Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Podio Threatens To Replace All Your Project Management Tools” |
- Podio Threatens To Replace All Your Project Management Tools
- U.S. Internet Piracy Is on the Decline [STATS]
- Color CEO on the Future of Social Networking [INTERVIEW]
- How One Music Startup Is Defying the Odds By Breaking the Rules
- Is “Closing” Honeycomb the Beginning of an Androidocalypse? Hardly.
- Color to Get Major Update, Fix ‘Loneliness’ Problem
- HOW TO: Sign, Seal, Deliver Docs Without A Printer Or Scanner
- BlackBerry PlayBook Will Run Android Apps
- OMG, the Oxford English Dictionary Added New Words! We ‘Heart’ It! LOL!
- LivingSocial Says It Will Overtake Groupon in January 2012
- How LinkedIn Is Taking Care of Business [INFOGRAPHIC]
- Google Nixes Open Source For Honeycomb [REPORT]
- How the Web Has Changed Our Perception of Copyright Law
- Facebook Unveils New Version of Questions Tool
- Want a Girlfriend? This Startup Can Hook You Up … With a Virtual One
- How Groupon Uses the Cloud to Scale Its Business
- So You Think You Can Dance, Android Edition [VIDEO]
- Guinness World Record Set for Largest Online Guitar Lesson
- 11 Pro Tips for Better Business Blogging
- NBC Universal To Reward Users for Checking In to TV Shows
- The Age of Mediocrity: Why Rebecca Black Is Everyone’s Fault [OPINION]
- Conan Takes on Rebecca Black With “Thursday” [VIDEO]
- Join Mashable & Verizon Wireless for an Exclusive Demo Event in NYC [UPDATE]
- Major News Publishers Jump on the Daily Deals Bandwagon
- The Latest Cereal Box Prize: Augmented Reality [VIDEO]
- 10 Key Considerations for Your Mobile Web Design Strategy
- Boxee iPad App To Enable Streaming from iPad to Your TV or PC
- Textbook Renter Chegg Moves Beyond Books
- YouTube Video of the Day: Forget Inception, This Will Destroy Your Mind
- Yahoo’s Share of Search Ad Market to Drop to Single Digits This Year [REPORT]
| Podio Threatens To Replace All Your Project Management Tools Posted: 25 Mar 2011 03:54 AM PDT      Podio, the Danish software startup that recently got our attention by opening a pop-up store, today announced the public availability of its online work platform which includes a business App Store and an App Builder. Essentially, Podio gives businesses a way to manage various processes and work tasks from one place, and it does that through the concept of Spaces. You create a space, inviting contacts, add and customize the apps you need (Podio App Store contains more than 200 specialized work apps). These include task management, file sharing, contacts, calendar, reports and more. And if you need something else, you can use Podio App Builder to create an entirely new, custom application with no technical expertise. Finally, Podio includes an Android and an iPhone app, which let you access many features while on the move. The layout of Podio’s platform is very simple and easy to understand, but the amount of options and available features will probably overwhelm most beginners. However, you’ll be hard pressed to find a feature in one of the competitors – such as Basecamp – that Podio doesn’t offer. In fact, we can think of a dozen services, such as Dropbox or Yammer, that Podio threats to replace in a single sweep. From our limited testing, Podio works very well, but it’s too early to tell whether all its features are robust enough to really offer a solution that can adequately replace several other popular project management tools. If you’re looking for an all-in-one online work platform, though, Podio currently seems to be the best bet. Podio can be used for free for companies under 10 users; if you need more than that, you can pay $99 per month for a 25 user license.   More About: android, app builder, app store, business, iphone, online work platform, Podio For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| U.S. Internet Piracy Is on the Decline [STATS] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 11:50 PM PDT   Internet piracy is on the decline in the U.S., according to new research from NPD Group. The percentage of the U.S. Internet population using a P2P file-sharing service to download music has decreased from 16% (28 million users) at the end of 2007, to 9% (16 million users) in the fourth quarter of 2010 — the very quarter that LimeWire was forced to shut down its file-sharing service. In the quarter previous, a federal judge ruled against LimeWire in a copyright infringement case versus the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Between Q4 2007 and Q4 2010, the average number of music files downloaded from P2P networks also dropped from 35 tracks per person to 18 tracks, NPD found. LimeWire was used by 56% of those using P2P services to download music before the ruling (Q3 2010), and 32% by the time it shut down (Q4 2010). Many users have since turned to other P2P networks, such as Frostwire (which is used by 21% of those sharing music files via P2P as of Q4 2010, up from 10% in Q3 2010) and Bittorrent, which increased its userbase from 8% to 12% in the same period. It is not yet clear, NPD says, whether LimeWire’s shutdown has had a significant effect on the number of illegal music downloads. “LimeWire was so popular for music file trading, and for so long, that its closure has had a powerful and immediate effect on the number of people downloading music files from peer-to-peer services and curtailed the amount being swapped,” Russ Crupnick, an entertainment industry analyst for NPD, observes. “In the past, we’ve noted that hard-core peer-to-peer users would quickly move to other websites that offered illegal music file sharing. It will be interesting to see if services like Frostwire and Bittorrent take up the slack left by LimeWire, or if peer-to-peer music downloaders instead move on to other modes of acquiring or listening to music,” he added. NPD’s data is based off a January 2011 survey of 5,549 U.S. Internet users ages 13 and older. Online piracy is a popular scapegoat of the music industry, which has suffered a 30% decline in global sales between 2004 to 2009, according to IFPI’s annual digital music report [PDF]. But given that only 9% of U.S. Internet users use P2P networks to download music illegally (that percentage does include those who obtain music through unauthorized online streaming services and download sites), one wonders whether that blame is merited.  Increasingly, consumers are being introduced to new, more convenient — and, for the music industry, often profitable — methods of obtaining music legally, such as download stores (iTunes), ad-supported streaming sites (Pandora, Spotify), subscription services (Rhapsody, MOG), video channels (Hulu, VEVO), and through bundles with broadband services (TDC in Denmark, Sky in the UK) and mobile phone handsets (like those made by Nokia and Sony Ericcson). All of this has translated into significant revenue — $4.2 billion in 2009, according to IFPI — although it is still not enough to compensate for the sharp falloff of physical format sales in recent years. Image courtesy of Flickr, pokpok313 [via Ars Technica] More About: bittorent, frostwire, limewire, media, music, piracy For more Media coverage:
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| Color CEO on the Future of Social Networking [INTERVIEW] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 11:32 PM PDT   Color has captivated the technology world. The mobile app has only been publicly available for 24 hours, but it already has hundreds of articles dedicated to it and currently sits at #26 (and rising) on the iTunes Top Free apps list. Why is Color getting so much attention? Perhaps it’s because of its unique location-based social networking features, or maybe it can be attributed to the company’s all-star lineup of founders, including former Lala CEO Bill Nguyen and former BillShrink CEO Peter Pham. The hype could also be explained by the company’s jaw-dropping $41 million in pre-launch venture funding from Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. Whatever the reason, Color’s launch on iPhone and Android has the tech world’s attention. Color’s launch hasn’t been smooth sailing, though. The app has gotten some harsh reviews and has received mixed review in the App Store (around two out of five stars). That hasn’t deterred Nguyen and his team though; Color is a company they intend to turn into a billion dollar business by becoming the social network of the future. Rocky Road As we reported earlier, Color will directly address the criticism that the app has a terrible user experience when nobody else is around. Nguyen in fact agrees with the criticism; he says that it’s simply meant for groups. “That’s how we’ve always designed [Color],” he told me. That’s why the company will be releasing a major update to the app next week. It will incorporate a principle of “dynamic network” to determine who is near your location. While the app currently chooses people within 150 feet of your location, the new app could choose a distance of half a mile or more, based on population density. The app will also lock itself down if there is nobody in the vicinity using the app. The team worked on the app for nine months, so it’s understandable that Nguyen and his team took some of the criticism personally. “My feeling are hurt that not everybody got it, but what are you going to do?” he stated. As for the criticism that Color should have launched at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin earlier this month, Color’s CEO had a simple response: “I hate conferences.” Elaborating on his comment, Nguyen explained that while he now gets the opportunity SXSW could have presented, the sheer volume of startups competing for attention and pitching to countless venture capitalists and journalists simply would have made it feel “inorganic.” While Color may prove useful at tech conferences, it’s clearly not Color’s target market. A Research-Centric CompanySo why did Color take $41 million before it even launched? Sequoia capital, which chipped in $25 million, didn’t even give that much money to Google, which required thousands of servers and data engineers in order to expand its ability to crawl the web. Color’s CEO contends that a similar problem faces his startup. “We’re a research company,” Nguyen claimed during our interview. When I asked him to elaborate, he gave the example of a birthday: you’re going to meet people you don’t recognize, but you want to know things like how they are friends with the birthday girl and what they have in common. What does that have to do with research and data? The answer is simple: Nguyen wants to make discovering this type of information a painless and intuitive process, but in order to do that, the company needs to gather, track and analyze huge amounts of data. Not only that, but the full power of Color isn’t truly unleashed until you and your friends have used it for several months. Perhaps that’s why Nguyen recruited D.J. Patil, the former chief scientist at LinkedIn. His data expertise has been crucial to creating and tweaking the precise algorithms that determine proximity and friendship. And as the company grows, so will its need to gather and process data, an expensive affair that Nguyen expects will require even more money. “We need the money,” he succinctly states. Be believes the $41 million is money that the company will need to push the boundaries of social technology and data. “I’ll tell you something about the funding and the mission: they’re very correlated to each other.” The Mission and the Future At its core, Color is not a company about photo sharing. You won’t find Instagram-like filters because that’s simply not the point of the app. When I asked Nguyen straight up to enumerate the core goal of Color, his responses was, “to make small communities.” Color’s team believes that “friending” and “following” are archaic ways of determining who is in your social graph. Why go through all that work maintaining a social graph when Color can (and should) do it for you? Instead, Color helps create small communities of friends and strangers. His thesis is that people do actually want to meet strangers in the same location, but they’re often not comfortable simply approaching someone. Color provides a conduit where you can find out who’s in the room and what they’re like, making it easier to start a conversation and meet new friends. Central to all of this is the phone. “During my time at Apple, We spent a lot of time thinking about the post-PC world,” he said, explaining that smartphones are devices capable of collection loads of unstructured data. It’s his job and his team’s job to take the data they collect and turn it into something useful for the average user. Color isn’t your typical app and it isn’t your typical company. Because of its blockbuster funding, the media will be keeping a close eye on developments with the company’s apps for a long, long time. Nguyen and his team will have to prove that they can spark mass user adoption, keep them consistently engaged, and find a business model within a short time frame. And it will have to do it under the glaring eyes of the media and the pressure that comes with a $41 million bet that you’re the next Google. More About: Android App, Bill Nguyen, color, interview, iphone app, startup For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| How One Music Startup Is Defying the Odds By Breaking the Rules Posted: 24 Mar 2011 09:12 PM PDT    This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Every Thursday, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.Working against the notion that most online music startups are dead on arrival is newcomer Soundtrckr. The young startup breaks all the rules; it offers listeners unlimited streaming access to 10 million songs on the web, across a smattering of mobile platforms and soon the television. Plus, Soundtrckr has social and local components on lockdown — you can listen to the “stations” of friends or people nearby. And it costs nothing. No subscription fees, no mobile surcharge, no ads, nada. So, where’s the catch? Soundtrckr takes the similar artist, algorithmic playlist selection model that Pandora uses and has song skip limitations, so it’s not of Spotify’s or Rdio’s on-demand ilk. But rarely do the adjectives free and good go together to describe a single music service. Soundtrackr is an exception. It’s already growing fast in the U.S. and overseas — 35% of users are spread across the U.K., India, Brazil, Germany, France and Mexico. It’s also nearing 500,000 users just three months post launch. Soundtrckr hits at the cross section between mobile, social and local in a fresh way, creating new conditions for success, founder and CEO Daniele Calabrese tells me. “You can tune into your friends, tune into what’s nearby, and tune into discover music. That’s what it’s really about,” he says. Outsourcing the Music, Holding the Ads “We had two choices,” says Calabrese of the startup’s debate between the only two legal options available for a music startup: to forge streaming deals with music labels or work with a third-party music provider. “We went with the option that brings the largest and richest experience to our users.” Soundtrckr uses MediaNet, the same company that powers MOG’s music offering, as its music database. MediaNet delivers ten million tracks, with 20,000 new ones added each week, and Soundtrckr delivers the user interface and performs the algorithmic magic on-the-fly to create playlists based on artist selections. MediaNet’s services are far from free. “The arrangement is sustainable for a startup,” Calabrese assures me. Soundtrckr has raised $800,000 from private angel investors. That’s not a lot of dough, but it’s enough, according to Calabrese. Soundtrckr is looking at raising more funding in the next quarter to help finance growth, and to likely offset music streaming costs. No word yet on how much and from whom. The startup plans to skip ads and subscription fees for the time being. Revenue, instead, will (hopefully) come from a recently cemented partnership with Songkick that will add concert ticket sales integration to Soundtrckr’s mobile applications in May. “There are ways to bring in revenue and still bring value to users,” says Calabrese. “We want to create the best conditions, so [bringing in revenue] doesn’t hurt the experience.” This means that the experience will remain entirely ad free, for now. Calabrese is against the idea of forcing users to pay to remove annoying features (like ads), but does indicate that he’s keeping a close watch on mobile advertising opportunities. Music, Everywhere Already on the web, iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Phone 7, Nokia, and in the Chrome Store, Soundtrckr is readying the release of several more applications and new features in the weeks ahead. First up is the obligatory integrations with Facebook and Twitter. Soundtrckr is not the social music experience it seeks to be without these integrations. Calabrese promises that users can expect the social add-ons to come to the iPhone application and the website next week. A Google TV Soundtrckr application could be released as early as next week as well, and iPad and Android versions are also in the works. The applications will be soon be everywhere, but they’ll also be ubiquitous in language as well. Soundtrckr is currently available in six different languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and German. Russian and Japanese versions are scheduled for release in three weeks time. The startup is aggressively targeting multiple distribution channels and international audiences because it believes those two factors will combine to create a cataclysmic effect that propels it to immediate popularity. “We’re going to grow fast,” says Calabrese confidently. “You will hear more about us.” Images courtesy of Flickr, (e)Spry, chiarashine, lism Series Supported by 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: bizspark, geolocation, music, Soundtrckr, spark-of-genius For more Startups coverage:
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| Is “Closing” Honeycomb the Beginning of an Androidocalypse? Hardly. Posted: 24 Mar 2011 07:34 PM PDT   Earlier today, we learned that Google would be limiting access to the source code for Android 3.0, a.k.a. Honeycomb, its tablet-specific OS. For a famously open-source platform, this decision was startling to many in the field; however, the situation isn’t as dire as it seems at the outset. For one thing, any tablet manufacturer or dev can get their hands on the code; all they have to do is ask. As a Google rep told us in an email, the Honeycomb OS was designed for the larger form factor that goes along with tablet devices; it definitely wasn’t intended for use on phones. And Honeycomb includes new features and improvements to existing features such as multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization. The rep stated, “While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. Until then, we've decided not to release Honeycomb to open source.” “We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready.” In other words, this doesn’t signal a fundamental shift in everything that Android stands for; after all, the open-source mantra has been such a fundamental part of the platform’s PR that killing off that aspect of the technology would amount to Google shooting itself in the foot. Hardly the End of Open-Source AndroidGoogle’s isn’t locking down the source code for Froyo (Android 2.2) or Gingerbread (Android 2.3) any time soon, and it doesn’t have and intentions of keeping future releases closed, either. And as we know, the tablet and phone forks of Android will be merged in a future release (possibly Android 4.0), which will also be open-sourced. The “I” release, which may or may not be code-named “Ice Cream,” will combine the Gingerbread and Honeycomb capabilities, and it’s rumored to be coming this summer. We may get to learn more about Ice Cream at Google I/O this May. Also, for developers, the Honeycomb SDK is still freely available for developing Android tablet apps. And the source code for Honeycomb is still available; it just isn’t publicly posted on the web for anyone to download. Anyone in the Open Handset Alliance can get the source code for Android 3.0. And any person working with Android tablets can contact Google directly, sign a licensing agreement (no fees required), and get the source code that way, as well. The Real Reason for the DecisionIn short, Google is simply trying to prevent sloppy implementation of a slick OS. The company doesn’t want to see more gaffes like tablets running Froyo or earlier mobile OSes — and Google sees phones running Honeycomb as an equally inept implementation. As we asked ourselves around the Mashable office, “Who in the world would want to put a tablet OS on a phone?” Hackers, that’s who. And when we say “hackers,” we don’t mean the script kiddies trying to steal your bank info; rather, we refer to the creative technologists and tinkerers whose guiding principle is a question: “What’s this button do?” In fact, such hardware hackers have already played with putting Honeycomb on the ancient T-Mobile G1 and the equally early Nexus One. While neither of these hacks would likely come to a mass market, Google might be making a legitimate argument about misunderstanding and misuse of the Honeycomb OS. Timelines & InfluencesTwo questions then remain: When will the tablet OS be open-sourced, and did current Honeycomb-using manufacturers who happen to be particularly close to Google (here’s lookin’ at you, Motorola) have anything to do with the decision? The Google rep we spoke to was unable to comment on specific timelines or Google’s decision-making process, but we did reach out to Android dev and Android blogger Fred Grott for his take on the matter. We noted earlier that Ice Cream was expected to arrive between May and later in the summer of 2011. Grott noted, “I would hazard a guess that the Android phone-tablet port is due out this summer, and the source would be open to public this fall.” He also said that at Mobile World Congress, the more cutting-edge devices with NFC tech were not running the most recent versions of Android for mobile devices, which hints that manufacturers may be lagging in adoption of the newest releases. “What I gather from what Google has stated,” Grott continued, “is that they want the Honeycomb port to the phone branch correct and right the first time to head off any manufacturer customizations of the UI and finally nip that part of fragmentation in the bud.” Grott also said that dealing with those OS customizations is a pain point for manufacturers; they have to rewrite native apps, and they don’t get any kickbacks from carriers for doing so. Also, for manufacturers, carriers, Google and the community of Android tablet consumers, having a partially closed door for OS customizations helps breed a culture of trust. It’s not the closely guarded world of iOS, but it’s also not an unpredictable, anything-goes free-for-all. And in the new, new arena of Android tablets, that might be a good and solidifying factor. This might chafe FOSS advocates mightily, but it’s likely in Google’s best interest for the time being. Let us know what you think about Google’s decision and reasoning. More About: android, honeycomb, open source For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Color to Get Major Update, Fix ‘Loneliness’ Problem Posted: 24 Mar 2011 05:59 PM PDT   Color, the dynamic photo-sharing app that made a splash with its launch yesterday, is already hard at work on the next version of its app. The update will directly address user criticism about the app’s apparent lack of utility when a user’s friends aren’t nearby. The app, available for iPhone and Android, allows anybody to share their photos or videos with friends and strangers. The app detects who is nearby and automatically creates groups for sharing visual content. There is no “friending” or “following” in Color, though. All the photos are public, and your circle of friends is determined by algorithm — based on how often you hang out with a person. It’s a concept the company calls the “elastic network.” The app is currently #2 in the App Store for Social Networking and currently ranks #26 for Top Free apps, but it has received mixed reviews from users and the media, largely because of a weak user experience when friends aren’t nearby. The startup has also received heat for its eye-popping $41 million in funding, primarily from Sequoia Capital. I spoke with Color co-founder and CEO Bill Nguyen about the future of the product. The former Lala CEO told me that his team has heard the criticism loud and clear, and is moving fast to make changes to the app to fix its biggest problem: that people feel lonely when they use the app all by themselves. In order to get value out of Color someone else has to be nearby using the app. “Otherwise it’s going to make no sense,” he told me. So the app will feature two major changes when the next update ships: you won’t be able to use the app if nobody is nearby, and Color will be changing the distance required for somebody to be considered nearby. The first change is a pretty significant one; if you launch the app in the middle of nowhere, you’re essentially going to be locked out. This is designed to prevent you from opening the app and simply having nothing to do or see. The second update should prevent that scenario from occurring too often. Nguyen says the app will dynamically calculate the distance required for somebody to be considered “nearby.” Currently, the app searches for anybody within 150 feet of your location. That number will not be a constant any longer: “We’re going to start adjusting that range based on the density of cities,” he says. For example, cities like Tokyo and New York won’t require a lot of calibration, but Color may determine that your “dynamic network” has a radius of half a mile, especially if you live in a spread-out city or smaller town. The exact distance will be determined on-the-fly, like many of the app’s other core features. Nguyen hopes the new update will land in the app store sometime in the middle of next week. He says not to expect miracles from this update; there will be many iterations of the app as the company gathers more data on how people utilize the app. Check out our full interview with Color’s CEO, where he explains the company’s goals in greater detail and defends the company’s $41 million funding round. More About: android, Android apps, apple, Bill Nguyen, color, iphone, iphone app, Lala, startup, trending For more Mobile coverage:
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| HOW TO: Sign, Seal, Deliver Docs Without A Printer Or Scanner Posted: 24 Mar 2011 05:09 PM PDT   If you’ve ever had to get a signed document from Point A to a distant Point B, you know the frustration and expense of that soul-sucking task. If you’d like to accomplish it without so much as printing a page, let alone running a dozen errands or trying to email an enormous PDF, HelloFax is your killer app. Sending documents to fax numbers isn’t a big challenge these days — and that’s not HelloFax’s focus. There are dozens of that let you send faxes online, such as eFax and Fax.com. But there’s one major sticking point when it comes to contracts, NDAs, permission slips and similar documents: your signature. How does the average Joe or Jane manage to actually sign the digital documents before sending them? Enter HelloFax, which digitizes the signing process. This removes the need to print out, sign, scan-in and send. HelloFax, a web-based app, works this way. You go to the site with your document of choice. This could be a PDF, a text file, a Word document, or an image file of just about any kind. Enter the fax number or email address where the document should go. If you need a cover sheet, you can quickly create one in a pop-up lightbox. Upload your document, then edit and sign the document as needed. The editing tools are pretty basic; you can add check boxes or text. The signing options are quite varied. First, you can choose to create your digital signature with a mouse. If you’re as hand-eye coordinated as I am, this will look something like the efforts of a sugar-high 3-year-old. You can also upload an image file of your signature, if you have one. But there’s a much better option: you can grab a pen, scrawl your John Hancock on a piece of blank paper, and take a picture of that with your smartphone. HelloFax will let you email that image to them. The site digitizes the image for use in your document as soon as the email is received. Once you’ve created your signature, you can save it for use on future faxes. When you’ve finished editing, signing and saving the document, you click to send the fax or email. Once the document is sent, it’s saved in your HelloFax account, just in case you need to download a copy or resend it to another party. You can send documents to any U.S. fax number. Support for international number is in the works, as is sending the same fax to multiple recipients at the same time. Best of all, you can fax up to 20 pages free of charge every month, and you can send unlimited signed documents via email. If you deal with a lot of signed and faxed documents — as many entrepreneurs and freelancers do — you can pay a reasonable subscription fee (after a 30-day free trial, of course) to HelloFax your way to a paperless office. You can fax 50 pages a month for $5; this plan also offers you your own local fax number. Other plans include the $10 per month option (500 pages per month and a toll-free or local number) and a $40 monthly subscription for the heaviest of power users (2,000 fax pages per month and a toll-free or local fax number). Subscription plans can be canceled at any time. HelloFax is a Y Combinator company. Its founders are Neal O’Mara, formerly a TripIt engineer, and Joseph Walla, who has extensive experience in public service in the U.S. and abroad. “We built something we needed,” O’Mara and Walla wrote of HelloFax. “Every document was a hassle to sign. It involved a trip to [FedEx Office], printing, scanning, faxing and then being overcharged. An hour later, our document was signed. Not a good use of time.” The next time you need to sign and send a document, give HelloFax a try, and report back with your experiences. Does this strike you as a useful app for the average person? Let us know in the comments. More About: contracts, documents, fax, hellofax, office, paperless, startup, y combinator For more Startups coverage:
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| BlackBerry PlayBook Will Run Android Apps Posted: 24 Mar 2011 03:48 PM PDT   When the long-awaited BlackBerry tablet hits the U.S. and Canada on April 19, Research in Motion (RIM) has a surprise up its sleeve: support for Android apps. The company announced today that in addition to its new native SDK, the BlackBerry PlayBook will support apps written for Android 2.3 and BlackBerry Java. RIM also announced that it is bringing the Airplay and Unity 3 game engines to the PlayBook. Android support on a BlackBerry-branded device is a big deal. Rumors about this sort of arrangement have been ongoing since early 2011, but it seemed an unlikely development until now. In a statement, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said: “The upcoming addition of BlackBerry Java and Android apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook on BlackBerry App World will provide our users with an even greater choice of apps and will also showcase the versatility of the platform.” The technical details surrounding Android-compatibility aren’t clear. We assume RIM is using a virtual machine that can support Android code. This method is likely similar to what the QNX-based tablet will do to run apps written for older BlackBerry handset devices. RIM says developers will just need to repackage, code sign and submit existing Android apps to the Blackberry App World. For developers that want to create native apps for the PlayBook, RIM says its BlackBerry Tablet OS Native Development Kit will be in open Beta by this summer. It seems odd to release a device to consumers before the native development kit is even in open beta, but we guess that’s why RIM is expanding its options to also include apps written for BlackBerry Java, Android and Adobe Air. The big question is: how will Android apps be presented on the PlayBook? Our guess is they will appear in home-screen widgets with a full-screen option, given the differences in orientation and resolution. That could actually be an interesting experience, depending on execution. To be clear, the apps that the PlayBook supports will be Android 2.3 — not Android 3.0. So this means that developers that want an easy port of a utility or basic game will have an easy time moving to the PlayBook. Developers building new tablet apps from the ground-up for Honeycomb, however, will still need to consider alternate development paths for PlayBook. What do you think of the PlayBook and its Android app compatibility? Does it make the device more attractive? Let us know in the comments. More About: android, blackberry, blackberry playbook, Google, RIM, tablets For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| OMG, the Oxford English Dictionary Added New Words! We ‘Heart’ It! LOL! Posted: 24 Mar 2011 03:04 PM PDT   Before you take to the comments to ream us out about the above headline: “OMG,” “LOL” and the symbol for “heart” have all been added to the Oxford English Dictionary Online. According to the OED‘s site, the newest edition of the dictionary (which comes out online today) revises more than 1,900 entries and includes a ton of new words — including the neologisms above. So what do OMG and LOL mean to the OED? In the electronic realm, they’re merely shorthand for surprise and mirth. In the real-world space — according to the OED’s blog post — “The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an 'insider' au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology.” So, we’re going with irony rather than pre-teen sincerity here, huh, OED? Fair enough. The OED also reveals that these neologisms aren’t as neo as we might think: The first quotation the dictionary uses for the definition of OMG is from a letter dating back to 1917, and LOL meant “little old lady” back in 1960. The heart sign, however, is perhaps the most interesting addition. As the post says, “This update may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers.” All this is fine and good, but I’m holding out for the next edition, which will hopefully include some of those symbols all those witch house bands have been throwing around of late. OMG, I would <3 that! LOL! Image courtesy of Flickr, Jonas B More About: OED, pop culture For more Social Media coverage:
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| LivingSocial Says It Will Overtake Groupon in January 2012 Posted: 24 Mar 2011 02:37 PM PDT   Among the glut of daily deal sites that have emerged in Groupon’s wake, none is as serious a competitor to the group-buying site as LivingSocial. Since its group deals launched in December 2009, the company has garnered a total of $232 million in funding — $175 million of it from Amazon. That might seem like chump change compared to the $950 million Series D Groupon recently raised or its rumored $25 billion IPO-to-be. But according to this U.S.-market revenue data for both sites, compiled by LivingSocial, it’s been enough to seriously challenge Groupon.  The chart uses information that both group buying sites publish daily: the price of their deals and the number they sell. It seems LivingSocial’s market share has been steadily increasing since 2009. Currently, for every $10 of deals sold on either platform, $4 of them take place at LivingSocial. If both companies continue to grow at their current rates, LivingSocial’s portion of sales will overtake Groupon’s in January 2012. Groupon’s decreasing market share in U.S. markets does not necessarily indicate decreasing sales. A leaked internal memo suggests that Groupon’s annual revenue grew from $33 million in 2009 to $760 million in 2010. The change in market share has more to do with the fact that LivingSocial is just growing faster. It had 10 million subscribers in December, and more than 24 million subscribers three months later. As the company starting with 100% market share in 2008, Groupon really only had one direction to go in once competitors got into the game. Fortunately for them, the entire market is exploding. A recent report from daily deal aggregator Local Offer Network says that group buying will grow 138% to $2.7 billion in 2011. Whichever way you slice it, however, LivingSocial is a serious competitor. Ben Horowitz, a Groupon investor, recently told The New York Times that he wasn’t worried about new competitors because it would be difficult to build a salesforce comparable to the one at Groupon. Now, as LivingSocial nips at Groupon’s heels, it might be time to reconsider that theory. For more Social Media coverage:
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| How LinkedIn Is Taking Care of Business [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 02:17 PM PDT   LinkedIn recently passed 100 million users, meaning its population is bigger than most countries. But what kind of country would LinkedInLand be? An old, rich, well-educated one. According to the infographic below, created by Online MBA, 68% of LinkedIn users are 35 or older, 74% have a college degree or better and 39% make more than $100,000 a year. As those stats illustrate, although LinkedIn may not have the buzz of Facebook or Twitter right now, it has an enviable demographic base. The company also is profitable, fast-growing and expanding into new lines of business like news aggregation. As LinkedIn prepares to go public this year, here’s an overview of the phenomenon that Reid Hoffman created 8 years ago. More About: infographic, linkedin For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Google Nixes Open Source For Honeycomb [REPORT] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 01:44 PM PDT   Google is holding off on distributing the source code for its tablet-based operating system, Android 3.0 Honeycomb, for the “foreseeable future,” according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Historically, Google has provided device makers like HTC, Motorola and Samsung with advance access to the Android OS. After a period of time, the company then provides the source code for that version of Android to the general development community. This allows hackers, modders and device makers to modify the code. With Honeycomb, however, things will be different. “To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs,” Google VP Andy Rubin told Bloomberg Businessweek. One of the tradeoffs is that Google is unsure how well — or if — Honeycomb will run on non-tablet devices. An open-source Honeycomb release would mean that developers and hardware makers could start trying to port the software to smartphones. But Rubin says that could end up “creating a really bad user experience.” Google wants to ensure that the right devices have access to the code in order to ensure a base-level experience. To understand Google’s position, you need only look at the majority of pre-Honeycomb Android tablet releases. Android 2.x was not designed for larger screens, and the overall user experience suffered. Google doesn’t want the reverse to happen — where Android 3.0 could hinder non-tablet device experiences. The best way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to control access to the code. Ideology WarsThe decision to delay the open source Honeycomb release potentially puts Google at odds with some of its most fervent supporters: open source software developers. One of the tenants of Android is that because the code is open — developers and users can do what they want with it and modify it as they see fit. This allowed Android to proliferate at a dizzying pace, and let manufacturers of all sizes bring out their own Android-powered devices. But it also means Android is oft-criticized for being fragmented by version number, interface overlay and varying feature-sets. What do you think of Google’s decision to keep Honeycomb access limited? Let us know in the comments. More About: android, Android Honeycomb, Google, honeycomb, open source For more Mobile coverage:
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| How the Web Has Changed Our Perception of Copyright Law Posted: 24 Mar 2011 01:37 PM PDT   Kaiser Wahab is a Media, Venture, and Tech Attorney at the NY firm of Wahab & Medenica, who loves to counsel a biz with something to say and thanks his intern, Lauren Mack, for her work on this piece. Read more on his blog or follow him on Twitter @BizMediaLaw. There is no doubt that in 2011, copyright law isn't what it was in 1976. The web (and mobile) have all forced the aging statute to evolve in ways that were never anticipated in a world of digital everything. Only late last year, the Obama administration began the potential reform process via an inquiry into the government's stance on copyright on the net, and an end result is still years to come. While legislation stagnates, a new, aggressive approach to enforcing the 34-year-old law against online infringement by private and government interests is pushing the judicial envelope to fill the void. Here’s what it means, and some new tactics used to enforce copyright. 1. Factory Style Suits vs. Thousands of Jane & John DoesThe real issue for copyright in file sharing suits is one of enforcement (i.e. content creators filing claims against individual defendants — each with their own filing fees, subpoenas, paperwork, and findings of fact — is a patently unsustainable method of fighting infringement). Recognizing the RIAA's fatal flaw in filing suit against individual music infringers, the film industry is trying a new tactic and the Hurt Locker lawsuits are prime examples. Filed by the ominously named “U.S. Copyright Group Law” firm on behalf of the producers, these suits targeted thousands of bittorrent downloaders. The original suit laid out nearly 5,000 IPs, without one name-identified party. Even the RIAA hand picked candidates whose identity was tracked down prior to suit. Moreover, since the Hurt Locker suits are being filed against "anon" users, the Copyright Group has subpoenaed ISPs in order to discover true identities. These factory lawsuits have forced the courts to address several very problematic issues, such as:
A snapshot of early holdings on these issues: Joinder. While some courts are still grappling with the issue, at least one has taken a stand against mass joinder. Judge Bailey of the Northern District of West Virginia severed 7,097 defendants in a prime mass porn infringer suit over "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody." User Identities. Once a single defendant is named, the plaintiff's request for other user identities may be given greater weight than third-party user privacy. In Sony's case against George Hotz, who showed users how to jailbreak their Playstation 3, the judge allowed Sony to subpoena Google and the web host for the usernames and IP addresses of all commenters on Hotz's YouTube video demonstration and all users who accessed Hotz's website since January 2009. Privacy advocates were shocked by the deference given Sony, who asserted the information was crucial to satisfying jurisdiction standards and proving actual distribution. Damages. Since copyright holders are suing more individuals who do not profit from infringement, there is a movement to lower statutory damage awards. The Copyright Act allows for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement, but in two music downloading cases that made it to trial (Tenenbaum and Thomas-Rasset), both judges reduced awards of $80,000 and $22,500 per work to $2,250 per work. Although statutory damages may apply when actual damages are difficult to gauge, the judge in Thomas-Rasset's case wrote they must have "some relation to actual damages." He went on to state deterrence alone could not justify bloated awards when the infringement was simply about free music. Juries may not be getting the hint however, as the jury in Thomas-Rasset's third trial awarded plaintiffs $62,500 per song. Let the Government Do ItNot to be seen as out of touch with content creators, the federal government has spurred its agencies into taking an unprecedented, active role in copyright enforcement. Hence, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security began obtaining warrants to shut down domain names hosting/linking to infringing content and products last year. The campaign was dubbed — wait for it — "Operation in Our Sites." The crackdown raised concerns, due to innocent sites being shut down and lacking due process (notice of seizure warrants are bypassed for expeditiousness). Despite these concerns, the government has taken the position that the violent pace at which the Internet can facilitate infringement demands swift and coordinated enforcement. Moreover, the government is legislating enforcement solutions outside of copyright law, with the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which was introduced in the Senate last year. Under the bill's current version, the Attorney General may bring an action against any domain name "dedicated to infringing activities" for a shut down order. COICA critics harbor many of the same fears over ICE's operations, especially in determining what sites are "dedicated to infringing activities," a standard which could potentially ensnare Google. ConclusionWhile copyright legislation moves at a glacial pace, copyright enforcement is the battle front du jour, and continues to evolve in bitter lawsuits. Recognizing copyright holders' uphill battle, the government appears prepared to experiment with aggressive enforcement strategies, at the price of burdening free speech, due process, and fair play. Until copyright law is legislatively balanced with language and mechanisms to address the Internet’s fast-paced evolution, the rights holders and users will likely continue to joust through inefficient and controversial lawsuits and heavy handed governmental action.  Interested in more Law & Business resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.Image courtesy of Flickr, seychelles88 More About: business, copyright, copyright law, law, lawsuit, social media For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook Unveils New Version of Questions Tool Posted: 24 Mar 2011 01:15 PM PDT   Facebook released a new version of its Questions feature on Thursday, the result of nearly a year of beta testing. The new version of Questions takes the focus off public inquiries (a service already dominated by Q&A sites like Quora) and instead focuses on soliciting recommendations from friends. “There are a lot of places you can go on the internet to ask questions of people who you don’t know, but there are very few places you can go to get responses from your friends,” said Adrian Graham, a project manager for Questions. “We thought that this is where we should focus.” The updated version will be rolled out to current testers first. When they start asking questions, the feature will automatically be pushed to their friends. Those who don’t want to wait for a friend to ask a question on their profile in order to use the new feature can download it here. For now, the feature is only available in English. Here’s a quick look at the new product: Asking a Question When asking a question, users have an option to create a poll with restricted answers or one that allows anybody to add answers. The latter option is helpful if, for instance, they want to ask their friends for restaurant recommendations. Generally, this type of question only requires a short answer, but it’s not as though there are a limited number of options. Friends can add their favorite restaurants to the answer list easily, and if they have something else to say can write it in an attached comment section. For questions that don’t work with a poll format (i.e. “Can we have a long discussion about the meaning of life?”), this comment section becomes the answer section. When we last checked in on the product in July, wall posts about Questions merely referenced isolated pages where friends could respond. Now questions can be answered and commented on within newsfeeds and profile pages. When a friend participates, the question is also posted to his or her profile page. Hypothetically, a compelling question could spread to every Facebook user in this way. Answering a Question As users respond, each option’s box fills to reflect its popularity. This way, viewers see the poll questions and results at the same time. Facebook also displays the profile photos of respondents next to the options they select. When users are adding an option to a poll-style question, Facebook prepopulates a drop-down menu with corresponding Facebook pages. One of these pages can be tacked to the answer so that other users can see a preview window of that page. More About: facebook, Facebook Questions, quora For more Social Media coverage:
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| Want a Girlfriend? This Startup Can Hook You Up … With a Virtual One Posted: 24 Mar 2011 12:43 PM PDT   You know what gets the online ladies going? Well, when some other lady is writing all over your Facebook wall. After all, “I love you” means nada unless it’s posted between a video of a big cat in a tiny box and a frantic plea from your friend Jonah to “Gett totaly crunked on sat! dude.” That’s the idea behind Cloud Girlfriend, a mysterious, “coming soon” startup that declares: “The best way to get a girlfriend is to already have one.” Right now, potential users (I’m picturing a melange of curious web surfers, model train hobbyists and 13-year-old boys) can sign up for an early invitation to the service, after which one will need to follow a quartet of steps: “Step 1: Define your perfect girlfriend. Step 2: We bring her into existence. Step 3: Connect and interact with her publicly on your favorite social network Step 4: Enjoy a public long distance relationship with your perfect girl.” We’re intrigued to see how this service works — and how it gets around Facebook’s TOS — and if it succeeds in filling that gaping hole inside your heart. [via Hacker News] Photo courtesy of Flickr, Don Hankins More About: cloud-girlfriend, facebook, online dating For more Startups coverage:
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| How Groupon Uses the Cloud to Scale Its Business Posted: 24 Mar 2011 12:18 PM PDT
We spoke with Ryan Miller and Chris Bland from Groupon about how the company has managed to scale its business so quickly and with such agility. Rather than relying on its own complex internal systems infrastructure, Groupon uses tools like Salesforce.com and Amazon EC2 and S3 to keep the site powered and deals flowing. Growing With the CloudOne of the reasons Groupon has continued to succeed and expand over the past two and a half years is because the company has managed to keep the pace with its business. We’re all familiar with the growing pains suffered by web services like Twitter and Tumblr. Because Groupon is a web tool that also deals with actual local commerce, it’s crucial to keep the site accessible to both deal goers and local businesses.  Even when Groupon still had only one market — Chicago — the company made the decision to use cloud-based services to power the business. This ended up being fortuitous, because it allowed the company to quickly expand its bandwidth and processing power at a moment’s notice; something that wouldn’t have been possible if Groupon was using its own dedicated data backend. Moreover, because Groupon chose to use established companies like Amazon and Salesforce.com, supporting the growing business was less of a concern than might otherwise be the case. Anatomy of a Deal WorkflowSalesforce.com is often used as a CRM or sales management tool. Groupon actually uses Salesforce and its Force.com platform to power the deals that make up the site. Salesforce was chosen not just because of the company’s experience in supporting large business types — scale is important here — but because of the types of tools that can be integrated or built-on-top of the platform. Details regarding a deal are submitted into a Salesforce powered backend. Groupon vets approve every deal that goes live on the site in various markets and its team of writers craft the descriptions of each deal. Using Chatter, Groupon employees can comment about a deal, make suggestions or changes and keep abreast of what is going on throughout the site.  The editorial team crafts the descriptions for each and every deal that takes place on the site. This information is added into Salesforce and can then be published directly on the site. The advantage of this solution — aside from being one interface for employees to use — is that deal information and assets are accessible within the cloud for future access or for reference. Groupon also uses Model Metrics to help optimize its Salesforce.com system. Groupon uses Model Metrics to customize user interface features and dashboards. This can reduce the number of steps required to enter in merchant information and deal details. Salesforce’s Google Apps integration also allows Groupon to associate customer information with an account and a specific offer. Because Groupon is based in the cloud, data can be collected not just from the local web browser but also from mobile devices. According to Bland, Groupon will soon be deploying tools that will enable its agents in the field to digitally sign contracts and other documents, reducing the amount of overhead and transfer time. Reporting and MetricsTracking deal performance across locations and business types is an important part of Groupon’s business. Groupon uses a number of different tracking solutions so that it can generate internal reports, as well as offer reports to business owners. Groupon uses the Vertica Analytics Platform to get real-time analysis of subscriber behavior. Vertica was chosen, in part, because it can be deployed using Amazon EC2. Groupon uses EC2 and S3 to power parts of its website and backend — finding solutions that can work with what is already in place is a key part of being able to scale quickly. Model Metrics also helps provide report generation and better analytics and measurement services. Not Reinventing the WheelGroupon is an interesting company — and not just because of its meteoric growth rates. The company culture is fast-moving and agile. Part of that agility comes with the recognition that for a business to succeed and keep apace with growth, home-grown solutions aren’t always the key. While it’s certainly true that Groupon’s tools are highly customized and that it leverages various platforms like Amazon Web Services and Salesforce in its own unique way, these are still custom applications built using off-the-shelf parts. It used to be that to run a website or business like Groupon, most businesses would opt to build and maintain their own in-house systems. Sometimes, that can be the best solution. For a growing number of businesses — large and small — it’s no longer necessary to keep everything in house. The speed, redundancy, and efficiency of cloud solutions often wind up costing less — or at least costing the same — as maintaining in-house systems. Moreover, the advantages of the cloud mean that business can take place in location and device agnostic places. It also means that as long as the cloud provider is reliable — and this is an important consideration — scaling to bigger servers or taking advantage of more processing power can happen on an as-needed basis. Series Supported by Brother  The Scaling Startups Series is supported by Brother International. Brother's Inkjet All-in-One printers are loaded with powerful business features, including 11″x17" duplex printing and scan glass. Tell us how 11"x17" capabilities will help you achieve your bigger picture for a chance to win a $10,000 business grant. Visit www.shareyourbiggerpicture.com! More Startups Resources from Mashable:
More About: amazon web services, cloud computing, ec2, groupon, model metrics, s3, salesforce.com, Scaling Startups Series, vertica analytics platform For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| So You Think You Can Dance, Android Edition [VIDEO] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 11:42 AM PDT Can your iPhone do this? Whoever was underneath this Android mascot costume didn’t phone in his or her performance. The spirited dance, shot in Taiwan near a Sony Expera Arc cellphone stand, has become a most-likely-unplanned viral video for Google's mobile platform, with more than 600,000 views on YouTube since March 20 and 889 shares over the past 24 hours, according to Unruly Media's Viral Video Chart. Why? Maybe it's the dancing. Recall that one of the hottest viral videos of 2009 was the JK Wedding Dance, which got more than 12 million views that year and has logged more than 63 million views in total. And, of course, The Evolution of Dance is one of the most-watched YouTube videos of all time with 163 million views and counting. More About: android, Google, viral videos For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Guinness World Record Set for Largest Online Guitar Lesson Posted: 24 Mar 2011 11:10 AM PDT At the beginning of March, Berkleemusic — the online division of the Berklee College of Music — and Grammy-winning guitar player Steve Vai set out to reach the Guinness World Record for most massive online guitar lesson. The whole deal went down at Livestream Studios in New York City and was streamed using that service. Well, the numbers are in: With 4,455 students tuning in during the first 15 minutes, and 7,000 students in all, Berkleemusic and Vai are now honored in the same sphere as Charlie Sheen and his illustrious Twitter account. But, seriously, this undertaking was rather impressive — Berkleemusic also donated $7,000 (a dollar for every attendee) to the Steve Vai Online Scholarship Fund at Berkleemusic. Check out the video above in case you missed the lesson. What online tools do you use to practice or learn music? Photo courtesy of Flickr, southerntabitha More About: Berkleemusic, guinness world record, guitar, music, steve-vai For more Media coverage:
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| 11 Pro Tips for Better Business Blogging Posted: 24 Mar 2011 10:42 AM PDT   Scott Gerber is a serial entrepreneur, syndicated columnist, public speaker and author of Never Get a “Real” Job. The content of this post was sourced from the Young Entrepreneur Council, a non-profit led by the world’s top young entrepreneurs. You can submit your questions to this group on YoungEntrepreneurCouncil.com. Blogging isn’t easy — and certainly not for individuals who don’t have the capacity or desire to commit their minds and time to a long-term cause. In an age where everyone and their mother has access to Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous or other flavor-of-the-year services, getting your blog to be well-trafficked, highly syndicated and massively popular is no easy task. Know this before you consider blogging as a marketing option for your business: Even though you can write a blog, doesn’t mean you should. Not every business needs one, no matter what the “one-size-fits-all” startup books and “experts” say. In fact, for most businesses, it will be an utter waste of precious selling time that will not meet your expectations. Cutting corners or half-assing this exercise will do nothing more than lead you to produce advertorial dribble. Should you decide that blogging is the right marketing vehicle for you and/or your business, know that there are many tried-and-true ways to organically build traction, create awareness over time and achieve value for your small business. I asked a panel of successful young entrepreneurs how to ensure that your blogging efforts remain on point, effective and primed for success. 1. Become an Industry Expert
- Stephanie Kaplan Company: HerCampus.com Twitter: @StephanieKaplan Facebook: Stephanie Kaplan 2. Always Be Adding Value
- Devesh Dwivedi Company: BreakingThe9to5Jail.com Twitter: @Break9to5Jail Facebook: BreakingThe0to5Jail 3. Blogging Is a Big Commitment
- Matt Mickiewicz Company: 99designs.com Twitter: @sitepointmatt 4. Reader Loyalty Cannot Be Bought
- Kent Healy Company: TheUncommonLife.com Twitter: @Kent_Healy Facebook: Kent Healy 5. Network, Share and Repeat
- Ashley Bodi Company: BusinessBeware.biz Twitter: @businessbeware Facebook: Ashley Bodi 6. Be Passionate, and Show Your Readers Some Love
- Adam Toren Company: YoungEntrepreneur.com Twitter: @thebizguy Facebook: Young Entrepreneurs 7. Solve Your Readers’ Problems
- Natalie MacNeil Company: She Takes on the World Twitter: @nataliemacneil Facebook: She Takes on the World 8. Don’t Start a Blog, Just Write for Other Blogs
- Eric Bahn Company: BeatTheGMAT.com Twitter: @beatthegmat Facebook: BeatTheGMAT 9. Know Thy Audience
- Elizabeth Saunders Company: Real Life E® Twitter: @RealLifeE Facebook: TimeCoaching 10. Remember the Two-Month Rule
- Ryan Paugh Company: Brazen Careerist Twitter: @ryanpaugh Facebook: Ryan Paugh 11. Interview the Big Dogs
- Jared O’Toole Company: Under30CEO.com Twitter: @JaredOToole Interested in more Business resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.Image courtesy of Flickr, blog, blogger, blogging, business, virtual tools, yec For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| NBC Universal To Reward Users for Checking In to TV Shows Posted: 24 Mar 2011 10:11 AM PDT   Entertainment checkin and recommendation service GetGlue has signed a new broadcast partnership with NBC Universal cable networks USA Network, Syfy and MSNBC. The partnership will reward users who let their friends know when they are watching TV shows on Facebook or Twitter. GetGlue has signed past partnerships with HBO, Fox and Showtime. In February, GetGlue announced that it is seeing 12 million checkins and ratings per month. The new NBC Universal deal continues the longstanding relationship GetGlue has with the brand and its networks. In December, the hit USA Network series Psych introduced a second screen iOS app that featured tight integration with the GetGlue service. Universal Pictures was actually one of the very first partnerships that GetGlue signed back in February 2010. In the past year, the GetGlue service has undergone a major transformation. The primary focus of the service used to be to help users discover movies, books and TV shows from across the web. As recommendation engines go, GetGlue is one of the best that I have used. Still, the service had a hard time building traction with users. That changed last summer with the release of GetGlue for iPhone. Like apps from Miso and Philo, the GetGlue mobile apps let users check in to media content and then share that checkin across their social graph. Usage of the service exploded after the iPhone app was released — a trend that has continued with the subsequent Android and iPad app releases. GetGlue incentivizes users with its deal partnerships but the added social layer of seeing what friends are watching and getting recommendations from the apps themselves also drives repeat usage. Do you use any entertainment checkin services? More About: entertainment checkins, getglue, msnbc, nbc universal, Syfy, usa network For more Media coverage:
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| The Age of Mediocrity: Why Rebecca Black Is Everyone’s Fault [OPINION] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 10:00 AM PDT
There's a young woman — perhaps you’ve heard of her — currently climbing the YouTube charts with a song about the days of the week, specifically, "Friday." There's also another song on YouTube rocketing to the top with a bullet, this one about a pair of jeans. When I was a kid, we listened to songs about days of the week and clothing, and it was called Sesame Street, not “mainstream entertainment.” Welcome to the age of mediocrity, where anyone with a computer, a video camera, and a few thousand dollars for production can be considered the next big thing. But as sad as that is, what does it say about us as a society? Analyzing "Friday," it's not so much that Rebecca Black can't sing. She’s about on par with some other pop stars, and — let’s face it — they're not remaking The Marriage of Figaro here. The problem is the mundane, almost soul crushing lyrics, recounting a day in the life of someone we care nothing about. Essentially, Ms. Black has become the musical version of a bad Twitter user, offering very little substance and value, but still feeling the need to overshare. Ms. Black's story, as it's been told, involves her parents giving her a produced single as a "gift,” and depending on who you ask, the rapid ascent of her YouTube video is due either to morbid curiosity, or media attention brought on by morbid curiosity. It's certainly not brought on by talent. We used to be a society of content eaters fed by a very small kitchen run by music labels, TV stations, and movie stars. With the advent of the Internet, Flip cameras, and yes, even Justin Bieber, the paradigm has shifted. It's no longer a world where the talent wins. It's not even a world where the beauty wins. It's a world where anyone can post, and in many cases, the worse the performance, the better it does. Call it the "William Hung" Effect. With the power to broadcast comes great responsibility. And when people don't take responsibility, and create videos about days of the week, we can't be shocked and scream about the downfall of society. We've taken a typical 13-year-old teenager and given her parents an enormous return on their paltry investment. We did this. We have no one to blame but ourselves. So that begs the question: How does someone get there? How does a talentless nobody wind up with 43 million YouTube views in a few weeks? Step one: Content. A catchy autotune, a baby laughing, a cat being tickled. It doesn't matter. Step two: Send it out as the latest OMG thing in the world. Get a few views a minute. Let it grow, unchecked, like a fungus. Here's an example. After fighting with someone for six months while training for an Ironman, I simply took our words and put them into an Extranormal movie. The result? Over 750,000 views in a week. It's not hard. I did it for fun, and it cost me nothing. Media? Well, the media plays a part, no doubt. Five thousand views in a minute does a story make. So one media outlet covers it — perhaps for how bad, boring, and just plain ordinary it is — and perpetuates the cycle by including a link to the offending video. Does that make it our fault? Absolutely. We're a society that likes destruction. We like Sheen. We like Lohan. We like Jerry Springer. We like Maury. We've embraced mediocrity because we need some level of proof that we're better than that — that we’re not the worst things out there. We're not, because there's Rebecca Black, with Friday, Friday, Friday! She's not the problem. We are. The worst part? Perhaps it's not a problem at all. Perhaps, if we didn't have the Rebecca Blacks of the world to complain about, we'd be an even unhappier society. Perhaps we need people like Rebecca Black to balance our worldview, to take away the sadness of what's going on in the news, and to distract us from our own mundane lives. Perhaps we invented Rebecca Black, and others like her, because we simply had no other choice. Interested in more Media resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.More About: fame, memes, music, Opinion, Rebecca Black, social media, video, viral videos, youtube For more Media coverage:
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| Conan Takes on Rebecca Black With “Thursday” [VIDEO] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 09:43 AM PDT   International memecore sensation Rebecca Black got the Conan treatment Wednesday night, when the Internet-savvy comedian released his new song, “Thursday” — a cover of her unexpected hit, “Friday.” Black shot to questionable stardom recently after her video for the (extremely mundane) song “Friday” blew up on the web last week. Although the song went up in February, it built up traction just recently — due in part, it seems, to comedian Michael J. Nelson, who tweeted about the video. The song then debuted on iTunes, beating out the Boy King Bieber when it came to downloads, and the video has more views on YouTube than Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” That’s close to 43 million, folks (although it has 539,736 dislikes). Black even made an appearance on the Tonight Show, where she performed the song (maybe that’s why Conan chose the parody route — what with the late night wars and all). Lest you go running to iTunes now to snatch up the jam — all this attention was not garnered because it’s good. No, the tune seems another addition to a genre of music — made popular via the web — that’s just too perplexing not to share. (Call it outsider art for the Internet age.) Black isn’t without her supporters — Gaga herself even called the teen a “genius,” and the video below, featuring Conan lampooning the song’s rather random lyrics, isn’t all that mean-spirited. Check it out as a means to tide yourself over until tomorrow, when you can spin “Friday” at top volume to your heart’s content (and your neighbor’s dis-). More About: conan, Friday, humor, music, pop culture, Rebecca Black, viral video For more Video coverage:
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| Join Mashable & Verizon Wireless for an Exclusive Demo Event in NYC [UPDATE] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 09:32 AM PDT   Join Mashable and the Verizon Wireless New York Metro team at The Hard Bar at 230 Fifth on Thursday, March 31, for an evening of demos, networking and prizes. Verizon Wireless will be showcasing its latest lineup, including the HTC ThunderBolt, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab and 4G LTE USB Aircards. We'll be raffling off select devices at the event. Space is limited to just 75 single tickets, which are only available through Eventbrite. Update:: We have reached the maximum amount of ticket holders. When: Thursday, March 31, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Major News Publishers Jump on the Daily Deals Bandwagon Posted: 24 Mar 2011 09:17 AM PDT   From luxury service providers to digital media giants, it seems like just about every online business is trying to carve out a slice of the multibillion-dollar pie that is the daily deals market, thanks to the relatively rapid success of startups like Groupon and LivingSocial. The McClatchy Company is the latest to join the fray, announcing Thursday that it will begin hosting daily discount offers on its local newspaper websites using Second Street’s Deadline Deals platform. McClatchy is the third largest newspaper company in the U.S., publishing more than 30 daily newspapers, including The Miami Herald and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and 43 non-dailies. McClatchy joins several other publishers in the space, including The New York Times, which announced its first offer Thursday: a two-hour, $325 cooking class from Manhattan food market Eataly. Image courtesy of Flickr, leoncillo sabino More About: daily deals, groupon, LivingSocial, mcclatchy company, media, new york times, newspapers For more Media coverage:
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| The Latest Cereal Box Prize: Augmented Reality [VIDEO] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 09:08 AM PDT Years ago, the best prize kids could hope for in their cereal box was a plastic toy, but an international promotion from Nestle for the film Rio, which uses augmented reality, opens up some new possibilities. The food giant is stocking more than 26 million cereal boxes in 53 countries (though not the U.S.) with augmented reality components. As shown in the video above, a hand card in the boxes can be recognized with a standard webcam to let kids interact with Blu, a character in the movie, in AR. The campaign, handled by Dassault Systèmes, is the latest collaboration between the AR/design company and Nestle, which have offered two other similar campaigns over the last two years. The effort is just one of marketers’ recent attempts to take advantage of AR. Earlier this month, Unilever ran a well-received AR campaign in London’s Victoria railway station for its Lynx brand. For U.S. residents who'd like to try the technology out, you can download a PDF of the hand card here. More About: Augmented Reality, MARKETING, nestle, rio For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| 10 Key Considerations for Your Mobile Web Design Strategy Posted: 24 Mar 2011 08:18 AM PDT   Brian Casel is a web designer and co-host of Freelance Jam, the live web show for independent professionals who build the web. Connect with Brian on Twitter @CasJam. There's no turning back now. The web has gone mobile. More users are accessing the web from more places on more devices than ever before. What does this mean for web designers and site owners? It means that in every project we do, we must address a mobile strategy. Your strategy will differ depending on what type of project you're working on, but make no mistake, you do need some kind of strategy for how your website (or your client's website) functions in the mobile space. Whether you're designing a site that is mostly static (is anything on the web really static anymore?), a content-driven news site, or an interactive web application, it's best to pursue a well-rounded approach — one that includes a thoughtful look at your mobile website user experience. In this article, I aim to highlight 10 crucial items that you, as the web designer, developer or site owner, need to consider at the outset of your mobile site design project. These ideas touch on all aspects of a process, from strategy to design and implementation. But it's important to be accountable for these points up front to ensure the successful launch of your mobile site. 1. Define Your Need for a Mobile SiteUsually a mobile website design project comes about through one of the following circumstances:
Each of these circumstances brings a different set of requirements, which will help you determine the best way forward as you consider the items discussed below. 2. Consider the Business ObjectivesIn most cases, you, as the designer/developer are being hired by a client to design a mobile site for their business. What are the business objectives as they relate to the website, specifically the mobile site? As with any design, you'll need to prioritize these objectives, then communicate that hierarchy in your design. When translating your design to mobile, you'll need to take this a step further and focus on just a couple of top priority objectives for the business. Take the website for Hyundai as an example. If you load hyundai.com in a desktop browser, the first thing you'll see are big, bold images that evoke an emotional connection to their vehicles. In addition, you see a robust navigation, callouts to various benefits of owning a Hyundai, site search and social media links.  Now load hyundai.com in your mobile browser and you have a stripped-down version of the website. Yet the most prominent feature is still the same: a relatively big image of their latest vehicle model, followed by several other (mobile-optimized) images of vehicles. You don't see the complex navigation and other callouts in the mobile version. They chose to focus their mobile site on their primary business objective, which is to evoke an emotional connection with their cars through bold imagery.  3. Study the Data of the Past Before Moving ForwardIf this project is a redesign (most web design projects are these days), or an addition of a mobile site to an existing website, hopefully the site has been tracking traffic with Google Analytics (or another metrics tracking software). It is wise to study the data before diving into design and development. Analyze things like which devices and browsers your users are accessing the site from. While you want to be sure the site is built with device support in mind, you can target these browsers as high priorities when you go from design, through development, testing and launch. 4. Practice Responsive Web DesignWith so many new mobile devices being released every year, the days of checking your site in a few web browsers and launching are over. You'll need to optimize your site for a vast landscape of desktop and mobile browsers, each bringing a different screen resolution, supported technologies, and user-base. As recommended in the well-known article Responsive Web Design, you can craft the desktop and mobile site experiences simultaneously. To quote from that article:
Utilizing the latest and most forward-thinking web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and web fonts, you can design your site to scale and adapt to any device it's viewed on. That's what we call responsive web design. 5. Simplicity Is Golden, But …As a general rule of thumb when converting a desktop site design to mobile format, you want to simplify things wherever possible. There are several reasons for this. Keeping file size and load times down is always a good idea for a mobile site. Wireless connections — while faster than years past — are still relatively slow, so the faster your mobile site loads, the better. Usability considerations on the mobile web also call for a simplified approach to design, layout, and navigation. With less screen real estate at your disposal, you need to choose your placement of elements wisely. In short: Less is more. However, we can still create beautiful designs that are optimized for mobile. CSS3 gives us an amazing set of tools for creating things like gradients, drop-shadows, and rounded corners, all without resorting to bulky images. That's not to say you can't use images at all. Check out these examples of mobile sites that strike a great balance between simplicity and beauty.  6. Single-Column Layouts Usually Work BestAs you think about layout, a single-column structure tends to work best. Not only does this help with managing limited space on the smaller screen, it also helps you easily scale between different device resolutions and flipping between portrait and landscape mode. Using responsive web design techniques, you can take a multi-column desktop site layout and adapt it to a single-column layout. The new Basecamp mobile website does a great job of this.  7. Vertical Hierarchy: Think in Collapsible TermsDoes your site have a lot of information that needs to be presented on the mobile site? A good way to organize things in a simple and digestible way is to set up a collapsible navigation. Taking your single-column structure a step further, you can stack chunks of large content in folding modules that allow the user to tap open the content that they're interested in and hide the rest. Check out the mobile site for Major League Baseball. At the top of the page is a button labeled "Teams." Tapping this extends the page, listing the 30 teams vertically in the single-column page.  8. Go From "Clickable" to "Tappable"On the mobile web, interaction is done via finger taps rather than mouse clicks. This creates a very different dynamic in terms of usability. When converting from a desktop to mobile site design, you have to revisit your "clickable" elements — links, buttons, menus, etc. — and make them "tappable." While the desktop web lends itself well to links with small and precise active (clickable) areas, the mobile web requires larger, chunkier buttons that can be easily pressed with a thumb. In addition, on the mobile web there is no hover state. Most of the time, when something is set up to occur on hover (like a dropdown navigation menu), it actually occurs on the first tap when viewed on a mobile device. The second tap on the mobile site does what the first click does on the desktop site. This may cause confusion for mobile users, which means you'll need to re-work hover states for mobile. 9. Provide Interaction FeedbackSpeaking of interaction, you'll need to make sure you provide obvious feedback for any actions that occur on the front-end of your mobile site. For example, when the user taps a link or button, it's good practice to have that button visually change states to indicate it has been tapped and the action has been initiated. It's common to see a white-colored link turn fully blue on the iPhone when tapped. This visual feedback is familiar to most users and you'd be wise to take advantage of it. Another good practice is to include loading states for actions which may take a bit longer to load. Use an animated loading image to indicate something is in progress. Basecamp Mobile does a great job of this by showing a spinning loading gif as it loads the next page. Remember, the desktop browsers have various indicators built-in to show that something is in progress. Mobile browsers don't make it as obvious, so it's important to build visual feedback into your mobile site design. 10. Test Your Mobile WebsiteAs with any project, you'll need to test your mobile website on as many devices as possible. Without owning all these devices, it can be somewhat tricky to find ways to accurately test for each. It will involve a combination of installing the developer SDK for the platform (like the iPhone SDK and Android SDK) and using web-based emulators for viewing other mobile platforms. This article provides a thorough breakdown of how to test a mobile website across the most popular platforms. Off you go! Hopefully this article provided some insight as you embark on a new mobile site design project. Be sure to leave any other tips you find useful when designing for the mobile web in the comments below. Interested in more Mobile resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.More About: android, iphone, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, mobile design, mobile web, web design, Web Development For more Mobile coverage:
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| Boxee iPad App To Enable Streaming from iPad to Your TV or PC Posted: 24 Mar 2011 08:08 AM PDT   Boxee will soon release an iPad app that will enable wireless video streaming to any device running Boxee software, Pocket-lint has learned. According to Boxee VP of Marketing Andrew Kippen, the app technically will not use Apple’s wireless technology, AirPlay, but the video streaming will work in a similar fashion. Users will be able to stream video not only to a Boxee Box, but also to a Mac or a PC running Boxee’s desktop software. The app, which will be compatible with iPad 1 and 2, is not ready yet, but should become available soon. [via Pocket-lint] More About: App, boxee, iOS, ipad, mac, pc, streaming, video streaming For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Textbook Renter Chegg Moves Beyond Books Posted: 24 Mar 2011 07:56 AM PDT   Online book renter Chegg has given students at more than 6,400 college campuses an alternative to purchasing expensive text books. Now it also wants to help them study and schedule courses. The company announced on Thursday that it is launching a new website that integrates two social learning services it recently acquired. In August, Chegg acquired CourseRank, a service that lets students rate courses and view other students’ ratings. It also shows students which of their friends are enrolled in specific classes. CourseRank’s service will be available on the Chegg website at 600 participating schools starting Thursday, but the company says that it hopes to have 1,000 schools on board by the end of the year. Cramster, which the company acquired in December, is an online study community. Members help one another answer homework questions and have access to textbook solutions, notes and other study materials. Both of these services seem like a perfect fit for promoting textbook rentals. When users select a course using CourseRank, for instance, they can rent books for the course on the same page. Likewise, students looking for homework help might benefit from supplemental reading suggestions (though Chegg has yet to add this feature). By integrating CourseRank and Cramster within Chegg's main website, it's also more likely that students will log on throughout the semester instead of only for textbook rentals at the beginning of courses. More About: chegg, education, textbook rentals For more Startups coverage:
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| YouTube Video of the Day: Forget Inception, This Will Destroy Your Mind Posted: 24 Mar 2011 07:42 AM PDT Films don’t require nearly three hours of content in order to alter your world view, as evidenced by this little video, which clocks in at 27 “Whaa?”-inducing seconds. Kind of makes you wonder whether the realm we inhabit does, in fact, exist, huh? I’m going to go rock back and forth in the corner for a while now. [via Buzzfeed] More About: viral video, viral-video-of-day, youtube For more Video coverage:
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| Yahoo’s Share of Search Ad Market to Drop to Single Digits This Year [REPORT] Posted: 24 Mar 2011 07:30 AM PDT   Yahoo's share of the search advertising market is projected to fall to single digits this year, according to researcher eMarketer. eMarketer projects that Yahoo's percentage of the search ad revenue pie will fall to 8.1% this year compared with 10.4% in 2010. Meanwhile, Bing’s share is expected to grow from 10.2% in 2010 to 10.8% for 2011, and Google is on track to grow its share from 71.4% to 75.2% over that time. By 2012, Yahoo's portion will fall even further, to 6.5%, according to eMarketer. Meanwhile, Bing's and Google’s shares are expected to hit 11.1% and 76.6%, respectively. Yahoo inked a 10-year deal in 2009 to outsource its search to Bing and include a "powered by Bing" mention with its search results. Yahoo had used Google for the same function for four years starting in 2000 and by 2004 Google had unseated Yahoo as the top search engine in the world. The researcher's projections coincide with Yahoo's introduction yesterday of Search Direct, an offering similar to Google Instant that finds results instantly as you enter characters in your search. In a press conference yesterday, Shashi Seth, Yahoo's vice president for search pronounced Search Direct the future of search, stating "I want you to remember three words: 'Answers, not links.' " Search Direct is currently available on search.yahoo.com but not on Yahoo's home page. For a full description of Search Direct, see the video below: More About: advertising, bing, Google, microsoft, Search, Yahoo For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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Since launching in late 2008, deal-of-the-day website 
Use the blog to position yourself as an industry expert. Write about what’s going on at your company but also consolidate important and interesting industry happenings so that others will look to you as a resource and expert in the field. Make your blog worth reading by collecting valuable content and making it easier to stay on top of for readers.
Absolutely don’t create a advertorial time drain. … We have plenty of those around! Write something that adds value instead. Write something that educates, inspires and informs your audience. Real-life stories written by readers are the best way to keep the content engaging. Success stories in your genre/industry could be a great start to involve masses at both ends, creating and consuming content.
If you’re not willing to put the hard and persistent effort into building an audience over a prolonged period of time, your best bet might be to look at guest writing opportunities on existing blogs, websites, email newsletters or even in print publications, which have large and established readerships. Every publisher and media company is always looking for quality contributors who deliver value.
There is no overnight method to create a respected and popular blog. Remember, general “hits” are insignificant compared to loyal readers — and there is no way to build loyalty immediately. Focus on providing excellent content by balancing both company insights and personality. A good blog to model for you may be 
"If you build it, they will come" is not how it works with blogs and websites. You need to focus on creating unique content, and when you do post something, be sure to share it with everyone in your network. Never underestimate those in your network because they may just be the people who become your voices.
As we know, anyone can set up a blog in a day or so, but it takes quite a bit more work to be a superb blogger and start realizing the real benefits of blogging. Creating entertaining and informative posts based on specific experiences and statistics is a fast track way to grow a loyal readership. Show your readers that their comments are appreciated, make sure you respond to them!
Too many companies focus the company blog on promoting a product line and trying to make more sales rather than focusing on solving readers’ problems. Think of questions and concerns your audience has or better yet, ask them. Then address those concerns on the blog. For example, a mechanic shop can discuss car maintenance tips and tell readers what they need to know before buying a new car.
If you aren’t willing to commit to developing a high quality blog (it’s hard), then don’t start one. Instead, develop relationships with other successful bloggers in your industry. Ask whether you can write an occasional blog post for them and point back to your company website. This is a great way to optimize your exposure and stay non-committal about writing a regular blog post.
Your blog content should appeal first and foremost to your customers and potential customers. Think about what they would want to read and form your content around meeting their needs in a unique way. To increase readership, you can include links to these articles in your company email newsletter.
Blogging won’t be a successful marketing avenue for you overnight. It might never be. Here’s a good test: The first two months of starting a blog are the most difficult because it feels like nobody is reading. If you can keep yourself focused on a topic and remain consistent over that first two-month period then you probably have what it takes to run a successful blog. If you can’t, just stop.
Interviews are a great source of content and allow you to tap into others networks. Find the experts in your industry and especially the experts with an online presence who will mention the interview.
Peter Shankman is the founder of | You are subscribed to email updates from Mashable! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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