Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Disney Lays Out Its Plan for Android [VIDEO]”

Disney has finally made its debut on Android. Why did it take the company so long to launch apps for the smartphone and tablet platform, and what is Disney’s plan to make a splash on Google’s platform?

At Google’s Android Honeycomb event on Wednesday, Bart Decrem, the SVP & general manager of Disney Mobile (and former CEO of Tapulous before it was acquired by Disney), took the stage to announce the entertainment company’s first three Android apps. The first is an app for Disney Radio. The second and third bring two of the most popular iOS game franchises to Android: Jelly Car and Tap Tap Revenge.

I had a chance to catch up with Disney’s Decrem after the announcement to ask him about his company’s mobile efforts. I asked him why Disney waited until now to launch on Android, what Tap Tap Revenge on Android means for the franchise, and what the company intends to launch next.

Check out the video to get his answers. And in case you’re wondering, that is a demo of Tap Tap Revenge 4 for Android being played in the background.

More About: android, android 3.0, Android Honeycomb, disney, honeycomb, Jelly Car, Mobile 2.0, tap tap revenge

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The demand for Verizon iPhone was very strong as it took less than a day for the pre-orders to sell out. Verizon’s website took a beating from customers, many of whom didn’t manage to pre-order their iPhone 4, but they’ll have another chance next week.

According to the information on the company’s website, Verizon customers will be able to order an iPhone 4 at 3:01 AM on Wednesday, February 9. At 7 a.m. local time on Thursday, February 10, the iPhone 4 will be available at Apple and Verizon stores throughout the U.S.

More About: apple, iphone, pre-orders, verizon

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Doritos, which is owned by PepsiCo unit Frito-Lay, is dominating social media conversations about the game’s advertising, according to Alterian, a marketing technology and research firm. And sibling brand Pepsi has gotten the most positive buzz. The results are based on analysis of 73,751 online conversations from December 1 through February 1.

According to the research, Doritos got the highest number of overall mentions with 4,161, edging out Best Buy, which bought considerable buzz by announcing last week that Justin Bieber would star in its Super Bowl ad, subsequently garnering 2,282 mentions.

The bad news for Doritos is that not all those mentions are positive — about 12.2% were negative, which is relatively high, says Scott Briggs, director of strategic solutions for Alterian. On the bright side for PepsiCo, Doritos sibling brand Pepsi, whose Pepsi Max sub-brand will be advertising during the game, had the highest positive sentiment of brands surveyed, at 16.4%.

PepsiCo’s dominance in the rankings is no doubt a reflection of its Crash the Super Bowl contest. Now in its fifth year, the promotion asks consumers to make ads for Frito-Lay’s brands and offers cash prizes to the winners, plus exposure during the game.

PepsiCo announced this year’s program on September 15, 2010 and various stages of the contest keep the buzz going. From September 27 through November 15, contestants could load videos onto a dedicated website. From then on, consumers could view the ads. In early January, after a panel of judges from Pepsi and Frito-Lay narrowed the semifinalists to 10, consumers were invited to pick four winners from the pack.

The company’s strategy ensured that there would be a lot to discuss, but the approach wasn’t without its risks — especially of offending people. One of the consumer-loaded ads, for instance, wound up offending Catholics for its implied use of Doritos and Pepsi Max in place of the Holy Communion. And two other consumer-created ads, as well as one that made the final 10, contained gay themes that caused some to question the portrayal of gays in ads.

All that got people talking about Doritos. The brand scored highest in Alterian’s Social Engagement Index, which measures the value and reach of social media conversations. Doritos’ score shows when it came to social media conversations, the brand had 4.5 times the average reach of a Super Bowl advertiser.

Again, however, Alterian found that a lot of those conversations were negative. The company discovered that Pepsi’s good buzz was the mirror image of the brand bashing related to Doritos.

Finally, despite Facebook’s popularity and huge consumer base, most conversations about the brands were happening on microblogs like Twitter. Social networks, including Facebook, made up just 11.7% of results. Briggs says not to read too much into those stats, however, since Alterian could only draw results from public Facebook pages (i.e. fan pages) and couldn’t get a sense of how much people were mentioning brands on their personal pages.

Briggs also cautions that Super Bowl advertiser sentiment varies wildly before and after the game. For instance, the brand that had the most buzz after the 2010 Super Bowl was Google, whose “Parisian Love” Super Bowl ad was a complete surprise to most viewers. A similar shift in sentiment might happen after this weekend. “I would expect after Sunday the results will be completely different,” says Briggs.

More About: doritos, pepsico, sentiment analysis, Super Bowl, twitter

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For the past four years, gaming startup Trion has been working with more than $100 million of funding and a staff of about 300 people to introduce a distinctive game platform to the Internet. The company’s first game, Rift, will be released in North America next month.

The world in Rift will differ from that of other massively multiplayer online (MMO) games in that it will be constantly evolving and users themselves can influence this change. For instance, if players fail to save a town that is being attacked, it will still be burned to the ground when players log in tomorrow. Developers can also make small changes as they learn how people are using the game.

Another game in the works takes advantage of the dynamic platform in another unprecedented way: by aligning its story line with a television show that SyFy is producing using the same world. If an event in the television show changes the world’s landscape, those changes will be reflected in the game world after it has aired.

“We have changed the experience dramatically, Trion founder and CEO Lars Buttler says. “A traditional video game is played in your machine, in your local counsel, and is a static experience…the game does not evolve and it's also not really social because you cannot play with all of your friends against the environment that is created in the video game.”

Massively multiplayer online (MMO) games have long been dominated by World of Warcraft, a game that surpassed 12 million subscribers in October. In 2009, the game’s subscription fees represented a 58% share of western spending on subscription MMO games, according to research from media analyst Screen Digest.

But Trion, and its impressive list of investors (one that includes Time Warner, NBC Universal and Bertelsmann) think the MMO gaming world is ripe for new domination. Mashable recently spoke with Buttler about how Trion plans to incite a revolution in MMO games.

A New Kind of World

Trion is developing constantly evolving worlds for its new platform; they change in response to player activity.

"Just like companies like Zynga in the casual games are constantly measuring what people do and improving their games in the casual space, we can now do this for video games,” Buttler says.

Being able to tweak the games also opens a more diverse range of opportunities for advertising or creating virtual goods. Trion plans to release games across every genre — role playing, strategy and action games are already in the works — and every game will have a different business model. The first game, Rift will use a subscription model that charges players $10-$15 per month.

Aiming to Be Zynga for Video Games

Before people played casual games on Facebook, they downloaded them from sites like Yahoo Games. Before that, maybe they played them on their Game Boys. The genre has evolved to become more social and dynamic.

“The same is happening to video games, and we are really leading this transition where we make games that have the quality of traditional games, that have very different genres like role playing strategy, action, but they are also completely dynamic and live and incredibly social,” Buttler says.

Trion’s games allow hundreds of players to collaborate at onc, and encourage users to work together for higher rewards.

“Imagine you could do something similar [to what Zynga has done with casual games] to the much bigger category of premium video games,” Buttler says.

Working With TV

Trion’s third scheduled game release, currently going by the title Syfy Action MMO, will have a television component produced by the SyFy Channel. The show will tell a character story within the game’s world. If something happens in the show, it will be reflected within the game world. Likewise, if a player does something heroic during the game, they might find their feat being discussed on the show.

The partnership will help the SyFy channel connect with its audience inbetween episodes and seasons. Trion’s main motive in joining the partnership is to introduce the MMO genre and its game to geeks who might not otherwise be online gamers.

"we want to branch out,” Buttler says. “We want people to have the opportunity to get familiar with it a little bit. For example, by watching the show and then jumping into the game and maybe being a little more of an observer at first.”

If you’d like to be part of Trion’s Rift beta testing event, follow @RIFTgame on Twitter and retweet this article. Trion will direct message 50 Mashable readers with invite codes.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

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More About: MMO, online gaming, Rift, Trion, video games

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Verizon has released a new commercial promoting its iPhone and slamming AT&T’s network. To add insult to injury, it has brought back an old friend to do it: “The Verizon Guy,” made famous by his “can you hear me now?” catchphrase.

The 30-second commercial provides close-up shots of the new Verizon iPhone, calling it “beautiful,” “intelligent” and “genius.” Then it asks, “but does your network… work?” before Verizon’s famous technician takes a phone call and responds, “yes, I can hear you now.”

Verizon has been releasing commercials promoting its newest device as its February 10 launch date approaches. AT&T will have to do more than double the tethering cap to respond to this latest assault.

More About: iphone, iphone 4, verizon, Verizon iPhone, youtube

The location-based mobile game is trading in the local appeal of its service for a day and working with the NFL on something more global in nature. On Sunday, all Foursquare users will see the same promoted trending venue — “Super Bowl Sunday” — for the duration of the game.

Foursquare will be doling out team-themed Super Bowl badges to Steelers and Packers fans who check in to the promoted venue and include the name of a team in their shouts. Foursquare users at the game can unlock a special Super Bowl XLV badge if they check in to the stadium.

More importantly, every unlocked badge comes with a unique redemption code that badge holders can use for a 20% discount on select merchandise at NFLShop.com.

Foursquare fans will appreciate the badges and the merchandise discount, but there’s much more to this promotion than ephemeral trophies and sporting memorabilia.

The “Super Bowl Sunday” manually promoted venue is a notable tangent from the startup’s everyday fare of venues promoted by popularity. For starters, Foursquare will likely see its most venue checkins to date. Then, of course, is the potential for the startup to open up promoted venues to paid advertisers.

Badge holder redemption codes are also something we’d anticipate the startup will proffer to future partners to better tie Foursquare activity to actual sales.

A Foursquare representative stressed that this particular promotion is merely an experiment and that no money is changing hands. But, in testing badge redemption codes and Foursquare-promoted venues, the startup seems to be laying the foundation for products with advertiser appeal.

More About: foursquare, MARKETING, nfl, sports, Super Bowl

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A new technology will take its place, though. IPv4′s successor is IPv6, a system that will not only offer far more numerical addresses, but will simplify address assignments and additional network security features.

The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is likely to be rough, though. Most people are unfamiliar with IPv4 and IPv6, much less the potential impact the switch to IPv6 may have on their lives.

That’s why we’ve compiled this short guide to IPv4 and the eventual transition to IPv6. We explain the two versions of IP and why they matter. We also go into detail on what you can expect in the next few years as billions of websites, businesses and individuals make the switch to the new era of the Internet.

IPv4 & IPv6 Q&A

Q: What is IPv4?
A: IPv4 stands for Internet Protocol version 4. It is the underlying technology that makes it possible for us to connect our devices to the web. Whenever a device access the Internet (whether it’s a PC, Mac, smartphone or other device), it is assigned a unique, numerical IP address such as 99.48.227.227. To send data from one computer to another through the web, a data packet must be transferred across the network containing the IP addresses of both devices.

Without IP addresses, computers would not be able to communicate and send data to each other. It’s essential to the infrastructure of the web.

Q: What is IPv6?
A: IPv6 is the sixth revision to the Internet Protocol and the successor to IPv4. It functions similarly to IPv4 in that it provides the unique, numerical IP addresses necessary for Internet-enabled devices to communicate. However, it does sport one major difference: it utilizes 128-bit addresses. I’ll explain why this is important in a moment.

Q: Why are we running out of IPv4 addresses?
A: IPv4 uses 32 bits for its Internet addresses. That means it can support 2^32 IP addresses in total — around 4.29 billion. That may seem like a lot, but all 4.29 billion IP addresses have now been assigned to various institutions, leading to the crisis we face today.

Let’s be clear, though: we haven’t run out of addresses quite yet. Many of them are unused and in the hands of institutions like MIT and companies like Ford and IBM. More IPv4 addresses are available to be assigned and more will be traded or sold (since IPv4 addresses are now a scarce resource), but they will become a scarcer commodity over the next two years until it creates problem for the web.

Q: How does IPv6 solve this problem?
A: As previously stated, IPv6 utilizes 128-bit Internet addresses. Therefore, it can support 2^128 Internet addresses — 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them to be exact. That’s a lot of addresses, so many that it requires a hexadecimal system to display the addresses. In other words, there are more than enough IPv6 addresses to keep the Internet operational for a very, very long time.

Q: So why don’t we just switch?
A: The depletion of IPv4 addresses was predicted years ago, so the switch has been in progress for the last decade. However, progress has been slow — only a small fraction of the web has switched over to the new protocol. In addition, IPv4 and IPv6 essentially run as parallel networks — exchanging data between these protocols requires special gateways.

To make the switch, software and routers will have to be changed to support the more advanced network. This will take time and money. The first real test of the IPv6 network will come on June 8, 2011, World IPv6 Day. Google, Facebook and other prominent web companies will test drive the IPv6 network to see what it can handle and what still needs to be done to get the world switched over to the new network.

Q: How will this affect me?
A: Initially, it won’t have a major impact on your life. Most operating systems actually support IPv6, including Mac OS X 10.2 and Windows XP SP 1. However, many routers and servers don’t support it, making a connection between a device with an IPv6 address to a router or server that only supports IPv4 impossible. IPv6 is also still in its infancy; it has a lot of bugs and security issues that still need to be fixed, which could result in one giant mess.

Nobody’s sure how much the transition will cost or how long it will take, but it has to be done in order for the web to function as it does today.

More About: Guide, internet, IPv4, IPv6, trending

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Chrome Instant is basically Google Instant but in the chrome URL/search box. For end users, the two most compelling features are WebGL support and the Chrome Web Store.

Chrome 9.0 brings stable support for WebGL. WebGL lets web developers create hardware-accelerated 3D graphics inside the web browser. We discussed WebGL and the Google Body experiment back in December. If you haven’t seen WebGL in action, be sure to check out the WebGL Experiments page (FYI my favorite is Aquarium).

The Chrome Web Store is now accessible to all users in the United States. Users can “install” free and paid web apps that are accessible in Google Chrome and in Chrome OS.

Some of these apps are just fancy bookmarks to HTML5-infused web pages, but some others really push the boundaries of what constitutes a web app. We reviewed ten of our favorite Chrome web apps when the store soft-launched a few months ago.

Current Google Chrome users can expect automatic updates to get Google Chrome 9 or you can download the latest version at http://www.google.com/chrome/.

More About: Browsers, chrome, google chrome

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Binpress is a new site that hopes to act as a marketplace for source code. Its goal is to bring web developers “high-quality and high-level source-code solutions for development projects and web ventures,” and it promises that all code sold is “mature and tested,” a promise that’s fulfilled in the company’s developer screening and selection process.

You can go buy — or sell — a JavaScript image manager or an auction system coded in PHP, the little code packages that might make your projects a little bit less of a headache and your work process a little bit faster.

For example, if you’re working on an e-commerce app, you can buy this Paypal API abstraction class for Express Checkout and Direct Payment features. It’s written in PHP, and you can buy a single-site license for $25; a multi-site license will run you $200.

And once you buy a code package, you will receive all future updates and fixes of that code. You’ll have the opportunity to contact the developer if you need to, and you also get a money-back guarantee.

On top of all that function, we have to admit that the form is pretty nice, too:

Binpress seems like a lot less effort for everyone involved than “rent-a-coder”-type outsourcing or contracting solutions, and it generally costs less, as well. Some code is even free, and with many packages, you can see a demo of the code in action before you buy.

In addition to single-language, stand-alone components, Binpress also offers code packages for web frameworks such as CakePHP and Django and platforms such as WordPress and Joomla.

Binpress is a fairly new initiative, and its marketplace offerings are slender so far. So to kick things off and incentivize devs to sell their code on the site, the company is running a programming contest with more than $40,000 in cash and prizes for winners. The contest’s sponsors include Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Amazon Web Services, Conduit, O'Reilly, Tropo, Media Temple, uTest and others.

Although the idea of a “code marketplace” is hardly new, it’s timed well for the current development market. We saw a lot of similar ideas floating around in the early 2000s; however, web development and the dev ecosystem and communities have changed significantly since then. It’s long been time for a new, better way to buy and sell code packages and snippets, and Binpress is a good-looking, functional site that meets the need. If enough devs flesh out its code package inventory, we can see the site being of great use to developers, both those who buy and those who sell.

Binpress comes from Lionite, an Israeli web dev shop with a focus on great design.

In the comments, please let us know if Binpress is the kind of resource you’d use, either as a buyer or seller, and why or why not.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jgroup

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We had been experiencing the shakes, double vision and the serious case of “sad face” that cat video withdrawal can inspire of late. Luckily, Keyboard Cat has sauntered in to save the day, starring in the parody Exit Through the Pet Shop.

Exit Through the Gift Shop, a film about mysterious street artist (and now-Oscar nominee) Banksy, has gone feline.

Charlie Schmidt, owner of the original keyboard cat Fatso, has enlisted the help of Keyboard Cat The Second, Bento, to create a 24-hour live stream of… well, Bento chilling in an art studio. You can watch that here, but the above video is much more entertaining.

Every documentary should star a cat — especially those really long ones about the Great Depression we had to watch in middle school. But then they’d probably have to change the name to “The Great Adorable,” which might degrade the learning experience slightly.

[via Urlesque]

Image courtesy of Charlie Schmidt

More About: Banksy, bento, keyboard-cat, viral video

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Starting Thursday, according to a PDF on Verizon’s website, the company will deliberately start reducing download speeds for its heaviest users, the top 5% consumers of data.

Verizon does not explicitly link the policy change to the many thousands of new iPhone users that are set to start using its network this month. Many among that top 5% may well use other smartphones. But iPhone owners, given the unparalleled number of apps at their disposal, have a distinct tendency to be data hogs — as AT&T found out to its chagrin. Over the last few years, the carrier made a number of efforts to reduce iPhone users’ load on the network, from launching clusters of wifi “hot zones” to dumping its unlimited data use plan for new customers.

Verizon’s spin on the policy change: It’s standing up for the little guy. “Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren't negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users,” says the policy change statement.

“If you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users, we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand.”

Trouble is, there’s no way of telling if you’re one of that top 5%. Verizon does not say it will inform users whose data stream gets throttled. And given that early reviews of the Verizon iPhone have noted its data service is significantly slower than the AT&T version, it may be hard for switchers to tell the difference between regular service and throttled service. Throw in the fact that Verizon iPhone users will not be able to use data services and make calls at the same time, and the carrier’s launch of the phone starts to look a lot less enticing.

Submit Your Verizon iPhone Story to CNN iReport and Mashable!

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However, that would be a mistake.

While Apple sold nearly 15 million iPads in 2010 and closed the year with 75% market share in the tablet space, that was down from 95% in the third quarter of 2010, before the Galaxy Tab went on sale.

And regardless of whether or not the Galaxy Tab is a hit or a dud — Samsung claims its return rate is actually 2% — a slew of better Android devices are about to invade the market — not to mention offerings from other players including RIM and Palm.

For this and a variety of other reasons, I believe the same tides that lifted Android past iOS in the smartphone world will soon do the same with tablets. That’s the topic of my CNN column this week.

More About: android, ipad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, tablets

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Most notable, perhaps, is that GetGlue closed 11 new partnerships, including its first major video game partnership with Xbox. In total, the startup now has partnerships with 30 networks and eight movie studios.

The financial terms of the deals — which typically reward users with stickers and content-related memorabilia in exchange for checkins — are never disclosed, but the name brand status of the partner networks do show that GetGlue may be able to monetize nicely against its respectable 900,000 user base.

In terms of user activity, GetGlue is showing healthy year-over-year growth. In January 2010, the service reported 1.3 million checkins and ratings for the month. January 2011, however, saw the service accumulating nearly 10 times that figure with 12.1 million checkins and ratings.

The GetGlue applications encourage users to share their checkins with friends on Twitter and Facebook by default, a move that appears to be paying off handsomely for the company. “Collectively, check-in and sticker shares reach tens of millions of friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter,” says the company of its social reach.

More specifically, that boils down to an average of 25,000 tweets and 25,000 Facebook shares per day.

With $6 million in Series C funding recently deposited in the bank, GetGlue seems well positioned to continue growing in the year ahead. If there was one area where the service could see improvement, however, it would be in user acquisition. While 900,000 users is nothing to scoff at, the number is a bit too small for us to declare the service a bonafide consumer hit. Plus, it now faces competition from a variety of startups, including the new anti-checkin application — television listening app IntoNow.

More About: entertainment, entertainment checkins, getglue, social media

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What do you want to ask the panel?

Submit your questions in the comments below or tweet your question @Mashable with #JMash. We’ll use some of the best questions as points for discussion.

Tickets are still available to join us at the 92YTribeca for the conversation, followed by open bar and networking.

Vadim Lavrusik, community manager and social media strategist at Mashable

Jay Rosen, journalism professor at New York University and blogger at PressThink.org

Jenna Wortham, technology reporter for The New York Times

Drake Martinet, associate editor for D: All Things Digital/The Wall Street Journal Digital

Laurie Segall, money and technology reporter for CNN

There will be an audience Q&A following the discussion.

Hashtag: #jmash
Location: 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013
Pricing: $15 Tickets on Sale Now through 92YTribeca, a non-profit organization.
Date & Time: Tuesday, February 8, 2011
6:00 – 6:30 p.m., Open Networking
6:30 – 7:45 p.m., Conversation and Q&A
7:45 p.m. – Bar Close, Networking & Open Bar

This Mashable NextUp NYC event is part of Social Media Week New York. For more information or to view the Social Media Week schedule, go to Socialmediaweek.org.

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Ignoring the conventional wisdom to keep one’s Super Bowl ad a secret until the game, Volkswagen put its ads on YouTube this week and got significant buzz.

The 60-second ad features a pint-sized Darth Vader (a kid in a Vader costume, actually) using The Force (actually a key fob secretly used by his dad) to start up a 2012 Passat. So far, it has netted 1.5 million views on YouTube, and was also a trending topic on Twitter earlier today.

A rep for Deutsch, the ad agency that created the spot, says although advertisers sometimes release their Super Bowl ads the Friday before the game to get network TV coverage, it’s unusual to air the ad a few days prior to that.

In addition to the Darth Vader ad, VW also has a 30-second Super Bowl ad on YouTube called “Black Beetle” that shows a CGI-created beetle racing around as the song “Black Betty” plays. That ad has gotten about 162,000 views since it went up yesterday.

“The Force” as the initial ad is known, is set to run in the second quarter. “Black Beetle” will run in the fourth quarter.

What do you think? Would VW have gotten more buzz if it had waited to show the ad during the big game? Let us know.

More About: advertising, MARKETING, Super Bowl ads, viral videos, volkswagen, youtube

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The firm is now accepting applications for its Summer@Highland 10-week program taking place in Lexington and San Francisco. Highland Capital is seeking university-affiliated, first-time entrepreneurs who want to work full-time on their fledgling startups under the mentorship of firm partners and portfolio company CEOs.

Interested parties should be already pursuing a project that addresses a big opportunity in the technology market, says Michael Gaiss, senior vice president at Highland. The firm would like to see big new ideas in IT, digital, Internet, mobile and health care sectors, he says, though candidates need not have a full-fledged startup just yet.

Applications are due by April 7, at which time the firm will handpick four to six teams per location. Those selected will be rewarded with a $15,000 stipend, complimentary office space and will be under no obligation to the firm once the program is over.

The alternative summer camp, now in its fourth cycle, has proven quite the benefactor for a number of young startups that have gone on to raise funds from Highland or other firms. Gemvara, a site for creating custom jewelry, for instance, raised a $5.2 million Series B round led by Highland in April of last year. Wildfire, makers of tools for brands on Facebook, is another success story. Last year, the startup closed a $4.04 million Series A round led by Summit Partners.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Illinois Springfield

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Oh, and he’ll be on Oprah at 3 p.m. PT to announce it, the same time the song, “See Her Face,” goes live on the app [iTunes link].

Unusual, no?

It gets stranger. According to a spokesperson for Flipboard, well-known venture capitalist Ron Conway of SV Angel is responsible for bringing it about. “MC Hammer has been involved in Internet projects for years and via our mutual friend Ron Conway he found out about Flipboard,” she says.

“He was excited about how Flipboard brought his Twitter stream to life. He saw the potential of what a social magazine could mean for musicians and wanted to work with us on this project,” she adds.

The collaboration is part of a broader initiative to bring content owners and publishers on board as partners for distributing — rather than simply being sources for producing — content on the app. Flipboard’s spokesperson says that the startup is open to additional partnerships with musicians in the future, but does not have any “specific plans for that at the moment.”

The song will be available for listening only; a downloadable version will be available at a later date.

Image courtesy of Flipboard

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LivingSocial hired Richmond, Virginia-based ad shop The Martin Agency back in November, but hadn’t previously announced the relationship. The 30-second ad will feature a guy who uses LivingSocial and “goes through a deal addiction.” Further details are not available. LivingSocial’s pre-game Super Bowl buy will be augmented with the purchase of three Academy Award-related spots.

The move comes after Groupon earlier this week confirmed that it had bought a spot during this year’s Super Bowl and is running ads before and after the game. Groupon is working with Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the agency perhaps best known for its Burger King ads.

The infusion of ad dollars signals the latest front between the two biggest players in the fast-growing online group buying category. Groupon currently claims more than 44 million subscribers, while LivingSocial’s
are in the range of 16 million. Update: A LivingSocial rep says the number is now around 20 million.

But LivingSocial, which received a $175 million investment from Amazon in December, is a feisty competitor. Last month, the company leveraged its Amazon relationship by offering a $20 Amazon gift card for $10. After that, LivingSocial’s traffic jumped 80%.

The entry of Groupon into the Super Bowl and LivingSocial before the game also displays a coming of age for social media firms, but offers a stark contrast to the 1999 and 2000 Super Bowls, which were full of then-hot dot-com companies like Pets.com and Epidemic.com that went belly-up not long afterwards. This time around, soon-to-IPO companies like Facebook and LinkedIn are sitting the game out.

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Holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day are prime times to generate viral video activity. Holidays not only spark sentimentality and excitement but are also shared experiences with universal customs. When millions of people come together around a common experience, that's a perfect time to create, launch and ignite viral sharing of a branded video campaign.

Simply put, shared experiences produce shareable content. At Christmas, there are dozens of shared experiences such as decorating a tree, giving gifts and hanging decorations — and plenty of commercials and videos that play on these shared experiences. Every Halloween there is a surge in online content related to outrageous or scary costumes. Valentine’s Day often coincides with a rise in the amount of "romantic" videos that hit the web.

As a brand marketer, how can you take advantage of holidays to not only create a video people will want to share, but actually take measurable steps to boost the viral reach of your video campaigns? Below are four tips to give your holiday-focused video campaigns a viral boost –- and examples of brands that used these strategies effectively.

1. Tap Into a Shared Experience

Since most holidays are about sharing a positive experience — giving gifts, enjoying a family feast, dressing up at Halloween, giving Valentine's cards –- your videos should tap into these shared moments.

eBay is one company that successfully created a viral video campaign around the shared experience of gift giving at Christmas. eBay usually invests heavily in a paid media campaign during the Christmas holiday period, spanning television, print, online and outdoor. But in 2010, the company bet big on social video.

The central component of eBay's campaign was a six-week web video series featuring Samantha Bee from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The series — called “The Unwrap Attack” — tapped into the shared experience of the "unforgettable, uncontrollable emotional moments" experienced when a child gets the perfect gift. eBay encouraged people to not only share the videos, but to upload their own "unwrap attack" videos to lovetogive.ebay.com.

2. Go for Laughs

Holidays are exciting times, but can also be stressful. Thanksgiving, for example, is a time when families across the U.S. come together -– braving lines at airports, driving long distances, and getting everyone in the family together for better or worse. Everyone needs to let off a little steam during the holidays, so humorous viral video campaigns have a leg-up in terms of sharing.

Muscle Milk's "Sexy Pilgrim" video was a comedy hit during Thanksgiving, providing a good laugh during a traditional holiday. The video, which depicted a pilgrim singing a sexy R&B ballad, was shared widely across the web, blogs and social networks, and was viewed over 3.5 million times. Sometimes, sharing a laugh is the best way to spend the holidays.

3. Get Sentimental

People are driven to share something when it evokes a feeling, and a video that captures a positive emotion like love will resonate with a wide swath of people. People will want to pass along your video to share the “feeling” it creates.

JWT did a great job last Valentine's Day with its campaign for diamond retailer DeBeers, designing a website that allowed consumers to record webcam declarations of their love at DropEverythingForLove.com. The site also featured JWT film crews documenting the journeys of nine participants to surprise their partners — people were encouraged to submit their own stories, or nominate others, on the site or through Facebook. Within just a few days of launching, the site had already generated over 300 videos.

4. Reward People for Sharing

People are inclined to share funny, touching, or emotional videos "just because," but that doesn't mean you shouldn't add extra incentives to encourage even more sharing around the holidays. One strategy that works is giving viewers a discount on their holiday purchase if they “Like” or share your video.

Gap used this approach effectively with its “Gap Want” viral video campaign. These videos featured young actors, models, and social change-makers talking about what they "want to give" to the world and providing information on specific charities they support. These videos tapped into the shared aspiration to give back to those less fortunate, and also added an extra incentive to share. When viewers "Liked" these videos on Facebook, Gap donated $1 to the charity mentioned in the video. In addition, viewers could mention a special “viral code” in stores to get 30% off one item.

Valentine’s Day

When people come together around an experience at a specific time, this creates optimal conditions for sharing. So it's time to get cracking on your Valentine's Day video campaign. After all, almost everyone's got a joyous -– or painfully funny –- Valentine's Day story to share.

Like a 21st century version of the choose-your-own-adventure books, interactive YouTube videos can up the engagement factor by letting the viewer decide the course of the action, or just play around with the content.

With Tippex seeing success with its A Hunter Shoots a Bear campaign, and Samsung and Rogers also testing the interactive video waters lately, we expect to see more creative campaigns from companies in 2011.

More Video Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Incredible Interactive YouTube Videos
- 10 Captivating Time-Lapse Design Videos
- 10 Excellent Examples of Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns [VIDEOS]
- 10 Stories Beautifully Told with Animated Typography [VIDEOS]
- 10 Incredibly Inspirational Moments on YouTube [VIDEOS]

Image courtesy of Flickr, chelzdd.

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Trends in Internet chatter have correctly predicted the winner of the Super Bowl for at least four years. And if the same correlation continues, it looks like Sunday will be a very happy day in Green Bay.

The Super Bowl team discussed most during the month of January ended up taking home the Vince Lombardi trophy every year since 2008, according to data collected by social media analysis company Infegy.

When the Pittsburgh Steelers played against the Arizona Cardinals in 2009, for instance, the Steelers were mentioned in Super Bowl conversations .48% more frequently than their opponent. Infegy did not collect data before 2008.

“I don’t think more buzz means more wins, it just seems likely that people would be talking more about the team that they believe likely to be the victor,” Infegy CEO Justin Graves says. “People predicting winners in their own conversations in forums on Fantasy football leagues, things like that.”

The gap between online discussion of the Packers and the Steelers is smaller than between any two Super Bowl teams the company has analyzed. In Super Bowl discussions, Green Bay was mentioned 12.28% of the time. Pittsburgh was mentioned 12.02% of the time.

Even though the buzz factor is close, however, the Packers are trouncing the Steelers in the sentiment game. Conversations around the Packers were 78% positive in past month, compared with only 69% positive for the Steelers during the same period. If Graves’s wisdom of the crowd theory holds true, the Packer’s higher frequency of positive sentiment should bode just as well for the team as their slight lead in online buzz.

Unfortunately Infegy’s data offers no good news for Steelers fans. If you couldn’t care less about the outcome of the Super Bowl, on the other hand, the good news is that you’re in good company — at least better than last year. General Internet discussion around the big game is down a full 26% from last year at the same time.

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Privacy challenges by public interest groups and the FTC are threatening to dismantle or seriously curtail the behavioral targeting model of interactive advertising as it stands today. Fearful of damaging relationships with their readers, many publishers are removing third-party widgets and other technologies when those technologies are found to capture and sell user data without the user’s express permission.

Even Facebook itself has cracked down on unauthorized data scraping. Recent “Do Not Track” efforts are trying to move choices about data sharing from publishers to the people via browser technology. But these are merely symptoms of a larger problem with interactive advertising: a lack of transparency. It’s a problem that new social tools will play a significant role in addressing.

Rather than an endgame where consumers completely block any sort of data sharing, I see a future where marketers take the high road and both sides benefit from better quality data, advertising and content.

Permission Marketing

The concept of "Permission Marketing" isn't new; in fact, Seth Godin's 1999 book about "turning strangers into friends and friends into customers" seems remarkably prescient in today's age of "Friending," "Liking," and "Following." Godin told the (then e-mail-dominated) interactive industry, "By talking only to volunteers, Permission Marketing guarantees that consumers pay more attention to the marketing message. It serves both customers and marketers in a symbiotic exchange.”

Today, technologies like Facebook Connect and OAuth are helping to redefine the concept of permission marketing. Using these technologies, brands, retailers, publishers and other sites are able to actively establish a permission-based relationship with their users and customers on their own websites. Now websites have the opportunity to embrace transparency, to be upfront with people during the registration process about how their data will be used, as well as how it will benefit both parties.

We have a new generation comfortable using Facebook and other mobile apps and who, according to recent survey data, are quite willing to share personal information with companies and brands in exchange for value provided. They are also relatively unconcerned about the security of data they share on social networks. The bottom line is that this type of authorization-based relationship between brand and user is likely to become the norm.

This Year’s Model

So what exactly is the data and advertising opportunity for sites? The Huffington Post is the poster child for this new social data-based permission marketing approach. Readers register on the site using their existing Facebook, Twitter or other social identity, thereby giving HuffPo access to data with which the site can personalize the user experience.

For readers, this means they can see what their friends are reading and sharing on their site, giving them a powerful social filter for relevant content. It also means The Huffington Post can sell advertising on their own site based on everything they know about the user from a social perspective.

I had a chance to meet Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau at last year's IAB leadership summit, where publishers get together to talk about the future of interactive advertising, and he shared with me that their integration and application of Facebook Connect and similar technologies to create a social news experience has been the key driver of their phenomenal traffic growth over the past year plus. Social advertising is also a key source of their revenue growth. HuffPo considers their site to be in the category of social media, and structures their ad sales team to serve that unique buyer. For publishers and advertisers, this approach has the power of Facebook ads, yet is superior because it combines the best of both worlds –- deep context plus social data.

Social Sign-On

While Social registration, also known as Social Sign-On, is the foundation for this new relationship-based model, the layers on top of that foundation are the most promising for the future of advertising. In addition to basic demographic targeting, sites could offer advertising based on interest data, targeting movie fans or iPod fans for example. Sites could also sell against social influence and activity — factors such as the number of friends, propensity to share and history of driving referral traffic, or even the number of items "Liked" as an indicator of engagement. Reward programs driven by game mechanics are a key part of the nurturing process in this new model, where a loyal, engaged and most importantly non-anonymous audience is the new currency of advertising.

Sites and brands need to ask themselves: What am I offering people that they will truly value in exchange for permission to talk to them as a friend and not an anonymous user? Badges may not be right for every site experience, but successful apps and other web experiences like those on The Huffington Post prove that it is not an unattainable goal.

As with all new models, there are challenges to address. Sites need a critical mass of users to grant them these permissions in order to sell advertising effectively. Privacy concerns with social network data will evolve over time and regulatory pressure will certainly cause the interactive industry some headaches as we move to a new equilibrium. But it is inevitable that a permission-based model will prevail, and those that are able to rapidly embrace this model and experiment with its possibilities will win higher CPMs, new ways to differentiate against the competition, and a more loyal audience.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- Why Influencer Marketing Needs to Go Beyond Follower Counts
- 10 Online Strategies for Your Next Product Launch
- What to Look For When Hiring a Community Manager
- 8 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Get More Out of Twitter
- 5 Masterminds Redefining Social Media Marketing

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The entire $2 million came from Khosla Ventures, a firm that has also made substantial investments in well-known social applications such as Hunch and Slide (acquired by Google last summer).

Storify has a staff of four and plans to use the funds to hire designers and Javascript developers to further build out the product, which has been in private beta since launching in September. The product has been used by bloggers, PR professionals and major news organizations like NPR, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, to compile stories. The Post, for instance, used it to collect political candidates' recession and concession tweets in the 2010 midterm elections.

No concrete business model has yet emerged. The team will continue to focus on the product, co-founder Burt Herman said.

To learn more about Storify, check out the video introduction below, and see the product in action in the demo below.

Video Introduction

Storify Demo

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Update: Kenneth Cole has removed the offending tweet and issued an apology on his Facebook Page: “I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I've dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.

Kenneth Cole, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer”

The Internet is buzzing with anger today following a tweet on fashion designer Kenneth Cole’s account that many feel makes light of the protests in Egypt.

The tweet in question reading “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC” went up about four hours ago, and still remains on Twitter.

An apology, however, has been issued via a tweet reading: “Re Egypt tweet: we weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KC”

We’ve reached out the Kenneth Cole’s camp for more info on why the original tweet was sent.

Cole made a similarly indelicate statement in the past; following 9/11, he told the New York Daily News: “Important moments like this are a time to reflect… To remind us, sometimes, that it’s not only important what you wear, but it’s also important to be aware.”

The Twitterverse, unsurprisingly, is not happy with Cole’s 140-character missive. A fake account — @KennethColePR, à la @BPGlobalPR — has even cropped up, mocking the designer with such tweets as: “Our new slingback pumps would make Anne Frank come out of hiding! #KennethColeTweets.”

What do you think of Cole’s gaffe? Should he take down the tweet? Weigh in, in the comments section.

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Searching for this footage, however, often feels like the modern equivalent to the classic needle in haystack dilemma. A search for “protests in Egypt” returns about 6,000 results that include news casts, fake footage, and videos of solidarity protests in different countries.

YouTube asked Storyful, a real-time curation company, to help make it easier for YouTube users to find the most meaningful videos of the uprising by putting together playlists for each day of the protests.

The one-year-old startup uses a proprietary search tool to find important news content on social networks. Its team, mostly comprised of journalists, reviews the results of these searches in order to narrow them down to newsworthy content, which it then passes on to its news outlet clients.

As citizen journalism on social networks becomes an increasingly important source of news, Storyful is betting that professional curation of those networks is just as valuable.

“There is no algorithm for journalism,” says David Clinch, Storyful’s editorial director.

By choosing to experiment with Storyful, YouTube (master of the algorithm) seems to agree.

The social video site has taken on a curative role during other crises like the earthquake in Haiti and the unrest in Iran, and it launched the channel that Storyful is helping fill — CitizenTube — last June.

Long before Storyful was on board, YouTube staff and students at the Graduate Schoool of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley worked together to track breaking news on CitizenTube through uploaded video. And this effort, at least on the part of YouTube, has continued.

“Our team is identifying relevant videos primarily via keywords in multiple languages related to the protest (i.e. Egypt, or using the January 25 tag, or they say protest in Arabic),” a YouTube spokesperson said via e-mail.

Storyful’s staff adds a touch of editorial discretion to that search process, quickly locating videos relevant to breaking news stories and verifying that the footage is consistent with how it is represented.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Al Jazeera English

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If you’re planning to grab the newly available Verizon-flavored iPhone, chances are you’re new to the wondrous world of iOS, and therefore in need of a solid list of must-have apps to get your Apple experience off to a great start.

Assuming you’re already going to be making a bee-line for the essential social networking apps (as well as, cough, Mashable’s offering), we’ve selected some excellent apps that we think will best showcase your new device’s abilities from other areas, such as photography, gaming, entertainment and productivity.

Although this is clearly a top 10 that can be endlessly debated (and please go to it in the comments), see below for our personal faves.

1. Instagram

This photo sharing app boasts compatibility with Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Foursquare, and has lots of fun filters. Instagram isn't just a great way to share your own photos, it's a great way to see what photos your friends are taking. As a freebie, this app is a no-brainer. It's the kind of quality offering that has made the App Store such as huge success.

Cost: Free

2. Cut the Rope

Starring Om Nom, a little green monster that loves candy, Cut the Rope is a surprisingly addictive physics game in which you are required to cut said rope in order to drop a sweet into Om Nom's mouth. Despite the cutesy premise and child-like graphics, the game has received some serious accolades and, as an App Store exclusive (for now), is a bit of a jewel in the iPhone's casual gaming crown.

Cost: $0.99

3. GoodReader

The iPhone 4 has built-in PDF support, but GoodReader works better for large files and has many more features, including support for some MS Office formats. It's a great all-purpose document viewer, file manager, PDF reader and annotator, so if you're planning to do more with your iPhone than play games and take pics, this will start you off on the right track.

Cost: $2.99

4. Hipstamatic

Apple's iPhone app of the year for 2010 turns the mobile into a toy camera. More than just a filter pack, the photographs taken with the app have a genuine toy camera feel, with options to adjust the film, lenses and even type of flash effect. In fact, you can even order analog prints of your snapshots from within the app.

Cost: $1.99

5. Reeder

Are you an RSS feed fan? Then swallow the cost and download Reeder, one of the very best RSS apps around. The app makes Google Reader finally worth using on mobile, and browsing is easy thanks to the intuitive controls. Besides catching up on your daily dose of news, you can share items to Twitter and Facebook.

Cost: $2.99

6. HippoRemote

An app that really demonstrates what the iPhone is capable of, HippoRemote acts as a remote control for your PC, Mac or Apple TV. It's pretty smart as a companion device, especially if you have a laptop or desktop hooked up to your TV. The touchpad on it controls the mouse, there are programmable macros for certain actions, and it's a snap to set up. If you can't afford the price tag, or don't need all that functionality, then Apple's free Remote app also works quite well for controlling an Apple TV or iTunes.

Cost: $4.99

7. Netflix

If you're a Netflix "Unlimited" member, then this app is a must with a capital M. It'll allow you to manage your Instant Queue from your iPhone. Better still, you can stream TV shows and movies whenever you want, and the really clever part is that you can resume watching where you left off on your TV or PC. For non-Netflixers, the Hulu Plus iPhone app is also worth a look for paid-up subscribers of that service.

Cost: Free

8. 8mm Vintage Camera

Think of 8mm as Hipstamatic for video. It has "live view" functionality so you can see what you're shooting, and there's even "projector" sounds to achieve authentically aged footage. You can apply cool filters and effects to the video you shoot and then save it or upload it straight to YouTube. The app is easy to use and the results are surprisingly good.

Cost: $1.99

9. Fruit Ninja

Not quite as cute as Cut the Rope, but no less addictive, Fruit Ninja brings some wholesome, tasty fruit slicing fun, and uses the touchscreen to great advantage. We've seen 4-year-olds and 40-year-olds get sucked into this game -- it's fun, messy and boasts great satisfying sound effects. Three million downloads later, App Store customers seem to agree.

Cost: $0.99

10. Google Mobile App

If you're coming to the Verizon iPhone from a background in Android, this app may will help with the transition. The free Google Mobile App will alleviate any homesickness with Google Goggles, search by voice, the My Location map shortcut and various Google-powered search options. Quick links to other useful Google applications also make this a worthwhile download for non-Android folk.

Cost: Free

Mashable writer Christina Warren also contributed to this post.

More iPhone Resources from Mashable:

---

- 10 Great iPhone Apps for Growing a Garden
- 5 Excellent E-Card iPhone Apps
- 5 Fantastic Free iPhone E-book Reader Apps
- 10 Essential Money-Saving iPhone Apps
- 10 Best iPhone Apps for Dog Lovers

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The Daily, the iPad-only tablet “newspaper” released Thursday, has an odd relationship with the web: It allows both subscribers and non-subscribers to view web-based versions of all of its articles for free, but it doesn’t offer a convenient index (a.k.a. homepage) for perusing them.

So Andy Baio, formerly the CTO of Kickstarter and now a project director at Expert Labs, decided to do The Daily a favor: Compile all of the stories published each day by and post them to Tumblr.

Now, everyone can read The Daily, and even subscribers can access back issues — which they weren’t able to do previously.

The problem, of course, is that The Daily doesn’t want users accessing its content for free; it wants people to pay for the iPad edition.

“Frankly, I’m… very curious about the legal implications,” he wrote, pointing out that his e-mail is listed at the top of the page should any of News Corp’s lawyers care to get in touch.

[via @pkafka]

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That’s the premise behind an interactive technology Kraft and Intel recently introduced called the “Meal Planning Solution.” The kiosk-like display, which is likely to show up in at least one retail location this year, is meant to help weary shoppers find new recipes during last-minute grocery trips.

Forget filling out a profile of favorite recipes and ingredients, though — this bad boy scans your face to figure out what you may be interested in cooking. For even more customized results, a user can choose to pull in purchase history data through her grocery store loyalty card, her shopping list on Kraft’s iFood Assistant mobile app, or her recipe-browsing history on kraftrecipes.com.

To get a better look at the research and technology behind the solution center, we spoke with Don King, Kraft’s VP of retail experience, Chris O'Malley, Intel’s director of retail marketing for the embedded and communications group, and Jose Avalos, Intel’s director of retail and digital signage for the embedded and communications group. Read on for an in-depth look at how the solution center works and what Kraft and Intel aim to accomplish with it.

What’s the Point?

The idea of having a machine scan your face and then scoop up all the products it tells you to buy sounds weird, to say the least. So, when we heard about this solution center, we were a bit skeptical of its usefulness.

It turns out there are some solid applications. Intel and Kraft were collaborating over much of 2010 to build the display, and in doing so, they’ve come to solid ground on what problems it’s trying to solve for four groups of individuals:

• Retailers: “In terms of managing their revenue on the top line, for retailers, it’s all about basket size and foot traffic, or returned trips to that particular store,” says King. “That lends itself to having a retailer provide a service that nobody else offers.”
• Consumers: “Everybody’s got shopping lists, but they tend to be disorganized with a sticky note here or a scrap of paper there,” King noted. “Approximately 70% of the time, somebody will go into a store to find items for dinner that night, and they haven’t completely decided what they’re going to make. So, they’re buying the items on the fly and then going home to make them. Lastly, the average cook isn’t, frankly, that accomplished — they have a mental Rolodex of seven to 10 things they know how to make well enough that it’s not stressful for them and that will be good enough that the family will eat them and enjoy them. The question, then, is what can we do to help with that meal planning process?”
• Kraft: “Our objectives are to increase shareholder value of our products by selling more of them,” explains King. “We have an outstanding resource with our Kraft’s Kitchens Group that develops recipes for our products, alone and in combinations with our others brands and others. We’d love to get those recipes into people’s hands as they need them.”
• Intel: “At Intel, we think the technology — anonymous video analytics along with the immersive digital experience in-store, has huge potential,” says O’Malley. “It’s one thing for Intel to say that, but to actually find key brands and retailers in the industry who also think that this ability to personalize an experience to the end-customer is important, is more compelling.”

With those goals in mind, Kraft and Intel moved forward with creating the solution center.

Behind the Video Scanning Technology

The most unique selling point for the Meal Planning Solution is its integration of anonymous video analytics software, which detects age and gender to determine which recipes a person may be interested in viewing. “The technology is approximately 86% accurate in determining gender,” Avalos explain. “For age, it depends on the bracket. For young adults and adults, the accuracy is approximately 70%. For children and seniors, the accuracy is approximately 80%.”

Avalos got technical for us about exactly how the video scanning technology works:

“Sensors send real-time video feeds to Intel's anonymous video analytics (AVA) software, Intel AIM Suite, which scans a square NxN pixel region across the video frame to detect whether it contains an arrangement of pixels that resembles the general pattern of a human face. This entails looking for coarse intensity information such as eye regions being darker than the rest of the face, the nose region being brighter than the rest of the face, the two dark eye regions being roughly on the same horizontal line, etc. For all candidate frames that pass the above criteria, the frame is considered to contain a face, and impression data can be gathered.

“Intel AIM Suite face detection algorithms have statistically learned the pattern of a human face by being trained on an audience database of thousands of pictures of human faces,” he continues. “The demographics of a face can be determined using a similar process to how a face is found, where the patterns being looked at correspond to male or female faces, or certain age brackets (children, young adults, adults, seniors). The algorithms have learned which face features have the strongest weighting for each gender and age bracket. The combination of various facial features such as eye positioning, nose shape, cheek bones, and overall facial structure are among the variables that are taken into consideration during this process.

“All sensor video data is processed and destroyed in real-time. No images or uniquely identifiable information are stored.”

Avalos also noted that the sensor also collects data on how many people use the solution center and the amount of time a person spends at it.

Mobile Integration & Loyalty Cards

While age and gender may theoretically help determine what a person enjoys eating, those personal traits really just scrape the surface. You can’t tell if a person is a vegetarian or eats kosher with that information, for example, as Kraft and Intel are well aware.

Through the solution center’s interface, users can drill down to dietary preferences if necessary. Furthermore, if a user chooses to connect her frequent shopper card, her purchasing history will be used to improve recommendations — if the algorithm works as King explained, it should only make recommendations for similar food choices.

Users can also choose to connect their iFood Assistant mobile app and kraftrecipes.com information to the Meal Planning Solution, so that it considers their shopping lists and recipe-browsing habits. The iFood Assistant app is available on iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Window 7 — user information can be pulled into the solution center by simply scanning a 2D barcode at the kiosk.

Future Plans

There are a few features that the kiosk currently lacks, but that King expressed an interest in possibly integrating in the future. First, it doesn’t have a feedback loop — there’s no way for users to note if a recommended recipe was satisfying or not. This addition would help improve the recommendation algorithm. Secondly, Kraft is working on adding social sharing buttons so that users can share recipes on Twitter and Facebook while they are interacting at the kiosk.

O’Malley, of Intel, stressed that the solution center was completely built on Intel’s off-the-shelf technology, and that “there’s nothing futuristic about it.” The product could be ready for official launch right away.

King confirmed that we should see the first retail installation this year. The Kraft team is currently in the process of identifying the right retail partner for an in-store test. Once a retailer and location is determined, the team will be able to customize the look and feel of the product to fit within that merchant’s environment.

Your Thoughts

Check out the Meal Planning Solution in action via the video below, courtesy of Fast Company, and let us know what you think about the product in the comments below. Would you use it to determine what you’re cooking?

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More About: business, Kraft, Kraft Foods, MARKETING, retail, trending

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If you’ve pre-ordered the device or are planning to make the switch from AT&T, fire up your webcam and tell us why by using the assignment page on iReport.

On the other hand, if you’re not getting the iPhone in hopes of getting a newer version (iPhone 5?) or an alternative device, let us know. We’ll also be looking for your photo and video reviews if you get the device next week.

As with other iReports — which range in topics from the unrest in Egypt to blizzards in the midwest — your photos and videos could be featured on CNN, as well as here on Mashable.

This is the first project in what will be an ongoing partnership between Mashable and CNN iReport, the citizen journalism project launched by the network back in 2006. We're delighted to be working together and welcome your ideas for future projects in the comments.

Submit Your Verizon iPhone Story to CNN iReport and Mashable!

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Cox Media Group digital posted an opening Wednesday for a “Social Monetization Manager (SMM)” — someone who will focus on a strategy and implementation that will drive revenue to the company’s 100+ TV, radio and newspaper properties.

Although Cox is one of the first news media companies to hire for a position of its kind, this may signal a larger shift for news companies experimenting with ways to monetize social media. In some ways, Cox is making a big bet that social media will play a big role in its revenue strategy — at least one big enough to require such a position. The position is part of a further shift in company strategy to invest in digital, and includes a recent structure shift that unified its digital and corporate business strategy groups to one team.

According to the LinkedIn listing, the person will have a blend of digital savvy and sales expertise:

“The right candidate will have a blend of digital media savvy, social media knowledge and first hand sales experience. While social will be the primary focus, the SMM will also have working knowledge regarding email/permission marketing and mobile/SMS packages. A sense of experimentation is a must for this individual as this segment of the business is relatively new, underdeveloped and without a prior history to build upon. To be successful, they will work with the product managers for the three platforms (social media, mobile, email) to guide development to ensure a sustainable business model and sales strategy. They will work across the entire organization to support both local sales teams and corporate strategy work.”

Alan Segal, senior manager of business intelligence and platforms at Cox Media Group digital, said for the last couple of years, social media has had a clear place of value in editorial, customer service and marketing. Many of Cox’s properties had people who would focus on these areas with Cox’s Social Media Manager Mathilde Piard helping facilitate best practices to individuals that manage social at individual properties.

In the last year, Piard began fielding more questions around monetizing social media from individual properties. More were interested in experimenting with different ways to use social to boost revenue. But because Piard was already managing social media implementation across editorial and other channels, Segal said it wasn’t feasible for her to also be responsible for monetization efforts, at which point it made sense to add someone to focus on monetization.

Though the company has done some experiments thus far, Segal expects the social media monetization manager to rethink the current approach and strategy.

“We need to get beyond the idea that a sponsored tweet is going to cut it and get many different tests in the field to see what will work,” Segal said. “Social has the potential to be really creative in the approach and we need to take advantage of that.”

Segal said more media companies will start to hire for such a position because social offers are different from what companies are used to selling in the digital space. Everything from the available inventory to the package has to be rethought and often tailored for each advertiser, he said, and that requires a specialist who thinks about how to leverage the space.

“Not everyone will do it, but I’d predict those that make the investment will get a much greater return,” he said.

Allen Klosowski, the social/mobile business manager at The Denver Post, has been at his post with similar responsibilities for a year now.

“A formal structure and strategy for a media company's business approach to social media is critical,” Klosowski said.

As a business, any such efforts should have goals and accountability to determine what value the efforts are providing to the business, he said.

His day-to-day activity varies from consulting with potential advertisers to designing programs that enable the advertisers to get the most exposure on social media. This month, the company is working with a local University to provide a free tuition for a semester of college through a Facebook promotion. In turn, the University is getting a exposure to their program through The Post’s Twitter & Facebook audience.

More About: advertising, business, MARKETING, monetization, sales, social media

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The commercial theme marketplace for self-hosted WordPress sites has exploded in the past few years. Moreover, the availability of various WordPress themes — commercial or otherwise — has contributed to increased adoption of WordPress across the web.

It makes sense that Automattic would want to bring some of the most popular WordPress.org premium themes to WordPress.com customers.

Tumblr added the ability for users to purchase and install premium themes in March 2010.

The first two premium themes that will be available on WordPress.com are Headlines by Woo Themes and Shelf from The Theme Foundry.

These themes have been available for WordPress.org users for some time and are both high quality and attractive.

Headlines is $45 and a magazine-style theme, perfect for users who have lots of content. It features 15 different color schemes, drop-down custom menus and a featured post slider.

Shelf, a tumblelog style theme, is $68. It takes advantage of WordPress.com’s new post formats feature (think Tumblr-style icons and formatting for specific types of posts) and has a fun horizontal scrolling design.

To purchase premium themes, WordPress.com users can either go to the Themes Showcase and click on the premium themes, or click on the “Premium” label in the “Browse Themes” section of the Themes menu in Appearances.

It’s interesting to see WordPress.com leverage the commercial theme space. When commercial themes first hit the scene back in 2008, there was a certain amount of unrest in parts of the WordPress community. Most of those issues — which really revolved around licensing — were settled some time ago, but the commercial themes space has, until now, remained untouched on WordPress.com.

For WordPress.com users, this is a great way to get a more unique-looking blog. For WordPress theme developers, it opens some potential business opportunities.

Would you buy a premium WordPress.com theme or would you prefer to buy a theme for a self-hosted WordPress.org installation?

More About: automattic, premium themes, WordPress, WordPress themes, WordPress.com

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