Thursday, January 5, 2012

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Gingerbread and Froyo Installed on 85% of Android Devices”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Gingerbread and Froyo Installed on 85% of Android Devices”

Gingerbread and Froyo Installed on 85% of Android Devices

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 02:35 AM PST


Android 2.3 or Gingerbread is installed on 54.9% of all Android devices, while Android 2.2 or Froyo is installed on another 30.4% of all Android devices, which makes Android perhaps the least fragmented it’s ever been.

According to the latest data from Android Developers, out of all the older and now obsolete Android versions only Android 2.1 or Eclair has a significant market share – 8.5%, while earlier versions have less than 2% put together.

Of course, this almost ideal situation – given how badly the Android platform has been fragmented at certain points in the past – won’t last long. The newer versions – Android 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 4.0 are looming behind the corner, and most upcoming Android devices run or at least support one of these.

Curently, neither Android 3.x nor Android 4.0 has a significant market share, but this will change drastically in 2012, and the cycle will begin anew, for better or for worse.

More About: android, Froyo, gingerbread

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HopeMob Charity Website is the Reddit of Giving

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 09:26 PM PST


New charity website HopeMob takes a cue from Reddit by letting users vote-up their favorite content. Or in the case of HopeMob, users vote for what they think is the most compelling plea for help.

“If Mother Teresa built a platform with the tech base of Groupon, Foursquare, & Netflix & the heart of CNN Heroes, it would look like HopeMob!” reads HopeMob’s homepage.

The soon-to-be launched website is the second “social giving” site founded by tech and humanitarian entrepreneur Shaun King. King said he wants HopeMob to be a platform for spotlighting untold stories and getting people help.

“People that want to give time and money don’t feel good about their current options,” King said. “People who are in need don’t have the time or social network (to find help).”

Here’s how it works: Users register for HopeMob by creating a username and password. After registering, HopeMob will give each user 50 story points. Story points are used to vote a story up in the “cause queue.” The queue will be filled with real-life stories that tug at the heart strings — families who’ve lost their houses, people who’ve lost their jobs — basically anyone who’s fallen through the cracks.

The queue will hold a total of 23 stories. The public can only vote on the stories in the 4 – 20 categories. These stories can be voted up using points. Users of the site cannot put more than 250 points toward one story. Categories 1-3 are “locked,” meaning they cannot be voted on and will get attention as each top featured story is resolved. When the featured story is fulfilled, the story in the second slot will be the featured story. The story in the fourth spot, which the public voted on, will move to the “locked” queue and be guaranteed a resolution.

The “featured story” will be the only issue users of the site can donate to. The issue will be given a large and international platform where people can focus on one problem at a time. The featured story will stay in the spotlight until that person’s need is fulfilled.

“We try to make it so that each cause is achievable,” King said.

Every dollar donated will go directly to the cause. And not every need will be monetary, King said, because “that would get old.”

The top profile might be a young girl with cancer who wants 20,000 Facebook fans or a single mother who lost her job and needs help getting interviews.

People in need of assistance who want to be featured on the site can submit an application and will have to be verified. The stories will be compiled by a staff of 1,000 volunteer writers, photographers and videographers in more than six continents.

To grade each story that comes forward, King said they are using a similar point system that social workers follow to ensure serious and urgent problems get priority.

King said he believes the site will also generate help from the very people the site serves. Those people in need will want to see their cause get higher in the queue and be eager to help when they can, he explained.

Users will get points for Tweeting the featured story, donating or referring a friend to the site.

HopeMob is scheduled to launch in March 2012. A profile on Kickstarter says it will look like a combination of Groupon, Foursquare and Netflix, with timed causes and points-based incentives. Both Android and iPhone apps will be released late March.

Currently, their Twitter reach is 375,000 people. By the end of the calendar year, King said he wants to reach 1 million people through Twitter and have 100,000 HopeMob subscribers.

King also started TwitChange in August 2010 to raise money for Haiti. TwitChange tapped into the desire most people have on Twitter, King said, to have a celebrity follow or re-tweet them. Celebrity tweets were auctioned off, and TwitChange raised nearly $600,000 for an orphanage in Haiti. King eventually sold the site.

King is not the first person to use harness social media to champion a cause.

“I really think this is going to work,” he said of HopeMob. “I wouldn’t have known this had I not spent the past few years in the field of social good.”

What do you think about HopeMob? Please tell us in the comments.

More About: charity, donations, Social Good, Twitter

For more Social Good coverage:

Censorship: Belarus Makes Certain Web Behaviors Illegal

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 09:01 PM PST

belarus image

A new law in Belarus will restrict access to foreign websites, and will require Internet cafes and clubs to report users who visit forbidden pages.

The Eastern European country’s law (Improvements to the Usage of the National Segment of the Internet, law number 317-3), goes into effect Friday — censorship making it illegal to conduct ecommerce with Belarusian citizens through sites outside the country’s .by domain name.

All companies and individuals registered as entrepreneurs in Belarus must use the national portal for conducting business, providing services and exchanging email, explains the Library of Congress in an online post. That means citizens are restricted from buying from Amazon or the Apple Store, and selling on eBay, among many other sites.

The law’s restrictions don’t stop without banning “extremist” and “pornographic” sites.

Citizens caught breaking the new law — as well as those providing Internet connection to people breaking the law — can be punished with fines of up to 1 million Belarus rubles (about $125) by the tax authorities, police and secret police.

Both the U.S. and the UK have condemned President Alexander Lukashenko’s repression of his political opponents, restricted travel to the country, and frozen assets channeled to the government, the BBC reports.

Do you think Belarus is helping its economy by keeping ecommerce on its own domain sites or is it hurting itself by restricting foreign business?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, selensergen

More About: ecommerce, World

How to Get the Most Out of Google Analytics

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 08:35 PM PST


After we published a primer for using Google Analytics, readers said they were hungry for more.

Google Analytics has since revamped its design, giving it not only a cleaner look but also updated data sets. You can now find everything from real-time stats to details about which mobile device your site visitors come from.

Though the data possibilities seem endless, Google Analytics product manager Phil Mui says the design reflects three core metrics: acquisition, engagement and outcome. Let’s take a closer look at what these numbers mean and how you can track them with one of the most widely used web analytics platforms.

Acquisition

The lowest-hanging fruit of web analytics is counting metrics. This data encompasses the number of visitors that come to your site and can be filtered to show what sites they’re coming from and how many of them have or haven’t been to your site before. In Google Analytics, this is described as “Visits.”

SEE ALSO: 10 New Google Analytics Features You Need to Start Using

The tool has long provided information about where your visitors are coming from (geographically and on the web), what language they speak, how often they visit your site and what computers and browsers they use to get there. More recently, Google Analytics released mobile reporting. As people increasingly access the web from smartphones and tablets, this information is key to optimizing your site for those looking at it from a mobile device. This and most visitor-specific information can be found under the Audience tab. On report pages, the Visits metric can be found in the upper-left, while New Visits — the percentage of visitors coming to your site for the first time — is second in from the right.

Measuring how many people are coming to your site is the most cut and dried — but it’s only one piece of the metrics pie.

Engagement

These numbers consider the quality of your site traffic. Once visitors come to your site, they’ll do one of three things: read the page they came to, click to more pages beyond their entry page, or leave. Engagement metrics focus on these actions visitors are taking once they get to your site — and how good you are at keeping them there.

The three key engagement metrics in Google Analytics are:

  • Pages per Visit: This is the average number of pages a visitor views when coming to your website. The more engaging your site is, the more inclined visitors will be to continue clicking beyond the entry page.
  • Average Time on Site: This refers to the typical amount of time visitors spend on your site, despite whether they continue to stay on the page they came in on or navigate elsewhere within your domain.
  • Bounce Rate: This represents the percentage of single-page visits to your site. It gives you a sense of how many visitors left your site from the entrance page rather than clicking further into your site as compared to total visitors. Like Pages per Visit, Bounce Rate can help you determine the performance of your entry pages based on the actions visitors take (or don’t take) after they’ve arrived on your site.

Engagement metrics are especially important for reports created in the Traffic Sources and Content tabs. On report pages, Pages per Visit and Average Time on site are located at the top middle of report pages, while Bounce Rate is at the far right.

So, how do you know if your site is “engaging?” Ask yourself: Is your site user-friendly? How simple is it for a visitor to click to the next page? Is there interactive content in which your readers can participate? Does landing page content match the keywords in its title? Considering these questions when designing your site is a surefire way to improve the quality of your web traffic.

Outcome

The Goals area is where your data tracking can really help you make a difference. These outcome-oriented metrics help you dive deeper into your site performance and learn whether you’re achieving what you want with your website.

The first step is defining your business objectives: Are you driving visitors to make online purchases? Getting them to view a specific piece of content? Aiming for more newsletter signups? Once you’ve pinned down your site goals, make sure your site administrator enables Goals in Google Analytics in the Account Settings page. Then you can choose one of four Goal types to track:

  • URL destination: This metric is best if your goal is to get visits to a key page of your site, such as your homepage or a post-purchase message page.
  • Time on Site: If you’re looking to measure engagement, this will track visitors spending a defined amount of time on your site.
  • Pages per Visit: Also important for engagement, Pages per Visit will keep tabs on a defined number of pages visitors view in a session on your site.
  • Events: Released in the most recent version of Google Analytics, Event Goals allow you to track specific actions visitors are taking on a page. This includes anything from downloading a PDF to watching a video.

Goals reports can be found under the Conversions tab, which will provide information about goal completions and conversion rates. You can opt to track goal value and abandonment rates (the percentage of visitors who fail to convert on the goal) as well.

If you’re an online retailer, it may make more sense for you to set up Ecommerce in Google Analytics, which allows you to track transactions and order values. It’s a more complicated setup process, but will provide more actionable metrics for visitors’ purchasing behavior on your site. For Google Adwords users, linking your account to Google Analytics goals can help you keep a closer eye on your marketing campaigns.

Other Noteworthy Features

One problem with the analytics industry, Mui says, is that tools give users so much information — but they’re not as good at telling users what they need to know. That’s why Google Analytics improved its Intelligence product in the most-recent update. It searches your site traffic for anything out of the ordinary and then alerts you to the anomaly. You can see all your alerts in a simple graph, where you can drill into and annotate specific events.

If you’re running a dynamic website that frequently publishes new content, Google Analytics Real-Time helps you understand what content is working best and what sites are sending you the most traffic at any given moment. It’s less useful for providing more long-term actionable insights.

For more useful v5 products, check out our top 10 features of the new Google Analytics.

Conclusion

While your level of interest in these key numbers and features may differ depending on your role and organization, these data points have become the standard for web analytics today. Whether you’re strategizing for a massive corporation or bolstering your personal web presence, understanding acquisition, engagement and outcome metrics is a must. “If content is king, then context is queen,” Mui says.

Which of these metrics and features are most important to your business? Has tracking them helped you improve your site? Tell us in the comments below.

More About: features, Google, google analytics, How-To, web

Citelighter Is Like a Highlighter for the Internet

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 08:12 PM PST


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Citelighter

Quick Pitch: Citelighter keeps information from multiple web sources in one place.

Genius Idea: Making it easy to compile notes — and citations — from multiple web pages.

For better or worse, students use the Internet for research. Those in a 2011 ethnographic study, for instance, referred to Google more than any other source when discussing their research habits. The logistical problem with this online research (aside from potential academic ones) is the difficulty of preserving bibliography information while cruising from link to link.

Citelighter attempts to solve this conundrum by giving students a note-collecting toolbar that sticks with them as they navigate the web. After downloading a free Firefox plugin, students can highlight any text on any web page and click a “capture” button to save it in a virtual notebook. When it’s time to write, they can visit it to view all of their highlights from across the web, reorder them and add comments to create an outline. The app automatically puts together a citation page.

Through marketing partnerships with well-targeted websites such as CollegeHumor and Frat Music, the company says it has signed up students at 1,000 different universities since it launched in August 2010.

In the current version, users are restricted to collecting information on websites through a Firefox extension. The company plans to release browser plugins for Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer and expand the toolbar to take notes from pdfs and ebooks in addition to web pages.

Citelighter is simple and easy to use. It shouldn’t have a problem displacing the printer, hand-written note or Microsoft Word document as a note-taking vehicle for online research. Less simple, however, is the startup’s formula for making money by providing the service.

Eventually, Citelighter hopes to sell a version of its solution to online universities, allowing students to take notes from their online course materials, but it has not yet announced any such relationships.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, Citelighter

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14 Essential Stops to Make on Your Tour of CES 2012

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:16 PM PST

The 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is less than a week away, and enthusiasts are gearing up for three days of exciting innovations, big announcements and heaps of high-tech toys to geek out over.

If you’re planning to attend the show, we’ve got a treat for you — an interactive map chock full of insider tips from CES veteran and Mashable editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff. Whether you’re looking for a particular company’s booth, or just a place to grab a snack in between demos, Lance’s tips will point you in the right direction.

Hover over the official CES 2012 map below and you’ll find pinpoints of notable items. Roll your mouse over each spot for more info.

Of course, if you’re not headed to CES 2012 in person, stick with Mashable throughout the event for live coverage and updates throughout the show.

Which demos, companies or speakers are you most looking forward to this year? Do you have any other pro tips to share with fellow attendees? Put them in the comments.


More About: CES, CES 2012, features, las vegas, Map, Tech, trending

Netflix Users Stream 3,000 Lifetimes Worth of Video in 3 Months

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 06:35 PM PST


Netflix subscribers watched more than 2 billion hours of movies and TV shows streamed from the entertainment provider during October, November and December, according to company data released on Wednesday.

The Netflix-provided data indicates that the company’s new focus on streaming service has remained strong with its customers. That’s despite a public relations fiasco earlier this year when Netflix announced, then retracted, a plan to create a separate spinoff company forcing customers to maintain two separate accounts on its previously integrated service. The company also announced a steep, unexpected price hike.

The company subsequently lost some 800,000 customers in the third quarter of 2011. But the subscribers who did stick around apparently made sure to get their money’s worth on Netflix’s $7.99 monthly streaming fee.

According to the numbers Netflix released on Wednesday, its 20 million streaming customers each watched an average of some 33 hours of content per month. In November, by comparison, Hulu’s 31 million unique viewers watched an average of just over 3 hours of video each, according to digital analytics firm comScore. Viewers of Google video sites — essentially meaning YouTube — streamed about 1.1 billion hours of content during November.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings struck a self-congratulatory tone in a company press release on Wednesday, saying that “Netflix delights members by giving them choice, convenience and control over the entertainment they love for an incredibly low price.”

Netflix’s reported numbers, however, don’t necessarily mean customers were pleased with the service. In a survey of recent ecommerce holiday shopper satisfaction by the consumer analytics firm foreSee, Netflix’s ratings tumbled after several years of battling with Amazon for the most customer-approved online shopping site.

Nonetheless, 2 billion hours is obviously a very large number. The average American lifespan is just under 78 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At that rate, all of the streaming Netflix subscribers in the United States, Canada and Latin America combined to watch the equivalent of nearly 3,000 human lifetimes worth of content over the past three months.

Netflix’s stock jumped 11% on Wednesday to close at more than $80 per share.

More About: hulu, internet video, netflix, streaming video

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Doctor Who Meets “Total Eclipse of the Heart” … Literally [VIDEO]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 05:59 PM PST


Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

If you’re a fan of the long-running UK sci-fi show Doctor Who and know your Internet memes, this video will strike you as a brilliant mash-up of both.

A literal version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was one of many literal music videos that circulated widely a couple of years back. For the unfamiliar, the idea is to take a well-known video and replace the lyrics with words that describe the onscreen action. The meme is said to have begun with this version of “Take on Me”.

Now one Doctor Who fan in New Zealand has taken the practice to a new level. In her “Literal Eclipse of the Heart,” YouTube user zeborahnz posted a video that keeps the literal lyrics, but replaces the original footage with clips from the show.

In the video’s accompanying notes, Zeborah says she wanted to do a literal music video, but had seen too many that were “fairly incompetent.”

“I wanted some kind of un-narrative going through it so decided to have the Doctor illustrating all the lyrics sung by PersephoneMaewyn (or Bonnie Tyler in the original) and various Companions illustrating the others,” Zeborah says. “I genderswitched large chunks of stuff accordingly.”

The result: Doctor Who Internet heaven, for about five and a half minutes. Let us know what you think!

[via Wired]

More About: Doctor Who, literal videos, viral-video-of-the-day, YouTube

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Facebook Timeline Customization: 5 Tools for Killer Cover Photos

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 05:32 PM PST


1. Pic Scatter - Friends




Pic Scatter lets you create a montage of images in your cover photo space.

You can generate the content from your Facebook friends or pick a particular album to use.

Click here to view this gallery.

Now that Facebook Timeline has rolled out to everyone, we’re seeing some great services that let you customize the new “Cover Photo” banner space at the top of your profile.

While similar services we looked at last year enabled you to select a great stock photo for your banner, these new sites offer more advanced personalization.

Take a look at the services we’ve showcased in our gallery above — they are tons of fun! And if you’re short on design ideas, browse our slideshow of inspiring recent examples in the gallery below.

Facebook Timeline Inspiration


1. Antonio Fadda





Brilliantly imaginative, Fadda turns his profile into a security checkpoint.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Facebook, facebook timeline, features, gallery, How-To, photography, Social Media, trending

Hackers Port Amazon’s Silk Browser to Other Android Devices [VIDEO]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 05:06 PM PST


Amazon's Silk browser is being ported onto other Android devices. Some are asking whether the port is fair game or theft.

Check out the video above to learn more.

SEE ALSO: Amazon Silk: An Ingenious Plan to Get You To Buy More Stuff

What do you think of Silk? And do you think porting is legal?

More About: amazon, Amazon Silk, android, kindle fire, mashable video

Roku Streaming Stick Aims to Make Dumb TVs “Smart”

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 04:38 PM PST


Streaming media player company Roku just announced the new Roku Streaming Stick that will turn compatible TV sets into robust Internet-connected devices.

The Roku Streaming Stick packs the power of a Roku player into something about the size of a USB flash drive. It plugs into the HDMI port on your TV and offers up the entire Roku experience, including access to services like Netflix, Pandora, Crackle and Hulu Plus.

What’s the advantage of a stick over a set-top box? Well, for one thing, a stick takes up less space. It also eliminates the need for an extra remote control, integrating more natively with the regular TV experience.

The one caveat — and sadly this is a major caveat — is that the Roku Streaming Stick requires television to have MHL-enabled HDMI ports. MHL — or mobile high-definition link — is a proposed standard that allows a device to offer 1080p video and digital audio while also charging a connected device. So far, a few HDTV sets from Toshiba and Samsung are equipped with MHL, and Roku says more MHL-enabled devices will appear at CES.

Here’s the problem we see with this approach: The value proposition of the Roku Streaming Stick is ostensibly to bring connected support to HDTVs that lack (or have limited) support for streaming services. However, if a television is going to ship with MHL support, chances are it is also going to have Wi-Fi, support for Netflix and a handful of other streaming options.

While television sets lack the connectivity of say, a Blu-ray player (even low-end Blu-ray players offer a bevy of connected options), that’s quickly changing.

Roku does mention shipping replaceable Roku Streaming Sticks with new HDTVs and this seems like a more robust business plan. After all, if a consumer can buy a connected television set that is, in essence, “upgradeable,” that might have real value.

Roku hasn’t announced pricing or availability, but says that the Streaming Stick should be in range of its other set-top boxes. Best Buy has already signed on to support the Roku Streaming Stick with future Insignia television sets.

We love the idea of a low-profile connector for making television sets smarter. What do you think of the Roku Streaming Stick? Let us know.

More About: Connected, connected devices, connected tv, mhl, roku, roku streaming stick, trending

Top 2012 Social Media Resolutions: Share Less, With Fewer People

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 04:02 PM PST


Did 2011 mark the high point of oversharing? That seems to be the lesson behind a couple of studies that examined the New Year’s resolutions of social media users.

Most of us, it seems, did make social media resolutions of some sort. In a Harris Interactive survey of 2,000 Americans who use services such as Facebook and Twitter, 63% of respondents said they had made promises to themselves regarding their use of such services in 2012. The survey was commissioned by social network Posterous.

Surprisingly few of those resolutions had anything to do with spending less time on those services. Only a quarter of respondents with a social media resolution checked the box marked “take a break from social media and spend more time interacting with people in real life.” Rather, most users wanted to better control how much they share, and with whom.

The top two promises, chosen by 44% and 42% of resolution-makers respectively, were “share only with close friends and family” and “be more careful about what I share.”

The desire for less sharing was evident on the incoming side, too. The third most popular resolution, shared by 37% of respondents: “Only read status updates from people who are close friends and family.”

Sharing less on social media may not be the most popular New Year’s resolution overall — it’s hard to beat mainstays like “lose weight” or “save more money.” But a separate study, an analysis of more than 152,000 tweets about New Years’ resolutions by Crimson Hexagon, suggests that the social media diet resolution has reached the top tier.

Leaving aside the 20% of tweets that simply said New Year’s resolutions were “lame,” the resolution to “share less on social media” was the third most popular — beating “be kinder to others.”

It’s easy to surmise that we all shared too much last year — that one too many drunken photo got posted, or that an ill-considered joke on your Facebook wall led to a dicey conversation with the boss. But perhaps there’s another lesson to be drawn here: that we’re hungry for a more meaningful, more intimate form of social media.

Most users know the feeling: that Twitter’s connections are too impersonal, that the majority of our Facebook friends are one-time acquaintances we’d rather not spill everything to. On the surface, that’s good news for services like Posterous and Path, which make a virtue of their limited social circles. (It’s also a boon for Google+, which touts its ability to divide your friends into various circles of sharing — though critics complain the Circles feature is still too complex for the average user.)

On the other hand, the resolution to share less — or to only share with family and close friends — doesn’t necessarily suggest we’re ready to give up on the twin behemoths of Twitter and Facebook just yet. After all, “switch my social network” was not a resolution that ranked in the Harris survey. Most of our world is on these big two services, and we recognize that. We would just like to be more careful about what we post there, and to whom.

Did you make a social media resolution for 2012? Let us know what it was in the comments.

More About: crimson hexagon, Facebook, posterous, Twitter

For more Social Media coverage:

Have 2 Minutes? Check Out Who Has Access to Your Social Media Accounts

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 03:20 PM PST


There are more than 130 Facebook app developers with access to my profile. Sixty-eight apps have permission to post to my Twitter feed, eight of them can access my LinkedIn data and another eight are connected to my Gmail account. You don’t have to be an online privacy expert to understand that’s probably too many, but how many apps have permission to your account?

Israel-based entrepreneur Avi Charkham has cut down the time it will take you to find out. After becoming frustrated with how difficult it is to locate app permission pages on social sites, Charkham compiled direct links to such pages for eight different networks into one place on the site MyPermissions.

“I kept connecting to services, and one day I was looking for the list to remove some of them,” Charkham tells Mashable. “I found that Facebook hid them behind four or five links…and thought to myself, ‘There’s no way people can find this.’ Two clicks I could live with, but four or five made it clear they were hiding it.”

He recently relaunched the list at the domain mypermissions.org, and it took off on Twitter and Facebook after a fan submitted it to Hacker News on Monday. Using the site to help clean up your app permissions takes about two minutes, and you can sign up to receive monthly reminders to review your app permissions thereafter.

Charkham is the cofounder of a web app called MyFamilio that lets families post their family moments privately. The simple MyPermissions site is just a side project and — if you’re looking to better protect your online privacy this year — a favor.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Darwin Bell

More About: MyPermissions, privacy

U.S. Customs Denies iPad Passport Scan Got Canadian Across Border

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 02:33 PM PST

canadian passport 360

You may have read about a Canadian man who got into the U.S.A. with no passport and only a scan of it on his iPad to show that he had one. After reviewing the situation for a few minutes, the border guard let him through and wished the man happy holidays.

So you can now get into the country with just scanned copies of a passport? Not quite. The iPad is just part of the story. The man in question, Martin Reisch, also showed the guard his driver’s license, and border guards can verify identities via other means, too.

"The assertion that a traveler was admitted into the U.S. using solely a scanned image of his passport on an iPad is categorically false,” a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Mashable. “In this case, the individual had both a driver’s license and birth certificate, which the CBP officer used to determine identity and citizenship in order to admit the traveler into the country.”

Reisch, however, told the Canadian Press that he only showed his driver’s license. Even if that’s the case, CBP says it gives guards a lot of latitude in terms of what they can consider (a “variety of other means”) when approving or denying entry of visitors.

Gaining legitimate entry to the United States without a passport would be an unusual event were it not for the man’s country of origin: Canada. Although border rules toughened up in 2009 to require Canadians to show passports when crossing into the U.S., for decades prior to that, typically all that was needed was a driver’s licence. The border between Canada and the U.S.A. is the longest undefended border in the world, and millions of people cross it every year.

Reisch says he was traveling by car from Montreal to the States to drop off some Christmas gifts when he realized he had forgotten his passport about half an hour from the border. Rather than turn back, he decided to try crossing the border with a scan of his passport, which he happened to have on the iPad he took with him.

Many Canadians (myself included) can relate. If you’ve crossed the border more than a few times, chances are you have a tale about an unserious “forbidden” item winked at, a forgotten form shrugged off, or an exceeded duty-free limit waived. On the other hand, sometimes guards bar entry of perfectly legitimate visitors for little or no reason.

Have you had an experience at the U.S.-Canada border that was unusual? Relate your story in the comments.

More About: ipad, scanner

Warning: Scam Baits Facebook Timeline Haters [VIDEO]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 02:09 PM PST


Don’t like the new Facebook Timeline? Well, don’t fall for links or apps that claim to revert back to the old Facebook. New scams that promise just that are popping up on Facebook and targeting users who want to remove their Timelines.

Check out the video above to learn more.

Have you been tempted by promises of the old Facebook, or clicked on any of these potentially malicious links?

The Facebook profile is ever changing. Check out its evolution below.


2005 - The Facebook





Back in the days when The Facebook was only available to select networks, the News Feed didn't exist. Users hopped between profiles like this one.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Facebook, facebook timeline, mashable video, scam

10 Things You Can Fit Into Your 63,206-Character Facebook Status

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 01:57 PM PST


Following a slew of other major updates, Facebook announced in November that its users would be able to share status updates up to 63,206 characters long. That’s a little harder to visualize than Twitter’s 140-character limit.

So, we measured 10 other textual things to determine whether they made Facebook‘s character cut. Did you know you can fit an entire movie script in your Facebook status? Or that you can share multiple copies of the U.S. Constitution? Find out which iconic texts you can squeeze into Facebook’s 63,206-character limit below.

If you’re curious how Facebook arrived at this seemingly random number, Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin explained to ZDnet, "I set the exact limit to something nerdy. Facebook … Face Boo K … hex(FACE) – K … 64206 – 1000 = 63206.” In other words, Baldwin calculated the number using the hexadecimal numeral system: The hexadecimal value of “FACE” is 64,206. Then, Baldwin subtracted “K,” or “kilo-” (the prefix for 1,000), to arrive at 63,206.

How else can you reach 63,206 characters in your Facebook status update? Share your ideas below.

Hat tip to Amy Moczynski, who allowed us to riff on her original idea.


1. The First 20 Chapters of Genesis




The first 20 chapters in the Bible's Book of Genesis can fit into Facebook's 63,206 character limit. The character count totals 63,136 characters, including verse numbers.

Image courtesy of Flickr, J. Mark Bertrand

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More About: Facebook, facebook timeline, features, Social Media, status updates, trending

Shorty Awards Opens Voting, Adds ‘Best Presidential Candidate’ Category

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 01:49 PM PST


The Shorty Awards, an annual crowdsourced contest that honors social media professionals, agencies and brands, launched its nomination phase Wednesday with improved campaign tools and new categories.

Among the new categories Shorty Awards producer Sawhorse Media added this year is “Best Presidential Candidate in Social Media.” As with all categories, people cast votes using nominees’ Twitter handles and hashtags.

“We were following the Iowa Caucus and thought there must be a better way to practice democracy,” Sawhorse Media CEO Greg Galant tells Mashable. “It would have been hard to imagine when we founded the Shorty Awards in 2008 that every presidential nominee would be on Twitter, but it’s now a reality.”

In 2011, participants tweeted more than 750,000 nominations in all categories (politics, entertainment, pop culture, activism, government, technology, news, media, etc.) to recognize influential content creators on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare and other social networks. Past big-name winners include Conan O’Brien, Sesame Street‘s Grover, Neil Patrick Harris and NASA.

“The Shorty Awards are honoring excellence in a medium that some continue to dismiss, at their peril.”

Popular vote determines winners in some categories while others are judged by the Real-Time Academy of Short-Form Arts & Sciences, which includes Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, author and public radio show host Kurt Andersen and actress Alyssa Milano, among others.

“The social media explosion all around us means it’s more important than ever to highlight the best and most interesting content,” says Sree Sreenivasan, a professor of digital media at Columbia Journalism School and member of the academy. “The Shorty Awards are honoring excellence in a medium that some continue to dismiss, at their peril.”

To help nominees promote themselves this year, the Shorty Awards website offers several campaign tools. Returning this year is the Shorty Interview feature (see screenshot below), which in 2011 garnered more than 100,000 answers, including funny ones from celebrities Marlon Waynes and Marlee Matlin.

Because YouTube was the third largest traffic referrer — behind Twitter and Facebook — for The Shorty Awards in 2011, producers this year added a way for nominees to embed campaign videos to their nomination pages.

“The Shorty Awards are all about discovering great talent and content,” Galant says, “so we want to give people on social media as many tools as possible to get the word out.”

Last year, the Short Awards had an offline phase where winners were announced at a gala in New York City. Celebrities Kiefer Sutherland, Conan O'Brien, Neil Patrick Harris and Miss USA Rima Fakih participated in the gala.

Will you be nominating someone for the Shorty Awards?

Shorty Awards Categories

“The 4th Annual Shorty Awards will feature dozens of categories to honor individuals in topics that reflect the power social media has had on politics, entertainment, pop culture, activism, government, technology, news, media and more,” Sawhorse Media said in an announcement. Each category is associated with a Twitter hashtag you use when submitting a nominated handle.

  • Entertainment: #actor #actress #band #bio #celebrity #comedian #director #fansite #movies #music #radio #singer #television #tvshow #webshow #youtubestar
  • News & Media: #blogger #finance #journalist #magazine #newspaper #pr #videoblogger #weather
  • Non-profit & Activism: #activism #charity #democracy #green #hero
  • Government & Politics: #presidentialcandidate #democrat #government #republican #uscongress #worldleader
  • #SocialFitness Shorty Award: honors an individual who helps others to make healthy choices in their lives through their influence on social media.
  • #Celebrity of the Year Shorty Award: honors a celebrity whose creative Twitter bio, presence on social media and genuine sharing has helped them tell truer stories about their life and effect on pop culture.
  • #Weather Shorty Award: honors an individual who does the best job covering the weather on Twitter, the social web and iWitness.
  • #Hero Shorty Award: honors a Coast Guard member, firefighter, police officer, or anyone else who's helped to save a life using social media.
  • #SocialMediaManager Shorty Industry Award: honors a social media manager from a consumer facing brand or agency that has gone above and beyond in managing their brand's social presence.

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, election 2012, Socail Media

Verizon: CEO CES Keynote Cancellation Unrelated to Recent Travails

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 01:24 PM PST

verizon sign

It’s been a tumultuous couple weeks for Verizon, and now company CEO Lowell McAdam has canceled his scheduled keynote appearance at the upcoming International Consumer Electronics Show.

Verizon said this week that a “schedule change” prevented McAdam from following through on his planned participation in a keynote “Innovation Power Panel” next week.

The telecommunications giant has dealt with a series of service and public relations blunders recently, but Bob Varettoni, the company’s executive director of media relations, told Mashable Wednesday that McAdam’s change in plans “has nothing to do with any recent criticism of Verizon.”

Just last week, Verizon confirmed to Mashable a planned $2 fee on payments made via phone or web. The company said the new charge was meant to offset the processing costs of such payments, but quickly faced an intense consumer backlash online as customers charged the company with gouging and corporate greed. The criticism sparked an immediate reversal by Verizon, which canceled the plan less than a week after it was first reported. But customers weren’t the only group skeptical of the move; prior to Verizon’s reversal, the Federal Communications Commission said that, “On behalf of American consumers, we're concerned about Verizon's actions and are looking into the matter."

Verizon customers also experienced a series of service interruptions in December, complaining about data outages blocking 4G service across the U.S. Verizon released a statement last week in which it addressed and expressed regret about the outages.

Varettoni declined to specify for Mashable whether McAdam’s scratched appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was due to a professional or personal scheduling change, only that McAdam “simply can’t get out there” as a result. Given the event’s status as one of the tech industry’s signature annual showcases, McAdam’s CES cancellation does come as something of a head-scratcher given that Verizon still plans to have a robust presence at the convention.

Verizon has said that another executive will replace McAdam’s on the keynote panel, but not yet named who will do that. Verizon also plans to have several other executives on hand at the event and is co-sponsoring the CES Press Room.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

More About: CES, verizon, Wireless

Facebook Warning: App Profile Pages Set For Deletion

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 01:12 PM PST


Facebook App Profile Page managers have begun receiving notifications that their Profile Pages will be eliminated Feb. 1.

Administrators can transfer Likes to their new Facebook Pages, if they take action in advance.

“In December we announced to developers that we’ll remove App Profile Pages on Feb. 1, 2012 so that users will be directed straight to an app or a traditional Facebook Page when searching for it,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote Mashable in an email, referring to a Dec. 9, 2011 post on its Developers Blog.

“In addition to lessening the amount of steps it takes for a user to get to an app, this move will also help eliminate the inconsistencies that exist between App Profile Pages and traditional Facebook Pages, such as different Insights, APIs, and distribution channels.”

The social network warns that the opt-in process of transferring your Likes may take up to seven days. As long as you don’t already have a Facebook Page, you can transfer the vanity URL of your App Profile Page as well. Facebook will not, however, transfer Page content. If you manage a page, make sure to save all photos, posts and Insights you want to keep.

If you do not respond to the prompt before Feb. 1, your App Profile Page will be deleted and traffic will go directly to your app.

Developers of new apps will not automatically get an App Profile Page, but can chose to create a Facebook Page from the Developers App.

Do you administrate a Facebook app? Have you received notifications your Profile Page would be eliminated?

More About: Facebook, facebook apps, facebook developer platform

Dear Rick Santorum: 6 Ways to Fix Your Google Problem

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 12:57 PM PST

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum, you’ve had a “Google problem” for years. A search for your last name reveals not your own website or Wikipedia page, but a website that associates your name with an explicit term describing the after-effects of certain type of sexual activity.

The website was put up by Dan Savage in 2003 in response to comments you made about gay marriage. It quickly went viral, and it’s been stuck at the top of Google‘s indexes ever since. The site also hosts a blog where users discuss your stance on gay rights. Savage has now threatened to redefine “Rick,” too, if you run an anti-gay campaign in 2012.

Santorum, now that you nearly won the Iowa Caucus you’re on the tip of everyone’s tongues and typing fingers. Google searches for “Santorum” have spiked in the past few days. This isn’t just a result of people trying to find Savage’s joke, either. Searches for “Rick Santorum” have peaked and your site even crashed due to an overabundance of traffic on Wednesday. See for yourself:

Rick, we’re not taking a stance on your campaign, but if you want to win, it’s crucial that you take action and fix the issue. But how?

Google has refused to alter the “Santorum” result because it’s an accurate reflection of search traffic and SEO.

“Google's search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web,” a Google spokesperson said. “Users who want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly. Once the webmaster takes the page down from the web, it will be removed from Google's search results through our usual crawling process. We do not remove content from our search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content and violations of our webmaster guidelines.”

Savage’s site went viral on its own steam and tampering with their indexes would go against Google’s policies.

Here, Rick, is what you have to do: First, read our guide on managing your online reputation using SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are 4 steps:

Step 1: See Where You Stand

When you’re first trying to improve your online reputation, you need to know your current keyword-and search-result situation. You can type your name in search engines and set up Google Alerts for your name.

However, since we’re pretty sure you already know where you stand, so you can go ahead and skip to step two.

Step 2: Post Positive Content

If you want to make negative websites about you appear lower in search, you’ve got to create relevant, positive content about yourself. Publishing more information about the positive aspects of your campaign might be a good start. You should do this on your social media profiles as well.

Step 3: Create an Identity Hub

You’ve got to make your site the go-to destination for all things Rick Santorum. You’ve already claimed your domain name. Next, you have to mention yourself a lot, link back to your own content, post often and to many different social networks.

Step 4: Consider Automating the Process

Your digital team is probably aware of the various tools, like Brand-Yourself and Vizibility, which can help an individual or a brand with SEO optimization and issues. If you haven’t considered using them already, you should.

After using our 4-step SEO guide, we’ve got two more suggestions.

First, try Google’s online tool to help manage search results in your name. You’ve got to play in Google’s ballpark and by their rules, so you might as well use the tools they provide to fix your problem.

Finally, you need to fight fire with fire. Savage’s site went viral and you need to respond in kind. Take all the buzz surrounding your candidacy after Iowa and build an online presence that will spread your own site across the Internet. You’re going to have to out-viral Savage’s site.

If you follow the above steps and get to work building an online army to help your content go viral, you stand a chance of fixing your Google problem.

SEE ALSO: Republican Candidates Take to the Web in the Battle for Iowa

Image courtesy of Flickr, Gage Skidmore

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Google, Politics, Rick Santorum, SEO, trending

Kodak Set to Declare Bankruptcy [REPORT]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 12:48 PM PST


Eastman Kodak will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection over coming weeks unless it can sell its collection of digital patents, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reports Kodak is in talks with lenders about $1 billion in funding that would keep the company afloat during bankruptcy proceedings. The bankruptcy could happen later this month or in February, according to the report.

Kodak reps could not be reached for comment on the report.

Declaring Chapter 11 wouldn’t cause Kodak to shut down. The company would continue to function as it attempted to sell its 1,100 patents through a court-supervised bankruptcy auction, according to the report. Kodak is attempting to sell the patents now to avoid the filing.

Kodak’s fall from grace is a textbook example of a company that anticipated consumer trends but failed to act on them. The company claims to have invented the world’s first digital camera in 1975, but held off for years from entering the market for fear of cannibalizing its lucrative print sales. In the 1980s and 1990s, Kodak was attacked on both fronts as foreign competitors undercut its film prices and others introduced digital cameras, creating a viable alternative to film.

Kodak rebounded in the 2000s by committing itself to becoming a leader in digital cameras — which it did. By 2005, it ranked number one in the U.S. in digital camera sales. But margins on digital cameras weren’t nearly as generous as those for film and Kodak CEO Antonio Perez, who called digital cameras a “crappy business,” attempted to position Kodak as a leader in digital photo sharing and printing, both of which have also proven to be tough segments.

Fittingly enough, as Kodak is said to be pursuing Chapter 11, the digital camera business appears to be suffering the same fate as film: Sales of such cameras fell 17% last year, according to NPD, as consumers found the cameras in their smartphones made a standalone camera unnecessary.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Joost J. Bakker IJmuiden

More About: digital cameras, Kodak, smartphones, trending

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Samsung Pushes Galaxy Tablet With Same Child Actress From iPhone 4S Ad

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 12:33 PM PST

Consumers and blogs are criticizing Samsung for not only stealing the look and feel of Apple commercials, but for blatantly borrowing the same child actress who appeared in the commercial for the Apple iPhone 4S to sell the company’s Samsung Galaxy 8.9 LTE Tablet.

In the Samsung Galaxy 8.9 LTE Tablet commercial (above), she is used to boost the fun you can have reading, playing games and watching movies with the new under 1-pound tablet.

In the Apple iPhone commercial (above), she’s seen brightly dressed on the phone screen as photos of her are displayed to showcase the phone’s advanced optics system and on-screen editing options.

The Samsung Galaxy 8.9 LTE Tablet, unveiled in August 2011, debuted as a 8.6 mm thin and 453 g tablet with a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8.9-inch display and Android 3.2 Honeycomb system.

SEE ALSO: Patent Wars: A New Age of Competition [INFOGRAPHIC]

Samsung pulled the advertisement from its official YouTube page, since publications have scrutinized the South Korean tech conglomerate’s commercials.

We’ve reached out to Samsung for a comment.

The two companies have been duking it out since last April after Apple filed patent infringement claims regarding the alleged likeness between the iPhone and iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. And an ad from Samsung late last year lampooned Apple fans.

Watch for yourself. Did Samsung blatantly copy Apple advertisements?

More About: advertisements, apple, iphone, samsung, Samsung Galaxy Tab

Microsoft Flight Soars Into the Digital Sky

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 12:21 PM PST

microsoft flight image

Microsoft’s real-world flight simulator, Microsoft Flight, is finally seeing the light of day after weeks of teasers and a closed beta. The sim will let players jump into a variety of civilian and military planes and tour the actual skies and locales around Hawaii.

Flight is going for verisimilitude with an accurate representation of Hawaii’s skies with region-specific weather and recognizable Hawaii landmarks. The game is about aerial exploration and precision flying, so don’t expect any dogfights or stealth missions: You’re supposed to admire the environment, not blow it up. Flight is the latest game in Microsoft’s long running Flight Simulator series which has stalled since its last release in 2006.

Most impressively, the game will be available as a free download in the spring of 2012. There is a closed-beta that is still accepting requests right here.

The game, from Microsoft Studios, is an interesting foray into free-to-play gaming. Microsoft is best known in the gaming world for its line of Xbox consoles and peripherals including the Xbox 360 and Kinect gesture-based peripheral. The 360 has cultivated a massive community of online players and a database of inexpensive, indie games through its game’s website, the graphics leave something to be desired when compared with modern flight games and simulators, such as the Ace Combat series. Flight, however, is clearly built for a different audience and with a free price tag, beggars ought not to be choosers.

What do you think of Flight? Will you sign up to take to the skies? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

More About: game, Gaming, microsoft, video game

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Asian Social Media Users Create; Western Users Consume [STUDY]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 12:12 PM PST


Social media users in metropolitan China and India are much more apt to be “creators” on the platforms than their Western counterparts, according to a new report.

Forrester Research polled about 100,000 consumers in Asia, Latin America and North America in the second and third quarters of 2011, and the results show that people in emerging markets are often enthusiastic adopters of social media. Among those who have Internet access, 93% report using social media once or more a month vs. 49% in the seven European countries in the study — the U.K., France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Italy.

Consumers in emerging markets also tend to be creators, according to the report. In fact, 80% of Indians and 76% of Chinese fit that description, which Forrester defines as someone who publishes a blog or a website, uploads video and/or music and/or writes and posts stories once or more a month. In the U.S., the figure is 24% while in Europe it was 23%.

Reineke Reitsma, vp and research director at Forrester, says the differences are less attributable to differences in national character than respondents’ age and relative positions on the adoption curve. Overall, the Chinese and Indian people polled were younger than their U.S and European counterparts. (They were also urban — all of them were based in major cities.)

But age is only part of the equation: “In China, Brazil, even Spain instead of using email or IM people immediately go to social networking,” says Reitsma.

In comparison, consumers in mature markets such as the U.S. and Europe are using social media less for communicating than for finding and processing information. About 70% of consumers in the U.S. and Canada are deemed “spectators” in the study, meaning that they merely consume social content. About one third of people in those regions are “critics” who respond to existing social content.

One country that emerges as distinctly different in the survey is Japan, which indexes lower on social media usage than everyone else. Just 28% of Japanese visit a social networking site once or more a month and only 13% visit Facebook. Reitsma says that Japanese consumers prefer anonymity, which is why Twitter and mixi are more popular.

What do you think? Are you a creator or a consumer of social media content? Sound off in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kizilkayaphotos

More About: Brazil, china, Facebook, india, japan, Social Media, Twitter

How to Win Friends on Facebook With Music and Movies — But Not Books [STUDY]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 11:52 AM PST


Want more Facebook friends? Then make sure you’re listening to the latest hit music.

A recently published study by three researchers at Harvard examines how and why people make friends on social networks. The study shows that people who share an interest in music and movies are most likely to friend each other. Having a similar interest in books, meanwhile, carries no weight when it comes to making online friends.

The study also documents how Facebook friends impact each others’ preferences. The group used for this study was not easily influenced by what their social circle enjoyed, except when it came to classical or jazz music. Facebook friends who share a taste for those genres did tend to influence each other, researchers found.

“The extent to which friends' preferences actually rub off on each other is minimal,” Kevin Lewis, one of the researchers, told Wired.

The researchers collected the data from a group of college students for four years. Information for the study was collected from self-reporting by the students, and monitoring from an actor.

This study might cause some marketing professionals to worry about the true impact of their social media efforts. Marketers operate under the assumptions that the public is more likely to trust a peer recommendation than an advertisement.

Are you influenced by your Facebook friends? Do you influence their tastes? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Facebook, Harvard, social media marketing, trending

The Countdown Has Begun to MashBash at CES in Las Vegas

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 11:45 AM PST


CES is less than a week away, so if you’re going to one of the biggest technology trade shows of the year, now is the time to decide which parties and events you’ll want to attend in Vegas.

One party not to be missed is MashBash! Come celebrate the Mashable Awards winners and the best of digital at 1OAK Nightclub in the Mirage Hotel and Casino on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012. You can expect a night of networking, dancing and celebration in true Mashable style at one of the hottest new clubs in Las Vegas.

MashBash will bring together the Mashable community, industry leaders and digital influencers from the biggest technology and consumer electronic brands attending CES.

San Francisco-based DJ duo A Plus D — a.k.a. Adrian and Mysterious D — will be spinning their world famous mashups at MashBash. Think Lady Gaga meets Bob Marley or Will Smith meets Daft Punk, mixed together under one roof. A Plus D, creators of Bootie, the biggest mashup bootleg party in the world, will rock the party with their musical concoctions and creative song combinations.

A Plus D will be taking mashup requests via Twitter at MashBash. Follow @bootiemashup so you can request your favorite mashups live, or tweet your favorite artists or songs, and Bootie’s mashup maestros A Plus D will mash it up whenever possible. Additionally, you can download the Best of Bootie 2011 album with full sleeve artwork for free here: http://www.bootiemashup.com/bestofbootie2011

MashBash tickets are selling fast, so we strongly encourage you to purchase tickets before they sell out. Hope to see you in Vegas on the dance floor!

MashBash Info and Tickets

Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 (during International CES Convention week)

Time: 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. PT

Location: 1OAK Nightclub, Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV (1OAK is located at the Mirage Hotel & Casino just off the North Valet access or Self-Parking entrance into the hotel)

Premiere Sponsors

More About: bootie, Celebration, CES, dancing, event, las vegas, mashable awards, mashable awards winners, mashable events, MashBash, Party

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Why Building a Business in a Boring Industry Can Pay Off [VIDEO]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 11:31 AM PST


After MeetingBurner.com founder John Rydell talked with his friend Noah Kagan about his bright idea, Kagan deadpanned, "I don't understand how anybody could get up in the morning and want to work on online meetings."

Ouch.

But Kagan had a point: the world of online meetings just sounds, well, boring. It's been done and it's a crowded space. So why start a business in such a ho-hum industry? Because online meetings are boring and disrupting a boring market is a great way to build a business.

Do you remember cell phones before the iPhone? The entire segment was boring — BlackBerry was the most exciting company in the space because they let you email from your phone. Yawn. The mobile handset space was dominated by old, tired enterprise players that thought the status quo was just fine.

And then, in the span of 15 minutes, Steve Jobs revolutionized an industry with his first demo of the iPhone. This is the type of opportunity that “boring” market segments can provide. Check out this video interview with John Rydell for tips about how you might be able to disrupt your industry.

Behind the Brand is hosted by Bryan Elliott. Stay tuned to Mashable every Wednesday for new episodes.

More Recent Episodes of Behind the Brand:

More About: behind the brand, Business, mashable video, Startups, Video

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New Banking Malware Spends Your Money, Hides the Evidence [VIDEO]

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 11:17 AM PST


New malware hitting bank accounts will spend victims’ money, but won’t be obvious by looking at an online statement. Computer security firm Trusteer reported a new malware virus attacked some customers’ online bank accounts during the holiday season.

The virus uses your debit card information and then covers its tracks in your online statement with “post transaction attacks.”

“These are designed to conceal illegitimate activity for as long as possible to either allow money to transfer to its final destination – uninterrupted, or continue to control the account and perform further transactions,” Trusteer says.

Check out the video above to learn more.

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, edfuentesg

More About: banking, malware, mashable video, trending

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How to Mitigate Risk During Software Development

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 11:00 AM PST


Brett Miller is the president of Custom Software by Preston (CSP). For more than 10 years, CSP has impressed clients with highly effective software solutions and teams of multi-talented software engineers.

A software development client should complete a thorough "due diligence" before selecting a developer for his critical project. Then, he must complete the finalization process by drafting and executing the legal contract/agreement.

Contracts attempt to define the responsibilities and duties of each party; however, people often overlook whether a contract covers certain risks associated with non-performance.

Take a look at the eight scenarios below. These tips can help your company cover its legal bases when contracting a software developer, or vice versa.

1. Time & Material (T&M) or Fixed-Price Contracts

In a “time and materials” contract, the client assumes the burden of cost overruns, whereas in a “fixed-price” scenario, the developer assumes this risk. Weighing the two, many clients assume they are ahead of the game by passing the potential for cost overruns to the developer. However, they but fail to consider that the developer must add that cost-potential into their fixed-bid up front. So in a fixed-price contract, the client pays the extra cost, even if it proves to be unnecessary.

Fixed-price contracts also have the potential to create disputes. Often, deliverables that were implicitly intended might not be included in the original project scope. Both parties should be very aware of what exactly is included in the project. Fixed-price means there is a fixed scope of work, unless additional moneys are paid.

In a time and materials contract, the developer gets paid on an hourly basis. The motivation to finish quickly may be diminished by the opportunity to bill more hours. In this case, the client takes the risk that the developer will prioritize his own desire to profit on the project.

2. General Note on Contracts and Non-Disclosures (NDAs)

Contracts and NDAs are legal instruments which establish the rights, duties and privileges of those who are a party to the agreement. These instruments protect both parties to the extent that they are willing to pursue them in a court of law.

Here is a simple rule of thumb, although I encourage you to also check with legal counsel. Unless the dispute is over $10,000, most attorneys won't take the case. And even if they do, they usually keep one-third of any money they collect. It can take several years to win in court, and the problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the losing party may no longer be in business or have assets from which to pay. One last note, many contracts call for the losing party to pay the legal costs for the winning party, which can save you money if you win, but cost dearly if you don't.

3. Advanced Payment – The Industry Standard

Many contracts call for advanced payments or retainers. Essentially that means the developer works on the client's money, and therefore, the client bears the risk for the developer’s potential lack of performance. This is the norm in the information technology field. Very few developers will take money out of their own pockets to build a client projects (in the hopes that the client will pay).

An improvement to this model would be to limit the retainer to two week’s worth (or less) of development time/labor (weighing the progress of deliverables). Upon client acceptance, the retainer can be replenished for the next cycle. Sending a wire or paying via credit card allows for instantaneous payment. Client risk is bit more limited when using this approach.

4. Phased Payments – The Other Industry Standard

Some projects are divided into three or more segments. The first phase is paid up-front (client risk); the second is paid at some pre-arranged interval (equal risk); and the last payment is made upon project "completion and acceptance" (developer's risk). In this scenario the last payment can be problematic to collect, as subjective issues can arise regarding quality and scope.

One minor modification to the phased payment method specifies that the developer finish the final deliverable in their own environment, to which the client has access for testing. Upon client acceptance, the final payment is made and the vendor transfers ownership of the application and all code to the client. This is a very solid, technique balancing risk.

5. Warning! Warning! Kill Switches

Some unscrupulous software vendors build a kill switch into their applications. In the event of a dispute (and the client refuses to pay), the vendor can remotely shut down the application. I recommend that your contract include language that prohibits this "extortion like" practice.

6. Disappearing Freelancers

Many IT Professionals have heard this story before: A company finds what appears to be a knowledgeable (and affordable) freelancer on the Internet. Initial contacts with the individual indicate great responsiveness. Payment is made, a few conversations take place, some small progress is shown — then all communication goes dark and the freelancer disappears.

I believe this most often occurs when, with the best of intentions, a freelancer takes on a project and finds out he bit off more than he could chew. He believe his efforts were substantial, but things just didn't work out (in other words, “not their fault”). Even more important, as a freelancer he is simply not in a position to refund any money. It's easier to disappear than to deal with the conflict, so he runs.

Freelance software developers do offer expertise, experience and cheaper rates due to lower overhead, but the clear risk is a lack of any substantial backing. Therefore, this model does have more risk for the end client.

7. Payment via PayPal or Credit Card Carriers

Many developers accept payment via PayPal, and some even accept credit cards. These credit carriers offer "dispute" mechanisms that allow the payee to challenge any charge which was not delivered as promised or described. This method should be encouraged by the client (even if they need to pay the credit card processing fees), as it provides additional protection.

Vendors have an opportunity to respond to any dispute. Carriers to a certain degree are arbitrators and if they receive enough complaints, a vendor's account can be canceled.

8. Risk Assessment

Software development projects carry financial risk factors for both parties. These risk factors need to be considered seriously and should be discussed with an attorney. Clients and developers alike need to know what they are getting into and prepare for scenarios that don’t work out as planned.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, OtmarW, Flickr, quaziefoto, slimmer_jimmer

More About: contracts, contributor, dev, features, freelance, law, legal, software development, Web Development

Headphones Get Princess Leia Upgrade

Posted: 04 Jan 2012 10:40 AM PST

Princess Leia Headphones

For those looking to channel their inner Princess Leia, headphone covers with the Star Wars icon’s signature side buns are now available on Etsy in shades of blonde, brown and red.

The "Galactic Princess Headphone Covers" – priced at $24 before shipping — are made of synthetic hair and come with two 6-inch diameter buns with mesh backing.

The buns can be glued or temporarily attached to your headphones, and can also be pinned directly to your hair.

“These pieces will transform your headphones or ear muffs into Princess Leia’s famed cinnamon bun hair,” says the Etsy site. “Your friends will love you more, your coworkers will be jealy, and if you wear these to Comic-Con you will get laid instantly.”

Headphone covers for blonde and red hair are made to order.

Image courtesy of Etsy.

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