive 3D screen I saw at last year’s CES, a super-sharp and bright 24.5-inch prototype. Didn’t we see something like this in science fiction movies? It won’t be a fantasy for long — as soon as display companies perfect their manufacturing techniques, economies of scale will take over, bringing prices for these fantastic displays down to a reasonable level. When will these screens become ubiquitous? My guess: Give them three years, and huge, ultra-flat and maybe even transparent screens like this will be commonplace. Check out the enlarged teaser pic below:  [Via Gizmag] More About: AMOLED, CES 2011, displays, HDTV, OLED, Prototypes, samsung, Samsung Mobile Display For more Tech coverage:
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| Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:14 PM PST
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CPM-based advertising is available through our partner, Federated Media, but if you contact us directly, you’ll be entitled to exclusive unpublished discounts. Reviews: Android, Apps, BlackBerry Rocks!, Facebook, Gowalla, Mashable, SquareSpace, Twitter, Yahoo!, blog, iStockphoto, profiles.im, social media More About: Sponsors For more Social Media coverage:
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| Delicious’s Loss Is Startups’ Gain As Users Jump Ship Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:13 PM PST   Startups in the web-based bookmarking space are seeing huge surges in the final days of December following news that Delicious may shut down or be sold in the near future. While Yahoo insiders say Delicious’s future remains uncertain — and continuing service and new registrations may be unlikely — startups such as YourVersion, Springpad, Histori.us and others have seen spikes in traffic and usage, much of which is due to Delicious users jumping ship and importing their bookmarks onto other sites. On December 16, a leaked slide from a Yahoo all-hands meeting showed that the semi-popular social bookmarking app Delicious, which the former company acquired back in 2005, was set for a “sunset” phase. While Yahoo claims it wants to sell the app rather than kill it off entirely, it’s difficult to say who would buy the service, given its financial struggles and deep integration with Yahoo’s technology. As a result of the leaked slide, Delicious users have rushed to find alternative bookmarking apps and features. Many of the startups in this space have built and publicized importing tools for quickly and easily migrating from Delicious to their apps. Springpad CEO Jeff Janer wrote to us in an e-mail, “We’ve seen more than 2 million bookmarks migrated from Delicious to Springpad in the last 10 days.” And YourVersion CEO Dan Olsen wrote that while his company has supported Delicious imports for a while, “We did see a traffic surge in December from Delicious users… In fact, the Delicious servers were often timing out when people were trying to do imports via the API, so we quickly added the ability to import your bookmarks from an XML file as well.” Delicious traffic, according to a couple of metrics tools, has seen wider-than-usual swings in December. A surge around the time of the leaked slide seems in line with the volume of alarming news about the service. However, the subsequent dip in traffic, while it could be due to end-of-week and holiday doldrums, could also signify a coming dive in traffic as the “sunset” approaches. Several competing startups we looked at, however, have seen marked spikes in traffic for the same time period. According to Alexa.com, Histori.us’s traffic was up 40% for the month, Pinboard.in saw a 720% spike, Zootool was up 21%; Springpad’s site saw a 30% increase in traffic; and YourVersion was up 154%. These are just figures for web traffic, not mobile or tablet apps. It will be interesting to see how the Delicious drama plays out in 2011, and perhaps more interesting to see how these startups continue to capitalize on the sunset of a rather large web service. Disclosure: Yahoo! is a sponsor of the Mashable Awards. Reviews: Delicious, springpad More About: delicious, springpad, traffic, Yahoo, yourversion For more Startups coverage:
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| The First Rule of Social Media: Know Your Audience [COMIC] Posted: 31 Dec 2010 12:09 PM PST We’ve certainly seen our fair share of clever social media costumes before, but if you plan to leave the house in web-themed attire, for the love of Google, know your audience.   This comic was illustrated by Kiersten Essenpreis, a New York-based artist who draws and blogs at YouFail.com. For more laughs, check out our previous Mashable Comics. More Mashable Comics:
More About: comic, comics, costumes, funny, hashtags, Holidays, humor, justin bieber, mashable comics, new years, new years eve, social media, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Tom Selleck Predicts the Future of Tech via a Series of ’90s AT&T Ads Posted: 31 Dec 2010 11:50 AM PST On the eve of the New Year, we bring you a string of predictions that (mostly) came true, from the lips of Nostradamus himself: Tom Selleck. Yup, he’s not just a crucial part of the “Tom Selleck Waterfall Sandwich” equation, he’s also a prophet — well, you know, in an accidental way, like that episode of Felicity that foresaw the coming of the iPad. Back in the ’90s, the TV airwaves were graced with a series of AT&T commercials titled “You Will,” all of which told viewers about the crazy, tech-related abundances of the future. The commercials were narrated by Selleck and — it gets eerier — directed by The Social Network’s own auteur de cinema, David Fincher. As you can see from the above video, a lot of Selleck’s (or the writers’, rather) predictions came true: e-books, GPS, iPad-like devices. While AT&T can’t exactly claim credit for delivering these bounties unto us, it did come out with a bevy of exceptionally good guesses as to what the future would bring. [via Dvice] Image Courtesy of Tom Selleck Waterfall Sandwich More About: att, business, MARKETING, tom-selleck, video For more Web Video coverage:
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| 5 Predictions for Startups in 2011 Posted: 31 Dec 2010 11:08 AM PST   How we engage with the people, places and things around us is ever-changing thanks to rapid improvements in mobile and web technologies. The speed at which this evolution takes place will only continue to accelerate in 2011 with the help of fledgling startups who will push the boundaries around geolocation, mobile photos, entertainment services, community and physical-to-digital connections. What follows is an exploration of five significant startup markets that will grow in significance in 2011. Some of these specialized categories are ripe for disruption and innovation, while others have already produced early leaders that will be difficult to best. Regardless, the startups iterating in these newly invented product categories will capture our imagination in the year ahead and transform the way we use technology in our daily lives. Read on for five major trends that will hit startups in 2011, and let us know your own predictions in the comments below. 1. The Rise of Object Tagging As constant web and mobile users, we’ve all grown accustomed to tagging people and places in photos and status updates. In the year ahead, new services will help us tag real world objects in much the same fashion. QR code and barcode scanning mobile applications are growing in popularity and purpose, and we’re quickly moving towards a scanning and tagging world where we use apps like Barcode Hero or Stickybits to add our own content to the physical objects we encounter in the real world. The physical-to-digital connection is what will drive this trend in the new year. Startups such as thingd and Moodstocks have a more grandiose vision around creating digital databases of things, but they’re also creating products that are people-friendly and practical. We’ve yet to see any one object tagging application or service become a breakout hit, but this will change in 2011 as more consumers warm up to the mobile and social discovery of “things.” 2. Entertainment Checkin Services Will Continue to Innovate 2010 was the year of the checkin. What started as a simple, albeit explicit, way to publicly say “I’m here” mutated into a way for startups to create entertainment checkin services and for companies to build tools to help publishers keep visitors on site. The entertainment-oriented services are an especially interesting group of services. GetGlue, Miso, Philo, Tunerfish, TV.com Relay and a handful of others have all cropped up with their own variations of the “check in to content, get rewards” concept. Most are successfully inking deals with studios and networks around their entertainment properties, and just recently, GetGlue grabbed $6 million in a Series C round led by Time Warner Investments. Within this fast-maturing niche is still room for innovation. The opportunities are in motivating user behavior around entertainment content and surfacing fail-proof recommendations. Somewhere sandwiched amongst Clicker, Rotten Tomatoes, GetGlue, Boxee and Netflix is something that can actually figure out what we really want to watch right now and help us watch it in a fashion that supports the interests of studios and networks. It might be a combination of semantic intelligence, social media and game mechanics, or it could be something entirely new. There’s certainly money to be had here. Investors are financing these ideas, networks are looking for strategic partnerships and cable companies have money to spend. 3. Website Communities Will Dominate the Digital Experience The rise of the social web has led to brands and businesses emphasizing Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube and their social presence over their own website. Social will remain a top priority in 2011, but there will be a website renaissance that focuses on bringing the community back to the site. 2010 has laid the foundation for this movement with the emergence of publisher tools that drive website visitor engagement. Badgeville, OneTrueFan, Marginize, Meebo and Envovle, for instance, are all working on their solutions for the website-as-community concept. Badgeville lets publishers install a plug-and-play product that adds social rewards and gaming elements to their websites — think rewarding user activity with badges and achievements, à la Foursquare. OneTrueFan also applies game mechanics to website content and Meebo will release its own solution for web checkins in 2011. Marginize’s browser extension pulls social conversations into a site’s margin but its publisher tool eliminates the need for the extension and lets visitors check in, earn badges and rewards, and participate in onsite comment threads that can be pushed out to social networks. Envolve, however, takes a Facebook-chat style approach to website engagement. There will continue to be rapid innovation around publisher community tools in the new year. I’m not yet convinced that 2011 will be the year web users completely embrace this idea, but this trend will certainly be pushed forward by publishers who use these tools to engineer a more compelling reason for the visitor to stay and engage. Should they do so successfully, the fruits of their labor will be users that remain on site, share their activity with social networks and influence upticks in traffic, and possibly even sales. 4. Private Location Services Become More Popular In 2011, the location-sharing counter culture will emerge as mobile users demand less social, more practical tools for sharing their whereabouts with smaller circles of friends and family members. There’s clearly an audience that appreciates the visibility and rewards that come with checkins, and that is not likely to change. But, a growing number of mobile users will want to apply geolocation technology to their personal lives — think keeping track of the kids, knowing that a significant other made it home safely, or sending and receiving timely notifications based on geographic location. Consumer-friendly Neer is a prime example of how always-on location technology can be highly personalized and yet not overly intrusive. Geoloqi’s geonotes further personalize the experience by allowing you to leave notes for you or your friends at various locations. In 2011, we’ll see more applications and services emerge with similar purpose due to advancements in geofencing, proximity awareness and mobile device technologies. Perhaps the only barrier to mainstream adoption is the strain that these services place on mobile phone batteries. 5. Mobile Photo Sharing Takes Off We’re in the midst of a mobile photo sharing boom that has yet to reach its climax. Due to rapid improvements in handset technology, it’s now possible to take a stunning photo and upload it to the web in seconds. Applications that build expressly around this purpose have cropped up in recent months and prove the viability of this emerging market. Instagram, for instance, has surpassed 1 million registered users in just 10 weeks’ time. With this type of momentum, the startup looks to be an unstoppable force. But greatness will not be achieved in replicating the features or filters of Instagram, at least in an iPhone app. Android may still be up for grabs, though not if Picplz has a say in the matter. Purpose will matter just as much as a platform. Foodspotting, DailyBooth and Path all have put their own unique spin on mobile photos. Still, the underlying mobile photo sharing trend can be applied in a number of yet-to-be fully explored fashions. Because smartphone adoption is nowhere close to capacity, and growth is anticipated in the new year, there’s still time for a few more big ideas around mobile photo sharing to emerge in 2011. More Startup Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LuisPortugal Reviews: Android, Boxee, Clicker, DailyBooth, Facebook, Flickr, Path, Rotten Tomatoes, Twitter, YouTube, foursquare, iStockphoto, instagram More About: badgeville, barcode hero, barcode scanning, Envolve, geolocation, geoloqi, getglue, instagram, List, Lists, miso, mobile photo sharing, mobile photos, moodstocks, neer, picplz, predictions-2011, QR Codes, startups, thingd For more Startups coverage:
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| Android App Sends Texts to Wrong Recipients Posted: 31 Dec 2010 10:49 AM PST   This is enough to make you paranoid: Google has acknowledged a bug in Android’s default text messaging app that sends texts to the wrong person. Equally disturbing is that the problem’s been going on since March, and Google hasn’t fixed it yet. The bulk of the complaints started in July, but here’s a report of the problem from March 17 on Google’s Nexus One support forum:
In addition to this problem, some users report texts sent to random people who aren’t in their address book. The burning question now is, how widespread is this bug? Informal polls show relatively small percentages of people are affected, but it’s still significant. ZDNet site Hardware 2.0 has been running an informal poll for about 12 hours thus far, with 10% of the respondents reporting trouble with SMS messages sent to the wrong person. It seems if Google wants Android to continue being profitable, it needs to work well on all 172+ phones running it, especially when dealing with an operation as simple as sending text messages to their intended recipients. This problem, along with that sophisticated Android malware uncovered yesterday, is making Google look bad. Even if the bug is only affecting a fraction of Android users, we think this potentially embarrassing problem is more serious than what Google has classified on its Android Google Code site as a “Priority Medium” bug. How about it, readers? Let us know if you’ve experienced the problem in the comments. Reviews: Android, Google More About: android, apps, bug, Google, SMS Bug For more Mobile coverage:
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| 3 Tools Realtors Can Use to Increase Sales on the Web Posted: 31 Dec 2010 10:25 AM PST   Greg Meyer is the customer experience manager and listening post for Gist. Reach Greg online at @GregAtGist on Twitter, or at greg@gist.com. Realtors are passionate people, especially about their relationship with customers. One of the ways that they connect with these customers today is through the use of social media, and the methods for doing so are, themselves, becoming much more varied and sophisticated. Realtors are also dealing with much more savvy customers. Today, customers want to buy a house or refer a real estate agent to a friend on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms, and agents know they need to be there to provide an open door to customers and provide an authentic, unique experience along the way. If you're reading this, you're likely already familiar with social media 101. So, what are some of the ways you can increase home sales with the latest tools? And, how can you reinvent the home buying experience in clever, innovative ways? Here are three recommendations and accompanying tools that will not only increase sales, but will enhance the overall customer experience and set you apart from the competition. 1. Use 360-Degree Panoramic Images It's easy to upload static, one-room images of homes without giving your customer any real knowledge of what the home actually looks like. Instead share true-to-life panoramic images of your properties. 360 Panorama, an iPhone app from Occipital, allows you to do just that –- share rich, full images of properties that are stitched together in real-time without any photo-editing work on your part. You can easily share these images over social networks like Twitter and Facebook to give your customers a deeper glimpse into their next potential home. The broader trend: Be a salesperson, but sell something real — don't just sell an idea. Easy-to-do panoramic images not only highlight the actual nature of the home, but give your customers a realistic expectation. 2. Be Transparent and Data-Driven With Charts and Graphs Many people look online for an agent who knows the most about a given area or city. For realtors, it has become more about adding credibility while still making it easy for customers to get to and understand the information they need to make an informed, home buying decision. There are plenty of chart making tools out there, but the one that I've found to be most useful is FusionCharts. Combine this with data pulled from Zillow and Trulia APIs (or if you prefer, their widgets) and you have a deep, intelligent way to inform your customers on everything they need to know before making a purchase. Anything from the latest mortgage rates in their state to historical home prices by zip code or neighborhood. The broader trend: Differentiate from the crowd by being known as the realtor who provides deep insights into what is, at times, a data-deluged market. By providing credibility-building information and sharing it via social networks, you're providing a transparent view of your unique understanding and also educating your customers on everything they need to know. 3. Improve Listings With an Integrated Marketing Presence You're busy, and so is the marketplace. There are plenty of agents in your neighborhood today and all of them want to sell your customers a house. The problem is that none of "your" prospective customers can find out what they need to know without you. So, how can you make finding a house as easy as possible? Create a comprehensive and easy-to-use property listings site with AgencyLogic's PowerSites tool. PowerSites is a single property website generator that has robust property listing layouts. The trick that makes this tool stand out from the rest though is its integrated social marketing approach. First, you create the PowerSites listing, which comes loaded with high quality photo options and a selection of professional, real estate-specific layouts. Then, your PowerSites listing is automatically added to your Facebook profile or page, depending on your preference. There are also options for video, blog and podcast integration for those of you who want to beef up the listing even more. Here's an example of a complete listing. ConclusionHopefully, knowing about these customized and task-specific real estate tools will take your customer interactions to the next level on social networks and elsewhere online. It's about making the home buying experience that much easier by delivering realistic images, deep data visuals and an integrated marketing presence to customers through robust tools, while still supporting your customer in one of the most emotional and important purchases they will ever make: Buying their next home. Disclosure: Gist is a Mashable sponsor. More Social Media Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, MarsBars Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter, iPhone, iStockphoto More About: business, iphone, List, Lists, real estate, realtor, resources, small business, social media, tools For more Business coverage:
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| HOW TO: Explain Twitter to Your Parents Posted: 31 Dec 2010 10:06 AM PST   Still struggling to explain the utility of Twitter to your family back home? (I know I am.) Well, we’re all in luck. The Mashable staff stumbled across a guide titled “Mom, This Is How Twitter Works,” a lovely, easy-to-swallow breakdown of the microblogging site. Jessica Hische — who you might know as the creator of Daily Drop Cap — made the informal Twitter guide. It outlines what’s what, who’s who, who sees what and everything in between in the Twitterverse. “I am not an employee of Twitter, just an avid (understatement) user of the service that wanted to lend a hand to Twitter n00bs,” Hische says. Whether you’re an old hand at crafting 140-character messages or you know zilch about tweeting, you’ll probably learn something from Hische’s explanation. At the very least, it will help you explain what Twitter is all about to those less familiar with it, because, after all, only 6% of the entire adult U.S. population uses Twitter.  Reviews: Mashable, Twitter More About: twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| HOW TO: Get More Out of Your Web Fonts Posted: 31 Dec 2010 09:24 AM PST   Anders J. Svensson is a freelance writer, part-time adventurer, and the senior copywriter at Veer -– a provider of affordable images and fonts to creative professionals. On Twitter, find Anders at @mightyrival and Veer at @veerupdate. It’s a text-based world. Everywhere you look, there’s a sign, an ad, or a screen relaying information. The hand-lettered signage at your mom-and-pop corner store aside, most of the messages you see are set in familiar fonts. You'll find plenty of tips and tricks on using type elsewhere –- and far more technical ones, at that –- but here are some select ideas and advice that will put you (and your online presence) on the path to becoming a font savant. Know Your FontsIf you're wired and online, fonts first fall into three categories: The system fonts that came with your computer, the somewhat tacky fonts you can download at free sites, and the really nice fonts you might pay for if you are in the habit of paying for fonts. Within each of those categories, fonts can be grouped on more aesthetic grounds. And though it won't impress many crowds if you're able to slip phrases like “French Ronde” or “Caslon-esque” into conversation, knowing fonts by their practical applications can help you choose the right ones for your projects.
Beyond the practical, fonts can be further classified by styles (script, stencil, weathered, etc.), decade, country, and even artistic movement (like Art Deco or Bauhaus). Of course, it isn't all about good looks. Fonts fall into technical categories too. Understand OpenType If regular fonts are cars, OpenType fonts are time traveling DeLoreans. Car on the outside, remarkable effort and technology on the inside. So how do you take an OpenType font up to 88 mph? First, get up to speed on alternates. Alternates are stylistic variations of characters that can be substituted for the default alphabet. While many fonts only offer a limited character set (26 letters, 10 numbers, and basic punctuation.), an OpenType font is more likely to have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of characters. Plus, advanced features that make automatic substitutions. If you’re working with a script font, you might want to swap in characters that are ornamental or have repeated letters –- like a double-S –- replaced by a ligature (a character of two or more joined letters) that was specially made and therefore better looking. If you have enough variations of ‘I’ and ‘S’ for example, you could write a word like "Mississippi" with so many different characters, it would resemble custom hand-lettering. As a general improvement over .ttf (TrueType format) files, OpenType fonts are a universal format; you can install an .otf file on both a Mac or PC, no problem. But just because you can install an OpenType font doesn't mean you can make use of everything it offers. That depends largely on what design software you're using the font in. Imagine having the power to levitate chairs with your mind, but never using it. That's akin to what you may be doing if you use an OpenType font in MS Word. Instead of the beautiful script you bought, you may see a mess of disjointed letters, because MS Word doesn't support OpenType's advanced features. In contrast, if you were using Adobe InDesign, the features would kick in and do some of the work for you. Plus, you can always turn off autopilot and take control by picking and choosing alternates, ligatures and swashes yourself. Discover the Glyph Palette If you're getting serious about working with fonts, discovering Adobe's glyph palette is like finding a magical portal to Narnia in your wardrobe. Instead of talking fauns, you'll find a useful, scrollable grid of every character in the font, which sometimes number in the thousands. Overwhelming? No problem. A drop-down menu lets you filter the selection and view just ligatures, swash capitals, ornaments or number sets –- whatever the typeface designer has created and organized for you. You can also select a letter or letters, and filter the glyph palette to display alternates for your selection. If the designer has included a half dozen different “E” variants, you can swap them in manually. Same goes for finding custom ligatures to replace “OO,” “LL,” “TH,” and the like. Some designers will go as far as including entire custom words designed as single glyphs. Once you've spent some time exploring the glyph palette, you'll know what to expect from future fonts. Keep Learning, Keep KerningTypography is a lot like architecture. The surface aesthetics that everyone can enjoy are a result of an incredibly technical effort by its creators. Though not all of us are cut out to hunker down and create a great font from scratch, using and power-using fonts is a very accessible creative arena, even for non-designers. You'll know you've delved too deep when you interrupt dinner conversation to point out the ball terminals on the menu's Bodoni-style serif. More Design Resources from Mashable:
More About: design, font, fonts, how to, opentype, typography, web fonts For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| MySpace to Make Major Layoffs? Posted: 31 Dec 2010 08:13 AM PST   MySpace may be looking to reduce its staff significantly, as multiple sources claim the social network is planning significant layoffs that could affect up to 50% of its employees. Sources close to the situation have told All Things Digital that management is in the midst of figuring out more drastic cost-cutting measures that owner News Corp. asked for in the wake of MySpace’s decreased revenue and traffic. These possible layoffs, which have yet to be determined, could affect employees located outside the U.S. MySpace has declined to comment on the subject at this time. This rumor comes not too long after MySpace made significant efforts to revamp its image. October saw the beginnings of a new era for MySpace, when the site announced its intentions to become more of a leading entertainment hub “socially powered by the passions of fans and curators” instead of being a “place for friends.” Earlier this month, the Hijacks program was introduced, allowing certain celebrities — like the Black Eyed Peas and Jack Black — to “take over” the site for short periods of time. And last month, MySpace partnered up with Facebook, making it possible for users to log in with Facebook. But it seems these changes haven’t done much to improve MySpace’s fortunes, and News Corp. bigwigs might not expect a significant turnaround to happen. There are rumors that MySpace will get sold off (something Mashable’s Ben Parr certainly believes). As of now, it only looks like we’ll start seeing if there’s some truth to any of this speculation in the new year. Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, MySpace More About: myspace, News Corp, rumors For more Social Media coverage:
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| 6 Predictions for Social Networks in 2011 Posted: 31 Dec 2010 07:33 AM PST   The past year was an eventful one for the world of social networking. Facebook went on an acquisition spree. Twitter started growing up. And MySpace? Well it’s the same old story over there. In 2010, we predicted that Facebook would conquer the web. We just didn’t know the social network would do it so convincingly. We’re not oracles, though, and we did miss on some of our acquisition picks. Well, time for round two. Now that Facebook is clearly king, what is going to happen to the rest of the world’s social networks? What will happen to Bebo? What’s next for MySpace? And will Facebook finally hold that IPO? Here are my predictions for what will happen in the world of social networking in 2011: 1. Google’s Social Networking Efforts Flop SpectacularlyGoogle dominates search. It has nailed mobile. Oh, and it owns YouTube, the web’s biggest video property. So why the heck does it fail so miserably at social? Until this year, Google’s had middling success in social — YouTube, Gmail, Gtalk, Blogger and Orkut have all had varying levels of success. This year though, Google Wave was shut down, Google Buzz flopped and Google’s big social initiative has been delayed due to in-fighting and a lack of clarity and purpose. Here’s my first prediction of the year: Google’s social media efforts will be spectacular failures. TechCrunch nabbed a screenshot of the “Google +1″ social toolbar, one big component of Google’s social plan, we’ve been told. We remain unimpressed, though. As Buzz demonstrated, sticking something social on a page doesn’t mean people will instantly use it. More importantly, Google as a company is built for speed and efficiency, neither of which are critical to the success of a social network. That’s why we predict another horrendous year for the search giant in the social realm. 2. A Middling MySpace Is Sold Off Despite a total redesign and overhaul, MySpace continues to plummet like a boulder pushed off a cliff. While we’re fans of the social network’s attempt to reinvent itself as a “social entertainment destination,” the frank truth is that MySpace is bleeding money and there’s no end in sight to the bloodshed. Eventually MySpace will bottom out; we just don’t know when. It won’t come soon enough for News Corp. though, and it will start looking for someone to take its high-profile Internet property off of its hands. MySpace is still a valuable asset in the right hands, so somebody will pick it up. 3. Bebo Gets a New Owner… AgainBebo’s fall from grace is one of the sad stories of social networking. When we first covered Bebo in 2006, it was on its way to becoming a powerhouse. In 2008, AOL acquired Bebo for $850 million, an astounding (and overvalued) price point. Six months ago, AOL sold Bebo for about $10 million to Criterion Capital Partners. Then they made a few big moves: they hired Kevin Bachus, co-creator of the Xbox, and brought Bebo co-founder Michael Birch back as an advisor and investor. Bebo’s still shrinking though. Unless Birch and Bachus can orchestrate a comeback of Rocky proportions, Criterion Capital Partners will start looking to make money on its investment or at least minimize its loss. Even if it makes a comeback, Criterion’s reportedly interested in selling Bebo this year. We expect Bebo to be in new hands by this time next year. The most likely acquirers, we believe, would be a group led by Birch himself. 4. No Facebook IPO in 2011 There have been countless rumors about a Facebook IPO since 2007. The media has been waiting with baited breath for the day that Mark Zuckerberg cashes in on his baby and turns his company public. I’m here to tell the media: Don’t hold your breath. I could create a list of reasons the size of an SUV why Facebook and its billionaire leader aren’t going to be raising money on the public markets. Here are just a few of them:
The result is that there won’t be a Facebook IPO in 2011. So long as the company’s growth metrics are strong, Facebook has no need for the public markets. When it hits its saturation point though, that’s when you should expect the social network to make its move. I predict that will happen in 2012. 5. Twitter Has a Very Boring 2011 While I don’t consider Twitter a social network, many people do, so it’s only appropriate that I provide a prediction for what will happen to Twitter in 2011. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with anything interesting: Twitter’s going to have a steady and boring 2011. Sure, Twitter will launch new features, and senior execs will continue to step down and new people will take their place, but that’s what happens to any maturing business. Now that Twitter has new funding, has launched its ad platform and has launched a complete redesign, is there an earth-shattering event that could take us by surprise? I don’t discount it; I just don’t predict there will be one. An IPO makes no sense with the new round of funding. A redesign isn’t necessary. Really, Twitter is focused on its ad platform and will launch features that enhance it. Twitter will slowly continue to grow, but I don’t expect Facebook-like hockey stick growth. In 2011, Twitter is going to be one of the most boring social media services around. And I know the Twitter team is just fine with that. 6. The Social Networking Trend of 2011: Mobile Photos“We’re in a unique time right now because of the power of the cell phone with the two cameras, both the front and the back, and the broadband networks that allow photos to be shared simply and consumed through social networks in realtime.” ~Brian Pokorny, Dailybooth CEO Pokorny was discussing during his Ignite talk at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. He argued that publishing has evolved from the desktop (blogging) to the phone (tweeting) to the smartphone (photo-taking). While social photography is nothing new (Flickr and Facebook dominate), mobile photography is just beginning to blossom, thanks to apps like Instagram, PicPlz, Path, and Dailybooth. Other services like Tumblr, Gowalla, Posterous and most recently Foursquare are only pushing the trend further. 2011 will be the year mobile photo sharing becomes all the rage. These services will hit critical mass as smartphone users install apps in order to keep up with their friends. I also predict that Facebook will join the fray and implement new mobile photo-sharing features integrated with its Places platform, bringing the whole trend to another level. What Are Your Predictions?Enough with my predictions. What do you predict will happen in the social networking space in 2011? Who will get acquired? Who will be acquiring? What will the big trends in social networking be next year? Let us know your answers in the comments below. More Social Media Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, temniy Reviews: Bebo, DailyBooth, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Google Buzz, Gowalla, Gtalk, Internet, MySpace, Orkut, Path, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, blogger, gmail, iStockphoto, instagram More About: bebo, facebook, Google, Google +1, Google Me, List, Lists, myspace, predictions, predictions-2011, social media, social networking, social networks, trending, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook by the Numbers in 2010 [STATS] Posted: 31 Dec 2010 07:06 AM PST   Facebook users uploaded more than 2.7 million photographs, shared 1 million links and “liked” 7.6 million pages every 20 minutes in 2010, according to the company. Among other data the social network is releasing: Lady Gaga was the most-liked celebrity on Facebook with 24.7 million likes, beating out Eminem with 23.7 million and Barack Obama, who had 17.2 million. The numbers also offer a snapshot into Facebook users’ love lives in 2010. Some 43,869,800 people changed their relationship status to single during the year while 3,025,791 changed it to “it’s complicated.” Another 28,460,516 changed their status to in a relationship, 5,974,574 to engaged and 36,774,801 to married. Meanwhile, here’s a look at Facebook activity from a randomly chosen 20 minutes:
This video also details some of the hottest topics on Facebook, including the Chilean mine collapse and the new acronym HMU. Reviews: Facebook, friend, tagged More About: eminem, facebook, Lady Gaga For more Social Media coverage:
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| Google Doodle Rings in the New Year — Roman Numeral Style Posted: 31 Dec 2010 06:23 AM PST   Happy (Almost) New Year, Googlers! To celebrate the dawn of 2011, Google is out with a brand-new Doodle, a festive little number (pun intended) featuring fireworks and the roman numerals signifying “2011.” This is hardly the first holiday the Doodle has honored — Google has celebrated Halloween with sweet treats, Thanksgiving with gluttony, and the collective holidays with an array of cultural scenes. What was your favorite Doodle this year? [via The Washington Post] Reviews: Google More About: Google, google doodle, new years eve, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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This year brought quite a few headlines of note to the developer world. While we each have our favorites, from new releases of classic tools to astounding announcements from tech companies, here in no particular order are a few stories that stood out to us this year.
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