Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Top 7 CES Gadgets for Your Small Business” |
- Top 7 CES Gadgets for Your Small Business
- Google Joins Anti-SOPA Protest by ‘Censoring’ Its Logo
- This Is the Internet After SOPA [PICS]
- Wikipedia Goes Black in Protest of SOPA
- Summer Coding: U.S. CTO Wants You to Get Tech Skills This Year
- Meet Friends of Your Friends and Expand Your Social Network With 3Degrees
- Italian Cruise Ship’s Dangerous Path Posted to Facebook Before Crash
- Quora Now Has an Off-Site Follow Button, Just Like Twitter
- CES Unveils 8 New Tablets: Which Will You Choose?
- Google Contractors Vandalize OpenStreetMap Project [VIDEO]
- Meme Machine: SOPA Edition
- Wikipedia Blackout: Survive with These 12 Alternatives
- Facebook Stats Analysis: Is Fan Page Growth Slowing?
- Fruit Ninja Slices Into Plush Toys and Electronics
- 6 Tips for Handling Breaking Crises on Twitter
- Facebook Makes You Smarter, Thanks to Friends You Don’t Talk To [STUDY]
- Interactive Textbook Makes Reading Social, Braces for Apple Announcement
- What Will You Do Without Wikipedia? [OPEN THREAD]
- New Facebook Cover Designer App Takes Photos With Your Profile in Mind
- These Websites Are Going Dark to Protest SOPA Wednesday
- Facebook Recycles Feel-Good Timeline Video
- Reuters Expands its Original Content on YouTube
- Yahoo’s Jerry Yang Resigns
- Katy Perry Goes Virtual in New Sims Game
- Why SOPA Is Dangerous
- Facebook Finally Beats Google’s Orkut … in Brazil
- SOPA Author Attacks Wikipedia, Schedules Debate on Bill
- Look at That Crazy Honey Badger, Trying to Get a TV Show
- Twitter Suspends Popular Tweet-Filtering App
- BlackBerry PlayBook Lets Hackers View Your Email
| Top 7 CES Gadgets for Your Small Business Posted: 18 Jan 2012 05:06 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. CES 2012 saw the launch of a slew of new gadgets, many of which could be useful for your small business. Here’s a roundup of some of the top gadgets for entrepreneurs, aside from the new batch of tablets, which are getting their own post chock full of spec comparisons. Take a peek at the seven gadgets below, and then check out the rest of our CES coverage here. 1. SwivlProducing video for your small business just got a whole lot easier. In fact, you don’t even need a cameraman — just grab your smartphone. Set up the Swivl with your iPhone and get into position, with the “marker” in your hand. The Swivl will pivot the iPhone to follow the marker — and thus your movements — as you demo a product, give a mini-lecture, host a videochat or broadcast a company announcement. But beyond just pointing the camera at you, the Swivl also has a built-in microphone so that the audio levels stay constant and aimed at your voice, even as you move around the room. Check out the video above to see Swivl in action. The iPhone model will be available during Q1, and Android version is reportedly on the way. Take a closer look in the gallery below. Price: $159 Swivl, electronic marker
Click here to view this gallery. 2. Behringer Soundscape Air iPod A quiet office is a sad office — up the cheer factor with some tunes. Throw out the 1980s boombox and instead opt for an iPod dock with speakers that will amplify the jams up to 150 feet from the base. The 3″ speakers will charge up when they’re placed back on the dock. Price: $129 3. Powertech USB Charger With a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop and maybe even an iPod, you’ve got a lot of devices to keep juiced. The Powertech USB wall charger lets you plug in traditional power cords, but there are also two inputs for USB devices to keep everything charged. Powertech claims the gadget has the “world’s slimmest” USB adapter. This will definitely prove to be a useful accessory for business travelers. Price: TBD 4. Karotz Smart Rabbit They may look like toys for the under 5 demo, but Karotz are actually Internet-connected “smart rabbits” that can be integrated with your social networks. The rabbits will update your Facebook and Twitter pages, send emails and read texts. And there’s more — the voice-recognition software helps the rabbit do requested commands, such as searching the web, playing music, checking the weather forecast and consuming RSS feeds. There’s also a built-in microphone and webcam, so Karotz can snap a pic and upload it right to Facebook. It’s kind of like Siri, but better. There’s also an RFID add-on — at the office, you can set up the Karotz at the front desk, and when guests come to the office, they can swipe the RFID tag to notify you of their arrival. So Karotz is your new personal assistant and front desk person in one. If your Karotz won’t be on your person or nearby, you can control it with an app that enables you to give orders remotely. The app is available in the Apple App Store and Android Market. Price: $129 5. Victorinox SSD with 1TB Flash DriveAs a small business, most of your lean team is analogous to a Swiss army knife — each person is does a little bit of everything in one handy package. Well, now there’s an actual Swiss army knife that will prove useful to your business — and we’re not talking about using the knife to open FedEx boxes. The Victorinox SSD has all the bells and whistles of your standard Swiss army knife — blade, scissors, nail file with a screwdriver tip and a LED laser pointer — along with a little something extra — a USB flash drive that holds 1 terabyte of data. And in case you’re wondering, a terabyte is huge. But that’s not all — this knife also it connects to eSATA II/III and USB 2.0/3.0 with a single connector, there’s a graphic display showing what's saved to the drive. Plus, it supports 256 AES encryption, so you don’t have to worry about file security. Price: TBD 6. 55″ Samsung OLED TVNeed a screen in the office to show your website’s Google Analytics or to display news, inventory details or sales stats for all to see? Try Samsung’s new 55-inch OLED HDTV. Mashable‘s gadget guru Charlie White checked it out in person and reports that the display is thinner than his pinky finger, so you won’t have to worry about the screen protruding off the wall. The price has yet to be announced, and it very well could be out of reach for some small businesses, but you have to admit — that is one sexy machine. More pics below. Price: TBD Samsung's New TVs LEDs have a great advantage over LCD in the amount of color they can display. Click here to view this gallery. 7. Bluetooth Parrot Zik For entrepreneurs on the go, Bluetooth is a godsend … kind of. In theory, Bluetooth headsets are great, but far too often, the devices suffer from poor sound quality, pairing issues, an uncomfortable fit, ugly aesthetics or a bulky design. But Parrot’s Zik may ring in a new era of Bluetooth headsets. “The Zik is one of the cleverest implementations of wireless technology we've seen in headphones to date,” says Mashable tech analyst Pete Pachal. The earcups completely enclose the ear, which helps to make the headset more comfortable and not as alien-looking, like other Bluetooth headsets. In fact, these just look like a snazzy pair of audio headphones. You can use the headphones either to listen to music or to pair with your cellphone to take calls. You’ll have to set up pairing for the devices (unless your phone has near-field communication, like the Galaxy Nexus), and you’ll be ready to rock (or talk) simply by tapping the phone to one of the earcups. There’s also noise-cancellation technology that makes music and calls more audible. With functionality and style in spades, it looks like the Zik could be the gadget of choice for entrepreneurs in 2012. More pics in the gallery below. Price: TBD Parrot Zik Headphones The Zik Parrot, designed by Phillipe Starck, is a pair of Bluetooth headphones designed by Phillipe Starck. Click here to view this gallery. What other gadgets from CES will you be using for your small business? More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:
More About: CES, CES 2012, features, Gadgets, mashable, open forum, Small Business
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| Google Joins Anti-SOPA Protest by ‘Censoring’ Its Logo Posted: 18 Jan 2012 04:20 AM PST   Although it didn’t black out any of its sites entirely, Google has joined the anti-SOPA protest by putting up a censored version of its logo, visible only to users from the U.S. Google’s David Drummond explained the company’s views on SOPA/PIPA in an official blog post. PIPA and SOPA will censor the web, stifle innovation and hurt web businesses, says Drummond, and it won’t even help the fight against piracy. “These bills would grant new powers to law enforcement to filter the Internet and block access to tools to get around those filters (…) These bills would make it easier to sue law-abiding U.S. companies. Law-abiding payment processors and Internet advertising services can be subject to these private rights of action,” writes Drummond. “These bills wouldn't get rid of pirate sites. Pirate sites would just change their addresses in order to continue their criminal activities,” writes Drummond, calling everyone to sign the anti-SOPA petition and reach out to Congress in order to fight this proposed bill. More About: censorship, Google, SOPA, stop online piracy act For more Tech coverage:
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| This Is the Internet After SOPA [PICS] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 02:18 AM PST Nedroid   These sites have "blacked out" today in protest of Stop online privacy act (SOPA). It makes it just a little bit easier to imagine what the web could look like if some of the measures from the proposed SOPA bill were to become law. Click here to view this gallery. Today, many popular websites are going “dark” in protest of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The consensus among many experts, Internet users, web companies and even the White House, is that SOPA is too restrictive, too dangerous, too complicated and too big of a threat to our privacy. In a way, today’s blackout shows what the Internet might look if some of the principles in SOPA start being enforced as law. Do you like seeing big “CLOSED” signs on your favorite websites? Neither do we. We’ve gathered the screenshots of sites that are protesting SOPA with a blackout in the gallery above, and will be adding additional pics as more sites join in. Feel free to add your favorite SOPA-protesting site in the comments below! Image credit: Oatmeal More About: SOPA, Stop Online Privacy Act, trending For more Tech coverage:
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| Wikipedia Goes Black in Protest of SOPA Posted: 18 Jan 2012 12:50 AM PST   As announced, Wikipedia’s main page is “blackened” today in protest of the controversial Stop online privacy act (SOPA). “For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia,” says the message on the page. The actual articles on Wikipedia are actually accessible for a short period of time, after which they redirect the visitor to the blackened main page. For millions of Wikipedia visitors today, the message will be clear: one of the most influential sites and communities on the internet is clearly against SOPA. Many other sites, including Reddit, will join the protest by shutting down or “blacking out” their homepages today. More About: SOPA, trending, wikipedia For more Tech coverage:
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| Summer Coding: U.S. CTO Wants You to Get Tech Skills This Year Posted: 17 Jan 2012 10:09 PM PST   Missed out on that New Year’s resolution to learn a programming language — the goal that 300,000 people signed up for, including New York Mayor Bloomberg? Too busy with school to make it happen? You’ll get another, even easier shot at that goal this summer. Codecademy, the brand-new entity behind that plan, has announced “Code Summer +” — a condensed version of its curriculum, starting this May. The announcement was part of an event with U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra. The White House CTO was in San Francisco on Tuesday to push President Obama’s Summer Jobs + plan — and to rack up some new commitments from the tech industry. “Codecademy is accessible to everyone,” Chopra said. “I’m very bullish on encouraging these tools.” Standing alongside Chopra and Codecademy co-founder Zach Sim was Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and head of a number of foundations that he pledged to help Summer Jobs +. The Level Playing Field Institute and the College Bound Brotherhood will place disadvantaged and minority students in top Silicon Valley firms and Universities. Kapor recounted that his own career began with a summer job in 1966 that had provided him access to a computer for the first time. “Half the battle with young people is getting the idea that there’s a world they can aspire to,” he said. “We can do a much better job in Silicon Valley of being open to the people knocking on our doors, and overcoming our hidden biases.” Chopra also announced that the government would create a Schema.org database of summer jobs within 60 days — similar to one that has already been created for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. What do you think? How important are summer jobs in shaping the future of employment and education? Do Chopra’s commitments go far enough, and what else could the government be doing? Let us know in the comments. More About: barack obama, Codecademy, Lotus, mitch kapor For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Meet Friends of Your Friends and Expand Your Social Network With 3Degrees Posted: 17 Jan 2012 06:49 PM PST   The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: 3Degrees is web-based application that lets you meet your friends’ friends via Facebook. Genius Idea: Leverages the power of your Facebook social network to help you find people, activities and events through friends you trust. Whether you’re looking for a new friend, a date or a connection to a job at your ideal company, chances are you already know someone who can help connect you to that person. To help you find that connector, Brian Scordato created 3Degrees, a web-based application that allows you to search for your friends’ friends via Facebook to find interesting and compatible people in your area. The site enables its users to harness the power of their Facebook friends to meet new people and expand their social networks. “So much in our lives is based on our networks – whether it's an introduction to a potential boyfriend or girlfriend, an influential employee at a company we'd like to work at, or simply a new friend with similar interests,” says Brian Scordato, founder of 3Degrees. “Our networks open doors to new relationships and opportunities.” Users can sign into 3Degrees and view their extended network for free by logging in with their Facebook account. They can then search for people by location, interests, relationship status or keywords, and 3Degrees will generate a list of people within their extended network who match the criteria. The results are limited to friends of Facebook friends and includes only profile information that is set to be public.  If you find a connection that matches your criteria, click “Get an Intro” to send a message to your mutual friend to ask if he or she thinks the two of you would be a good match. If it is a match, add the user to one of your “Buckets,” which lets you group and organize your connections. “The majority of relationships, whether friendly, romantic, or professional, are forged through introductions by mutual friends,” Scordato says. “Often all it takes is the social proof of knowing the same person to jump start a conversation or relationship – the "You work with John? I went to college with John!’ moment is powerful!” Privacy is not an issue on 3Degrees – only friends of friends can view your profile and if you want additional privacy, click the “referrals only” link to ensure that 2nd degree connections can only reach out to you through mutual friends. Recently launched in December 2011, 3Degrees also has an activity page which lets users search for events posted by members within their extended network. To make taking online connections offline easier, the page lets you see who is attending, how you are connected to even lets you join the event. The site also offers sponsored events, in which people with similar interests and networks are invited to participate in activities they enjoy with people they will get to know. Users can also post activities and invite their networks to participate. Scordato plans to base 3Degrees’s business model off targeted advertising and Groupon-like specials with interest tags. Users with similar interests will find the specials in their feeds and 3Degrees will earn a certain percentage of each transaction once a deal is used. 3Degrees, which currently has 300 registered users and has raised $80,000 in funding, is not the first startup to incorporate friend-of-friend interaction with networking and job searching – Identified uses Facebook to provide users with real-time, interactive feedback on how companies evaluate their professional information online. Image courtesy of iStock, alexsl Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark  The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. More About: 3Degrees, bizspark, connections, Facebook, friends, networking, social network For more Business coverage:
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| Italian Cruise Ship’s Dangerous Path Posted to Facebook Before Crash Posted: 17 Jan 2012 06:38 PM PST   Before Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia’s tragic disaster Friday, some citizens of the island Giglio looked towards the sea to get a glimpse of the boat, following a Facebook prompt from a ship worker’s sister. While head waiter Antonello Tievolli reportedly did not ask the captain to steer towards his native island, he told his family he would be passing by that evening and his sister shared his whereabouts with her Facebook network. Patrizia Tievoli, Antonello’s sister, posted to Facebook Friday, “In a short period of time the Concordia ship will pass very close. A big greeting to my brother who finally get to have a holiday on landing in Savona,” (translated from Italian), the Telegraph reports. As the Concordia approached the coast of the island Giglio, ship Captain Francesco Schettino told the head waiter, a Giglio native, “Come and see, Antonello, we’re right in front of Giglio,” Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reports. The captain went too far with the Facebook-cued stunt. The ship hit rocks, which tore through its hull, resulting in the boat’s demise. More than 4,000 passengers were evacuated Friday night. Schettino was accused of inexcusable recklessness Monday, for his decision to steer too close to the island. When Tievolli finally reached the shore of his home island, he reportedly told his friends and family, “I would never have imagined that I’d end up disembarking on my own island like this.” During the Concordia’s last voyage past Giglio Jan. 6, Patrizia also spotted the ship and posted to Facebook, "I'm signalling to them. I wonder if they can see me," Corriere della Sera noted. Patrizia’s Facebook updates are now an ominous reminder of an onlooker’s excitement before disaster struck. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, 26ISO More About: cruises, Facebook, italy, travel
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| Quora Now Has an Off-Site Follow Button, Just Like Twitter Posted: 17 Jan 2012 06:28 PM PST   Much like Twitter, you can now follow your favorite bloggers and websites on Quora. And now, also much like Twitter, you can paste a follow button onto your own website. The content-sharing and expert-questioning site allows users to comment on follow topics or pose questions to other users — and it now has an off-site follow button. “We made the embedded follow button because the people who write the most on the site are always happy about ways to get more people to see the awesome writing they’ve put time and passion into,” says co-founder of Quora, Charlie Cheever. “The embedded follow button gives you a way to quickly establish an ongoing relationship with a reader in any context. We think anyone who uses Quora regularly and has a website or blog or other web presence will like it.” To get the Quora follow button on your site, visit the Quora Resources Page and cut and paste the code into your site. Similar to Twitter, you can create buttons to follow topics like “streaming content,” and even companies that are on Quora. Click on the “change button” to search for Quora content by topic and create code. When visitors to your site click on the follow button they’ll be directed to the Quora page and automatically follow you if they’re signed in. If visitors don’t have a Quora account, they’ll be prompted to sign up. You have the option of choosing a charcoal or white background, depending on what best matches your site’s design. The button was created by Quora engineers Shu Uesugi and Edmond Lau. “It’s also part of general theme of with the rest of the open web; you can also now post links onto Quora with boards, for example,” Cheever says. The Q&A site received some applause last year when they added interests boards, similar to Pinterest. Before that, some had speculated that despite the initial buzz around the start-up, Quora was too much of a niche site to appeal to a mass audience. Do you use Quora? Will you be posting the follow button on your site? Sound off in the comments. More About: follow, quora, website
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| CES Unveils 8 New Tablets: Which Will You Choose? Posted: 17 Jan 2012 06:17 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. The tablet market continues to expand this year, and many new versions were introduced at 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. Some innovations to the tablet are major. Fujitsu’s tablet can be fully submerged in water for up to 30 minutes without any damage, while Lenovo’s tablet can easily be converted into a laptop with double the battery life. Other companies are creating simple upgrades to their older models, like Toshiba’s Excite — which is a sleek .67 inches thin and coated with an anti-smudge surface. There are also some changes so small, they might have gone completely unnoticed, with some saying an iPad 3 prototype could be hidden among all the buzz at CES. If there’s anything to take away from all of the tablet talk at this year’s event, it’s that the market is not going anywhere but up. Many popular PC manufacturers, such as Dell, are finally joining with its own touchscreen device. And nearly three-quarters of small business owners are looking to buy tablets this year. Here are the year’s newest tablets on the market. Let us know which device you think will be the biggest game-changer in the comments. 1. One Laptop Per Child The XO 3.0 tablet includes the Marvell ARMADA PXA618 SOC processor, Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, standard or Pixel Qi sunlight-readable display, and supports Android and Linux operating systems. Unlike any other tablet on the market, it can be powered by solar energy, other alternative energy sources and even hand-cranks. Click here to view this gallery. More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:
More About: CES 2012, dell, features, fujitsu, lenovo, mashable, Tablet, Toshiba
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| Google Contractors Vandalize OpenStreetMap Project [VIDEO] Posted: 17 Jan 2012 06:05 PM PST Two contractors working for Google have vandalized one of the biggest group online projects on the Internet, Open Street Map. The project’s blog reported that someone from a range of IP addresses that belong to Google edited the map to give false information, like a one-way street going in the wrong direction. The troublemakers screwed up street information in New York, London and elsewhere before they were discovered. Google issued a statement saying that the two people involved were contractors acting on their own behalf and that they no longer worked for the company, which employs more than 31,000 employees worldwide, not including part-time people or contractors. More About: Google, OpenStreetMap, wikis
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| Posted: 17 Jan 2012 05:52 PM PST   The Mashable Meme Machine is a daily look at five hilarious viral topics spreading across the web right now. Today’s Meme Machine is going to try to bring light to a dark situation — a number of sites will undergo a blackout on Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act. Critics have claimed that the law would compromise link-heavy sites, such as Reddit, Tumblr and Wikipedia — those communities have responded in various tones, including humor. The U.S. government may be no laughing matter, but the topic is gaining a lot of buzz on the web. Here are a few of the SOPA-related memes swirling the Internet. Got a meme tip for us? please contact Brian Anthony Hernandez (@BAHjournalist), Christine Erickson (@christerickson) or Lauren Hockenson (@lhockenson). 1. Support Our Memes Creators of Nyan Cat Adventure, 21st Street Games created these posters using the major meme to raise awareness about the bill. The gaming company claims it could affect the future of both memes and games. Click here to view this gallery. More About: Meme Machine, sonic the hedgehog, SOPA, stephen colbert, Twitter For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Wikipedia Blackout: Survive with These 12 Alternatives Posted: 17 Jan 2012 05:23 PM PST   LEAD STORY: Why SOPA Is Dangerous The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) are landing in the U.S. Senate next week and a whirlpool of online protest has fired up again. The two bills intend to stop online piracy and protect copyright holders, however, critics claim they infringe upon creativity, Internet security and innovation by punishing websites that link to any copyright-infringing sites, even by accident. Wikipedia and a number of major sites including Reddit, Mozilla and TwitPic will go offline on Wednesday to protest. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales made the announcement on Twitter, joking that students should “do [their] homework early.” Wikipedia is a massive resource for students and professionals alike. What will a day without the online encyclopedia be like? In case you’re worried, we dug up some alternative information resources should you need them on Wednesday. Here are some of the best resources in a Wiki-less world. What are your thoughts on the blackout? Are these sites making the right move or is it just an inconvenience to the public? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. 1. Google Scholar Google's scholarly search engine is a way to broadly search for literature, articles, abstracts, theses and legal opinions from academic professionals, societies and universities. Click here to view this gallery. More About: features, resources, trending, wikipedia For more Social Media coverage:
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| Facebook Stats Analysis: Is Fan Page Growth Slowing? Posted: 17 Jan 2012 04:58 PM PST
We saw as early as April and May of 2011 that Facebook itself had slowed its growth, but where did that leave brand pages? The number of organizations creating fan pages hasn't abated. And as 2010 ended, the average page in the top 50 branded Facebook fan pages had grown over the year by 377.3%. However, in 2011 the average page on that ranking grew only 75%. The trend could have profound implications on social media marketers working to grow — and leverage — fan bases. Facebook Growth Has SlowedEMarketer reports that 82% of CMOs plan to increase their social media efforts over the next 3 years. It's a fair assumption that many of them will be looking to grow their social channel presence, often leading with Facebook.  But if this chart is any indication, growing that fan base may be more difficult than it used to be, and it seems to have gotten significantly worse around the same time that Facebook growth began to slow. Not Just PercentagesPercentage growth is easy to attain on small numbers, but correspondingly harder to attain on a large number. So is this decrease in fan growth simply a math quirk? To double check that, I analyzed the number of fans added by the top 50 branded pages each month over the same period of time last year versus this year. The results are compelling.
This shows that these pages are growing at only 25% the rate, in real numbers, that they were growing a year ago. Charting monthly growth in real terms leads to a chart with roughly the same configuration as the percentage growth. What About Page Age?It's a valid question to wonder if it's something about these specific pages, rather than Facebook fan pages in general. While the analysis includes 50 pages each month for two years, it's still a limited data set and, by definition, is the largest brand pages in the world. Since Facebook doesn't publish the date a page is created, I can't factor in the age of the page and look for a correlation there. What I did instead was look at the 15 largest pages in our study and the 15 "smallest" pages in our study to see if the line was significantly different. As you can see from the chart, the smaller pages are doing slightly better than the larger in terms of percentage growth (as would be expected), but the trendline is the same. It is possible that these giant pages have stopped fan acquisition programs, which would make sense, but it's unlikely that they would have all stopped them in June, so there seems to be something larger happening here. I also considered if the introduction of the Facebook Ticker was to blame, but that rolled out Sept. 21, and the data shows a slight uptick in October and November, so that doesn't appear to be the issue. What About Pages Not in the Top 50?To answer this question, I analyzed several fan pages belonging to Ignite Social Media clients, and looked at their month-by-month growth over the last year. For each month, we noted whether a media buy was going to support that page and/or whether there was a social promotion (such as a contest) planned. The months in which neither of those was happening, we could determine "organic" growth rates. Without sharing too much detail, I can say that we saw similar trends to what I found above: In the second half of the year, organic growth was roughly half what it had been in the first half of the year. This is not to say that you can't see phenomenal growth in fan counts from promotions, even those with no media spend. We still see that all the time, with clients doubling and tripling their fan counts using some clever efforts. But I'm struck by the relatively pronounced decline in fan growth that we're otherwise seeing. We Need More DataWhile I looked for supporting data online, I couldn't find any similar analysis, so at this point, I turn to you. What are you seeing? Are you noticing that you have to work harder to add new fans, or is it just as easy as it was a year ago? How have your pages performed over the last 12-18 months, when you're not doing concerted fan acquisition programs? Have changes to Facebook's structure impacted your organic growth rate? Positively or negatively? Please let us know in the comments. More About: Brand pages, contributor, Facebook, features, growth, mashable, trending, trends
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| Fruit Ninja Slices Into Plush Toys and Electronics Posted: 17 Jan 2012 04:30 PM PST   Following the likes of Angry Birds and FarmVille, Fruit Ninja will start selling fuzzy merchandise this year. Halfbrick Studios — the creator of the Fruit Ninja app — teamed up with Jazwares Inc. to create Fruit Ninja plush toys, headphones, ear buds and speakers. Sensei, the “fruit slicing master,” is available for purchase now and a watermelon plush toy is available for pre-order . The rest of the plush toys are supposed to arrive later this year. Fruit Ninja electronics will be on sale next fall. More than 100 million people have downloaded Fruit Ninja, which can be played on six mobile operating systems and XBox Kinect. The app was created in 2010 and made Time’s list of 50 Best iPhone Apps in 2011. The plush toys feature sounds from the game, Fruit Ninja bandannas, and will be available for purchase in four different sizes — 4-inch to 20-inch. Just like the game, the toys are fruits — pineapple, strawberry, green apple, watermelon, orange and banana. The plush fruits come with a clip for easy backpack attachment. The 10-inch plush toy will have a fake blade so you can act out the game. The 10- and 20-inch plush toys won’t be available for purchase until the fall of 2012. "Jazwares has done an outstanding job bringing the excitement of Fruit Ninja to life, allowing consumers to feel like Fruit Ninja warriors with details like ninja bandannas and real fruit-slicing action," Shainiel Deo, CEO of Halfbrick Studios, said in a statement. More About: fruit ninja, halfbrick, Jazwares, plush toys, Xbox Kinect
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| 6 Tips for Handling Breaking Crises on Twitter Posted: 17 Jan 2012 04:09 PM PST   Dallas Lawrence is the chief global digital strategist for Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's leading public relations and communications firms. He is a Mashable contributor on emerging media trends, online reputation management and digital issue advocacy. You can connect with him on Twitter @dallaslawrence. If the past year has taught us anything about reputation management in the social age, it’s that the past year has not taught us anything. Time and time again in 2011, the same missteps and misunderstandings lead to the same predictably painful reputational outcomes for individuals, brands and organizations. Despite widely discussed and accepted social media best practices, many of the most significant crisis poster children of 2011 failed to deploy the basic digital tactics necessary to cauterize potential threats before they metastasized into full-blown reputational disasters. Some may be tempted to fault the dizzying speed of digital change for the current sad state of crisis preparedness, but the reality is that the basic rules of effective communications have not changed for generations. From Gutenburg to Zuckerberg, the principles of sincerity, transparency, accuracy and speed still largely determine success or failure in the court of public opinion. What has changed – and what will continue to evolve over time — are the platforms that we use to communicate these principles. No platform in 2011 had a more profound impact on crisis awareness and response than Twitter. In 2012, as its audience continues to swell past 100 million active users, who send more than a quarter billion tweets daily, Twitter's prominence – especially during times of crisis — will only continue to grow. Here are six Twitter crisis tips every communications professional should review in the New Year. 1. Start With The BasicsThe first step in 2012 may both be the easiest and possibly the most daunting: For those not yet on Twitter, the time has come to pull the trigger. Even if your organization does have a Twitter account, you should assess if the current handle is appropriate for managing a crisis conversation. Establishing a separate and transparent Twitter presence for communicating corporate messaging and thought leadership – aside from branded, marketing-focused conversations — is critical if you are going to successfully manage a crisis or reputation in 140 characters or less. Furthermore, few brand managers will want to relinquish their carefully cultivated, consumer-focused Twitter accounts to a crisis team they fear will pollute their happily massaged community with apologies, recall information or other seemingly critical commentary. Many companies now operate multiple accounts specifically to address the information needs of a diverse social marketplace. For Twitter, one size definitely does not fit all and one Twitter account may not be sufficient for your communications needs. 2. Traditional Media Uses Twitter A recent survey of approximately 500 journalists around the world found that approximately half of those polled use Twitter to source for stories. In times of crisis, reporters are turning to Twitter in greater numbers to see who is talking about the issue and to identify which sources would best complement their coverage. In many cases, to be part of the story, you must already be part of the conversation on Twitter. And standard newspapers and magazines are not alone: Newswires like AP and Reuters also report important breaking news and international crises via Twitter. Know and engage your reporters and recognize that the moment his coverage goes live, your Twitter efforts will need to kick into high gear. 3. Fight for the HeadlineAny PR person worth his mettle knows the value of a headline. In the digital space in 2012, fighting for the headline has taken on new meaning. With most news sites offering auto-generated suggested Twitter language for readers to post to their feeds via the retweet plug-in, many tweeters simply "read and retweet" articles using the suggested text. Unfortunately, rather than invest the time to develop a 140-character synopsis reflective of the entire story, many sites simply auto-populate the attention-grabbing headline, without concern for the false or misleading impression it could have when viewed out of context. An overwhelming number of Twitter users today simply snack on the 140-character content posted in their streams, which means a balanced and comprehensive headline has taken on even greater significance. 4. Video RulesAccording to the most recent data from YouTube, more than 500 YouTube links are tweeted every minute. And this doesn't account for the millions of additional video links embedded in blogs, news sites and other online platforms, which are then shared across Twitter. Online video has already become one of the most powerful tools in the crisis manager's arsenal, yet many fail to fully realize the real-time ability of video integrated with Twitter to break through a crowded online conversation. Having an immediately deployable video capability and identified spokesperson(s) ready to advance positive messaging, correct misinformation and engage consumers directly (with a real face, not a logo) can help to reshape perception and stall the advancement of a developing crisis situation in ways one-dimensional text simply cannot. The question every crisis manger should be asking today is this: If you had a significant crisis occur on a Friday evening, how long would it take you to shoot, edit and tweet a video response? 5. Beware of SquattersTwitter is still largely the Wild West of the social universe. As Rupert Murdoch's wife discovered earlier this month, when it comes to transparency, not everyone is playing by the same rule book. Take the time now, before your moment in the spotlight, to audit your brand on Twitter (and throughout the digital space) and see who may be squatting on your trademark. You may be very surprised by what you find. If there was one lesson learned from the BP oil spill disaster, it was that you need to own your story within Twitter before others hijack it from you. If you do find a squatter violating your Twitter space, Twitter has a well-established policy for reclaiming inappropriate accounts. 6. Don't be Afraid to AdvertiseWith more than 250 million tweets flying across the Twittersphere every day, it is important to use every resource at your disposal to break through the incredibly crowded medium. In times of crisis that require an immediate impact, Twitter's suite of pay-for-play tools can help do just that. Twitter’s Sponsored Tweets can rapidly keep content at the top of search results, and can now place results at the top of user feeds. A particularly effective feature allows advertisers to target not only key search terms, but key users as well. By targeting based on likes and past conversation threads, Twitter's timeline advertising allows advertisers to place Promoted Tweets in the timelines of followers and other Twitter users who share similar qualities. The benefits of this deeper contextual targeting are immediately clear. For example, if you have a major crisis impacting parents, you can identify this subgroup and ensure your message consistently remains at the top of their streams. Messages that link to rich media, use hashtags, and feature a call to action (“RT PLEASE”) will usually garner the most attention. It is important to remember that Sponsored Tweets are just that – tweets you originally post to your account that you then "amplify" with advertising. If you are not active on Twitter and are not posting to your own account, you cannot participate or benefit from the pay-for-play arena. More About: crisis, crisis management, features, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Twitter
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| Facebook Makes You Smarter, Thanks to Friends You Don’t Talk To [STUDY] Posted: 17 Jan 2012 04:01 PM PST   Information being shared on Facebook is highly diverse and coming to you mostly from people you rarely talk to, says the latest Facebook Data Team Study. The Facebook Data Team examined users’ strong ties and weak ties by the number of comments, messages and photos people have in common. It turns out, those old friends and acquaintances you only see at reunions, influence your media consumption more than you might think. Don’t discount the memes or news links your weak-tie friends share. You see those a lot. Researchers cite that you are 10-times more likely to share “novel content,” that you would otherwise have not seen, from a weak-tie friend. “In short, weak ties have the greatest potential to expose their friends to information that they would not have otherwise discovered,” states the study. And the reason you see more of that diverse information from weak-tie friends: More of your friends are likely weak ties. If someone has 100 friends — the number of great friends and OK friends will tip with the majority being weak ties. However, birds of a feather still stick together on social networking platforms (see graphic above). Strong-tie friends are still more likely see and share the same links their friends are sticking on their walls. The people you share weak ties with will be interested in different things on websites that your group isn’t seeing. The study shows that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter work as community bulletin boards. Facebook users are more likely to consume and share information from their close contacts (frequent interaction), but people also consume more novel content — about new products and current events — shared by weaker contacts (infrequent interaction) because of their “abundance” on the network. Do you feel like you consume and share more content from strong-tie friends or weak-tie friends? Tell us in the comments below. More About: Facebook, social networking, study, Twitter
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| Interactive Textbook Makes Reading Social, Braces for Apple Announcement Posted: 17 Jan 2012 03:41 PM PST   Sitting at the front of the class and attentively listening to a professor’s lecture won’t be enough for college students aiming to impress their professors once the new BioBook rolls out. With BioBook, an interactive educational tool for tablets, professors can monitor student progress — from how they’re keeping up to the rest of the class to what page they’re at in the text book. Now the makers of the BioBook are waiting with bated breath to find out what Apple is planning to announce this Thursday — and whether the two companies are about to become competitors. BioBook is the creation of two Wake Forest University professors: Jed Macosko, an assistant professor of physics and Dan Johnson, a senior lecturer in biology. They hope the interactive learning tool will spark the interest of non-biology majors early in their college careers. Macosko says this precarious time is when students drop out or lose interest in learning. Perhaps, this program can help. “Biology is not linear, it is a web of many connected facts,” Macosko said. With interactive learning, “you can choose your own adventure.” Macosko, an educator for 15 years, believes no two students learn the same way. “Nobody learns exactly like the textbook authors had in mind,” he said. Students who’ve had trouble with the typical attend-a-lecture, read-a-textbok model might be more interested in a subject if they can learn its concepts with an interactive learning tool. BioBook could also be useful for students with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, whose minds read text in a different order. For students who prefer reading from paper and being able to highlight texts with a pen, they can print out the course textbook from BioBook. Professors can monitor students’ progress with assignments, quizzes, and other interactive learning tools. These tools also allow students to self-monitor their progress in relation to their peers. BioBook uses “near-peer authoring” — basically, a giant Wikipedia-like database. Science majors who recently completed the course will write summaries of key learnings, or nodes, in easy-to-understand prose. Students’ explanations are edited and added to the database for a particular class. The professor can then add to the database any other materials the students should know. Over time, the database will grow. It’s like having your smart, but down-to-earth dorm mate explain the recent biology 101 course they just completed. Despite the dubious reputation of a learning tool anyone can edit, studies have shown Wikipedia is just as reliable as an encyclopedia. BioBook is currently being beta tested by non-biology majors in select colleges and universities in the United States. The program will be available to university students this summer and cost $60 (not including the cost of a tablet). BioBook is “platform agnostic” — any tablet owner can access BioBook because it works on the open source course management system of Moodle. The book’s creators also partnered with education technology company, Odigia. Made possible by a $249,000 grant from the Next Generation Learning Challenges, a non-profit partner of the Gate’s Foundation, the funding allows the team to sell BioBook for $60 per student — half the rate of a standard, full-price textbook. However, at this point costs have been low and they might be able to lower the price further in the future, Macosko says. Especially if Apple announces a competitor. BioBook’s creators will have their ears tuned to Apple’s education announcement this Thursday to see if the company will introduce something that could trump BioBook’s interactive learning landscape. “If they (Apple) were to enter into the education world, they could accomplish a lot,” Macosko acknowledged. “And we would be happy about that. But they may approach this the way textbook makers do.” If Apple’s textbook functions like an regular ebook, then Macosko will continue with his plan to sell the interactive BioBook to students and professors. If Apple has listened to educators who say students learn in a variety of ways, and release an interactive textbook, then they may lower the price of the BioBook. Either way, the BioBook could revolutionize classroom learning. “The whole point is to reform the way people use textbooks,” Macosko added. Eight higher-education institutions are currently testing out the program with non-biology majors at schools including: Salem College, Winston-Salem State University, Guilford Technical Community College, Wake Forest University and University of Florida . They are currently translating the materials to Spanish, which is expected to be released fall 2012. In the future, the team working on BioBook hope to see the program trickle-down to grade school students. What do you think about BioBook? Tell us in the comments. More About: apple, education, tablets, wikipedia
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| What Will You Do Without Wikipedia? [OPEN THREAD] Posted: 17 Jan 2012 03:28 PM PST
While Reddit’s blackout was announced more than a week ago, Wikipedia is a newcomer, and perhaps the most high profile website participating. The English version of the site receives around 25 million visitors every day. Founder Jimmy Wales announced Monday in a series of tweets that his site would go offline to protest the bills. These sites offer troves of information and have becoming integral parts of people’s daily habits. This got us thinking: what will people do instead of surfing Wikipedia or Reddit? Whether you’re looking forward to a day of unrivaled productivity or already going through advance withdrawal, let us know in the comments. Other major tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have all spoken out against the bills, though they have not agreed to participate in the protest. Most recently, Google announced that it will include a link on its homepage where users will be able to learn more about SOPA. More About: PIPA, reddit, SOPA, wikipedia
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| New Facebook Cover Designer App Takes Photos With Your Profile in Mind Posted: 17 Jan 2012 03:12 PM PST   Most standard photos don’t fit Facebook Timeline’s cover photo slot, but a new app that launched on Tuesday creates images sized specifically for that purpose. Dropico’s free Facebook Cover Designer provides a landscape viewfinder for composing shots with Facebook in mind. Users can also pull photos from their camera roll, Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket or Instagram to edit within the app. Once the desired photo is loaded, they can crop, rotate, scale and add filters before uploading it directly to Facebook. Aside from customizing the photo size, the app’s most noteworthy feature is an effect that creates a cover photo and profile photo from the same image — making the timeline cover look like one image with a highlighted square instead of two photos. Unfortunately, however, the feature is only available with a $.99 upgrade. For more tips on how to make the most of your Facebook Cover photo, click here. More About: apps, Facebook, facebook timeline, Photos
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| These Websites Are Going Dark to Protest SOPA Wednesday Posted: 17 Jan 2012 02:58 PM PST   Update: Even more websites have joined the cause. Find the new results below. Tech companies are getting ready to black out on Jan. 18 to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sibling the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Much has been made of Wikipedia’s promise to “go dark,” or shut down the site, for the day as a way of warning what might happen if SOPA became law. The tech protesters say that SOPA would render any site that included links, even if they were user-submitted, practically unoperable and liable to government take-down. Going dark is a dramatic but not entirely unrealistic warning of what the Internet could look like in a SOPA world. The blackout is a way to get the two bills into the mainstream by showing people outside the tech industry how their everyday lives could be affected by the bills. Wikipedia isn’t the only company shutting its digital doors according to SOPAStrike.com. It has a (as far as we can tell) full list of the blackout participants. Sites Going Dark on Jan. 18 to Protest SOPA |
| Facebook Recycles Feel-Good Timeline Video Posted: 17 Jan 2012 02:49 PM PST Facebook is drawing more attention to its Timeline profile redesign via a feel-good video on its homepage that chronicles how users can use the site to archive their lives. The video was first launched in September 2011 when the company announced it would be rolling out its new Timeline profile page design. Facebook Timeline changes the default profile from a list of most recent updates to a complete summary of an entire life since birth. It includes photos, videos, status updates and locations visited. Users are encouraged to add life events that were not captured by Facebook, particularly those that occurred before they joined Facebook. The new profile design has been met with mixed reviews, as many claimed the move was a part of a greater attempt by Facebook to capture user data and make its service more appealing to advertisers. Other major concerns involve privacy. Facebook Timeline is still in the process of rolling out the design to its 800 million users. Have you enabled Facebook Timeline yet? What’s your impression? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. More About: Facebook, facebook timeline
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| Reuters Expands its Original Content on YouTube Posted: 17 Jan 2012 02:36 PM PST   Storied wire service Reuters has launched Reuters TV, a series of 10 original programs that will air on its new YouTube channel. The media company joins roughly 100 other media partners in delivering original, premium content on Google’s video platform, and is poised to become the largest news content provider in the network. The 10 shows have been built around a number of Reuters‘s established verticals and more recognizable journalists, including finance blogger Felix Salmon and social media editor Anthony de Rosa. The list, in full:
Dan Colarusso, Reuters global head of programming, says the video has been formatted for an online audience, and does not mimic traditional TV editing styles. The segments do seem fast-paced, accelerated by frequent intersections of graphics and other visuals. Online video consumption is sharply on the rise — U.S. consumers now spend an average of four hours and 20 minutes per month watching video on the web, according to Nielsen — and the launch of Reuters TV reflects publishers’ growing sense that they need to capitalize on that trend. We don’t know how much Reuters and YouTube are spending on the venture — although YouTube is allegedly spending $100 million on the program altogether — nor whether it will be profitable for either party in the near-term. Certainly that is the long-term goal. More About: Reuters, TV, YouTube For more Business coverage:
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| Posted: 17 Jan 2012 02:21 PM PST   Former Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang announced his resignation Tuesday, saying he would no longer be a part of the company in any way. Yang served on Yahoo’s board of directors after he resigned from the CEO position of the Sunnyvale Internet company in 2008. In the press release announcing his resignation, Yang said, “My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! “As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future." Yang founded Yahoo in 1995 with David Filo. He served as CEO from June 2007 to January 2009, when a replacement was found. Before and after Yang’s tenure, Yahoo has had a difficult time keeping up with the popularity and whimsy of Google. "Jerry Yang is a visionary and a pioneer, who has contributed enormously to Yahoo! during his many years of service," said Roy Bostock, Chairman of the Yahoo! Board. "It has been a pleasure to work with Jerry. His unique strategic insights have been invaluable. He has always remained focused on the best interests of Yahoo!'s stakeholders, including shareholders, employees and more than 700 million users. “And while I and the entire Board respect his decision, we will miss his remarkable perspective, vision and wise counsel. On behalf of the Board, we thank Jerry and wish him all the very best in his future endeavors." What do you think about Yang’s resignation? Was it time for him to go? Tell us in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, Yodel Anecdotal More About: jerry yang, search engine, Yahoo For more Business coverage:
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| Katy Perry Goes Virtual in New Sims Game Posted: 17 Jan 2012 02:17 PM PST Katy Perry in The Sims Players can download Perry's likeness and stage props. Click here to view this gallery. Any online gamer can own a piece of Katy Perry – or heck, even be her — with EA’s announcement that the “Teenage Dream” singer will be coming to their popular The Sims gaming series. EA announced that they’ll be developing multiple games featuring Katy Perry including special in-game items, environments and virtual goods. Perry’s likeness will first pop-up in The Sims 3 Showtime: Katy Perry, a collectors’ edition of The Sims launching in March 2012. The Sims is a role-playing game that lets players control an avatar as they go about their daily lives. Showtime is an expansion pack to The Sims 3 where players can try to turn their avatars into digital superstars including professional singers, acrobats, magicians or DJs. The Katy Perry version of Showtime includes downloadable content such as hairstyles, props, guitars and even a stage venue all pulled from Perry’s life. Perry, who has always championed a positive, do-anything attitude, felt the series spoke to her own aspirational message:
Of course the partnership isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, Perry will be featured in new advertising and marketing campaigns around her game and the series at large. The Sims have been doing gang-busters even without Perry. Since its launch in 2009, The Sims 3 has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and was the best-selling PC title for 2009 in North America and Europe. The franchise has expanded to Facebook where The Sims Social, released in 2011, attracted more than 50 million monthly active users in just its first month. The Sims, as a series, has become a global gaming phenomenon. The Perry partnership is meant to continue that forward march while, presumably, attracting a younger, female demographic. Perry is also no stranger to The Sims. In 2008, Perry recorded a version of her hit song “Hot n Cold” in “Simlish,” the made up gibberish language spoken by Sims characters. The recording, featured The Sims 2 is the most popular Simlish music video to date: “Being a gamer myself and a big fan of The Sims, I had a blast recording “Hot N Cold’ in Simlish," Perry said in 2008. The Sims 3 is available on basically every gaming platform including PC, Mac, iOS devices, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and Wii. The Sims 3 Showtime Katy Perry is available for pre-order for $39.99. Is the pairing a match made in heaven? Let us know what you think of celebrities showing up in your games. More About: Gaming, Music, social gaming, the sims, the sims 3, video games For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Posted: 17 Jan 2012 02:06 PM PST    I’m sure you’ve heard by now that SOPA is bad and would ruin the Internet, but have you actually read the bill? If not, it’s worth reading, for two reasons. First, if you are going to oppose a bill, you should know exactly what you’re opposing, not just the vague principle behind it. Second, it’ll provide you with a valuable insight: that these bills are written in an attempt to obscure the truth. First off, I’m going to qualify that I’m not a lawyer. However, I am a programmer, and that’s made me pretty good at unraveling spaghetti code. If ever a bill was spaghetti, this is it. If a programmer on my team wrote code as convoluted as this bill, I would fire him on the spot. That being said, there may be provisions I’m wrong about; if there are, please do correct me. My intent is to communicate the truth of this bill as cleanly as possible. Here is the full text of the bill, as of Jan. 15, 2012. Open a copy, because I’ll be referring to it. It helps to click the “Printer Friendly” link to access a single-page view of the bill. The ScalpelSection 102(a)(2) permits the attorney general to take action against foreign sites (i.e., sites that do not fall under U.S. jurisdiction) if “the owner or operator of such Internet site is facilitating the commission of [copyright infringement].” We’ll expand on this further down, but the really scary thing here is that there isn’t any qualification that the site be solely for the purpose of theft, only that it facilitate it. Since copyright violation is ridiculously easy, any site with a comment box or picture upload form is potentially infringing. Furthermore, DMCA Safe Harbor provisions are no defense. You, as a site operator, become liable for copyright infringement committed by your users, even if you comply with DMCA takedown requests. This isn’t quite as bad as the rest of the bill because the power lies with the attorney general, rather than the copyright holder. But it’s not good, either. The language is so broad that it could be wielded against most any foreign site the AG chooses to target. If the AG chooses to take action against a site (either against the operator, if they are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, or against the site itself if no one under U.S. jurisdiction can be found), then a subsequent court order would require the following:
Effectively, this bill gives the attorney general the power to fully censor foreign sites that the government does not have jurisdiction to take down directly. The most immediate example is WikiLeaks — under such an order, your ISP would be forced to block your access to Wikileaks. Once the technical means to do this are in place, then it becomes very easy for this power to be extended. Implementing censorship protocols and giving the keys to the government is a scary, scary thing, and SOPA should be opposed simply based on this provision alone. But that’s not all. The SledgehammerThe really unsettling part of the bill is section 103. It is titled “MARKET-BASED SYSTEM TO PROTECT U.S. CUSTOMERS AND PREVENT U.S. FUNDING OF SITES DEDICATED TO THEFT OF U.S. PROPERTY.” On a first reading, it doesn’t sound that frightening. Read through section A1.
Wow, now there’s a chunk of legalese that’ll make your eyes gloss over. Let’s cut straight to the nasty bits.
Still doesn’t sound that bad, but consider this: Any site that allows users to post content is “primarily designed for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables copyright violation.” The site doesn’t have to be clearly designed for the purpose of copyright violation; it only has to provide functionality that can be used to enable copyright violation. This means that YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Gmail, Dropbox and millions of other sites would be “Internet sites…dedicated to theft of U.S. property,” under SOPA’s definition. Simply providing a feature that would make it possible for someone to commit copyright infringement or circumvention (see: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0) is enough to get your entire site branded as an infringing site. Furthermore, you may be painted as infringing if you, the site owner, “take deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of…the site to carry out acts [of copyright infringement or circumvention].” This means if you deliberately decide that it’s not cost-effective to screen every piece of content and determine whether or not it is copyright-free before it is posted to your site (whether there is infringing content on your site or not), then you are labeled as an “Internet site…dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” Simply the act of not actively screening every piece of content makes you a criminal under SOPA. So, We’re All Infringing, Now What?Section 103(b) is really hairy, but we’ll attempt to parse through it. I’m not going to copy the whole text here, for the sake of brevity, though I do encourage you to read and understand it. Instead, we’ll discuss the most salient parts. Payment providers (section (b)(1)) and ad networks ((b)(2)) are required, upon receiving a claim against a site by a copyright holder (section (4)(A)(i)), to cut off all services to the accused site within five days, unless they receive a counter-notification from the operator of the accused site. Note that there is no requirement that the accused be notified of said accusation, and thus, they would have no opportunity to provide a counter-notice. In practice, you’d probably find out about it when you notice that the money stops coming in, maybe a week or two later. The only way to provide a counter-notice is to agree to submit to U.S. jurisdiction (section (5)(A)(ii)) if you are a foreigner (yikes), and to state under penalty of perjury that your product does not fit the definition of an “Internet site…dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” As we discussed above, it’s nearly impossible to not fit that definition. If you have a comment box, and you state that you aren’t guilty under that definition, you just committed perjury. Enjoy prison. Furthermore:
So, if you provide that counter-notification that you aren’t an infringing site, but if you can possibly be painted to fit the definition of an infringing site (and again, you will be), you are now liable for all of the attacking party’s attorney fees. By replying, you give them carte blanche to sue you with no cost to themselves. Now, if you provide a counter-notice, or an ad network or payment provider fails to cut off service within five days, then the accusing party may then serve you (the site owner) with a lawsuit. If they can’t get a hold of you, they may serve an in rem lawsuit against your site. If they win the lawsuit (and they will, if nobody is there to challenge them), then the court will award them ownership of your site (likely, the domain). This is the point where your accuser is required to notify you that they are taking action against you. This is how the situation could play out.
The BulldozerSection 201(b)(1) expands criminal copyright infringement to include:
Now, the way that the value of a work can be computed in court is the very crude (value of the work times number of views).
This means, for example, if you upload a video to YouTube of you singing a popular song, and that song might sell for $1, and your video gets 2,500 views, you are guilty of felony copyright infringement. Furthermore, you can tack on “willful infringement for commercial gain or valued at more than $1,000.” This would make you a felon, and if a copyright holder were to bring a suit against you, would give you a criminal record that would make it virtually impossible to gain future employment, and may subject you to up to three years in prison for singing a song. You don’t have to receive any money. You don’t have to gain anything from your video. Simply receiving 2,500 views on a song you sung, which happens to have copyright held by someone else, makes you a felon. Section 201(c) of SOPA includes a new rule of construction: a person with “a good faith reasonable basis in law to believe that the person’s conduct is lawful shall not be considered to have acted willfully for purposes of the amendments made by this section.” By implication, a person who believed her conduct was protected (e.g., fair use) might be found to have acted “willfully,” if her belief about the law is held to be unreasonable. SOPA expands “willful infringement” to include those who don’t understand the law, not just those who understand it and choose to ignore it. To Sum UpSOPA:
This bill turns us all into criminals. If it passes, then you either stop using the Internet, or you simply hope that you never end up in the crosshairs, because if you’re targeted, you will be destroyed by this bill. You don’t have to be a big, mean, nasty criminal — common Internet usage is effectively criminalized under this law. This bill will kill American innovation and development of the Internet, as it will become too risky to do anything of value. It is toxic and dangerous, and should not, under any circumstances, be supported. I hope that this helps you to more clearly understand why SOPA is bad. Rhetoric is efficient, but you should know what you’re opposing and why you’re opposing it. It’s difficult to read and understand, but if you care about the Internet, free speech and personal freedom at all, you owe it to yourself to understand and oppose SOPA. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PashaIgnatov May 12: PIPA introduced The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011), better known as PIPA was introduced into the Senate by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The act's goals were described by its sponsors as protecting intellectual property and punishing foreign sites who post copyrighted material. If a site was discovered doing so, the U.S. attorney general could order U.S. based Internet service providers, search engines, payment systems and advertising networks to suspend doing business with the website. Photo courtesy Mikedish on Flickr Click here to view this gallery. More About: copyright, features, law, Opinion, privacy, SOPA, trending
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| Facebook Finally Beats Google’s Orkut … in Brazil Posted: 17 Jan 2012 01:55 PM PST   Facebook, following a year of whirlwind growth, overtook Orkut as Brazil’s most-popular social network in December. Orkut is a social network that Google launched in 2004. Its popularity in Brazil, where 60% of Orkut’s users are based, led to it being hosted and managed by Google Brazil from 2008 onwards. Facebook’s user base increased 192% during 2011, according to a comScore report released Tuesday. In December 2010, 12.4 million Brazilians visited Facebook.com. One year later, that number skyrocketed to 36 million Brazilians. In contrast, Orkut’s user base hardly increased, gaining less than 2 million visitors. "Facebook's rapid ascent in the Brazilian market has certainly been one of the most interesting stories to develop during the course of 2011," says Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil. "Brazil has always been a particularly social market and currently owns the fifth largest social networking population in the world. But despite the cultural affinity for social media, Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market."  Now that Facebook dominates Brazilian social networking, there are only six countries remaining — China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Poland and Russia — where Facebook is not the premiere network. As more Brazilians flocked to Facebook, the audience became more engaged. Visitors spent 4.8 hours, on average, on Facebook in December, compared to just 37 minutes a year earlier. December visitors viewed 500 pages of content and returned to the site 27 times throughout the month. Do you use Orkut and Facebook? Which do your prefer, and why? More About: Brazil, Facebook, orkut
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| SOPA Author Attacks Wikipedia, Schedules Debate on Bill Posted: 17 Jan 2012 01:44 PM PST
In a markup session, a bill is opened to members of the House Judicial Committee for debate, amendments and other changes. The House will not be taking a final vote on SOPA. The markup session was announced via a statement from the House Committee on the Judiciary, of which Rep. Smith (R-Texas) is the chair. In another statement, Rep. Smith lambasted Wikipedia for its decision to blackout in protest of SOPA: “It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about the Stop Online Piracy Act,” reads the statement. “The bill will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social networking sites. This publicity stunt does a disservice to its users by promoting fear instead of facts. Perhaps during the blackout, Internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy.” On Friday, Rep. Smith announced he would remove the DNS blocking and rerouting provisions of the bill, considered the most onerous by many in the tech community. As first written, SOPA would have allowed copyright holders and the federal government the ability to remove infringing websites from the DNS (Domain Name System). Many tech experts claimed this would have had negative consequences for the stability, speed and security of the Internet. DNS works as a sort of "phone book" for the internet. When a user types a URL into a browser, DNS helps the users' computer find and speak with the correct server hosting the content the user wants to access. If a website is taken off the DNS system, it becomes more difficult for the average Internet user to arrive at that site. The news comes after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) assured a colleague there would not be a vote on SOPA unless there was “consensus” on the bill. After Cantor’s statement, many presumed SOPA dead in the water, and the focus shifted to a similar Senate bill (the Protect IP Act). Rep. Smith’s scheduling of a markup session suggests SOPA isn’t quite dead yet. Proponents of SOPA, such as Viacom and the MPAA, argue that it’s a necessary legislative tool to combat online piracy and content theft. The MPAA has said that DNS provisions are now “off the table,” but is still encouraging Congress to pass a bill to help fight intellectual property theft. Detractors, including many in the tech industry (and tech giants like Google and Facebook), argue that SOPA would result in a slower, less stable and less secure Internet while hampering digital innovation. Wikipedia, Reddit and Imgur are planning blackouts, while Google will add links to SOPA-related information on its main page. A public rally to protest SOPA and PIPA is planned for Wednesday afternoon. Are Rep. Smith’s comments towards Wikipedia too harsh? Let us know in the comments below. More About: congress, PIPA, stop online piracy act
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| Look at That Crazy Honey Badger, Trying to Get a TV Show Posted: 17 Jan 2012 01:30 PM PST   The Honey Badger has fearlessly faced down a cobra and a jackal, but now is on to a bigger challenge: TV executives. A Canadian production company called Six Eleven Media is shopping an animation/live action hybrid called Honey Badger U. to broadcast and cable TV networks, reports The Hollywood Reporter. The show will feature an animated Randall, who is “the chief professor of life sciences at a dysfunctional university,” according to the report. “His course will feature his trademark color-commentary on documentary footage of topics related to science and the animal kingdom.” Reps from Six Eleven could not be reached for comment. One of the most popular memes of 2011, the Honey Badger has topped more than 33 million views on YouTube. Like others reaching that level of popularity, the creators are looking to parlay that success to greater riches. However, the meme-to-TV-show track record is spotty. Perhaps the greatest crossover success has been $#*! My Dad Says, a show based on a popular Twitter feed that CBS picked up in Nov. 2009. The show ran from Sept. 2010 to May 2011. Meanwhile, YouTube sensation Lucas Cruikshank a.k.a. “Fred,” got a TV movie on Nickelodeon in 2010. On Monday, Nickeledon announced that Cruikshank will be featured on two new projects on the network this year. Most recently, another YouTube success, the animated Annoying Orange, got greenlit for a show on Cartoon Network this year. Would you watch a Honey Badger TV show, or has this meme jumped the shark? Is there any other way it can eke out its 15 minutes of fame? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. More About: Honey Badger, memes, shitmydadsays, trending, TV, YouTube For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Twitter Suspends Popular Tweet-Filtering App Posted: 17 Jan 2012 01:25 PM PST   Twitter has suspended the popular tweet-filtering app Proxlet for “violating terms” of its API rules. Proxlet – which can be downloaded and installed as either a web extension or as a mobile app, including Twitter for iPhone, TweetDeck, Twidroyd and other Tweet clients – has come under fire for violating Twitter's Developer API rules because the app used an exposed proxy URL that could have led to personal information being leaked or hacked. Proxlet allows users to block apps, mute other users, filter hashtags and provide more control over which content shows up. For example, Proxlet fans can filter out various subjects, from Foursquare updates to “Tim Tebow.” Details about the exact violation are unknown. However, third-party developers that have access to the content and information being shared between the 175 million registered Twitter users are bound to the site’s rules. “Twitter may immediately suspend your access to the Twitter API or any Twitter Content (or if necessary, terminate this agreement with you) at any time,” Twitted notes in its Developers Rules of the Road policies on its site. Twitter spokesperson Jodi Olsen told Mashable that the company enforced these rules to protect “our users and to keep the ecosystem fair for everyone.” “In cases of suspension, we help developers make the adjustments necessary to comply with the Rules of the Road — and we’re currently working with Proxlet on this basis. After developers come into compliance with our terms, we reactivate them,” Olsen said. “We ask all developers in the Twitter ecosystem to abide by a simple set of rules that are in the interests of our users, as well as the health and vitality of the platform as a whole.” Twitter does not comment on specific cases, so Olsen declined to explain Proxlet’s violation. Proxlet creators Aaron White and Chris Ricca are currently working to fix the app. However, they said they are most surprised with how Twitter handled the situation. "Although we believe our original design was sound, we accept Twitter's concern," White said. "However, it was frustrating for us to be notified of their concern and shut down on the same day." White said that the experience "wasn't friendly," even though various Twitter staff members are familiar with and use Proxlet. "Instead, we had thousands of confused users with broken web-experiences and native client experiences, who probably didn't know the root of the cause," White said, adding that Twitter should have given them more time to correct the issues before it was shut down. For updates about the status of the app, follow @proxlet on Twitter. Looking for another? Check out our guide to alternate tweet-filtering services. Do you use Proxlet or another Twitter filter? Should Twitter have reached out to Proxlet about their concerns before suspending the app? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. More About: apple, apps, iphone apps, Social Media, Twitter
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| BlackBerry PlayBook Lets Hackers View Your Email Posted: 17 Jan 2012 01:10 PM PST   Researchers have exposed a security hole in the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The vulnerability has to do with the BlackBerry Bridge software that links the device with a user’s phone. This software could be used to get unauthorized access to corporate email messages. When Research In Motion (RIM) launched the PlayBook last year, it didn’t have a built-in way to access email or calendars. Instead, users were expected to link the PlayBook with a BlackBerry phone via bridging software that connects the two devices wirelessly. Although less convenient than native functions, the setup was thought to be inherently more secure since the information was never actually stored on the tablet. That may have been a tad optimistic. A pair of researchers now say they’ve successfully hacked into a PlayBook using the supposedly secure BlackBery Bridge Bluetooth connection. Although the hack requires some special conditions, it hits RIM on its biggest strength compared to other devices: security. Zach Lanier and Ben Nell of Intrepidus Group were the ones who found the Bridge’s weak spot. They included it in their Blade Runner-themed presentation at the Infiltrate security conference last week in Miami Beach, FL, first reported by ThreatPost. The problem, as they describe it, is a bug that exposes the Bridge’s authorization token, which is normally in a protected file, to anyone who knows where to look. “Think of it like this,” Lanier told Mashable, “the Bridge apps on the PlayBook are glorified web browsers. They use a session token, much like a browser talking to a web application would, to assert their authorization with the BlackBerry Bridge service. Due to a bug in TabletOS, this session token is accessible in a file that is readable by any user, including unprivileged applications and processes.” While that sounds bad (and it is), the danger is limited in two key ways:
The hypothetical hacker doesn’t actually have to be physically close to the PlayBook in question. Lanier confirmed to that the only thing necessary is malware on the tablet designed to exploit the token. If that’s the case, once the bridge is engaged and the bad app is running, every email and calendar appointment is potentially in the hands of hackers. The good news is that the security hole will be patched in PlayBook 2.0, RIM’s software update that will also finally bring native email to the tablet. RIM knew about the flaw through Intrepidus Group and issued the statement: “There are no known exploits and risk is mitigated by the fact that a user would need to install and run a malicious application after initiating a BlackBerry Bridge connection.” Nonetheless, the news is yet another stumble for the PlayBook which launched to tepid reviews, experienced sluggish sales and was recently discounted to $299 for the 16GB model (it originally sold for $499). To add insult to injury, studies show many businesses plan to go with the iPad for their tablet needs, even at the enterprise level. Do you own a PlayBook or were thinking about buying one? How much does this security flaw matter to you? Have your say in the comments below. More About: blackberry, playbook, research in motion, RIM, security, trending
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