Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “HOW TO: Make Craigslist Better & Prettier With a Browser Extension”

So, how to ease the pain of using Craigslist while keeping its simplicity and utility? Allow us to introduce you to Craigslist Helper.

This handy browser extension (available for Chrome, Firefox and Safari) lets you preview text and thumbnails from your Craigslist search results. You can also bookmark listings and even make your own notes on them.

For example, if you’re househunting, you might use the app to see images of your new pad options without having 30 tabs open; then, you’d be able to prioritize them and even keep track of conversations with potential landlords, all without leaving Craigslist.

Other features include:

• Alerts when new listings that match your search appear
• Multiple searches by geographical area, or even a whole-site search
• Hide ads
• Filter by keyword; for example, choose not to see listings with “freeway”
• Map popups to show locations
• Phone number highlighting

Here’s an example screenshot showing housing listings within 350 miles of San Francisco:

As the extensions’ mysterious developer writes on Quora, “My guess is, [Craigslist doesn't] innovate simply because they can afford not to — at least until a Facebook to their MySpace comes along.” And until another classifieds startup successfully challenges Craigslist — and believe us, a few of them are trying — apps like Craigslist Helper will have to do.

Will you be trying Craigslist Helper next time you have to do a classifieds search?

More About: browser extension, craigslist, craigslist helper

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After all, we know that the data centers that power our favorite applications and sites are far from green — although Google and Facebook are attempting to change that, both in the kinds of energy we use and how much energy is needed.

Still, environmental organization Greenpeace warns that the same companies have caused consumers’ “addiction to dirty energy” and are increasing their energy consumption by around 12% each year. And everything we do online, from web searches to spam emails, leads to a certain amount of CO2.

On the other hand, the Internet is making it possible for many more workers to efficiently and effectively telecommute; this “WFH” revolution is saving the environment that many more cars on the road each morning and evening.

Take a look at this infographic from marketing blog WordStream, and let us know what you think. Is the Internet possibly doing the planet more harm than good?

Click image to see larger version.

image courtesy of iStockphoto, redmal

More About: earth day, environment, green, infographic

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Name: Clique

Quick Pitch: Clique is a private dating site.

Genius Idea: Using friends’ social networks to filter date prospects.

When the dating world plugged into the Internet, it largely catered to the classified-style dating that preceded it. Match.com, OkCupid, and eHarmony all facilitate meetings between strangers who might like each other. But the age-old method of meeting dates through friends was largely ignored by online dating sites.

Clique, which launched on Valentine’s Day, wants to make that method its niche. On the invite-only site, only you, your friends and people connected to you by fewer than three degrees are visible. When you’re browsing profiles, you can see how you’re connected to each person, and your friends can make match suggestions for you.

Filtering online dating this way improves the experience, says co-founder and CEO Christy Purington. For one thing, it makes online dating easier.

“People spend hours and hours looking for people with similar interests on dating sites,” she says. “Even if your interests are different, if you have a mutual friend, that’s a filter already.”

It also makes online dating a bit less creepy. After a class action lawsuit was filed against Match.com by a woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a man she met on the dating site, that’s an advantage many are poised to appreciate.

Another convenient perk from the site’s perspective is that users don’t graduate when they successfully find relationships. They can set their statuses to “wingman” and continue participating as a matchmaker. Right now there aren’t a lot of incentives for doing so other than the pure fun of matchmaking, but eventually, Clique will add rewards for active matchmakers.

Doing so could be one potential revenue stream. Purington says the site might give successfully matched couples the opportunity to buy a thank you gift for the friend who set them up, for instance.

Other potential revenue streams include pairing with a daily deal sites to suggest date-appropriate coupons or selling a “premium” feature that gives users access to their third-degree connections (these contacts are currently visible without charge).

One of the biggest challenges for this bootstrapped startup is creating value for users who don’t have a lot of friends already on Clique. The private nature of the site necessitates its invite-only structure, as it ensures that at least one friend’s connections are filling out a new user’s potential dater section. Uninvited users can scan their Facebook profiles to see if they already have friends using the site who might send an invite.

Obviously, scaling past its current 300 users will be a bit more difficult with this invite-only stipulation. But if Clique can pull it off, it has potential to fill a rather vacant niche.

Mashable readers can sign up for a priority invite at this URL.

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: Clique, dating, eHarmony, Match.com, okcupid, online dating

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Even now, however, Cascade is more than just a nifty data visualization. Some journalists think it also gives us new ways of to think about and optimize for sharing and engagement on the social web, especially since it helps identify the most influential sharers, the more shareable terms, and more.

Its creators write on the project’s website that Cascade “links browsing behavior on a site to sharing activity to construct a detailed picture of how information propagates through the social media space. While initially applied to New York Times stories and information, the tool and its underlying logic may be applied to any publisher or brand interested in understanding how its messages are shared.”

Here’s what a cascade for a typical article looks like:

For the developers among our readers, Cascade was created using Processing and MongoDB.

What do you think of Cascade?

More About: new york times, nyt, social media, twitter

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This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Visitors to Pepto Bismol’s YouTube channel can find a handful of options to make their own "Pinata Smash" video. There are four different pinatas to choose from, two snacks to fill them with and two "smashers." When the video is completed, users can share it on Facebook or Twitter.

Kristen Stutz, assistant brand manager for Procter & Gamble, says that there will eventually be 15 to 20 iterations of the video. "The idea was not just to provide content, but be able to enage [consumers] with it," she says.

The effort will be promoted with a YouTube takeover on May 1 and a "Pinata Smash" segment during the Jimmy Kimmel Live! On May 4, an online ad campaign and PR outreach featuring Busy Philipps of Cougar Town.

The program is part of the brand’s marketing overhaul that began last July with the sponsorship of the Nathan’s Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest. Since then, the brand has sought to align itself with other days on the calendar linked to overeating, like Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Cinco de Mayo fits the bill, Stutz says.

Another facet of the plan is a complete reversal of Pepto’s ad spending breakdown. Previously, up to 90% of the brand's ad budget went to traditional media like TV; now that figure is as low as 10%. Most of the rest goes toward digital media. The company claims that since the switchover, sales have improved.

The brand’s reliance on a YouTube app also illustrates an experimentation among marketers in social media outlets beyond Facebook and Twitter. While YouTube is usually seen as a launchpad for would-be viral videos, few have used it for branding widgets. Likewise, LinkedIn, which has been barely touched by most marketers, is beginning to see some new experimentation as well.

More About: advertising, Cinco de Mayo, MARKETING, Pepto Bismol, Procter & Gamble, youtube

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Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reports that Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley, who just completed a visit to the west coast, has been hobnobbing his way around Silicon Valley hoping to close a third funding round by early June.

“Despite the high level of interest in that deal and the company’s fast growth, people familiar with the fund raising say the company’s nascent business model and fierce competition among location services will make it a challenge for Mr. Crowley to secure a valuation in the mid-hundreds of millions of dollars,” the Journal reports.

“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation,” a company representative tells us. “We’re 100% focused on building a product that changes the way people explore the world around them. That’s what we do all day every day.”

In June of last year, Foursquare closed a $20 million round of financing at a $95 million valuation. The one-year leap from a $100 million company to $500 million company seems like a stretch, especially considering the startup’s 8 million members pale in comparison to the user numbers reported by industry heavyweights such as Twitter (200 million users), Groupon (50 million subscribers) and Facebook (600 million members).

If ever there was a time to raise a bucket of cash at an insanely high valuation, however, that time would be now. Plus, the startup is just coming off a record day of activity with more than three million checkins on Foursquare Day.

Image courtesy of Flickr, LaughingSquid

More About: foursquare, funding, location-based startup, social media

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So in lieu of awkward, Earth-worshipping gyrations, we bring you our weekly YouTube roundup, the Earth Day edition.

Now go recycle something.

'70s PSA Keep America Beautiful (Crying Indian)

Todd Wasserman: A classic ad from the '70s dramatizes the effects of pollution via actor Iron Eyes Cody, who apparently wasn't a native American at all, but was actually of Sicilian descent. It's a great ad, but I'm not sure how the advertised pamphlet was supposed to change things.

Captain Planet

Brian Hernandez: The Captain Planet gang kick Ma-Ti (the dude with the "heart" ring) out of the group and replace the youngest Planeteer with Steve. Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! ... Fire!? Yup.

"Share The Air" Presentation

Sarah Kessler: Rachel Sequoia attempts to convince a room full of venture capitalists to invest in bottled air. It's clearly a joke (check out the addition on some of the slides), but it's a brilliant one.

"We've Got To Do Something" by Aldous Snow and Infant Sorrow

Brian Dresher: We can all thank Russell Brand for pointing out that "lately Mother Earth has been feeling unsatisfied."

Keep It Clean

Erica Swallow: Bill Nye tells the story of how 29,000 plastic rubber duckies traveled 17,000 nautical miles in 15 years to pollute beaches on 4 continents. The ocean is not our trash can -- keep it clean, people

Earth Day Rap

Zachary Sniderman: It's Earth Day, Motherf*cker!

The Simpsons

Christina Warren: Fine, it's Earth Day. However, we should all remember...

WWF Change the May You Think

Amy-Mae Elliott: Do you know how much water it takes to make your latte? The answer might surprise you.

The Lorax

Jay Bischof: Poor Lorax...

Pumped For The Planet

Stefanie Rennert: Get "Pumped for the Planet" as the cast of Nickelodeon's Victorious are hosting a special Earth Day line-up of "Green Premieres" tonight. They're hoping to raise awareness about the Gulf Coast! P.S. Ke$ha will make a guest appearance, too.

Planet Earth

Ada Ospina: These are the things I hope future generations can enjoy. (I know, super cliche, but it's true!)

Real Birds Tweet On Twitter

Brenna Ehrlich: Someday our civilization will crumble into the sea, and the only tweeters left will be da birds.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Mari’

More About: earth day, favorite-youtube-videos, video, youtube

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Over the last couple of months, a goodly number of deals sites have launched in the musical realm, offering users discounts on everything from downloads to drums. We’ve been keeping track of said sites, compiling them into the handy list you see down there.

So crack open your piggy banks, kids — there’s plenty of music to be had. (And you don’t even have to forgo food this week to nab it.)

1. For Collectors

If you’re the kind of person who needs to have every album on vinyl and lovingly organize your record collection by genre, sub-genre, BPM or whatever, then you might want to give Popmarket a visit. Popmarket is a free, member-only deals site that was launched in late 2010 by Sony Music Entertainment.

Every week day, the site offers users deals (at up to 70% ) on CD box sets, records, collector’s books and other merchandise related to Sony’s catalog. A lot of the deals are on wares from more — shall we say — vintage artists, such as Elvis, The Beatles, Iggy and the Stooges and Neil Diamond, and are released to coincide with such milestones as Iggy’s 64th birthday.

Check it out if your computer-numbed hands are itching to feel, not steal.

2. For New Music Fiends

What if you had a friend who not only researched bands for you, but also delivered new acts to your mailbox, and then was like, “Hey, you can get this rad album for 50% off”? (Yes, I’m sure you all have friends who send you music illegally and whatnot, but let’s try to stay above board for a tick, all right?)

Well, that friend is basically GroopEase, a newly launched group-buying, members-only site that deals in digital music, offering members discounts on emerging bands' and artists' tunes.

In the beginning, the site will offer users two to three albums per week at up to 75% off. Each deal will follow a similar formula: 1) The band in question will be up-and-coming, so as to ensure that being featured on GroopEase will serve as ample promotion (which the band might not be able to provide for itself yet); 2) Users can check out and download a song before buying; 3) A portion of the proceeds will go to charity.

The site is invitation-only, but existing users can invite friends to join, an act that scores those users a $1 credit for every friend who signs up. So not only can you have a new, digital friend that provides you with jams, you can be that friend to someone else. Good karma all around.

3. For Musicians

You could stand outside the music store, drooling over all the shiny cymbals and tantalizing toms (not speaking from experience here or anything…) or you could save yourself the anguish of lusting after what you cannot afford and wait for the deals to come to you.

Indie musician platform Hello Music just launched a new “Deals” aspect of its free service, offering bands deals on instruments, recording equipment, gear, accessories, etc.

There will be up to four products featured daily, with deals lasting up to 48 hours (or until products sell out). Discounts can climb up to 70% off.

Now excuse me while I wipe these face prints off of the music store window and return to my computer.

4. For Indie Kids

Aimed at an "elite group of influencers," deals site 1band1brand launched at SXSW in order to offer users discounts on select music and fashion/design brands.

Similar to GroopEase — in that it focuses on indie, up-and-coming bands — 1band1brand adds another layer to the experience by pairing musical deals with fashion and design.

Merely sign up to receive notifications on deals, no member invite required. Each week, the site features one indie band, which will offer a mixtape on Bandcamp on a freemium pay scale (you can name your own price), as well as an indie fashion brand and a discount on its wares. Artists get a 50/50 revenue share with the site.

Be the first on your block to rock these looks/jams — unless, of course, someone else on your block subscribes to 1band1brand … in which case you could move, I guess.

5. One We’re Looking Forward To

RCRD LBL, a curated site/newsletter that launched as a joint venture between Downtown Music LLC (Gnarls Barkley, Cold War Kids, Santigold), and Peter Rojas (Engadget, Gizmodo, Weblogs, Inc.), has been providing music lovers with new tunes for years now.

Recently, the site announced that it will soon be launching RCRD Deals, a joint venture with Topspin Media that will offer limited-time retail offers at pricing to exclusive music products and experiences. The service has yet to launch, but we’ll be keeping an eye on our inbox until that day arrives.

Images courtesy of Flickr, Pete Prodoehl, KanyaRae, Orin Zebest, vvvracer, Kashirin Nickolai

More About: 1band1brand, deals, groopease, group buying, hello-music, List, Lists, music, popmarket, rcrd-lbl, Topspin

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Look what the sun’s been up to over the past year. This spectacular highlight reel of videos shot by NASA‘s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) commemorates the year anniversary of when NASA revealed the first images taken by the spacecraft.

Over the past year, the sun has gone from one of the most docile periods in many years to the point where you might say that all hell is breaking loose. That’s what makes this video so compelling. Says NASA:

The Solar Dynamics Observatory mission has returned unprecedented images of solar flares, eruptions of prominences, and the early stages of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In this video are some of the most beautiful, interesting, and mesmerizing events seen by SDO during its first year.

To get an idea of the scale we’re talking about, take a look at this:

When you look at a video of the sun, you’re looking at the origin of all life. As Carl Sagan told us, “The Earth — and every living thing — are made of star stuff.”

Can’t get enough sun gazing? Go to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory site, where you can see the way the sun looks right now.

Video and picture courtesy NASA

More About: Carl Sagan, NASA, SDO, solar dynamics Observatory, solar flares, video

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“Twitter is staying in San Francisco and has signed a lease to move our headquarters to Market Square, a historic building in San Francisco's Central Market neighborhood that is being managed by our new partner and landlord, Shorenstein Properties,” Twitter’s head of communication Sean Garrett announced on the company’s blog.

For the last few months, the City of San Francisco and Twitter have been at odds over the city’s 1.5% payroll tax. San Francisco is the only city that has a business tax based on how much the company pays workers (including stock options), rather than simply taxing the company’s income. The result is that Twitter would have to pay millions more to the city — a charge it could avoid by moving a few miles south or east.

Earlier this month though, the city voted to create a tax break zone in the central market district of San Francisco, an underdeveloped part of the city’s main drag with high vacancy rates. The city is hoping that Twitter (and other tech companies such as Zynga) can spark development and attract new tenants to the area.

With the prospect of losing one of its most prominent companies, San Francisco did everything it could to keep the growing social media company within its city limits. The deal also brings fresh money and blood to an area of the city that desperately needs it.

Twitter doesn’t have a timeline for its relocation from its SOMA offices, but the company does expect to be fully relocated by mid-2012.

Image courtesy of Flickr, mischiru

More About: San Francisco-San Jose, taxes, twitter

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According to the report, computer servers in data centers account for about 2% of global energy demand and are growing their energy consumption at a rate of about 12% per year. About half of the companies studied, which include Google, Facebook and Apple, used coal to meet 50% to 80% of their energy needs instead of renewable energy resources like wind and solar.

“Many IT brands at the vanguard of this 21st century technological shift are perpetuating our addiction to dirty energy technologies of the last two centuries,” reads the report’s executive summary. “Whereas the factories of the Industrial Revolution got us into a mess by burning coal and releasing carbon pollution into the atmosphere, the factories of the Technology Revolution have the ability to make use of better energy choices.”

Greenpeace admits that the impact of data center power use is hard to measure, as the same centers enable reduction of energy inefficiencies like CDs, paper media and commuting. The companies mentioned are also hesitant to release information about their energy use, and Greenpeace calculated “clean energy index” and “coal intensity” based on estimates of power demand for evaluated facilities.

No company received high marks on Greenpeace’s chart (nor, we suspect, would major companies in any industry), but many are making efforts to reduce dependence on coal. Google, for instance, recently signed a 20-year power purchasing agreement with a wind energy company for its Oklahoma data center, and Microsoft recently announced an agreement to buy wind energy for its Dublin data center.

More About: apple, coal, earth day, environment, facebook, Google, greenpeace, microsoft, solar, twitter, wind, Yahoo

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Why would somebody want to subscribe to a piece of hardware? The monthly fee will include hardware refreshes as they’re released, as well as a replacement warranty as long as the subscription lasts, according to Neowin.net. There were no further details about the duration of those subscriptions or plans associated with them.

If you don’t like the idea of a subscription, according to Neowin’s source, Google will also offer the laptops for a flat fee. All the laptops will be distributed by third parties, the source said — similar to the way Android works now.

It’s not clear which hardware will be used in this deal, but we expect it to be similar to the CR-48 Chrome OS notebook we tested late last year as part of Google’s pilot program. That program was finished in March when Google stopped shipping the test laptops.

When announcing the end of the pilot program in March, Google VP of product management Sundar Pichai told Mashable that the first Chrome OS devices will go on sale this summer. Neowin’s report matches that, narrowing down that ship date to late June or early July.

If Google’s subscription laptop is anything like the CR-48 we tried last fall, it’ll boot up unusually quickly — we noticed it was ready to use in less than 10 seconds. Beyond that, it’s a rather plain and nondescript laptop that runs the Chrome OS quite well, fast enough for most web browsing activities.

Would you be interested in subscribing to a laptop? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Chrome OS, CR-48 notebook, gadgets, Google, google chrome os, laptop

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So we became curious about how large the potential market is. Today’s flash poll will attempt to get to the bottom of the issue. After reading about stand-up desk options, are you ready to try one out? Or do you think this is a silly fad?

Make your voice heard by voting in the poll below and joining the debate in the comments. Also: If you use a stand-up desk, please send your picture to news@mashable.com. If we get enough responses, we’ll post a gallery of your pictures.

More About: office furniture, stand-up desks

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Eighty-three percent of startups said they are likely to hire in 2011, according to the Startup Outlook 2011 [PDF] report released Friday by investment firm Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The percentage represents a 10% jump over last year, when 73% of surveyed companies reported they would likely hire.

SVB, by way of independent market research firm Koski Research, surveyed 375 venture capital-backed U.S. startups in February and found that most startups are optimistic about business conditions and are looking to hire to support growth.

“This new data … shows that technology companies met or beat their 2010 revenue targets, are still experiencing improved business conditions and are creating U.S. jobs,” says Greg Becker, CEO of SVB Financial Group and Silicon Valley Bank. “There is no question that the innovation sector is making a tangible impact on the U.S. economy and our ability to compete globally.”

The Startup Outlook report also includes data on overall startup performance and potential obstacles.

Twenty-three percent of startups exceeded their 2010 revenue, for instance. Still, respondents identified access to equity capital as the number one challenge — 39% of respondents reported that difficulty securing financing is handicapping their business success. Thirty-one percent of companies also expressed concern over the U.S. regulatory and political environment.

Even though 83% of companies are looking to hire, more than 25% are having difficulty finding the right talent.

Regardless, the survey’s findings suggest that the outlook is bright for America’s youngest companies.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Zach Klein

More About: employment, hiring, jobs, report, silicon valley bank, startups

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What is it about PowerPoint that inspires us to mash together discordant colors with an abundance of text to produce the most hideous slides imaginable? We may never know the answer, but at least we now have a reason to celebrate the worst that ever was.

InFocus, makers of projectors that shine a light on PowerPoint abominations everywhere, is seeking the worst PowerPoint slide ever made in its “What Not to Present” contest. The company is soliciting submissions via Twitter and will reward the entrant who submits the most repulsive slide with a free projector (which sounds like a very dangerous gift).

“People everywhere are presenting bad PowerPoint slides… and some of them are probably using InFocus technology to do it (we're sorry). Well, InFocus can't take it anymore!” a company representative tells us.

The competition runs through May 6 and all entries must submitted via Twitter as replies to the InFocusCorp Twitter account.

Having seen more than our share of eye-bleedingly bad presentations, we can’t possibly fathom just how much of an eye sore the eventual winner will need to be.

Image courtesy of TwitPic, bluecollartweet

More About: infocus, MARKETING, powerpoint, twitter contest

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But if you like zooming in on your subjects, you’re out of luck.

Fuji first showed off the X100 at September’s Photokina trade show, and many gadget and camera lovers immediately fell in love with the retro stylings and promising internals. The camera was supposed to make its debut in March, and a few units did manage to get to customers. But the Japan earthquake temporarily stalled production.

There are a lot of cameras that have adopted the retro appearances of the Canon, Minolta and Leica setups from the 1970s. What makes the X100 stand out is the combination of a high-end full-sized SLR sensor inside a compact body, along with a fixed lens.

Leica and Sigma have also entered the fixed-lens, large-sensor arena. But the X100 is less expensive than the Leica and has some very interesting features all its own.

Case in point: the hybrid viewfinder. This not only gives photographers who love an optical viewfinder the direct view that they love, it also adds a high-resolution electronic viewfinder. There is even a mode that will fuse the two together.

The camera can also shoot high-definition video — one of the reasons why The New York Times‘ David Pogue describes it as “a portrait-taking masterpiece, a nonzooming throwback, a brilliant combination of old and new.”

CNET gives the camera four out of five stars, but notes that the menu system is confusing and the battery life is less than optimal. Our favorite photo review site, DPreview, took an early look at a prototype X100 in January. The preliminary options looked good.

The camera might not fit the budget of every retro-loving photographer, but for rangefinder or fixed-lens enthusiasts, it might just fit the bill.

I’m a big fan of the micro four-thirds lens system, but the camera geek inside of me yearns to handle an X100. What do you think of the fashion for making modern cameras look and feel more like the film cameras of the past? Let us know in the comments.

Photo courtesy of DPreview

More About: cameras, fuji, fuji x100, photography, retro

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For decades, the decision to be an environmentally and socially responsible company has been based on the bottom line: Would it be profitable? In general, companies have crunched the numbers and chosen shareholder profits over a sufficient commitment to invest in greater social responsibility. In terms of traditional accounting and the legal requirements of corporations, costs always outweighed benefits.

But it now seems that this equation is starting to lean the other way as brands recognize the potential financial and reputational advantages they can gain by engaging with consumers around the shared ambition of building a better world. We can see this already happening among some leading brands such as Pepsi, Google, Nike, Patagonia and Starbucks, who have all earned consumer respect for their involvement in some area of environmental or social responsibility related to their business.

How did this come about? In large part, it is because the payoff for corporate engagement with customers has risen dramatically as a result of social media. The new dynamics between brands and consumers, driven by social media, are proving to be a powerful impetus for change.

It begins with brands recognizing that, in the future, they must position themselves to win customers by offering them a vision of a better world and inviting them to help achieve it by co-creating the brand's story. As the brand's customers become loyal fans, they use their social networks to spread the word about that brand, driving even more new fans to join in. This dynamic may have its initial upfront costs, but it pays off in the end through an extended global audience of buyers and fans.

Transforming a brand into a socially responsible leader doesn't happen overnight by simply writing new marketing and advertising strategies. It takes effort to identify a vision that your customers will find credible and aligned with their values. The company must learn how to engage its consumers with authenticity and transparency, using social media to create a meaningful dialogue. Finally, it must beat back the forces resisting change, including opponents among shareholders and management fighting to preserve short-term rewards for themselves.

The Seven Stages

The process of becoming a brand leader in the next decades will be an evolutionary one involving at least seven stages. Each stage is defined by its unique leadership style, brand vision, social media commitment and level of engagement with the brand's customer base:

• Unsustainable corporate self-interest: This is where most organizations sit today. They donate to philanthropy or practice some type of cause marketing but they largely define their success in terms of monetary returns for shareholders.
• Self-directed engagement: A growing number of organizations are moving up to this stage, recognizing that changing their social responsibility profile can earn benefits. But most of their outreach efforts at this stage are still done for image management in the public eye. They are still motivated mostly by self-interest and the desire to avoid bad publicity.
• C-suite reflection: In this stage, the corporate leaders of the brand begin to reflect deeply on their vision for the brand. A few leaders among them will put together a proposal for the company's future based on fulfilling greater social responsibility benchmarks.
• Consumer facing self-interest: At this stage, the brand begins moving toward an authentic commitment to socially responsible behavior. However, it still fails to make all of its consumer-facing outreach consistent. As a result, consumers (and employees) often experience a disconnection between what the company says it stands for and its actions, including its supply chain and the products and services it offers.
• Self-directed reform: Here, a brand examines the details of its mandate — its core values, purpose and consistency of its messaging. It starts making serious changes such as changing suppliers, imposing strict ethical standards and hiring new leadership to reformulate its vision. These changes are mostly unseen by the public.
• Brand leader: At this stage, the corporation embraces the need to share stewardship of their brand with their consumers. It recognizes the need to be transparent, accountable, and authentic. The brand endeavors to become a pacesetter for others in its socially responsible behavior. Its employees rank it as a great place to work, watchdog groups give it high marks as a responsible company, and consumers hold it up as a leading purveyor of positive social impact, by talking about the brand in their blog posts, tweets, and across their social networks.
• Brand visionary: In this final stage, the brand is well respected for carrying a strong, long-term vision of a better world that it seeks to bring to fruition. It quiets shareholders who clamor only for short-term profits. It conducts a regular dialogue with its consumers, who willingly co-create the brand's story, while being loyal fans of the brand and driving its profits. In achieving this brand visionary status, its customers form a global synaptic network that is always in support not just of its products but also the core values of the brand, which become meaningful in their lives.

---

The opportunity for many of today's companies to become true socially responsible brand visionaries is available, but only if they want it, and ask their customers for help. Indeed, if we consider the online reach of companies like Facebook and Twitter, the offline reach of companies like Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Coca-Cola and Walmart, and the fervent consumer loyalty that companies like Apple, Nike and Patagonia inspire, it's easy to imagine how a web- and social-savvy population could coerce these companies — and any others who want to follow their example — into becoming the leading global brand visionaries of the future.

---

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



Image courtesy of iStockphoto, clu

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The purpose of the seven-minute video is to spell out the security, data protection and server reliability protocols Google follows in order to protect its enterprise customers from harm. The narrator points out, for example, that Google builds its own custom server technology and develops its own secure Linux OS to run its centers.

The video places emphasis on the data centers’ physical security. Google utilizes restricted barriers, security fencing, video cameras, security guards and biometric scanners to prevent unauthorized access. The video even features tools such as “the crusher” and “the shredder,” both of which are designed to completely destroy old hard drives so nobody can ever access customer data.

Many parties have been giving more scrutiny to Google’s security protocols in recent years as the company ramps up its Google Apps business. The search giant was the target of Chinese hackers early last year, an event that has scared off potential Google Apps customers such as Yale University. The attacks also forced Google to abandon Windows.

Will this video help repair Google’s reputation in security? The technology titan certainly hopes so. Here’s the video for your enjoyment:

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Here’s the tiniest media player we’ve seen — and it doesn’t skimp on features. Plug your external storage device into one side of the palm-sized Crystal Acoustics PicoHD-5.1 player, and out the other side comes full HD video in glorious 1080p.

At first glance, you might think this diminutive digital device (2.95″ x 2.5″ x .59″) can’t do much. In fact, it plays a remarkable variety of file formats, including the usual suspects (DivX, XviD, .AVI, M2TS, and WMV9, MPEG-1/2/4, .FLV). It can also handle the Matroska format, otherwise known as .MKV, a favorite of pirates. It’s equally adept at handling audio files (including FLAC, MP3, .OGG, .WMA and WAV formats).

You can plug your SD, SDHC and MMC cards into the front, or simply connect any USB drive. Then you hook up its HDMI port into your TV or receiver. There’s a multichannel 5.1 digital coax audio port in case you want to feed your audio separately to a 5.1 receiver.

The company doesn’t show the user interface its little player will use to find those videos and play them on your system. But whatever it is, it’s controlled by a remote, included. If you have a universal remote control, you can program its commands into that and have a complete setup for playing digital files on your HDTV. And it’s so tiny you might be tempted to take it with you on your next road-warrior adventure.

Available in the coming weeks, according to the Crystal Acoustics website, the PicoHD-5.1 is available in three models for different regions, with the U.S. model selling for $83.

Crystal Acoustics PicoHD-5.1

In the back, there's an HDMI port, coaxial digital audio and DC power.

With Remote

It includes a remote control.

Front View

Up front, there's a USB port on the left and a slot for SD, SDHC and MMC cards on the right.

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It’s like a rumor wrapped in a murmuring wrapped in a “someone told me that someone told him.” And we doubt that it’s true.

CNET cites “a source with knowledge of the talks” as saying Google has informed labels that it recently started discussions with Spotify.

Our own sources, however, inform us that there’s no truth to this rumor. Still, we can see why it would make sense. The other week, we reported that Google’s long-awaited (and rumored, although much-leaked) cloud-based music service had run into roadblocks, namely negotiations with labels.

Many speculated that Google would launch a stripped-down version of its offering in the form of a music locker, much like Amazon’s Cloud Player (which the company introduced sans licenses).

Spotify, a European streaming service, has for a while now been making an effort to come to the U.S. Although there have been several rumors that Spotify is close to making it stateside, the company has not confirmed any of the speculation.

The only thing we know for sure — from the horse’s mouth, one could say — is that Spotify has begun limiting access to free music. Unfettered access to free music (supported by ads) was reportedly a feature not wholly attractive to labels, so this move indicates that the app is on its way to the U.S.

Still, we’re not convinced that it will do so on the arm of Google, despite what sundry sources say. Google Music is apparently pretty far along in terms of development; the company has reportedly begun testing it internally and certainly has the power to launch a music service on its own.

Yes, some discussions may have occurred. That makes sense considering the (alleged) fact that Google tried to buy group deals site Groupon. Still, that deal never went through, and Google launched its own product, anyway, Google Offers.

It’s not as if Google needs Spotify to launch its service. And Spotify — if we’re to believe any of the aforementioned whispers — will likely make it to the U.S. eventually.

Whatever the truth of the matter, there’s a big old cloud-filled pot astir at the moment. Add to this melange of whispers the recent report that Apple may soon release its own rumored cloud-based music service, and you have one interesting (although shady) situation.

As music subscription services have become more common in the past few years, pundits have wondered whether the idea would find legitimacy among consumers (and profitability among developers) if Apple or Google launched their own products.

Many have lauded Spotify as the most intriguing of the current offerings — although MOG and Rdio are admirable competitors — and looked upon its stateside debut as some kind of deus ex machina for the ailing music industry. We’re intrigued to see what truth emerges from this swirling fog of rumors.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Aidan Jones

More About: google music, music, spotify

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PRO TIP: You may not want to check in everywhere you go.

Mashable Comics are illustrated every week by Kiersten Essenpreis, a New York-based artist who draws and blogs at YouFail.com.

More Mashable Comics:

- Tech Cereal: Part of a Connected Breakfast
- Technical Difficulties: The Eternal Annoyance
- Top 5 Comics From the Mashable Caption Contest
- HOW TO: Survive Those Awkward Online Moments
- Pitching 101

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Visibli analyzed more than 200 million Facebook users in February and March and tracked their engagement across various Fan Pages. Looking at the data, Audi was found to have the most-engaged fans out there — at least among pages with more than 100,000 "Likes." For each status update, the automaker got more than 225 "Likes" per 100,000 fans, which bested even Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.

It’s not clear why Audi’s Page scored so high although the brand is currently Like-gating a video and may have Like-gated other media to increase such engagement. Saif Ajani, CEO and co-founder of Visibli, says he doesn't know why Audi came off so well. "We're trying to find out ourselves," he says. An Audi rep says he hasn’t seen the study and is declining comment for the moment. The only other brand on the list was American Airlines. (See chart below.)

The study also revealed that, for brands and media companies, more fans leads to less overall engagement, but for artists, the opposite is true. On average, artists get 92 "Likes" per post, which is almost twice what brands and media companies get. On the other hand, media organizations get more comments per post (43 is the average) than artists (17) or brands (9). Ajani speculates that fans of artists might be more likely to have friends who are into similar music. "If you like John Legend and I see that, I might jump on [to the conversation] as well," Ajani says. "If you like a CNN article, I might be less inclined."

Finally, the study found shelf-life of a status update seems to be about a day. Within the first seven hours, a Facebook post gets about 80% of all the "Likes" it's going to get. By 22 hours, it's gotten 95% of all its "Likes." That, at least, is better than the lifespan of a tweet. According to a recent study by Sysomos, 96.9% of replies to a tweet happen in the first hour.

Visibili's report comes after Buddy Media recently looked at best practices in Facebook staus updates and discovered that posts on Thursdays and Fridays performed best, and posts of 80 characters or less got 27% more engagement than those that were more than 80 characters.

Image courtesy of US Time News

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All told, we haven’t been so great to Mother Earth, which is why international touching points like Earth Day are so important. Today should be a celebration of the planet but also a starting point for treating it better through the rest of the year. That’s the real challenge with events like this: what we continue to do after the celebration. Thankfully, a ton of organizations have rallied around Earth Day with some unique ways to celebrate and support using social media.

Below, you’ll find a sample of some interesting ways to celebrate Earth Day online. As always, there are thousands more worthy campaigns — let us know about them in the comments below and share what you’ll be doing today.

How You Can Help

Online money collection site WePay is giving $500 to a “green” organization or Earth-loving person who sets up a donation page during this week via their Earth Day page.

Disney’s new eco-movie, African Cats, will be giving a portion of their proceeds for this coming week’s ticket sales. The money will be donated to the African Wildlife Foundation through the Disney Worldwide Conservation. It will go toward protecting some of the animals and ecosystems featured in the film, including the Amboseli Wildlife Corridor, an important natural passageway between African national parks.

Even Aveda is jumping into the mix. The hair and skin-care company has set up a campaign on Facebook allowing users to check in to their H2O Facebook Tab to help raise $4 million for Global Greengrants Fund supporting long-term recovery and rebuilding in Japan. Each virtual checkin — via an array of social sites including Foursquare — will add $1 to the donation pot. Those checkins are then visually displayed on a heatmap within the application.

The Earth Day Network continues to build its “A Billion Acts of Green” campaign. The goal of the site is to inspire 1 billion acts of environmental activism by the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012. Users can submit pledges for their own acts or scroll through some of the more than 100 million acts already posted.

Meebo, a web platform for online sharing, is donating $1 for every user who checks in to charitywater.org to help fund charity: water’s mission to improve water sanitation in developing nations. They will donate up to $20,000 for checkins ending April 22.

Professional sports have also thrown their hat(s) into the ring. The National Hockey League has long made green issues a key cause. There’s a whole page of how your favorite team is supporting Earth Day or environmental causes throughout the year. Stand outs include Atlanta, whose stadium became the first LEED certified facility in 2009. This year, Atlanta players wore “Follow our LEED” decals during their game on April 8. The Rangers held a “Go Green” event on April 1 to help transform an old fitness center into an eco-friendly computer lab for youths.

Major League Baseball showed its support in a variety of ways too. The Indians and Twins will wear green hats this Friday to show their support, the Reds will host an e-waste drive, and the Pirates will an energy-free day at PNC Park.

Fashioning Change is a site that helps everyday consumers make greener shopping choices. The site offers green living information while suggesting product alternatives that are better for the planet.

Starbucks has launched a Facebook campaign to reduce the amount of waste caused by discarded cups. Starbucks is giving out free coffee for anyone who brings in a refillable mug. Starbucks is also encouraging customers to post a picture of a travel mug as their Facebook profile in support of Earth Day and reducing waste. Users who don’t have a photograph of a travel mug on hand can use pre-loaded images of Starbucks-branded alternatives.

Good old Google has come up with another pretty Doodle for you to look at featuring all manner of interactive fauna and flora. Scrolling over the different sections will trigger animations like pandas rolling around or pandas jumping into water.

It wouldn’t be Earth Day without a laugh or two. Below are videos from the Roots and Sesame Street:

Image courtesy of Flickr, CarbonNYC

More About: charity, earth day, earth day 2011, earth week, environment, non-profit, social good, social media

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Samsung said it filed a suit April 21 in the Seoul Central District Court, Korea against Apple Inc., citing five patent infringements.

Samsung also filed separate lawsuits in Tokyo, Japan, and Manheim, Germany, claiming additional infringements. Samsung’s statement said, “Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business.”

Former Engadget editor and copyright attorney Nilay Patel broke down Apple’s case against Samsung in an in-depth analysis earlier this week. His analysis is worth a read.

We often joke about the ridiculous nature of some of these patent lawsuits, but to quote Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, “this is just getting downright comical.”

The tragic part of all of this is that if Bilski has taught us anything, a court ruling may only make the situation more complicated, not less.

More About: apple, copyright infringement, lawsuits, patent lawsuit theater, patents, samsung

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Sony was targeted by Anonymous after it filed a lawsuit against George Hotz, a 21-year-old hacker who unlocked the PlayStation 3′s operating system. In Sony's original blog post about Friday's outage, the company mentioned that an "outside party" might be responsible. That post has since been changed.

A recent post on the Anonymous’s Facebook Page seems to take credit for the outage.

“Take a break from online gaming for a while…..it will help your skills, your health, and your emotional levels, which by the way are a bit out of order if they are being shackled by the PSN being down,” it says. “We have no qualms about our actions, even though it may affect fellow anonymous or supporters… we hope they understand the bigger picture.”

However, the organization denies involvement on its website, posting an announcement with the headline, “For Once We Didn’t Do It.”

“While it could be the case that other Anons have acted by themselves, AnonOps was not related to this incident,” it says.

The PlayStation outage affects 70 million registered PlayStation 3 and PSP users who use the cloud-based network to access downloadable games, movies and other media. It also connects players for multi-player games like Call of Duty. In a blog post, Sony said that it might be a full day or two before service is restored.

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National Geographic Entertainment will be bringing the Ridley Scott-produced, Kevin Macdonald-directed release to U.S. theaters on July 24, the first anniversary of the day the film was shot, according to The Official YouTube Blog. International release dates have not been set yet.

YouTube offered its first glimpse of the doc in early January, and the movie premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival later that month. The film is YouTube's first experiment in a user-generated feature. Users submitted some 80,000 films shot last year on that date from which Scott and Macdonald have crafted a 90-minute movie.

To see the preview of the film, check out the video below:

More About: life in a day, sundance film festival, youtube

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Writing on the bathroom wall is so 10 years ago — the new hotness is, it seems, scrawling across one’s city using GPS. Or that’s the impression we get from a video out this week courtesy of YouTube darlings OK Go and the Range Rover Evoque app.

In November, viral video masters OK Go teamed up with Range Rover in the Evoque Pulse of the City project, in which they set out to create a huge "OK Go" sign, written in GPS across their hometown city of L.A. They used the Range Rover Pulse of the City app [iTunes link] to do the scrawling.

The project, and ensuing video for song “Back From Kathmandu,” garnered them tons of attention, as well as a MTV OMA nomination for Most Innovative Music Video.

At the time, OK Go also asked fans to create their own GPS-etched journeys, which have been compiled and edited by into the above video. Seems a fitting vid to feature on Earth Day.

This isn’t the first time a person has created GPS-spun art. This past summer, literature lover Nick Newcomen drove 12,328 miles across 30 U.S. states to scrawl "Read Ayn Rand" via GPS data inputted into Google Earth.

Image courtesy of Big Hassle Media

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At least, that's the gist of a few articles that have made the rounds recently. A particularly popular article in Men's Health cited a study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that will make any desk jockey wince. Examining the lifestyles of more than 17,000 men and women over 13 years, the report found those who sit for most of the day were 54% more likely to die of heart attacks. According to Men’s Health, that statistic was true even if the people in the study were nonsmokers and regular exercisers.

Another report cited in a recent New York Times Magazine story tracked 123,000 Americans and found the death rate for those who spent six or more hours a day sitting was 20% higher than for men who sat for three hours or less. For women, the difference was 40%. No one’s really sure exactly why that’s the case. You certainly burn fewer calories sitting than you do standing and moving around, but weight gain isn’t necessarily the primary reason that sitting is so bad for you.

If you're like me, you've read those articles and wondered, "OK, what's the alternative?" Aside from switching occupations (maybe it’s time to brush up on those dormant lumberjacking skills), your best bet might be a standup desk. Right now, such desks are tiny niche in the market, but, thanks to those recent articles, things are picking up.

Jim Gattuso, who owns the domain name standupdesks.com, says that traffic to his site has quadrupled in recent weeks. Up until now, though, he had done a pretty good business, mostly for people with back problems. Gattuso started his business about 17 years ago when he was suffering from back pain and was looking for a standup desk. He couldn't find one, so he contracted with a furniture maker in Ohio's Amish country. The furniture maker was willing to make a desk, but he had one stipulation: "If I wanted him to build me one, I'd have to have at least three pieces made." Gattuso kept two for himself and then decided to try to sell the other one on the Internet. It sold so fast that he realized there was a market for such things.

The cult of standup desks may be small, but proponents are vocal. Donald Rumsfeld is said to be a fan as is writer Philip Roth. Rob Schwartz, chief creative officer of ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, got a standup desk seven years ago because he heard Ernest Hemingway used one. "I figured, he's a pretty good writer, so maybe I could use one, too," Schwartz says. Physical issues didn't play a role in Schwartz's decision — he doesn't have a bad back and isn't worried that sitting all day will cause him to have a heart attack. "You get more done when you're standing up," Schwartz says. "When you're sitting, you're naturally recessive, you're receiving, when you're standing, you're ready to do something … I don't know. I used to be a bartender, so maybe that has something to do with it."

Jon Paulsen, CEO of The Human Solution, which sells ergonomic office furniture, says that, despite the hype, a sit-down desk won't kill you. "[Sitting is] not necessarily a bad thing, but doing anything for eight hours a day is bad," he says. Paulsen, a certified ergonomist, recommends an electronic retractable desk, which can help you easily go from a sitting to a standing position. Desks with adjustable cranks provide too much of a barrier to going back and forth, he says. The important thing is to vary your routine. "It's a great way to change your posture up," he says. "As people get older, they find more benefits to moving around during the day."

Such solutions don't come cheaply. An electronic retractable desk will run you $1,000 to $2,000, but Paulsen says you can get "a real nice one" for $1,100 to $1,200. What if that's out of your reach at the moment? Paulsen says make a point of getting up every half hour or so and walk around. "It's good to take microbreaks," he says. Such advice may be hard to follow, but, as any stand-up desk evangelist will attest, it’s better to look weird than to die young.

For a look at some standup desks, click on the gallery below.

Rob Schwartz's office, replete with stand-up desk.

The chief creative officer of TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles was influenced by Ernest Hemingway's fondness for stand-up desks.

The Sis Move! electronic height adjustable desk from The Human Solution

This desk can hold up to 150 lbs on its surface and retails for $965.

The Sis Surf2 electronic height-adjustable workstation from The Human Solution

The surface height on this model ranges from 22" to 48" and can hold up to 450 lbs. It retails for $1959.

The Mayline VariTask E-Series with DataCenter Keyboard Mechanism from The Human Solution

This model, which retails for $1,222.72, is designed to address ergonomic issues related to standing and to typing.

Key West Stand Up Writing Desk

This model's name, from Standupdesks.com, alludes to Ernest Hemingway's use of a standup desk. Like Standupdesk.com's other models, it is not retractable. Price: $1,395 and up.

The Executive Stand-up Desk

Another model from Standupdesks.com. The company makes a range of sizes for people 4' 10" to 6' 6". This model starts at around $2,000.

A stand-up desk in action.

Will this scene become the norm someday?

More About: business, lifestyle, office, office furniture, tech, trending

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Amazon-Hosted Sites Somewhat Recovered

While two of Amazon’s major AWS servers are still down, causing downtime and latency issues with several big sites, most — including the ones that host HootSuite, Reddit and Foursquare — are running normally at this time.

Google’s Groupon Competitor Goes Live

Google Offers, the company's long-awaited response to Groupon, has gone live with a signup for beta program in Portland, Oregon.

Apple May Beat Google to Market With Cloud Music Service

According to reports, Apple is almost ready to release a cloud-based music storage service compatible with iTunes.

Further News

• Zynga and Lady Gaga are in talks to promote the singer’s upcoming album to Zynga’s huge userbase, the WSJ reports [subscription required].
• New Verizon customers can pick up a HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon's first LTE phone, for the reduced price of $129.99 at Amazon this weekend.
• Investors have established the first investment vehicle dedicated to Android-focused startups and developers called the A-Fund.
• The Facebook “Like” Button is celebrating its first birthday. Don’t we feel old.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

More About: amazon, apple, first to know series, Google

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