Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Apple to Start Shipping the Next iPhone in September [REPORT]” |
- Apple to Start Shipping the Next iPhone in September [REPORT]
- Need Help Finding the Perfect Domain Name? Try Panabee
- Tag a TV Ad, Get a Free Pepsi
- Facebook Accidentally Turns On Email Notifications, Sparks Wave of Complaints
- CloudMagic Searches Gmail & Google Docs at Lightning Speed
- Active Twitter Users Have Shorter Relationships [STATS]
- Tech Boom 2.0: Intel Surges to Record Profits
- Find a Job in Social Media, Development or Design
- HOW TO: Optimize Your Content for the Cloud
- Hackers Attack Change.org in Response to Ai Weiwei Campaign
- 100 Artists Offer 100 Songs for Download to Raise Money for Japan
- Nokia Gets Exclusive on NFC-Enabled Angry Birds Game
- HOW TO: Explore Content on Mashable
- GQ’s New iPad App: Better, But Not by Much
- Tablets Fight for a Seat at Restaurant Tables
- YouTube Video of the Day: You Want This Beat-Boxing Cellist To Play Your Next Formal Event
- 6 Smart & Effective Email Marketing Tactics
- The Past, Present & Future of Solar Energy [INFOGRAPHIC]
- HBO Customers Will Soon Be Able to Watch on iOS & Android Devices
- How Immigration Activists Are Fighting Deportation Policy With Social Media
- Facebook Expands Safety & Security Tools
- T-Mobile’s G-Slate Android Tablet Arrives to Mixed Reviews
- CNN Launches Android App
- Chiddy Bang Member To Attempt Guinness World Record for Longest Freestyle Rap at MTV OMAs
- Evernote Android App Gets Major Upgrade, Overtakes iPhone Version
- 11 Excellent iPad Apps for Meetings & Presentations
- Sync Media Across Devices With Nero’s Free Software
- Click Around & Buy Things in Devo’s Interactive Video [PREMIERE]
- Startup Invites App Makers To Access & Edit Robust Places Database
- The 3 Most Effective Approaches to In-App Advertising
| Apple to Start Shipping the Next iPhone in September [REPORT] Posted: 20 Apr 2011 01:50 AM PDT      After the rumor that Apple won’t announce the next-generation of iPhone in June or July (which was the case with all previous iPhone announcements), comes a report that the new iPhone is actually coming in the fall. While Apple’s suppliers will begin production in July this year, the finished product is likely to begin shipping in September, Reuters reports citing sources familiar with the matter. As for what the actual features of the next-gen iPhone, the details are scarce as always; one of Reuters’ sources claims the device will look similar to the iPhone 4, but it will feature a faster processor. To quickly piece together all the iPhone rumors and reports we’ve seen, this is what we have: the white version of the iPhone 4 should become available within 2-3 weeks; the iPhone 5 (if that’s what Apple will call it) will be an evolutionary upgrade, visually similar to the iPhone 4 but with a better camera, processor and a bigger screen. Take all of these with a grain of salt as Apple has been monolithically silent about the matter, as always. [via Reuters] More About: apple, iphone, iPhone 5, smartphone For more Mobile coverage:
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| Need Help Finding the Perfect Domain Name? Try Panabee Posted: 19 Apr 2011 10:15 PM PDT   Panabee is a simple, useful tool for finding great domain names. In an increasingly crowded Internet — and a crowded general marketplace where one’s company name and URL are often one and the same — this seemingly simple task poses more problems for entrepreneurs and SMBs than one might imagine. Some registrars such as GoDaddy will suggest new domain names if the one you want isn’t available, but you have to admit, a .biz or .info top-level domain (TLD) isn’t the best choice for any business or personal URL. Panabee, on the other hand, will show you quite a few interesting variations around your preferred URL or keyword. Better still, it can show you the URLs of your competitors for that keyword. For example, a Twitter friend recently said he wanted to “be the CEO of something about goats.” So we plugged “goats” into Panabee. Not only did we see that great URLs such as OGoats.com, LeGoats.com, NuGoats.com, and even Goatsly.com and Goats.ly (which are dangerously close to the name of a certain distasteful Internet meme) were available, we also saw that our would-be CEO had some competitors already buying domains such as TheGoats.com, Goatz.com, MyGoats.com, iGoats.com, Goats.io and GetGoats.com. Leaving aside any questions over why so many goat-themed URLs are taken, Panabee did a great job of quickly and succinctly showing us the Internet landscape of keyword-relevant URLs with both the traditional .com TLD and a wide range of trendy or at least plausible alternate TLDs. Panabee can also show users related terms, web search results and social media postings containing the given keyword or keywords, just to give you a little extra inspiration. If you take the more common startup keyword — “social,” for example — you might have a difficult time finding any URLs containing that word. Panabee, however, shows us that Social.us is available. So are Sociality.me and Socialitsu.com, as seen via the related terms. Once you find the perfect domain name, Panabee can direct you to GoDaddy for a sweet discount — users pay $7.49 for .com and other domains. More About: panabee, startup, url For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Posted: 19 Apr 2011 09:07 PM PDT   Television-tagging iPhone application IntoNow has partnered with PepsiCo in a promotion that will reward app users with a free soda for tagging the drink-maker’s new Pepsi MAX spot. “The basic concept is to find the Pepsi MAX commercial, tag it and select a store,” IntoNow founder and CEO Adam Cahan explains. IntoNow will generate a unique digital coupon for the first 50,000 IntoNow users who tag the spot. The coupon can be scanned and redeemed, just like a gift card, at Target or CVS stores. The Pepsi MAX commercial in question will begin airing Wednesday and features past and present Major League Baseball legends. The spot and the IntoNow promotion are all centered around Pepsi MAX’s MLB sponsorship. IntoNow will not be featured in the ad, but it will make a print appearance on the promo cards that Pepsi is distributing at MLB stadiums.  “This is the first time where consumers can close the funnel between a brand experience on a TV commercial right down to a real-world drink you can consume,” Cahan says. The campaign, IntoNow’s first branded ad initiative, helps bridge the gap between digital and physical worlds via mobile phone. “The idea that these devices are with us at all times really does change the game,” says Cahan. IntoNow “listens to” and identifies television shows in much the same way that Shazam identifies music. The Pepsi partnership represents the startup’s first foray into commercial tagging, but it’s talking with movie studios, automotive brands and other consumer packaged goods companies for similar commercial tagging campaigns. IntoNow has roughly 600,000 users and typically sees 25,000 to 35,000 tags per day. More About: IntoNow, MARKETING, Pepsi, pepsi max, social media campaign For more Startups coverage:
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| Facebook Accidentally Turns On Email Notifications, Sparks Wave of Complaints Posted: 19 Apr 2011 08:13 PM PDT   Facebook has accidentally turned on email notifications for some users, and the social network’s users are complaining loudly. Most users receive email notifications for events such as when someone sends a friend request or when a friend posts on their wall. This feature can be turned off in user settings, but apparently something has happened at Facebook that has caused the feature to be activated again. “Some people are suddenly receiving email notifications for settings they had turned off, and the checkboxes are now checked,” Facebook said on its Known Issues Facebook Page. “We are currently working on a solution to this problem.” As one might expect, affected Facebook users are not happy and are posting to Twitter and Facebook to complain. We’ve reached out to Facebook and will update this story when we learn more. More About: bug, facebook, Facebook bug, Known Issues, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| CloudMagic Searches Gmail & Google Docs at Lightning Speed Posted: 19 Apr 2011 07:45 PM PDT   The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: CloudMagic provides instant & integrated search for your online data. Genius Idea: Lightning-fast Gmail search. Search for something in Gmail and the query will take anywhere from a few seconds to a full minute depending on the product’s temperament. The wait can be agonizing. The far speedier version of Gmail search engineered by CloudMagic is anything but painful. CloudMagic, a browser plugin for Chrome and Firefox, is more than a Gmail search tool. The plugin offers an integrated search experience across Gmail, Google Docs and Contacts, supports Google Apps users and allows for multiple accounts. Once installed, the CloudMagic search bar sits in the upper righthand corner inside Gmail and Google Docs and provides a search-as-you-type experience that feels unbelievably fast.  CloudMagic was designed to mirror the functionality of Spotlight, the system search feature for Macs, and apply the same search techniques to cloud services. “With the prevailing use of online applications, we felt a need to search and locate stuff quickly,” co-creator Rohit Nadhani says. “We started with Gmail because the search kind of sucks.” CloudMagic then added Google Docs and Contacts into the experience. It’s now working on Facebook and Twitter search for a pending release, which means the CloudMagic user will soon be able to search most of his personal and social data streams wherever he navigates on the web. Mobile is also an important priority, Nadhani says, though it will be a greater challenge. CloudMagic is super speedy because it makes local copies of the user’s data — it’s not querying a cloud server, but the user’s hard disk. That same process is nearly impossible to replicate on mobile devices. Eventually CloudMagic, a Webyog-incubated company, will spin out as its own entity. Already, more than 200,000 people have downloaded the plugin since its August debut. 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, cloudmagic, email, gmail, google docs, Search, spark-of-genius For more Startups coverage:
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| Active Twitter Users Have Shorter Relationships [STATS] Posted: 19 Apr 2011 06:26 PM PDT   The romantic relationships of active Twitter users apparently don’t last as long as the rest of the population, according to stats published by dating website OkCupid. The dating website, which regularly publishes information about dating trends and statistics, has compiled a number of charts about the sexual habits of its millions of users. The website determines dating compatibility based on how users answer thousands of questions. Among OkCupid‘s findings are two conclusions about Twitter users. The first one: according to its analysis of 833,987 OkCupid users, people who use Twitter every day tend to have shorter relationships, and the problem gets worse as a person gets older. The average relationship for an 18-year-old that uses Twitter is about nine months, while “everybody else” usually has a relationship average of nine-and-a-half months. At age 50, the frequent Tweeter has a 15 month-long relationship, while the non-frequent Twitter user stays in a relationship for an average of almost 17 months. The dating website has another conclusion that is sure to catch some eyeballs — if someone is a frequent tweeter, he or she is more likely to masturbate (or at least report that he/she is masturbating). Based off data from 21,315 users, OkCupid concludes that there is a 2-to-1 chance that someone who tweets daily is masturbating on any given day, a higher chance than everybody else. OkCupid also published several sex-related correlations and conclusions based on its data, including that GDP has a greater influence on a region’s sexual habits than culture or religion. You can check out the dating site’s blog post for the juiciest bits of data.  More About: dating, okcupid, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Tech Boom 2.0: Intel Surges to Record Profits Posted: 19 Apr 2011 04:24 PM PDT   Intel has blown past Wall Street’s estimates with its first-quarter earnings report, providing further evidence that the PC market and the tech industry as a whole are still on the rise. In Q1 2011, Intel managed to gross $12.8 billion in revenue, an increase of 25% from Q1 2010 ($10.3 billion) and up 13% from Q4 2010 ($11.5 billion). As a result, the tech giant earned $3.16 billion in net income (the profit after income tax, depreciation and amortization). That’s up $830 million from Q1 2010 but nearly identical to its profits in Q4 2010 ($3.18 billion). Intel’s big financial gains came from every division of the company — its PC Client Group, Data Center Group, Architecture Group and Software and Services Group all experienced double-digit revenue growth from Q1 2010. 56% of its total revenue derived from the Asia-Pacific region (minus Japan), while the America accounted for 21% of its profits. Japan alone accounted for 10% of Intel’s profits in Q1 2011. Intel’s earnings easily exceeded Wall Street’s estimates. While analysts expected Intel to earn $0.46 per share, Intel managed to earn $0.56 per share in Q1 2011. Its $12.8 billion in revenue was nearly 10% higher than Wall Street’s expectations. As a result, shares of Intel are up 5.24% to 20.88 in after hours trading. The surprising strength of Intel’s earnings demonstrates that demand for PCs hasn’t been dampened by the new wave of mobile and tablet devices flooding the market. Intel’s strong earnings are also a big indication that the technology sector as a whole is healthy and growing. Despite the great results, the chip maker still faces big challenges from Apple, ARM, AMD and others. Apple is trying to create a post-PC world, something that would certainly be harmful to Intel’s bottom line (despite the fact that modern Macbooks run on Intel processors). It’s also had a tough time getting its chips onto smartphones, thanks to heated competition from ARM and Qualcomm.  More About: business, earnings, intel, tech, tech book, trending For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Find a Job in Social Media, Development or Design Posted: 19 Apr 2011 02:35 PM PDT
If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable‘s Job Lists section gathers together all of our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter. But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable‘s job boards are a place for socially savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space and beyond. Have a look at what's good and new on our job boards: Mashable Job PostingsExecutive Assistant at Mashable in New York, New York. Community Intern at Mashable in New York, New York. Ruby on Rails Developer at Mashable in San Francisco, California. VP Product (NY or SF) at Mashable in New York, New York. Editorial Intern at Mashable in New York, New York. Regional Sales Director at Mashable in San Francisco, California. Mashable Job Board ListingsProduct Management Intern at Distinguished Filmmakers Network in Decatur, Georgia. Digital Marketing Manager at Elsevier in Waltham, Massachusetts. Director of Social Media and Online Communications at Lumentus in New York, New York. Senior Digital Communicaitons Executive at Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Digital STrategy Consultant at Humana in Louisville, Kentucky. Senior UI Engineer at Beachbody, LLC in Santa Monica, California VP of Sales: Workplace Channels, including University at Veritat Advisors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Search Engine MArketing Specialist at Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte, North Carolina. Web Content Manager at Nomad-Chic.com in New York, New York. Front End Web Developer at Excela Marketing Services in Los Angeles, California. Senior Director, Digital at mtvU in New York, New York. Graphic Designer or Sr. Graphic Designer at Steelcase, Inc. in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Digital Marketing Specialist at Kaplan Early Learning Company in Lewisville, North Carolina. Interactive Designer at Savings.com in Santa Monica, California. Senior Marketing Manager – Interactive Network Marketing at American Express in New York, New York. Social Media Marketing Coordinator at Putney Student Travel in Putney, Vermont. Social Media Manager at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey. Director, Product Development at MTV-VH1 Digital in New York, New York. Community Manager at Gays.com in Barcelona, Spain. Sales Engineer at LiveLOOK in Matawan, New Jersey. Regional Sales Manager at LiveLOOK in Matawan, New Jersey. Research & Analytics Intern at Fanscape, LLC in Los Angeles, California. Business Development Intern at Fanscape, LLC in Los Angeles, California. Social Media Specialist at Artisan Talent in Chicago, Illinois. Digital Sales Lead at TED Conferences in New York, New York. Front End Developer, Downtown & Northwest Suburbs at Artisan Talent in Schaumburg, Illinois. Front End Developer at Artisan Talent in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Online Marketing Associate at Capsim Management Simulations Inc. in Chicago, Illinois. Communications and Development Associate at Israel on Campus Coalition in Washington, D.C. Senior Manager, Online Advertising and Marketing at Sawyer Studios in New York, New York. VP Social Marketing at Zeno Group in New York, New York. Account Executive at BestBuzz in Plano, Texas. Account Director Interactive Producer at ALM in New York, New York. Content Producer at The Boston Globe in Boston, Massachusetts. Web Developer at HomeAway in Seattle, Washington. Director, Branded Content & Communities at EQAL in Sherman Oaks, California. Social Media Internship at MOGL in Solana Beach, California. Online Product Owner, Mobile Applications at Lowe’s Companies, Inc in Mooresville, North Carolina. Social Media Specialist at Las Vegas Nightlife Group in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sales Associate at EQAL in Sherman Oaks, California. Business Analyst at LanguageMate in New York, New York. Product Manager at LanguageMate in New York, New York. Marketing Campaign Manager at Gendex in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. Front-End Developer at Teach For America in New York, New York. Web User Interface Developer at UBM Canon in Denver, Colorado. Digital Marketing Manager at Ubisoft in San Francisco, California. Software Engineer (Front End) at The Writers Network in New York, New York. Production Artist Intern at Shespeaks in New York, New York. Media Writer at Motion Picture and Television Fund in Los Angeles, California. Marketing Manager – Social Media at Supervalu in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Senior Manager of Research and Analytics at Fanscape in Los Angeles, California. Web Designer at Weber Shandwick in New York, New York. Web Content Coordinator at ISSA, The Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association in Lincolnwood, Illinois. Senior Communications Strategist at University of Chicago, IT Services in Chicago, Illinois. Web Developer, Display Advertising at Adknowledge in Kansas City, Missouri. Digital Design Director at Weber Shandwick in Baltimore, Maryland. Internet Communications Coordinator at YMCA of the Brandywine Valley in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Video Production Intern at Ideas United LLC in Decatur, Georgia. Video Production Intern at Ideas United LLC in Decatur, Georgia. Communications Coordinator at Movember in Los Angeles, California. Front End Developer at Weber Shandwick in Baltimore, Maryland. Senior Mobile Project Manager at iconmobile in Santa Monica, California. Lead Engineer at Synacor in Buffalo, New York. Systems Performance Engineer at Synacor in Buffalo, New York. Senior Web Designer at CSN Stores, LLC in Boston, Massachusetts. Ruby Software Developer at Everyday Health, Inc in New York, New York. Front End Developer (PHP and WordPress) at Tier 10 Marketing in Washington, D.C. Online Client Strategy Managers at A Confidential Company in Irvine, California. Digital Business Development/Media Sales Executive at A Confidential Company in New York, New York. Software Engineer at Everyday Health, Inc in New York, New York. Front End Developer at Everyday Health, Inc in New York, New York. Senior Systems Engineer at Everyday Health, Inc in New York, New York. Development Manager, Local at Everyday Health, Inc in New York, New York. Quality Assurance Engineer at Everyday Health, Inc in New York, New York. Telemarketing Lead Generator/Appointment Setter at BestBuzz in Dallas, Texas. Release Manager at Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide in Chicago, Illinois. Senior Java Developer at Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide in Chicago, Illinois. Sr. MySQL DBA at Synacor in Buffalo, New York. Web Designer/Developer at NAS Recruitment Communications in Cleveland, Ohio. Social Media Marketing Expert at DRS and Associates in Sherman Oaks, California. Mashable‘s Job Board has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out here. Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($99 for a 30 day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace). Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang More About: jobs For more Social Media coverage:
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| HOW TO: Optimize Your Content for the Cloud Posted: 19 Apr 2011 02:00 PM PDT   PJ Gurumohan is the co-founder and CEO of GENWI, a cloud-based mobile presence creation and management platform. He holds two patents in wireless technology, has authored several journal articles, routinely speaks at technology conferences and has held various engineering positions at IBM and US Airways. The smartphone is increasingly becoming the interface through which people process the world around them. At the end of 2010, 63.2 million Americans owned a smartphone, up 60% from the previous year, according to the most recent report on mobile subscriptions from digital analysis company comScore. By 2015, 43% of all Americans will have a smartphone, predicts research aggregator eMarketer. And according to the National Retail Federation in 2010, more than half of all 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed in the U.S. wanted Internet access on their cellphones. Welcome to Generation Wireless! This increasing popularity of the smartphone is also coming up against another interesting trend. People are, in the words of a quotable television advertisement, migrating "to the Cloud!" Look no further than Amazon and Apple for examples of this: Amazon is urging entertainment content fans to move their libraries to a remote digital locker. Just as Apple's introduction of the iPod and the iTunes platform at the beginning of the past decade revolutionized the music and digital entertainment industries, Amazon's cloud service could do the same for digital entertainment this decade. The popularity of Netflix, Hulu and Pandora also indicate a migration into the cloud. Any producer on the web — whether they deal in general software, entertainment, news or any consumable content — needs to keep a few content principles in mind as this evolution continues. Create Content Adaptable to All Devices With a Seamless BrandThough unlikely, today's iPad could be tomorrow's BetaMax (or, perhaps more appropriately, "netbook"). At the beginning of this piece, I cited a number of figures related to how handset adoption is changing. The truth is, though, we don't know what the preferred medium of content consumption will be five years from now. Even with the widespread adoption of the smartphone, the market share is split among Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows Phone. Maybe the media device du jour will be a 7-inch tablet. Maybe it will be an even smaller version of a smartphone that you can hook up to a 70-inch HD television screen. Who knows? All we know is that people will still be interested in consuming content, hopefully yours. The way to make sure that happens is to create branded content that can survive many software and hardware iterations. Make Your Content Available in Every App Store …In the spirit of keeping your brand seamless, it pays to make sure your content is available to every conceivable consumer through the vehicles of content delivery they have chosen. Whether it's the App Store (for iPhone, iPad or Mac), Blackberry App World, Android Market, Windows Marketplace for Mobile, the traditional PC software download or a future software marketplace, ensure your content has the ability to adapt to that marketplace. You don't want to be left out of any potential avenues of distribution, especially in a volatile environment where many different and strong players are trying to position themselves as the dominant platform. … But Optimize Your Content for Each PlatformMaking your content available in every app and software depository is easier said than done. Make sure you know the properties of each target OS and application market you're entering — not only its internal guidelines but also whether you've branded your content in a way that makes sense for that store and whether it has the scalability (and you have the coders) to keep up with internal OS updates. Make Your Content Configurable and FlexibleIn thinking about how your app fits with each interface or piece of media consumption hardware, also consider how users actually interact with that content. Even though network-based content has taken a step back to closed source in the last few years — due in large part to the popularity of Apple’s hardware — that doesn't mean you shouldn't take other usability issues into account for the future. No matter where you come down on the closed source vs. open source debate, it doesn't hurt to appropriate the best and most useful principles of the latter camp. Give the users of your content as much control as possible over that content without diluting your brand. This will give them a personal connection to your content that can span platform changes to come in the future. Brand Your Content, Not Your CodeTo put it another way, think about what makes your content, not your existing platform, special. For example, when I started iSites, we aggregated content on the iPhone for the two largest student newspapers in northern Callfornia: Stanford Daily and UC Berkeley's Daily Californian. There was a time when students could only get the content from these two papers by physically going to a campus kiosk and picking up a piece of newsprint. In our small way, we were able to bring that campus kiosk to every Cal or Stanford student who happened to have an iPhone, in addition to staff, alumni or anyone else with an interest in the universities. There will probably be a day when both content platforms will seem as dated as the telegraph. However, those universities' two enduring brands and the need for the communities to stay connected remain fundamentally unchanged. Platforms come and go, and whether the smartphone or the cloud in tandem offer an abiding solution to this diverse marketplace remains to be seen. But well-branded and compelling content will always find a way to endure.  Interested in more Content Creation resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, billoxford More About: Amazon Cloud Player, android, apple, cloud computing, content, content creation, how to, ipad, iphone, itunes, Mobile 2.0, smartphones For more Business & Marketing coverage:
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| Hackers Attack Change.org in Response to Ai Weiwei Campaign Posted: 19 Apr 2011 01:45 PM PDT   Online petition platform Change.org is suffering denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the wake of a campaign calling for the release of Chinese artist and activist Ai WeiWei. As an artist, Ai is best known for his role in the construction of the Bejing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics and his Sunflower Seeds exhibit at the Tate Modern in 2010. He has also played a role in uncovering government corruption over the past few years, including, most notably, a scandal involving the construction of Sichuan schools that collapsed during the 2008 earthquake. Ai was taken into custody by police at an airport in Bejing earlier this month. The petition has attracted more than 90,000 signatures, including many from leading museums such as the Guggenheim, MoMA and Tate Modern, since it was posted last week. A Change.org spokesperson says that the site has suffered intense DDoS attacks since Monday, sending it offline for periods of time. At the time of writing, Change.org was still offline. “There’s no evidence that this has come from the Chinese government, but clearly the circumstantial evidence is pretty powerful,” the spokesperson says, noting that the for-profit organization has called on the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of East Asian Pacific Affairs for assistance. Change.org has been blocked in China for various intervals over the past few years, the spokesperson says. More About: ai weiwei, censorship, change.org, china, ddos For more Social Good coverage:
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| 100 Artists Offer 100 Songs for Download to Raise Money for Japan Posted: 19 Apr 2011 01:23 PM PDT   The music industry has been pitching in its fair share to help those affected by the March 11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Lady Gaga and UMG both contributed to the cause, and now there’s a new musical effort on the block in the same vein: Songs of Love for Japan. Songs of Love for Japan is a 100-song compilation packed with music from the likes of Sara Bareilles, Tori Amos, The xx, The Submarines and Ani DiFranco, as well as several other bands both signed and unsigned. The album — which was put together by artist Cheryl B. Engelhardt and Bryce Longton from Estee Lauder — will be available until Thursday, and costs $100 for all 100 downloads. The pair hope to raise $250,000 for ShelterBox, an international disaster relief charity. If you don’t have $100, you can also buy 20 songs for $20. If you pick the $100 option, however, you could possibly score artist giveaways and other goodies. All proceeds will go to ShelterBox. We asked some of the artists why they chose the song that they included (most tunes are rare or unreleased tracks). Check out some of their responses below: "’Sunshower’ is a song of hope, and in a dark chapter in Japan’s history, it seems appropriate to include a song about hope. Japan is the land of the rising sun, and the sun will rise again. " – Brian Mackey "The reason I chose ‘Kissing Tree’ is because it’s a very happy upbeat song. I wrote it while basking out on a really fine day here in LA and I think that some of the sunlight has seeped into the final master. I know that, considering what happened in Japan, a heart-wrenching ballad is more of a natural choice, but I feel that the people of Japan need a little bit of positivity after what they’ve been through." – Alina Smith "Being a Louisiana native, I wrote ‘Fortune Teller’ about my beloved city of New Orleans. Pieces of the song reflect my time there before Hurricane Katrina, and then there are some emotions in there about the fear I felt not knowing where my sister and aunt were for three days after the levees broke. Just the reminder of those emotions for me during that time made me think this would be a good fit for SOLFJ." – Hope Waits "The song ‘Gimmie Resurrection’ was written for someone looking for a rebirth from a meaningless life. Japan has sustained not a lack of meaning but has endured unimaginable suffering and will undergo a rebirth of their own." – John Cusimano of The Cringe "Driving back from SXSW ’11 this year, I heard a recording of a man speaking in Japanese, with English translation superimposed, on NPR. He talked about how he had spent his week, searching for the bodies of his mother and sister, whom he could not find since the devastating earthquake and tsunami. He eventually found them, he said, where the living room used to be, as his house was completely totaled, and everything gone. Right then and there, I started to cry. I thought about how I spent my week (performing during SXSW, enjoying the nightlife, going on tour) and how this man had spent his. At this moment it clicked for me, and although I had already personally donated to the Red Cross, I knew I wanted to do something more with my music, instead of just playing it." – Sinem Saniye More About: japan earthquake, music, social good For more Social Good coverage:
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| Nokia Gets Exclusive on NFC-Enabled Angry Birds Game Posted: 19 Apr 2011 01:11 PM PDT   Nokia is hoping an exclusive offering with Angry Birds will give the brand a lift. The company disclosed on its blog Tuesday that a new game, Angry Birds Free With Magic, contains 20 levels, 15 of which can only be activated by touching your near field communications-enabled phone with another NFC phone. If the user can’t find another person with a NFC phone, another option will be to wave the phone in front of NFC tags embedded in objects, though Nokia did not say what those objects would be. The game, published by Rovio, will be bundled exclusively with the Nokia C7 at first, but it will eventually be included in all Nokia NFC-enabled devices this year. “Meanwhile, the Rovio programmers are hard at work creating a full version of Magic — to be made available through Ovi Store – that will have more levels and more ways to harness the power of NFC,” the blog states. NFC allows a device, usually a mobile phone, to collect data from another NFC-enabled device at close range. Nokia has taken the lead in NFC technology, introducing the first commercial version of a NFC-enabled phone in 2007. So far, the technology has mostly been used to make wireless payments, but, as this Angry Birds iteration suggests, the feature may have a role in gaming as well. For Nokia, which has been rapidly losing market share in the smartphone category, the exclusive agreement with fellow Finnish company Rovio could help with the transition as Nokia migrates to Microsoft’s Windows mobile platform. However, Iain Gillott, the founder and president of telecom consultancy iGR,, says the game’s not going to do much to reverse Nokia’s fortunes. “I don’t think a lot of people are going to run out and buy one to play Angry Birds,” he says. As for NFC, Gillott says that the technology is still years away from becoming mass market. “I think it’s on a 10-year life cycle, but everyone keeps saying it’s going to be big this year.” For a sneak peek at Angry Birds With Magic see the video below: More About: angry birds, nfc, Nokia For more Mobile coverage:
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| HOW TO: Explore Content on Mashable Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:59 PM PDT   Many readers tell us that their favorite part about Mashable is the abundance of helpful information. From how-tos and guides to comprehensive lists, many of our posts are written to provide useful tips for a variety of digital interests and professions. And with an archive of many thousands of stories, it can be difficult to navigate and find what you’re looking for. That’s why we launched Mashable Explore, an easy way to discover and explore content on Mashable. It helps you find resources on your favorite Mashable topics, including Facebook, Twitter and the iPhone. To start exploring Mashable‘s resources, click on a topic on the Explore page. The results will display below the topic link, so there’s no need to navigate to another page. If you want even more Mashable content, just click “Load More Results.” You can share not only individual articles but also the entire results of your search by using the Tweet and Facebook Like buttons. You’ll find these buttons just above the queue of articles that load once you select a topic. Introducing Mashable Explore Explore makes it easy to discover lists, how-tos and other resourceful content on Mashable. Select a Topic Find and click on a topic that is interesting to you. You can choose from specific topics -- such as like Facebook and Twitter -- or themes, including entrepreneurship, productivity and shopping. Load More Stories Want more Mashable? Click "load more results" to see more stories within the topic. Explore Our How-Tos Here's an example of the kind of posts you'll find in Explore -- useful how-tos that break down daunting tasks into digestible steps. Get Tips From the Pros There are also plenty of great lists that provide tips, dos and don'ts to help you better use technology and the web. Click the "Share" button to share it with friends. Share Mashable Explore In addition to sharing individual posts, you can share all of the lists and guides within an entire category such as the Facebook topic (as pictured above). Click the "Like" or "Share" buttons to share the stories with friends on Facebook and Twitter. More About: ford, mashable, mashable explore For more Social Media coverage:
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| GQ’s New iPad App: Better, But Not by Much Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:45 PM PDT   GQ released a new iPad app to accompany the redesign of its digital editions Tuesday. GQ‘s publicist assured us that the issue was “new and improved,” and it is, but not by much. Unlike previous issues, which were built using Conde Nast’s in-house tools, the May issue was built using Adobe’s digital publishing system. It does feel less like a PDF and more like a digital magazine, with a more digital-friendly, interactive layout; embedded slideshows, video and audio; some basic (and invariably cheesy) animations; and click-to-view side tabs that furnish some additional context (with hyperlinks) about the app’s contents. Less welcome are the frequent bugs and crashes we experienced during tests. Text isn’t selectable and there is no easy way to share content via email or social networks — a head-scratching omission, to put it lightly. It’s also $4.99 — two dollars more than the cost of previous single issue copies, and it’s now available only on the iPad. No subscription option is available at this time. For a further preview, check out the screenshot gallery below.  We like the new page viewfinder.  A left-hand table of contents.  Click to fill in answers.  Click to fill in answers.    Click to pull up footnotes.  We told you the animations were cheesy.  We told you the animations were cheesy. .More About: gq, ipad, magazines, media For more Media coverage:
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| Tablets Fight for a Seat at Restaurant Tables Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:35 PM PDT   As the mainstream tablet war rages, a similar device battle is heating up in the restaurant industry. Tablets that take orders, entertain guests and accept check payments are coming to a table near you. One company that is selling those tablets, E la Carte, announced on Tuesday that it has raised more than $1 million in funding from prominent investors like Y Combinator, Dave McClure and SV Angel. The company will soon be launching tablets in 20 restaurants on the West coast. It also has a partnership with a large restaurant chain in the pipeline that hasn’t been announced yet — but the fact that Applebee’s executives participated in the funding round might provide a hint. Why the interest in providing every table with their own touch-screen tablet? For starters, people buy more food when they can do so instantly, without waiting for service. In the six restaurants that ran a pilot scheme, according to CEO Rajat Suri, customers at E la Carte tables spent 10% to 12% more than those at other tables. E la Carte tablets allow customers to browse a full menu and communicate their orders directly to the kitchen. They come loaded with social games and a calculator for check splits and tips. They also allow customers to email themselves a receipt or instantly sign up for a loyalty club. In high-end restaurants, the tablet can suggest an appropriate wine pairing for a meal. Eventually, E la Carte might offer restaurants the option to compile data about their customers’ preferences as they use the device. Some restaurants have attempted similar functionality by loading their menus onto iPads or asking customers to download an app onto their own devices. The iPad’s problem in this situation: its minimum $499 price tag. Restaurants that can afford menus that expensive aren’t casual restaurants, like Applebee’s, where a digital ordering system seems more appropriate. Asking users to download an app like Storific poses the problem that not everybody carries a smartphone. Even those who do might not want to pause and download an app as they sit down to lunch. A dedicated device, which E la Carte plans to install for a price that is “significantly lower” than the iPad, seems to be a more promising way for the tech world to break into the $6 billion U.S. restaurant industry. Other companies are already in this game. Tabletop Media makes a similar tabletop product that it began to deploy in 2008. The company has established customers with chains like Chili’s Uno’s Chicago Grill , and California Pizza Kitchen and will be in 250 stores by the end of the summer. Both E la Carte and Tabletop Media charge the restaurants a monthly fee to use a network of devices. “It’s propelling the restaurant industry into the Internet age,” Suri says. More About: dave mcclure, restauarant, sv angel, tablets, y combinator For more Startups coverage:
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| YouTube Video of the Day: You Want This Beat-Boxing Cellist To Play Your Next Formal Event Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:20 PM PDT Attention all band geeks awkwardly wielding cellos: You will get much more action if you learn to beat box whilst bowing. See, kids? You don’t have to play the theremin to be innovative (in fact, please don’t). More About: cello, music, viral-video-of-day, youtube For more Video coverage:
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| 6 Smart & Effective Email Marketing Tactics Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:00 PM PDT
There’s no denying that email is showing signs of decline — the number of visitors to web-based email sites fell 6% in 2010 compared to the previous year, and email engagement declined at an even greater rate, according to a report from digital analysis company comScore. In response to these changes, brands are quickly adapting by combining email, social media and even mobile marketing tactics. Despite the decline in email, new communication channels won’t replace email. “Email is actually more important than ever with the ground swell of social and mobile,” says Greg Cangialosi, CEO of email marketing company Blue Sky Factory. “When you think about the social ecosystem out there, there isn’t a tool or network available that doesn’t allow you to sign up without an email address. Email actually drives a lot of the social web activity, through notifications, alerts and more. Email is a great complement to social in that it allows marketers to extend the reach of their messages and identify influencers on their list,” he adds. And successful brands are doing just that — cross-pollinating email marketing strategies via email clients, social platforms and mobile devices. Ultimately, brands still find email effective because it’s inexpensive and universally accepted by people all over the world. Here are several simple, emerging email marketing methods with which brands are seeing success. If you’ve seen or implemented other tactics, feel free to share them in the comments. 1. Tap Into Current Events & Pop Culture Email recipients respond well to messages that borrow from current events and popular culture. Built — a company that designs bags, cases and totes — took advantage of Groundhog Day to market to its audience in an entertaining way. On February 2, Phil the groundhog did not see his shadow so Built immediately sent an an email that read, “Nice Call, Phil! Spring Is In Bloom at Built.” The key to creating hyper-timely emails is planning and being nimble, says Christopher Stemborowski, associate communication strategist for marketing agency Oxford Communications. “Seeming timely can be the result of preparing multiple emails or just one email and waiting for the right time to send it.” He suggests these tips:
2. Use Twitter & Facebook to Promote Opt-In URLs Brands such as wine education and recommendation app Daily Grape and social media education company Social Fresh tweet timely messages to their followers regarding email newsletter release dates and topics. The messages, which encourage followers to sign up to be on the brands’ mailing lists, include shortened URLs that lead to newsletter sign-up pages (pictured above). The tweets look like this:  Companies also leverage Facebook to attract email subscribers. Visit Baltimore has a tab on its Facebook Page solely devoted to its “Get the Buzz Enewsletter” initiative (pictured below).  3. Segment Your DatabaseBlasting irrelevant content to your email subscribers is one of the biggest email marketing mistakes you can commit. “For example, if a salon sends an email to men that highlights services solely for women, it shouldn't be a shock when the men unsubscribe,” Stemborowski says. “To avoid this, the salon needs to know who in its database are males and who are females and then avoid sending irrelevant messages.” When demographics play a role in which subscribers you target for certain emails, it’s beneficial to screen subscribers as soon as they sign up for your mailing list. This will allow them to tell you the type of messages they want to receive. HARO, a New York-based service that helps reporters and sources find each other, is one company that uses this strategy (pictured below).  “Self-selection means subscribers willingly receive emails that are in the categories they asked to get,” Stemborowski said, adding that it’s vital to keep the screening short so users don’t abandon the process. 4. Provide Incentives to Email Subscribers via Social MediaTo personalize its marketing efforts, international chain Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen engages with email subscribers by giving them a coupon for free items on their birthdays.  “The simple personal touch of sending users a coupon for a free slice of pizza and a soda on their birthday keeps subscribers hungry for more,” Stemborowski says. Companies also can capitalize on holidays with free or discounted products or services. 5. Expand Email Lists With SMS PromotionsBlue Sky Factory’s clients and other agencies’ clients grow their email audience with the help from mobile devices. “Marketers have short codes set up so that consumers can opt into their email databases by sending their email address to an SMS short code,” Cangialosi said. For example, Chuck E. Cheese’s has an ad in its locations that asks viewers to join its email club by texting their email address to “35505.” 6. Optimize Emails for SmartphonesMore than ever, people are reading emails on their mobile devices. Mobile email usage increased 36% in 2010, according to comScore. “Checking personal email is the most common web-based activity for smartphone users,” Stemborowski says. “Marketers need to make sure that emails can be read on mobile devices.” The first line of your email should never read, "If you are having trouble reading this email click here," he adds. “Remember, the first line of the email is what shows up as the preview on smartphones. For this reason, the first line is premium real estate and, with this in mind, you should put your most important message first for a well-crafted call to action.” ConclusionIt’s an exciting time for marketers to expand their traditional email marketing repertoire with new opportunities presented from social platforms and mobile devices. “Whether you're a business marketing your brand or products — or an individual marketing your lifestyle and social norms — social marketing allows customers to dictate how they are marketed to. … That's something that hasn't been done previously,” says Ben Kirshner, CEO of search engine marketing company Elite SEM. “It's something that's changing the parameters of email marketing in a way that's smart, interactive and rewarding (to the customer experience and the corporate bottom line).” Series Supported by HubSpot  The Digital Marketing Series is supported by HubSpot, which offers inbound marketing software that helps small and medium sized businesses get found on the Internet by the right prospects and converts more of them into leads and customers. HubSpot’s software platform includes tools that allow professional marketers and small business owners to manage SEO, blogging, social media, landing pages, e-mail, lead intelligence and marketing analytics. Learn more. More Marketing Resources from Mashable:
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| The Past, Present & Future of Solar Energy [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 19 Apr 2011 11:44 AM PDT   To help draw attention to its plans to build a thin-film solar panel plant in the U.S., General Electric has published an interesting study on the history and future of solar energy. Green tech and solar energy have been topics of focus in the U.S. in recent years and months. Last July, for example, President Obama announced the country would be investing around $2 billion in solar energy companies. Google has also been at the forefront of bringing solar energy to the masses with a substantial investment in the world’s largest solar power tower plant. But we’ve got a long way to go before we reach our collective goals. During his 2011 State of the Union address, Obama promised Americans 80% of their electricity would come from clean energy by 2035. To help us all understand where we’ve come from and where we’re going in terms of solar and other alternative energy, creative agency JESS3 has created the following heliocentric representation for GE and has shared it with us. Take a look at the infographic below, and let us know what you think in the comments. Will GE and other U.S. companies be ready to fulfill the president’s 80% mandate by 2035? Click to see full-size version. More About: cleantech, energy, environment, green, infographic, JESS3, solar For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| HBO Customers Will Soon Be Able to Watch on iOS & Android Devices Posted: 19 Apr 2011 11:29 AM PDT Starting next month, HBO subscribers will be able to access streaming content via iOS and Android devices. The premium cable network started running teaser advertisements for its HBO GO iOS and Android apps earlier this month. The latest spot touts “instant and unlimited access” to “every episode of every season of your favorite HBO shows.” HBO launched the browser-based component of its HBO GO streaming service in February 2010. Select cable customers can access online HBO content by visiting HBOGo.com. Comcast Xfinity customers can also access HBO content via the Xfinity TV website and On-Demand iOS apps. Rumors of an iOS-compatible app date back to August 2010. In the past eight months, not only has the iPad become a bona fide hit with consumers, it is quickly being embraced by broadcast and cable networks to sell a “second-screen” experience. Cable companies including Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner all have iPad apps available to offer users access to on-demand or live access to select networks and programming. HBO GO is part of HBO’s overall digital strategy, which aims to keep its product exclusive, while still offering flexibility for subscribers. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has refused to license HBO premium content to Netflix, in part because he sees the service as potentially devaluing content. In January, HBO’s VP of corporate affairs, Jeff Cusson, told The Hollywood Reporter that “HBO believes in content exclusivity, especially for high-value content. That’s our rationale for not selling streaming rights to a competing subscription service.” As a lifelong HBO subscriber, I can understand the network’s position. HBO is one of the few networks that, for me, makes subscribing to cable worthwhile. While we don’t anticipate HBO licensing its content to Netflix (without some serious negotiations), we see an HBO GO iOS and Android app as one of the final steps before the network makes its content available to subscribers sans a cable subscription. HBO GO for iOS and Android is expected to become available May 2. [via CNET] More About: Android apps, hbo, HBO GO, iOS apps, ipad apps, streaming media For more Media coverage:
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| How Immigration Activists Are Fighting Deportation Policy With Social Media Posted: 19 Apr 2011 10:56 AM PDT   Juan E. Gastelum is Master of Science student at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. You can follow him on twitter @juangastelum. Walter Lara's first tweet back in 2009 started with the words “I'm being deported.” Two years later, he lives in Miami, works legally, has a driver's license and pays in-state tuition at Miami Dade College. He is one of a few dozen young, undocumented immigrants who have avoided deportation and are now enjoying the benefits — even if only temporary — of being in the United States legally as a result of campaigns in which social media played a crucial role. Social media platforms provide the means by which these youths, who call themselves Dreamers, can find each other without travelling or exposing their status. They appeal to supporters nationwide and petition en masse for extensions on deportation dates. They help garner the attention of politicians, lawyers and advocacy groups. And they get Dreamers' stories out into the public sphere when the attention of the mass media is elsewhere. Lara, 25, was two weeks away from being deported when Maria Lacayo, a childhood friend, created a Facebook group called "Keep Walter's Dream Alive." On the group's Page, she explained Lara's situation: His parents brought him to the U.S. from Argentina illegally when he was only three. He is an honor student, and he would be eligible for legal residence under the Dream Act. She also shared her contact information and linked to her Twitter account. "I woke up the next morning and I had over 400 emails," says Lacayo, who became Lara's impromptu campaign manager. People she had never met started suggesting courses of action and organizations pledged their support. After an influential child advocacy non-profit posted Lara's information on its website, the group grew to more than 2,000 members. And a Twitter account created the same day on behalf of Lara accumulated more than 300 followers within hours. With the help of their followers and several non-profits, the pair jumped onto the mass media's radar, obtained a letter of support from Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, and crashed the switchboard at the Department of Homeland Security on two consecutive days. Three days before he was scheduled to depart, Lara received a yearlong deferment that has since been renewed once. Dreamers now see Lara's as a flagship case and have since mimicked and built upon his and Lacayo's use of social media to halt more deportations.  Alonso Chehade, 24, also faced deportation when he contacted Lacayo only days after Lara's deferment. He learned what they had done and launched his own campaign in Seattle. Chehade obtained pro-bono legal representation and, with the help of one of the same non-profits, managed to get 5,000 supporters to send in letters to local Congressmen using an online fax service linked to his Facebook Page and personal website. His deportation was delayed indefinitely after Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat in Washington, intervened on his behalf. The most important role of social media, says Chehade, is to demonstrate public sympathy for people in his position. Since his case was resolved, he has dedicated his efforts to unifying online supporters across various platforms. A large community of pro-immigrant bloggers and organizers started to develop around 2005, says Kyle de Beausset, who curates a Google group in which more than 1,000 active bloggers across the country interact privately online. But platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have made it much easier for young undocumented youth to find each other without necessarily having to expose themselves. "They were able to get together anonymously, see the numbers that they had and then start building on that," says de Beausset.  Indeed, several online venues have become the go-to places for young undocumented immigrants facing deportation and empathizers alike. On Facebook, it is a page with more than 88,000 likes called "Dream Act 2010." And on Twitter, @DreamAct, which is run by activist group DreamActivist.org, has more than 9,000 followers. These venues have proven, as Chehade would put it, the power of organized clicks. Campaigns usually start with an individual tweet or Facebook status update that alerts the network that someone has been detained or has received notification that he or she will be deported. Hashtags or @messages ensure that those are targeted at the group and known organizers, who then spread the word and start online petitions that are directed at legislators. Videos of the person telling his or her story are often posted on YouTube. At the same time, organizers on the ground work on getting attorneys and setting up rallies. If all these come together successfully, a deportation can be halted. Rigoberto Padilla, who was granted a reprieve by Homeland Security in 2009 after a similar campaign, says the organization he now volunteers for in Chicago has stopped six deportations since he started there about a year ago. Two other organizations in Washington, D.C., and Maine report comparable numbers. The two platforms have also centralized online support for the Dream Act — which would benefit all Dreamers — keeping the contentious bill at the forefront of political discussion. In February, for example, the Dream Act 2010 page directed so many votes to YouTube's World View program that a Dream Act query was presented as the number one question to that month's guest, Rep. John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. Still, Dreamers regard their colossal victories as minimal in comparison to their ultimate goal: to ensure that others in their position — 2.1 million, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute — can stay in the country long enough to see the Dream Act through. Interested in more Social Media resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Graffizone More About: activism, facebook, immigration, politics, social good, social media, trending, twitter, youtube For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook Expands Safety & Security Tools Posted: 19 Apr 2011 10:29 AM PDT   Just a day after security firm Sophos sent Facebook an open letter addressing privacy issues, Facebook has introduced a suite of new safety features. While the social network did not satisfy the letter's requests to make privacy the default, create a vetting process for app developers and turn on HTTPS automatically, it did come through on the promises it made in an announcement at President Obama’s White House Conference on Bullying Prevention last month. Here’s what’s new:
What do you think of Facebook’s safety update? What changes do you think Facebook should make to improve user security and privacy? More About: bullying, facebook, privacy, safety, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| T-Mobile’s G-Slate Android Tablet Arrives to Mixed Reviews Posted: 19 Apr 2011 10:14 AM PDT   The BlackBerry PlayBook isn’t the only next-generation tablet hitting the market this week; the T-Mobile G-Slate arrives in stores on April 20. The device will sell for $529 after a $100 mail-in-rebate and a two-year data commitment. Unsubsidized, the device comes in a tad lower than the Motorola Xoom at $749. The G-Slate is internally very similar to the Xoom, featuring a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, 32GB of internal storage and Android 3.0 Honeycomb. LG opted for an 8.9-inch screen rather than the more standard 7-inch or 10-inch displays that tablets like the iPad, Xoom, Galaxy Tab and BlackBerry PlayBook support. ReviewsThe first crop of reviews related to the G-Slate are rolling in and the results are mixed, though positive on the whole. The 3D-camera integrated into the rear of the device works, though reviewers note that its more of a gimmick than useful in practice. Two months after the Motorola Xoom’s release, Android 3.0 Honeycomb still doesn’t appear to be fully baked. As SlashGear’s Vincent Nguyen says, “Honeycomb still falls short of being mass-market ready, though it’s certainly full of promise.” When compared to the Motorola Xoom, most reviewers seem to prefer the G-Slate. Michael Oryl from TechSpot comments that “[the G-Slate] is more comfortable to hold, the G-Slate’s build of Android seems more stable.” Joshua Topolsky, formerly of Engadget, has given the device a 6/10 rating, but much of his criticism is directed not at the device itself — or even its software — but at the high-price point and contract requirements imposed by T-Mobile. More About: android, android tablets, g-slate, honeycomb, LG, t-mobile g-slate For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Posted: 19 Apr 2011 09:54 AM PDT   CNN debuted its all-new Android app Tuesday. It serves text and multimedia news and gives users access to CNN iReport, the network's participatory news community. The CNN Android app was intended to give its users “an immersive news experience” in an elegant and intuitive interface. As far as content goes, the app lets users have access to a wealth of resources from the news network, including live reports from the field, interviews, podcasts and user-submitted content. In addition to text-based news reports, users can get the latest in audio formats (the app culls a lot of content from CNN Radio), photos, live video and on-demand video content. The app also allows for easy toggling between U.S. and international editions. Users can browse news by content (politics, sports, etc.) or by format (radio, video, etc.). Users can also personalize the app to include local information (including weather), radio and podcast “favorites,” ReadItLater-like features, and a respectable lineup of social sharing options. Push notifications and a home screen widget for breaking news are also available. Another interesting feature is CNN’s iReport section, which basically acts as a tool for would-be citizen journalists to submit eyewitness photos and videos directly through the app. CNN is unquestionably late to the game here; at least 15 non-official CNN apps exist in the Android Market. Some of them are free, and others are paid. The official app is free and is available for download now. The app runs on Android 2.1 and higher. Louis Gump, CNN’s VP of mobile, said in a release, “Android users are extremely discerning and will accept nothing less than a first-rate app that showcases high-quality, world-class content — and enables them to share it. We built the CNN App with these desires specifically in mind and are excited to offer the millions of Android phone users around the world with access to CNN's global reporting.”  More About: android, Android App, cnn, news app For more Mobile coverage:
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| Chiddy Bang Member To Attempt Guinness World Record for Longest Freestyle Rap at MTV OMAs Posted: 19 Apr 2011 09:15 AM PDT   More details emerged Tuesday about MTV’s new digital music awards show, the OMAs, including that Chidera "Chiddy" Anamege of the hip-hop group Chiddy Bang will attempt to score the Guinness World Records title for “Longest Freestyle Rap” as part of the awards kick-off. The whole ordeal will stream live at OMusicAwards.com April 28, at 11 p.m. ET. "I've been freestyling since I was 14 years old, and this is definitely me putting myself to the test,” Anamege says. “I really think I can break the record, but, regardless, this is going to be a dope moment. I am ready to just go and go!" In the past few months, the OMAs have slowly been taking shape; two weeks ago MTV busted out with the nominees, including PS22 (Best Fan Cover), Arcade Fire (Music Video) and The Hype Machine (Best Music Discovery Service). The name of the show emerged in February; the “O” is open to interpretation. The OMAs will start ramping up on Monday, April 25, at which time MTV will start announcing some of the winners — all leading up the main event on April 28. Announcements will be made via live streaming events, viral videos, social media and digital video conferencing. Fans can also keep abreast of winners by way of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. The main awards show will take place across multiple platforms and screens (including MTV.com, VH1.com and LogoTV.com, mobile web and the MTV News app and MTV's international websites) on April 28, at which time a flash mob will bust out at a yet-to-be-named Las Vegas location at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT. MTV has informed us that performers will include Lil B, Lupe Fiasco, Chiddy Bang, Matt & Kim, Mumford & Sons with Edward Sharpe and Old Crow Medicine Show, and Foster the People, who will play in Las Vegas, as well as other locations around the country. Confirmed presenters include Ke$ha, Cee Lo Green, B.o.B, Wiz Khalifa, Robyn and Theophilus London. More awards will be meted out on Friday, April 29, and after that the O Music Awards website will live on as a place to honor digital music achievements. More About: Chiddy Bang, mtv, music, OMAs For more Media coverage:
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| Evernote Android App Gets Major Upgrade, Overtakes iPhone Version Posted: 19 Apr 2011 09:00 AM PDT   Evernote’s social transformation continues Tuesday with the latest release of Evernote for Android. Android users have been granted access to a plethora of note sharing and collaboration options not yet available to their iPhone counterparts. Evernote for Android users get in-notebook search, a revamped Evernote widget, PIN lock protection and a map option to view location-tagged notes. The Android app overhaul is the single most significant and feature-packed release of any Evernote product to date, according to the startup. The shared notebooks and social note sharing options are perhaps the most dramatic improvements to the application. Android users can now access, view and edit notebooks that have been shared with them via the new Shared icon on the app’s home screen. Premium users get offline access to these linked notebooks. The Android app lets users share a note by posting it to Facebook or Twitter. The idea is to combine personal memories and social memories. This social strategy started with the release of Evernote’s modernized web application. Evernote has made some significant functional improvements to the Android app. Users were previously limited to creating notebooks via desktop. Now they can do so in the app. They can also search within an individual notebook, as opposed to searching all notebooks. The new PIN lock option is also unique to the Android application. It lets users with premium accounts lock the Evernote app with a PIN number. The user can still continue to create quick notes using the widget when the app is locked. Altogether, these additions provide for a much improved Evernote for Android experience outclasses the ability and feature set of Evernote’s other mobile and desktop applications. More About: android, evernote, facebook, note taking For more Startups coverage:
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| 11 Excellent iPad Apps for Meetings & Presentations Posted: 19 Apr 2011 08:43 AM PDT   This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Meetings and presentations are a way of life in the business world. That said, there's nothing worse than dragging around a bunch of files and equipment to meetings. It would be so nice to have everything that’s necessary for a presentation or meeting stores in one place. And if that one place was a thin and lightweight piece of technology — like an iPad — it would be even better. Every organization has its own definition of formal and informal meetings and presentations, depending upon its corporate culture, clients and individual responsibilities. Whether it's a structured sales presentation or a casual brainstorming session, here are some iPad apps that help you do everything for a presentation, from creating slides to taking minutes. Keep in mind that many of these apps allow you to transmit what is displayed on the iPad screen to a TV or projector — all you need are the appropriate cables, which are available in the Apple Store. And, pairing these apps up with your favorite file storage app such as Box.net or Dropbox will only add to your productivity. What iPad apps are you currently using during meetings? Leave us your suggestions in the comments.
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| Sync Media Across Devices With Nero’s Free Software Posted: 19 Apr 2011 08:29 AM PDT   Nero, a software company known for its media suites, is launching a free app-based system on Tuesday that organizes and syncs media between multiple devices. Its Kwik Media Manager joins a host of other products that are aiming to free digital media from a particular device. The manager provides a library for your music, video, photos and data that looks a lot like iTunes or Windows Media Manager at first glance. But unlike iTunes, which makes transferring files to multiple devices a pain, it makes transferring an iTunes library onto an Android device a matter of drag and drop between folders. The same goes for transferring video from a camera to an iPad or photos from multiple cameras to one photo library. Kwik Media Manager also comes with basic editing tools like automatic red eye reduction, an easy slideshow editor, a video clipper and a disc burner that is free for a limited time. Nero’s new system rivals products like Libox, Unifi and MediaRover that similarly transfer media between devices. But Nero is trying to do so on top of a basic editing and organizational structure. For the casual user, it could replace very basic photo and video editing programs, a slideshow creator and a library in one swift and free download. One major way that Nero’s strategy is different from others is its app approach. While the basic software download is free, an app store that will eventually open to third-party developers sells additional features to more advanced users. For now, it’s filled with Nero’s best tricks. For $0.99, users can add a face-recognition app that searches photos based on who is in them. A Blu-ray player app costs $29.99. And the “move it” app, at $4.99, will automatically optimize files for the devices to which they are being transferred. This avoids a flash video being loaded onto an apple product or a tiny video being loaded to a larger device. While Nero has previously powered a similar media manager solution for Dell and sells a MediaHome product for $40, Kwik Media Manager is a huge departure from the way that it usually does its business. And a smart one. Not only do users have an option to buy Nero’s full-priced multimedia suites within the app store, but they have options to spend what they want on the features that they’ll use.  More About: kwik media manager, media manager, nero, software For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:
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| Click Around & Buy Things in Devo’s Interactive Video [PREMIERE] Posted: 19 Apr 2011 08:10 AM PDT Devo has never been your average band (a statement that puts the sentiment mildly), and the new, interactive video for “What We Do,” off the band’s ninth studio album, Something for Everybody, is no exception to its rule of no rules. Something for Everybody [iTunes link], the band’s first album in 20 years, is a think piece of a disc in terms of content as well as execution. The release, in summer 2010, was jiggered so as to reintroduce the band as “Devo, Inc,” and the disc’s 12 tracks were chosen through a “Song Study” (i.e. they were crowdsourced). Although the band has said that the experiment was not wholly satirical (“Our experiences participating in secondary creativity — things like corporate consensus building, focus groups — make you appreciate the connection that an artist has to society,” Gerald Casale says on the band’s website), each act and sentiment seems double-edged. That is, yes, crowdsourcing can help a band better connect to their fans, but how far can one go without falling into a remake loop of pandering? Should your fans’ opinions really matter when it comes to creating art? Going along with the already established tongue-in-cheek theme of consumption and pleasing everyone, “What We Do” is an interactive video with the ability to control where the camera lands (much like the 360-degree video Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am launched to herald his digital media company, will.i.apps). It also offers the ability to just silence the song and watch the action and features links allowing users to buy apparel featured in the video. While we could just point to the blatant product placement and shout, “Shill!” this is Devo we’re talking about, so we’re pretty certain that the video is attempting to say more than, “Buy, buy, buy.” (Although you can actually buy the products featured in the vid. The keytar shirt is also rad.) We chatted with Devo’s Gerald V. Casale (who directed the video with Kii Arens and Jason Trucco) about the video, its meaning and shake weights. Check out our Q&A below: How does the theme of repetition (in the song) relate to the structure of the video? Mark [Mothersbaugh] and I are running around in circles like hamsters in a wheel between the camera and the various activity stations where people of both genders and many ethnicities are doing things humans do over and over. It’s the endless cycle of life that we are all caught up in. We must repeat! Hence, “We’re all Devo.” You’re using new technology to create a video about how there’s nothing new. Is there any kind of message implied in that? Devo’s central conceit has always been about the inherent conflict of human nature. Things change but ultimately stay the same. (i.e. Why does history always repeat itself?) We never forget we are a part of what we talk about so we deliver everything with a sense of humor. How does this video fit within the unique way you created the album (crowdsourcing)? The user/viewer is the director in this video. They decide what to see and when to see it in real time. They will be able to navigate and save a version of what they think others should see. It’s like having a vote in Devo’s creative process. It’s truly interactive. Are you seeing an evolution or a de-evolution in the realm of the music video? Honestly, both. The music video continues to be a tool for self expression for any artist who wants to harness its power. Unfortunately most just regurgitate all the cliches we have seen for years and years. Finally, why a shake weight? Simply because, as a music video and commercial director, I thought the Shake Weight commercial was one of the funniest and obscene things i have seen in a long time. The product embodies the lowest of Devo fantasies. More About: devo, MARKETING, music, po-culture, video For more Media coverage:
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| Startup Invites App Makers To Access & Edit Robust Places Database Posted: 19 Apr 2011 07:55 AM PDT   Google, Foursquare and SimpleGeo are separately working to build a definitive database of places. Now you can add location-information startup Fwix to that list; it’s releasing a developer API toolkit Tuesday to provide app makers with a wealth of data on places. Fwix’s API toolkit consists of three key components — places, content and monetization — meaning that developers can not only turn to Fwix as a place database provider, but can use the startup’s geodata pool to grab content associated with places, and tap into its ad network to add plug-and-play ads to their apps. The primary reason for the release, Fwix CEO Darian Shirazi explains, is to “help big companies and developers produce local products.” For developers and app makers, the API offering provides free and unrestricted access, with read and write functionality, to location data that they can mix up, mash up and transform as they please. So, what makes this API standout from the rest? “It’s the marriage between places and content,” Shirazi explains. The content he speaks of, as indexed by Fwix, includes photos, reviews, status updates, events, news, Foursquare and Gowalla checkins and other mobile or social activity happening around places. The startup’s strength has long been its ability to parse out the places, people and things buried inside web content and match those data points up against places. “Entity extraction,” the formal expression used to describe this process, “is the core of the company,” Shirazi says. Shirazi speaks of app makers being able to use Fwix’s data set to uncover the top 10 nearby bars or restaurants based on checkins or reviews, serve up all nearby deals or even create a video application that hinges around local data. Fwix has partnered with Factual on the places database piece of the puzzle. The two are attempting to create an open platform by allowing developers to write back data on places — developers can edit or delete place data and contribute to the evolution of the database. In doing so, Fwix will also be fighting with SimpleGeo, Foursquare and Google for developer attention, all of which have made significant investments in their respective databases and APIs. “Our belief is that there is never going to be one agreed upon open places database,” Shirazi says. He does, however, want Fwix to connect the dots between disparate place identification numbers across multiple services. The startup is collecting and matching the place IDs from other providers with its own IDs, and allowing developers to request back those ID numbers in their API calls. Not every Fwix place will have associated place IDs from other providers on day one, but this is the eventual goal. Fwix, which has raised a total of $6.7 million since 2008, has the grand vision of eliminating text input in location queries, and instead replacing the search query with a user’s location, Shirazi says. More About: foursquare, fwix, geolocation, google places, places database, simplegeo For more Startups coverage:
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| The 3 Most Effective Approaches to In-App Advertising Posted: 19 Apr 2011 07:37 AM PDT
If that proves to be the case, a dead web may be good for advertising. The reason? Aside from search, advertising on the web has been tricky. Consumers generally don't click on banner ads — especially not on Facebook — and tend to view ads as an intrusion on their web-browsing experience. In contrast, a recent report by Appssavvy (admittedly not a disinterested observer) found that in-app ads perform 11.4 times better than standard banner ads, which means they are almost as effective as search. That said, app publishers have been working on tweaking the "appvertising" model to make it more effective. Below is an overview of what seems to be working. 1. Become Part of the Game Advertising in games is nothing new, but the the old model revolved mostly around product placement. But, as is the case with the TV and movie version of product placement, advertisers learned that having a Coke can in the background of a scene isn't likely to sell many Cokes, but having a character drink it in a key moment — especially when the character is really thirsty and that Coke looks so good — is another story. When it comes to in-app games, the thirst-quenching Coke’s equivalent is having a brand pop up in a way that enhances the game experience. For instance, last year, Microsoft ran a program with Appssavvy for Windows 7 in nqmoco's GodFinger All-Stars. In that game, players control their own planet. The aim is to expand the planet and earn money, among other things, to get to the next level. So, Appssavvy, working with Universal McCann, brought a Windows Cloud into the game. Players could visit the Cloud the same way they'd visit their friends' planets and earn in-game currency for doing so. If they wanted to, they could also click through a mobile landing page and learn more about Windows 7. "It leveraged activity [users] were already doing," says Michael Burke, co-founder of Appssavvy. "They don't mind the advertising." Well, at least an impressively large minority didn't — during the six-week promotion, 10% of the game's players visited the Windows Cloud for a total of 6.1 million visits. 2. BriberyAnother approach is to forget about blending into the game and instead ask players to sit through an ad in exchange for virtual game currency. That's the premise behind SocialVibe. In a recent campaign, for instance, SocialVibe gave away currency for Zynga's various games if users visited The Big Game Tournament, which pitted characters from FarmVille, YoVille, FrontierVille and others in a football game sponsored by Kia. The effort had the highest time-spent-per-user of any SocialVibe game to date — 170 seconds. Does bribing consumers to watch a commercial really work though? Clearly, some investors think so — SocialVibe just got a $20 million infusion of cash from Norwest Venture Partners last month. And a new company, Kiip, has a twist on this idea. Instead of virtual currency, they get real prizes. For example, if a player reaches a new height record in Doodle Jump, a Kiip notification will let the player know they've won a prize. Then a user can enter his email address to redeem the prize. Kiip has a roster of brand partners including Dr Pepper, Carl's Jr., Popchips and GNC. 3. Make Better Ads Not everyone thinks you have to twist consumers' arms to get them to look at ads. Many believe that the rise of apps — especially among mobile users — will usher in a new era of more engaging advertising. Chief among the proponents of this belief is Apple's Steve Jobs, who introduced Apple's iAd platform in April 2010 as "mobile ads with emotion." For Apple, though, the platform hasn't been entirely successful. The company recently cut the entry price for an iAd in half to $500,000 and has reportedly had trouble selling the ads. But Garrick Schmitt, managing director of experience and platform at Razorfish, says that rich media ads within apps perform much better than standard display ads — though he declines to get specific. Apple, he says, is just reacting to competition. Ads that Razorfish creates on behalf of clients like Best Buy and Westin Hotels are meant to offer more utility — you might say they're more app-like — than the typical banner ad. A rich media ad for Westin for instance, invites users to "tap here to warm up." After that, virtual frost covers the iPhone screen and can be wiped away to reveal pictures of eight Westin Hotels & Resorts in warm climates. (See image above.) A Best Buy ad during the holidays made a game of buying gifts for family members. In another example, Razorfish created an iPhone-based ad for Dockers in 2009 that featured a man who would dance when the phone was shook. "Some ads are very game-like," says Schmitt. "It's a playful experience." Time to LearnAs these examples show, there are a few different schools of thought as to what app-vertising should look like. But the industry has some time to figure things out — right now it isn’t a completely mass medium. Noah Elkin, principal analyst with eMarketer, says that if you’re releasing a mobile app designed to be used on a smartphone, you’re effectively writing off 70% of the market. Though some predict that the user base for smartphones will hit 50% of consumers by the end of this year, Elkin says that figure is too optimistic. It’s also worth noting that early adopters to smartphones may be more engageable than those who buy them a year or so from now. On the other hand, the mindset of someone who downloads an app may turn out to be more hospitable to advertising than old forms of media –- including the web. "App users are a self-selecting group," says Elkin. "They tend to be more engaged." Series Supported by Sourcebits  The Mobile App Trends Series is sponsored by Sourcebits, a leading developer of applications and games for all major mobile platforms. Sourcebits has engineered over 200 apps to date, with plenty more to come. Sourcebits offers design and development services for iPhone, Android and more. Please feel free to get in touch with us to find out how we can help your app stand apart in a crowded marketplace. Follow Sourcebits on Twitter and Facebook for recent news and updates. More Mobile Resources from Mashable:
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Although consumers’ communication habits have evolved with the rising popularity of social media and smartphones, brands are still turning to their dependable friend — email — to attract and retain customers and boost their bottom lines.
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