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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Photo-Sharing Network Color Now Available for Android”

Posted by Ashim Adhikari on 5:45 AM // 0 comments

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Photo-Sharing Network Color Now Available for Android”

Photo-Sharing Network Color Now Available for Android

Posted: 24 Mar 2011 05:02 AM PDT


Shortly after its initial launch on the iPhone, photo-sharing social network Color is now available for Android devices as well.

Well funded and ambitious (read our preview here), Color is already making big waves in the social networking world. Its premise is simple and could perhaps be described as “Twitter for photos,” but Color adds a little structure to the chaos: it knows your location and shows you pictures from people in your vicinity.

You can also share text and videos, but there’s a catch: everything on Color is public and visible to everyone. Sure, you won’t be sharing all of your private photos and videos on Color, but when you’re at a party, bar or an event, sharing some of the atmosphere with those nearby (and getting the same in return) sounds like a lot of fun.

Android users, have you tried out the app yet? Let us know what you think in the comments.

[via Android Market]

More About: android, color, Google, Mobile 2.0, photo, photo sharing, social networking

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Want Fast, Scalable Python Apps? Try Whirlwind

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:47 PM PDT


The team behind Trendrr is open-sourcing a homebrewed suite of tools for Python development.

These tools, collectively called Whirlwind, build off Facebook’s Tornado — the name is an obvious reference to that fact — and rely on Mako templates and MongoDB, one of the more popular NoSQL database technologies. Whirlwind was created by the Trendrr devs as the framework for the latest version of Trendrr, a social media analytics tool for businesses.

Trendrr dev Matt Dennebaum wrote on the parent company’s blog, “As the focus of our business has shifted from overtime to realtime, we quickly realized that our previous web stack just wasn't built for speed.

“We did a lot of digging around and came up with a stack that was a much better fit for managing and delivering the massive amounts of data we process in a much more real-time manner.”

With an emphasis on high speed, Whirlwind also delivers session management, a middleware plugin system, structured app templates, flash messaging, role-based user authentication, a simple admin script for making new apps and secret hashes, a database and file logger, and ever so much more.

The idea is that all these tools will make building fast apps faster. And the Trendrr devs aren’t ones to hide their light under a bushel, so to speak, so they’re open sourcing the entire project.

Better frameworks for the real-time web have been something of a focus on Mashable‘s development & design channel — specifically, we’ve been taking a long, hard look at how Node.js is giving JavaScript devs better tools for building real-time web apps. As more of these types of tools, frameworks, and languages pop up, we’ll be sure to pass them on to you for your inspection.

That being said, take a look at the Whirlwind GitHub pages, and let us know what you think in the comments.

More About: developers, development, framework, Python, Trendrr, whirlwind

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Color’s Ambitious Photo App Seeks to Reinvent Mobile Social Networking

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:07 PM PDT


Say hello to Color, a new mobile photo-sharing application with a star-studded list of entrepreneurs and an eye-popping $41 million in funding. Its goal is nothing less than to become the ultimate local discovery tool.

The app, which made its debut just a few hours ago on iPhone (and very soon on Android), is best described as public photo and video-sharing app for groups. Yet it doesn’t have the typical friending or following that you’ll find on Facebook, Twitter, Path or Instagram. Instead, Color chooses which pictures you see based on your location and how often you’re sharing photos with someone else. Every photo and video is public, not only to the people you consider your friends, but to any stranger within your proximity.

When you launch Color, the app delivers a stream of content from anybody within 100 feet of your location, as well as anybody within your “elastic network.” In Color, you don’t choose your network; instead, the app determines your social network by figuring out who you’re hanging out with on a regular basis. Every time two friends use the app near each other, Color’s algorithms detect it and use it to essentially rank your friendship. You can also curate your elastic network through actions such as asking the app to “Show More” of a particular friend or liking/commenting on a friend’s picture.

Keeping your elastic network takes work, though; if you don’t see a friend for a while, his or her pictures start to lose their color until that person eventually disappears from your network.

The result is that whenever you fire up the app, you can see what pictures are being taken around you, as well as the pictures friends in your elastic network are taking. Not only that, but the app will show you the pictures being taken by others within 100 feet of your friends. The app even has the ability to pull pictures that your friends took in the past, so long as you’re standing in the same location in which the pictures were taken. Imagine visiting the Statue of Liberty and then being able to magically see your best friend’s pictures from a different trip three year ago.

It’s the ultimate voyeur app for those who simply want to know what’s happening with their close friends or that cute neighbor that just happens to live next door.

A Colorful World?

It’s hard to pinpoint the best use case for this app because it is so unique in design. You can use it to share photos among a group without having to pass the phone around, or you can use it to keep a visual log of not only your life, but of the lives of those you see the most. It could potentially be a new way to meet someone at the other end of the bar — I used it to meet a neighbor. I haven’t had enough time with the app to really figure out its potential, but I have a feeling I’m only scratching the surface of its capabilities.

One key aspect of Color is that every photo is public, so if you decide to take sexy pictures with the app, then everybody potentially has access to them. For those who like to keep their personal lives private, this is not the app for you. In a lot of ways, Color is the polar opposite of Path, the mobile photo-sharing app that only lets you share pictures and videos with 50 friends.

The app is packed with a ton of technology; for example, it doesn’t simply use the GPS to figure out your location, but it uses your camera to determine lighting and your microphone to hone in on ambient noise. By matching these environmental conditions, Color is shockingly accurate at determining who’s in the room with you and even where they are in relation to your position.

It’s no surprise that Color is so advanced technologically; it has a team of co-founders led by Bill Nguyen, the founder of Lala, acquired by Apple in 2009 for a reported $80 million. D.J. Patil, the former Chief Scientist at LinkedIn, serves as the company’s head of product. Another recognizable co-founder is Peter Pham, formerly of Photobucket, BillShrink and Trinity Ventures.

Speaking of venture capital firms, Color already has a whopping $41 million in the bank, including $25 million from Sequoia Capital, $9 million from Bain Capital and $7 million from Silicon Valley Bank. The company already has about 30 employees, but intends to triple that number very soon. It even owns the domain Color.com and the Twitter account @Color.

These firms are making a huge bet on Nguyen’s vision and the team he has assembled. Color needs to not only capture millions of users, but it also has to find a way to monetize them. The potential for highly-targeted, location-based advertising is there, but Color still has a lot to hurdles to overcome and a lot of users to acquire before it can even begin talking about revenue.

What do you think of Color? Is it a game-changer or destined to drowned out by the sea of photo-sharing applications already on the market? Let us know what you think in the comments.

More About: Android App, bain capital, color, instagram, iphone app, iPhoneA, Lala, ndroid, Path, Peter Pham, photo sharing, sequoia capital

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Say Hello to Google’s New Online Magazine

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 09:15 PM PDT


Google has quietly launched its own full-length online magazine, a quarterly publication whose aim is to create a “breathing space in a busy world.”

The first edition of Think Quarterly, based out of the UK, is a 68-page dive into the world of data and its impact on business. The first thing most people will notice is that it’s a visually stunning piece of work. It’s a rich Flash app with Google’s quirky sensibilities and the in-depth writing you might find in BusinessWeek or Salon. Google’s quarterly magazine is edited and designed by creative agency The Church of London.

The articles themselves are thought pieces about major business and technology topics from a variety of freelancers and contributors. Google was able to snag Simon Rogers (editor of The Guardian‘s Datablog), Ulrike Reinhard (editor of WE Magazine), and other journalists for the project. Many of Think Quarterly‘s articles feature interviews with Google executives and technology leaders. Some of the people featured include Vodafone UK CEO Guy Laurence, Google Chief Economist Hal Varian and famed psychologist Peter Kruse.

“At Google, we often think that speed is the forgotten ‘killer application’ – the ingredient that can differentiate winners from the rest,” Matt Brittin, Google’s managing director of UK & Ireland operations, said in Think Quarterly‘s introduction. “We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service.”

“But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.”

It’s unclear whether the new online magazine is another sign that Google is entering the media business or whether it’s just a project to feed the company’s intellectual curiosity. Google doesn’t describe its newest project as a magazine or a publication. Instead, Google calls it a book on its website and a “unique communications tool” on its Twitter account.

Regardless of what you call it, Think Quarterly is an interesting and informative experiment by the search giant.

More About: Google, Think Quarterly, trending, uk

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Better Than Albums? Music App Builds a Playlist To Fit Your Mood

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:18 PM PDT


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Moodagent

Quick Pitch: Moodagent creates playlists based on your mood.

Genius Idea: A proprietary system categorizes any tune — even those never before released.

The rise of digital music has been the death of the album. The total number of albums sold in 2010 was the lowest since Nielsen SoundScan began compiling data in 1993. The only category on the rise last year — though just by a mere 1% — was digital singles.

“The album is lost when the tracks are being cherry-picked,” explains Peter Berg Steffensen, co-creator of Danish company Moodagent. “We started the company trying to create interesting playlists that have the same effect as an album.”

Steffensen and co-founder Michael Henderson spent four years perfecting a system that measures each tune in five basic categories: how sensual, tender, happy, or angry it is, as well as its tempo. With the Moodagent app, users adjust bars representing each of these qualities, in a bid to match their current mood. Based on their selections, the app assembles a playlist from their music libraries.

Unlike music discovery services such as Pandora, Moodagent has an indexing engine — rather than a human — categorize the songs. The app has already categorized more than 1 billion songs, which means it can instantly adapt to users’ music libraries.

Does it work? In a test run, yes. The app delivered Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” when “tender” was called for, and The Early November’s “Hair” when I switched moods to Happy. It’s a little harder to say whether Dispatch’s “The General” was equal parts sensual and happy, as the app claims.

In any case, the app has proved sufficient enough for Nokia to make it a default option on some phones in 2009 and for more than 5 million people to download its Android, iPhone, and Nokia versions (BlackBerry, Web OS, and Windows versions are in the works).

Despite this popularity, Moodagent’s parent company, Syntonetic, is not yet profitable. Current revenue streams include royalty fees from Nokia phones preloaded with the app, advertising revenue from a free version of the app and the $.99  ad-free version.

In the future, the Danish company plans to explore “mood-based” advertising as well as other revenue-earning features. One popular model in music discovery services is to refer users to music they might like in order to collect referral fees from music retailers.

A new version of the Moodagent iPhone app is scheduled for next week.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mooneydriver

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

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

More About: moodagent, music discovery, pandora

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Official Node.js Job Board Pops Onto the Web

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 06:57 PM PDT


Nodejs.org has just launched its Node-specific job board on the web. It offers a new marketplace for finding work with the still quite new but white-hot framework.

At least one other Node job boards exists, but this is the first official listing service from the creators of Node.

The board itself, brought to you by Node sponsor Joyent, is still rather sparse on content; however, given the relative newness of Node, we don’t expect an employment bubble to swell up around the framework just yet.

Still, if you’re tinkering with or hacking in Node and you’d like to get some professional, paid experience with it onto your résumé, the Node job board might be a decent place to start looking. And we fully expect to see more listings and open positions popping up on the board in the days and weeks to come.

Currently, positions range from server engineers to game developers. Most positions are based in San Francisco, CA.

If you’re a company or a dev looking for a Node developer, you can post your own job listings to the site at the rate of $350 for 30 days. Given the currently small number of positions available, you can expect applications to abound and competition to be relatively fierce.

We look forward to seeing how this board develops; Node devs, bookmark this site now and check back periodically to keep tabs on Node offerings around the world.

In other Node news, if you don’t necessarily need paid or professional experience for your C.V. but you would like a good excuse to exercise your Node.js chops, the 2011 Node Knockout is coming up in a few months. The site for the 48-hour, Rails Rumble-like hackathon has just gone live, and it’s a reference to The Watchmaker, a contender in last year’s competition and a very strange little game in itself.

According to the site, you have exactly 156 days to get your Node together and form teams for the hackathon. Will you be participating this year?

Image based on a photo from iStockphoto user alxpin

More About: joyent, node, node knockout, node.js

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7 Common Mistakes Startups Make on Accelerator Program Applications

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 05:38 PM PDT

apps image

Jason Cohen is a Director at Capital Factory, one of the summer accelerator programs like Y-Combinator and TechStars. He’s the founder of four companies, most recently WPEngine, and blogs weekly about startups and geekery.

Thinking of applying to one (or all) of the summer accelerator/incubator/angel/mentoring programs like TechStars, Joystick Labs, or any of those found on this comprehensive list?

We collectively get thousands of submissions, but only 1% are selected. If the odds alone aren’t bad enough, consider the imperfect information used to make that selection: A generic online application form, a few emails, and 15-60 minutes of in-person interview.

It should be equally clear that excellent candidates are sometimes not chosen. Part of this is sheer numbers: If only five companies are selected out of thousands, surely “Company #6″ wasn’t a terrible candidate. It mostly has to do with the applications and what happens in those crucial follow-up emails and ephemeral interviews. Since this is the part you have control over, it makes sense to prepare.

I’ve reviewed hundreds of startup pitches and I can tell you that everyone makes the same types of errors. Because of this, those who avoid just a few will already stand out from the masses. To help you get an edge, here are the most common pitfalls and what you can do to hack those summer startup accelerator applications.

1. Building for Yourself Instead of a Market

“Scratching your own itch” is how many great ideas begin, but it’s not a business strategy. Often you assume your customer is the same as you — sees the problem the same way, wants to solve it your way, and wants to pay for it. But this isn’t the case. It’s easy to let your idiosyncratic preconceptions prevent you from observing what the larger market will accept. If you stumbled on your idea because you had the pain yourself, that’s fine. Make sure, however, that you have real market validation behind your proposal.

2. Lack of Any Market Validation

It’s no exaggeration that most applicants have not found a single person willing to pay money for this product. Sounds bleak when it’s put that way, right? The other mistake is saying that a dozen friends have told you it’s a great idea and they’d use it too. Of course they will, and they might mean it, but that’s not a market, that’s a fan club.

Almost no one does this: Spend no more than $100 on AdWords to drive traffic to a landing page where you describe the service briefly and request an email address. In exchange for the email address, you promise not only early access, but free service for life.

Even if you collected only 20 emails, it represents infinitely more value on your application. It isn’t complete marketing validation, but it does satisfy one of the most obvious objections: Does anyone care?

3. One-Sided Competitive “Analysis”

chart imageMost competitive analysis charts look like the one at left, with your product winning every category. While it may seem impressive, constructing one-sided analysis like this will ultimately do a disservice to your app.

The point of "competitive analysis" isn't to say: "I'm better than everyone else." Rather, it's to define your niche in the market and explain how you own that niche better than everyone else.

That means admitting the strengths of the competition — who has great customer service, who has more features, who already owns their niche unquestionably?

Only by truthfully defining the landscape do you earn the credibility to claim the territory you’re planning to own.

4. No Route to Customers

If your marketing “strategy” is to run split tests on landing pages and generate a buzz on Twitter, it’s an auto-fail. Why? Because everyone does that. It’s not unique, it’s not an advantage, and as a result it doesn’t work very well.

You should have one (or more!) routes to customers which are more under your control and more likely to stand out from the background noise on the web. Though it’s a tiresome cliché, having viral/social/sharing as an inherent, required behavior of the system is one of those routes. (And no, putting retweet buttons on web pages doesn’t count.)

But there are others. A less-glamorous but highly effective way is to find where your potential customers are already congregating (online or off) and strike a deal with whomever controls that place, either because you’re increasing something they already value (e.g. pageviews, loyalty), adding to their bottom line (rev-share), or giving them something new to talk about.

5. Claiming False Competitive Advantages

The following are not competitive advantages: “We’re better at SEO;” “We’re better at social media;” “We’re good at design;” “We have a unique feature;” “We’re passionate;” “We’re less expensive.”

Why? Because every one can be matched or surpassed by any competitor, today or tomorrow, in very little time. So don’t mention it, or at least not in the context of a long-term competitive advantage.

Here are some true advantages: “We have a unique combination of high-tech talent and insider experience;” “We have a model that is unprofitable for established competitors to copy;” “Our resumes prove we’re able to execute;” “Celebrity X has endorsed us;” “We’re willing to be worse at everything except X;” “We have an exclusive partnership with an important player in the space.”

In the end, it’s actually OK if you don’t yet have a solid competitive advantage. That’s one of the things we might develop during the summer program. Just don’t claim one if you don’t have one, because then you just look ignorant.

6. Winging the 60-Second Pitch

We’ve all heard of the elevator pitch, but last year, when asked to produce it, only two succeeded in delivering one in under a minute, and that’s among the select three dozen startups invited to do in-person interviews. This isn’t important for showmanship. It’s important because the act of cramming everything important into 60 seconds forces you to make strong choices.

Choices like: Who exactly is the target market? What do you do in five words — for example, the headline on your home page? How will you make money? Why does anyone care?

When you can’t do it, it’s either because you haven’t really decided what you’re pitching, or that you can’t be bothered to articulate it to anyone. Both are death for startups.

Of course, it’s OK if by the end of the summer program the pitch is completely different. Having clear thoughts doesn’t mean unchanging thoughts. It just means you’re aware of what you’re doing at any given moment.

7. Ignoring Your Faults

You might have all sorts of shortcomings — it’s your first startup, you’re inexperienced, ignorant about how “sales” works, you have buggy software, etc. None of this is a problem if you’re willing to acknowledge and cope with it, but if you persist in lying to your customers about it, that’s a problem. (And a lie by omission is twice the lie.)

App reviewers know when you’re fudging it. It’s OK. Remember, we’ve built several startups with our own hands. That means we were in your shoes! We get that you might have shortcomings.

One of the most impressive things you can do is clearly and succinctly enumerate your gaps in knowledge, your holes in product concept, your bad design, and what you still don’t know about your market. Professing this ignorance proves you’re ready to fix it. You’re jumping at the chance to learn both through your own trials and from us, the mentors. That means you can grow and improve by leaps over the summer, which means you’re the perfect candidate.

Final Thought: Honesty Wins

I don’t care that your resume doesn’t prepare you for a startup — mine didn’t either. I know your pitch won’t be polished — that’s not important. We both know there are gaps in your startup and you want help — that’s why you’re applying.

The best thing you can do is be honest. In fact, if you review the points above, everything from “faults” to “competitive analysis” is really about just being honest.

In the end, we’re mentors, and we want to work with people who are not just hardworking, passionate, and have a really cool business idea, but also introspective and genuine. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fun and fulfilling to mentor. Sure, we’re investors. But most of the mentors will agree that if it wasn’t for the thrill of mentoring, we wouldn’t be doing this.

So be honest, throw everything out on the table as concisely as possible, and let’s see if we’re right for each other.

Interested in more Startup resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.

Image courtesy of Flickr, noahwesley

More About: accelerator, application hacks, business, funding, startup, startups, summer startup accelerator, techstars, ycombinator

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Mobile By The Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 04:41 PM PDT

Mobile is a rapidly developing sector. According to some projections, mobile internet usage will overtake desktop usage before 2015. In preparation, companies are developing new mobile commerce platforms, strategies, and marketing efforts.

Microsoft Tag recently attempted to sum up this constantly changing space with a single infographic.

Here’s the summary: The mobile market is large; local searches, games, and YouTube are all doing well on Mobile; and socializing is the most prominent use of the mobile Internet. See the full infographic below.


More About: microsoft tag, Mobile 2.0, stats

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18 Million WordPress Websites Now Available in iPad Format

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 04:07 PM PDT


WordPress.com blog owners, rejoice! All of the hosting site’s 18 million blogs are available now in an iPad-friendly interface, complete with touch interactions and easy customization.

Automattic, parent company of WordPress.com, just flipped the switch on a new feature that transforms WordPress.com blogs into app-like destinations optimized for tablets. The company says it worked closely with NYC-based startup Onswipe to to create a whole new blog consumption experience for the iPad. Onswipe provides publishers with simple tools to create tablet-optimized websites.

“Our iPad-optimized view is app-like in its functionality, but pure HTML5 goodness on the backend,” said WordPress’s Nick Momrik in a blog post announcing the new feature. “It supports touch interactions, swiping, rotation and many other features of the iPad.”

The iPad-optimized blogs have a module interface, making it easy for publishers to switch up the look and feel of their websites. The WordPress.com Dashboard now includes options to change fonts, create personalized covers and change skins. The iPad optimization feature is also available as a WordPress plugin for anybody who runs a self-hosted WordPress.org blog.

“The iPad provides a ton of new opportunities for readers to experience the web and focus in on what matters: the content itself, while making use of what’s possible now with swipe gestures,” Onswipe CEO Jason Baptiste told Mashable. “Automattic powers over 18 million sites and believes in the open web, so it was a great place to start showing the benefit of the web over native apps.”

What do you think of the new iPad-optimized websites? Do you intend to create a tablet version of your WordPress blog? Let us know in the comments.



More About: automattic, ipad, iPad 2, OnSwipe, Tablet, touchscreen, trending, WordPress

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Twitter’s Long History With Malware [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 02:51 PM PDT


Ever since exploding at SXSW Interactive in 2007, Twitter has struggled with malware of all kinds.

From clickjacking (see below) to worms to trending topics scams to out-and-out hacks, Twitter has become one of a handful of popular social tools used to spread viruses and other malware around the web.

Concern about Twitter’s security was so extensive in 2010 that the FTC conducted an investigation of the service and its anti-malware measures.

Facebook typically sees far more security issues than Twitter does — but Twitter, at roughly 200 million accounts, has a fraction of Facebook’s 500 million-strong crowd. As Twitter grows, so will the opportunities for black-hat hackers to exploit the service.

Here’s a brief, graphic history of Twitter’s experience with malignant code and bad intentions. Let us know in the comments if you were ever taken in by any of these scams.

This infographic comes to us from SecureList, the blog of web security firm Kaspersky Lab.

More About: malware, security, social media, twitter, viruses

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Site Lets You Offer A Home for Japanese Quake, Tsunami Victims

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 02:33 PM PDT

japan image

Couch surfing just got a whole new meaning. Sparkrelief, a new non-profit aimed at disaster relief, has built a special portal where people can offer up their homes or apartments as surrogate shelters for people displaced by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It’s crowdsourced couch surfing for a cause.

Built in a little more than 3 days, the site immediately received 40 submissions with the numbers doubling by the following week. That number may seem small, but it’s a huge step for the non-profit. The Japan earthquake is the first international crisis that Sparkrelief has assisted.

The impact extends far beyond simply providing temporary shelter, says founder Eli Hayes. Each family or individual given shelter reduces strain on relief infrastructure like community shelters, food and water supplies, and other basic amenities like clean clothing or showers. “If you target the housing issue, you solve all those other problems too,” Hayes says.

sparkrelief image

The support, however, goes well beyond providing people with shelter. “[In a disaster], you’ve lost your sense of community,” Hayes says. “What happens when you go into someone’s house and they take you in and start cooking you breakfast in the morning is that you have that community back again.”

The need for community support in a disaster is something that Hayes knows intimately. He and his brother were displaced by a forest fire when he was growing up in Oakland. Hayes says they didn’t know many people and couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel. They ended up sleeping on someone’s floor. Hayes became a firefighter and later joined the military.

Then Boulder, Colorado was hit by a massive forest fire in September of 2010. Hayes started hosting displaced victims, but it was hard to gather information tacked up on bulletin boards across several shelters. So he assembled a small team and created a site to help provide information and shelter to those affected by the fire. Hayes took that model and applied it to the Japan earthquake. “I’d like for it to be the single source for disaster information and relief,” Hayes says.

While most shelter offers have come from within Japan, there have also been offers to host from parts of Europe and North America. Hayes quickly got volunteers to help translate the site into Japanese to handle the bulk of their requests.

post image

As well-intentioned as the initiative is, there are obvious risks. How do you guarantee living conditions, trustworthiness, or general safety? Hayes acknowledges the inherent risk, but believes his system no less dangerous than staying with a friend or romantic partner. Still, he hopes to include shelter contributions from local governments and NGO’s. Unofficial offers could then be filtered out in an options menu.

Hayes is also encouraging users to set up meetings, calls, or Skype conversations before agreeing to take in or host someone. He plans to keep adding more features to guarantee credibility as the site expands and deals with other disasters.

Sparkrelief is just starting to get its legs, but Hayes plans to ramp up and provide relief for natural disasters in the future. “There is no downtime,” Hayes says. “There are 13 major earthquakes every year; that’s more than one a month.” As a registered non-profit, Hayes isn’t making any money from Sparkrelief and says he is funding his staff of three out of pocket.

If Hayes can improve his credibility measures and increase his audience, Sparkrelief can be a digital roof over many more displaced heads.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Akira Lai

More About: #prayforjapan, charity, japan, japan earthquake, non-profit, social good

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Why Xbox Kinect Technology Will Be the Next Frontier for Marketers

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 01:58 PM PDT

kinect image

Tomer Tishgarten is vice president of technology at Engauge, one of the nation's largest independent advertising agencies. Follow him @tomerific.

If you're among the many marketers trying to grasp the game-changing impact of Xbox’s motion-controlled add-on Kinect, you're not alone. Even Microsoft didn't realize what it had on its hands. When launching in November, Microsoft predicted sales of 3 million units by the end of 2010. Instead, the company sold 8 million in two months and recently entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest-selling consumer electronics product in history. For brands, the excitement is just beginning — and so are the challenges.

In addition to sensing motion, Microsoft's newest periphery for the Xbox 360 recognizes voices, captures facial expressions in real time, and can even tell players apart. It's arguably the biggest advance in mainstream digital interface design since the widespread adoption of the computer mouse in the ’80s.

Kinect and its underlying PrimeSense technology promise to open new doors and could explode our conceptions of what's possible online. Today's online world remains governed by the conventions of preset hyperlinks and point-and-click devices, but over time, those constraints will be shattered. The popularity of touchscreens on smartphones and tablets suggest we were already headed in this direction. Marketers may play an important role in determining how quickly Kinect technology crosses the chasm from hardcore gamers to mainstream adoption.

The Engagement Potential for Brands

avatar image

Big brands, including Burger King and Samsung, jumped in first with Kinect gaming promotions. But the marketing potential of Kinect extends far beyond video games. In the near term, marketers could leverage Kinect technology to create eye-opening trade show displays and in-store promotions. Freed from the gaming console, the technology can draw people into an immersive, interactive experience.

Innovative web-based applications will also be worth considering as the technology reaches a critical mass of 15% of households or users, a point at which adoption rates tend to accelerate.

With Avatar Kinect, Microsoft will soon move into augmented social media. Microsoft’s plans for the new technology clearly go beyond gaming. And Kinect's controller-free environment should appeal to casual gamers, not just the hardcore console jocks, which will heighten appeal for mass marketers. Indeed, the pitch to advertisers from Microsoft is that women, younger children and tweens are "joining in the fun" with Kinect. Most importantly, perhaps, the price is relatively inexpensive; approximately $150.

In the future, it's conceivable that consumers scanned into the system could theoretically interact with three-dimensional models of products. Why couldn't Ford, which recently launched an exclusive Xbox campaign for its C-MAX, put consumers behind the wheel and let them take the newest model for a spin?

For catalog clothing brands, the ecommerce implications are immense. Why couldn't Eddie Bauer let consumers try on clothes virtually? In the travel industry, the applications are even more numerous — a walking tour of the cabanas at Club Med, anyone? And with the capacity to scan an entire room, why couldn't The Home Depot let customers design the layout of new kitchen cabinets or Ikea showcase sofas within digital models of consumers' living rooms?

Peak Expectations Meet Practical Challenges

kinect image

Marketers have tremendous opportunities to differentiate themselves from their competitors in this new environment. Yet they also face the challenge of developing those experiences without instructions or precedents.

Before agencies and developers can create the architecture of this new world — and customized applications for brands — they must first study what makes the new technology tick, which is why developers have been so busy "hacking" Kinect.

The development tools for Kinect are still fairly immature at this stage, but they do provide enough capabilities to build some interesting applications. As more work is done to support these tools by Microsoft and the larger development community, the possibilities for Kinect will grow exponentially.

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Image courtesy of Flickr, Colony of Gamers

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Toyota Hops on Real-Time Marketing Trend With Prius Records Event

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 01:51 PM PDT


Toyota will tap into the real-time marketing trend later this month with a live streamed event in which the company's Prius will try to break as many world records as possible.

The hybrid brand will launch two 10-hour Prius Records webcasts on March 30 and March 31 on ToyotaPriusProjects.com. The stated goal is to set 200 records in that time.

Unlike Mitsubishi's recent event in which it broke five driving-related Guinness World Records in 24 hours, however, the effort for the Prius is a lot more whimsical. Rather than Guinness, the record-keeper in this case is the Universal Record Database. Records include "The Largest Mural Created During a 3-hour Prius Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle Charge” and "Most Shadow Animals Made with Prius LED Headlights in Two Minutes."

As evinced by such categories, the tone of the effort is in line with Prius's last major social media effort, its "What is the Plural of Prius?" campaign that attempted to get people on Facebook and Twitter to debate that topic.

Real-time marketing is a growing trend. Campaigns and brands attempt to prompt such social media chatter by injecting themselves into talk around an event (like the Academy Awards) or creating events designed to take place in real time (like Coca-Cola’s program with Maroon 5 Tuesday in London to compose a song in 24 hours).

To make people aware of the latest event, Prius and ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, Los Angeles, released the teaser video below.

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Sword & Sworcery: The Most Anticipated iPad Game You’ve Never Heard Of

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 12:47 PM PDT


Nostalgia runs deep in today’s indie game development scene, from Minecraft’s blocky textures to the old school platformer escapades of Super Meat Boy. And when a developer combines those comforting “jaggies” with a new and truly unique experience, that’s when gamers begin to drool.

This recipe is what first drew us to Sword & Sworcery, a forthcoming iOS adventure game from Superbrothers, an “ambiguously pluralized art and design organization in Toronto.” The project was made in conjunction with Capy, a Toronto-based game studio.

But we didn’t discover it on some indie gaming message board or an insider blog. It emerged from the ether on a handful of cryptic tweets — little updates emanating from those in the know who were already enjoying an advanced release.

So what is Sword & Sworcery? Good question.

On its face, the game looks like an homage to those early Sierra Entertainment titles, where you guide your pixelated hero via text commands. Mix that aesthetic with some Legend of Zelda-style questing, a dose of humor, and a tactile control scheme made especially for the iPad, and you’re getting closer to what S&S is all about. Throw in a dynamic ambient music system, optional Twitter integration, and some sweet arcade style combat, and you’re almost there.

Confused yet? We were too. Luckily, the game’s creator/artist/animator Craig D. Adams came to our aid with some insights into Sworcery’s development and upcoming release.

Interview With Craig D. Adams of Superbrothers

Sworcery crosses a lot of traditional genre boundaries and can be hard to describe. How do you sum up the game when you’re explaining it to people?

For a while we were referring to it as a “brave experiment in input output cinema,” lately we’ve been calling it “the archetypical video game adventure,” [and] on the App Store our description refers to it as “an exploratory action adventure with an emphasis on audiovisual style.”

Really, the best way to get it across is just for people to see some of the artwork and get a sense for the songs and the moods they evoke. We’re hoping that’s enough to intrigue people to discover what’s actually inside.

What did you set out to achieve when you started creating it, and how did that mission evolve?

We knew from the get-go that we were going to try to make something a little unusual, so right away that makes the project experimental, creatively and commercially. We also knew going in what the aesthetic was going to be — an extension of the Superbrothers style I’ve been developing for a few years now. We also knew that Jim [Guthrie]‘s music and a fresh approach to sound were going to be the soul of the project. The Archetype character, the dude in the suit who greets you and guides you, was there from the start as a Carl Jung + Terence McKenna + Rod Serling type who is conducting an experiment upon the audience. Still, it took us awhile to figure out what all this actually meant for the nuts and bolts of the experience, and that’s where Capy’s design experience came in, with Capy’s creative director Kris Piotrowski acting as co-designer and helping to shape things.

Sworcery’s music isn’t just for ambiance. Can you talk about why it’s so integral to the gameplay?

I love me some music, and I’ve been a Jim Guthrie fan for years and years. I think he’s awesome. Right after my first Superbrothers illustration gig back in 2004, I sent some pixels to him via his record company Three Gut Records and Jim was nice enough to get in touch and send me a record’s worth of unreleased made-in-Playstation compositions. The songs were amazing and the tone seemed really in tune with what I was trying to do with the pixels, so I went ahead and made a music video for Jim’s song “Children of the Clone.” Basically, I was just trying to communicate what was awesome about the song by wrapping it up in some visuals and a concept.

That was also the starting point for Sword & Sworcery — we had the aesthetic concept, the archetypical Legend of Zelda and Conan vibe to draw from, and then Jim sent over some tunes he thought might fit, and I tried to paint the ideas those songs inspired. As we moved forward, things went back and forth, with us creating a narrative or visual concept and Jim dropping a song on top, but the goal was always to get the art + music + narrative concept to resonate. So yeah, there are cases where the music connects to the actual mechanics, but even outside of those cases, the music is the core of the whole experience.

Why iOS and not PC?

I go way back with Apple. After messing around with things on the Commodore 64, I really got into art and animation on the Mac Classic with Hypercard. When Jobs got things back into gear and they launched the iPod, I really dug it. I remember thinking, “this is the form factor and these are the designers to create the mobile video game console of the future.” When they launched the iPhone, I was in the video game industry doing PS3 type stuff, but I was conscious that the iPhone was “it” — a design that would last — and their high level approach to the App Store was a revelation compared to the licensing, publishing and distribution headaches on other platforms.

When I met the Capy dudes back in 2009, they had some experience with the platform and we wanted to make something small that would find an audience, and the iPhone was a natural choice. From the start, our approach was, “what would be the perfect experience on this little machine, how can we design something that fits it like a glove?” When the iPad popped up, it was natural for us to explore the idea of scaling our hard-edged pixels, and it’s a real treat on that machine, too.

Personally, I don’t spend any entertainment time on desktop machines or laptops, and of course, the expectations are quite different on those platforms. But with iOS, it feels like a smaller, more laid-back, more relaxed audiovisual-heavy experience is just about right.

Not a lot has been written about the game’s Twitter integration, but it has a social component that encourages spontaneity. How does Twitter fit in as you play Sworcery?

Right near the start, you’re invited to sign in to your Twitter account. All of the text — dialog, hints, descriptions — have been written to fit within the 140 character limit (including a #sworcery tag), and all of it can (optionally) be broadcast.

I feel like social network integration is anathema to the video game enthusiast crowd, for good reason — it’s usually clumsy, worthless or spam-tastic. So this aspect hasn’t been something we’ve been playing up. But in our case, I think people will probably dig it. Our approach was, “How can we design this aspect so it’s non-obtrusive, optional and actually worthwhile?” We saw it as a content thing. If the writing was decent — funny, useful, puzzling, cryptic, profound — then the audience would be expressing something of value when they chose to broadcast. It took us a while to find our footing with this, but the team has been on Twitter for a while now and I think we kind of got the hang of it.

I’ve read that your team was not interested in getting much feedback during the development process. How come?

I’m not sure if that’s entirely accurate, but yeah, we did tend to keep things quiet. I think this is partly Kris’s influence, as Capy creative director and co-designer on the project. I don’t want to put words in his mouth here, but Kris operates a lot on instinct and he has the design experience to trust in himself and the instincts of the team. He also knows that a video game sucks until it’s nearly done, and then suddenly it’s awesome, and so maybe if there had been too much feedback in the sucking phase, we would’ve doubted our original goals. Personally I really like feedback, specifically the “watching over the shoulder while someone is playing” variety, where the player doesn’t have to verbalize or intellectualize their responses, but the video game has to be pretty far along for this to be worthwhile. So I don’t think we were averse to feedback at all, we were just careful to avoid unnecessary noise.

What games have informed or inspired Sworcery?

Too many to mention, on all sides. I go way back to the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 days, Jim goes back to the early arcades, and Kris’s knowledge of video games is super deep. So in general, I think we were looking to create something fresh, something that echoes the genreless pioneering video games of the ’80s. I’ve always credited Shigeru Miyamoto’s design sense with the original Super Mario Bros. as a key inspiration for Superbrothers, and Sworcery’s aesthetic was built to echo Metroid, Castlevania and The Legend of Zelda.

Jordan Mechner’s original Prince of Persia and Eric Chahi’s Another World are a few more references. They have a cinema-influenced style, expressive human movement and a more grounded narrative concept. I think Fumito Ueda, creator of Ico, is on the same wavelength there. I think we probably owe a debt to the old LucasArts Adventures and Double Fine’s Tim Schafer for some of our jokes. So yeah, between us, we have a broad range of inspirations and common references, but to be honest, very few of these video games came up in conversation. We’d reference music and film works at least as much, and beyond that we were just operating on instinct.

After the iPad and iPhone releases, what’s next for Sworcery? Add-on content, a sequel?

For Sworcery, really it all depends on whether or not we find an audience that’ll help us recoup our expenses and scheme on new things. The project operates on a cosmological clock, so if all goes well in the next little while, we’ll start scheming on updates to S:S&S EP timed for the solstices and the equinox — we have no shortage of ideas. Sequel-wise, S:S&S EP was always intended as a one-off concept. It was intentionally quite loose at the start so Jim, Capy and I could figure it out together, so there’s no grand plan at present. But as it has taken shape, we are left with questions about the world that could be interesting to answer.

In any case, I think we’d all like to get together at some point in the future and do something like this again, but we’ll see how it goes. I definitely have a concept or two that I’d like to develop that’d build on what we learned with this project, but I’m going to have to take a decent-sized break, get some exercise, get some sleep, and then I’ll see what’s what and who’s where.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP will be available in the iTunes App Store for iPad starting on Thursday, March 24, with a price somewhere around $4.99. An iPhone and iPod touch version will be available in April.

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Just How Helpful Are Music Recommendation Services? [SURVEY]

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 12:31 PM PDT


According to a new survey commissioned by music research and development company Orpheus Media Research, more and more people are using music recommendation services, but those users are not wholly satisfied with the results.

As we have noted time and time again, the web has made it much easier for bands to get their music out there (what what Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc) — the other side of that observation being that it’s becoming harder for consumers to find music that they like.

OMR conducted a survey of 500 people aged 18 and older (via research firm Zoomerang) in February 2011 in order to ascertain just how many people utilize music recommendation services. Of the respondents, a good portion were at least partially musically inclined: 61% were casual listeners, 35% were enthusiasts and 4% were indifferent to music.

On the whole, OMR found that a rather sizable portion of respondents — 54% — had used a music recommendation service, with 40% of those folks using those tools daily or a few times a week.

Seventy-seven of those who have used a tool have found jams that they liked, and 92% have become fans of that music, sharing it with friends.

However, there is, in fact, “a rub”: Survey takers were not entirely happy with the tunes provided. Forty percent said that results were accurate 50% (or less) of the time. In fact, of those folks who actively look for new music, 22% said it was almost impossible to find entirely new music that they were into.

In fact, many respondents still rely on old standbys like word-of-mouth/the radio (57%) and mainstream media (14%) to find new jams. Ten percent use music streaming services.

Yes, there are a ton of awesome music recommendation services out there, but we can see how it can be exhausting for the average listener to wade through them all — personally, I subscribe to a ton of listservs and music subscription services, have a Google Reader packed with blogs, and often solicit friends for recommendations. Sometimes the fragmentation can become tiring.

In fact, 43% of OMR’s survey takers said that if they could go to one website to discover new music (via matching their current music to new artists), they would do so. (SuperGlued and some other apps do this to a certain extent, FYI.)

Yes, we have a long way to go before one can plug one’s brain into one’s iPod and generate rad playlists — although services like Pandora and companies like The Echo Nest are working on it — but it seems as though people are increasingly turning to the web when it comes to wading through the musical marsh.

What recommendation services would your ears languish without?

Image courtesy of Flickr, Asim Bijarani

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YouTube Video of the Day: Tiny Music Fan Wins at Life

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 12:14 PM PDT

Seeking another member for your (air) KISS tribute band? Two-year-old Eric is up for the gig.

This kid seems super knowledgeable about rock ‘n’ roll. However, I don’t speak Portuguese, so it’s possible he’s just jabbering incomprehensibly about blocks.

Happy middle o’ the week!


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Art Exhibit Uses Twitter in Poster Campaign; Are Movies Next?

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:57 AM PDT


A New York ad agency is attempting to use Twitter to democratize art criticism. The project, a campaign for George Condo's latest exhibit at the New Museum, could also be used as a blueprint for movie launches.

Posters going up this week on New York City subways and other sites feature a quote from The New York Times art critic on the exhibit, followed by a URL. When the address is entered on a browser on any device, users see one-word tweets from museumgoers who saw the show contrasted with The Times' blurb on the same poster. For instance, the quote "Sensational" from The Times runs above "Dopetastic" from Mike Prieto's Twitter stream.

Andrew Essex, CEO of Droga5, the ad agency behind the effort, calls the campaign "the first high-low, real-time app for arts criticism." Though he admits the campaign is "fairly niche," he predicts movie studios will use the approach to advertise features soon.

Although it has been common for a few years for movie ads to cite blogger comments, Paul Dergarabedian, president of the Box Office division of Hollywood.com, says he can’t recall a movie studio using Twitter quotes in an ad. Still, he’s enthusiastic about the idea. “It's a great way to point out the disparity between what critics think and what the audience thinks,” he says.

Dergarabedian points out that even if studios don’t cite tweets in their ads, the so-called “Twitter Effect” is real. “It used to take several days for that word-of-mouth to kick in. [Those conversations] used to have to be face-to-face, but now it takes a day or so.”

A good example, Dergarabedian says, is the 2009 movie Bruno, which had a good opening night but sagged over the weekend as Twitter chatter turned negative.

Chris Thilk, who runs the blog Movie Marketing Madness, is less sure of the Twitter Effect. “In general I don’t necessarily think Twitter has the ability to significantly move the needle on box office,” says Thilk. “Twitter and Facebook are self-selected networks, so it’s not like you’re bringing in all sorts of disparate points of view.”

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Starbucks Card Mobile Is a Hit: 3 Million People Pay Via Phone App

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:48 AM PDT


Grabbing a cup of joe got a whole lot easier this year. In January, Starbucks began accepting mobile payments via the Starbucks Card Mobile iPhone and BlackBerry applications at 6,800 company-operated stores. Today, the company revealed that more than 3 million people have paid using Starbucks Card Mobile.

The mobile payments milestone was presented by chairman and CEO Howard Schultz to shareholders during the Starbucks Annual Meeting of Shareholders at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in Seattle.

“Starbucks now offers the nation’s largest mobile payment network,” vice president of Starbucks Brady Brewer added later in the meeting.

The Starbucks mobile payments offering is a “touch to pay” system. It allows the customer to hold up the app’s barcode to the in-store scanner at the register to pay using the electronic tender. The program was piloted at select stores in September 2009. After extensive testing, it was found to be the fastest way for customers to pay.

The past financial quarter was the best performing in the 40-year history of the company, according to Schultz. Starbucks cards now account for 22% of all transactions, he says.

Mobile payments is just one element of a much larger social and digital media strategy that Schultz refers to as a “blueprint for growth.” This involves the brand crossing over into the consumer packaged goods (CPG) category by leveraging its digital and social properties. Schultz was eager to inform shareholders that the Starbucks brand is number one on Facebook with 29 million fans, and is also a top brand on Twitter and Foursquare.

Schultz used Starbucks’ new instant coffee brand VIA as proof of the crossover strategy. VIA generated $194 million in sales in its first year, and is now in 40 points of distribution.

Ultimately, Schultz believes the company’s CPG business will rival its retail business — and that the Starbucks Card Mobile application will connect both sides of the brand’s identity through loyalty programs.

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Yahoo Launches Own Version of Google Instant Search

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:36 AM PDT


Yahoo has launched a new search feature that anticipates queries as users write them.

The feature, Search Direct, is similar to the Instant Search Feature that Google released in September. In a press release,Yahoo distinguished its product as a query tool for answers, not links.

Results (or answers) on Search Direct are displayed in a box that drops down from the search box. As soon as a user places his cursor in the search box, the drop-down display shows trending search topics. Once the user begins to type, it shows the 10 most likely search terms. If one of those terms involves Yahoo content — movie times, weather, financial information — then a preview of that content appears.

Hitting the search button or enter displays normal Yahoo search results.

During a press conference call, Yahoo said a tablet Search Direct product will eventually be available and that space in the drop-down box will be available to advertisers.

The public beta product is currently live at search.yahoo.com. Try it out and let us know how you like it in the comments below.

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Gilt Groupe Acquires Decorati To Expand Home Business

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:29 AM PDT


High-end flash sales platform Gilt Groupe announced Wednesday that it has acquired home decor site Decorati for an undisclosed amount.

Decorati is an online resource for interior designers, replete with searchable catalog, matchmaking services for interior designers and inspirational design content. The site also hosts designer portfolios, antiques and sample sales, among other things.

The acquisition is part of a broader initiative to build out Gilt’s Home business, a new version of which will be released later this year. In addition to the daily flash sales the company is known for, the new Gilt Home will also sell full-price products, one-of-a-kind antiques and other merchandise.

Image courtesy of Decorati

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Mac OS X Maverick Leaving Apple

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:19 AM PDT


Bertrand Serlet, the senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering and the man behind much of what we know as Mac OS X, is leaving Apple.

According to a prepared statement, Serlet says he wants to “focus less on products and more on science.” Serlet has been at Apple since 1997. Before Apple, Serlet worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT and played a key role in developing NeXTSTEP, the predecessor for Mac OS X. Serlet has overseen the releases of Mac OS X Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Serlet’s successor is Craig Federighi. Federighi is currently the vice president of Mac Software Engineering and will now report directly to Steve Jobs. In a statement, Serlet says, “Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless.”

As John Gruber notes, it’s difficult to overstate the influence Serlet has had on the modern Mac OS ecosystem. Serlet has literally been helping shape Mac OS X since the beginning — from overseeing the OS structure to helping define the Cocoa libraries.

That work has evolved from powering high-end workstations (NeXTcubes and others) to desktops and laptops and now devices such as the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

Image courtesy of Apple Inc.

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Faster, Sleeker & More Stable: Hands-on With Firefox 4 [REVIEW]

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 11:12 AM PDT


Mozilla’s Firefox 4 was released early Tuesday. The release comes nearly two years after Firefox 3.5 and three years after Firefox 3.

The web browsing landscape has changed significantly since then, with Google’s Chrome browser winning converts left and right, while mobile and tablet browsing gained new ground.

When Firefox first hit the scene in the early 2000s, Mozilla’s open-source browser was a refreshing change of pace for users and designers alike. It brought innovative features like tabbed browsing to the mainstream (although Opera did it first). It used add-ons to an extent that hadn’t been seen before.



Over the last few years, early adopters — once the core evangelists for the browser — shifted away from it. Those add-ons started to bog the program down. Meanwhile, the new layout engine of choice for web developers isn’t Gecko (which powers Firefox), but WebKit (which powers Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and the browsers for BlackBerry and Android).

Firefox 4 is an important release for Mozilla — perhaps the most important release since 1.0. The competition has never been so strong. We have been using the beta releases extensively and spent some time with the final release. So how does Firefox 4 stack up against the competition? Are the changes enough to keep current users from switching — and lure old users back?

Look and Feel

Mozilla first started talking about Firefox 4.0 in July 2009. The early screenshot previews — featuring tabs on top, a la Chrome — were a radical departure at the time.

Although the comparisons to Chrome are unavoidable, I think that Firefox 4 improves upon Google’s minimalist design.

Tabs are on top, but the browser window is still easily draggable. Users won’t make the mistake of dragging a tab rather than the full window. Moreover, cycling through tabs is more elegant and less cluttered than either Safari 5 or Chrome 10.

By default, Mozilla has changed the location of the home button. It also added a new bookmark bar. Fortunately, these components can be customized and removed (simply right click on them and hit “customize”). Like Chrome, Firefox eschews the the status bar on the bottom of the screen, only using it as an overlay when needed. This adds a few more pixels of space to the viewing window.

Firefox 4 includes an innovative new tab grouping feature known as Panorama. Panorama started life as Tab Candy, an experimental feature introduced by former Mozilla Creative Lead Aza Raskin. It creates different groups of tabs and lets you switch easily between them. Panorama is a great feature for power users, but anyone who don’t want to use a grouping system can ignore it and never know the difference.

Speed

Firefox used to be the fastest browser on the block. Over the years, the program has become bloated. Increasingly, the speed factor in web browsers is less about the rendering engine and more about the JavaScript engine.

Firefox 4 claims to be up to six times faster than its predecessor. In our tests, load times did seem about that fast — though Google Chrome 10 still seems to bring up pages more quickly.

The speed increases aren’t merely limited to page load times, however. Firefox 4 starts up significantly faster on my Mac (an iMac with a 2.8GHz i7 and 12GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.6.7) than its predecessor. In fact, in a timed test, Firefox 4 launched from dock to default homepage at nearly the exact same speed as Google Chrome 10.

Performance, Memory Usage, Stability

As a full-time Mac user since 2007, I’ve long had a love/hate relationship with Firefox. Certain websites (particularly corporate backend systems) just work better in the browser than in Safari. But Firefox has never been particularly well tuned to Mac OS X machines. Firefox 3 was a significant improvement, but frankly, Firefox has remained a memory hog.

The biggest problem with Firefox versions of the past — and this is true of both Mac OS X and Windows releases — is that the program has the tendency to leak memory. This problem only gets worse on systems with lots of add-ons installed and can be made worse still by plugins like Flash.

Mozilla has said that Firefox 4 consumes less memory and is more stable. I wanted to see if this was true. Using the Activity Monitor in Mac OS X, I tracked the amount of real memory, CPU utilization and CPU threads in Firefox 4, Firefox 3.6.15, Safari 5.0.4 and Chrome 10.0.6.448.151 stable.

I tried to install the same number of add-ons or extensions to each browser. The goal was to re-create the average browsing session. I then opened a number of memory-hogging tabs, including Farmville and Hulu with video playing.

I tested the memory and CPU usage for each browser. Remember, your mileage may vary.

First, the good news — in my tests, Firefox 4 consumes less memory and CPU cycles than Firefox 3.6.15. When adding in Flash and other plugin usage to the total memory footprint, only Google Chrome 10 performs better.

The bad news — and this is really for all four browser variants tested — is that the overall usage is still fairly high. The big culprit here is Adobe Flash. Improvements have been made on this front in Windows and with certain graphics chipsets on the Mac (my Radeon HD 4850 unfortunately, is not included), but Flash is the greatest cause of browser performance and memory usage issues.

So if Firefox 3.6.x takes up a lot of memory on your system, the improvements in Firefox 4 might not be significantly better.

What is new is that Firefox 4 now segregates its regular browsing processes from so-called plugin processes. Previously, Firefox was the sole item to appear in the Mac OS X Activity Monitor. With Firefox 4, a “Firefox Plugin Process” appears as well.

So if Flash wasn’t running a game and playing back a video, that Plugin Process usage would be considerably less. Rather than relying on the browser to free up the memory (something Firefox is historically bad at doing), the plugin process can simply be freed up.

Moreover, if a plugin crashes, the browser can recover without taking down the entire session. Apple is doing something similar in Safari 5.0.x, which shows Flash Player as its own process. If Flash crashes, the rest of the browser can stay intact.

With Chrome, Google goes a step further and actually separates each tab into its own process. That makes it easy to shut down one tab and keep the rest of the session running. Chrome doesn’t separate Flash as its own entity; the browser uses its own sandboxed version of Flash Player.

It’s great that Mozilla has decided to split up the way Firefox uses memory. Recovering from crashes is less time consuming, and regular system memory can be reclaimed more quickly.

Since Firefox 4 Beta 8, I have found the browser to be very usable with few stability issues. The few issues that remained up until the final release — notably Netflix not wanting to work well on the Mac — have been resolved in Firefox 4. In the 24 hours I have been testing Firefox 4, I haven’t had the browser seize or crash. It’s rare that I don’t have to invoke “force quit” for Firefox 3.6.15, so this is a great sign.

Add-ons

Mozilla has restructured how its add-on system works. Add-on installation and browsing now takes place in a designated browser window, rather than a pop-up menu. This is much more easy on the eyes and makes finding and installing or removing add-ons and browser themes more fluid.

Most major Firefox add-ons now work with Firefox 4. Users may run into situations where an add-on is incompatible. But most developers seem to have answered the call. If your favorite add-on isn’t updated in the next week or two, it might be time to look for a replacement; it probably indicates developer abandonment.

Firefox is continuing to move towards lighter weight extensions like those for Google Chrome, Safari and Opera. These add-ons can be built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript and tend to use less memory and resources. They also tend to have less of an impact on overall browser performance and stability.

Still, at this stage, most major Firefox add-ons still use the traditional add-on API and require a browser restart when updated, installed or uninstalled.

I have long said that add-ons and extensions are Firefox’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The impact that the extensibility these add-ons added to the browser on overall user adoption cannot be understated. It’s equally true, however, that the performance impact some popular add-ons can have on the browser has hurt Firefox’s image as a whole.

Even with Chrome, users have to battle how many extensions are installed versus the performance impact on the browser. It’s a tough line to straddle between utility and performance. But from what I understand about the Firefox add-on APIs and toolkits, it is an area Mozilla has spent a lot of time working to make better.

Overall

So is Firefox 4 good enough to lure back old users and to keep existing users satisfied?

For me, the answer is yes. While I don’t anticipate using Firefox as my primary browser (I tend to use Safari), keeping Firefox running on my computer is no longer something I fear.

The new user interface is fresh and inviting. Panorama is something I could see using on a regular basis, and the memory and performance improvements live up the expectations.

Firefox fanatics are going to love it. Developers that test in multiple browsers are going to be very pleased. Still, I don’t know if being on par with the competition is enough to bring old users back.

I’m going to continue to use Firefox 4 more over the next few weeks. For me, that’s an important development. Since Google Chrome officially came to the Mac in December of 2009, I have used Firefox primarily only to access certain websites behind a VPN. It’s great to actually enjoy using the old girl again.

Let us know your thoughts about Firefox 4 in the comments.

More About: Browsers, chrome, Firefox, Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9, mozilla, reviews, safari

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How One Group of Startups and Investors Traded the Elevator Pitch for the Ski Lift

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 10:36 AM PDT

Only in startup fundraising does a ski lift make an ideal work environment. A lift ride is about as long as any investor would want a pitch to last, it enforces a definite and non-negotiable stop time, and — at least on a beautiful 65 degree day that would otherwise be spent in an office — generally creates congenial passengers.

Venture capital firm Village Ventures‘ partner funds have been taking advantage of this ideal pitch environment since 2005 by inviting entrepreneurs and investors for a day on the slopes. At their Peak Pitch events, each of these groups wears a different color race bib (“Money wears green, vision wears blue,” explains Brad Svrluga, a managing director at host company, High Peaks Venture Partners). The riders can then match up for mid-air pitches at the base of the mountain.


Unsurprisingly, there are usually more entrepreneurs than investors, causing a buildup of blue bibs at the bottom of the ski lift where startups wait to pair up with investors. Still, it’s a better ratio than at other pitch events, says Joe Coleman, the co-founder of Contently, a company that matches freelance writers with publishers. Plus, the quality of time spent dangling over the ski slopes is hard to beat.

“I think the investors are more attentive to what you're talking about because they’re stuck on a lift with you, so they don't want to turn their shoulder and start talking on their BlackBerry or something,” Coleman says. “Are they in a better mood? I guess that depends on what kind of a skiers they are.”

There were definitely some wince-worthy tumbles by investors and startup founders alike at last Friday’s Peak Pitch held at Hunter Mountain. However, the event website promises that the “Ability to ski will not reflect on your abilities as an entrepreneur or investor.” If history is any indication, this appears to be true.

At the first event High Peaks Venture Partners hosted in 2007, an investor and entrepreneur ran into each other (literally) during a run. The investor separated his shoulder and had to leave for the hospital. Six months later he invested in the entrepreneur’s company. Svrluga says that, though previously successful, the “hit and fund” approach probably isn’t the best strategy that he’s seen on the pitch lift.

Fredrik Maro, the CEO of startup Evisors, explains his advisor-on-demand concept to an investor.

Most of the pitches at the event developed a uniform format: Quick handshake, a name exchange, and then a breathless explanation of the company that quickens as the top of the lift becomes visible. Investors, if they get a word in, either offer advice, contacts, or ask follow up questions. None of the investors I rode with checked their BlackBerrys.

Rahul Gandi, a first-year associate at High Peak who coordinated both the event and the 5:00 a.m. departure shuttle bus from New York, hadn’t slept in about 48 hours, but still seemed excited about the prospect of future recreational fundraising events (provided someone else plan them). High Peak will be sticking with the ski lift theme, but he said the same concept could be carried over to golf tournaments, billiards halls, and other less physically-strenuous environments.

Mark Peter Davis, an entrepreneur wearing an investor bib for stealth’s sake (he’s a Senior Associate at DFJ Gotham Ventures), put the benefits of such formats more bluntly: “Free skiing, a booze bus, and getting actual work done. It’s a home run.”

Interested in more Startups resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.

More About: business, High Peaks Venture Partners, pitching, ski, startups, village ventures

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5 Challenges for Human Resources in a Digital World

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 09:49 AM PDT

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.


With technologies evolving every day, human resources professionals are realizing that the fast-paced, ever-changing digital world impacts their jobs and workplaces — not only today, but in the future.

Bersin & Associates, a global research and consulting firm focused on learning, talent and human resources strategies, recently published a report on the Top Best Practices for the High-Impact HR Organizations. The report noted that overall budgets, organizational structure and department size have less impact on business performance than the skills of HR professionals themselves. The research also outlined the key competencies driving results today — familiarity with integrated talent management, understanding of workforce planning and comfort with social networking and HR technology.

As organizations and business leaders position themselves for the future, the following five workplace challenges will continue to change human resources.

1. Evaluating Early Adoption

Truth be told, HR is traditionally not known for early adoption. Case in point: the slow adoption of social media. Bill Kutik, technology columnist for Human Resource Executive magazine, explains, "HR loves talking about social media, but so far has done very little with it. Fears emanating from the legal department have stuck HR in its tracks."

While some people will try all of the latest and greatest options, others will want to wait until platforms have been proven. Being on either extreme could be detrimental. It's important to evaluate each and sometimes take a chance.

Kutik says, "Just like the introduction of all new technology — from the telephone, to e-mail, to the Internet — which have all scared HR to death, it will eventually come around."

One early trend Kutik believes is gaining traction is mobile. "Every vendor has either released or is about to release a mobile application for smartphones and soon for the iPad. While much of it is a 'nice to have,' mobile apps will get most traction in workforce management — the nuts and bolts of time and attendance and absence management — where they perfectly meet the needs of a distributed, mobile workforce."

2. Balancing High Tech and High Touch

Being able to recognize the need for a technology solution will be a significant business advantage. HR will have to evaluate what functions can be automated and still provide desired levels of service.

Naomi Bloom, managing partner at Bloom & Wallace, a consulting firm specializing in the application of HR technology, shares how companies are evaluating digital solutions. "Increasingly, HR leaders are starting with the desired business outcome and working backwards from there to answer questions, rather than starting with the question of what to automate."

Bloom cited the investment that Kronos has made in going mobile as an example of meeting a growing need by both the business and its employees. "If your business results are driven by optimized workforce scheduling, as is absolutely the case in most retail businesses, then you must focus some of your automation investments right there. And since the retail workforce may be young and used to communicating via their smartphones, you'd better consider delivering most of the transactions and analytics that your employees and even those first line managers use, directly to their smartphones."

With increasing technologically advanced options, human resources professionals will be tasked to figure out when processes should be automated, versus when a human face or voice is the best route.

3. Information Curation

Kutik says it best, "We are all desperately in need of a good editor."

HR is experiencing a flood of information. It will be critical to have an effective means of filtering necessary and relevant information. The new term in the digital space is curation.

While Kutik labels curation an "awfully fancy word" he does acknowledge the necessity for picking and choosing among various information sources. "Few people remember that Yahoo began by having human editors read and evaluate sites for their quality and determining how they would appear in searches. No more. Relying on what our friends link to on Twitter is not going to solve the problem. Happily, people are working on technologies to solve the problem."

For recruiters, the ability to sort through loads of information — including applications from various platforms and employment data — will be a skill worth honing.

4. Training for Accountability

Many of these challenges come down to being better communicators in order to effectively leverage the digital space. As such, HR needs to place a priority on management and leadership training to ensure line managers are able to effectively convey expectations and outcomes.

Stacey Harris, principal analyst at Bersin & Associates, says development of line-manager capabilities should be a top priority. "Our research found there was a one-to-one correlation between the effectiveness of an organization's line managers and the overall effectiveness of its HR function. In simplest terms, as a company's line managers increased their management capabilities, the effectiveness of the HR function paralleled that upward progression."

Harris explained that, on the digital front, companies need to partner with providers who deliver excellent support and service and deep understanding of its audience’s needs. "Organizations that offer completely integrated support for line managers are still difficult to find, but suppliers are making dramatic headway. Companies like Saba have spent considerable resources integrating social networking that can be used for development and knowledge transfer, with learning curriculums, performance management tools and competency maps.

“Organizations such as Triple Creek provide competency-driven mentoring programs over the web,” continued Harris. “Plateau has built on an integrated architecture introducing integrated and highly-scalable solutions for career development, compensation, pay for performance, and employee profile management — all which are used in line manager support.”

5. Metrics and Measurement

Bloom says, "When it comes to metrics, the easiest to do are very rarely the most valuable!"

There's no question that HR needs to create data structures that will deliver information on business goals not only to help the company understand their workforce, but also to optimize their talent-related processes.

Bloom notes, "The most important metrics for any business investment, including those in HR technology, are the business outcomes that the investment is intended to achieve. If we're trying to speed up and improve the selection of quality hires, then we'd better be looking at elapsed time to productivity and quality of hire."

Then the challenge, as Harris points out, is most companies don't have a single, accurate database for storing and accessing relevant HR information. "Data that is scattered among multiple systems and acquired in varied formats can make it difficult for most organizations to provide a clear picture of their current workforce. Many organizations capture only limited employee details in master data systems."

Harris noted that SAP has made substantive progress in this area, pulling together data from the HR and talent management systems then analyzing data with the same analytic tools used in their other business intelligence platforms. Additionally, SuccessFactors has similar analytics and planning tools.

While many advances have been made in the human resources digital space, there are still new developments to look forward to. These advancements will bring greater opportunities to align human resources with business goals. HR professionals will need to remain aware of these challenges and develop their own strategies to stay within the path of progress.

More HR Resources from Mashable:

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lilly3 & Flickr, Håvar og Solveig

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Why Custom Menswear Brand J. Hilburn Waited 3 Years To Add Ecommerce

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 09:10 AM PDT


These days, it’s rare to hear of a successful retail startup that isn’t trying to reinvent ecommerce — but that’s exactly what J. Hilburn, a three-year-old brand that focuses on made-to-measure dress shirts and other men’s apparel, is doing.

The Dallas-based startup was founded in 2007 by former Wall Street retail analyst Hil Davis, who functions as its CEO. He saw an opportunity to cut the retailer — and its markup — from the sale and distribution of menswear apparel.

“A Zegna shirt costs $35 to make, is sold to a retailer for $125, and then sells for $325 at Neiman Marcus,” Davis explains. “We go to the same Italian mills, the same factories, wrap a personal touch and service into the product, and sell it directly, without the retail markup,” he says. J. Hilburn’s custom-fitted shirts typically cost about $100.

Instead of a retail store or ecommerce website, J. Hilburn recruited a salesforce of 800 personal style advisors who operate in 43 states and every metropolitan market. Style advisors meet with clients at their homes and offices, record measurements and offer style advice, taking a significant cut of sales generated in the process. The company also uses its referral program to reach new customers, rewarding $20 to clients whose referrals spend more than $100 with the company.

J. Hilburn sold 60,000 custom-tailored shirts and 12,000 custom trousers through these methods last year, more than doubling its revenue from $3.25 million to $8 million, says Davis.

This year, the company plans to bring in $20 million in revenue, driven in part by its new ecommerce offering, launched Wednesday. Jhilburn.com will make it easier for existing clients to refill orders, as well as place new orders that harmonize with their existing purchases.

The company is working to develop a “My Closet” feature that keeps track of previous acquisitions and suggests new items that complement the cuts, colors, patterns and textures of a customer’s existing wardrobe.

New customers will be able to learn more about the brand, design shirts using the company’s web app (above), schedule a consultation with a style advisor, and order items from J. Hilburn’s line of ready-to-wear cashmere sweaters, polos and accessories, which currently make up about a third of sales.

The company does not plan to start aggressively marketing online until the fall, when it will optimize the site for customer acquisition through search, and leverage its network of style advisors to build and maintain customer relationships through social media.

Still, the emphasis will continue to be on the offline relationship. “The world is going custom, and now there is a great opportunity to build a great ecommerce platform with a personal touch. A style advisor is so important to our ecommerce business, allowing trust to be developed between not just a website and a customer, but between two people, and that trust level goes a long way,” Davis says.

More About: e-commerce, fashion, j.hilburn

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Starbucks Boosts Wi-Fi Network With ESPN, Marvel Comics & The Economist

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:51 AM PDT


Starbucks customers will soon find that the company’s free Wi-Fi offering comes with even more premium content. ESPN, The Economist, Mediabistro and Marvel Digital Comics have signed on as the coffee chain’s latest content partners in the Starbucks Digital Network, vice president of digital ventures Adam Brotman is announcing Wednesday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting.

Starbucks customers will get subscription-level access to each new content provider’s online repertoire — in addition to content from existing partners like The Wall Street Journal — that is typically blocked by paywalls.

“Starbucks Digital Network is a great way for our customers to try, browse and experience things in a way that is hassle-free,” says Brotman of the network’s enhancements.

For the sports enthusiast, this translates to free access to ESPN Insider Rumor Central. Also in the revamped News & Sports channel is The Economist, so more serious newsies can peruse the online version of the weekly print edition without the price tag.

The comic book fan can now browse Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, its full library of comics, while sipping a soy latte. And via the Mediabistro partnership, job seekers and entrepreneurs can tune in to Starbucks-curated how-to videos on job search techniques and career enhancement methods.

Starbucks knows, however, that most customers ultimately just want access to the free Wi-Fi, Brotman admits. “We’re trying to strike a delicate balance, to enhance our customers’ experience and differentiate our Wi-Fi from other chains,” he says. “But, we’re really careful not to overly promote ourselves and get in the way of the experience.”

Brotman seems pleased with SDN’s preliminary results. He points to engagement rates that are now three times higher than what they were prior to the release of SDN. Instead of instantly bouncing off the Starbucks domain after signing on to the Wi-Fi, the customer is more likely to stick around and click into network content.

But, are Starbucks’s free-loading content consumers converting into paid customers for existing content partners?

“We’re seeing conversions across all of our content partners,” says Brotman. “Some [content partners] are doing better than others … but we know the model is working.”

Still, SDN is by no means a perfect system. “We think we can do better,” Brotman says. To that end, look for Starbucks to release additional loyalty rewards through SDN in the summer.

The free offerings from Mediabistro, ESPN and The Economist are available beginning Wednesday. Marvel’s comic book selection will be accessible April 23.

Image courtesy of Flickr, anitakhart

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Trick Out Your Phone With Band-Designed Cases

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:50 AM PDT


If you’re such a rabid music fan that you’re not content to simply listen to tunes on your mobile — you need to flaunt said music on your phone as well — Case-Mate has a new product that might strike your fancy: a new line of designs from No Doubt, HEALTH, Metric, Underworld and Yo Gabba Gabba.

This line of cases comes from Case-Mate’s “I Make My Case” music program, and allows users to trick out their phone protectors. Users can choose art work from the above bands, which they can then customize as they see fit (changing colors, background, designs, etc). Fans can also opt to purchase cases designed by the musicians in question.

Cases fit the iPhone 4, Verizon iPhone 4, iPhone 3G/3GS, iPod Touch 2G, iPod Tough 4G, Samsung Galaxy S, Blackberry 9700 and Blackberry 8520, and run at $39.99 for customized models, and $34.99 for pre-designed deals.

Of course, Case-Mate isn’t the first company to tap into the music world when it comes to case designs. For example, Griffin partnered with the Grammy Foundation to offer cases designed by bands like MGMT and Ben Folds, with proceeds going to the Grammy Foundation. Still, personally, I’m much more into HEALTH’s design (see above) than MGMT’s scrawled signature.

How do you dress your phone?

More About: gadgets, Mobile 2.0, music

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Aflac Holding Online Casting Call To Replace Gilbert Gottfried

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:35 AM PDT


Aflac is attempting to make the best of its most recent social media faux pas with a national casting call to replace the exiting Gilbert Gottfried as the voice of its duck mascot.

Later today, the insurer plans to update quackaflac.com, a site where prospective voiceover actors can go to submit audio and video files of themselves. Aflac will also hold auditions in six cities. The brand will promote the effort on its Facebook Page and Twitter feed, says spokesman Jon Sullivan.

"We're handling it like a job interview," says Sullivan. "This is not a contest." Sullivan declined to say what the job pays. Aflac, whose advertising is handled by New York ad agency Kaplan Thaler Group, will also advertise the posting on Monster.com. The brand hopes to start shooting new commercials in a few months. Sullivan adds that the brand is going with a national casting call rather than a Hollywood talent agent because “in this day and age, talent can be found anywhere.” But the spokesman acknowledges that there’s also a social media benefit from taking this approach.

Aflac sacked Gottfried, who was the voice of the duck since 2000, when he tweeted some offensive thoughts on his Twitter stream about the recent earthquake in Japan including "Japan called me. They said 'maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here, they're all sinking’" and "I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said 'Is there a school in this area.’ She said, 'Not now, but just wait.'"

Gottfried has since deleted the offending tweets and offered the following sort-of apology in a statement: "I was born without a censor button. My mouth and now email will continue to get me into trouble."

Aflac, clearly chastened by the experience, now has a link on its Facebook Page that lets consumers contribute money to the Red Cross's relief effort in Japan. Sullivan's comments also make it sound as though the brand is steering clear of anyone who might be remotely edgy. "We are looking for the best person to represent our brand," he says, adding that the new voice talent must align with Aflac's image as "philanthropic with high ethical standard."

More About: advertising, Aflac, gilbert gottfried, MARKETING, twitter

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HOW TO: Keep Prying Eyes Off Your Sensitive Online Tax Documents

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:21 AM PDT

money image

Sean Sullivan is security advisor for F-Secure, a provider of award-winning anti-virus and computer security software. You can find more great security tips like this on F-Secure's Safe and Savvy blog and stay up to date on the latest online threats via the F-Secure Labs blog.

The FBI recently announced that it received over 300,000 cybercrime complaints in 2010. The type of information contained in tax returns, such as social security numbers, is key for crimes such as identity theft, which the Federal Trade Commission estimated cost consumers more than $50 billion a year.

The Internal Revenue Service sees about 20% of all taxpayers wait until the last two weeks to file, with about 30 million returns filed in April. Of those, nearly 21 million will be electronically filed (e-filed), containing the kinds of digitized personal and financial information sought after by criminals.

As we approach crunch time for the 2011 tax season and the majority of us prepare to file digitally, our most sensitive financial information will once again become the target of sneaky online crooks. It's obvious that the “bad guys” don’t have many qualms about stealing your, information but with a little common sense and preparation, you can easily avoid falling victim as you prepare to submit your taxes online for another year. Here’s how.

1. Update Your System and Security Software

The most essential element of computer protection is even more important during tax season. Before you start working on your taxes, make sure that your PC is patched and protected with the latest software. There are many free programs that will check to make sure your security applications are up-to-date and find any vulnerabilities you might have in your installed software.

Also, all the protection in the world won't matter if you are using an unprotected wireless network. If you're going to connect to a public Wi-Fi spot to work on anything related to business or taxes, always connect via VPN.

2. Share Your Tax Documents the Old-Fashioned Way

Transmitting your tax forms through email is risky. If you need to get a 1099 or W-4 to your spouse or tax preparer, you should send it through snail mail or deliver it directly while there's still time. You can burn your Excel files onto a CD or save them to a removable drive to avoid the hassle of paper.

3. Zip and Password Protect Your Email Attachments

As April 15 nears, you may need to email a crucial file. If you do, make sure to zip the file, password protect it and verbally give the recipient the password over the phone. Don't be afraid to ask anyone you're sharing confidential data with if he or she is using a PC that is completely updated. They should appreciate the reminder.

4. Password Protect Your Life

Yes, millions of Americans still use bafflingly simple passwords like “12345″ — even for business accounts. Many Gawker readers paid for this mistake dearly after the site was hacked late last year. Other people use pet names, birthdays and other basic information that can be easily gleaned off most Facebook profiles. This makes life too easy for would-be hackers. Take the time to use a password system that makes it easy to create and remember multiple strong passwords. Also, consider one of these five tools for keeping track of your passwords.

One new place to be wary of tax-hackers is your mobile device. Many of the most popular tax preparation software programs are now being offered as applications on your smartphone. If you're one of the early adopters trying to file your forms via mobile this year, make sure you protect your phone itself with a password, and don't do your taxes when you're in public — you never know who's looking over your shoulder.

5. Double-Check Your Tax Preparer and Software

If your preparer is filing for you, make sure he or she follows the U.S. government's guidelines for tax data security. If you're using tax preparation software, check out third-party reviews of the software or site. The money you spend preparing your taxes is deductible on your next year's taxes, so forget about who's the cheapest and go with the best you can afford.

With a few precautions, you can count on your PC during these last few days before the deadline hits and stay focused on the good stuff — like how big your refund will be this year.

Interested in more Business resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, blackred

More About: april 15, business, hacker, identity theft, social media, tax, txes

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Chrome 11 Beta Brings Voice-to-Text Capabilities

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:03 AM PDT


Google has pushed Chrome 11 to the beta channel, bringing a couple of improvements, including the browser’s ability to transcribe voice to text.

With this new feature, users can click an icon and speak into the computer’s microphone, and the browser will turn the speech into text. You can try it out at this demo page.

The Chrome 11 beta release also brings GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, meaning develeopers can use CSS to deliver fancy 3D effects. The version also features the new Chrome icon.

Have you tried the new Chrome 11 beta? What do you think?

More About: browser, chrome 11, Google, Text to Speech, web browser

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