Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Shoutz Connects You to the World, One 15-Second Video at a Time” |
- Shoutz Connects You to the World, One 15-Second Video at a Time
- Now Public: Sexual Harassment Letter That Brought Down HP’s CEO [VIDEO]
- NASA’s GRAIL Mission Will Celebrate New Year’s on the Moon [VIDEO]
- Stratfor Says Hackers Only Nabbed Credit Card Information
- Biscotti: The Best Product Packaging Since the iPod?
- Telecom Immunity Ruling Upheld by U.S. Appeals Court
- 5 Video Game Moments that Defined 2011
- HOW TO: Move Your Domain Name Account
- #LastTweet Collects Finals Tweets of Those Who Died in 2011
- Verizon Customers Suffer Third Outage in December [VIDEO]
- 8 Ways Digital Will Improve B2B Sales in 2012
- Teen’s Silent YouTube Goodbye Goes Viral After Death [VIDEO]
- To the Moon and Beyond: China’s Five-Year Plan for Space
- Storify Reveals Its Favorite User-Generated Story of 2011
- Google Is 2011′s Top Web Brand [VIDEO]
- HP Wants to Print Your Twitter Wishes On Balloons and Set Them Free
- Apple’s Museum That Never Was: Why Does Stanford Keep it Secret? [VIDEO]
- Nanoparticles Could Let You Wear a Computer Made Out of Cotton
- Most U.S. Small Businesses Plan to Buy an iPad in 2012 [STUDY]
- Facebook Timeline vs. Old Profiles: How People View Them Differently [STUDY]
- Internet Meme Playing Card Project Seeks Your Funding
- How to Launch a Social Ambassador Campaign
- Who Are Your 10 BFFs on Facebook? This App Will Tell You
- Spotify Names Top 10 Songs Streamed in 2011
- How the Social Media IPOs of 2011 Fared [STUDY]
- Facebook 2012: What the Future Holds for the Social Media Powerhouse
- Most Rented Redbox Films of 2011 [INFOGRAPHIC]
- 3D Optical Scanning Makes 125-Year-Old Records Sing
- Confirmed: Verizon Charging $2 Fee for Paying Bills Online or By Phone
- Reddit Users Target Pro-SOPA Politicians
| Shoutz Connects You to the World, One 15-Second Video at a Time Posted: 29 Dec 2011 07:47 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.
Quick Pitch: Shoutz is a free social video network. Genius Idea: Mobile-to-mobile platform for recording and sharing personal videos or 15-second “Shoutz.” Shoutz, the social mobile video network, is a free mobile app for recording and sharing personal videos. Users can watch, record and share 15-second “Shoutz” directly from their phones, giving the world an opportunity to see exactly what they see when they see it. The app provides a personal way of communication by helping users connect with their friends, family, fans, consumers and the rest of the world through videos. Shoutz partners with sports teams, celebrities, companies, artists and advertisers to enhance the interaction between their fans and consumers through channels. The app requires an iPhone or Android 2.3 or higher device. Once the app is downloaded, users can sign in with their Facebook accounts or create their own profile, which also acts as their own channel. Whether you’re a fan of Nascar, tennis, the outdoors, etc., choose a channel that interests you and select the stars or celebrities you want to follow within that channel. Then click on the user’s profile to see their 15-second Shoutz, which you can comment on, reshout or rate. The app also provides the number of public views for each Shoutz.  15-second Shoutz. Users can upload their own 15-second Shoutz to their channels and share them directly from the app to Facebook, Twitter or via email. Shoutz also gives users the option to create a list of groups to share videos with. For example, if a user records a video of themselves fishing, they can share their video only with their group of friends who enjoy fishing. Shoutz also has a feed that features the trending videos of the day, the channels you follow and Shoutz from the individuals you follow.  To help its partners manage their campaigns and build their brand strategy, Shoutz provides them with a “Channel Activity & Earnings Report” which analyzes the demographics of their channel’s fans. The report includes information on platform ads, generated revenue, and the time, date and location of Shoutz views. The detailed report can help, for example, a beverage company target their campaigns to the specific audience that views their Shoutz. “A lot of celebrities don’t know enough about their fans,” Jim Mueller, CEO of Shoutz, told Mashable. “Shoutz provides real-time analytics that adds value for advertisers and makes it easier to manage campaigns, build brand strategies and target effectiveness.” Red McCombs, co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, is one of Shoutz’s primary investors. Developed in 2010, Shoutz’s business model is based on advertisements. The company shares its revenue with its partners, and channels and stars share the ad revenue from their profile pages. Shoutz is currently in public beta and will completely launch in early 2012. Image courtesy of Shoutz, Shoutz 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: android, apps, bizspark, iphone, shoutz, Video For more Business coverage:
            |
| Now Public: Sexual Harassment Letter That Brought Down HP’s CEO [VIDEO] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 07:34 PM PST When Mark Hurd resigned from Hewlett-Packard in August 2010, it was a shock to the PC industry. HP’s board forced Hurd out when he faced allegations of sexual harassment against employee and reality-TV star Jodie Fisher. The alleged activity was outlined in a letter from her attorney. While the case has been settled for a year and a half, the details of the letter were sealed — until now. The San Jose Mercury News reports a Delaware court ordered the letter be made public at the request of an HP shareholder, and it’s now online for all to see, minus a few sentences redacted to protect the privacy of Hurd’s family. (You can view the letter below.) Written by “celebrity lawyer” Gloria Allred on behalf of Fisher, the letter is said to be filled with inaccuracies. That’s according to Fisher herself, who wrote Hurd after the case was settled, saying: “I do not believe that any of your behavior was detrimental to HP or in any way injured the company or its reputation.” Hurd, who is reported to have recruited Fisher as a marketing contractor for HP after seeing her on the reality show Age of Love, was accused of making unwanted advances toward her, including touching her breast when the pair were alone together in a hotel room and asking her to spend the night with him. Hurd is married with two daughters. Besides the harassment allegations, the letter claims Hurd told Fisher about secret negotiations involving HP buying technology services company EDS for $13.9 billion. Federal regulators looked into the claim, though found no evidence that anyone used or profited from the information. Although HP’s own investigation found no basis for the harassment claim, the board forced Hurd out and replaced him with Leo Apotheker. The choice would prove disastrous, as Apotheker set to remake the company as an enterprise services company and planned to gut HP’s consumer business — first by killing the TouchPad tablet and the webOS operating system, and then by selling or spinning off its PC division. The board fired Apotheker in September, replacing him with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. After being forced to resign, Hurd was quickly snapped up by Oracle, who made him a president. What do you think of the letter being made public? Is it important to HP’s shareholders to have this transparency, or should it have been kept sealed? Share your thoughts in the comments. More About: HP, mark hurd, meg whitman, sex scandal
      |
| NASA’s GRAIL Mission Will Celebrate New Year’s on the Moon [VIDEO] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 07:15 PM PST While the world rings in 2012, a team at NASA will be eschewing the festivities to keep a close eye on the moon. Or rather, a close eye on two spacecraft, GRAIL 1 and 2, which will be finally reaching the moon’s orbit after a 110-day flight. The GRAIL craft will orbit Earth’s satellite in formation, aiming their sensitive instruments downward to better study the moon’s gravity. Not that this has anything to do with tides — researchers hope the mission will reveal more about the solar system’s history and how it formed.
      |
| Stratfor Says Hackers Only Nabbed Credit Card Information Posted: 29 Dec 2011 06:51 PM PST   After hackers broke into its website on Dec. 24, Stratfor has partnered with an identity protection service in an effort to give subscribers some measure of comfort. The company will offer its members 12 months of global identity protection for free. Stratfor, based out of Texas, offers information on geopolitics, terrorism, and industry and country forecasts for businesses and government agencies who subscribe to the site. This information is summarized in a daily newsletter with updates and analysis. Some of their clients include the Department of Defense, Bank of America and Apple. Their website launch is being delayed due to the hacking incident, as concerns grow over the content of the data the group stole. Hacker collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for the operation known as “Antisec.” Hackers stole 3.3 million emails from the website as well as assorted credit card information. Stratfor has issued a statement saying the hacker group exaggerated the extent of information obtained. The company denies that Anonymous was able to successfully uncover a list of private clients. “Contrary to this assertion the disclosure was merely a list of some of the members that have purchased our publications and does not comprise a list of individuals or entities that have a relationship with Stratfor beyond their purchase of our subscription-based publications,” the firm said in an email to its members on Dec. 25. Stratfor recommended that clients whose information was compromised alert their credit card companies to watch for suspicious activity. So far, Anonymous has leaked credit card data, but threatened to release all stolen documents causing “mayhem.” We reached out to the Anonymous spokesperson via Twitter who explained that operation Antisec, like most ops, did not have all “anons” behind it. They would not give details about the data stolen or how many hackers were involved. Anonymous frames themselves as a group seeking complete online freedom and demanding transparency with government and business information. The Stratfor hack was just the latest incident in a year full of security mishaps. Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked earlier this spring. Also this spring, hacking group LulzSec gained attention for for successfully hacking into parts of websites owned by Sony Pictures, the CIA and the U.S. Senate. The nature of these attacks underscores the need for robust security audits at firms and corporations of all sizes. What do you think of this latest attack? Let us know in the comments. More About: anonymous, antisec, hacking, security, stratfor
      |
| Biscotti: The Best Product Packaging Since the iPod? Posted: 29 Dec 2011 06:33 PM PST Biscotti TV Phone Box
Click here to view this gallery. A cookie-shaped, easy-to-use, $199 video-conferencing solution is impressive, but wrapping it up in packaging that resembles a mash-up between Apple’s design elegance and Henny Youngman‘s penchants for one-liners is an altogether different level of accomplishment. Introduced last month at the Consumer Electronics Association’s annual New York-based CES Unveiled preview event (CES 2012 kicks off on Jan. 9 in Las Vegas), the Biscotti TV Phone is a home video-conferencing gadget that works with your HDTV. Each biscotti-cookie-shaped unit cost $199 and works with any other unit via Biscotti's proprietary network. You can also chat with anyone on GChat (sorry, no Skype). That's all pretty cool and I'll be test driving shortly to see if Biscotti works as advertised. In the meantime, though, let's all spend a moment oohing and ahhing over this extremely well-thought-out packaging. As with the best packaging, there's little wasted space. Plus, the colors and retro design—brown paper bag-esque covering, red and white printing– almost invite you to open the box. This is straight from the Apple playbook, and we've seen similarly well-executed packing designs from Amazon, Jawbone, and Barnes and Noble. However, Biscotti diverges with some surprisingly playful touches in the packaging copy. On the front it says, "It's like reality TV. But with normal people. Well, almost normal people." The bottom lists the product contents, including the TV Phone," "Remote Control," "and "Lots of Love." The back shows the product sitting atop a TV and promises, "It's tiny!" The Biscotti TV Phone is created, the box notes, "by loveable scientists in Texas." Inside the box, Biscotti drops the humor, but maintains the deft packaging touch. All the accessories are neatly packaged and the "Get Started" instructions, which are on a rather thick, foldable card, are written and illustrated in the simplest way imaginable. Biscotti is hoping for heavy adoption from tech-averse consumers, especially grandparents who want to talk to and see their kids but might not be comfortable figuring out Skype on their computer. The packaging, minimal accessories, super-simple setup guide and little touch of humor could help them succeed. More About: apple, HDTV, video conferencing For more Entertainment coverage:
      |
| Telecom Immunity Ruling Upheld by U.S. Appeals Court Posted: 29 Dec 2011 06:19 PM PST   Three appeals court judges unanimously upheld a controversial federal law on Thursday — one that grants immunity to phone companies that give government officials access to users’ online communications. “It is disappointing that today’s decision endorsed the rights of telecommunications companies over those over their customers,” said Kurt Opsahl, Senior Staff Attorney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an online statement. The EFF first filed suit against the law in January 2006; it lost that case. A second suit, filed in September 2008 — Jewel v. NSA — claims the U.S. government tapped into civilian information without cause or suspicion. To do a wiretap, government officials need a warrant or a National Security Letter, which carries a bit more weight than a warrant. Typically, a warrant or letter doesn’t grant a free-for-all access to the private data of an American citizen, and stipulates who or what group will be searched. The EFF’s concern is that government entities will take advantage of this privilege — and use online data to police the actions of law-abiding citizens. In 2008, telecom companies were granted immunity from prosecution for cooperating with Federal authorities to collect information on civilians. A San Francisco judge had previously upheld the law and dismissed cases against companies working with government agencies. The defendants in the case were AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel. AT&T and Verizon both declined to comment for this story. Sprint has yet to respond. A spokesman from the Department of Justice said they have no immediate comment on the ruling. Government investigators are increasingly partnering with technology companies who can cull the personal data of suspected criminals. In May, the CIA’s technology branch invested in a social media monitoring company. And the FBI has reportedly used social media sites to track down fugitives and solve crimes. Are you worried about government agencies using social media to collect intelligence? Let us know in the comments. More About: att, Department of Justice, EFF, sprint, verizon
      |
| 5 Video Game Moments that Defined 2011 Posted: 29 Dec 2011 06:03 PM PST   It seems like every single year is “the year of gaming,” if only because the genre keeps getting bigger and bigger. Everyone thought 2006 was going to be the high water mark with the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii all battling for supremacy. Then 2009 upped the ante with a rush of top-tier, high-selling games. In all the console-focused frenzy, few people expected mobile and social gaming to be so dominant. The Nintendo DS (and its iterations) is the best selling system of all time and smartphones became tiny-powerhouses thanks to intuitive games such as Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and more. Well, 2011 was no slouch in terms of gaming. This year we caught a glimpse of the next generation of systems — portable and otherwise. Social networks entered mainstream games, motion gaming promised to further revolutionize how we play, mobile games proved they are here to stay and gamification showed that pretty much anything you do online can be turned into a video game. Read on for the year in gaming. 1. The Next Generation of Consoles |
| HOW TO: Move Your Domain Name Account Posted: 29 Dec 2011 05:41 PM PST   Dec. 29 is also known as “Dump GoDaddy Day.” The initiative to move domains hosted with GoDaddy to other domain registrars was spurred on by reddit user “SelfProdigy,” in the wake of GoDaddy’s public support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Even though GoDaddy has since reversed course, the company has continued to face backlash from users across the web. Anti-SOPA reigstrars such as Name.com and NameCheap are encouraging users to spread the word about SOPA — and are even donating funds towards anti-SOPA groups such as the Electronic Freedom Foundation. Unfortunately, the process for moving a domain name from one registrar to another is way more complicated than it should be. We wanted to help shine a light on the domain transfer process. Although this gallery focuses on GoDaddy, the advice for DNS, email and web hosting are applicable to any registrar. Step 1: Go to "Domain Management" Login to your GoDaddy account and head to the "Domain Management" section. This will open up a page that allows you to manage your various domain names. Click here to view this gallery. The Transfer ProcessBefore transferring a domain name, make sure that you match the following conditions:
Dealing with DNSThe biggest potential hassle of transferring a domain from one registrar to another is the downtime you’ll experience if you host email or your website’s nameservers (DNS servers) with your registrar. If you are using the nameservers of a third party, transferring your domain from one registrar to another should have no impact on your site. Likewise, if you use a service like CloudFlare that handles DNS records, transferring to a new registrar shouldn’t effect your websites uptime. NameCheap.com has a great guide to minimizing downtime when switching to a new registrar. In NameCheap’s case, because it offers free DNS hosting, it suggests you transfer your DNS addresses for your current websites from your current registrar to NameCheap before you move domains. After the DNS changes are made, you can move your domain over without having to worry about any downtime. If you are unable to change your nameservers in advance, be aware that you may experience a few hours of downtime once the domain is transferred from one registrar to another. Dealing with EmailLots of domain registrars also offer email hosting. As with changing your DNS information, this is something you need to deal with in advance. My advice would be to avoid hosting email with a registrar or webhost. Instead, opt for something like Google Apps. The free edition of Google Apps allows users to create 10 different accounts (as well as “catch-all” accounts) for a domain name. Google will provide you will mail servers that you can then give your new registrar. Some registrars, such as NameCheap, even offer easy-setup for Google Apps email accounts in their settings control panel. Google Apps is great because you can use the Gmail web interface, Google Docs and other Google tools. You can also use the mail account with stand-alone IMAP friendly email clients like Outlook or Apple Mail. I’m the rare person who is NOT a fan of the Gmail web interface, I use Apple Mail myself, but 4 of my domains have hosted Google Apps accounts. If you’re looking for a slightly more reliable (and ad-free) solution, Fastmail.fm is a well-regarded provider that offers external domain support for $40 a year. Other Resources
More About: domain registrar, features, godaddy, How-To, SOPA For more Tech coverage:
      |
| #LastTweet Collects Finals Tweets of Those Who Died in 2011 Posted: 29 Dec 2011 05:25 PM PST   The New York TImes Magazine has scoured the web for the final tweets of some of 2011′s biggest personalities and avid tweeters who died this past year. The magazine features tweets from actress Elizabeth Taylor, war photographer Tim Hetherington, Indy Racer Dan Wheldon, saxophonist Clarence Clemons and more. Social media is often thought of as a tool to share your life but it can also be a way to commemorate a death. Stories and talks have been given on what happens to your social profile after you die such as this TED talk, “After Your Final Status Update”, from Mashable‘s Executive Editor Adam Ostrow. These tweets, while not exactly digital epitaphs, capture something of the people who sent them and the lives they shared online. Take a look at some of the tweets below and share your own findings in the comments below. #LastTweet |
| Verizon Customers Suffer Third Outage in December [VIDEO] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 04:47 PM PST Despite claiming to be America’s most reliable network, Verizon customers reported outages Dec. 8, 21 and 28. Wednesday’s outages were reported on both the 3G and 4G networks. Complaints came from across the U.S., including cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Verizon says the most recent outage has been fixed. Are you a Verizon customer who lost service this month? Where are you located? More About: mashable video, outages, verizon For more Mobile coverage:
      |
| 8 Ways Digital Will Improve B2B Sales in 2012 Posted: 29 Dec 2011 04:19 PM PST   Guy Nirpaz is the CEO and co-founder of Totango, which analyzes user actions on SaaS applications, providing sales teams invaluable information in qualifying prospects and prioritizing people to contact who are most likely to buy or renew. How B2B products and services are purchased and sold is rapidly changing. Some call it the consumerization of IT, but perhaps it’s the consumerization of B2B in general. Buyers are demanding cloud-based products that are user-friendly as well as social and mobile capabilities, with as little sales involvement as possible. A good example is purchasing from iTunes: web-based self-service with instant gratification. Below are eight predictions for B2B sales in 2012. 1. Social Selling Will Go MainstreamNinety-two percent of prospects almost never book a meeting from a cold call or email, according to a study by UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business. In 2012, rather than make cold calls, sales executives will first seek connections through social media networks, and then increase response rates with warm introductions. Aside from personal networks, sales managers will also find ways to leverage the networks of colleagues, partners, customers, executives and former employees during the sales process. 2. Companies Will use Facebook as a Sales ChannelFacebook was originally viewed as a network for personal communications in which direct selling was frowned upon. In 2012, more companies will experiment with the social platform as a sales channel, beginning with employees who sell or advocate to their friends. Home Depot has already asked store associates to post helpful do-it-yourself tips on their personal pages. Farmers Insurance encourages local franchisees to build relationships with customers via Facebook; the company won a Guinness World Record doing so. 3. Sales Executives Will Adopt Big DataIn 2012, sales leaders will embrace big data to increase sales performance. Some will use it to identify the most profitable customers and find more leads with the same characteristics. Others will analyze customer usage patterns during trial and production to find the hottest prospects and to up-sell targets. Combining analytics and sales automation, B2B companies will target prospects and customers with personalized offers triggered by specific behaviors. 4. Customer Engagement Becomes a Top PrioritySales managers will no longer be able to drop off software and drive away. With the rise of subscription-based pricing models, unhappy customers who are not actively using a product or service will simply cancel their subscriptions. This will align organizations behind their customers' success, and encourage them to increasingly monitor engagement throughout the customer lifecycle. Some B2B companies, like Yammer, will even appoint a dedicated VP of customer engagement, also responsible for up-selling and renewals. 5. Outside Sales Reps Will Use iPadsThe iPad is finding its way into the enterprise. Some are calling it the most important new sales tool since the invention of the cellphone. In 2012, most outside sales reps will start to use an iPad or other tablet for work. They will use it for shipping, product documentation, demonstrations, to capture leads at a trade shows or to quickly research a prospect before a meeting. 6. Most Sales Tools Will Move to the CloudThe average sales organization already uses more than 24 software tools in the sales process, based on a poll conducted by Gerhard Gschwandtner, publisher of Selling Power magazine, at the 2011 Sales Strategies in a Social & Mobile World conference. This number is growing every year. In 2012, the majority of these applications will move to the cloud. Many companies, for example, will adopt cloud-based versions of subscription and billing software. This is a boom for sales executives, who will now have more visibility into a customer’s billing cycle, which is helpful when growing or renewing an account. Also, the more applications to move to the cloud, the more streamlined the process. 7. Sales and Marketing Will ConvergeThe sales process is becoming more self-sufficient, and customers are driving the pace. Outside sales are becoming inside sales, partly because of online conferencing tools. Inside sales is being replaced with self-serving website resources. As this happens, the lines between marketing and sales continue to blur. In 2012, more organizations will appoint chief revenue officers in recognition of this trend. Overall, there will have to be closer collaboration between the sales and marketing chiefs. 8. More Companies Will Offer Free TrialsMore organizations will offer free trials or completely free versions of their products. Prospects and customers are increasingly demanding self-service, which provides instant access to a free trial of products, before deciding to talk to a sales rep. Companies that offer a free trial will get more buzz and word-of-mouth referrals, and their sales costs will lower when fewer live touch points are required. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mbortolino More About: b2b, cloud computing, contributor, features, ipad, sales, Social Media, Year End 2011 For more Business coverage:
      |
| Teen’s Silent YouTube Goodbye Goes Viral After Death [VIDEO] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 04:05 PM PST Eighteen-year-old Ben Breedlove died on Christmas Day after fighting a serious heart condition for most of his life. Shortly before his death, he posted a two-part video on YouTube, in which he silently describes his ordeal through cue cards. The video went viral after rapper Kid Cudi, who Breedlove says he once saw in a near-death experience, posted his emotional reaction to Breedlove’s death on Tumblr. Breedlove’s videos on YouTube now have more than 2 million views. More About: Ben Breedlove, viral videos For more Social Media coverage:
      |
| To the Moon and Beyond: China’s Five-Year Plan for Space Posted: 29 Dec 2011 03:18 PM PST   The Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou-8, which launched earlier this year. Credit: DLR The Chinese government released a report on Thursday that reveals details about the country's plans to grow its space program — by creating new spacecrafts, satellites and a space lab in the next five years. The white paper, called “China’s Space Activities in 2011,” revealed that the country will expand its space exploration efforts by 2016 and work with the international community to make contributions toward space development. The plans were released by China’s Information Office of the State Council. “In the next five years, China will strengthen its basic capacities of the space industry, accelerate research on leading-edge technology and continue to implement important space scientific and technological projects, including human spaceflight, lunar exploration, high-resolution Earth observation system, satellite navigation and positioning system, new-generation launch vehicles and other priority projects in key fields,” the report said. At the top of its list: building a stronger spacecraft system by improving its launch vehicles. “China will push forward human spaceflight projects and make new technological breakthroughs, creating a foundation for future human spaceflight,” the report said. “It will launch the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spaceships and achieve unmanned or manned rendezvous and docking with the in-orbit Tiangong-1 vehicle.” The country’s government also plans to launch a space lab to allow astronauts to work on space-station technologies, such as regenerative life support and propellant refueling. China will also turn its efforts toward gathering samples from the moon and “push forward its exploration of planets, asteroids and the sun of the solar system.” Although China trails behind the United States and Russia in terms of space industry development, it's made some big strides in the past five years. The report emphasized that the country sent 79 spacecraft vehicles into orbit since 2006 and developed various earth-observation satellites, including disaster monitoring and forecasting systems. "Over the past few years, China’s space industry has developed rapidly and China ranks among the world’s leading countries in certain major areas of space technology," the report said. "Space activities play an increasingly important role in China’s economic and social development." More About: NASA, space, spacecraft
      |
| Storify Reveals Its Favorite User-Generated Story of 2011 Posted: 29 Dec 2011 02:58 PM PST   Social media curation tool Storify doled out its Story of the Year honor Thursday to Josh Stearns, who is using the service to keep track of journalists arrested during the nationwide Occupy Wall Street protests. Stearns works for Free Press as the journalism and public media campaign director and began documenting the arrests in September when a TV reporter was jailed in New York City. Storify describes his story, which has been viewed more than 14,500 times, as “an effort that evolved over weeks and months, preserving what would otherwise be lost in the social media flood.”
Since launching into public beta in April, Storify has allowed professional and citizen journalists to take content from various social networks — such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Instagram — and plop everything into one interactive post that can be embedded onto other websites. Stearns filled his story with links to news articles, videos, photos, quotes and resources for journalists. The story edged out others from Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa (2011 Timeline of Protest, Revolution and Uprising) and SMH reporter Glenda Kwek (Riots in the UK). Storify announced the winner Thursday in a blog post, which of course included a Storify (see below). More About: citizen journalism, journalism, News, Occupy Wall Street, Storify For more Social Media coverage:
      |
| Google Is 2011′s Top Web Brand [VIDEO] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 02:29 PM PST Google is the top digital brand for 2011, followed by Facebook and Yahoo, according to recent research tracking unique monthly visitors per month. A Nielsen study shows Google is the top digital U.S. web company, with more than 150 million visitors each month. The search giant’s nascent social network Google+, however, is not to credit for the majority of that traffic. What website do you frequent most regularly? More About: Facebook, Google, mashable video, Newsy, Nielsen For more Business coverage:
      |
| HP Wants to Print Your Twitter Wishes On Balloons and Set Them Free Posted: 29 Dec 2011 01:57 PM PST
HP is printing tweets about New Year wishes on helium balloons and letting them go near its Middle East headquarters in Dubai. It’s calling the project the TwitterWisher, and only tweets submitted through the TwitterWisher website will be considered for flight. People who find a freed balloon can enter its ID number at the same website in order to plot it on the map. Anyone can watch the balloons take off through a live video stream. The company seems to be aiming for a modern-day message in a bottle, complete with a sense of global connectedness. “The HP TwitterWisher lets people spread good cheer and wishes and connect with people all over the world as we cross over into a new year together,” Suad Merchant, a HP Middle East marketing manager told Middle East business website AMEinfo.com. Here’s hoping no birds choke in the process. More About: HP, Twitter, Twitterwisher For more Business coverage:
      |
| Apple’s Museum That Never Was: Why Does Stanford Keep it Secret? [VIDEO] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 01:24 PM PST Where does the world’s largest collection of Apple-related history live? In a fascinating archive owned and operated by Stanford University. But good luck actually finding the trove of hardware, software, recorded interviews, revealing documents, candid photos and internal videos. Everything is stored in a secret Bay Area location away from the Stanford campus. Unceremoniously housed in boxes that occupy some 600 feet of shelving in a climate-controlled warehouse, the archive contains gems such as handwritten early sales records of the Apple II, a $5,000 loan agreement that helped the fledgling company get off the ground, and a 1976 letter in which a printer warns a friend about a young “joker” named Steve Jobs. Mashable has reached out to Stanford for more information on why this bonanza of Apple-geek gold hasn’t been made more available for viewing by the general public, but so far has not heard back from university representatives. The storage warehouse’s undisclosed location is understandable, as it’s easy to imagine obsessed fans trying to break in for peaks — or pieces — of their own. But the lack of more public viewing seems unusual. As a private university with an endowment of more than $16 billion, dearth of funding isn’t a plausible reason. The Associated Press was recently granted a rare visit to the secret space — but only after agreeing not to divulge its location. Given the swell of public interest in Apple’s story since Jobs’ death in October, could a public museum now be in the works? The bulk of the collection was originally intended for an Apple corporate museum that never got built. Apple donated the materials to Stanford in 1997, soon after Jobs rejoined the company. The university has since acquired more than 20 additional collections from former Apple employees, executives and business partners to complement the company’s original donation. The Stanford archive also includes documentation of Apple’s 1985 removal of Jobs as CEO, as well as his subsequent return to the position, which would spark the company’s transformation from a struggling corporation into an international business behemoth. But the Stanford collection doesn’t just tell the story of one company. The rise of Apple with Jobs at the helm parallels the modern maturation of the technology industry all the way through its ubiquity today. “Apple Computer is an iconic company in Silicon Valley,” Stanford curator Henry Lowood recently told a university publication. “And by iconic I mean that it’s more than just historically important. It symbolizes a lot of things that we’ve come to associate with Silicon Valley.” Located in Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford has had a long relationship with Apple and its famous co-founder. In a 1985 interview with Playboy magazine, Jobs praised the availability of “fresh made” LSD on the campus during his youth, and in 2005 he gave a now-famous inspirational commencement speech to Stanford’s graduating class. What is Apple’s historical legacy to you? Would you like to see the Stanford archive made available for public viewing? Let us know in the comments. More About: apple, Stanford University, steve jobs For more Tech coverage:
      |
| Nanoparticles Could Let You Wear a Computer Made Out of Cotton Posted: 29 Dec 2011 01:01 PM PST   Tablets and ereaders are so 2011 — a global group of material scientists have found a way to turn cotton into transistors and electrical circuits. In the (not so distant) future, Apple’s newest product might just be a t-shirt. That might be a bit of fantasy but the science is very real. The group of scientists — from top universities in Italy, France and America — created two kinds of transistors, an organic field-effect transistor (OFET) similar to those found in a computer’s CPU and a lower-voltage organic electrochemical transistor (OCET), ExtremeTech reported. To create the transistors, the group coated cotton threads with gold nanoparticles and a variety of conductors. The process creates cotton that is stiffer than that found in your standard shirt, but more elastic and with ability to carry a current. Best of all, according to the group’s research paper, the coating process is not time-consuming and is much like dyeing standard fabrics. Apparel companies have tried putting electronics into clothing for a long time, whether its light-up graphics or even a functional mini-amp. The paper takes those concepts light-years forward by turning the actual material into a computing matrix. As ExtremeTech points out, most cotton clothing is made of hundreds and hundreds of interconnected threads. The computing possibilities for these transistor threads is off the charts. The real trick will be making sure you keep your wardrobe charged. Is computerized cotton the clothing of the future or just a fantasy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, blakespot More About: clothing, Tech, technology For more Tech coverage:
      |
| Most U.S. Small Businesses Plan to Buy an iPad in 2012 [STUDY] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 12:33 PM PST   The iPad is certainly the top tablet as far as consumers are concerned, but businesses strongly prefer it, too. That’s the word from the industry analysts at NPD, who just published the results of a survey that shows nearly three-quarters of small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) are looking to buy tablets for their workers in 2012, strongly preferring the iPad over competitors. The survey found that the larger the company, the more likely it was to want a tablet, and the stronger the preference for the iPad. Among businesses with fewer than 50 employees, the intent to purchase a tablet was a solid-but-not-overwhelming majority of 54%. As the companies grew, however, so did their desire for tablets, with 89% of companies between 501 and 999 employees planning to buy them. Of all the businesses considering a tablet, 73% were targeting the iPad. “You’re really dealing with two different types of business,” Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, told Mashable. “When you look at really small business, under 50, there’s a lot of crossover between things consumers want to use and what’s useful in a small-business environment.” The study is lousy — if unsurprising — news for Apple’s competitors. The only tablet to seriously challenge the iPad so far is Amazon’s Kindle Fire, but that device runs a customized operating system that’s highly catered toward consumers, so it makes sense that businesses aren’t interested. Even if business-friendly software were developed, the Fire lacks some key hardware features, such as a camera, that many companies would need. A seemingly business-friendly alternative to the iPad is the BlackBerry PlayBook. But that device has suffered from a troubled spring launch that saw the tablet debut without a native email client. Users are still waiting for a software update that will add one, and its QNX-based operating system has little developer support. “There really isn’t another product that has any kind of headway that the iPad has,” says Baker. “It’s probably not as much about the iPad as the product type. Employees are using them, and they want to find ways of using them in the business.” Although the NPD study doesn’t include large companies, the iPad has been making inroads in the enterprise market as well. Following the “consumerization of IT” trend, a study released in May by Model Metrics showed 83% of IT departments at 448 companies planned to deploy iPads by the end of 2013. Those numbers may shift, however, as Microsoft makes its big tablet push late next year. Windows 8 should start shipping in fall 2012, and the entire operating system has been tailored from the ground up to be tablet-friendly. Businesses that are reliant on Microsoft software (read: the vast majority) will have good reason to consider a Windows tablet once they become available. Are you a small-to-medium-size business owner or manager? Tell us about your tablet plans in the New Year: Are you going to get one for your company? Which one and why? Let us know in the comments. More About: ipad, playbook, tablets, Windows 8 For more Business coverage:
      |
| Facebook Timeline vs. Old Profiles: How People View Them Differently [STUDY] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 12:14 PM PST
To get a better idea of how profile design affects profile viewers, Mashable asked eye-tracking research startup EyeTrackShop to compare visual statistics for Twitter, Facebook and MySpace profiles before and after major site redesigns. The company had 30 people to look at the profiles while tracking their eye movements. Here are some interesting observations from the resulting data:
Take a look at the full results in the slideshow below and add your own observations to the comments.  Facebook Timeline became available to all Facebook users in December, replacing the Facebook Wall. Click here to view this gallery. More About: EyeTrackShop, Facebook, myspace, trending, Twitter
      |
| Internet Meme Playing Card Project Seeks Your Funding Posted: 29 Dec 2011 11:48 AM PST   If one Seattle man had his way, all playing cards would have faces — the faces of Internet memes. Ray Thomas has launched a Kickstarter project to raise $4,200 for the production of playing cards that would feature 52 memes, including Success Kid, Business Cat, Y U NO Guy, Sad Keanu, Hipster Ariel, Futurama Fry and Pepper-Spray Cop. So far, Thomas has raised $130 from 14 backers since Dec. 23. “This meme phenomenon is really confined to the Internet and this is just one idea I had for sharing them with a broader audience,” Thomas told Mashable on Thursday, adding that many people offline are missing out on the fun. “I’d ask co-workers if they’d seen Success Kid, First World Problems or Scumbag Steve and they’d look at me like I was from a different planet.” Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter helps creative minds rake in money for costly projects, and backers get stuff in return. In this case, they will receive one or more decks of cards depending on the amount of their donations. “If this is successful I’d love to do an entire deck of one meme and different text of course,” Thomas says. “Some memes have more than enough submissions to make that happen.” Thomas isn’t only asking for donations to cover manufacturing costs, he’s also requesting help choosing the final nine memes of the 52-meme deck. What memes would you want to see printed on the cards? 1. Portals Funded: $1,934 This project uses a box and an old monitor to simulate virtual reality. It is an incredibly cool project, but its Kickstarter backers shouldn't expect anything in return other than a "big happy thank you." Click here to view this gallery. More About: funding, kickstarter, memes For more Entertainment coverage:
      |
| How to Launch a Social Ambassador Campaign Posted: 29 Dec 2011 11:31 AM PST   Curry Smith is affiliated with NOLAbound, a unique program that immerses 25 professionals in New Orleans business to discuss the city’s entrepreneurial and social media influence. You can apply to be considered for a spot in the program at www.benolabound.com/apply. As long as brands want to improve and increase social media engagement and fellowship, they’ll need authentic, relevant, community-oriented content. One solution is to give consumers the chance to serve as brand representatives. Social media ambassador campaigns can fit a wide range of industries and products. They succeed by targeting popular bloggers and "super users" of networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. This type of partnership can be a successful strategy for all parties.
But watch for challenges and pitfalls along the way. For instance, simply giving ambassadors an all-access-pass to your brand is inadvisable. The transparency and immediacy of social media means that any brand considering a social media ambassador campaign must first make some careful decisions about control, access and overall brand strategy before deploying a successful program. We have identified what we think are the five most critical considerations before launching a brand ambassador program. 1. Populate the Candidate PoolThe first step in any ambassador program is to generate a pool of possible candidates. The process of finding, managing and maintaining the "talent" has yet to be simplified on a large scale, though companies like Business 2 Blogger have begun to develop solutions. In most cases, brands will opt to find the ambassadors themselves, preferring to have total control. This process usually works like a web 2.0 version of the traditional talent search: researching people who might be good fits, compiling a list of favorites, approaching them, negotiating, and moving forward with the "talent." However, brands can also open the curtains on the process by employing elements of crowdsourcing. For example, Fila sought six real-life women for its Fall 2011 Body Toning collection. The brand chose five winners live via webstream, and the sixth was a "people's choice" winner, accessed via the FilaToning Facebook Page. A crowdsourcing campaign can drive awareness and engagement before brand ambassadors are even selected. In the case of Fila, influential fitness bloggers applied and drove their audiences to the FilaToning Facebook Page to vote on their behalf, which drove more Likes for the company — before the ambassadors had even been selected. Of course, crowdsourcing can also have its drawbacks. It lessens brand control, and could thus propel undesired candidates to the forefront. Each company will have to weigh its own long-term needs and short-term campaign elements to decide which approach is best. 2. Select your AmbassadorsOnce a brand has built a pool of potential ambassadors, the hard work is narrowing down the list to the few individuals who best match its needs and values. Employing real people to be living, breathing extensions of a brand requires selection criteria far beyond that of a print ad model or paid spokesperson. Here are four key considerations.
3. Manage those AmbassadorsAfter choosing the ambassadors, companies need a plan to manage their access and activities. While professional talent often comes with an agent, everyday people do not — meaning that the obligation to train, inform, assist and manage the ambassador falls to the brand. Ambassadors will use creative decision-making. This should be embraced and encouraged — it's why they were selected. To channel and pace this enthusiasm, brands need to plan appropriately. The biggest consideration in managing ambassadors should be clear, timely and concise communication. Companies must plan ahead and convey any needs and desires to participants frequently. Do not assume anything. 4. To Edit or Not to EditReal people have bad days. They curse. They cut and dye their hair. They have tattoos. They over-share. How will this affect the campaign? Deciding up front what sorts of filters to put in place is a key safeguard — and a unique process for each campaign. Giving free reign to ambassadors to share their impressions is a risky move. Projects that encourage participants to candidly post their impressions of the brand — on Facebook, Twitter, and personal blogs — can result in rich, candid conversation. For the right effort, authenticity can pay off. On the other hand, some brands require a higher level of control because they cannot be associated with certain content. In that case, editing ambassadors can be done through legal contracts and nondisclosure agreements, or by restricting or limiting social media posts. 5. Leverage the Content for PosterityWith a completed ambassador program, brands are faced with the challenge of longevity. How does an immediate and instant communication medium turn into one with lasting impact and influence? Solutions are as varied as the campaigns themselves. Consider recording film footage of the ambassadors' experiences and uploading to YouTube. Fila also created print ads featuring their real-life ambassadors. Coupon Cabin has created a blog corner for Kate Gosselin to post directly to their website. When done correctly, long-term content planning can foster a partnership with social media ambassadors that will continue adding value long after the partnership officially ends. Images courtesy of Flickr, miuenski, jurvetson, Mr. Wright More About: brand ambassador, contributor, features, How-To, Marketing, Social Media, social media campaign For more Business coverage:
      |
| Who Are Your 10 BFFs on Facebook? This App Will Tell You Posted: 29 Dec 2011 11:12 AM PST   A Facebook app created by Visa in conjunction with the NFL will help you assemble a team of your 10 closest Facebook friends for a Super Bowl-themed video designed to promote a contest run by the credit card brand. The “You+10 Draft,” which went live on Thursday, scrapes your Facebook Page to analyze your most recent interactions and then creates a list of your 10 BFFs. After that, it churns out a video featuring the 10, who are assigned roles like “commentator,” “No. 1 fan” and “photographer” and are highlighted with a mock-heroic football-style voiceover. The 10 people chosen are friends who you would presumably bring to the Super Bowl if you won a sweepstakes from Visa. That contest offers a cardholder the chance to attend Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis on Feb. 5 with 10 friends and family members. The sweeps, promoted since November, randomly award a Visa cardholder who made a transaction between early November and Dec. 27 with the card. (You could have also entered via snail mail without buying anything.) Alex Craddock, head of North America marketing for Visa, says the app and the sweeps are based on one insight: that 88% of people who watch football do it with others. “It’s very social to the core,” Craddock says of football. There’s a potentially viral component built in to the app, which Visa developed with its ad agency, AKQA. As with other Facebook app-vertising campaigns that play on users’ narcissism, this one beckons consumers with the promise of learning more about themselves. But in this case, there’s a strong incentive to send the video to some of the 10 who made the cut. (You can also sub in others if you didn’t like who the app picked.) However, going strictly by Facebook data has its disadvantages. The list the app created for me, for example, included a few people I barely know. Still, this is an interesting Super Bowl tie-in for a brand — especially given that Visa is not planning to run an ad during the big game. Did you try the app? Is it an effective promotion? Sound off in the comments. More About: Advertising, apps, Facebook, Marketing, Visa
      |
| Spotify Names Top 10 Songs Streamed in 2011 Posted: 29 Dec 2011 11:00 AM PST
Streaming music site Spotify has released its list of this year’s most-played tracks on the site, and indie-pop band Foster the People not only claimed the top spot, it’s the only group with two singles in the top 10. It's been a big year for Spotify, from its U.S. launch to the debut of its global app platform and Spotify Radio. As more and more users flocked to the site to stream and discover new music, some songs, more than others, were played over and over (and over) again. Topping the most-played list in the U.S. is “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People, ahead of pop powerhouses Adele and Rihanna. Spotify declined to comment how many times the song was played. It wasn’t the only song from the group that made the top 10. Foster the People’s “Helena Beat” came in fifth for the year. However, "Pumped Up Kicks" was only the ninth downloaded song of the year on Apple’s iTunes music platform. "Someone Like You" by Adele was the most purchased song of the year on iTunes, followed by LMFAO's “Party Rock Anthem” and "Firework" by Katy Perry, which didn't even make Spotify's top ten. Here’s a look at the full list of Spotify’s most-played tracks of 2011: 1. Foster The People 2. Gym Class Heroes, featuring Adam Levine 3. Adele 4. Rihanna 5. Foster The People 6. Maroon 5 7. Nicki Minaj 8. Skrillex 9. Pitbull, featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer 10. LMFAO Want more than the top 10? Click here to instantly listen to the top 100 streamed tracks via Spotify. What was your favorite song of 2011? Let us know in the comments.
      |
| How the Social Media IPOs of 2011 Fared [STUDY] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 10:34 AM PST   Social media continued to thrive in 2011 as it fomented revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. But investors appeared to be a lot less enthralled. Looking back over the 19 social media IPOs of 2011, Kevin Pleines — an analyst with Birinyi Associates, a stock market research firm — found new social media stocks were generally a bad investment, as 82.4% were trading below their opening-day prices. In fact, as of Wednesday, only three were trading above the price they opened on their first day of trading. This, however, may say less about the social media sector than about IPOs in general. An analysis by The Wall Street Journal found that there were fewer IPOs in 2010 and that the amount raised was 6% less as well. As of the last week of the year, two-thirds of companies are trading below their IPO price. In that regard, social media IPOs performed slightly better. Going by the IPO price, rather than the price the stocks opened on the first day of trading, Pleines found that 57.9% (11 of 19) of social media stocks were trading below that level. Below is Pleines’s assessment of the 19 social media IPOs of 2011. What do you think? Will Facebook’s looming IPO give the market a shot in the arm? Sound off in the comments. 1. Yandex (YNDX) -20.8% from its IPO Price Yandex, a Russian search engine, raised $1.3 billion when it went public in May, making it the biggest social media IPO of the year. Click here to view this gallery. More About: Angie's List, Demand Media, groupon, IPOs, linkedin, pandora, renren, yandex, zillow, Zynga For more Business coverage:
      |
| Facebook 2012: What the Future Holds for the Social Media Powerhouse Posted: 29 Dec 2011 10:09 AM PST   What do you do after your site grows to 800 million users and expands to 1 trillion pageviews per month? Why, plan a $100 billion IPO, of course! Going public is clearly the biggest thing on tap for Facebook in 2012, but the world’s most populated social network and its users have a lot to look forward to over the coming year. From the maturation of Mark Zuckerberg as a leader to Facebook’s growth as a media platform to a looming collision with the world’s biggest tech companies, 2012 is poised to be one of the most important years in the company’s short history. Read on for our predictions for Facebook’s upcoming year, and be sure to add your ideas in the comments. The IPOIt’s safe to say that Facebook’s long-rumored IPO will be the biggest public offering of 2012. It could also potentially be the biggest of the current decade, if rumors of a reported $100 billion valuation and $10 billion raise are accurate. That would put Facebook in the top-three American IPOs for highest amounts raised. Of course, an astronomical target does not mean a guaranteed blockbuster IPO for Facebook. Zynga’s unspectacular debut on the public markets in December has some investor’s worried that social media IPOs will generate less enthusiasm going forward, and that could affect Facebook in 2012. “It’s a very telltale sign of how people feel about social media IPOs in general,” Jeffrey Sica, owner of Sica Wealth Management in Morristown, N.J., told Mashable. “[Investors] have become very shortsighted. There’s a lot of fear in the market right now.” Furthermore, today’s tech companies are raising larger rounds of private money more frequently before going to IPO, and are allowing private investors to trade shares prior to going public. That’s adding up to less opportunity for public investors once the offering hits the market. This is another reason why there was lower-than-expected interest from retail investors for Zynga, and could also be indicative of a lackluster future debut for Facebook, which has raised a whopping $2.3 billion from private investors. It’s unclear what this trend of raising mega-sized rounds of private equity means for public capital markets long term. However, it is clear that entrepreneurs and early employees of the few tech companies attracting this sort of attention are reaping the benefits. And aftermarket stock sales have allowed some early employees and investors to cash in, pre-IPO. Facebook has already minted a number of on-paper billionaires that way. If the company’s IPO in 2012 is as successful at the rumored $100 billion valuation, Reuter’s estimates that Facebook will be home to at least 1,000 new millionaires. The Next Steve Jobs?Shortly after Apple’s iconic co-founder Steve Jobs died in October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook profile, “Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.” Mashable executive editor Adam Ostrow wrote following Jobs’s death, “Although Apple and Facebook have had a contentious relationship, it's hard not to draw comparisons between Jobs and Zuckerberg, both of whom dropped out of college and founded their iconic companies in their early twenties.” Indeed, even before Jobs died, there was a sense that his retirement from Apple as CEO was a symbolic passing of the mantle to unofficial Innovator in Chief in Silicon Valley, and to the tech world in general. But to whom? Many pundits have prognosticated on that question and the answer usually comes down to one of four choices: someone we haven’t heard of yet, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg. When people ask, “Who is the next Steve Jobs?” they mean, from where will the next giant of the tech industry emerge? Who will be the next larger-than-life figure to drive innovation in tech, design and business for the next few decades? It might not necessarily be anyone from the current crop of big company tech CEOs, but of the candidates, a good case could be made for Zuckerberg. That has a lot less to do with Zuckerberg’s potential as a Jobs impersonator (though he is getting better at channeling Jobs’ confidence on stage), and more to do with his place among the next generation’s influencers. Zuckerberg’s performance at the f8 Developer Conference this year, which included an on-stage lampooning from Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg, illustrates Zuckberg’s generational advantage. Even though he clearly tries to match Steve Jobs’s charisma, his style is clearly not a one-to-one emulation — and that’s okay. In fact, that’s exactly why Zuckerberg might be the next Jobs: He understands his consumers in ways that competitors have yet to grasp, and that edge has helped him to win the innovation war in social networking thus far. Facebook vs. The WorldFacebook has been on a collision course with the world’s biggest tech companies for a long time, and that could all come to a head in 2012. The company will fight Apple in the mobile space, where a focus on HTML5 and a recent acquisition of mobile platform developer Strobe (makers of SproutCore) is positioning Facebook to be a powerhouse in the mobile space, ideally by delivering a rich user experience across hardware platforms. One big advantage Facebook can offer that other platforms can’t? Massive amounts of social data and one of the biggest installed user bases on the planet. Facebook will fight Amazon and eBay in the consumer space, with the continued expansion of Facebook Credits, which are already being used to sell all sorts of digital content, from in-game items to movie downloads. For now, Credits can’t be used in the purchase or sale of physical goods, but as retailers like Amazon expand their footprint into digital, they’ll start start to bump into Facebook. And Facebook credits are already sold in stores. Therefore, using them for physical purchases might not be far behind, especially as they get added to mobile payment systems. And they’ll fight Google on virtually all fronts. Both Facebook and Google are advertising-driven businesses, but Facebook’s revenue is a drop in the bucket compared to Google’s. That could significantly start to change in 2012, as Facebook rolls out new ad formats and more agencies shift traditional media buys to online advertising. Yet Facebook does face an uphill battle when it comes to convincing big brands to pay for advertising products when they’re accustomed to free Facebook Pages . Facebook Becomes the MediaSomewhat lost amidst Facebook’s new Timeline buzz, three other developments in 2011 fueled Facebook’s aspiration to become the destination for all media. First, Facebook launched an update to its Open Graph protocol called Gestures, which essentially allows users to [verb] any [noun]. Or in other words, websites are no longer constrained to just allowing users to Like items. Now users can read, watch, listen or perform any other action around the web. Second, Facebook launched a new Subscribe feature, allowing users to let fans follow their public updates (and it’s coming soon for websites). Third, Facebook offered an update to the News Feed called Ticker, that serves as a real-time feed of activity away from Facebook. Taken in tandem, these updates indicate Facebook’s growing desire to be to discovery what Google is to search — that is, the market leader for the new dominant form of currency on the web. In the previous decade, the link was the main way to pass information around on the Internet. Google figured out how to harness that information and turn it into a highly useful search engine. In today’s social media-driven world, the link is being replaced by the social recommendation (and more broadly, by the social action), and Facebook is attempting to build a discovery engine around that idea. In other words, Facebook isn’t going to be a creator of media, but it will be the ultimate curator. The Future of TimelineOf course, that hoopla for Timeline was warranted. Facebook’s radical redesign of the profile page marked a huge departure from the traditional design, which in spite of numerous changes and updates, had maintained the same basic UI concept since Facebook launched. The new Timeline is about storytelling. “Timeline is the story of your life,” said Zuckerberg at the f8 Conference. It’s a “new way to express who you are.” That, of course, gets to the heart of Facebook’s oft-stated goal to make the world “more open and connected.” Here is a new profile that encourages you to share even more about your life by documenting and organizing everything you do. (Not coincidentally, that also plays right into Facebook’s advertising-fueled business model.) What happens to Timeline in 2012 would be as difficult to predict as Timeline itself would have been this time last year, but it’s safe to assume that Facebook’s recent acquisition of Gowalla will have an impact on the future of the site’s profile design. With Gowalla, Facebook acquired a team of designers and developers that had created an unquestionably beautiful location-based social network with the stated purpose of helping users document their travel (both locally and abroad). Put another way, Gowalla was made for telling stories about the places you went. Facebook didn’t specifically acquire the technology behind Gowalla, but it did say that it was “sure that the inspiration behind Gowalla will make its way into Facebook over time.” Smart money is that parts of that “inspiration” will find its way into Facebook as improvements to the storytelling functionality of Facebook Timeline and Facebook’s mobile applications. Special thanks to Brian Carter, author of “The Like Economy,” who helped me codify my thoughts about the future of Facebook. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Oxford, Flickr, Andrew Feinberg, Kewei SHANG More About: Business, facebook ipo, facebook timeline, features, mark zuckerberg, trending
      |
| Most Rented Redbox Films of 2011 [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 29 Dec 2011 09:57 AM PST Redbox, the kiosk rental company that has outpaced traditional retail rental shops, has shared its most rented films of 2011. With Netflix making the controversial decision to increase its prices, Redbox’s value proposition for movie and video game rentals has only increased — even after a modest price increase of its own. Redbox has revealed the winners of its 2011 Movie Awards, showcasing the actors and movies that topped Redbox rental charts in 2011. Additionally, Redbox gave actor Kevin James the first “Redbox Lifetime Achievement Award.” James gets the honor, thanks to the Redbox success of titles like Grown Ups, Zookeeper and The Dilemma. Academy Award winner Natalie Portman got the title of “Most-Rented Actress” for 2011, thanks to her work in Black Swan, Thor and No Strings Attached. Owen Wilson was named “Most-Rented Actor” of 2011, thanks to Little Fockers, Cars 2 and How Do You Know. Looking at the list of most-rented titles, it’s interesting to note that the majority were not runaway successes at the box office. What was your favorite film rental of 2011? Let us know.   More About: 2011, movie rentals, redbox For more Entertainment coverage:
      |
| 3D Optical Scanning Makes 125-Year-Old Records Sing Posted: 29 Dec 2011 09:45 AM PST   Dust off your old and beat up records, there might just be a way to get them to sing again. Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Library have managed to coax sound out of 125-year-old recordings using 3D optical scanning technology. Best of all, those records come from Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta laboratory where Bell, along with his colleagues, were working to improve sound quality and fidelity in the 1880s, reports PhysOrg.com. Bell sent samples of the lab’s work to the Smithsonian Institute for safe-keeping. The inventor, however, didn’t think to also send a record player and so the recordings were never played. Now, 125 years later, the beaten up and decaying records have new life thanks to a system called IRENE/3D which can scan and play any type of record without having to physically touch — and thereby damage — the original. The system takes high resolution images of the spinning records. Restoration specialists, such as Carl Haber and Earl Cornell, can then remove errors from the digital images and play back the recovered recording by passing a virtual stylus over the results.  The system essentially digitizes the original record, with all restoration and correction happening on a computer. The Smithsonian Institute has approximately 400 discs which include people reading from books or reciting Shakespeare. While the content itself — mostly sound experiments and audio backups — may not be impressive, the discs could be an important window into how Bell’s lab developed early sound technology. It will be some time until a system like IRENE/3D makes it to consumers, but we can already hear vinyl enthusiasts and amateur restoration-ists champing at the bit. Images courtesy of Flickr, edbadle, a4611production More About: Music, records, Tech, technology, vinyl
      |
| Confirmed: Verizon Charging $2 Fee for Paying Bills Online or By Phone Posted: 29 Dec 2011 08:57 AM PST   Verizon customers who make single payments by phone or online will be charged a $2 fee per payment starting January 15. The new fee is intended to offset the cost of processing these payments. “The fee will help allow us to continue to support these single bill payment options in these channels,” Verizon said in a statement to Mashable. Other Verizon payment options such as electronic check, AutoPay and payment kiosks are still free. Customer representatives for Sprint and AT&T said that those companies charge no similar additional fee for paying by phone or online. The AT&T representative said there is, however, a fee for paying a bill through a customer service representative by phone. Will Verizon’s $2 fee affect you? If so, will it motivate you to choose an alternate payment option, or do you find single payments by phone or Internet worth the extra couple of bucks? Let us know in the comments. For more Mobile coverage:
      |
| Reddit Users Target Pro-SOPA Politicians Posted: 29 Dec 2011 08:47 AM PST
Redditors began the campaign Wednesday with a post asking fellow Redditors for suggestions on a politician to target. The original poster, Reddit user “digitalboy,” was inspired by the social news site’s community effort to boycott GoDaddy over their support for SOPA. The original mission statement was to find “one senator” who voted for SOPA or the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) and “destroy him.” Digitalboy’s post left it up to responders to decide the target of Reddit’s wrath. In a few hours, the community decided on South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. A “subreddit” named “Operation Graham Cracker” was opened by Reddit user “spez.” There, participants posted material showing Graham’s support for positions unpopular in the Reddit community, which favors free speech and an open Internet. Some Redditors expressed concern over the mission of the campaign. “Redblender” asked, “What’s the objective here? To stop SOPA/NDAA? Or to destroy someone?” The front page for the Operation Graham Cracker subreddit now states that the goal is to “show that legislation like SOPA and PIPA, as well as the indefinite detention sections of the NDAA are unacceptable, and that there is career blowback for supporting such legislation.” According to the organizers, this will be achieved through the following methods:
Even with this outline, the campaign’s target sparked fresh debates. Many Redditors, including “FM7-8,” expressed the desire for a non-partisan effort targeting pro-SOPA Democrats and Republicans alike. Soon after the “Graham Cracker” subreddit opened, the community realized that Senator Graham is not up for re-election in 2012. The Redditors decided they would change targets. A dialogue opened to discuss and debate alternatives, and Redditors chose Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan. A new subreddit opened named “Operation Pull Ryan.” Redditor “joshawesome” registered pullryan.com. The subreddit has become a source for data about Ryan’s legislative record and contact information for his offices and social media accounts. Facebook and Twitter pages for Operation Pull Ryan have also been established. One Redditor, “Niehaus,” reached out to an opponent of Ryan to get his stance on SOPA, and a screenshot of the response was posted in the subreddit. Redditors are currently debating the most effective ways to have an impact on Ryan’s next election, being held Nov. 6, 2012. Will the Reddit community’s methods be an effective way to influence next year’s elections? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke More About: Politics, reddit, redditors, SOPA
      |
Name:
| You are subscribed to email updates from Mashable! To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment