Monday, January 16, 2012

Mashable: Latest 19 News Updates - including “Hackers Steal User Names and E-Mails from Zappos and 6PM.com”

Mashable: Latest 19 News Updates - including “Hackers Steal User Names and E-Mails from Zappos and 6PM.com”

Hackers Steal User Names and E-Mails from Zappos and 6PM.com

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 04:16 AM PST


Hackers have broken into the data servers of online retailer Zappos and affiliate site 6PM.com, stealing sensitive user data, the companies have announced.

“We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com, including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password),” wrote Zappos and 6PM.com in a note to users.

While the breach is definitely bad news for Zappos and 6PM.com customers, luckily not all user data was compromised. “The database that stores your critical credit card and other payment data was NOT affected or accessed,” said the note.

As usual in such scenarios, Zappos and 6PM.com have reset the users’ passwords as a security measures, urging them to set a new password immediately both on these sites and on any other web site where they use the same or a similar password.

Zappos.com is currently not accepting international traffic, and 6PM.com has temporarily turned off their customer service phones, directing users to send inquiries via e-mail.

More About: 6PM, hack, hackers, Zappos

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Russian Space Probe Crashes Into Pacific Ocean

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 01:18 AM PST


Phobos-Grunt, the failed Russian space probe that was slated to visit the Martian moon Phobos, crashed into the Pacific Ocean, Russian news agencies report.

The probe hit Earth at around 12:45 p.m. EST Sunday, some 775 miles west of the coastal island of Wellington.

“Phobos-Grunt fragments have crashed down in the Pacific Ocean,” Alexei Zolotukhin, an official with Russia’s Defense Ministry, said to Ria Novosti.

The probe, described by one expert as the "most toxic falling satellite ever," was launched on Nov. 9, 2011 with a mission to take soil samples from Phobos and fly them back to Earth. However, shortly after launch it stopped responding to commands, and in December the European Space Agency said it will stop attempts to save it.

If it were successful, the $165-million probe would be Russia’s first successful interplanetary mission in over 20 years.

[via Reuters]

More About: fobos-grunt, Phobos-Grunt, russia, space probe, trending

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Tina Fey Photobombs the Golden Globes

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 06:13 PM PST


Even with Ricky Gervais hosting, the 69th Golden Globe Awards have remained a relatively mild affair. Fortunately for all of us, Tina Fey is a lover of memes.

During the presentation for “Best Actress in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical,” the 30 Rock star photobombed the nominee shot of her pal and former “Weekend Update” co-anchor, Amy Poehler. Fey and Poehler were both up for the award but lost to Laura Dern.

Still, the Internet (and Twitter) was a flutter, with requests for animated gifs of photobomb excellence.

Tumblr to the rescue! User kellyoxford put together this shot, celebrating the photo ruiner in us all. Using the time-honored tradition of gif animation, here is what may be the first photobombing at a Hollywood Foreign Press Association award show.

More About: amy poehler, humor, memes, photobomb, tina fey

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33 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 03:29 PM PST


Did you keep yourself busy this week reading about all things CES? Well, just in case you missed anything outside of Vegas, it’s time for the weekly features roundup.

We have tips for navigating the dating scene with digital media, tricks for making your Pinterest cutting edge and pointers for getting the most out of YouTube. We’ve covered the coolest tech accessories, the most popular Twitter pictures and we’re even holding a Facebook short story contest.

Here are this week’s social media resources.

Editor’s Picks

Social Media

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business & Marketing

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

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How Klout Found Success by Focusing on Users

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 03:21 PM PST


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

There’s no set formula for startup success. Some companies focus on design, mastering industry research or one-upping competitors to make it to the top. In the case of Internet startup Klout, though, the focus is on users.

From day one, Klout Founder and CEO Joe Fernandez’s goal has been to “help people understand their influence and to [help them] leverage that influence.”

The San Francisco-based company measures an individual’s influence across the Internet and scores that user’s influence on a scale of 1 to 100. Prior to Klout, no other company had tried to tackle the space of Internet influence — as a result, Klout has become the de facto standard of online influence, defining the industry. Some of the world’s largest brands even use Klout to identify and reward influential consumers in their categories.

During late 2007, Fernandez was recovering from jaw surgery with his jaw wired shut for three months. Unable to talk, he turned to social media to communicate. “When social media became my only form of communication, it changed the way I looked at it,” Fernandez says. “It was amazing to me that for the people who trusted me the most, I could tell them my opinion about anything instantly from my phone and it would have some sort of impact on them, just as what they were saying or thinking or experiencing would have an impact on me. Even more exciting was the idea that all the data was there to measure it.”

Fernandez started building Klout during his recovery period. Since then, the startup has received massive press and a lot of investor attention, with $10 million in funding. It has also built quite a large audience, and has assigned scores to more than 100 million people and brands. Klout is all about data — it analyzes 2.7 billion pieces of content and connections per day, receives more than 8 billion API calls per month and has worked with more than 5,000 partners and developers.

We recently spoke with Fernandez about the journey he has taken in establishing Klout. Fernandez shared four key thoughts on how the company has maintained a focus on its users in order to learn and grow. Here are his thoughts on putting users first.

1. Get Feedback from Super Users

The first step to connecting with and learning from users is to ask for and act upon their feedback. Fernandez recommends keeping your ears open for every single mention of your brand across online and offline — great feedback can come from anywhere.

But for the really nitty gritty details, go to your super users, the people who love your product and use it nonstop. At Klout, these users are part of a small, invite-only group called Klout Squad. These users are the first to know about, experience and give feedback on new Klout features.

“We’re creating a standard around something that’s inherently subjective, trying to evolve the product and iterating really quickly,” says Fernandez. “It’s really exciting to have a group of people that may or may not agree with everything we do. They offer different perspectives and engage in intimate conversations around product and strategy and give us feedback. It’s a key part of how we want to grow this business.”

Klout also hosts Klout Chats on Twitter to engage with a larger audience of users regarding new features or important topics — Fernandez says that these Twitter chats attract 5,000 users on average. That’s a lot of feedback to act on.

2. Be Accessible


Klout users Han Ly, Nicole Mickelson, and Setareh Taghvaei mingle with Klout Co-Founder and CTO Binh Tran at a KloutUp in San Francisco.

Consumer feedback is important for all businesses. While it can be a challenge to connect with users, it’s essential that your business overcome all obstacles to engage with users.

Klout is very accessible online, having a very active presence on Twitter and Facebook, for starters. But Klout receives more than 1 million @mentions on Twitter every month, so sorting through the madness can be a bit of a task.

As a result, Klout makes it a point to host in-person events where Klout users can mingle with one another and get to know the company.

Deemed “KloutUps,” these events give users and employees a chance to learn about Klout, face to face. “We leave more informed about what may or may not be good about our product, and they leave more informed about what our intentions are,” says Fernandez.

“We’re putting scores next to people, and it can feel really cold,” Fernandez explains. “The more we can humanize our company and be accessible to the community, the better.”

3. Show Tangible Value

Klout introduced Klout Perks earlier this year to offer exclusive products and experiences to online influencers. Users can earn exclusive access to new online services, invites to events and free merchandise, based on how influential they are in certain topics.

Klout Perks “makes the value of your Klout Score tangible,” says Fernandez. “The idea that for just being who you are, for just being as passion as you are for whatever topic, that brands want to recognize and reward you, is pretty awesome to me.”

So far, the the Perks program has been a hit in 2011 — Klout distributed 300,000 Klout Perks to users.

If your service lacks tangible value for users, figure out a way to solve that problem. You’ll keep users interested in interacting with your product if they can see the true benefit of staying involved.

4. Build Trust by Protecting User Data

Klout monetizes its business through Klout Perks, but in the process, it maintains integrity and manages to keep 100% of personally identifiable user data out of its advertisers’ hands.

“One of the things that I’m really proud of, but that I think people don’t really get about Klout Perks is that we don’t actually give any data to the brands [that connect with users via Klout Perks],” says Fernandez. “It’s really all about empowering the user.”

Brands pay to connect with influential users — and that’s the end of the brand’s involvement. Klout strives to protect users’ data by dealing with all of the administrative portions that may come up regarding Klout Perks, such as emailing eligible Klout users and shipping redeemed Perks to users.

After a brand’s Klout Perk campaign has ended, Klout delivers a stats report to the brand, detailing aggregate counts of how many users the campaign reached, how much content was created around the brand as a result and what user sentiment amounted to.

In an age when most companies are happy to fork over email addresses, usernames and other information for a pretty penny, it’s always a pleasant surprise to see companies resisting the urge to build trust with their users.

Images courtesy of Kenneth Yeung, Mike Henderson and Klout.

More About: ceo, features, klout, mashable, Small Business, startup, users

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Meme Machine: Top 5 Viral Topics This Week

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 02:38 PM PST


The Mashable Meme Machine is a daily look at five hilarious viral topics spreading across the web right now.

In case you missed our latest series, here are our picks for the funniest of the funniest in the meme machine. It was a hard decision, but some just shine a little bit brighter than others. Which was your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

Got a tip for us? Feel free to contact Brian Anthony Hernandez (@BAHjournalist), Christine Erickson (@christerickson) or Lauren Hockenson (@lhockenson).


1. Cutest Spider Ever




Whether spiders make you squeamish or not, this little guy is just asking to go viral on the web.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: barack obama, Meme, Meme Machine, Mickey Mouse, trending, tumblr, YouTube

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Square Lets Entrepreneurs Round Out Their Payment Options

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 02:22 PM PST


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

If you’re an entrepreneur in the retail sector, you’ve no doubt heard the following phrase that has brought many transactions to a grinding halt: “Do you take credit cards?”

If the answer is no, all the goodwill in the world won’t help you. These days, people just don’t carry that much cash around with them. That was the situation that Chip Forsythe encountered last year. Forsythe is one of the founders of Slo Down Wines, a San Francisco vintner. Forsythe started the company with two college buddies. Having no budget to speak of, he soon found the company’s primary marketing vehicle — wine shows — was quickly depleting their resources.

By Forsythe’s estimation, each show would cost around $300 or so to participate in. Then the company would distribute hundreds of dollars in wine for free. What was frustrating was that people at the shows appeared interested in buying Slo Down’s wines, but didn’t have cash. Last year, Forsythe’s younger brother told him about Square, a free device and app that let you process credit cards on your smartphone. It was a huge change.

“We went from losing money at the shows to making thousands of dollars,” he says. Fair enough, but why didn’t Forsythe just go the traditional route and get a merchant account with one of the credit card companies? “It seemed too beyond us,” he says. “We didn’t have any money.”

It’s hard to turn down free, though. Square entices vendors like Slo Down by sending its quarter-size Square reader device free. After that, the company takes a 2.75% cut of every transaction. You can also set up an account pretty quickly, says Katie Baynes, a rep for Square. “We do a credit check, but it’s not a traditional check,” she says.

Launched publicly in October 2010 by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, Square claimed its 1 millionth vendor in December. While Baynes says the company doesn’t outline which types of companies are using Square, anecdotally at least, it seems to have found a niche among formerly low-tech trades like food trucks, farmer’s markets, dog walkers and Christmas tree vendors, as well as at PTA fundraisers.

About the only knock against the company, at least in the early days, was that it had a limit of $1,000 a week for transactions, ensuring that your business would stay small. However, that limit has now been removed.

At the moment, that doesn’t seem to be a deal-breaker for many. Merchants are happy to pay the relatively small transaction fee (for online-only transactions in which merchants manually enter credit card information, Square gets a 3.5% cut plus an additional 15 cents) and, for its part, Square gets access to lots of sales data. For instance, Square knows the average price of a cappuccino ($3.09 as of April) and the busiest sales day of the week (Saturday).

That data has helped Square rack up $168 million in funding so far. Dorsey’s pitch to investors is simple: There’s a huge market out there of vendors who, for one reason or another, don’t want to get a merchant account, but would be happy to find a way to process credit cards.

Dorsey, of course, isn’t the first one to notice this. PayPal has offered the same kind of payment option for vendors for some time and is now making the move into offline transactions with PayPal Wallet. Over the next year, PayPal hopes to roll out terminals that merchants can use to facilitate payments via a PayPal credit card, typing in a PayPal pin or eventually using an NFC tap. Of course, Google is also eyeing the same space with Google Wallet.

While those technologies are still in their infancy, though, Square is a solution that’s up and running today. That doesn’t mean, however, that Square will look the same a year or two from now. Bob Egan, VP of mobile strategy for Mobiquity, a mobile technology consultancy, says he believes that Square has impressed the major credit card firms by rounding up new customers. Egan believes that at some point, one of the credit card giants may decide to buy Square. At this point, though, they’re just watching it very closely. Says Egan: “They look at Square as a great science project.”

More About: credit cards, features, mashable, mobile payments, open forum, Square

CES’s Quirkiest Gadgets [VIDEO]

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 01:25 PM PST


This CES Video is presented by Wendy’s, where $1 gets you more. Show what you can do with $1 on Facebook during the Wendy’s Value Challenge! No purchase necessary. Enter by 1/22/12. To enter and for Official Rules, visit www.facebook.com/wendys.


During the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, Mashable editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff chatted with Tekzilla’s Patrick Norton at the Revision3 stage about the most unique gadgets on the CES floor.

Along with the Karotz rabbit that can tweet for you, they talk about a radio-quality microphone that plugs into your iPad and a kid’s toy that will blow your mind.

Click above to watch the video, and be sure to watch Ulanoff’s other interview with Revision3.

Series presented by Wendy’s

This CES Video is presented by Wendy’s, where $1 gets you more. Show what you can do with $1 on Facebook during the Wendy’s Value Challenge! No purchase necessary. Enter by 1/22/12. To enter and for Official Rules, visit www.facebook.com/wendys.

More About: CES, CES 2012, technlogy, trending, Video

Rent the Runway Partners With Iconic Dressmaker for Capsule Collection

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 01:07 PM PST


Rent the Runway, a two-year-old startup that leases designer dresses and accessories for up to 85% off retail, has partnered with American fashion designer Narcisco Rodriguez to develop a dress line available exclusively to its customers.

The four dresses — one ankle-skimming and two floor-length gowns, along with an ivory frock hemmed at the knee — were modeled after some of Rodriguez’s better-known work. The cutout gown, made in crimson and cobalt, was done in the style of a dress worn by Jennifer Aniston on the Dec. 2008 cover of Vogue. Two others replicate the silhouette and high-contrast paneling of a dress once worn by Kate Winslet. Each dress is available to rent for $275 to $400 for a four to eight-day period.

The capsule collection is a first for Rent the Runway, one that allows the New York-based startup to further differentiate itself from other retailers. For the consumer, who would likely rent a dress for a special occasion such as a wedding or formal dance, the collection presents an opportunity to sport an iconic dress that no one else will have — unless she happens to wander across another Narcisco-loving Rent the Runway member, of course.

In an email interview, Jenn Hyman, CEO and cofounder of Rent the Runway, did not indicate that the company had any additional designer partnerships in the works, but that she and her team are on the lookout for more.

More About: fashion, narcisco rodriguez, rent the runway

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6 Mind-Blowing Dance Videos on YouTube

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 12:33 PM PST


1. Evolution of Dance


We all remember this early You Tube classic. It didn't really serve to move dancing forward, per se, but it did a great job encapsulating the rich history of dancing in a quick, six-minute video. Closing in on 188 million views, this viral video sensation will live in infamy forever.

Click here to view this gallery.

Everyone likes to cut a rug now and then, and successful TV shows like So You Think You Can Dance and America’s Best Dance Crew further prove that the U.S. has a healthy interest in the art form.

Dance is a major part of musical culture; people push the boundaries of what the body can do to interpret the sentiment of a particular song. Michael Jackson ignited a dance craze when he first performed the Moonwalk in 1983. But MJ’s performance was really just a culmination of an evolution of dance steps that came from jazz legend Cab Calloway, tap dancer Bill Bailey, and even French mime, Marcel Marceau.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Wedding Dance Videos on YouTube

Where will the next dance innovation originate? Here are six videos that offer a clue.

Know any cool new dance techniques that we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments, or better yet, post your own video.

Image courtesy of Flickr, torkristensen

More About: dance, features, trending, Video, YouTube

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Inside the Recruiter’s Head: What He’s Really Asking You During the Interview

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 09:52 AM PST


Jayne Mattson is Senior Vice President at Keystone Associates, a leading career management and transition services consulting firm in Boston, Massachusetts. Mattson specializes in helping mid-to-senior level individuals in new career exploration, networking strategies and career decisions based on corporate culture fit.

You applied for a new job, and you’ve been called in for an interview. During the interview process, there are three main questions that need to be answered to help the HR person determine if you’re the right fit for the job:

  • Can this person do the job?
  • Will he do the job?
  • Will he fit in with the company culture?

By asking what I call "the question behind the question," hiring managers have a better chance to making the right hiring decision. As job seekers, your task is to answer them honestly and fully. Here are 10 top questions that the interviewer might ask, along with the hidden agenda behind each one. Tread carefully — the way you approach the answer might tell more than what you actually say.

1. As you reflect back at your last position, what was missing that you are looking for in your next role?

This question gets at the heart of why you’re leaving the current job or, in the case of a reduction in workforce, it helps the interviewer understand what was missing. If you answer with, "I didn't have access to my boss, which made it difficult to get questions answered," then the interviewer might follow up with, "Can you give me a specific example where you had to make a decision on your own because your boss was not available?" This follow-up question will help the interviewer determine your level of decision making and how much access to the manager you’ll need.

2. What qualities of your last boss did you admire, and what qualities did you dislike?

This is precarious territory because your answer needs to have a balance of positive and negative feedback. It will show if you are tactful in answering a tricky question and if your leadership style is congruent with the admired or disliked ones. If you name a trait the interviewer dislikes or that’s not in line with company culture, then you might not be a fit for the position.

3. How would you handle telling an employee his position is being eliminated after working for the company for 25 years, knowing they would be emotional?

This question is not unrealistic in today's job market, since companies continue to downsize as a way of conducting business. Knowing that you might have to deal with this situation, the interviewer wants to know how you would tell the long-term employee the bad news. Would you tell the business reason why the company is downsizing, and would you thank the person in a genuine, heartfelt way for years of service?

4. How do you like to be rewarded for good performance?

As simple as this question is, it helps the interviewer get a sense of what motivates you — is it money, time off or more formal recognition? If you’re interviewing for a management role, the follow-up question could be: How do you reward the good performance of employees who work for you? Are you a "do as I say, not as I do" type of manager? The interviewer is looking for congruency in behaviors, because if you don't practice what you preach, then it might not be a cultural fit.

5. Can you give me an example of when your relationship with your manager went off track and how you handled it?

The interviewer is listening for the reasons why the relationship went off track. Are you taking responsibility for your own actions first or placing blame on the manager? The interviewer wants to learn more about your communication style and how you approach conflict.

6. When a person says "I have integrity,” what does that mean to you?

The follow-up question is: “How have you demonstrated integrity in your work?” Integrity is broad, and most people think they have it, but can you really articulate what it looks and sounds like? The interviewer is looking for congruency of words and actions with this question.

7. Can you tell me about your experience working with the generation X or Y? What are the three qualities you admire about them?

There’s been much talk about the work habits of various generations. At a startup, you’ll likely be working with younger people, and employers want to know how you will integrate with this population. And young people will be working with baby boomers at bigger companies, like Dell and Apple. The interviewer will be looking for ways you’ve collaborated with workers of all ages and used each others’ talents to achieve a goal — do you have the energy, drive and attitude to work well with others?

8. Do you think age discrimination exists in the job market and if so, why?

Some job seekers use "age discrimination" or "I make too much money" as the reasons why they did not get the interview or the job. In reality, they have applied for a job for which they are overqualified. They have too many skills for this particular job and the employer can find someone who has the exact skill and salary that commensurate with the job. Don’t make that mistake.

9. Can you convince me you are the most qualified person for this role based on what we have discussed?

The interviewer wants to make sure you clearly understand what the problems are and what would be expected of you in the event of your hire. This is the opportunity for you to sell yourself effectively for the job.

10. As you look at your previous companies, can you describe in detail which company culture did you excel in the most and why?

The interviewer is looking for a culture fit, which is one of the essential criteria for job satisfaction. They want to hire someone who will do his best work for you, so do your research before you go in for the interview.

What other probing questions have you been asked at interview? Let us know in the comments.

Social Media Job Listings

Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!

More About: job interview, job search series, trending

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4 Tips to Keep Your Website Ahead of the Curve in 2012

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 06:29 AM PST


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Sure, having a website for your business serves a practical need: to draw net-surfing users to your product or service. However, it’s also much more than slapping on a run of the mill two-column template and calling it a day. Nothing kills an online buzz like a poorly designed or drastically outdated website. Dry and boring default templates, broken assets, confusing pages and invasive widgets do nothing but harm a page’s style, which in turn reflects poorly on the company.

2012 is heralding a new wave of innovative web technologies and design, and a page that stays in step with these trends is bound to pique interest and lower your bounce rate. Even more, a well done and on-trend website remains effective well after the year is over, reeling users in with thoughtful design and building a design-conscious and taste-making reputation. Keep these tips in mind when you clean up your company’s website, and stay ahead of the curve for the new year.

1. Don’t Be Afraid to be Bold

Mail Chimp. Instagram. Pinterest. All of these websites are joined together by a commitment to bold designs and layout. Whether it’s an exaggerated footer, a turn to minimalism or a bold and new typeface, incorporating a key graphical element to a website speaks volumes about the overall composition of the layout — and a keen level of attention to detail. Opting for a bold design element is a great way to modernize a website and keep it on trend in the coming years.

A bold design can be obtained with very little money, especially for those who aren’t necessarily experienced in coding. For example, webpages operating on a WordPress can find a host of free templates that offer a wide range of customizable options to suit any business. New and exciting fonts can be found via Google‘s open API font styles and require a simple set of code to be dropped in for compatibility with a website. Inspiration and how-tos for more hands-on DIY upgrades can be found at coding/design blogs like A List Apart, One Extra Pixel and Mashable‘s Dev and Design channel.

For those with a little more cash to burn on a proper contractor, 99 Designs relies on crowdsourcing to gather great designers for companies looking for a reliable and cutting edge renovation. Companies on 99 Designs are allowed to name their own price, which means a promising design on a budget.

However you choose to go about it, a bold design dusts off the cobwebs on your old page and keeps it fresh for years to come.

2. Use HTML5 … With Care

For the last couple years, people have been buzzing about HTML5, and it’s not just chatter; HTML5 offers a lot of exciting flexibility that can make a website truly interactive. Seamlessly embedded videos, drag-and-drop interfaces and dynamic message posts are all achievable via HTML5, and with relatively little code work.

But it’s not enough to just call up your freelance web designer and throw up some HTML5 features. As with any programming language, there’s always an issue of browser compatibility. While your new and shiny UI outfitted with dynamic HTML5 might look stunning to a user running on the latest version of Chrome, your high-tech page may look like a series of broken features — or nothing at all — to a less tech-savvy user running Internet Explorer 7 (and there’s a lot of them).

This issue has been longstanding in the Internet world, but there are precautions to take in order to ensure that every user has a pleasurable experience on your website without you making a major investment. Modernizr is an open-source, JavaScript-based tool that offers feature detection for HTML5, and it’s just-as-snazzy brother CSS3. Instead of doing simple browser detection, Modernizr will figure out just what features the user’s browser can support and react accordingly. If a user is operating on an incompatible browser, then Modernizr will automatically decide whether to switch to a JavaScript-based fallback of the features or just create a downgraded version.

Make no mistake, this solution shouldn’t be implemented by a newbie to code, but it does provide a simple way to implement exciting and revolutionary features while still providing support for the little guys.

3. Cut the Fat

The traditional layouts for websites often call for separate pages that encapsulate the “About,” “Contact” and other informational areas of the website. 2011 saw minimalist designs from multiple websites, and that often translated to cutting these pages in favor of a sleeker overall design (think Tumblr). Some companies chose to forgo nearly everything to produce a strongly graphical one-page website — blogs like One Page Love and successful networking tools like Flavors.me show that people are drifting towards a bold singular statement that makes a big impact on fellow users.

As we move forward in 2012, further exploration into one-page websites is a given. But a single-page website has both its pros and cons. HTML5 can help create a one-page website that cleverly contains all necessary information via pop-up boxes or other media, but the amount of information that can be on a one-page website is still relatively limited. Do you want your website to make a bold statement about your company and focus less on a blog-style format? If so, a one-page website could be right in your wheelhouse. Are you more interested in showing off testimonials, case studies and blogs from your employees? If yes, then this trend would be worth passing on.

However, that doesn’t mean to forgo trimming entirely. Culling the best parts of your website and truncating the rest will result in a sleeker, more intuitive design — and sleek never goes out of style.

4. Tie in Social Media Intelligently

This tip could also be titled “Quit it With the Widgets.” Announcing your social media presence on your own website is an absolute necessity, but it needs to be done with care. Automatically updating widgets that stream in social media presence seems intrusive and outdated, not to mention that they can be a hassle for a DIY designer to install and maintain.

To put it simply, social media should absolutely be a presence on a business website, but it should not be a dominating presence. Integrating social media, whether in graphic links or a social ticker, should be done with the user’s eyes in mind. It’s simple on paper, but can be difficult to execute. When social media is done intelligently and with consideration, your website instantly will look socially connected and organized.

Are there any other ways you’re keeping your website ahead of the game? Let us know in the comments.

More About: design, features, HTML5, mashable, open forum, trending, web design

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Tim Tebow: The Meme that Won’t Die

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 02:12 PM PST

By now, you’re probably familiar with Saturday Night Live’s skit in which Jesus visits the Denver Broncos locker room after their win against the Chicago Bears. It’s one among many, many spoofs, satires and weird mashups to have hit the Internet since the Broncos’s winning season began — thanks to the team’s starting quarterback, Tim Tebow.

The Internet responded to Tebow media-mania after “Tebowing” became globally recognized as an American football meme. Jared Kleinstein and a few other Denver natives took a picture mimicking Tebow kneeling on the sidelines. The response was overwhelming. Soon a Tumblr was created, followed by the meme.

After the Broncos beat the Steelers last Sunday, Twitter responded with a record peak of 9,420 tweets per second, the second most tweets-per-second in history. Fueling the fire were congratulatory responses and the many comparisons to Bible verse John 3:16, which reads, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Since then, the Internet and mainstream media have continued to buzz over Tebow fever, and it doesn’t seem to be stopping, at least until the game against the Patriots on Saturday.

Jimmy Fallon gave a riveting “Tebowie” performance Thursday night during his late night show, donning a Broncos jersey and full Ziggy Stardust makeup. Rather than “Ground Control to Major Tom,” Fallon replaced the lyrics to represent a conversation between Jesus and Tim Tebow.


Among the photoshopped images and artwork swirling the web, sports blogger Matt Ufford takes the prize with his digitally altered pictures of Tebow as a centaur.

And then there are the dozens of YouTube videos being shared around the web. Here are just six of the TebowTube tributes we’ve seen. Some videos have clearly taken a dedicated amount of editing and time, while others are just plain strange.


1. Skip Bayless, "All He Does is Win"


DJ Steve Porter created this autotuned mashup to Skip Bayless from ESPN's First Take as a tribute to the Broncos' quarterback.

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy of Matt Ufford

More About: features, football, nfl, sports, tim tebow, YouTube

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iPhone Emoji Fun: Can You Decode Our Emoticon Film Titles?

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 02:06 PM PST


Now that iPhone owners can access emojis without any kind of app or workaround, we’re seeing some fun creativity. Specifically, people are telling tales through a series of carefully selected emoticons.

We thought this was so much fun, we had a go ourselves. However, rather than spend hours on epic hieroglyphic epistles, we’ve translated a bunch of film titles into brief pictograms. Now we want you to decode the movies they reference.

Take a look through our emoji gallery of movie messages all composed on the iPhone. Each slide represents the name of a film. To access the answers in each slide, use your cursor to highlight the black text following the “Answer” field. We’ve kept it simple, so we imagine you can guess nearly all of them!

Once you’ve had a look through, why not create your own iPhone emoji sequence to depict the title of, your favorite film? Link us to a screengrab in the comments. If we get enough awesome entries, we’ll make up a fresh gallery of Mashable readers’ creations.


1. Emoji Film Titles




Using only icons from the iPhone's Emoji keyboard, we have created several series of emoticons, each depicting a popular film.

To access the answers in each slide, use your cursor to highlight the black text following the "Answer" field.

Click here to view this gallery.

And if you don’t have the emoji keyboard enabled on your iPhone, take a look through our quick how-to gallery below, in which we offer a simple, step-by-step guide on how to set it up.


1. Enabling the Emoji Keyboard




To access the Emoji keyboard on your iPhone, click on the "Settings" icon on your homescreen, then scroll down to the "General" option.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: emoticons, features, films, gallery, games, iphone, iphone apps

Mentos Game Lets You Punch Spider from a Recent Ad

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 12:45 PM PST


The Mentos candy brand continues to forge its own odd path through social media marketing with its latest launch, an iOS game called Spider Swiper.

The free game, which went live on Saturday, is based on a year-old ad from BBH London that featured a guy who tries to kill a spider to appease his screaming girlfriend only to be flipped by the tiny arachnid.

A rep for the Martin Agency, the ad shop behind that and this latest effort, says the ad prompted a lot of requests by fans who wanted to duel with the spider in the ad. (Go figure.) To promote the game, the ad has been tagged with a plug to download Spider Swiper.

The game, developed by Graeme Devine, lead developer for Halo and Age of Empires 3, lets players fight through six classes of the mini beasts. Action in the game is created by swiping, which lets you activate an on-screen fist aimed at the spider’s head.

Like other candy brands, notably Skittles, Mentos has found that a Dada-esque creative approach that makes no mention of product attributes has struck a chord with the young target audience. Mentos’s recent social media efforts along those lines include the introduction of Dragee, an accident-prone holy man, and a customized Facebook app designed to help “boring” and “vain” friends.


More About: Advertising, games, Marketing, Mentos

Top 10 Tech This Week: CES Edition [PICS]

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 11:52 AM PST


1. Samsung 55-inch OLED HDTV




There were a couple of examples of the latest in OLED HDTV technology at CES 2012, and this one was from Samsung. It's a 55-inch display that looks simply spectacular, with rich, deep blacks, supersaturated color, extra sharp picture and it's thinner than my little finger.

Look for this one to be available before the end of the year, at an as-yet-undisclosed price, probably around $8,000. Because these screens are relatively easy to manufacture, expect those prices to drop precipitously within the next year or two.

Read more about it here.

Click here to view this gallery.

LAS VEGAS — Taking a tumultuous trip to Las Vegas this week, your intrepid Top 10 Tech This Week correspondents encountered a veritable feast of gadgetry and technological innovation. So we deemed it fitting to show you the best tech we saw at CES 2012, of course keeping with our theme of sticking with all things techy and futuristic — ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.

For those of you who don’t care for CES 2012, stick with us — you might find a surprise or two that wasn’t shown at CES but dazzled us all the same. Sit back, prepare yourself for astonishment, and join us for the Top 10 Tech This Week, brought to you this week from fabulous Las Vegas.

SEE MORE: Previous editions of Top 10 Tech This Week

More About: CES, CES 2012, Top 10 Tech

The Job Search and Confidentiality [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 11:01 AM PST

We know that social media is a huge part of the modern job search. But being active on social media also can prevent you from searching stealthily. Coworkers and bosses can see who you’ve recently followed on Twitter (handles of job boards could tip them off), Facebook friends can see your new friends in the ticker (what if they’re recruiters?!) and misapplied settings on your Google+ circles could blow your cover. So yes, in addition to the difficulty of trying to find a job in this economy, the very tools that could prove most useful could also majorly backfire. In fact, according to a study last October by Wakefield Research and commissioned by TheLadders, 76% of survey respondents say “it’s impossible to maintain your privacy when searching for a job online.”

It’s no surprise that confidentiality is an ever-more important aspect of the job search — 88% of people say privacy and confidentiality are important when they’re cruising for a new career. Here are some tips for staying stealth:

  • Do your job search off the clock and out of the office
  • Use your personal email address
  • Keep all job hunt files and correspondence on your personal computer
  • Double-check privacy settings on job boards — you don’t want your current company’s HR director to see your listing!
  • Use job search apps on your smartphone
  • Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date — LinkedIn is a great tool for business networking, so your presence on the site doesn’t mean you’re looking for a new job. However, pay attention to the privacy settings.
  • Don’t tweet or update your Facebook status with information about your job hunt
  • Use caution applying to jobs at rival companies or within a niche industry — you can describe your company instead of referring to it by name, and you can also remove your name form your resume and replace it with “Confidential Candidate“

Still paranoid? You’re not alone. The infographic below highlights some statistics about confidentiality during the job search. Take a look and then check out our job board — but check your privacy settings before you apply!


Social Media Job Listings

Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!

Infographic courtesy of TheLadders

More About: infographic, job search series

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How Nations Can Be United With Social Media

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 10:31 AM PST


The United Nations is a huge organization: 193 member states and six major organs. As you can imagine, running the UN’s social media networks is no walk in the park. But the international organization is incredibly active on social media, using it as a tool to spread knowledge and information about its mission, goals and accomplishments.

So how does the UN, a very complex organization, manage such an active online presence?

We sat down with Nancy Groves, social media manager at UN headquarters in New York, to find out. Groves is part of the Secretariat, the UN body charged with carrying out the day-to-day work of the organization. She maintains an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr and other networks.

“We’re very involved in social media,” says Groves, whose previous job was working as a UN librarian. “There’s not much understanding of how the United Nations works out there, and we’re using social media to get our message out.”

“We’re very involved in social media,” says Groves, whose previous job was working as a UN librarian. “There’s not much understanding of how the United Nations works out there, and we’re using social media to get our message out.”

Educating people about the UN’s work, a mystery to many, is a top priority. Groves’s team often posts information and videos about the United Nations’s humanitarian work and other positive efforts to keep followers feeling good about the UN.

But not all the UN’s content makes you feel warm and snuggly inside. Groves posts about peacekeeping efforts, natural disasters and other emergency situations. And Groves definitely feels a “sense of urgency” when sharing info about disaster relief. The UN’s social media team was very active in connecting victims and relief centers during the recent tsunami and earthquake in Japan, for example. Groves says that Twitter is very important for the UN in times of crisis, because tweets are easily shared and can go viral quickly.

“We have to cover a broad range of work,” says Groves. “Famine, genocide, et cetera. We want to get the tone right.”

Groves’s team gets a lot of questions from followers. There’s a lot of UN haters out there, too, and Groves deals with them, well, diplomatically.

“We try to respond to every question that can be answered,” says Groves. “We do answer any criticism with statistics pages and informative links.”

The process of posting material online can sometimes lag for two reasons.

First, the UN works in six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) and every post has to be translated into all of them for inclusion’s sake. Groves often experiments with platforms popular amongst a particular language group, too. She sees her best numbers on Weibo, a Chinese site with over 300 million users, which is similar to a cross between Facebook and Twitter.

Second, all posts have to go through the UN’s political review process. But Groves has a few tricks up her sleeve.

“Info can be a little slow to get out because of the translation and political review process,” says Groves. “For that reason, we’re often using pre-approved content. There’s been one time when we didn’t get approval, but people who do social tend to already have sound judgement. More than one person reads everything,” says Groves.

That content could come from a more formal press release or a video that’s already gone through the UN’s formal review process. Groves has to be ever-mindful about language and wording, lest she inadvertently cause an international social incident. Her peer-editing process helps make sure that doesn’t happen.

"The ‘Be a Human Rights Defender’ campaign was an excellent way to spread knowledge about rights that a lot of people aren’t aware they have.”

The UN’s most successful social effort has been the “Be a Human Rights Defender” campaign, created to celebrate Human Rights Day. Groves’s team pushed out 30 different articles on human rights, each centered around one article in the Declaration of Human Rights. People that shared the articles were titled “Human Rights Defenders.” Groves said it was an excellent way to spread knowledge about rights that a lot of people aren’t aware they have.

And what about coordinating the social media efforts of the UN’s 17 specialized agencies, 62 Information Centers and 15 peacekeeping operations worldwide? After all, Groves is only part of the Secretariat, one of many UN bodies.

“We’ve got an informal working group of UN social media agents,” says Groves. “We try to have meetings based in New York at least once a month. It’s a positive trend for the UN as a whole, because it brings together all these different agencies and we can see how our work is inter-related. I know pretty much everyone doing social media at all the different agencies.”

Groves’s team is continuing to seek out new ways to use social media to spread their message. Groves says she’s even looking at Pinterest, the hot new image-heavy site popular amongst the Fashion and DIY community. She’s also gearing up for a major conference on sustainable development happening this summer in Rio, Brazil. For that, she’s making sure she has access to Portugese translators and a presence on the social media services that Brazilians love to use.

Do you follow the United Nations on social media? If so, what do you think of their digital efforts? Let us know in the comments below.

More About: Social Media, United Nations

The 10 Most Noteworthy Photos on Twitter This Week [PICS]

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 09:15 AM PST


In an effort to find the most interesting photos from Twitter over the past week, rather than merely the most retweeted, Mashable worked with our partner, social media search engine Skylines, to tweak our method of choosing such pictures.

Why? Often the top 10 was full of pics from boy bands, which was more a measure of the bands’ popularity than a testament to the quality of the photos.

So, this week we’re trying something a little different. Skyines focused on the most popular Twitter trends (hashtags) and took the most popular pictures from these tags.

The photos analyzed are culled from the week ended Jan. 13. We’re hoping the new method will yield a wider range of high-quality photos. What do you think? Sound off in the comments.


1. Throwback Thursday




Throwback Thursday is a weekly returning Twitter trend, which is all about sharing memories and photos from the past. This week, people posted more than 90.000 pictures on Throwback Thursday on Twitter. Throwback Thursday is indicated by approximately 11 differently spelled hashtags (Such as "Throwbackthrusday" and "Throwbackthrursday"). The most-retweeted Throwback Thursday picture is this one by @TeamDrizzy (14.000+ followers), which is a fan account for rapper Drake, also known as Drizzy Drake. This picture shows a Drake when he was young, along with his mother Sandi Graham.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Photos, Skylines, Twitter

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6 Apps Worth Downloading This Week

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 07:28 AM PST


Hipmunk





Flight and hotel booking service Hipmunk launched updated Android and iOS apps on Monday. The apps focus on booking hotels, and they display their search results on a map. Users can overlay heat maps on the same maps to determine areas with food, sights, nightlife and shopping that best fit their criteria. To book a hotel, they're taken to a third-party site. The apps can still be used to search for flights -- sorting them by agony, cost, departure time or length -- but hotels are the default. Free.

Click here to view this gallery.

With about 500,000 apps in the Apple App Store and an estimated 300,000 apps in the Android Market, finding the gems among the virtual haystack can be full-time job. The good news is that it’s our full time job.

We’ve trekked through the overly frivolous, the ugly and the downright impractical in our search for these five recently launched apps worth downloading in the slideshow above. We hope you enjoy this week’s top picks.

More About: apps, easybib, grubwithus, Gympact, hipgeo, hipmunk, shazam, weekly app roundup
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