Mashable: Latest 27 News Updates - including “Jewelry Site Plukka Turns Group Buying On Its Head” |
- Jewelry Site Plukka Turns Group Buying On Its Head
- Leaked Twitter Subpoena Raises Online Privacy Issues
- How Mobile Games Are Sports Stars’ Newest Marketing Channel
- Google Activates 3.7 Million Android Devices on Christmas Weekend [VIDEO]
- 13 Location-Based Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs
- Man Uses Google+ Game to Propose to Girlfriend [VIDEO]
- Klout CEO Reveals How to Leverage Score for Fame, Fortune, Perks
- Occupy Facebook: Social Network for Protesters in the Works
- Osama bin Laden’s Death is AOL’s Top Story of 2011
- Facebook Timeline Headed to iPad in January [VIDEO]
- Social Network for Robots Lets You Talk to Your Roomba
- Amazon Wins, Netflix Loses in Holiday Satisfaction Study [VIDEO]
- New York Times, Not Hackers, Accidentally Spams Its Readers
- 6 Important Startup Trends that Defined 2011
- ‘WTF?! I Wanted an iPhone!’ Entitled Christmas Tweets Put to Music [VIDEO]
- Amazon Goes Social Shopping: What Quorus Hires Mean
- 3 Ways Taste Graphs will Fuel Social Commerce in 2012
- Pirates Like Vin Diesel: Top 10 Illegally Shared Movies of 2011
- How Many Emails Did You Handle in 2011? This App Knows All
- Want to Build a New App? There’s an App for That
- How iJustine Became a YouTube Mogul [VIDEO]
- Celebrate the Mashable Awards Winners at MashBash During CES
- Was the White House’s #40dollars Campaign Successful?
- Raspberry Pi, a Tiny But Powerful $25 PC, Coming Soon [VIDEO]
- So You Got a Nook Tablet? Tips for New Users
- iPhone 5 Rumors Start Heating Up [VIDEO]
- Circa Promises Different, ‘Beautiful’ News Reading Experience
- 6 Game-Changing Digital Journalism Events of 2011
| Jewelry Site Plukka Turns Group Buying On Its Head Posted: 28 Dec 2011 07:39 PM PST      The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Plukka Quick Pitch: Social shopping with a group buying twist — more jewelry buyers means a lower price for everyone. Genius Idea: Applying the group-buying model to the manufacturing process, not just the final product.
Plukka founder Joanne Ooi says that its test-demand-before-you-create-supply model means that the designs are riskier and more creative, since the company isn’t investing in manufacturing until sales are locked in. Traditional jewelry designers have to predict trends and hope people will like the designs — Plukka knows there’s interest before the gold is melted down. The jewels are designed by Plukka’s in-house team, but the spring collection will feature collaborations with fashion bloggers, too. Because manufacturing cost-per-unit drops as the number of units increases, the site can pass the production savings onto the consumer, thus making high-end jewelry more affordable. Plukka’s patent-pending sliding scale calculator determines how the price should lower as more people purchase the item — and everyone gets the same final price. The minimum is around 25 units, and if that threshold isn’t met, the item isn’t manufactured — so there’s no unwanted inventory lying around. Plukka’s tagline is “what we make is what you want,” and its business model reflects that.  And unlike Gilt and other sites, where you only reap the benefits of a referral if the person makes a purchase, Plukka offers 10% for the mere act of referring five friends to a particular sale, and then another 10% off for each friend who buys the item (the discount maxes out at 40%). Plukka hopes to have a mobile app on the market by the end of 2012. 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, mashable For more Business coverage:
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| Leaked Twitter Subpoena Raises Online Privacy Issues Posted: 28 Dec 2011 07:06 PM PST   The leaked subpoena sent to Twitter this month by the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office in Boston is causing some hoopla on the web and raising the issue of law enforcement’s access to online personal data. On Dec. 14, the D.A.’s Office issued a subpoena to Twitter in order to access the account information of two users who tweeted a list of personal information they allegedly obtained by hacking into the Boston Police Patrolmens’ Association. The hackers stole identifying information and Tweeted it to followers. The subpoena requests “available subscriber information, for the account or accounts associated with the following information, including IP address logs for account creation.” In the subpoena, assistant D.A. Benjamin A. Goldberger requests that the investigation be kept from the Twitter users as to not impede the ongoing probe. But the information was leaked. We reached out to Twitter for comment, but have yet to hear back. On Dec. 23 one of the accounts under investigation, @p0isAn0N Tweeted, “Haha. Boston PD submitted to Twitter for my information. Lololol? For what? Posting info pulled from public domains? #comeatmebro.” The D.A.’s office requested details of two Twitter users and also listed the name Guido Fawkes, which is the name but not handle listed for one of the accounts under investigation, as well as the hashtags #BostonPD and #d0xcak3. One of the accounts being probed is listed in the subpoena as @OccupyBoston, however that account appears to be inactive. It’s likely they meant @Occupy_Boston, which Tweets about the occupy movement. Targeting this account has lead some to speculate that the police are monitoring the online activity of occupy protestors. Twitter’s website contains an information section for law enforcement. It states that if a subpoena is issued for a user’s information, the company will inform that user before they hand the information to the authorities, unless it is prevented from doing so by court order or statute. According to its site, Twitter was following protocol by informing the user of the subpoena, and, perhaps later providing that user’s information to the Boston D.A. This isn’t the first time Twitter has been reluctant to hand-over user information to law enforcement. It’s possible Twitter does host some personal information about the owners of the accounts who tweeted the hacked materials. At the very least, it might have IP addresses. However, Twitter doesn’t verify identities or email addresses of its users, so using Twitter for detective work might be more harmful than helpful to an investigation, especially if the subpoena is leaked. We contacted the Boston District Attorney’s Office and are waiting for a reply. Do you think Twitter should surrender user information for hackers? Please tell us in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, eldh More About: legal, online privacy, Twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| How Mobile Games Are Sports Stars’ Newest Marketing Channel Posted: 28 Dec 2011 05:23 PM PST   Heads Up with Cristiano Ronaldo — a mobile game featuring the Portuguese soccer star — has already been a hit for parent company RockLive after less than a month in the iTunes App Store. Users have spent more than 225 million minutes playing the game since its launch on Dec. 4, according to RockLive co-founders John and Sam Shahidi. Last week it was the top-ranked game in the app store’s sports category. But Heads Up is just the latest in RockLive’s line of arcade-style iOS games based on celebrity athletes, and the company is spearheading an emerging industry that is putting a new twist on how athletes market themselves across mobile platforms. In November 2010, RockLive released Mad Chad, featuring popular NFL player Chad Ochocinco, and followed that this March with Mike Tyson: Main Event. Titles featuring NBA scoring champion Kevin Durant and Olympic star Usain Bolt are planned for 2012. “Because we did such a great job with Chad and Mike — and now that Cristiano’s game has had this great appeal — a lot of celebrities are saying, ‘I’ve done a great job with Twitter, but now what?” John Shahidi says. “Well, now they want mobile games.” RockLive’s games don’t adhere to the realistic simulations that are the basis for most sports games. In Mad Chad, which has gained more than a million users, players help a cartoon version of Ochocinco find a lost pet pigeon. In Main Event, which has gained more than two million users, players box cartoon versions of celebrities including Tyson and DJ Pauly D. Similarly, Heads Up features a cartoon Ronaldo who bounces colorful soccer balls off of his head to gain points. But Heads Up also represents an important step forward for RockLive, its founders say, with the new game having already generated more revenue than Mad Chad and Main Event combined. RockLive also released a full social platform with Heads Up, allowing users to compete against Twitter and Facebook connections, create a gaming profile and browse a public leader board. An API for third-party developers is planned to debut in 2012. Among all Heads Up users, the Shahidis say, some 30% of time spent with the app is devoted to its social elements. John and Sam first met Ochocinco when he was an NFL teammate of two high school friends of theirs. The brothers began helping manage Ochocinco’s social media presence (they currently do the same for more than 10 sports personalities) and soon developed an Ochocinco iPhone app. Before long they moved on to mobile games, starting with Mad Chad, in an effort to create a more use-heavy marketing product for athletes. “It’s been crazy ever since,” John says. RockLive works closely with its athletes to develop games; Tyson helped design some of the characters in Main Event, while Ronaldo insisted on including his pet Golden Retriever in Heads Up. The immediate popularity of RockLive games has even enabled the Shahidis to be be picky about whom they choose to work with. “If someone isn’t interested in being closely involved in the process then we’re not interested in them, no matter who they are,” John says. The side-by-side relationships also help the company forsake traditional marketing efforts to instead promote products through stars’ robust social media followings. With Heads Up for example, Ronaldo’s immense popularity on Twitter (where he has more than 6 million followers) and Facebook (where he has more than 37 million likes) has been a boon for the app, which has gotten more than 50% of its users from outside the United States. And what’s good for RockLive’s games is good for the athletes the games are built around. “What we’re finding is athletes really want to get more eyeballs and build their followers online, because that’s where the world is going,” John says. “Games are a new way for them to expand their reach worldwide.” More About: cristiano ronaldo, mobile games, rocklive For more Business coverage:
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| Google Activates 3.7 Million Android Devices on Christmas Weekend [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 05:07 PM PST While Flurry Analytics found that 6.8 million Android and iOS devices were activated on Christmas Day, though, the company declined to outline how much share each platform got. But now Google svp Andy Rubin has shed a little bit more light on the issue. Rubin on Wednesday tweeted that 3.7 million Android devices were activated on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25. That’s a big jump over the 700,000 activations per day for Android that he had previously announced. Did you get an Android device for the holidays? Let us know in the comments. More About: android, Google, Holidays 2011, mashable video, Mobile, Newsy For more Mobile coverage:
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| 13 Location-Based Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs Posted: 28 Dec 2011 04:05 PM PST   Scott Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes youth entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment. The YEC provides young entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of a business’s development and growth. You want to deliver marketing content that packs a punch and drives sales, but you don't have a lot of money to spread around. You might want to consider geo-targeting, aka location-based marketing. Five years ago "checking in" was unheard of. Today people battle to be Duke or Mayor on sites like Yelp and Foursquare. Marketers, business owners and consumers agree, less area is more. Still, location-based marketing isn't about jumping on a bandwagon. After all, geo-targeting can be daunting, even for the web-savvy. Should I reward check-ins on Yelp, Foursquare or both? Where should I target my marketing efforts? How long before I can expect results? Check out these 13 tips for leveraging geo-targeting from successful, young entrepreneurs that have already tackled these questions, and more. 1. MarketMeSuite |
| Man Uses Google+ Game to Propose to Girlfriend [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 03:41 PM PST In what may be the first marriage proposal on Google+, a man asked his girlfriend to marry him on the network via the game Crime City. On the other hand, it could be just a clever marketing stunt. According to Funzio, the company behind the game, it went down like this: A player named Mihai (last name unknown) approached Funzio with the idea of using his crime-boss character to propose to his significant other Miruna, who also played the game. Crime City, being a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has in-game objects players can purchase, and the Funzio team hooked up our hero with a virtual engagement ring. They hatched the plan on Christmas Day. Once Mihai purchased the ring, it appeared in the game for both of them. When Miruna logged in, she found it in her inventory, and Mihai was ready to get down on his virtual knee. Miruna, clearly wanting a permanent partner in crime, said “Yes” right away. Or so Funzio’s story goes. The whole thing sounds a bit like a publicity grab, albeit a clever one. We’ve reached out to the company for more details, and Funzio is working on connecting us with the happy couple. The company did say that Mihai and Miruna are their real names. If it’s true, it may be the first marriage proposal on Google+ (the first serious one, anyway). Google hasn’t yet confirmed to Mashable that this is that case, but our cursory searches on the network came up dry (let us know in the comments if we’re wrong). In any case, it’s far from the first engagement via Google services, social media or other digital means. In 2008 Michael Weiss-Malik, Google employee and self-described “Silicon Valley geek,” proposed to girlfriend Leslie Moreno by using Google Street View. Weiss-Malik got several friends to pose in front of the Google Campus in Mountain View, Calif., with signs asking Moreno to marry him. Then he arranged for the Street View team to capture the image and upload it to the service. In January this year, Greg Hill proposed to girlfriend Dana Burck via Groupon. Hill arranged, with Groupon’s help, to have the service send her a customized deal email. A link directed her to a page with Hill’s proposal, where she clicked “Buy.” She was then given a congratulatory message telling her that she was unofficially obliged to marry him. There aren’t many social networks that haven’t been used by would-be romeos looking to get creative. StumbleUpon, Facebook and of course Twitter have all at times acted as “engagement platforms,” with even Mashable‘s own Christina Warren on the receiving end of a Twitter proposal (she said “yes”). What do you think of the way this couple used Crime City to seal the deal on their nuptials? And what about digital proposals in general? Share your thoughts in the comments, and browse the gallery below to see how one clever would-be groom used Google Maps to guide his girlfriend into becoming his fiancée. "Faigy & Ari's Engagement Route"  
Click here to view this gallery. More About: Google, mashable video, mmorpg, Newsy, Social Media
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| Klout CEO Reveals How to Leverage Score for Fame, Fortune, Perks Posted: 28 Dec 2011 03:36 PM PST   Klout is a hot-button issue in the social networking world, and it's a touchy subject for many. The two-year-old company— which provides social media analytics to measure a user's influence across social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – is no stranger to criticism. Klout’s model hinges on giving its members a number from one to 100 to determine the power of their influence on social networking sites. The analysis uses data taken from such sites and measures the size of a person's network, the content created and how other people interact with that content. Those who sign up for Klout or are connected to those who do are each given a “Klout score,” with higher scores corresponding to a greater strength of their online influence. In general, people either love or hate what the site stands for. But it seems as though it's those with lower Klout scores that detest the concept, while members with higher scores are reaping the benefits of the platform. Some have even gotten job offers, free products and gift certificates from companies that want to keep the Klout influencers on their radar. Obtaining a high Klout score is becoming more of something to strive for, with some even highlighting their number on resumes. “We believe that every person that creates content has influence,” Klout founder and CEO Joe Fernandez told Mashable. “The key to driving action in your networks is to consistently create content that your network engages with. It's simple — if you create interesting content that your network interacts with and shares, you will have a high Klout score.” Fernandez developed the concept after he had surgery and his mouth was wired shut for three months: "I had to completely rely on social media to communicate," Fernadez said. “The experience changed the way I looked at platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It was amazing to me that I could instantly tell who trusted my opinion most about anything, and that what I said impacted them.” "What was even more exciting was that the ability to influence people through word of mouth was finally scalable and that the data was all there to measure it," Fernandez added. Although Klout scores vary greatly across the site, he noted that the average score is about 20. Most consider a score above 30 to be reputable and a score above 50 to be elite. “If your score is less than that, it doesn't mean you're not influential,” Fernandez said. “We measure influence on a topic basis and it’s normal for a person to have low overall influence but high influence on a specific topic.” However, Fernandez noted that there are a lot of misconceptions about what one should or shouldn't do to influence a score. “One thing you should never be concerned about is interacting with people who have lower scores,” Fernandez said. “You are never penalized for connecting or engaging with someone with a low Klout score. In fact, this helps build their Klout score and in turn, makes you more of an influencer. All engagement positively contributes to your score.” So what are the real benefits of having a high Klout score? "Some people are starting to leverage their Klout scores for success and fortune," Fernandez said. "We get media requests asking for us to highlight the top Klout users in their communities, so this gives those people good press for being an influencer. Companies also look at Klout scores to recruit for social media and marketing jobs." According to Mark W. Schaefer – the author of the upcoming book “Return On Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing” (McGraw Hill 2012) – it's not unusual for people with high Klout scores to be contacted by companies and offered perks. "In order to gain access to Klout perks, you first need to boost your score," Schaefer said. "Some perks may only be available for those with a certain score. Second, Klout considers your topics of influence, so if people go crazy when you write about movies, you might get some movie-related stuff in the mail from a studio." Receiving perks from Klout also depends on your location: "A premium might be for influencers in a certain city," Schaefer said. Companies are also using Klout in creative ways to find new customers and connect deeper with existing ones. In fact, dozens of major companies from Disney and Audi to Nike are integrating Klout influencer scores into their traditional marketing campaigns. For example, Audi recently used Klout to identify a new group of non-traditional customers based on a love of technology and design. Meanwhile, a start-up company in San Francisco has used Klout influencers to help them find other targeted customers in their personal networks. "Klout is a reminder that you don't have to make a movie or be elected to office to have power now," Schaefer said. "All you need to do is publish." Do you think having a high Klout score is worth the hype? Why or why not? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. More About: klout, Social Media
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| Occupy Facebook: Social Network for Protesters in the Works Posted: 28 Dec 2011 02:58 PM PST   Occupy Wall Street activists are developing a social network called The Global Square for the generation of protesters. "We don't want to trust Facebook with private messages among activists," developer Ed Knutson told Wired. Knutson is helping build the network, which will unite members of Occupy movements across the globe. As more of the physical encampments are evicted across the U.S., digital meeting places will be of increased importance, explains a November RoarMag blog post.
The Global Square will include an interactive map of uprisings around the world, an easy search option to find movements near you, a Facebook-style news feed, calendars, debate forums, collaboration space, messaging and more. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, Wired reports that to become a member, you will need a sponsor to ensure you are trustworthy. The site is expected to launch in January. This is not the first tech innovation we’ve seen spurred by the Occupy movement. OWS broadcaster Tim Pool is creating new reporting techniques, hackathons have united programmers and the Free Network Foundation brought free Wi-Fi to Zuccotti Park. Established social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, are considered to have been at the center of revolutions across the world this year. However, members of the Occupy movement fear these networks would turn over private messages, when confronted by authorities. In January, ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak shut off the country’s Internet in fear of the power of social networks. Last week, a Massachusetts district attorney subpoenaed Twitter for private messages from the @OccupyBoston Twitter account. Do you think The Global Square is filling a void for activists, or are the existing mainstream networks sufficient? Let us know what you think in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, The Whistling Monkey More About: Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, social movements
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| Osama bin Laden’s Death is AOL’s Top Story of 2011 Posted: 28 Dec 2011 02:15 PM PST   The votes have been cast, the results have been tallied and the death of Osama bin Laden has been named the top news story of 2011 according to AOL’s “11 Days That Shaped 2011″ challenge. Organized in chronological order, Osama bin Laden’s death was sixth option on the site. The site was created as a way to sum up the year in news based on shares, engagement and impact on the AOL website and its media partners, including The Huffington Post, Engadget and more. Viewers were asked to vote for which news event they felt was the most important in 2011. Osama bin Laden’s death was the clear winner with 31% of the vote, the next closest was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan (15%) and the Debt Ceiling Crisis and Arab Spring (each with 10% of the vote). “I wasn't surprised that the death of Osama bin Laden was voted the top moment of 2011 for a few reasons,” says AOL CMO Maureen Sullivan. “First, the story was several years in the making, stretching back almost a decade to 2001. Second, the event really captured how news coverage is changing in the 21st century. Word of Bin Laden's death broke on Twitter and was picked up by the mainstream media there, so it also highlights the important relationship between social media and mainstream media. And finally, this event really touched people on global, national and local levels.” Of course, not all the news stories were as comparably momentous. Charlie Sheen’s public meltdown made the short list but fell far behind the rest of the pack. Voters could also write in their own picks for top story, some of which included Kim Kardashian’s You can find the full results by scrolling through the 11 Days That Shaped 2011. Each slide provides information, factoids, headlines and context for each of the major events. You can also jump straight to the results by clicking here. Was Osama bin Laden’s death the biggest story of 2011? What would you vote for? Sound off in the comments. More About: aol, News, osama bin laden, Social Media
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| Facebook Timeline Headed to iPad in January [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 01:46 PM PST Now that Facebook Timeline is available to the public, the social network has integrated the new look and feel with its Android, mobile web and iPhone apps; but what about the iPad? According to 9to5Mac, Facebook is aiming for a mid to late January app update. Why the delay? 9to5Mac‘s sources cite last-minute bugs as the reason that a special, touch-enhanced version of the Timeline hasn’t made its way to the iPad. Of course, users can always browse the new Timeline interface on Facebook.com on their iPad devices, however, the web version doesn’t work 100% with the iPad browser, particularly when it comes to adding customizations.   Facebook launched its iPad app back in October, several months after an early version of the app was leaked alongside the iPhone app. Are you excited about having Facebook Timeline on your iPad? Let us know. 1. View All Your Timeline Content Facebook's mysterious algorithm decides which stories will showcase on your Timeline. However, it also includes half-hidden posts. Posts that are marked on your Timeline, but not displayed, are noted by a blue dot on the central line. You can view these posts by clicking on the individual blue dots. A quicker method is to click on the three blue dots underneath each year. This gives you the option to view all stories within that year. Click here to view this gallery. More About: Facebook, facebook timeline, ipad, mashable video, Newsy
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| Social Network for Robots Lets You Talk to Your Roomba Posted: 28 Dec 2011 01:37 PM PST   It’s possible your Roomba has more to say online than you do. A new social network, MyRobots, hopes to be the “Facebook for robots.” The network allows users to connect their robotic devices, which can then post status updates like, “The cat is in my way” or “my bin is full.” Users can monitor their devices remotely and add to the capabilities of their robotics by connecting them to the site. This isn’t the first time robotics fans have attempted to give their devices personality and human-like traits. In addition to communicating with their users, robots can communicate with each other and share information in order to perform complicated tasks, says Carlos Asmat, who is coordinating the MyRobots project. Launched on Dec. 20, MyRobots is a marketing maneuver by RobotShop.com, a website that sells personal robotics. MyRobots, however, will not be a short-lived publicity stunt and will operate like a social network for robots. This raises some ethical concerns considering the network and its features are all tired to a for-profit robotics company. The network is off to a slow start with only 227 public robots registered. But the company points out that they have many more private robots registered on the site, as well as humans who have yet to connect their devices. Humans can also join the social network and communicate with their robots. “The community response is growing much faster than we initially expected,” Asmat says. “We are definitely happy to have so many robots in just a week of operation.” Asmat said they hope MyRobots attracts a fraction of the estimated 50 billion devices that will be connected to the cloud by 2020. The platform supports 17 different types of personal robotics from the Roomba vacuum to aldebaran karotz, a small robotic rabbit. Intelligent devices and hardware that connect to the internet can join MyRobots using the open source API. In the coming weeks, the site will introduce functions such as commenting, brainstorming and social sharing. MyRobots is also working on a robot app store in their cloud and are soliciting developers to create apps. MyRobots will take a 25% transaction fee but their website says it offers developers a chance to create a brand on a platform in beta. Currently, the service is free, but the site says it will soon start charging. Do you think a robot social network will take off or is this a marketing ploy? Please tell us in the comments. More About: Facebook, Gadgets, robots, social networking, Tech, technology
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| Amazon Wins, Netflix Loses in Holiday Satisfaction Study [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 01:27 PM PST Internet shoppers were happy with Amazon and disappointed in Netflix this holiday season, according to a study released Wednesday. In an annual index of ecommerce sites’ customer satisfaction by analytics firm ForeSee, Amazon’s performance improved while Netflix’s plunged after the two companies spent several years dueling for the study’s top spot. Amazon’s overall score rose two points to register 88 out of 100 possible points for the index’s best mark. But Netflix, following a year marred by a series of service and public relations missteps, saw its total fall seven points for an overall rank of 79. The 8% decline in score was the steepest of all the companies included in the study. The survey considers a range of factors to rank online retailers, including website content, functionality, merchandise and prices. ForeSee considers a score of 80 to be “the standard for excellence.” Netflix appears to be experiencing continued blowback from a fiasco-plagued 2011. In July, the company unexpectedly raised its prices for both streaming and DVD delivery by 60%. Then in August, it attempted to create a spinoff company that would have required customers to create two separate accounts for what was previously one service. Netflix then scrapped that plan in October, but its stock price had already lost half its value the month before. ForeSee says its holiday satisfaction survey is the first methodical assessment of customer satisfaction with Netflix since company’s blunders earlier this year. “Customer satisfaction is predictive, which means that Netflix’s financial woes may be just beginning,” ForeSee president Larry Freed said in a statement accompanying the study’s release. Amazon, meanwhile, continues its dominance of the online retail space in multiple sectors and rebranded its streaming video service earlier this year to better compete with Netflix. Amazon has also received a boost from its line of popular Kindle products, which have sold at an astounding rate recently. While Amazon enjoyed a glowing review according to the holiday shopping study, other companies made even more impressive jumps in online customer satisfaction. Electronics retailer TigerDirect.com made the largest jump, with an 8 percent increase in customer satisfaction for an overall score of 79. JC Penney, which named former Apple executive Ron Johnson as CEO earlier this year, improved by 6% for an overall score of 83. Gap.com and Overstock.com posted the steepest declines after Netflix, falling six and five percent, respectively. Gap.com registered an overall score of 73, while Overstock.coms’ score was 72. General online shopper satisfaction has increased from 74 when the holiday satisfaction study began in 2005 to an all-time high of 79 this year. Where do Netflix and Amazon stand in your opinion? What e-retailers were you impressed or let down by this holiday season? More About: amazon, customer satisfaction, e-commerce, mashable video, netflix, Newsy For more Business coverage:
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| New York Times, Not Hackers, Accidentally Spams Its Readers Posted: 28 Dec 2011 01:04 PM PST   Regardless of whether you ever subscribed to home delivery of The New York Times, you may have received an email on Wednesday that offered to give you a deal if you re-subscribe. Although some of the email’s more than 8 million recipients and members of the paper’s staff have suggested that the email was the result of someone outside of The Times, a spokesperson for The Times said in a statement that it was in fact the result of a simple error. “An email was sent earlier today from The New York Times in error,” the statement said. “This email should have been sent to a very small number of subscribers, but instead was sent to a vast distribution list made up of people who had previously provided their email address to The New York Times.” Earlier on Wednesday, the New York Times twitter account had tweeted, “If you received an email today about canceling your NYT subscription, ignore it. It’s not from us.” Some observant recipients had also pointed out that the email header lists as its origin and permitted sender an IP address owned by email marketing firm Epsilon Interactive. Because Hackers stole email addresses from Epsilon back in April, this detail led some to the false conclusion that the email was a result of that security breach. At the same time, an internal New York Times email said that the address attached to the special offer, nytimes@email.newyorktimes.com, doesn’t belong to the newspaper, according to the New York Daily News. It turns out that this wasn’t correct, and The Times has apologized for its error in sending the message. Although this is actually a much better scenario, as nobody’s email address or other information has been compromised, it’s an embarrassing one. One Twitter user, for instance, has reacted to the incident with a NYT Spam Twitter account that spouts one-liners such as “Yo, does anyone want, like an iPad? Tooth whitening, maybe?” In little more than an hour of existence, the account has collected followers who are reporters at The Washington Post, Associated Press, and, yes, The New York Times. More About: hackers, new york times, spam, trending For more Business coverage:
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| 6 Important Startup Trends that Defined 2011 Posted: 28 Dec 2011 12:45 PM PST   Startups have an inherently predictive quality. As the innovation engines of the economy, what startups figured out in 2011 will likely appear on other sectors’ trend lists in 2012. And if it doesn’t, it will be replaced quickly. For instance, in 2011 group messaging both took off — with more new companies than we could count — and all but shut down, as the startups with most traction were scooped up and repurposed by giant companies. Things change quickly in the startup world, which makes for trends more exciting and more distinct than any other industry. These six trends in particular stood out to us in 2011. Let us know what you’d add to the list in the comments below. 1. The Evolution of the CheckinStartups that once counted on location-based checkins becoming mainstream quietly hung their hopes elsewhere this year. Foursquare became more like Yelp with a revamped website that focuses on discovery. SCAVNGR launched a payment app called LevelUp that has nothing to do with checking in. And Facebook Places dropped its Deals feature, becoming a location-tagging service for other content. Brightkite, the company that pioneered the place checkin, pivoted from checkins to group messaging in late 2010. The checkin isn’t dead — it’s changing. Several startups embraced the idea of the preemptive checkin. Companies such as Hotlist and Ditto encourage people to broadcast not what they’re doing, but what they are going to do — while there is still time to adjust, based on friends’ plans and merchants’ deals. Other startups innovated on the implicit checkin. An iPhone app called Arrived, for instance, lets selected friends know when you arrive at certain places, no checkin required. LevelUp uses payment as a checkin, presenting merchants the opportunity to reward loyal customers. 2. The Rise and Fall of Independent Group Messaging AppsThe chatter surrounding group messaging apps at South by Southwest was so loud that some wondered whether one of the startups would emerge from the conference as the new Twitter. Buzz subsided as most of the prominent group messaging apps were acquired by large companies. Slide turned out Google's group messaging app, Disco; Beluga was acquired by Facebook; and Groupme was acquired by Skype. Prospects for remaining apps dwindled later in the year when Apple announced it would be including a group messaging feature in iOS 5. 3. Birchbox for EverythingBirchbox didn’t discover the subscription product model when it launched in 2010, but it did make subscription service sexy. And just as Groupon unleashed a frenzy of daily deal sites after its launch in 2008, Birchbox helped make 2011 a year filled with new subscription services for just about everything. Want monthly shipments of staple items like toothpaste? boxers? babies? dog products? Startups that launched in 2011 can supply them. And lest there be an unoccupied niche in subscriptions, five-month-old startup Memberly makes setting up these new services a DIY project. 4. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces Get Local and Real-Time Ebay and Amazon established the first peer-to-peer marketplaces, and they’re great — unless you’re selling something such as a service, a living space or a last-minute concert ticket that can’t make it by mail. This year, mobile phones, GPS and services like Craigslist combined to make real-time and location-based history. These factors make possible new peer-to-peer marketplaces for anything from car rentals to odd jobs (see Zaarly and Taskrabbit). 5. Online Goes OfflineRemember when online dating was creepy? A study released last year by Match.com claimed that 17% of couples married in the previous three years met each other via an online dating site. We’re increasingly comfortable overlapping our online and real lives, and web services that figure out how to make our real lives easier will do well. Airbnb raised $112 million to take its peer-to-peer marketplace global, and car rental company Zipcar successfully went public. When we talked with co-founder of AOL Steve Case last year, he had a lot to say about the future of Internet startups: “In the last few years, and I think the coming decade, [it] really will be about — now that the Internet really is ubiquitous, and people are relying on it in increasingly habitual kind of ways — how do you not just create Internet businesses, but create businesses that can impact every aspect of people's lives using the internet as a tool?” This year, a flood of promising startups — from peer-to-peer learning startup Skillshare to on-demand car wash service Cherry — found new ways to answer that question. 6. NYC Rises In the Tech SceneNew York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has been trying very hard to raise New York City’s profile in the tech scene. In 2011, he and others succeeded in doing so. The city appointed its first chief digital officer, Rachel Sterne, in January. That same month, prestigious startup accelerator TechStars announced its first New York City class. Bloomberg TV filmed that class’s experience for a documentary series that premiered in September. Meanwhile, some of the web’s best-known companies increased their presence in New York City — likely bringing investor money and capable engineers with them. Twitter opened its first official New York City office on Madison Avenue, and Facebook announced it would open an engineering office. The city hopes to attract and start more of these sorts of Internet companies by helping Cornell build a 2.1-million-square-foot tech campus on Roosevelt Island. When it announced the campus in December, the city said it was considering offering a similar deal to other universities looking to build similar campuses in New York City. Just in case anybody had missed New York City in the tech scene this year, a group of 12 startups got together to rub it in a bit. They made a calendar, titled “Only in the Alley” to mark its culmination. What else in the startup world caught your eye this year? What will be left in the dust? Images courtesy of iStockphoto, mbortolino, arakonyunus More About: Business, features, group messaging, online dating, peer to peer, Startups, Subscription service, trends For more Business coverage:
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| ‘WTF?! I Wanted an iPhone!’ Entitled Christmas Tweets Put to Music [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 12:05 PM PST
Twitter was quieter than usual on Sunday, Christmas day. So comedy writer Jon Hendren (@fart) decided to make the Twitterverse a bit more lively. He searched popular gifts such as “iPhone,” “iPad” and “car,” and retweeted the spoiled messages he found. Boy, was there a lot of ingratitude. Hendren’s tweet collection got a lot of interest. Now Jonathan Mann, the Berkeley-based musician and “Song a Day Man“, has turned them into a tune: “WTF?! I wanted an iPhone!” (the title is inspired by a tweet, of course). Mann’s catchy lyrics include such gems such as “F- you mom, F- you dad, the economy sucks, but I should get what I want” and “Was I the only person who didn’t get an iPad? I mean I got a car but that’s a different story altogether.” Twitter proved to be a hotbed of petulance this Christmas; hopefully Hendren’s retweets and Mann’s song will put some of these disgruntled tweeters in their places. Are you surprised by this public display of ingratitude? Which tweet do you think is the worst? Let us know in the comments. More About: iphone, trending, viral-video-of-day, Winter Holiday Season For more Social Media coverage:
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| Amazon Goes Social Shopping: What Quorus Hires Mean Posted: 28 Dec 2011 11:47 AM PST   Amazon is poised to make a major leap into social shopping thanks to a rash of recent hires from Quorus (formerly Fridge Door), a company whose chief product was software that added a social experience to online retailing. When we wrote about what 2012 may hold for the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon, we mentioned the idea that Jeff Bezos and co. may eventually pull together the site’s myriad digital services and leverage its growing Kindle platform into some kind of social network. Now it appears the company may be doing just that. Geekwire reports that Amazon has effectively hired the entire team at Quorus. Amazon previously hired Quorus co-founder Logan Bowers, and now it appears he’s taking his team with him. Quorus’ former vice president of business development, Matt Scoble, confirmed to Mashable that the company’s other co-founder, Michael Dougherty, now works for Amazon. The report says Amazon also snapped up Quorus employees Sam Rayachoti and Peter Abramson. Quorus.com now shows a placeholder site and the company’s official Twitter feed hasn’t been active since July. Hold your horses before you think Amazon’s grab at social-software talent means the company is prepping to take on Facebook. Quorus makes software that lets shoppers essentially bounce purchases off friends before committing to a buy. It’s not quite the next Google+, but it could give Amazon an edge over other online retailers. Quorus software works like this. Say you’re buying a sweater for your dad, but you can’t decide between two different patterns. Right from the product page, Quorus lets you call up a window to contact your mom, siblings and friends to help you out. The connection can be done by email, Facebook, Twitter or even text message. Once you’ve reached out to your impromptu jury, Quorus can facilitate both a live chat and offline discussion. Not everyone will be able to stop what they’re doing to help you hunt down the perfect wool cardigan, so the software saves those messages for you (and yours) to read later. The whole exchange is hosted by Quorus — it’s not dependent on the social networks it uses to communicate. That’s probably why the service looks attractive to Amazon. While Amazon has an interest in playing nice with the likes of Facebook, there’s no way Amazon will trust its destiny with a third party. Rather then create a social shopping experience from the ground up, Amazon simply gobbled up Quorus. The next logical step is for Amazon to deploy Quorus’ collaborative shopping system on its product pages. The question now is whether it will appear universally throughout the site or if it will be something lumped in with the premium services of Amazon Prime. By going site-wide, Amazon will have even more of an edge over other retailers. However, the company needs to convert more customers into Prime members to help push its platform and right now there just aren’t a lot of good reasons for Amazon users to opt for the service. What do you think about the Quorus experience, and does it work for Amazon? Would you use it if it was available? And more important, would you pay for it? Let us know in the comments. BONUS: Amazon: 13 Major Milestones of 20111. Amazon Launches Amazon Deals January: Amazon launched Amazon Deals, a free iPhone application that provides users with an overview of new daily deals from Amazon's Gold Box service. The app lets you monitor and purchase Amazon's daily deals directly from your iPhone. You can also share the deals with friends and family via email, Facebook, Twitter or SMS. Click here to view this gallery. More About: amazon, amazon prime, Kindle, online retail
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| 3 Ways Taste Graphs will Fuel Social Commerce in 2012 Posted: 28 Dec 2011 11:34 AM PST   Christian Taylor is founder and CEO of Payvment and developer of the number-one Facebook ecommerce platform for brands, agencies and merchants, and the world's only Facebook Shopping Mall. The early days of social commerce have mostly been about broadcasting, giving people ways to share the products they like in the hopes that their friends come back and make a purchase. The challenge here is that you're only as good as your "graph." In other words, if you only have 100 fans, and they each only have an average of 130 people in their social networks, how far are these shares really going to go? And in spaces like Facebook, where there are relationship-based graphs, there may not be much correlation between what your fans like and what their friends like. Enter "taste graphs," graphs that connect people based on the things that they are actually interested in, not necessarily on their social connections alone. Companies can create taste graphs by integrating their fans’ and customers’ Facebook and Twitter data with their own data, thus creating data "mash-ups" that provide unparalleled insight into people's actual likes and interests. In 2012, taste graphs will transform the process of product discovery and make it much easier to discover and engage around the products you really want. The graphs will allow sellers to get their products in front of the people most likely to be interested. Here are three ways taste graphs will fuel social commerce in 2012. 1. Hyper-Targeted Deals and OffersWhile group deals are often lumped into social commerce, the way you access these deals is anything but social. Typically you receive a deal based on where you live or on some obscure demographic information; deals providers don't really understand who you are and what you actually like. So while these deals can be quite successful for universally appealing offers – such as a massage or a fancy dinner – it's difficult to offer more specialized products that might otherwise make a splash. By mixing my social data with its own data about my general interests, a company’s taste graph can produce deals hyper-targeted to my interests. The more it refines my specific taste graph, the more spot-on the deals, dramatically boosting company sales as well as shopper satisfaction. 2. Recommendations from People who Share your PassionsWhile I love my mom, she isn't the best person to help me select a new motorcycle helmet. The truth is, you don't necessarily seek recommendations from your friends and family on many items — they simple don't share all of your passions and interests. Relying on the social graph for recommendations is therefore an inherently limited approach to product discovery. As companies begin to integrate the taste graph approach into their storefronts, you'll begin to see automated product recommendations based on your taste graph data, as opposed to recommendations based on what your friends like. You’ll also see opportunities for shoppers to find and connect with people who share their passions, and ultimately to lean on them for advice and recommendations. In a way, we'll be revisiting a time when you could go to the local record store and talk to the guy behind the counter, another rock music fan, to get advice on what's new, what's hot and what you should buy. 3. Birth of Social Commerce "Tastemakers"You can already follow people you don't know on Twitter, and you can now also subscribe to their updates on Facebook. Some of those users emerge as experts across a wide range of categories, including products and services. In 2012, we may very well see social commerce providers bake this into their systems to create social "tastemakers," experts you're encouraged to follow based on your taste graph. These tastemakers will provide advice and tips on any of number of different product categories. For example, imagine if you could follow a Project Runway winner within Nordstrom's Facebook ecommerce experience, or subscribe to a renowned chef within a Facebook shopping mall simulation. These tastemakers could significantly impact how you discover and make decisions about products. What would you like to see in social commerce next year? Image courtesy of iStockphoto, OrangeDukeProductions More About: contributor, ecommerce, features, social commerce, social data, social graph, Taste Graph For more Business coverage:
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| Pirates Like Vin Diesel: Top 10 Illegally Shared Movies of 2011 Posted: 28 Dec 2011 11:11 AM PST 1. Fast Five Pirated downloads: 9.26 million downloads Box-office sales: $626.1 million Photo courtesy of FastFiveMovie.com. Click here to view this gallery. We usually rely on year-end box office numbers and movie critics to determine which films most captivated our hearts and attention, and this year’s big winner was the final movie in the Harry Potter franchise. But cinematic demand can also be seen by looking at the most illegally downloaded movies of the year on Bit Torrent networks, and this year’s top winner in that category is action flick Fast Five. According to data compiled by TorrentFreak.com, the latest and fifth addition to the Fast and the Furious film series starring Vin Diesel was the most illegally-downloaded movie of the year, with 9.3 million downloads. Although Fast Five brought in about $626 million at the box office, it only ranked sixth in overall ticket sales. Meanwhile, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 brought in the most money at theaters worldwide with $1.3 billion, but it was only ranked 10th in pirated downloads (6 million downloads). The Hangover Part II was second on TorrentFreak.com’s list with 8.8 million pirated downloads, followed by Thor with 8.3 million downloads and Source Code, a science fiction film starring Jake Gyllenhaal that didn't perform too well at theaters but became a fan favorite, with 7.9 million downloads. Many films that topped the list weren't blockbuster hits, and the second and third top earners at the box office – Transformers: Dark of the Moon and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – didn't make the top 10. More About: Most-pirated movies, Movies, piracy For more Entertainment coverage:
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| How Many Emails Did You Handle in 2011? This App Knows All Posted: 28 Dec 2011 10:42 AM PST   Next time you whine about your overflowing inbox, you could have some data to back you up. Email template tool ToutApp has launched a free app that will analyze your Gmail account and create a summary of your 2011 email use. The summary includes the number of emails that you dealt with over the past year and the rate at which you respond to them. It also shows how many of your emails were replied to, who you email most and your busiest email month, day of the week and hour. Every part of the report is presented in a slick infographic. It’s sharable, which makes it easy to justify your gripes to your friends and followers. A spokesperson for ToutApp told Mashable the company doesn’t have any access to the body of user emails. Its app does, however, process a year’s worth of email data, and that takes a long time. There’s also a limit to how many reports that the app can process at once, which might leave you waiting in a queue for a few hours. ToutApp is working on a product that generates this type of report with less leg time and on a weekly basis. Its founder, Tawheed Kader, lent his email account to the example infographic in the gallery below. Email Summary Example Overview Click here to view this gallery. More About: email, ToutApp, trending For more Business coverage:
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| Want to Build a New App? There’s an App for That Posted: 28 Dec 2011 10:28 AM PST
30-year-old Xavier Veyrat — the designer of App Cooker — spoke to Mashable about the development of the platform and the steps that go into creating a masterpiece app recipe. Q&A with Xavier Veyrat, App DesignerHave you always been into design? Always. I’m crazy about it. I loved to draw when I was a kid, but I never went to art school. I actually studied law, business and management. But every time I worked on a project with design, it reinforced what I really wanted to do. I joined a team that needed an app, so to make it, I watched online tutorials on YouTube, read articles on blogs and practiced a lot. I love to look at interfaces and simplify them so they can be used without instructions. I hate to read instructions. What type of design inspires you? Companies such as Apple, Dyson and Braun are some of the main sources of my inspiration because they care about usefulness and beauty at the same time. I'm also inspired by show-and-tell site Dribbble and social sites that focus on design — they provide an incredible source of ideas. I am an observer and a huge consumer of apps — I have more than 1,000. It helps me learn which designs work and which ones don’t.  How did the concept for App Cooker come about? Two years ago, I started to work on a gaming app with my partner Johann. As we designed the app, we realized that there was nothing on the market that was project-planning oriented to help people get started with the creation of their own apps. I did the design on Illustrator and Johann did the coding. We ended up wasting a lot of time, since making a clickable mockup would have been a far more efficient way to jump in. App Cooker provides that clickable mock-up prototype and gathers up all of the key components of an app before any coding and polished design starts. It helps designers to conceive, design and test interfaces without a single line of code in the context of an iOS device. For example, you can rotate the screen and the mockup will display another version of the design. It's extremely valuable for app designers at all skill levels. What makes a good app? A good app is based on a clear scope, a robust mockup, a coherent design and good marketing. If one of these aspects is strong and another one is not, it won't work. It’s like preparing for the Olympics and although you may be a top contender, if you don't show up on competition day and give it your all, you probably won't win. Apps also have to be smart and fresh. Look at the “Photo” app on the iPhone — it’s one the most used of all time and it's so simple. So the vision and execution should be fresh, clear, simple and unique. "I’m a firm believer that good design comes after you sketch it out ten times.” How did you approach the design process? We wanted the app to be easy to use and have different colors to separate the different aspects of the app. I’m a firm believer that good design comes after you sketch it out ten times. But overall, we made more than 30 iterations to get to the design of the app board, which serves almost like a homepage, what we wanted it to be. For other parts of the app, we made up to 200 versions, at least. You have to keep going and trying new things until you get it right. How is this concept different than others on the market? App Cooker is the only app that allows designers to experiment with prototyping from a project point of view. Mock-ups shouldn't be just graphics anymore. Users need to be aware of the key aspects of a project right from the start, from the name, idea and logo to the cost effectiveness and how it will look once it's coded. Without this centralized approach, developers and designers have a tendency to move right on with production and trouble shoot when it's too late in the process.  What advice would you give to an aspiring app designer? A good designer is someone who learns every day with a little dose of criticisms. Also, stay on top of other apps in the market too. I love list app Wunderlist, as well as Soulver — a calculator with a soul and helps you find design ratios — and chart app LovelyCharts. Some of my favorite apps have the same vision as App Cooker, which features a future where the iPad is used to achieve tasks better than on a computer. Where do you see app design going in the next few years? This is the golden age of app design. Yesterday, everyone wanted a website, and now everyone wants an app. App design is going to help evolve us more into a prosumer environment, where the consumer produces the content they want. We're positioning ourselves to help the future app makers of the world, and it's an exciting place to be. Series supported by Volvo  The Leaders in Design Series is supported by Volvo. Experience the newest Volvo for yourself. Step inside the 325hp 2011 Volvo S60 T6 R-Design at volvocars.us. More About: apps, design, designers, features, Leaders in Design Series, mashable
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| How iJustine Became a YouTube Mogul [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 10:01 AM PST We all know (or should know) that there’s no magic formula to creating a “viral video,” but there are some core ingredients to getting thousands and even millions of views. Do you know the secrets? Internet celebrity and top YouTuber iJustine talks about how she built her YouTube channel from zero to now over 1 million subscribers. You’ll also learn her secrets to managing a community and creating videos that people want to watch, talk about and share with their friends. Check out the latest episode of Behind the Brand with iJustine. Editor’s note: This video was recorded before the death of Steve Jobs. Behind the Brand is hosted by Bryan Elliott. Stay tuned to Mashable every Wednesday for new episodes. More About: behind the brand, ijustine, mashable video, Video, YouTube For more Media coverage:
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| Celebrate the Mashable Awards Winners at MashBash During CES Posted: 28 Dec 2011 09:19 AM PST
Come celebrate the Mashable Awards winners and the best of digital at MashBash during CES in Las Vegas! You can expect a night of networking, dancing and celebration in true Mashable style at one of the hottest new clubs in Las Vegas. Held at 1OAK Nightclub in the Mirage Hotel and Casino on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, MashBash will bring together the Mashable community, industry leaders and digital influencers from the biggest technology and consumer electronic brands attending CES. San Francisco-based DJ duo A Plus D — a.k.a. Adrian and Mysterious D — will be spinning their world famous mashups at MashBash. Think Lady Gaga meets Bob Marley or Will Smith meets Daft Punk, mixed together under one roof. A Plus D, creators of Bootie, the biggest mashup bootleg party in the world, will rock the party with their musical concoctions and creative song combinations. A Plus D will be taking mashup requests via Twitter at MashBash. Follow @bootiemashup so you can request your favorite mashups live, or tweet your favorite artists or songs, and Bootie’s mashup maestros A Plus D will mash it up whenever possible. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements about MashBash. MashBash Info and TicketsDate: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 (during International CES Convention week) Time: 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. PT Location: 1OAK Nightclub, Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV (1OAK is located at the Mirage Hotel & Casino just off the North Valet access or Self-Parking entrance into the hotel) Premiere SponsorsMore About: CES, Events, mashable awards, mashable events, MashBash For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Was the White House’s #40dollars Campaign Successful? Posted: 28 Dec 2011 08:52 AM PST
The campaign generated a huge response to the question, “What does $40 mean to you,” which resulted in #40dollars trending on Twitter for a few hours. Congress passed a two-month extension Friday and President Obama signed it into law. But did the #40dollars campaign meet its goal? A high frequency of tweets doesn’t mean a hashtag campaign is effective. Hijacking is a common problem politicians and organizations encounter when mobilizing support around a hashtag. While supporters of the White House tweeted things like “#40dollars allows my son to have hot lunches at school,” detractors sent messages such as “@BarackObama is spending #40dollars every 15 seconds on his Hawaiian vacation.” To figure out if #40dollars was successful, we asked social media analysis organization Crimson Hexagon to break down the data for us. They analyzed over 40,000 tweets containing the #40dollars hashtag, and provided us with the results: Positive Sentiment:
Negative Sentiment:
The #40dollars tweets were largely the kind of material the White House was seeking. While opponents of the two-month extension used #40dollars to broadcast their own views, they were unable to match the number of supporters tweeting with the hashtag. By generating a high level of on-message interaction on Twitter, the White House was effectively able to bring attention to the situation and inform the public of its stance on the tax cut extension. Do you think the White House’s #40dollars campaign was a success? Let us know in the comments below. Correction: The post originally referred to the House, not Congress as a whole. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Veni More About: Twitter, White House
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| Raspberry Pi, a Tiny But Powerful $25 PC, Coming Soon [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 08:25 AM PST   The holidays have been particularly jolly for the gang making Raspberry Pi, the tiny Linux-based PC that’s going to cost just $25. If the reports coming from the site are to be believed, you could be able to buy one as early as next month. Right before the holiday, the creators got a batch of circuit boards in for testing. The site says all the initial testing showed the boards to be performing “as solid as a rock,” despite an issue with the power supply. However, that problem was easily fixed via a red wire and a quick soldering job, and the team promises it won’t appear in any future units. Once fixed, fired up and connected to a display, the prototype Pi appeared to effortlessly output a 1080p video through its HDMI port: The final Raspberry Pi will come in two flavors: A $25 version with 128MB of RAM and no network connection and a $35 one with256MB and Ethernet. Both versions will have USB and HDMI ports as well as analog video and audio outputs. It’s driven by a The 1080p video magic is driven by a 700MHz ARM processor, and the whole thing is powered by a 5-volt power supply. The whole idea behind creating a small, decently powerful computer is to provide something cheap enough that anyone can afford — even kids in developing countries. The key is that it’s also programmable, letting owners hack and modify the 1.4-ounce machine at will. Of course, if someone just wants to use it as cheap machine for everyday Web browsing and email, its ideally suited for that, too. The site promises to auction off the recent crop of boards before Raspberry Pi goes on sale next month. Will you get one? What will you do with it? Let us know in the comments. [via The Verge] More About: 1080p, Linux, raspberry pi PC, Tech, trending For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| So You Got a Nook Tablet? Tips for New Users Posted: 28 Dec 2011 07:58 AM PST   If you’re a new owner of a Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, you’re in for a treat — the sleek device is exceptional for reading magazines and newspapers, surfing the web and storing plenty of exciting apps. Plus, it's extremely intuitive and easy to use. It looks and feels a lot like the Nook Color, but it's much more than just an ereader. Here are some simple tips to help you get started and make the most of your new device. 1. RegisterFirst, make sure the device is charged – it takes about three hours, but you can begin the registration process as long as it's plugged in. To turn it on, press the power button on the top left-hand side of the device and slide the Nook icon to the right to unlock. A quick registration process is required, which involves signing in or creating a Barnes & Noble account. The prompts walk you through a time zone selection, Wi-Fi setup and credit card confirmation. This will set you up to purchase books, apps and other content from the Nook store. The interface is easy to figure out just by taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the layout. Most of the options — from settings to the Nook store — are located at the bottom of the screen, while the rest of the interface is reserved for apps and other downloaded content. Make purchases with just a tap of the finger through the Nook store, accessed only after connecting to Wi-Fi. Then download books, magazines, apps, music and videos directly from Barnes & Noble through your account. 2. Download, PersonalizeFrom Angry Birds to Words With Friends, the Nook store is filled with popular apps. Some of our favorites include Contacts Plus ($1.99), which imports contact information and birthdays from Facebook and other sites, and also allows you to send files stored on your tablet to other devices. Free note-taking app Evernote and Facebook chat app FriendCaster for Facebook ($1.99) are also worthy downloads. There are, however, a few noticeable apps not available through the Nook store, including Twitter. Instead, fans will have to opt for Seesmic, a free app that helps you manage your Twitter account. In addition to downloading content and transferring photos to make the device more personal, change the wallpaper on the screen by placing a finger on the interface. An option will pop up to select a backdrop from the wallpaper gallery, or you can choose your own photos. 3. AccessorizeAlthough the sound quality on the Nook Tablet is strong, the device doesn't come with ear buds. You’ll need compatible headphones to listen to music or watch videos in private. Other helpful accessories on the market include a Nook Stylus pen, which lets you handle the device without using your fingers, keepinh the screen extra clean. Meanwhile, creative and classic cases for the Nook Tablet are available on sites such as Amazon and Etsy. If the device’s 1 GB of memory isn’t enough to store personal files and photos, lift the rubber flap on the back with the Nook logo and insert a microSD memory card for up to 32 GB of extra storage. These start at about $30. Nook Tablet Box
Click here to view this gallery. More About: apps, barnes & noble, features, How-To, Nook Tablet, tablets, trending
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| iPhone 5 Rumors Start Heating Up [VIDEO] Posted: 28 Dec 2011 07:38 AM PST The second round of iPhone 5 rumors has officially begun, speculating a redesigned front rim in rubber or plastic, possibly to connect the face to a new aluminum back plate or to cover a new antenna system. BGR says a source close to the company claims the iPhone will launch next fall, around the time the iPhone 4S launched this year. Pop Herald is predicting a 4-inch screen, which would require app developers to overhaul their products to avoid poor resolution. But as we all know, iPhone rumors will come in all shapes and flavors before the upcoming launch. What do you think about this set? More About: iPhone 5, mashable video, Newsy, rumors, trending
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| Circa Promises Different, ‘Beautiful’ News Reading Experience Posted: 28 Dec 2011 07:24 AM PST
A new startup backed by the founders of I Can Has Cheezburger and geo-location app service SimpleGeo aims to change the way we read news. Details about Circa — which plans to roll out within the next six months — have been scarce, but former SimpleGeo founder Matt Galligan, who left the company in August to pursue new interests, told Mashable that the startup will rethink how news is distributed and build a new model from the ground up. “We think that there is room for improvement in how news is written, distributed and read, and we’re trying to tackle that challenge,” Galligan told Mashable. “We’re simply trying to create the news experience that we would want to use every single day.’ The concept started with Galligan and Cheezburger founder Ben Huh – who will serve as a company adviser — creating what they call the “Moby Dick Project.” “The idea was that news needs to be reinvented,” Galligan said. “We’ve now expanded on the initial vision and it's become much deeper. We aim to create the best news experience by optimizing for truths, encouraging diversity and empowering the readers.” He wouldn't elaborate on how the site would differ from others, but he said it will begin its focus on headline news and politics and will expand beyond that in the future. Galligan also noted that there will be an emphasis on the look and layout of the site. “We’re placing a lot of focus on beautiful design,” Galligan said. “Layout, typography and user experience are all paramount in our vision. We believe that the best possible news experience needs to be presented in a very beautiful way and will be more compelling as a result.” Although the site isn't up and running just yet, it's taking invitation requests now. “People will get approved to enter the site as soon as we have a minimally-viable product able to offer them,” Galligan said. “We’re doing an invite-only beta to get feedback on the product and try to build the best news experience possible.” Circa's goal in the next few years? “We hope we have inspired users to see news differently than they see it today.” Are you satisfied with the way news is distributed today? Do you think readers are ready for a new model? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. More About: I Can Has Cheezeburger, Startups For more Business coverage:
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| 6 Game-Changing Digital Journalism Events of 2011 Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:40 AM PST   The year 2011 brought extraordinary progress for online journalism. From breaking news curation to new revenue models, many an organization put its best digital foot forward. Social media became more tightly integrated into reporting and overall strategy, while mobile app creation and content optimization were no longer a nice-to-have, but a must. These trends are quickly shaping the young and agile web news industry. As journalists redefine themselves with new tools and skill sets, they’re reinvigorating a business that just a few years ago was written off as doomed. Here’s a look at six moves with the biggest impact on digital journalism this year. 1. Paywalls Find Their FootingIf 2010 was the year of the paywall, 2011 was the year the paywall worked. News organizations stopped using “our content is worth paying for” as a sole rationale, and began strategically providing value for their online content. While the The New York Times‘s strategy was much-criticized when it launched in March, it has since turned a profit. The Minneapolis Star Tribune made an estimated $800,000 in digital circulation revenue during its first month of having a paywall, despite a 10-15% decline in web traffic. For both papers, tying online access to print subscriptions has been key to success. The Strib saw nearly 20% of its new digital subscribers also buy a Sunday subscription, while The Times said 800,000 print subscribers have linked their accounts for digital access. These paywall models have shown the potential for creating dedicated digital subscriber bases that advertisers could eventually pay more for. 2. Andy Carvin Becomes an IconThe Arab Spring was undoubtedly one of 2011′s biggest news events — and its main newsman comes in right behind it. When the Tunisian uprisings began last winter, Andy Carvin’s duties as NPR’s senior strategist took a backseat while his Twitter account became a one-man newswire dedicated to the culminating situation in the Middle East. He paired his knowledge of and contacts in the region to curate the best and most accurate information tweeted from the ground. What set Carvin apart was not only his volume of tweets — his record is 1,200 tweets in 48 hours, according to The Guardian — but also his recognition of fellow Twitter users as experts. He wouldn’t hesitate to tweet unverified information and ask his Twitter followers to help him determine its accuracy. For the journalism community, Carvin proved the value of social newsgathering and its ability to complement rather than replace traditional reporting. 3. Journalists Flock to Google+Google kickstarted digital journalists’ biggest love affair of 2011 when it launched social network Google+ in June. Many were quick to sign on and explore the platform’s potential for news gathering, reporting and audience building. New Jersey newspaper The Trentonian was lauded as the first to use Google+ for breaking news after its producers found a key source in a breaking news story via her comment on the paper’s Google+ page. For Missouri’s KOMU-TV, it was a social breakthrough when reporter Sarah Hill began integrating Hangouts into live TV broadcasts. She would give Hangout viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the newsroom and then interview Hangout participants on-air. While interest in Google+ has waned since its launch, news organizations’ initial enthusiasm shows a desire to expand to communities beyond Twitter and Facebook. As the social media landscape continues to grow, this early adopter mentality will be crucial to web journalism success. 4. Mobile Gets Competitive Though the necessity for a mobile presence was recognized far before 2011, news organizations showed a new commitment to smartphone and tablet apps this year. News Corp took its chances with a mobile-first strategy when it launched iPad-only newspaper The Daily in February, while Betaworks’s News.me came on the scene in mid-April. Both much-hyped efforts flopped, in part because free social news reading apps, such as Flipboard and Pulse, were already widely used on tablets. In arguably the biggest mobile move by a news organization, CNN acquired iPad app Zite in August. KC Estenson, CNN's general manager of digital, told Mashable that Zite’s technology would help improve CNN’s digital properties and help it serve more personalized content. There are now so many news apps, Apple felt compelled to launch Newsstand, a digital repository for magazine and newspaper apps. With an increasingly massive pool of apps, news organizations will need to find their own competitive edge in the mobile news market. 5. Facebook Makes Personal Branding EasierSince Facebook Subscribe rolled out in September, journalists have been using the tool as a personal branding and content distribution opportunity. While Facebook fan pages have long been common for recognizable names like Nicholas Kristof, Subscribe gave lesser-known journalists a way to connect with readers on a larger scale. For some journalists, the switch from using Facebook as a personal network to a public forum has been a challenge. Others are embracing the platform’s change by openly offering subscribers a look at not only their work but their lives. Establishing a bonafide web presence is becoming essential for journalists who aim to become thought leaders in their coverage areas. Taking it beyond professionalism and showing personality adds to journalists’ appeal because it makes them more relatable. Moving forward, they’ll become more open about what they share on social networks, showing that they’re not just journalists, but people too. 6. The Pulitzer Goes DigitalThe Pulitzer Board announced earlier this month it had revised its Breaking News category criteria to emphasize real-time reporting. This is the ultimate recognition that web journalism has come into its own. Under the new set of guidelines, "it would be disappointing if an event occurred at 8 a.m. and the first item in an entry was drawn from the next day's newspaper," said to the board. In other words, the web is crucial to alerting a community about a breaking news event. The Pulitzer Board’s gesture sets a precedent for future breaking news coverage. The recognition of web reporting’s importance by such a well-respected journalism entity will inspire more news organizations to invest in digital reporting — if they haven’t already. What This Means for 2012After an incredible year of news events and milestones, online journalism in 2012 has a tough act to follow. We can certainly expect more successes and more failures when it comes to business models and mobile strategies. News organizations will clamor to be the first on new social networks — they’re already flocking to pinboard site Pinterest. Journalists will connect further with their individual followers, and the 2012 Breaking News Pulitzer winner will have done a great service to its community via the Internet. While we can only guess what the future of digital journalism holds, 2011 paved a strong path, leaving us hopeful and confident that the best has yet to come. Image courtesy of Flickr, personaldemocracy More About: facebook subscribe, features, journalism, journalists, online journalism, paywall, Social Media, trending For more Business coverage:
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Today’s group buying sites often exist to get rid of leftover inventory from last season; both the designer and the website get a cut, while you get the last season’s threads for half the price, three months late. Jewelry site Plukka turns that model around — it doesn’t manufacture the item until there’s demonstrable interest in it. And the more people want to buy it, the lower the price dips, like a reverse auction. Each flash sale presents images of a 
Utilizing this software, you can set up searches for the keywords and phrases most relevant to your business, and geo-target the results. This allows you to spend your marketing dollars wisely, targeting only customers looking specifically for your service/products that are in your area of business.
You’ll want data, and in many cases that best data you can have will come straight from a local (or locals). Find connections with the right demographic in the right area, and ask them questions, have them conduct research, and then enjoy the advantage you have over your online-data-only competitors!
Drive cost-efficiencies and improve ROI for your next search engine marketing pay-per-click campaign by running targeted IP address beta tests with Google Adwords. Offer compelling localized deals and incentives to test your effectiveness.
Buy the domain extensions for countries that you’re marketing to (.co.uk for the UK, .ca for Canada, .com.au for Australia) and set up localized sites that transact in local currencies. Prospective customers will feel much more comfortable purchasing in their local currency, from a website that they feel is specifically intended for them.
When you begin to market to geo-targeted customers, don’t send everyone to the same page on your website. Make people feel at home by creating a section of your site for each area you’re targeting. Small things like an image of a city skyline of the target area can go a long way and make people comfortable by seeing things they already relate to.
When it comes to geo-targeting, it is all about mobile. 
From a search standpoint: Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. All of these things come up page-one of Google search results if you use them correctly. Instead of spending a bajillion dollars on a paid text ad program, focus on doing really well on the free tools with a lot of Google juice. How many sponsored ads have you clicked on lately when you’re on Google? Exactly. Organic search results are king.
Facebook advertising can be a very cost-effective and efficient way to geo-target and market to your customers. It is also a great tool for customer research. You don’t even have to launch a full campaign to make the most of the tools. Within the FB Ad setup mode, you can determine your actual reach based on demographics, interests and more.
Geo-targeting works particularly well for local businesses that sell low-cost, impulse items. You can now let prospects know about your offer when they’re in the vicinity, but no one is going to pop in for last-minute car or legal services. Think about what you can offer prospects on the spot — like a cup of coffee, an ice cream cone or a 15-minute sample massage.
Using geo-targeting gives you a deeper insight to your customer base and engages them in something a bit more personable than the traditional flyer or print ad. Coupling geo-trends with social media allows a personal conversation with customers that you wouldn’t be able to have with traditional media. With the recent acquisition of Geotoko by HootSuite, we bring together the best of both worlds.
In the bar and restaurant industry, we’ve been teaming up companies like 
When you create location-specific offers, you’ll likely get a better conversion rate. But why stop there when you can test different ways of presenting these local offers? Track the number of calls to your number, and see if changing the headline to include the city/state improves conversions.
Competition in Apple's 
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Next time I read a blog, I hope that it does not disappoint me just as much as this particular one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, nonetheless I genuinely believed you would probably have something interesting to talk about. All I hear is a bunch of complaining about something that you could fix if you weren't too busy looking for attention.
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