Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Half of Verizon Smartphone Owners Say They’ll Switch to iPhone” |
- Half of Verizon Smartphone Owners Say They’ll Switch to iPhone
- No Dribbble Invite? No Problem, Try Favwork
- This Is Why You Always Pay Your Web Designer
- Where to Find Mashable at Social Media Week 2011
- 7 Years of Facebook: A Retrospective
- Groupon Strikes Back at LivingSocial With 50% Off B&N
- Angry Birds Valentine’s Edition Coming Next Week [PICS]
- Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Fan Video Edition
- Google (and Microsoft) Respond to the “Bing Sting” Controversy [INTERVIEW]
- Join Mashable for Two Days of Events at SXSWi
- Download Railroad: Why Canada Wants Your Bandwidth
- Why the Music Industry Must Change Its Strategy to Reach Digital Natives
- Take a Free 3D Fly-Through of Super Bowl Stadium [VIDEO]
- Facebook Is Moving to Menlo Park
- Al Jazeera Launches Twitter & Meetup Campaigns To Bring Broadcast To U.S.
- Mitsubishi Shows Off Enormous 360-Degree Screen [PICS & VIDEO]
- Motorola Offers Sneak Peek of Xoom Super Bowl Ad [VIDEO]
- Window Cling Prank Lampoons Kenneth Cole’s #Cairo Gaffe
- HOW TO: Pick the Best TV for Watching the Super Bowl [COMIC]
- HOW TO: Design & Program a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business
- Colbert Makes Fun of Bing for “Copycat” Search Results [VIDEO]
- How Can You Support World Cancer Day Online?
- New York Times & Guardian Editors Will Support Assange if Prosecuted
- Top 5 Social Media Game Plans for Super Bowl Advertisers
- Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters
- iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Lead Verizon to Sales Record
- This Morning’s Top 4 Stories in Social Media, Tech & Mobile
- Twitter Counter Acquires Popular Twitter Stats Provider Twitaholic
- Why the Web Is Useless in Developing Countries – And How to Fix It
- Mattel Launches Digital Campaign Aiming To Reunite Barbie & Ken
| Half of Verizon Smartphone Owners Say They’ll Switch to iPhone Posted: 04 Feb 2011 11:25 PM PST      In a recent survey, around half of Verizon smartphone users said they planned to switch to the Verizon iPhone when it becomes available next week. Market research firm uSamp recorded the responses of more than 700 current smartphone owners on the Verizon network. According to those responses, around 66% of BlackBerry users on Verizon plan to switch, and around 44% of Android smartphone users plan to spring for the iPhone 4 on their current network. Altogether, 54% of the Verizon-using, smartphone-owning respondents said they planned to switch to the Verizon iPhone. When asked why they would switch, respondents cited the iOS mobile interface (60%), the device’s memory (43%), the camera (41%), the iPhone media features (51%), and the web browser (58%). uSamp also said 26% of current AT&T iPhone users would switch to Verizon. In Mashable‘s own poll, we found that a great many AT&T iPhone users plan to switch to Verizon, too. With a sample size of more than 5,000 respondents, 30% said they would switch as soon as possible, and 15% said they would switch as soon as their current contract was expired. A further 23% said they’d switch when the next version of the iPhone became available on Verizon. All this phone-hopping and network-switching is great news for Apple and Verizon; however, the new bandwidth requirements on Verizon’s network might put a damper on new Verizon iPhone users’ experience. The company plans to throttle download speeds for the top 5% of its users — many or most of whom are likely to be on the new iPhones. If you’re a current Android or BlackBerry user on the Verizon network, do you plan to get a Verizon iPhone 4? Tell us why or why not in the comments. More About: iphone, verizon, Verizon iPhone For more Mobile coverage:
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| No Dribbble Invite? No Problem, Try Favwork Posted: 04 Feb 2011 09:58 PM PST   Design-snippet-sharing sites are all the rage right now, but for some sites and some designers, exclusivity can be a problem. If you’re looking for a way to share bits of designs for feedback (or vanity) but you’re still waiting in the queue for an invite-only site, you might want to give Favwork a try. The concept of the site is delightfully simple: Just upload a small- to medium-sized JPEG of your current favorite piece of work, and tell the world why you like it. Other users can comment on, like, share and link to your favorite; and you can browse popular images, new favorites or images that you’ve liked. To say that Favwork is a clone of the so-hot-right-now Dribbble would be an understatement of the greatest magnitude. In the following screenshot, you can see Favwork above and Dribbble below; while not identical to the last pixel, there’s certainly a heavy amount of “inspiration” going on there. However, Favwork does build upon Dribbble’s offering in a way that’s intriguing and likely to be popular with quite a few user-designers out there. First, you don’t need an invite to join and use the site, including uploading your images. Second, Dribbble only allows designers to upload 400 × 300 pixel images; Favwork increases the limit to 600 x 400 pixels. Mind you, you’ll have to make sure the image doesn’t exceed those boundaries; unlike Dribbble, Favwork won’t let you crop images in-app. Like Dribbble, each image shared has its own comment thread, permalink, Twitter sharing button. All Favwork is missing is the “rebound” feature, which allows users to spin off and remix one another’s creations. Here’s the Favwork catch: You’re only allowed to post one piece at a time. Dribbble limits the number of “shots” allowed in its own way, but designers can still throw up a reasonable set of images to flesh out their portfolio. Favwork creator UK dev/designer Stu Green writes on the site, “The idea is that you upload just one item of work (your favorite) and change it every now and then. When you change your work, your old work will be archived, and your new work will be shown on the Latest Work page so people can like it.” And by “archived,” he means “gone for good.” The concept is very “what have you done for me lately?”, not so much “check out my wall of trophies.” It’s an interesting and fresh approach, one that could lead to quite different user behaviors than those seen on other sites. And again, Favwork’s concept is completely democratic. As Green writes in an overt nod in Dribbble’s general direction, “Favwork is open to anyone who has creative work they want to share… There is no ‘invite only’ pre-requisite or exclusivity for joining; anyone can join, and your work will appear on the home page if you get enough likes.” If you’re into design but not so much into exclusivity, give Favwork a shot, and let us know what you think about the concept and the execution. More About: design, dribbble, favwork, snippet For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| This Is Why You Always Pay Your Web Designer Posted: 04 Feb 2011 06:32 PM PST   The cattier corners of the web have been tittering over a certain chiropractor’s website gone awry, courtesy of a disgruntled and allegedly unpaid web designer. The designer in question, whose identity is currently (and fortunately for said designer) unknown, created a website for a chiropractic firm, Winona Chiropractic Center, and also provided hosting services the site. When the firm allegedly “failed to pay any of their total web design bill, despite repeated attempts by their web design agency to collect,” the designer, who claimed to have “a childish sense of humor,” hijacked the site as his or her own personal billboard of bitterness. “Please note that I have waited years for this business to pay,” stated the “new and improved” version of the site. “I have hosted their site for free since about 2007. This is me giving up.” The rant continued, “Personally, I wouldn’t trust a doctor of any kind who couldn’t pony up for what, in the grand scheme of things, is a small charge for their web design. Do what you will, though.” The site gathered some attention starting with a Reddit thread or two; but apparently, the piqued digital creative responsible suffered from an acute fit of remorse late in the afternoon because the page has now been entirely removed. The Internet being the slice of magic that it is, we’re able to reproduce the page here: Click for large version. We certainly do agree that the designer’s actions were childish, but the long-simmering rage that builds when deadbeat clients refuse to pay their bills can cause folks to go a little bonkers after a few months, to say nothing of a couple years. Web devs and designers, we want to know, has a client ever refused to honor your invoice? Vote in the poll, and in the comments, let us know how you handled the situation — especially if your solution was particularly mature, effective or at least funny. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, clintspencer More About: clients, web design, winona chiropractic For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Where to Find Mashable at Social Media Week 2011 Posted: 04 Feb 2011 04:48 PM PST   Social Media Week 2011 kicks off on Monday, Feb. 7 in nine cities worldwide, including Mashable‘s two office locations: New York City and San Francisco. Just like social networks, the program has exploded in the past year and is expected to be the biggest, most diverse Social Media Week since the event was first held in 2009. Panel topics will cover everything from the new age of marketing and advertising to the rise of social good and interactive entertainment. Mashable staff will be there in full force, reporting, attending and presenting at a variety of panels in both New York and San Francisco throughout the week. Here’s a look at the panels we’ll be participating in as well as a few we have our eye on. Hope to see you there! Mashable at New York Social Media Week Tuesday, Feb. 8
Thursday Feb. 10
Friday, Feb. 11
Mashable at San Francisco Social Media Week Tuesday, Feb. 8
Other Social Media Week Events to Watch New York
San Francisco
Following Social Media Week Events Online Not in one of Social Media Week’s nine locations? No worries. KickApps has created Facebook pages for each city hosting Social Media Week events. You’ll find photos, livestreams, real-time conversations and more. You can also track tweets from across the globe by searching hashtag #smw11 on Twitter. To keep tabs on Mashable’s NextUp NYC event, follow the hashtag #jmash starting at 6:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 8. A livestream will be posted on Mashable shortly before the event, which you can RSVP to on our Facebook event page. Are you attending Social Media Week 2011? What events are you most looking forward to? Tell us your top picks in the comments below. More About: mashable, SMW 2011, SMW NYC, SMW SF, social media week, social media week 2011, social media week new york, social media week new york city, social media week san francisco, social media week SF, writers For more Social Media coverage:
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| 7 Years of Facebook: A Retrospective Posted: 04 Feb 2011 03:03 PM PST   Facebook, one of the biggest websites on the planet, celebrates its seventh anniversary on Friday. Through the years, the social network has transformed from a college-only social hub to the most popular website in the world. Five hundred million users, billions of pageviews and a never-ending supply of embarrassing status message updates after its launch, we’ve decided to take a trip down memory lane. Back in February 2004, did anyone have any idea that a college social networking site could redefine the Internet era as we know it? We doubt it. Mashable created this gallery to highlight the biggest Facebook events (and controversies) over the years. Share your thoughts on Facebook’s last seven years in the comments — as well as where you think the site will be in the years to come.
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| Groupon Strikes Back at LivingSocial With 50% Off B&N Posted: 04 Feb 2011 02:26 PM PST   Competition has been heating up between the two biggest daily deals sites, Groupon and LivingSocial, over the past several weeks, as the two vie for investor funding, Super Bowl ad placements and deals from local and national retailers. In mid-January, LivingSocial offered a $20 Amazon gift card for $10, shortly after the latter became a major stakeholder in the company. The deal was eagerly shared by the press and consumers alike (40% of purchases came from shared links), resulting in 1.3 million vouchers (and $13 million in gross sales), an 80% increase in traffic and a 33% increase in membership to 20 million for the month. Groupon had 40 million subscribers as of December. In an attempt to counterbalance LivingSocial’s Amazon offer, Groupon sent out a “Super Groupon” Friday offering $20 of Barnes & Noble merchandise for $10. While Barnes & Noble doesn’t offer as broad a selection as Amazon does, book lovers should have no trouble spending their vouchers. Those who cash in on the deal will have until April 11 to use their Groupon; after that period, the value of the voucher will decrease to $10. Vouchers are limited to one per person. More About: barnes & noble, groupon, LivingSocial For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Angry Birds Valentine’s Edition Coming Next Week [PICS] Posted: 04 Feb 2011 02:07 PM PST   Angry Birds Valentine’s Edition is on the way, and now we have leaked screenshots to give you a sneak peek. If you’re getting tired of playing the winter-themed edition of theAngry Birds Seasons game, now you can update to the current season with the Valentine’s Day Edition, garnished with a preponderance of pink and a few hearts here and there, but still featuring similar game play. According to All Things Digital, the update will be available next week for iPhone, iPad and Android smartphones, just as we predicted months ago. Add that to the Angry Birds Rio edition coming up in March, and it looks like Angry Birds fans will have enough sling-shotting avian projectiles to last well into the spring. Having trouble understanding the gut-level appeal of Angry Birds? There are numerous psychoanalytical theories floating around. A sampling: The game is a challenge, each game is short — facilitating “entertainment snacking,” it has amusing sound effects and simple rules (says the Wall Street Journal). Its 1-to-3-star achievement structure accommodates different skill levels, it “feels important,” it mentions anger although not exactly confronting it, and finally, the prediction of trajectory using rubber bands is somehow pleasing to the human psyche. But think about it: What does anger have to do with Valentine’s Day? Any other reasons why this game is so inexplicably addicting? Hogs and Kisses HD Version Special for the iPad? Heart Shapes Hearts, easily broken. Careful! Pink Trees Made of cotton candy? Cupid Pigs They're cute, but make no sense. More About: android, Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Valentine's Edition, iPhone games For more Media coverage:
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| Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Fan Video Edition Posted: 04 Feb 2011 02:05 PM PST Everyone is a fan of something (unless one is a horrifying, soulless human being who lacks the ability to feel), and oftentimes, that fan-ism manifests in, well, fanaticism. YouTube, to be sure, is an excellent forum in which to showcase one’s fanaticism, which is why this week’s roundup theme is: fan videos. The theme in question was chosen by Austrian musician and producer Wolfram, whose new video (which is premiering right here on Mashable at this very second) “Fireworks” deals with that very subject, mimicking those glorious, fan-made videos that so oft populate YouTube’s more rabid climes. “Fireworks” is the first single off of Wolfram’s self-titled debut album, and it features New Yorked-based band, Hercules & Love Affair. Check it out above, and then head on down to that there gallery for some (more-than-slightly embarrassing) tribute vids. NB: Said video features some NSFW images, in the style of many a music video. Emma Watson Fan VideoWolfram: Baby don't hurt me. It does. Crazy Shakira FanAda Ospina: I'm sure this fan didn't want this posted. At least she got a hug for her attempt. 3-Year-Old Crying Over Justin BieberSarah Kessler: Also see happy sequel. Sanjaya Malakar, "You Really Got Me"Brian Dresher: American Idol + Sanjaya + Crying Girl Fan = crazy TV ratings! She makes her appearance at around the 20-second mark. Emily Howard From Little Britain With StingLauren Rubin: Sting asks the audience for a lady to sing with him on stage at a performance, and is shocked by the harmony that ensues. Fanography: BritneyErica Swallow: My friend, Matt Stopera, now a Buzzfeed editor, was deemed Britney Spears' biggest fan on MTV's Fanography back in the day. I love his floor sequence at 4:01. LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! (NSFW language)Vadim Lavrusik: This is one die-hard fan. It doesn't get much funnier than this. Raiders of the Lost Ark: The AdaptationBrenna Ehrlich: Some kids made a shot-by-shot remake of this flick in the '80s. I just exploded from the radness. Utah State's Wild Bill vs. Nevada 2011Zachary Sniderman: To each his own. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, 1MoreCreative More About: favorite-youtube-videos, music, video, wolfram, youtube For more Video coverage:
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| Google (and Microsoft) Respond to the “Bing Sting” Controversy [INTERVIEW] Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:55 PM PST   The mastermind behind Google’s “Bing Sting” operation has a message for Microsoft: Stop stealing our search results. Google and Microsoft have been engaged in a public fight ever since a Search Engine Land published a report describing an extensive operation Google conducted to prove that Bing was copying its search results. Microsoft responded by saying it doesn’t copy Google’s search results. Google countered with a response of its own. That response was written by Google Fellow Amit Singhal, the head of Google’s search algorithm and ranking team, and he’s the man who led the “Bing Sting” that sparked the controversy. Yesterday, NBC’s Scott McGrew, Forbes‘s Kym McNicholas and I had the chance to interview Singhal on the Bing controversy on NBC Bay Area’s Press:Here Singhal explained exactly what happened, detailing how Google first stumbled upon the issue and how it set up a “scientific experiment” to find out whether Microsoft was using Google’s search results to improve its own. Google concluded that Microsoft was using a combination of IE8 and the Bing Toolbar to record what people were searching for on Google and which results they were clicking on. “All we want is Microsoft to stop this practice,” Singhal said during the interview. Microsoft wanted to tell its side of the story, though, so it took the unusual step of sending a taped response to Press:Here to respond to the interview. “I want to categorically state that Bing does not copy any search competitor. Period. Full stop,” responded Microsoft’s Stefan Weitz. “We do use clickstream data, which is data that customers across the world have opted in to send to Microsoft to improve our products.” It’s a fascinating interview that dives not only into the Google-Bing controversy, but how Google will change with Larry Page as CEO and whether Google can stay competitive against the likes Facebook. The video of the full interview is below, so you can come to your own conclusions. Amit Singhal Interview: Part 1Amit Singhal Interview: Part 2Singhal: “All We Want Is Microsoft To Stop This Practice”More About: Amit Singhal, Ben Parr, bing, Bing Sting, Forbes, Google, interview, microsoft, nbc, Press:here For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Join Mashable for Two Days of Events at SXSWi Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:52 PM PST   Join Mashable as we expand our annual MashBash SXSWi offering to two full days at this year’s SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas. Located at Buffalo Billiards, the Mashable SXSWi House is hosting a variety of public and private events ranging from VIP dinners to open networking opportunities and parties, including the third annual MashBash SXSWi party, on Sunday, March 13. The MashBash will feature music from DJ Chicken George, games and networking with SXSW attendees and members of Mashable‘s editorial and business teams. RSVP Info:The event is open to all 21+ SXSWi badge holders. Please RSVP on Eventbrite at sxswi.eventbrite.com ![Register for Mashable House SXSWi 2011 [PUBLIC EVENTS] in Austin, TX on Eventbrite](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s_fopNKSsCgSL8UPqQ6MgjmuQjyHGSc6dVqQU-j5D0CHx3E20K_mkfp5fqJ8qoiqu5_B_UizIikY-nWqtoiw2lwWyrDAAt7qOXj5j6CExri1wbCPCb71u0SBs=s0-d) Full schedule Thanks to our sponsorsCome check out the Pepsi MAX truck experience at 3rd St. and San Jacinto. Follow @PepsiMAX on Twitter for the daily schedule including locations for exclusive film screenings, huge concerts, happy hours, BBQs, and giveaways! And, well, lots of free soda.  Sony Electronics is a leading provider of audio/video electronics and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony is noted for a wide range of consumer audio-visual products, such as the BRAVIA® LCD and 3D high-definition televisions, Cyber-shot® and α (alpha) digital cameras, Handycam® camcorder and Walkman® personal stereo. Sony is also an innovator in the IT arena with its VAIO® personal computers; and in high-definition professional broadcast and production equipment, highlighted by the XDCAM® HD and CineAlta™ lines of cameras and camcorders, and the SXRD™ 4K digital projector. Join the Sony Conversation at Sony.com/Blog.  If your website has a play button, it belongs on .TV. Stand out from the crowd with a .TV domain name; tell people you create and share great video content on your site even before they visit. Come visit us in the Mashable House at Buffalo Billiards on March 13 -14 for a chance to register a FREE .TV domain name. And, mark your calendars: the .TV AUCTION starts March 9th. Bid on desirable, sought-after domain names including air.tv, stocks.tv, who.tv, and more at moniker.com/tv or register the .TV of your choice for while you're there. Sponsorship opportunities are available via sponsorships@mashable.com. The event is open to all 21+ SXSWi badge holders. Please RSVP on Eventbrite! More About: Events, mashbash sxswi, sxsw, sxswi For more Social Media coverage:
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| Download Railroad: Why Canada Wants Your Bandwidth Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:42 PM PST   If the idea of shipping supplies to a needy nation makes you think of famine appeals for war-torn African countries, here’s an example closer to home. An impromptu website called Canadian Download has spent the last few days taking hundreds of orders for large files, which it then burns onto DVD and ships north of the border for free. Has Canada run out of bandwidth? Not exactly, but it may be about to get a whole lot more expensive. A recent decision by the country’s telecom regulator said that ISPs could start charging based on how much their customers used the Internet. In a country where Netflix streaming has caught on, this was bound to have a major impact on users’ wallets (and was seen in some quarters as a way for cable company ISPs to strike back against the Netflix threat). Many Canadians were outraged, the government vowed to overturn the decision, and on Thursday regulators promised to review it. But the threat of usage-based billing remains. It has a particular resonance in the U.S., where net neutrality advocates fear that large Internet providers may start doing something similar — and where a vague FCC ruling has done nothing to abate that fear. (Just yesterday, Verizon said it would start slowing Internet access for the top 5% of mobile users, effective immediately.) So the founders of a security camera company in Florida decided to take action. They launched the free Canadian Download service on Tuesday, hoping to establish a kind of underground railroad to send data north of the border, should ISPs start gouging customers. In its first day of operation, the site downloaded more than 100 GB of requested information. (Naturally, it refuses to ship anything related to porn or piracy.) By yesterday, the non-profit site was looking at a cost of $1,000 to burn and ship disks. But the founders vowed to continue eating the costs. “As a company, we care because a metered Internet in Canada is a threat to entrepreneurship everywhere,” said an update on the site. It could also be a canny investment in the future. If the Canadian regulators’ decision is overturned, and US-based ISPs continue to inch towards a metered Internet, we may see data disks being shipped in the opposite direction some day. For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Why the Music Industry Must Change Its Strategy to Reach Digital Natives Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:33 PM PST   Mark Mulligan is vice president and research director at Forrester Research, serving consumer product strategy professionals. He is a leading expert on music and digital media. The music industry’s fortunes (or lack thereof) are familiar to most. The CD is suffering one of the longest death rattles in consumer product history, and it is becoming painfully clear that digital downloads are no knight in shining armor about to whisk up the fallen music business and ride off into the revenue growth sunset. So how did we get here? What happened? The answer is simple: You. You shook off the chains of record label control and decided to listen to music on your own. No more waiting until the CD was in the shops or for the song to come on the radio. With the advent of the PC and the Internet, you could download what you wanted when you wanted, and rip and burn to your heart's content. This digitization process put you, the audience, in control. It turns out that the consumer's perceived value of music was dictated by scarcity or availability: Either you paid what the retailer asked or you didn't get the music. With Napster and CD burning, high quality copies were available to everyone. But what does digital music strategy now need to do to in order to get out of it’s current stall? Digital Music Strategy is Playing Catch Up Napster symbolized a shift from the distribution era, where everything was sold in units, to the all-access paradigm. The problem is that the majority of the music products currently available don't grasp this concept. It took years of denial for the record labels to finally go digital, then to finally go DRM-free, and then to finally embrace ad supported content and the like. The net result of this repeatedly defensive and reactive strategy is always being one step behind present consumer demand. The Demographic Time BombBack in 2005, I warned that a demographic time bomb was ticking for record labels — that the Millennials, the first generation of digital youth, were opting for Kazaa instead of iTunes, and that unless a new wave of products embraced ad-supported or subscription services, music sales would decline for the rest of the decade and beyond. That demographic time bomb is now going off in our faces, with tumbling revenues and stalling digital growth highlighting the diminishing relevance of current music products. And now, to compound matters, the fuse has been lit on another demographic time bomb. A whole second generation of music fans is in imminent danger of following the Millennials out of the music-buying marketplace: The Digital Natives (12 to 15 year olds). Digital Natives In the music industry's first digital decade, efforts focused on converting 30-something CD buyers to digital downloads and trying to win over the file-sharing Millennials (now aged 16-24) with the wrong digital products. It's still the dominant strategy (Spotify is one late but crucial step forward). The strategy left the Digital Natives un-catered to, because their needs differ so much from those of previous generations. The Digital Natives give us a sneak peak at the future. Millennials looked like the future for a while but their behavior has a finite life span. For example, ripping and burning CDs, even downloading from BitTorrent and iTunes both recreate the analog behavior of getting units of music. This is because they started out in the analog era. They are the transition generation with transitional behaviors. Digital Natives don't have that analog era baggage. All they've known is digital. Online video and mobile are their killer apps. These Digital Natives see music as the pervasive soundtrack to their interactive, immersive, social environments. Ownership matters less. Place of origin matters less. Context and experience is everything. In a world beyond content scarcity, experience is now everything. With “free” infecting everything, the content itself is no longer king. Experience now has the throne. Future Music Products Need “SPARC”A radical shift in music product strategy is the only feasible response. To harness the potential of the Digital Natives and to meet emerging consumer demand, digital music products must have SPARC. That is to say, they must be:
Music products must harness disruption — that isn't in question. What is, is whether they do so quickly enough to prevent another massive chunk of the marketplace from disappearing for good. And as the canary in the coal mine for media businesses at large, music companies offer lessons for product strategists across all content genres. Be it books, TV or movies, sooner or later the needs of the Digital Natives must be met. If they're not, these consumers will go straight to the free legal alternatives that do. More Music Resources from Mashable:
Images courtesy of Flickr, Ferrari + caballos + fuerza = cerebro Humano , theoddnote, s~revenge. More About: digital music, digital natives, itunes, millenial, music, social media For more Social Media coverage:
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| Take a Free 3D Fly-Through of Super Bowl Stadium [VIDEO] Posted: 04 Feb 2011 01:05 PM PST   Most of us won’t be able to go to Cowboys Stadium on Sunday for Super Bowl XLV, but Google is offering the next best thing: a 3D Google Earth model that lets you fly around, over, inside and through the stadium. The best news of all? This virtual tour is free. If you haven’t already, download Google Earth, type “Cowboys Stadium” in its search field, turn on Google Earth’s 3D layer and wait a couple of seconds. A detailed 3D model of Cowboys Stadium comes to life, and with a little mousing around, you can fly all over the thing. We’re wondering if Google will fill the stands with 3D virtual screaming fans during the Super Bowl. We want the virtual version of that 2,100-inch “Jerry-Tron,” the largest HDTV screen in the world at 152 by 72 feet, to light up with a live feed. Unlikely. I’m especially fond of the partisan aside offered by Gopal Shah of the Google SketchUp team in Google’s Lat Long Blog: “We hope you enjoy the game as much as we will. Oh, and go Packers!” Please feel welcome to disagree with him in the comments. More About: 3D virtual Tour, Cowboys Stadium, Fly-through, google earth, Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLV For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Facebook Is Moving to Menlo Park Posted: 04 Feb 2011 12:42 PM PST   Facebook is moving out of its current office complex in Palo Alto and relocating to the former campus of Sun Microsystems in San Mateo. Facebook has sent Mashable and other media outlets an invite to a press conference Tuesday, February 8, where it will it discuss its new headquarters. The event will be taking place at 1701 Laurel Street in Menlo Park, the location of the Menlo Park City Council Chambers. It isn’t revealing much more than that, though. However, our sources confirm that Facebook will indeed be moving its operations to the 22-acre property used by Sun Microsystems before it was acquired by Oracle. Palo Alto Online also confirmed by checking city records that Facebook has acquired 312 and 314 Constitution Drive, properties next to the old Sun Microsystems campus. Facebook has been headquartered in Palo Alto since Zuckerberg first moved there in 2004. Facebook is rapidly approaching 2,000 employees, and it won’t be long until its current headquarters will run out of space. And with $500 million in funding burning its pockets, Facebook definitely has the money to buy something as large as the Sun Microsystems campus, which will give it room for long-term growth and rapid hiring. More About: facebook, Facebook Invite, sun microsystems For more Social Media coverage:
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| Al Jazeera Launches Twitter & Meetup Campaigns To Bring Broadcast To U.S. Posted: 04 Feb 2011 12:21 PM PST   As the global news media focused its attention on the protests in Egypt last week, most of the stories in the U.S. contained the phrase, “Al Jazeera reports.” In short, Al Jazeera nailed its coverage, while ever-shrinking U.S. foreign bureaus came up with paltry-by-comparison original reporting. The LA Times said this is the Qatar-based news outlet’s “CNN moment” (CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War is largely responsible for launching its current popularity). Now Al Jazeera is taking advantage of that moment. The news network launched Meetup Everywhere and Twitter campaigns Thursday to bring its coverage to mainstream U.S. television. “The past month has shown us something that America can no longer ignore: millions of Americans want to watch our channel and better understand our region, and too many are deprived of that opportunity,” Wadah Khanfar, director general of Al Jazeera, wrote on the Meetup Everywhere site. Al Jazeera is encouraging Americans — many who tuned in online for coverage of the protests in Egypt — to show their support for a U.S. Al Jazeera channel by attending local Meetups on February 10. Each meeting will host a discussion about the best way to get the message to cable and satellite companies (Al Jazeera has set up this database of contact info for satellite and cable providers). So far 253 Meetups are scheduled. The news network is also sponsoring the hashtag #demandaljazeera in Twitter’s trending topics to spread the word about the campaign.  More About: al jazeera, Egypt, meetup, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Mitsubishi Shows Off Enormous 360-Degree Screen [PICS & VIDEO] Posted: 04 Feb 2011 12:06 PM PST If you were already amazed at those flexible OLED screens we’ve seen lately, take a look at this gigantic 360-degree OLED display Mitsubishi rolled out this week in Amsterdam. Although it looks seamless from a distance, it’s not a single 360-degree curved screen. It’s constructed of 15-inch curved squares, pieced together to create the entire display. The huge circular sign is hanging from the ceiling over Mitsubishi’s booth at the ISE 2011 (Integrated Systems Europe) trade show. Don’t start thinking you’re going to hang one of these inside your home theater anytime soon, though. It’s specifically made for signs like you might see at a trade show, shopping mall or airport. It’s extremely bright, and its pixels are about 3mm apart — designed to be viewed from a distance. While it’s currently more of a demo than a real-world product, according to OLED Display, Mitsubishi plans to offer the screens for sale in the next few months. Imagine what will happen when architects plan installations specifically for this type of display. Not only could the super-bright screens grace marquees outside Vegas hotels, their resolution will inevitably go much higher, suitable for close-up viewing as well. 360-Degree Display   Here it is, hanging above Mitsubishi's booth at ISE 2011. It's about 4 feet tall. Text Scrolling All the Way Around Imagine this sign on the top of a Vegas hotel: "Prime rib and shrimp dinner, $5.99!" Close-up You can see each pixel, as well as the 15-inch panels that make up this display. Images courtesy of OLED Display More About: 360-degree OLED display, ISE 2011, Mitsubishi, OLED, Screens For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Motorola Offers Sneak Peek of Xoom Super Bowl Ad [VIDEO] Posted: 04 Feb 2011 11:25 AM PST A preview of Motorola’s Super Bowl ad for its Xoom tablet shows the company is planning to attack Apple by alluding to latter’s iconic “1984” ad. A 15-minute segment of the 60-second commercial shows a young man in a futuristic environment reading George Orwell’s 1984 on a Xoom. Though everyone else is clad in white hooded jumpsuits, he is wearing a gray cardigan, a tie and black pants. The man is then shown stepping on a subway and later, heading up an escalator. Once above ground, he uses the Xoom to search a local florist. The final shot is the man, flowers in hand, at the back of a full elevator as a woman with a white hooded outfit and white iPod earbuds is shown in the forefront, looking straight ahead. The ad comes after Motorola’s public relations agency, Weber Shandwick, released a video hyping the Super Bowl ad called “Goodbye, 1984″ that stated, “It’s time for more choices.” More About: apple, Motorola, Super Bowl ads, xoom For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Window Cling Prank Lampoons Kenneth Cole’s #Cairo Gaffe Posted: 04 Feb 2011 11:00 AM PST   Following fashion designer Kenneth Cole’s ill-advised tweet regarding the protests in Egypt on Thursday, pranksters have apparently affixed a decal featuring the tweet in question to the window of Kenneth Cole’s SOMA location. According to Coilhouse, the cling appeared on the store window at 2 a.m. today. We called the store to confirm, but the manager declined to comment. We did, however, reach out to Kenneth Cole’s camp, which confirmed that the decal was indeed a prank. 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,” was taken down after denizens of the web reacted with outrage. Cole also issued an apology on his Facebook Page later that day: “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.” Photo courtesy of Flickr, mikest More About: Egypt, kenneth-cole, twitter For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| HOW TO: Pick the Best TV for Watching the Super Bowl [COMIC] Posted: 04 Feb 2011 10:38 AM PST Pack in your cathode ray tubes and shove those rabbit ears up…into the attic, because 21st century TV tech will pull you off your La-Z-Boy and onto the field of Super Bowl XLV. High definition? Thanks Grandpa, but we’ll be rockin’ the 3D Smell-O-Vision Holodeck Chamber down in the man cave if you need anything. It’s so real you can touch John Madden’s soul.   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: comics, football, humor, mashable comics, Mobile 2.0, nfl, social media, sports, Super Bowl, twitter For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| HOW TO: Design & Program a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business Posted: 04 Feb 2011 10:02 AM PST   Jonathan Goldford is a partner at JG Visual, an Internet strategy company that works with organizations to develop and implement their online presence. You can connect with Jonathan on the JG Visual Facebook Page. Right now Facebook Pages and custom landing pages are bigger than bottled water was on December 31, 1999. Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Starbucks, and the TV show House each have more than fifteen million “Likes” and are growing rapidly. While there are an enormous number of articles that talk vaguely about how to create a custom landing page, very few discuss the nuances of actually designing and programming one. Here we will discuss the subtleties of designing a Facebook landing page and FBML programming. To make this discussion more concrete, we'll use the creation of our own JG Visual landing page as an example. Designing Your Company's Facebook PageActually designing a Facebook Page is very similar to designing any website, except for a few considerations:
 To take into account the 520px width and the distance for your Like button, you may want to take a screenshot. Once you take a screenshot of your Facebook Page, pull it into a design program like Photoshop and design over it. Here is a look at a piece of our final Facebook Page design.  Programming Your Company's Facebook PageNow that we have a design we'll walk through how to program our landing page to use on Facebook. Begin Programming Outside of Facebook There are a number of reasons why we should start programming our Facebook landing page outside of Facebook.  Program the Page Without FBML Since we aren't going to be using Facebook to start programming, we can't use Facebook's Markup Language (FBML). In order to account for how Facebook will handle our code, we will adjust our code to follow these rules as we build our page.
To start, create one HTML and one CSS file. The HTML file will hold the HTML and eventually the FBML. The CSS file will hold all of your styles. We'll call them Start by linking to the CSS file and creating a facebook.html facebook-styles.css Create the remaining HTML and CSS for your Facebook landing page. Here is the code we have after finishing our page. At this point our landing page should look exactly how we presented it in the design instructions before. facebook.html facebook-styles.css Test the landing page in all the browsers at this point to make sure it appears correctly. You really should test the page throughout building, but this serves as a good reminder. Add in the Necessary FBMLThe page looks exactly as we expected it to, but right now if someone already Likes our page, they will still see the call to action for them to Like at the top. Let's put in a conditional statement using FBML that only shows the action image when you aren't logged in or haven't Liked the page. This way, once someone Likes the page, they won't be prompted to do so again. Regular HTML HTML with the FBML Conditional Statement Let me explain the code:
In case you want to add something else besides a call to action for your Like button, below are some examples of other commonly used FBML items. Adding the User's Name — fb:name
Adding the User's Profile Picture — fb:profile-pic
Adding a Share Button — fb:share-button
Adding a YouTube Video or SWF File — fb:swf
Unfortunately, Facebook requires that the image be clicked before the video will play. You can create your own image to show through the If you want to add your own YouTube video, replace the text in the parameters Adding an FLV file — fb:flv
Adding an MP3 File — fb:mp3
Adding a Form While adding a form is not FBML, people are often curious to learn how to place them on their Facebook landing pages. To do this, copy and paste your form code into the FBML submission box. Make sure you use the following code to start your form: Adding If you want to add a newsletter signup form to Facebook, both MailChimp and CampaignMonitor have tutorials that explain the process. If you don't use one of those services, you can usually drop in the code from your e-mail marketing company to make this work. Adding JavaScript Adding JavaScript is outside the scope of this article, but you can learn more about Facebook JavaScript at developers.facebook.com/docs/fbjs. As of right now, you should remember that JavaScript will not be activated on your landing page until the user has taken action. If you haven't found the FBML you're looking for, visit Facebook's Official FBML page. Publishing Your Company's New Facebook PageAfter adding all of our FBML, we're ready to add those final touches and publish our finished Facebook landing page. Uploading External Content, Adjusting Links, and Adding a Version Query String Once we're done adding all the necessary FBML we need to move all the CSS, images, videos, and other external files to a server. To host your files, we recommend using your website's server if possible. Once all of our files are located on a public server, we need to adjust our HTML to make all of our paths absolute and add a version query string. Previously I mentioned that Facebook caches all of your external files. This means that once you publish your Facebook Page, any changes you make to external files will not show on your landing page. This happens because Facebook doesn't know the file has changed and is loading its older saved version. To trick Facebook, we use a query string at the end of our filenames and increase the number whenever we make a change to that external file. Facebook then thinks we're using a different file and loads it up. Old Relative Path with No Version Query String New Absolute Path with the Version Query String Test Your Page Using the JavaScript Test ConsoleOne of the biggest disadvantages of Facebook landing pages is that Facebook provides no place for you to test your code. We have to use the Facebook JavaScript Test Console. Copy and paste your HTML into the JavaScript Test Console and click "Run Code." You'll get to see your code in action. If everything looks good, you’re ready to publish your finished Facebook landing page. If not, make sure to check the links to your external content. Also, I noticed that the Facebook JavaScript Test Console has trouble loading videos, so you may be forced to test that code directly on your landing page. Publish Your Finished Facebook Landing PageFinally, you are ready to publish your HTML file to the Edit FBML screen. Follow these steps: Make Your New Landing Page the Default Landing TabNow that you've put in all of this time programming your custom landing page, you probably want to make it your default landing page. This way, when someone that has not Liked your page comes to it, they will be taken to your custom landing page instead of your wall. Here's how to do it: Note that as an admin you will always see the content that you only want shown to those who haven't Liked your page. Check with someone who has Liked your page and is not an admin to make sure they only see the content that's meant for them. Congrats, You're Finished!Nice work. You're done. In case you need it, here are the final HTML, FBML, and CSS we used for our Facebook landing page. HTML and FBML CSS Since there is no one correct way to program a landing page, we would love to hear what you think. Have you ever designed or programmed a Facebook landing page? How did it go? Did you run into any issues? Do you have any additional tips we didn't cover here? Let us know in the comments. More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of Flickr, smemon87 More About: business, design, facebook, landing page how to, web design, Web Development For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Colbert Makes Fun of Bing for “Copycat” Search Results [VIDEO] Posted: 04 Feb 2011 09:53 AM PST   Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert has poked a bit of fun at Microsoft, whose Bing search engine’s results were accused of being a little too close to Google’s. When Google accused Microsoft of creating a “cheap imitation” of its search results in Microsoft’s search engine Bing, the company denied it. Now Colbert is weighing in, vowing to “stand by his sponsors” while he “defends” Bing’s alleged cheating. “For the first time ever, someone’s search history has been busted for something other than porn,” Colbert says in the clip below. Our favorite part? The graphic with Microsoft’s animated office assistant Clippy acting as the company’s “spokesman.” The only thing missing? Clippy tapping the screen before doling out Microsoft’s vehement denial.
[via Gizmodo/Colbert Nation] More About: bing, Colbert, comedy, Google, video For more Video coverage:
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| How Can You Support World Cancer Day Online? Posted: 04 Feb 2011 08:58 AM PST   Today is World Cancer Day and people all over the world are joining together to make their voices heard. Last October, the NFL wore pink shoes and gloves to support Breast Cancer Awareness month, and there are countless regional walks and rallies to raise awareness and funds for different types of cancer, a leading cause of death worldwide. The Office of National Statistics in the UK estimates that one in four people will die from cancer. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 84 million people will die of cancer without intervention between 2005 and 2015. So, short of getting drafted to the NFL or signing up for a marathon, what can you do to help? Try some of the online options below and let us know about your own experiences and how you plan to help.
 There are many more campaigns out there. Join the conversation and let us know in the comments how you’ll be participating and where. More About: cancer, social good, social media, su2C, world cancer day, world cancer day 2011 For more Social Good coverage:
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| New York Times & Guardian Editors Will Support Assange if Prosecuted Posted: 04 Feb 2011 08:51 AM PST   The New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller and Guardian Editor in Chief Alan Rusbridger say they will stand with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if prosecution is brought against him. At a Thursday night panel, hosted by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism on the future of WikiLeaks and its effects on journalism, Jack Goldsmith, a prominent Harvard law professor and former assistant attorney general, said there is an “enormous amount of political pressure” to bring charges against Assange by the U.S. Department of Justice. At first, Goldsmith expressed the difficulty of extraditing Assange to the U.S. He then noted the many legal hurdles the department faces because, in the legal sense, Assange would be characterized as a journalist and defended as such. “My sense is there is a lot of political pressure from the top, certainly from Capitol Hill,” Goldsmith said. But despite the department’s long restraint when it comes to going after journalists and issues involving the First Amendment, he concluded that some kind of prosecution will be brought about. “But I also don’t think it will be successful,” he said. Emily Bell, the moderator and director of the Tow Center at the journalism school, then turned to the Times and Guardian editors, both of whom worked with Assange and WikiLeaks on the Iraq War documents and the leak of U.S. State Department cables, and posed a question about the possibility of Assange’s prosecution. Though the Guardian‘s relationship with Assange has soured somewhat, Rusbridger — almost without hesitation — said if Assange was brought to court, he would be “completely side-by-side with him in terms of defending him with respect to what he’s done.” He said Assange deserves the same protections given to journalists when it comes to publication of secret government documents. Keller was initially a bit more reserved in his response. “I think the Times‘ lawyers would prefer I not declare what I’d do in a court of law,” he said. “It’s very hard to conceive of a prosecution of Julian Assange that wouldn’t stretch the law in a way that would be applicable to us.” “Whatever anyone thinks of Julian Assange, certainly American journalists, and other journalists, should feel a sense of alarm at any legal action that tends to punish Assange for doing essentially what journalists do. That is to say, any use of the law to criminalize the publication of secrets,” Keller said. “I think we do stand alongside him.” Both of the editors also discussed the possibility of building their own WikiLeaks-like platform that would enable readers to upload large amounts of data anonymously. Keller said the Times is still considering it, but there are a lot of challenges and difficulty in vetting such material. Meanwhile, Rusbridger said they are having similar conversations at their paper about how to make it work. “We haven’t decided whether we would ahead with our own WikiLeaks, but technically it’s not that difficult,” Keller said. You can watch the recorded conversation below: More About: Department of Justice, guardian, journalism, julian assange, NYTimes, wikileaks For more Media coverage:
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| Top 5 Social Media Game Plans for Super Bowl Advertisers Posted: 04 Feb 2011 07:55 AM PST   Imagine you’re an advertiser contemplating spending $3 million or so on a Super Bowl ad. Maybe you’ve never done this before or maybe you do it every year, but at some point, you have to justify to someone — your CEO or maybe a procurement expert at the company — why this is a good idea. Now imagine there was a cheap way to get a better return on investment on that $3 million. All you had to do was create some kind of buzz before the ad ran on TV. You could do this by running the ad or maybe video related to the ad on YouTube, writing about it on your company blog, premiering the ad on Facebook, or maybe talking it up on Twitter. Or perhaps you could release an app related to the ad around the time of the big game. You could also get fans to actually create a video for you and then have them talk about it via social media channels for months before the game. Or you could run a game of some sort. Or you could do all that stuff at once. As you can see, there is a confounding array of social media options, and because social media is still so new, few tried-and-true methods. That said, although the social media palette keeps expanding, there seem to be just four basic approaches to social media Super Bowl hyping. 1. Establish a Real-Time NarrativeThese days, Frito-Lay starts its Super Bowl push in September. On September 15, the company announced the 2011 version of its Crash the Super Bowl contest, which offers a total of $5 million in prizes. Since 2006, the PepsiCo unit, which markets Doritos, Fritos and other snacks, has been running a contest asking consumers to try to make ads for the company for possible inclusion into the Super Bowl. At the time, the craze for user-generated content, driven by books like James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds, was at its apex. In the 2007 Super Bowl, the NFL and Chevrolet also ran user-generated TV spots. Four years later, Frito-Lay has made user-generated Super Bowl content a big part of its brand essence. But, while few advertisers have followed Frito-Lay’s lead on UGC, the idea of creating a social media narrative leading up to the Super Bowl has found more currency. Frito-Lay’s plan, which requires would-be commercial creators to upload their videos onto a dedicated website and asks consumers to vote on the ads, provides more or less constant social media chatter leading up to the big game. After the initial announcement, there was a period from September 27 to November 15 in which consumers could upload videos. The company announced 10 potential ads (for a total of six slots, though fans only choose four — execs from Frito-Lay and Pepsi pick the other two) in early January and then holds off on announcing the winners until the game. Another advertiser using the real-time narrative approach is Mercedes, which this year is running what it’s calling “The World’s First Twitter-Fueled Race.” The campaign, run via the brand’s Facebook page, sought four two-person teams to race from February 2 through February 4. The teams, chosen for their Twitter followings, win the race based on how much Twitter activity or “Twitter fuel” they can generate. 2. Turn It Into a GameUntil social media came along, pretty much every ad that ran during the game was a complete surprise. Keeping ads a secret, though, is tougher these days. Witness Lipton Brisk, which had been hyping an unnamed big-name rapper as an endorser in the weeks leading up to the game, but lost all social currency when The New York Post broke the story that, in fact, Eminem was the mystery endorser. Still, there are other ways to get people to tune in for your ad. Some marketers are using their Facebook page and/or Twitter feeds to hype secret messages in ads or to get consumers to guess what the ads will look like. Anheuser-Busch took the latter approach. The brewer, usually the dominant advertiser during the game, has posted a single still from each of its three spots and asking Facebook fans to guess the plot. The campaign, reminiscent of The New Yorker’s caption contest, will reward users who guess correctly with a fourth, Internet-only spot. Likewise, Kia this year is running a campaign called “One Epic Contest” around one of its Super Bowl spots. In the week and a half leading up to the game, the car maker invited consumers to “embark on their own adventure” through an online grid-based hieroglyphic game set in an ancient temple that poses four questions. Meanwhile, clues for the game were dispersed into 15-second TV spots, print ads and social media postings. A fifth question will be revealed and answered during the ad. The prize: one of five 2011 Optimas. 3. Release a Tie-In App Another way to give a Super Bowl ad a life in social media is to create an app based on the ad. This, however, is a little-used approach. In fact, until recently, only one advertiser, CareerBuilder, did this. In 2006, the job search site released Monk-E-Mail, an e-mail program that used monkeys from the company’s ads to convey messages. Though the program was successful and resulted in more than 100 million downloads since inception, CareerBuilder monkeyed with its advertising approach, trying a Survivor theme in 2007 and opting for a user-generated ad last year. This year, the monkeys are back and so is Monk-E-Mail. But just as CareerBuilder is bringing Monk-E-mail back, the app has a rival. E*Trade has come out with BabyMail, a similar concept that features talking babies from the company’s commercials delivering the messages. 4. Advertise the AdStill another approach to Super Bowl hyping via social media is to treat the ad almost like a movie opening, by teasing out the content. This can be done a variety of ways. For instance, E*Trade plans to run outtakes of its talking babies ad on its YouTube channel before the game as a sop to fans who can’t wait for the next commercial. Motorola even took the unusual step of getting PR agency Weber Shandwick to create a video on YouTube hyping the company’s upcoming Super Bowl spot for its Xoom tablet PC. GoDaddy also released at least one of its Super Bowl ads on its company website before the game, but the ad, featuring Jillian Michaels and Danica Patrick, is designed to hype another GoDaddy Super Bowl spot. If an ad for an ad sounds a bit insular to you, consider that all the social media outreach techniques outlined above basically perform the same function. 5. Just Throw It on YouTubeGiving away your hand before the game is a new, untested tactic. This is the first year that advertisers en masse put their complete Super Bowl ads online well before the game. For Volkswagen, this was a smart tactic. The company’s “The Force” ad featuring a pint-sized Darth Vader got 1.5 million views on YouTube in the first 48 hours or so of posting and was a trending topic on Twitter. Two days before the Super Bowl spots are set to air, Hyundai, Coca-Cola, Cars.com and HomeAway had done the same. Whether this is a good move for everyone remains to be seen, but in a world saturated with advertising, $3 million seems like a relatively small price to pay to get people to talk about your ad. More Advertising Resources from Mashable:
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| Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters Posted: 04 Feb 2011 07:35 AM PST
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| iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Lead Verizon to Sales Record Posted: 04 Feb 2011 07:22 AM PST   If you’re a mobile operator, it’s good to have an iPhone in your inventory. This was proven Thursday as Verizon’s first day of iPhone 4 pre-orders turned out to be the most successful first day of sales in the history of the company. The company didn’t give a precise number of how many iPhone 4s were sold, but it took only two hours to sell out the pre-order stock. “In just our first two hours, we had already sold more phones than any first day launch in our history. And, when you consider these initial orders were placed between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., it is an incredible success story,” said President and CEO of Verizon Dan Mead in a prepared statement. The pre-orders are closed now, but the iPhone 4 will become available again at 7 a.m., February 10, at Verizon’s stores, as well as Apple, Best Buy and select Wal-Mart stores. The device will also be available to order at 3:01 a.m. Wednesday, February 9 at verizonwireless.com and apple.com.
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| This Morning’s Top 4 Stories in Social Media, Tech & Mobile Posted: 04 Feb 2011 06:52 AM PST   Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on four particular stories of interest today. Verizon iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Sold Out Demand for Verizon iPhone was apparently so strong that it took less than a day for Verizon to fulfill its pre-order quota for the iPhone 4. Existing Verizon customers who weren’t able to place orders will be able to do so beginning Wednesday, February 9. Foursquare To Debut 2 New Ad Products for Super Bowl Foursquare is rolling out two new advertising products for this year’s Super Bowl: a global promoted venue and discount codes attached to badges. Google Releases Chrome 9 Stable Google has updated the stable branch of its Chrome browser to version 9. The latest stable release brings in many features Chrome beta users have been enjoying for several months, including Chrome Instant, WebGL support and access to the Chrome Web Store. Kenneth Cole's #Cairo Tweet Angers the Web The web reacted strongly to an insensitive tweet, which made light of protests in Egypt, designer Kenneth Cole made Thursday. The designer has since apologized on Facebook. Further News
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59 More About: chrome 9, first to know series, foursquare, Google, kenneth-cole, Super Bowl, twitter, Verizon iPhone For more Social Media coverage:
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| Twitter Counter Acquires Popular Twitter Stats Provider Twitaholic Posted: 04 Feb 2011 06:37 AM PST   Twitter statistics provider Twitter Counter has acquired its competitor Twitaholic for an undisclosed sum, the company announced. From the early days of Twitter, Twitterholic (later renamed to Twitaholic because of Twitter’s trademark on the term “twitter”) was the place to go if you wanted to see how you rank against other Twitter users when it comes to number of followers and other factors. Amsterdam-based Twitter Counter came later, but obviously had a better financial plan and backing. The company claims it’s profitable with more than $500,000 in revenue in 2010, and it managed to acquire the older service, which now makes it the definitive authority on Twitter user stats. Twitter Counter plans to continue to build on Twitaholic’s features and user base and improve its main source of profitability, a premium service that lets customers compare more Twitter accounts and enables them to export stats to Excel, download branded PDF reports and more, depending on the plan. More About: acquisition, statistics, Twitaholic, twitter, Twitter Counter For more Startups coverage:
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| Why the Web Is Useless in Developing Countries – And How to Fix It Posted: 04 Feb 2011 06:13 AM PST   Like many who study the struggles of developing countries, Steve Bratt has done the math on the potential of mobile phones. The United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union estimated that at the end of 2010 there were 5.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide and that a full 90% of the world population now has access to a mobile network. In contrast, only about 2 billion people have Internet access. The high prevalence of mobile phones (even in developing countries, penetration rates were expected to reach 68% by the end of 2010) has led many non-profits to choose mobile networks as tools for positive change. Mobile banking in Kenya has helped farmers increase their incomes, 300,000 people in Bangladesh signed up to learn English through their phones, and many consider mobile phones the key to developing nations. But Bratt, now the CEO of The World Wide Web Foundation, came up with a different hypothesis when he looked at the 3.3 billion-person gap between mobile phone users and Internet users. Theoretically, he thinks that the two numbers could one day even out as people use their phones to log onto the Internet. The problem is that for a person in a developing country, the current Internet is nearly useless. "Maybe they can look at scores from the playoffs, but if they want to find a local doctor, if they want to understand which crops to plant or how much money they can get for their crops, if they want to be able to teach their kids a language other than English or French or Chinese, there's just nothing for them there," Bratt says. Why the Developing World Needs the Internet Yacouba Sawadogo created an orchard in the middle of a desert. With a better mobile web, he could more easily share his techniques with other farmers. (Photo courtesy of Anna Bon) Yacouba Sawadogo's family migrated south when several periods of drought in the 1980s made their land in the Sahel increasingly useless. But Sawadogo stayed. And unlike many farmers in the area, he was able to develop effective farming techniques that have started to restore the land. "He just created an orchard in a place where there's nothing around him but dessert," Bratt says. Other areas in Sahel face similar challenges with their land, but few of them have been as successful as Sawadogo in developing techniques to meet those challenges. Sharing Sawadogo's knowledge with other areas would have immeasurable value, but so far the effort to do so has been restricted to face-to-face exchanges, including busing in farmers from other areas to observe the techniques. Unfortunately, this method is slow and limited to a handful of farmers at a time. The World Wide Web Foundation thinks that the mobile Internet could be a "digital bus" that would help share this information. Where the Current Internet Falls Short Applying the Internet to farming or any situation in developing countries is easier said than done. All of the farmers that Bratt has met in Africa are illiterate. All of them have mobile phones, but they try to keep calls as short as possible to avoid expensive charges — sometimes even hanging up before a charge registers in order to use a "flash" of the phone to communicate. None of them purchase data packages that would enable them to access the web. In order to see how the mobile Internet would be effective in this situation, it's important to rethink the Internet. The World Wide Web foundation wants to develop voice browsers that would allow people to make short calls in order to access answers to simple questions or important information, like the where to find a doctor. As far as the added cost, Bratt is hopeful that the benefit would outweigh it. If a farmer can get $20 more for his crops by knowing which markets he can get the best price at, how to improve farming techniques, and what to expect from the weather, than he'll be willing to pay $5 for phone calls or a browser. The cost will still be much less than a fixed broadband subscription. "Why wait until everyone has broadband and computers, and why wait until everyone is literate to empower people through information that could be available on the web?" Bratt asks. A Question Worth Asking Farmers with mobile phones in Bandiagara, Mali In addition to the farming project, The World Wide Web Foundation has about 6 other projects aimed at making the web more useful for people in developing countries. One of the most important is an entrepreneur program that will train developers in Africa to code simple web services. The organization's prevailing hypothesis is that as more people in developing countries add content to the Internet that is delivered in their own languages, relevant to their lives, and is accessible to all levels of education, the increased demand for the Internet in these areas will drive increased investment by telecom companies, bringing down data costs to a point that is affordable to more people in the developing world. The Foundation launched just a little more than a year ago, and the projects are still in their planning stages. In February, the first entrepreneur mobile workshop will begin in Ghana. "We're going to learn something from it, at the very minimum," Bratt says. More Social Good Resources from Mashable:
More About: africa, developing countires, interent, mobile web, social good For more Social Good coverage:
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| Mattel Launches Digital Campaign Aiming To Reunite Barbie & Ken Posted: 04 Feb 2011 05:47 AM PST   Mattel Inc., the world’s largest toy company, has launched a digital marketing campaign in hopes of reuniting one of American’s most famous couples — Barbie and Ken. After a controversial split on Valentine’s Day in 2004, the two plastic celebrities have led separate, but successful, doll lives. Since 2006, though, Ken has been revamping his “mind, body and soul” to rekindle the flame. This time around, the Malibu stud hopes to win over Barbie in time for Valentine’s Day, with a little help from the socialverse. The campaign, which marks Ken’s 50th anniversary, is centered around barbieandken.com, where users can vote on whether Barbie should “take Ken back” or not. The site features a Love-O-Meter, gauging voters’ feelings on the topic. Heavy on social marketing, the campaign utilizes Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and YouTube to spread its message. The campaign comes just in time for the release of a new “Sweet Talking Ken” doll that Mattel describes as “the ultimate boyfriend for every occasion,” because he “says whatever you want him to say!” Getting Socially Savvy Barbie and Ken both have extensive social footprints — Barbie is somewhat of a social veteran, but Ken has only recently kicked up his online game. On Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, fans can follow Ken’s adventures as he attempts to woo Barbie back into his arms. His tweets are currently heavy on promoting his romantic efforts, including a text campaign, where users can text THUMBS UP or THUMBS DOWN to 51684 to vote on whether the two love birds should get friendly again. He also keeps his stream focused with his manly man style, tweeting about his favorite sports team, the Lakers, and his most recent reads in Men’s Health and Esquire. Ken gets reminiscent on Foursquare, recalling memories and dropping charming lines. He left a tip at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, that says, “Barbie could spend hours looking at the timeless art, and I could spend hours looking at Barbie.” Awww. Facebook seems to be the hub for Ken’s activity. Posting photos and YouTube videos, name-dropping his favorite places and brands, and mentioning Barbie here and there, Ken updates his page about once per day. When he does, though, he makes it count. Across all three social profiles, the storyline stays cohesive and entertaining, and fans tend to interact with Ken as if they would any other “person.” Turning To Online DatingBarbie’s YouTube channel currently features a video screencast of Ken creating a profile on online dating site Match.com, only to find that Barbie is his perfect match. Reinforcing that Ken is a tech-savvy doll, the video uncovers that Ken uses a MacBook, browses on Google Chrome and actually pays attention to Facebook ads. Taking It Offline To tie all of its online efforts together, Mattel has also put on a few offline stunts, including a “Catch Me If You Ken” outing at last year’s Fashion’s Night Out event in New York City that featured a pack of smoldering hot Ken doll models. Most recently, Ken was spotted at Magnolia’s Bakery — as it turns out, he was busy designing a special treat just for Barbie. The custom cupcake is available for purchase throughout Valentine’s Day. We can’t forget Ken and Barbie’s appearance in Toy Story 3 last year, either — the flames were definitely there. The only question now is if Barbie and Ken fans around the world want to see the couple together again — it seems Mattel, at the very least, is eager to see them reunite. Ken has taken out billboards in New York and Los Angeles (as pictured above), appeared on Canadian entertainment show ETalk and reportedly bought a spot in Us Weekly, all to confess his love. The Search For Genuine Ken Mattel also launched a web series called Genuine Ken, featuring host Whitney Port and eight “Ken-testants” competing for the title of “The Great American Boyfriend.” Hosted on Hulu, the first episode of eight aired on January 18 — with three episodes down, the Ken-testants have already been tasked to showcase their talents, design a bachelor pad and conquer a wave to prove that they possess Ken-like style, athleticism and panache. Attracting Barbie’s Attention Ken’s endeavors wouldn’t be complete without input from Barbie. Her Twitter and Facebook accounts are flowing with updates about Ken’s efforts, positioning her as an on-the-fence doll playing hard to get. It looks like Mattel has a lot more in store — the barbieandken.com website claims, “Stay tuned as Ken fights to win Barbie’s heart back, one grand gesture at a time.” We certainly can’t wait to see more. What are your thoughts on the campaign? Images courtesy of Pixar, Dollhead, Hudson Media and Mattel More About: barbie, business, genuine ken, hulu, ken, love, MARKETING, mattel, trending For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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