Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Why Data Mining Is the Next Frontier for Social Media Marketing” |
- Why Data Mining Is the Next Frontier for Social Media Marketing
- Google Declares War on Content Farms
- Swipe, Save And Serve: What’s New in Mac OS X Lion [VIDEO]
- First Look: Mac OS X Lion [SCREENSHOTS]
- Never Lose Your Car or Miss a Friend With ToothTag
- PayPal Lifts Ban on Fundraising Account for WikiLeaks Source Bradley Manning
- Why Not Call It A Facebook Revolution?
- Brain Exercise Startup Lumosity Beefs Up With 11 Million Members
- Facebook Responds to FTC Privacy Investigation
- What Marketers Need to Know About Facebook’s Switch to iFrames
- Google Rolls Out New Search Tool for Recipes
- Verizon Releases First Ad for Motorola’s Xoom [VIDEO]
- Island Def Jam Partners With The Echo Nest To Create Opportunities For Developers
- Is Developing a Mobile App Worth the Cost?
- Instagram Releases Real-Time API Publicly for Universal Photo Sharing
- Thunderbolt: Everything You Need To Know
- PayPal Halts Donations to Defense Fund for WikiLeaks Source Bradley Manning [UPDATED]
- LinkedIn Tool Visualizes Profile Updates in Your Network
- MTV Dubs Its Digital Music Awards Show the OMAs
- How 5 Companies Are Using the iPad to Increase Productivity
- Nearly Half of Americans Use Facebook; Only 7% Use Twitter [STUDY]
- Rdio Now Streams 8 Million Songs on Roku
- FaceTime 1.0 Arrives in the Mac App Store
- Now Anyone Can Sync Google Docs & Microsoft Office
- Bing Now Shows Your Friends’ Facebook Likes for All Search Results
- Box.net Raises $48 Million to Take on Enterprise Software Giants
- Disney Acquires Social Network for Children
- Why Online Marketers Should Not Track Children [OPINION]
- RIP MyBlogLog
- Developer Preview of Mac OS X Lion Includes iPad-like Features
| Why Data Mining Is the Next Frontier for Social Media Marketing Posted: 25 Feb 2011 05:00 AM PST      Chris Boorman is the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of education & enablement at Informatica. He is responsible for Informatica’s global voice to the market, which includes corporate, partner and field marketing. The thinking about social media in corporate marketing departments is rapidly evolving. Initially, social media was seen as yet another broadcast opportunity for pushing messages out into the world, and for many companies that view persists. A social media consultant recently said that even today, when he approaches potential clients for the first time, they typically refer him to their PR agency, because "they handle Facebook for us." There's nothing wrong with using social media as a tool for disseminating marketing messages or trying to establish deeper relationships with current or potential customers. However, there is another use of social media which may prove to be more powerful over the long term: Listening to the voice of the customer by data mining social networks. Currently, CRM systems create customer profiles to help with marketing decisions using a combination of demographics and prior behavior, primarily historical buying patterns. These systems essentially enable companies to see their customers in the rear view mirror. The customer data available via online communities like Facebook is both richer and more forward looking. A financial organization with access to such data would not only know that a customer had a checking account, savings account, two CDs and a mortgage, but also that the same customer was interested in golf or gourmet cooking — information that could be useful in planning future marketing initiatives. Every minute of every day, Facebook, Twitter and other online communities generate enormous amounts of this data. If it could be tapped, it could function like a real-time CRM system, continually revealing new trends and opportunities. Here’s how. Tapping Social Media DataThe good news is that with today's technology, this data can be tapped. But the process is not without its challenges. The data stream is a prime example of “Big Data.” Dealing with data sets measured in petabytes is a challenge in itself, and there is a serious problem with the signal-to-noise ratio. At my company, we estimate that at best, only 20% of the social media data stream contains relevant information. But before this problem even arises, companies face the issue of identifying their customers among the millions of participants in any given online community. The Problem of Customer IdentityMost companies approach the problem of finding customers on social sites through the slow, arduous and expensive process of participating themselves. On Facebook, for example, businesses can gain access to the profiles of anyone who clicks the "Like" button on the company's business site (depending on each customer's privacy settings). With the right pitch, offer or game, companies can gradually gain an enhanced understanding of a subset of their social customer base. With new matching technology that's now available, the process is faster and more comprehensive. For example, matching technology uses artificial intelligence to figure out whether a given "John Smith" in a company's customer database is the same individual as a particular John Smith on Facebook. The algorithms that accomplish this are extremely sophisticated, and they work. In fact, matching technology has been successfully used by law enforcement agencies to locate criminals. If a company has one or two key pieces of information about its customers — e-mail address is often the most important — that company can accurately identify them on a social site and extract a substantial amount of data, including both profile data and transactional data that can reveal relationships important for marketing purposes. (Again, the amount of data available for any given customer depends on that customer's personal privacy settings.) Putting Data to WorkThe second problem with social media is transforming data that is potentially useful into data that is actually useful. Social media data is generated by an entirely different technology stack than the transactional data that typically feeds CRM systems. Accordingly, it is stored in entirely different formats. That data can be transformed into a useful format with Master Data Management (MDM) technology. MDM is the process of managing business-critical data, also known as master data (about customers, products, employees, suppliers, etc.) on an ongoing basis, creating and maintaining it as the system of record for the enterprise. MDM is implemented in order to ensure that the master data is validated as correct, consistent, and complete. MDM has been used for more than a decade by companies that want to integrate disparate databases for a 360 degree view of their customers (or product portfolios, for that matter). It is equally effective in integrating social media data into existing CRM systems, and filtering that data for relevance. What this all means is that companies can achieve important process improvements with bottom-line significance. For example, they can:
The disciplined use of demographic and historical customer data has enabled large numbers of companies to substantially increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Social media data will enable marketers to take targeting to the next level. It's Big Data, but today's technology can handle it. More Business Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of Flickr, Kaptain Kobold More About: big data, business, crm, data, data mining, MARKETING, mdm, social media For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Google Declares War on Content Farms Posted: 25 Feb 2011 03:19 AM PST   Google has announced a major algorithmic change to its search engine, subtle in nature and perhaps unnoticeable to many users, but one that should dramatically improve the quality of Google’s search results. With this move, Google is targeting content farms – a common name for low quality sites whose main goal is to attract search traffic by piling up (mostly) useless content, usually by either producing large amounts of low-quality text or by copying it from websites with original content. Google does not go into details of the change which should impact 11.8% of Google’s queries (currently only in the US, with plans to roll it out elsewhere over time), but it does say that it will affect the ranking of many sites on the web. “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on,” explain Googlers Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts in a blog post. While the change will surely have many website owners up in arms, complaining that their website was unfairly ranked lower than before (we’re sure that in some cases they will be right), it’s a very welcome one. The popularity of Google’s search engine is still second to none, but Google has been plagued by black hat SEO practices and content farms for a while now, with the complaints from users slowly mounting over time. If Google manages to put an end to content farms or at least significantly reduce their influence in search results, it will be an important step in regaining the trust of its millions of users. More About: algorithm, content farms, Google, Search For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Swipe, Save And Serve: What’s New in Mac OS X Lion [VIDEO] Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:39 PM PST   Apple released the first developer preview of Mac OS X Lion Thursday, offering a glimpse of what can be expected from the next iteration of its desktop operating system. Slated for release this summer, Mac OS X Lion is all about fusing the worlds of Mac OS X and iOS together. On its Mac OS X Lion Preview page, Apple sums it up best: “The power of Mac OS X. The magic of iPad.” Some of the features in Mac OS X Lion have already found their way into Mac OS X Snow Leopard. When Apple formally announced Mac OS X Lion in October, the company showed off some of the new features that had already arrived in iLife ’11. The company launched the Mac App Store in January, and many of its UI elements (which look unusual in the context of Mac OS X 10.6) are carried over into Mac OS X Lion. Multitouch, Multitouch, MultitouchFor the last few years, MacBook Pro (and Magic Trackpad) owners have been able to take advantage of multitouch gestures in Mac OS X. In supported applications, swiping fingers a certain way or using the pinch-to-zoom gesture will influence what you see on the screen. In Mac OS X Lion, gestures and multitouch support consume the whole OS. Swipes can initiate system-wide features — like pulling up the new application dashboard Launchpad — and can also switch between applications, application screens or zoom in on specific content. Check out this video from Apple’s website that shows off some of the new gestures: iOS Style App Launcher Launching applications in Mac OS X has always been a bit odd. Yes, users can drag shortcuts of apps to the dock for easy launching — but there isn’t a system-wide menu way to pull up apps (unless one puts a shortcut to the Applications folder in the dock — which is what I do). That changes in Mac OS X Lion. Using a swipe down gesture brings up a Launchpad that showcases every app on the system, iOS style. Users can scroll through and select apps. Similar gestures and support have appeared in the beta releases of iOS 4.3. Although those gestures aren’t expected to make the final release, it does show that Apple is working to unify how apps are accessed across platforms. Mission Control Mission Control is another new Mac OS X Lion feature. Apple demonstrated the features at its big Mac event in October but now we have a better idea of what the feature is and how it works. In essence, Mission Control is the Expose feature in Mac OS X fused with Spaces. Open windows are grouped together by applications and the users gets a broad overview of every open panel and application, regardless of whether it is running full screen or not. We’d also like to see something like this implemented in future versions of iOS. Auto Saving, Built-in Versioning and ResumeApple is introducing a system-wide auto-save feature in Mac OS X Lion. That should help prevent situations where a user writes a 2,000 word post in a text editor, forgets to hit save and then loses the entire thing when the text editor decides to crash. Wouldn’t it be nice if the OS itself could help avoid that? Mac OS X Lion will also create and store versions of documents as they are written. Previous versions can be accessed, Time Machine-style, from a cascading window setup and older versions can be reverted with one click. Apple is also introducing new technology that will let users pick-up exactly where they left off even after restarting their Mac. That means performing a system update won’t require a user to open every document or URL window after a reboot. It also means that after you quit an application, you can open it up exactly where you left off. Mac OS X has long been the gold standard for having a solid standby/resume system for its laptops and desktops. I’ve had laptops in sleep mode for four months that have resumed exactly where they left off (after the battery was re-charged, of course). Making resume even better should help facilitate that “always on” feeling you get using the iPad. Mac OS X ServerRather than sell as a separate version, Mac OS X Lion will come with Lion Server built in. This is a unusual move for Apple. Last year, the company discontinued its Xserve line, focusing instead on the Mac mini Server and Mac Pro Server offerings. We don’t think the message here is that Mac OS X can’t power a network server — it absolutely can. Instead it might be a recognition that central file servers are less necessary than they used to be. Regular laptops and desktops can be easily configured to run as a server. In my house, we have five Mac OS X machines running at all times. We have a media server running FreeNAS in a closet. But in reality, we don’t need any server software to communicate or exchange files between Mac machines. A very cool feature in Lion Server is file sharing for the iPad. When configured to support WebDAV, Lion Server can offer iPad users access to documents in apps like Pages, Keynote and Good Reader. For businesses that embrace the iPad, this is a great move. Preparation for a Touch Based Future?It’s very clear that iOS — especially the iPad — is influencing the future direction of Mac OS X. The success of the iPad, the new MacBook Air and the Android tablets indicates that the portable computing device many of us use in a few years won’t be a laptop, but a tablet. I would expect to see a MacPad — an iPad/MacBook mashup — in the next few years. With that in mind — and knowing that Apple has some interesting patents on touch-based technology — I wonder if Mac OS X Lion is being launched as a kind of transitory OS. There are fundamental differences in how touch-based systems like iOS operate compare to traditional input systems like Mac OS X or Windows. Not only are user interface and user experiences different, the way information is accessed is different too. Mac OS X Lion is the first step in bridging the gap between those two universes. More About: mac, mac os x, mac os x lion, operating systems For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| First Look: Mac OS X Lion [SCREENSHOTS] Posted: 24 Feb 2011 07:54 PM PST   Mac OS X Lion was released to registered Mac OS X developers on Thursday — and a member of the developer community has provided Mashable with some screenshots of the upcoming version of Apple’s desktop operating system. Keep in mind that what you see here is only valid as of February 2011, and could change by the time Mac OS X Lion is released in the summer of 2011. Desktop Dock Mission Control Dashboard Launchpad Mission Control Finder Finder Launchpad Launchpad Folders Mission Control Preview Preview Fullscreen Safari 5.1 Safari Desktop Settings Mail App Mail App Mail App Fullscreen Mail App Compose Address Book QuickLook iCal iCal iCal iCal iCal Fullscreen iCal Fullscreen More About: apple, mac, mac apps, mac os x, mac os x lion For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Never Lose Your Car or Miss a Friend With ToothTag Posted: 24 Feb 2011 06:11 PM PST   What are the places and who are the people around you right now? With a new Android app called ToothTag, you should be able to get a lot more useful answers to that question. Not only will this app find nearby restaurants, it can also tell you whether your friends are at the same party — without having to check-in. It knows where the heck you left your car. Most importantly, it is able to do all this without battery-sucking technologies like GPS. ToothTag is a treasure trove of proximity-based information. It goes beyond regular location services and novel-but-worthless check-ins, showing you what’s in your immediate surroundings and giving you multiple options for how to make that information truly useful. Instead of GPS, it relies on Bluetooth, Near-Field-Communication (NFC), and WiFi. Power management — long the bane of innovative mobile apps — has been ToothTag’s plan from the start. The app lets you tag Bluetooth and WiFi devices — such as headsets, laptops, mobile phones, and access points. Once these are tagged, you can set up automated actions when you’re within a given distance from them. Automated actions, such as mobile alerts or emails, can occur without your ever having to think about the app. Here are a few examples:
ToothTag is free for consumers, and it’s available right now in the Android Market. Creator Dave “Gadget Guy” Mathews says his company, NeuAer will be working on an iPhone version, but ToothTag’s system requirements aren’t entirely met by the iPhone 4. The app is built on a unique proximity platform called, interestingly enough, ProxPlatform. This platform will allow devs to add “presence events” to their applications. ToothTag, as a free consumer app, is meant to serve as a use case for what ProxPlatform is capable of doing. The possibilities are exciting as they are lucrative. ToothTag’s features could be tweaked for AR mobile gaming, mobile commerce and other types of mobile apps. Mathews and team hope to make money from the proximity platform rather than the consumer app. They plan to introduce a MySQL-style freemium model soon. Android users, let us know whether or not you like it, and what features or functions you’d like to see in upcoming versions. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke More About: Android apps, bluetooth, developers, Mobile 2.0, mobile app, neuaer, toothtag For more Mobile coverage:
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| PayPal Lifts Ban on Fundraising Account for WikiLeaks Source Bradley Manning Posted: 24 Feb 2011 05:45 PM PST   PayPal has lifted its ban on the account of Courage to Resist, an organization that has raised a substantial portion of the funds needed for the legal defense of Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old former U.S. army private accused of leaking classified U.S. information to WikiLeaks in 2010. In a blog post, PayPal declared that the original suspension had nothing to do with the organization’s support of Bradley Manning. Rather, the account had been suspended because it had failed to comply with a stated policy that requires non-profits to link a bank account to their PayPal account. “Upon review, and as part of our normal business procedures, we have decided to lift the temporary restriction placed on their account because we have sufficient information to meet our statutory 'Know Your Customer' obligations. The Courage to Resist PayPal account is now fully operational,” Anuj Nayar, PayPal’s director of communications, wrote. The explanation was posted in response to a widely circulated blog post on the Bradley Manning Support Network’s website Thursday, which accused the payment service of suspending the account because of its fundraising efforts on Manning’s behalf. Manning has been held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, since June 2010, and is not expected to face court martial until October 2011. His legal defense is estimated to cost more than $100,000. The ban on WikiLeaks’s PayPal account remains in place. Image courtesy of Wired More About: bradley manning, bradley manning support network, courage to resist, paypal, social media, wikileaks For more Social Media coverage:
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| Why Not Call It A Facebook Revolution? Posted: 24 Feb 2011 05:17 PM PST   Tunisians filled the streets with the help of Twitter. Egypt’s protests were coordinated on Facebook pages like that of Internet activist Wael Ghonim. Libyan dissenters spread the word about their “day of rage” last week the same way. And yet, in these heady days where the entire Middle East seems to be inspired to organize online in revolt against autocracy, it has become fashionable for experts to dismiss the role of social media in 2011′s revolutions. “People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented,” the New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell opined on February 2. A few weeks later, The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman reminded us that “the French managed to storm the Bastille without the help of Twitter – and the Bolsheviks took the Winter Palace without pausing to post photos of each other on Facebook.” True enough — and utterly irrelevant. Those uprisings had a strong assist from contemporary technology too. The Bolshevik revolution would hardly have happened without the telegraphs and trains that spirited Lenin to the Finland station at the right moment. And what would the French revolution have been without the latest high-tech gadget, hot from the workshop of Dr. Joseph Guillotin? Yes, of course, technology alone doesn’t make revolutions. The will of the people is the most vital ingredient. To ferment revolt, first let their resentment simmer for a few decades. But that doesn’t mean social media cannot provide wavering revolutionaries with vital aid and comfort. Remember the kids being interviewed in Tahir Square the night Mubarak resigned? What struck me most was what they were doing while waiting for the reporter to finish his introduction: thumbing on their smartphones. Want to hazard a guess at the website they were checking? Read the full column on CNN.com >>More About: Egypt, facebook, Revolution For more Social Media coverage:
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| Brain Exercise Startup Lumosity Beefs Up With 11 Million Members Posted: 24 Feb 2011 03:53 PM PST   Lumosity, a startup with more than 40 science-inspired web and mobile games for exercising the brain, has surpassed 11 million members in 190 countries and saw 400% growth in 2010. The startup credits a mixture of factors including mobile adoption, user recommendations and product enhancements for its huge bump in members. “Mainly, though, there’s been growth in the general awareness that you can actually affect the performance of your brain,” says co-founder and Chief Science Officer Mike Scanlan. Lumosity, which collaborates with universities like Stanford, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon and Columbia, originally launched in 2007 as a web-based brain training service. It has since released mobile applications for iPhone, Android and webOS that have, in total, been downloaded more than 6 million times and are clearly helping fuel new growth. The ever-expanding size of Lumosity’s member base lends it to possessing the largest database of human cognition, according to Scanlan. The startup has access to more than 200 million game results and can analyze that data to better understand how the human brain works and iterate its games accordingly. “We can dig through the database to get a better understanding of how people can improve their cognitive performance,” says Scanlan. Last year, Lumosity quietly acquired social gaming company ShuffleBrain, whose first title, Photograb, transforms Facebook photos into various puzzles. The acquisition was talent-centric and ShuffleBrain co-founders Amy Jo Kim and Scott Kim — experts in social architecture and puzzle design — now serve as advisors to the company. Lumosity appears to be on the right track in the user acquisition department, but little is known about its financial well-being, and Scanlan would not disclose revenue figures or paid subscriber numbers. He did, however, point to the fact that the startup has not needed to raise money, beyond the $3 million in funding it last closed in 2008, as a sign of its health. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, generacionx More About: brain, brain games, lumosity, startup For more Startups coverage:
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| Facebook Responds to FTC Privacy Investigation Posted: 24 Feb 2011 03:29 PM PST   Facebook says it agrees with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s findings that a privacy framework must be “dynamic.” In the social networking site’s official response to the FTC’s report into its privacy policies, which surfaced Thursday, Facebook says it can “create a framework that is sensitive to the different expectations of privacy users have in different contexts, maximizes users’ ability to control their privacy as they see fit, and promotes continued innovation.” Facebook maintains that “protecting privacy while promoting innovative services that enrich the online experience” have been important goals and the subject of discussions with both the public and private sectors. The 26-page document also delves into numerous other areas, including the site’s role in the Egypt protests — a subject the company had previously avoided — and how Facebook has spurred development of other services to the benefit of users, including Netflix and Amazon. “…We agree with the Department and the FTC that any privacy framework must be implemented in a way that both honors consumers’ expectations in the contexts in which they use online services and promotes the innovation that has fueled the growth of the Internet of the past two decades,” the document states. You can view the full document below. [via Fast Company] More About: facebook, FTC, privacy For more Social Media coverage:
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| What Marketers Need to Know About Facebook’s Switch to iFrames Posted: 24 Feb 2011 02:38 PM PST   Jeff Ente is the director of Who’s Blogging What, a weekly e-newsletter that tracks over 1,100 social media, web marketing and user experience blogs to keep readers informed about key developments in their field and highlight useful but hard to find posts. Mashable readers can subscribe for free here. Facebook has recently announced a lengthy list of significant design and feature changes for Pages. One particular item is emerging with perhaps the greatest challenge and the highest potential for Page owners. There is a new way to present custom content on Facebook Pages. Tabs and FBML are going away. Get ready to friend iFrames. Here’s a basic rundown and some tips on how to make the switch. Background: Starting With a Clean CanvasiFrames are not new. An iFrame is a standard HTML tag that allows one page to be inserted into another. It would seem like a pretty obvious way for Facebook Page owners to customize content, and Facebook did experiment with it awhile ago before discovering security issues. But as of February 10, iFrames are back. Facebook Markup Language (FBML), which has been the primary custom content creation tool, is being deprecated. FBML is a subset of HTML that has additional Facebook specific functions. For example, the FBML tag Learning to Love iFramesThe switch to iFrames means that developers can create dynamic web apps using their standard tools (HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, JavaScript, Flash, etc.), register them as a Facebook “Canvas” app and then embed the app on a custom Page via the iFrame. Some limited info about the Facebook user is available through the API. This all sounds much more complicated than it really is, and in fact it is probably simpler than the old process. Most developers are celebrating. “iFrames allow marketers the creativity and flexibility similar to that afforded by webpages while developers can streamline integration with one process for Facebook canvas apps, Facebook Connect website widgets, and now Facebook custom Pages,” says Vikas Jain, director of business development for Wildfire Interactive. If you can create something for the web, respect Facebook’s ToS, and (preferably) hold it to 520 pixels in width, you can now present it as custom Facebook Page content. Great content is only the start. Page owners can now have a more direct relationship with their Facebook visitors. “Right now the implications are countless,” says Patrick Stokes, chief product officer for Buddy Media. “Conversion tracking is probably the first thing that marketers should be focusing on. iFrames mean that you will be able to recognize the visitor, track their source and note their IP address in order to present a customized response. These capabilities are much stronger through iFrames than they are in FBML”. Mark Spangler, director of client services at Stuzo|Dachis Group is also expecting “exciting personalization options which should now appear seamless to the user: Customized landing views based on user location or referral source, dynamically updating the view for specific content, loading of Flash elements and interactive front-end features which formerly could not initially load on custom Pages.” Don't expect things to change overnight. This is a change that lies firmly in a divide between the aspirations of the marketing department and the freshly fueled capabilities of web developers. Companies that can bridge that gap wisely will likely see the best and fastest results. Involver's VP of marketing Jascha Kaykas-Wolff is advising marketers to proceed slowly and plan carefully for the best results. “The switch from FBML to iFrames is not earth shattering right now, however, in the future — and as Facebook evolves their ToS — iFrames will allow for a much more immersive experience consistent with your brand’s corporate experience. The evolution of Facebook becoming the replacement for the branded micro-site is well on its way.” Using FacebookThe best and simplest news for Facebook marketers is that they may not have to try and pull someone away from Facebook to get them onto their site. There are now better options for accomplishing their sales or branding goals entirely within Facebook. "We've found, in doing Facebook ad testing, that Facebook ad respondents tend to convert better when they land on a page within Facebook," observes Search Mojo CEO Janet Miller. “iFrames now open up a whole new world of possibilities for what can be delivered, including e-commerce, directly through a Facebook iFrame page.” Some of the selling may first have to occur internally as social media initiatives frequently need to fight for budget. Linda Bustos, director of e-commerce research with Elastic Path Software, notes, "Any new web development poses a challenge for social media. C-level execs want to see ROI from social initiatives — something that has historically been hard to prove." In this case, she points to the improved tracking capabilities and the ability to monitor activity via Google Analytics as a unique opportunity to measure social media costs versus benefits. Additionally, businesses should find it easier to convert existing web apps for Facebook use with iFrames. The Endgame for iFrames?The concept of businesses investing money to keep users on Facebook may seem like part of Facebook’s master plan. It probably is. Will Facebook Pages evolve into self-contained store fronts? "It will be interesting to see how Facebook handles this. One possibility is that they will require that all transactions be transacted in Credits, which is how they would get their cut," speculates Buddy Media’s Patrick Stokes. iFrames for Pages may be a win/win for all sides but they will require planning and some investment. As always with Facebook, you can't ignore the huge user base, and you have to be open to new opportunities to interact. iFrames are very much a work-in-progress that warrants serious attention. Disclosure: Buddy Media is a Mashable sponsor. More Business Resources from Mashable:
More About: business, facebook, facebook pages, iframes, MARKETING For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Google Rolls Out New Search Tool for Recipes Posted: 24 Feb 2011 01:45 PM PST   Google began rolling out Thursday a new search feature that makes finding recipes on the web a little easier. Dubbed “Recipe View,” the feature lets users filter search results according to ingredients, cook time, calories and more. Users can search, for instance, for recipes containing brussels sprouts, devised by chef Ina Garten, that take less than an hour to make. Pictures, ingredients and one- to five-star user ratings are highlighted in the listed results, helping users quickly discover or bypass recipes. To use Recipe View, simply select the “Recipes” link on the left-hand panel when searching for a recipe. Google plans to enable the feature to all users in the U.S. and Japan by Thursday evening; it also plans to introduce the feature to additional countries in the future, a Google spokesperson said. More About: Food, Google, recipe view For more Media coverage:
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| Verizon Releases First Ad for Motorola’s Xoom [VIDEO] Posted: 24 Feb 2011 01:40 PM PST Verizon Wireless today released its first ad for Motorola’s Xoom tablet, a futuristic spot that highlights the device’s ability to play Vendetta. A shortened version of the ad was released earlier this week, but Verizon loaded the full 30-second version to its YouTube page today. In the ad, a leather-jacketed guy grabs the tablet and is whisked away into a spaceship, where he picks out the Vendetta app and begins playing. A voiceover rattles off Xoom’s chief attributes: a 1 GHz dual-processor, 3D graphics engine, a gyroscope and a widescreen HD display. Tagline: “Grab it and it grabs you.” The ad comes on the heels of Motorola’s own ad for the Xoom, an epic 60-second Super Bowl spot that sought to one-up Apple’s iconic “1984” ad for the Macintosh. The ad coincides with Xoom’s release today at Best Buy and Verizon. The device goes for $799 at both outlets but costs $599 with a 24-month Verizon contract. Of course, Verizon is neutral in Motorola’s fight with Apple. The carrier earlier this month began carrying Apple’s iPhone and released a couple of ads celebrating access to the device and taking on its main rival, AT&T. Subscribe to Mashable on YouTube for Our Latest Videos »More About: advertising, apple, Motorola, verizon, xoom For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Island Def Jam Partners With The Echo Nest To Create Opportunities For Developers Posted: 24 Feb 2011 01:27 PM PST   In what the companies are calling the first-ever alliance between a major label and the independent app developer community, Island Def Jam and The Echo Nest are partnering to make the label’s catalog available to developers who employ The Echo Nest’s API. This agreement will yield benefits for both the label and developers. Developers, for their part, will have access to Island Def Jam‘s entire catalog and roster when creating an app using The Echo Nest’s API. Island Def Jam (IDJ) is a division of Universal Music Group. When a developer signs up to use the Echo Nest API, he or she also will be able to access music from the IDJ catalog without having to ask the label for permission. All the developer has to do is agree to the terms of service to be able to create any app — sans licensing costs. As part of this agreement, the label is rendered the publisher of the app, giving it control over distribution and making it privy to a portion of the revenue (the rest goes to the dev and The Echo Nest). In turn, IDJ will market the app and pay music publishers when need be. In effect, this union removes the barrier to entry that many developers hit when they attempt to obtain licenses to music (it’s difficult and expensive). “We’re very excited to streamline the process and inspire creativity,” says Jon Vanhala, senior vice president of digital at IDJ. Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest, says he’s hopeful this partnership will change how music apps are made — with developers in a work-for-hire role to create apps for artists. He equates such developers to session musicians, paralleling devs with access to IDJ’s catalog and The Echo Nest API to bands — i.e. true artists, rather than hired hands. “We’re setting up the framework for improvisation. … We trust the developers to come up with better stuff than we could mandate,” said Vanhala, adding that promotional tools like the traditional band website are no longer intriguing to consumers. “You want to keep people dancing.” "The music app is the new music format," Lucchese said. "Music formats drive how we experience music and the role it plays in our lives. In the same way that the music video provided a promotional wrapper around songs and artists while also functioning as a new creative work, music apps can attract new fans and raise an artist's visibility while standing alone as a creative product.” There is no set date for when this partnership will go live, and Vanhala and Lucchese acknowledge it will not be a clear-cut process when it comes to securing the appropriate rights for each and every band. We’re interested to see how this announcement plays out and the effect it will have on the industry. Still, if the bevy of intriguing apps (many of which employed The Echo Nest API) that emerged from Music Hack Day this year are any indication, we could be in for some download-worthy apps in the near future. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, a_Taiga More About: design-and-dev, Echo Nest, island-def-jam For more Media coverage:
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| Is Developing a Mobile App Worth the Cost? Posted: 24 Feb 2011 01:17 PM PST   Aaron Maxwell is founder of mobile web design agency Mobile Web Up. You can find him on the agency’s mobile business blog, where he writes about mobile and social media. Almost every business is gearing up their mobile strategy. No secret why: Mobile is really taking off. There are already more people on the planet who communicate with text messages than with e-mail and more people who own phones than have credit cards, according to the latest statistics. The difficulty is that there are many facets of mobile technology. Apps, websites and SMS form the broad foundation. But mobile payments and advertising are rich topics on their own. Where do you focus first? For many companies, the answer has been “an iPhone app” (notice I said iPhone app, not mobile app. More on that later). But people have also been looking into mobile-optimized websites. That has led to a kind of debate in some circles about which is more important. If you’re going to only do one, is it better to make a mobile app or a mobile website? Apps have one clear advantage. In general, a well-made app can provide a far better user experience than even the best mobile websites are capable of right now. I don’t think this is controversial. Really, though, what I often see missing from such discussions is cost. It’s often not that hard to make a web app that will work well on most smartphones (depending on the nature of the app — things like graphics-intensive games being an exception, etc.). But making just a native iPhone app is usually harder than making an equivalent cross-platform web app. And if you want Android and BlackBerry users to be able to have a native app, too, you often have to build each platform from scratch. Types of AppsLet’s make an important distinction here. Apps can be divided into:
The first type is the topic of all those heartwarming stories about some enterprising developer creating an iPhone app in his spare time, from which he is making more than enough to quit his job coding TPS report generators at BoringBigCo. There are also real companies that do create and sell apps, quite successfully. The income comes from charging for the app directly, in-app purchases, and subscriptions, or less directly, through advertising (think Angry Birds on Android). If you’re charging for your mobile product, a native app is the way to go. A mobile website can’t integrate with iTunes billing, which — in addition to providing a ready market of 125 million mobile users — makes payment a snap. Charging for access to your mobile website will require rolling your own payment solution… a tall order on mobile right now. While interesting and exciting, this category of mobile app is not really what we’re talking about in this article. What’s relevant is when companies produce apps in the second category, for the purposes of marketing, branding or customer service. Good examples are the Starbucks or Target Stores apps. These are normally free, since the whole point is to get them distributed as widely as possible. And that changes the discussion completely. If we make an app, how many prospects and customers will it reach? That puts a ceiling on the potential success of the app as a marketing channel. The Reach Of Different Mobile ChannelsFrom a pure “how many prospects can I reach” perspective, the best mobile marketing tool is text messaging. About 68% percent of American cell phone subscribers sent a text message in late 2010, according to comScore’s mobile market share report. Of course, you can do things with apps and websites that you can’t do with SMS. So how many people can you reach with an app? And how many with a mobile website? For mobile websites, it’s easy. The best indicator is how many people actually browse the web on their mobile phones. As of late 2010, it’s currently over 36% of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers. So, about one half as many people as you can reach with a text message. There is more to the story for apps. I was at the San Francisco de Young museum a couple of weeks ago. They threw a little shindig to celebrate the release of their official mobile app. The only hitch: You could only install it if you had an iPhone. Those of us with Androids and BlackBerrys couldn’t play. That reflects a current reality with apps. An iPhone app only works on, well, iPhones. Your app has to be made separately for each platform. In North America, the most important smartphone platforms right now are iOS, Android, and BlackBerry. How many mobile users are on each? Here are the ratios in the U.S., as a percentage of all mobile phone users, for the last quarter of 2010:
In other words, if you decide to only make an iPhone app, fewer than 7% of all mobile phone users will be able to use it. If the app’s primary purpose is marketing, you’ll need to decide whether this reach is big enough to be worth it. And if you develop three different apps to cover these three most common platforms, you’re going to potentially triple your cost. All so you can reach only a fraction of the number of people you can get with a mobile website. To make things worse, I’m ignoring Windows Phone 7. A year from now it may have a very significant market share, thanks to Microsoft’s joint venture with Nokia. Most mobile websites will work fine on the new Nokia/WP7 phones the day they are released. But creating and pushing out a Silverlight mobile app is no small task. Apps Aren’t FreeThe costs for this can add up. There’s no such thing as a “typical” app, so it’s hard to give a meaningful average cost. But as a general working figure, we can say it costs at least $30,000 to design, implement and deploy a brand-quality iPhone app. I haven’t found published studies for the equivalent costs for Android and BlackBerry, but since the device fragmentation is greater, it would makes sense that the costs are at least similar. All the above means that, at the end of the day, creating a set of mobile native apps that reach, say, 80% of smartphone users is going to be far more expensive than creating a mobile web app that reaches 90% of smartphone users. I don’t even mean twice the cost; I mean more like five, maybe even ten times the cost. In many situations, that’s acceptable. As noted, sometimes you want to do things that just aren’t possible with a mobile website, at least with good quality. Or maybe it is possible, but you know you can create something of better quality with a native app, so that the result is more engaging. For enterprise-scale organizations like consumer banks and nationwide retail stores, they have the capital, and the ROI justifies it. But if your budget for mobile is under $100,000, it may not be a good approach. How does a mobile website compare in cost? I haven’t found any published study of the typical cost for mobile web design and development. But from my experience running a company that does just that, I can tell you that it’s almost always less than the $30,000 for an “average” iPhone app. What’s the ROI?Given all this, how many prospects will a venture reach per dollar? At a conservative estimate of 234 million U.S. adults with mobile phones, here’s the breakdown:  In other words, you can reach nearly five times as many people per dollar invested with a mobile website rather than a native mobile app. And that’s conservative, assuming it costs just the same to create the BlackBerry app as it does to create the iPhone app (it doesn’t), or that a mobile website will cost the same as an equivalent iPhone app (generally, not even close). Does this mean you shouldn’t do an app? Of course not. There are many other factors involved. If an app user converts 10 times more frequently, for example, the difference is more than justified. But that’s a big hurdle to clear. And if you want to reach users across more than one mobile platform, you have to consider the extra capital investment as well. Whether you go with a mobile website, a native mobile app, or both, you’ll probably benefit. The continued mobile explosion will make sure of that. Just take care that you get the most bang for your buck by doing what’s best for your business. More Mobile Resources from Mashable:
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| Instagram Releases Real-Time API Publicly for Universal Photo Sharing Posted: 24 Feb 2011 12:58 PM PST   Mobile photo-sharing startup Instagram, which now has north of 2 million users, is opening its API publicly Thursday and introducing real-time support, which allows developers to grab photos around tags, locations and geographies as they’re posted to the service. The public release of the real-time API is a strategic move from the startup to free itself, and its sea of stylized photos, from being fettered to the iPhone. “At the end day, we’ve done our job if people’s photos can get anywhere in the world instantly, and people can consume them on any platform instantly,” says CEO Kevin Systrom. The new API will deliver instantaneous, live content updates to third-party applications and can today be seen in action via launch partners Foodspotting, a food-sharing app, and Dropbox, a file-storage service. Personal diary app Momento also updated its iPhone app today, introducing Instagram integration. Popular social news app Flipboard, online start page service About.me and object-tagging app The Fancy are also set to release integrations that will bake in live photo updates, Systrom says. The real-time API represents a drastic step forward from the private beta release. “We really wanted to push our API to the next level to support a new kind of interaction around photos — one that supported the real-time nature of the content that people create on Instagram,” Systrom says. Participating developers can now subscribe to Instagram photos in one of four buckets: linked-application updates, tags, locations and geographies. The first bucket means that if you’re a Foodspotting user, for instance, and you’ve linked your Instagram account to the app, Foodspotting can now automatically pull in your Instagram “#food” photos from the API as you post them. Tags and locations are self-explanatory. Developers can build in the ability to grab Instagram photos in real-time based on hashtag or place. The geographies feature is a bit more complex, but it essentially lets the developer zoom out of specific locations and subscribe to photo pools from broader geographic areas. Instagram has built its own sample application to demonstrate the power of the live-updating API and show the geographies feature in action. Post an Instagram photo geo-tagged within 5 kilometers of a metropolitan city center (the demo app subscribes to 20 geographies representing major cities around the world) and that photo will instantly appear on the site. And, instant it is — the photo may even pop up on the demo site before it shows up within the Instagram iPhone app photo stream. “We’re really excited about creating a more open platform,” Systrom says. The startup will continue to focus on building its own application for Android, Systrom says, but he sees the API as a way to reach more users on more platforms right now. In total, more than 2,000 developers have clamored for access to the Instagram API since its private beta launch just more than two weeks ago. Interest likely will skyrocket with the public release of the real-time API and the opportunities associated with universal sharing of live Instagram content. More About: api, instagram, mobile photo sharing For more Startups coverage:
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| Thunderbolt: Everything You Need To Know Posted: 24 Feb 2011 12:41 PM PST   It might not have seemed like we needed another way to connect computer components, but when you take a look at Thunderbolt, which made its debut on MacBook Pros today, you’ll see it’s going to be a welcome addition. Formerly called Light Peak, this new way of connecting displays and peripherals is so much faster than its predecessors, it will probably take over as the preferred way to hook up drives, monitors and many other devices to Macs and PCs for the next few years. Here’s everything you need to know:
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| PayPal Halts Donations to Defense Fund for WikiLeaks Source Bradley Manning [UPDATED] Posted: 24 Feb 2011 12:14 PM PST  Update (8:19 p.m. ET): PayPal has lifted its ban on the Courage to Resist account, and insists that the original suspension had nothing to do with its support of Bradley Manning. PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, an organization that has raised a substantial portion of the funds needed for the legal defense of Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old former U.S. army private accused of leaking classified U.S. information to WikiLeaks in 2010. The account, which has been active since 2006, experienced no issues until supporters were encouraged to donate to Manning’s cause via PayPal, says a blog post on the Bradley Manning Support Network. The network has collaborated with Courage to Resist to raise funds on the behalf of Manning’s defense and public-awareness efforts. In late 2010, PayPal, Mastercard and Visa shut down payment services to WikiLeaks. Jeff Paterson, project director for Courage to Resist and steering committee member of the Support Network, said he began receiving calls from executives at PayPal shortly thereafter about the website’s content, how the organization intended to use the funds raised for Manning and recent purchases made with PayPal. "We've been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there's no legal obligation for them to close down our account," said Loraine Reitman of the Support Network. "This was an internal policy decision by PayPal.” According to Jeff Paterson, project director for Courage to Resist and steering committee member of the Support Network, PayPal says it will not release its hold on the account unless Courage to Resist authorizes PayPal to withdraw funds from its checking account by default, a degree of access the company does not feel comfortable granting to PayPal. “They opted to apply an exceptional hurdle for us to clear in order to continue as a customer,” Paterson said, despite having “clearly provided the legally required information and verification.” The Support Network was refused official documentation from PayPal detailing the policies that necessitated the freeze, the organization said. Manning has been held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, since June 2010. He is not expected to face court martial until October 2011. His legal defense is estimated to cost more than $100,000. Image courtesy of Wired More About: bradley manning, bradley manning support network, courage to resist, paypal, wikileaks For more Social Media coverage:
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| LinkedIn Tool Visualizes Profile Updates in Your Network Posted: 24 Feb 2011 12:00 PM PST   At the beginning of this year, LinkedIn sent members an e-mail with a neat visualization that displayed all the people in a user’s network who changed jobs or updated their profile in 2010. The company got such a positive response to the e-mail that today it rolled out a web app that does the same thing but also includes data from 2009 and 2011. The app, announced on the company’s blog, gives a visual mosaic of all the profile updaters (see picture). Click on one of the head shots and you go straight to the person’s profile. In the blog post, Dhananjay Ragade, principal software engineer at LinkedIn, explains that the project came out of one of LinkedIn’s hack days, which he describes as “one day a month when everyone is encouraged to play with new technologies and come up with something creative.” Over the winter holiday, Ragade worked with Vidya Chandra, a product marketing executive at LinkedIn, on the idea. The company liked it so much, it sent users an e-mail version in January. Now, the company is rolling out the web app. Given LinkedIn’s access to such data, the app opens the door to more value-added services. For instance, the company has gotten requests for network-wide stats on job switching and the like but hasn’t yet tabulated such results for public consumption. Another idea is to update the app monthly or even weekly rather than annually, but a LinkedIn representative says there are no immediate plans to roll out such a service. With its IPO looming, LinkedIn has experimented with other ways to spice up the site. This month, for instance, the company released a droll, retro-themed, FedEx-sponsored instructional video aimed at small business owners looking to learn about LinkedIn. In November, the network also introduced a share button to spread its influence. Fan of Mashable? Join Other Fans on LinkedIn »For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| MTV Dubs Its Digital Music Awards Show the OMAs Posted: 24 Feb 2011 11:55 AM PST   Last month, we heard word that MTV would be launching a new awards show focused on digital music and social media. We didn’t know much at the time, but now MTV has announced that it will occur on April 28, and it will be called The O___ Music Awards (OMAs). What does the “O” stand for? According to MTV, the character has purposely been left open to interpretation, so as to emphasize the importance of audience participation (sounds kind of like MySpace’s new logo, no?), which is the theme of the show. The OMAs will air across all of MTV Music Group’s platforms and screens, which include MTV.com, VH1.com, CMT.com and LOGOTV.com. And, naturally, it will include mobile and social media elements. Soon, MTV also will announce the categories and nominees, which will include artists, technology innovators, fans and web celebrities. We expect MTV will draw from its burgeoning experience in the realm of social media engagement when it comes to drawing an audience to the show — think the search for the first Twitter jockey and the Captionbomb game MTV launched for the Skins premiere, to name a few. More About: mtv For more Media coverage:
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| How 5 Companies Are Using the iPad to Increase Productivity Posted: 24 Feb 2011 11:18 AM PST
Less than a year after the device’s launch, however, the jury is still out on its net productivity. And these five companies are making a pretty strong case for how Apple’s tablet (and it’s competitors, when they catch up) has a lot of potential to make business more efficient. 1. Zoom Room: Scheduling, Checkins & Checkouts Dog agility training and canine social club Zoom Room (it’s a gym for dogs) uses iPads to run its three, soon to be eight, locations. Every member of the facility is issued a credit card-sized ID and a dog collar tag that have barcodes on them, much like the swipe in cards that many people use. Zoom Room uses a scanner that works with the iPad to check dogs into the facility for classes and other events. Because owners can handle this process, employees are free to answer questions, ring up sales and interact with dogs. “All of our nationwide locations are required to use a 3G-enabled iPad model,” says COO Mark Van Wye. “In the case of an Internet outage — or even a power outage — we can still run every single aspect of our business from the iPad (ringing up sales, scheduling appointments, signing people in to classes, etc.) Thanks to the long battery life, our entire business can run a full day with no hardware and no electricity — just the iPad.” 2. Auto Racing: Data Visualization IndyCar Series drivers, like Tony Kanaan and Jay Howard, and developmental drivers, like Andretti Autosport’s 16-year-old USF2000 Zach Veach (pictured above), use the iPad in pit lane during practice. Instead of handing the driver a data sheet that details the number of laps, lap times and other information, the pit crew hands the driver an iPad. “Basically having this device streamlines the pit stop process,” explains Klint Briney, the CEO and a sports agent at BRANDed, a company that represents drivers. “The engineers have always had laptops in pit lane that allow them to see where the car is at on the track, where the driver is braking, and when they are shifting. The iPad allows the driver, when he or she comes into the pitbox, to view timing and scoring, see how many laps they have done, and who is leading and also view a track map.” 3. San Francisco Art Exchange: Sales Presentations The San Francisco Art Exchange specializes in the art and imagery of popular culture. Before it implemented an iPad into its sales process, the team would fill requests like, “I’d like art featuring Jimi Hendrix” by collecting all of the physical Jimi Hendrix inventory. With a new system developed specifically for the gallery, the sales team now uses the iPad to control a presentation of the artwork that might be of interest to a specific customer. The customer can compare pieces side by side, see what the work would look like on a wall and see prices and sizing options on a large monitor at the gallery. They also can save their favorites in order to show a spouse or get a second opinion. 4. WhiteGlove House Call Health: Prescriptions, Forms, Surveys & Translation Nurse practitioners at WhiteGlove House Call Health visit patients at work and at home. Since 2010, they’ve also been bringing an iPad along with them. Previously, they used laptops with paper consent-to-treat and end-of-visit surveys, but the iPads have allowed them to go wireless (a demonstration of a visit is pictured above). “Nurse practitioners use the WhiteGlove platform running on Apple iPads to chart and submit Rx medication orders, review the members' medical history, complete consent-to-treat forms and enable members to take end-of-visit surveys that are automatically transmitted to corporate when completed,” says Michael Cohen, WhiteGlove’s vice president of marketing. “WhiteGlove's Nurse Practitioners also use the iPad to translate conversations with members that do not speak English.” 5. Steve Gray Renovations High-end home renovation company Steve Gray Renovations has given iPads to all four people who work in its Indianapolis office to increase their productivity. Employees use the tablets to keep renovation schedules, bring new project specifications to pricing meetings and track job costs. They also use the gadget on site. “We are able to create job notes while on site, then send [them] directly to contractors,” explains CEO Steve Gray. “We also create notes and keep them on the iPad until the job is completed — less paper and easier to track tasks. Before, I used to walk around with a notepad and handwrite information. I can now forward my notes to the team, so everyone knows what we need to do on a job site.” Series Supported by LogMeIn Ignition  The iPad for Business Series is supported by LogMeIn Ignition. Contrary to popular opinion, iPads aren't just for games any more. Unleash it's full potential and make your iPad work for work, download LogMeIn Ignition and get one-touch access to all your applications and files on your remote computers from your iPad/iPhone. You'll be more productive anywhere, anytime thanks to the App Store's #1 third-party Productivity App of 2010. More Business Resources from Mashable:
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| Nearly Half of Americans Use Facebook; Only 7% Use Twitter [STUDY] Posted: 24 Feb 2011 11:12 AM PST   A new report from eMarketer finds that most adult Americans with Internet access use Facebook at least once a month, and a full 42.3% of the entire American population was using the site as of this month. By contrast, Twitter‘s penetration rate was much lower, sitting at around 7% of the total population and 9% of the Internet-using population, according to the report. Late last year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company saw around 250 million daily users of its 500 million-strong user base. The young exec made the point that Facebook’s products — including Photos, Places, Groups and Messages — are features that people use more frequently than they use other, more established services with similar features because Facebook's products are inherently social. Twitter, on the other hand, is driven largely by so-called power users, and only 21% of registered users are actually active on the site. Another interesting and related Twitter usage stat: 22.5% of users are responsible for 90% of all tweets. One important stat to note, however, is Twitter’s year-over-year growth. Last year around this time, Twitter’s penetration rate was around 7%, and by the end of this year it’s expected to be at 11% for American Internet users, or 16.5% of the population that also uses other social networks. In terms of the overall U.S. population, the numbers are still small, but the growth is steady. An analyst for the firm said, “eMarketer’s new Twitter usage estimates are lower than our April 2010 forecast. Since then, Twitter has continued to gain traction but at more moderate levels than we had expected.” The microblogging service celebrated 100 million new accounts created in 2010, and a lot of that growth was due to the company’s investment in official and device-integrated mobile apps. What do you think it’ll take for Twitter’s growth to really skyrocket and reach more of the population? Or will this service remain a niche product for the web-using elite? Let us know your opinions below. More About: adoption, facebook, penetration, stats, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Rdio Now Streams 8 Million Songs on Roku Posted: 24 Feb 2011 10:57 AM PST   Roku owners just got another music source, this time from subscription streaming music service Rdio. Rdio subscribers can enter their credentials into the Roku set-top box and they’re good to go. For those who are uninitiated to the service, Rdio is offering its usual seven-day free trial, with an all-you-can-stream $9.99 charge per month after that. It’s another win for Rdio, which just received an influx of cash a few weeks ago, bolstered by the addition of more indie bands and greater selection on its service that now boasts more than 8 million songs. It already was no slouch, streaming music from four of the major record labels and aggregators IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard, IRIS, Finetunes, and thousands of indie labels. Add to that Rdio’s presence on a variety of platforms, including its own website as well as iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Sonos clients, and the result is a hot competitor in the music subscription space. The service might even be putting the heat on aspiring newcomers to the U.S. market such as Spotify. Making it extra competitive is its ultra-social nature, offering music discovery where users can follow each other and learn about new music from friends’ recommendations. It’s another win for Roku as well, which is consistently adding services to its burgeoning stable of entertainment choices. It most recently added Amazon’s rebranded Prime Instant Video service to its dossier. We’ve tried most of the Roku boxes, and find them to be an outstanding value, priced at less than $100 for a plethora of channels. Now with the addition of Rdio, it’s almost enough to persuade you to cut the cable TV cord. More About: rdio, roku, streaming music, Subscription service For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| FaceTime 1.0 Arrives in the Mac App Store Posted: 24 Feb 2011 10:29 AM PST   Apple has released the official version of FaceTime for Mac in the Mac App Store. The app is included with new MacBook Pro machines and is available for download for $0.99 in the Mac App Store [App Store link]. FaceTime made its debut with the iPhone 4 as a way for users to make free iPhone-to-iPhone video calls over a Wi-Fi network. The latest iPod touch units also support FaceTime, and in October, Apple introduced the Mac app. Using the desktop app, Mac users can place calls to users with an iPhone 4, iPod touch or another Mac. Users log in with their Apple ID and can assign an e-mail address (or several addresses) that act as a “number.” The big new feature with FaceTime for Mac is that it supports HD video calls. The new MacBook Pro units come equipped with HD web cameras and FaceTime now let users receive 720p video calls. It isn’t clear from Apple’s description if HD cameras like the Logitech HD Pro C910 will also be able to make 720p video calls from FaceTime. I happen to have that web cam hooked up to my Mac and I will test its compatibility with FaceTime for HD calls later today.  The advantage of FaceTime on the desktop, compared with something like Skype, really comes down to convenience and ease of use. FaceTime doesn’t have to be open for a user to receive a call, and making calls to iPhone or Mac users is incredibly simple. Still, Skype continues to improve its Mac desktop offering and expand its video-calling mobile support, which means this is still going to be relegated to a niche subset of users. Hopefully FaceTime and iChat will become properly integrated in Mac OS X Lion, because that would help unify the various Apple communications apps on the desktop. Have you used FaceTime on the Mac? What do you think? Let us know. [via MacRumors] More About: apple, facetime, facetime for mac, mac, mac apps, mac software, Skype, video calling For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Now Anyone Can Sync Google Docs & Microsoft Office Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:49 AM PST   Google just made it easier for people to collaborate with each other using Microsoft Office by officially launching Google Cloud Connect Thursday. The service, which has been in beta since November, is now available to all and uses Google’s vast cloud to store and synchronize any Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel document. If you have Microsoft Office, using Google Cloud Connect is as easy as downloading a plug-in, installing it and then seeing a toolbar at the top of your Office application. After your authorization, Cloud Connect saves a copy of your document online and lets you share it with anyone you choose via an e-mail address. The recipients clicks on the shared link and the file opens in Google Docs. At that point, they can download the document and work on it in Microsoft Word. When they make changes, the edits show up on the original document, too. Documents can be edited in either Google Docs or Microsoft Office, and whoever is collaborating with you does not need to own Microsoft Office to edit those documents and synchronize the files with each other. It would seem that Google is using this free and convenient plug-in as a lure for those who might be tempted to use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office. Although the service was synching slowly when we tested it this morning (probably because of everyone who wanted to try the new service), it worked well and kept a Word document up to date on both PCs. Its file synchronization isn’t as immediate as the live typing of the now-defunct Google Wave, but it's still able to sync documents efficiently. Here’s a video showing how the system works, and be sure to see the additional demo videos Google released on its blog today: More About: cloud, Excel, Google Cloud Connect, microsoft office, powerpoint, synchronization, word For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Bing Now Shows Your Friends’ Facebook Likes for All Search Results Posted: 24 Feb 2011 08:45 AM PST   Microsoft's Bing will now show you a list of your Facebook friends who have "liked" any of the links displayed in search results. The development marks a planned expansion of Facebook and Bing's search partnership, which first introduced likes in some types of queries and people searches last October. Writing on its official blog, the Bing team says, "As people spend more time online and integrate their offline and online worlds, they will want their friends' social activity and their social data to help them in making better decisions." With the like button now in place on more than 2.5 million websites, Facebook's open graph is now at the scale where we'd expect Bing's integration to start having a meaningful impact on search results. It also would seemingly give content publishers that generate significant social media sharing activity an advantage, since that activity now impacts rankings. Google, for its part, has a deal to include certain types of Facebook updates in its social search offering, but does not currently use the open graph data that Bing is leveraging in its results. However, Google did recently launch a number of upgrades, integrating data from Twitter, Quora and Flickr. More About: bing, facebook, microsoft For more Social Media coverage:
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| Box.net Raises $48 Million to Take on Enterprise Software Giants Posted: 24 Feb 2011 08:21 AM PST   Cloud collaboration and management company Box.net announced Thursday that it has closed a $48 million Series D investment round. Meritech Capital Partners led the round, which included previous investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Scale Venture Partners and U.S. Venture Partners. New investors included Andreessen Horowitz and Emergence Capital Partners. We spoke with Box.net’s co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie about the new round and what the company plans to do with the money. In short, the goal is to use the additional funding to make Box a real competitor in the enterprise software space. Investing in InfrastructureBox.net has made no secret of its plans to take on IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the enterprise document management and collaboration space. Two years ago, the company sent me a t-shirt that featured the Microsoft SharePoint logo and the drawing of a dodo bird. To send SharePoint and other Box.net competitors into extinction, the company needs to build out its infrastructure so that the product can easily service companies that store hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of documents across a network. Box.net still rents its data center space, but it owns and operates its own equipment and will continue to expand and look into deploying data outlays in areas closer to specific clients. While focusing on expanding its engineering team is key, Levie told us that the company also plans to grow its sales staff so that it can better compete with big enterprise companies in bids for new and existing companies. Box.net enterprise customers include Cisco, Dell and DreamWorks. Taking on these kinds of customers and keeping these customers happy is what will help Box.net transform into the next Salesforce.com. From Consumer Tool to Enterprise PowerhouseBox.net started its life as a consumer-focused cloud storage tool. In an era before Dropbox, free cloud storage tools were a common commodity in the early Web 2.0 era. Box.net recognized that there was a real need in the small business and enterprise space for usable cloud software, especially in areas of document management and collaboration — and we think this is a key reason why the company has continued to succeed, to raise funding and to enter into large-scale partnerships.  By shifting focus to the small business and enterprise market in 2009, the company has set itself apart from its early competitors in the cloud-storage space. Levie reiterated to us — as he has in the past — that user experience is paramount to Box.net. For small business and enterprise customers, the usability of a software product, whether it is cloud based or not, is often the deciding factor in whether a tool is widely adopted. In this area, Box.net continues to evolve and improve. In January, the company launched a redesign of its web interface and also announced new mobile partnerships with Samsung. Still Focused on MobileAn early player on both the iPhone and iPad, Box.net also boasts a great Android app and supports other platforms like webOS and BlackBerry. The company is going to continue to invest in mobile and capitalize on the advantages afforded by having a modern, cloud-based infrastructure already in place. Box.net has a great OpenBox API that allows third parties to plug into Box.net seamlessly. With additional funding, look for the company to make a further push with mobile developers and its OpenBox Mobile platform. More About: box.net, cloud computing, collaborations software, funding, SaaS For more Startups coverage:
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| Disney Acquires Social Network for Children Posted: 24 Feb 2011 08:13 AM PST   Togetherville, a social network for children under the age of 10, has confirmed that it was purchased by Disney. The site’s terms of service now read, “Welcome to the Internet sites of the Walt Disney Internet Group.” Togetherville launched in May and set itself apart from other social networks for children by facilitating parent-child interactions. In addition to viewing their children’s social network activity on the sites, parents also can post messages to their walls, allocate "virtual allowances" and send virtual gifts. The social network will join Disney’s powerful portfolio of sites aimed at children, which includes its 2007 $700 million acquisition of the game world Club Penguin and Funschool.com. Disney didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail regarding its intentions for its new acquisition. Safe social networks for children who are not legally entitled to a Facebook account (at least according to the U.S. COPPA law) is a need that a bevy of new websites are vying to fill. Togetherville competitor Everloop announced last week that it was launching in 56,000 schools through a partnership with Internet safety education program i-Safe, and tween network What’s What? launched last week. Whether the magic of Disney will turn Togetherville, instead of another site, into a synonym for Facebook in the vocabulary of children remains to be seen. More About: Children, disney, Kids, togetherville For more Startups coverage:
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| Why Online Marketers Should Not Track Children [OPINION] Posted: 24 Feb 2011 07:27 AM PST
Most kids today live their lives online, immersed in a mobile and digital landscape. While the Internet is a platform for innovation and provides rich resources for entertainment and learning, the nature of digital interaction creates deep concerns about the privacy of children. Parents fear that their children will inadvertently make personal information public, potentially damaging their own reputations and those of their friends. But they also have profound — and justified — concerns that what their children say and do in the digital world is being tracked by marketers and information aggregators who aim to profit from their personal information and online activities. Children’s online privacy involves two key concepts: our fundamental right to privacy and our need to protect our children from potential harm. At the moment, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits the collection of "personally identifiable" information from kids ages 12 and under without parental consent, is the cornerstone policy protecting children's online privacy. But COPPA was written before 1998, long before the advent of social networks like Facebook, information aggregators like Google, social game sites like Zynga and geolocation announcers like Foursquare. These sites all have business models that are based on following online activities. It’s no wonder these companies and their competitors oppose legislation that would in restrict their access to information — even if it means not protecting the privacy of kids. Recently, congressional leaders introduced a “Do Not Track” bill, which would build on the principles of the national "Do Not Call" registry, and set clear standards for how and when a consumer's personal information can be collected. It also would enable users to opt out of online tracking. But this legislation may not end up addressing the issue of tracking of minors. Kids should not have to opt out of something in order to protect their privacy. Both sides of the political aisle should agree on that point, but to truly protect our kids, we need a comprehensive approach, and one that includes these important components. Ground Rules Children and teens should not have their online behavior tracked or any other personal information about them profiled by or transferred to third parties. Companies — whether Internet service providers, social networking sites, third-party application providers, data mining companies or advertising networks — should not be permitted to sell or transfer that personal information. Without parents or kids knowing it, companies collect, store, and sell information about what kids do online and on mobile phones. Companies can track which websites kids visit, what searches they conduct, which videos they download, who they "friend" on social networking sites, what they write in e-mails, comments or instant messages, and more. This type of tracking is what needs to stop. The Industry Standard for All Privacy Should Be Opt In — Especially for KidsCompanies and operators should not collect or use personal information unless users give explicit prior approval. The opt in standard is fundamental to our ability to control our personal information. If online companies, services and applications want to collect and use personal information, they should get permission beforehand by asking people to opt in to the service. Most sites and networks achieve this through a terms of service agreement, or a privacy policy, which users must agree to before signing up for an account. The trouble is, many policies are extremely long and complex, and few people actually review them before hitting “I agree.” While this is ultimately the responsibility of the user (or the user’s parent, in this discussion), it’s in the industry’s interest to simplify these agreements (see below). Additionally, if any changes are made to the policy after a user registers, the user should be notified and required to review and agree to the new terms — especially when it comes to minors. Privacy Policies Should Be Clear and TransparentPrivacy policies need to be easy for users to find and understand and should be carefully monitored and enforced. Any significant privacy policy changes should require a clear new opt in by the user or the parent, depending on the age of the child. Most privacy policies today are lengthy legal documents written at a college level or beyond. Instead, companies should use icons and symbols that would be easy to understand and would clearly convey how personal information will be used. Parents and Children Should Be Educated About Online Privacy Kids and their parents need to do their part to protect their online privacy and the privacy of their friends. We need a large-scale, multi-year public education campaign to help them learn how to do so effectively. I believe that it should be funded by the industry. Young people need to learn to protect their own privacy and to respect others' privacy. There should be a digital literacy curriculum in every school in this country with privacy as an essential component. Privacy Protections Should Apply Across All Online and Mobile PlatformsCurrent privacy regulations need to be clarified and applied to all online and mobile services and platforms. Social networking sites shouldn't be able to collect or sell kids' private information, and neither should third-party apps on those sites. Location-based services shouldn't be allowed without prior parental consent to a clear and understandable privacy policy, regardless of whether the service is provided by a non-FCC carrier. ConclusionAfter years of complaints from consumers, industry leaders have finally begun to acknowledge the enormity of the privacy issue. Now it is time to step up and make it easier for parents and kids to protect themselves. Through a combination of legislative action and advocacy, we can make the web safer for kids. More Social Media Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RBFried, and Flickr, loop_oh, Franklin Park Library More About: childrens privacy, kids privacy, op-ed, Opinion, privacy, social media For more Social Media coverage:
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| Posted: 24 Feb 2011 07:11 AM PST   MyBlogLog, a service that lets bloggers see who their readers are, will be shut down by Yahoo come May, the company announced this morning in an e-mail to users. The move was expected, as MyBlogLog was part of Yahoo's now infamous presentation in December that included a slide about the services the company would "sunset." MyBlogLog was acquired by Yahoo in early 2007 for $10 million, and at the time, provided a way for bloggers to easily create a community for their readers (Mashable, for instance, has its own community here). The service had found its way to about 45,000 blogs by the time of the Yahoo acquisition but has since been supplanted by the likes of Twitter and Facebook widgets that accomplish much of the same thing but tap into much larger social networks. Social bookmarking service Delicious could be next on the Yahoo chopping block. The service was part of the "sunset" slide. The company later clarified it was looking for a buyer rather than shutting down the site.  Image courtesy of Flickr, Chris Gin For more Social Media coverage:
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| Developer Preview of Mac OS X Lion Includes iPad-like Features Posted: 24 Feb 2011 07:05 AM PST   Apple today made available a developer preview of Mac OS X Lion, which brings many of the iPad’s features — including Multi-Touch gestures — to the Mac. The final version of Lion is slated to be available to customers this summer. The eighth major release of Mac’s OS also includes Mission Control, which provides a new view of everything running on the computer, combining Expose, Dashboard and Spaces; Launchpad, “a new home for all your Mac apps,” which displays Mac apps in a full-screen layout with a single click; and the Mac App Store. "The iPad has inspired a new generation of innovative features in Lion," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Developers are going to love Mission Control and Launchpad, and can now start adding great new Lion features like full screen, gestures, Versions and Auto Save to their own apps." For more Dev & Design coverage:
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If the iPad follows in its iPhone predecessor’s footsteps, it will likely create enough distractions (i.e. Angry Birds) to effectively cancel any productivity it enables.
James P. Steyer is CEO and Founder of Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization that provides education and tools for parents and kids about the media and technology in their lives. You can follow them on Twitter at | You are subscribed to email updates from Mashable! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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