Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi Gets Ice Cream Sandwich” |
- Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi Gets Ice Cream Sandwich
- Rockstar Games Delays Max Payne 3 Release Until May
- Mozilla Challenges Prove Crowdsourcing Still Works for Fundraising
- Deep-Sea Diving Robot Can Do Dangerous Work
- Wrapp Lets You Post Free Gift Certificates On Friends’ Walls
- Some Senate Websites Overwhelmed by SOPA Response
- Wikipedia Traffic Increases During SOPA Protest Blackout
- Pinterest Fans Rejoice: Facebook Adds Pinterest Plus 59 New Apps
- How iPhone 4S is Helping Apple Close in on Android
- 5 Fun Ways to Find New Videos on YouTube
- Facebook Announces Tight Integration of 60 Apps to Timeline, More on the Way
- Rob Lowe Tweets QB Manning Will Retire, Ignites Hysteria
- Why SOPA and PIPA Won’t Stop Real Piracy
- Facebook’s Big Announcement [LIVEBLOG]
- SOPA and PIPA Protest Takes It to the Streets in NYC [VIDEO]
- Is There a SOPA Alternative Both Sides Can Live With?
- How Microsoft Is Creating Minority Report Storefronts for Real [VIDEO]
- TED Takes on SOPA: Why it Would Create a ‘Consumption-Only Internet’ [VIDEO]
- Huffington Post to Launch 24-Hour Online News Network
- How Celebrity Appearances at CES Backfired [INFOGRAPHIC]
- YouTube Launches Action Sports Channels, Starring Tony Hawk
- Hey Zuckerberg, Take Facebook Down for a Day
- How Crazy Is Ron Paul Right Now? GQ Will Tell You
- Will Apple Stick to the Steve Jobs Plan for Textbooks?
- Artists: SOPA Would Hurt More Than Help
- How to Grow Your Business With Mobile Paid Search
- Supreme Court Won’t Hear Digital Free Speech Cases [VIDEO]
- Want to Avoid Getting Banned on Social Media? Learn the Rules
- It’s Not Over: SOPA’s Chief Sponsor Isn’t Backing Down
- The Best, Worst and Craziest Ultrabooks From CES 2012 [PICS]
| Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi Gets Ice Cream Sandwich Posted: 18 Jan 2012 11:58 PM PST      Motorola has started rolling out Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich to Motorola Xoom owners in the U.S., but only those who have the Wi-Fi version of the device. This will bring a redesigned app launcher, a better web browser, resizable widgets and many other goodies to the tablet. As for the 3G version of the tablet, Motorola said it will get the update as well, but did not give an exact date. The update will be rolling out in “phases over the course of a few weeks,” so don’t be perturbed if your Xoom still hasn’t been updated. Motorola is also slated to update its Droid Razr with Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012. More About: android, Android 4.0, ice cream sandwich, Motorola, motorola xoom, wi-fi For more Mobile coverage:
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| Rockstar Games Delays Max Payne 3 Release Until May Posted: 18 Jan 2012 09:12 PM PST   Eager gamers will have to wait until May before getting their hands on the new dark and gritty third-shooter game Max Payne 3. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game will hit U.S. shelves on May 15 and May 18 in Europe. Fans will have to wait even longer for the PC version that lets out on May 29 in the U.S. and on June 1 in Europe. Video gamers and blogs speculate that the delayed release is an effort to avoid sharing the spotlight with highly anticipated Mass Effect 3, to be released on March 6, around the time Max Payne 3 was set to release originally. On Wednesday, Rockstar Games released a preview video for Max Payne 3, which received rave reviews from gamers on Twitter. The three-minute video shows off the game’s advanced design and technological features. The developers have said this game will be very realistic, incorporating powerful storytelling and “precise and fluid gunplay.” The game follows Max Payne, an ex-New York detective onto the dangerous streets of São Paulo, Brazil. Gun fire is quick and powerful enough to send enemies flying and their blood spewing. The game takes into account the weight of the guns — Max’s balance shifts when he holds a pistol in one hand and a rifle in the other. Another Design & Technology Series preview video is expected to release soon. The game is available for pre-order online until April 2 while supplies last. Images courtesy of Rockstar Games More About: Max Payne, playstation, video game, Violence, Xbox 360 For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Mozilla Challenges Prove Crowdsourcing Still Works for Fundraising Posted: 18 Jan 2012 09:00 PM PST   The Mozilla Firefox Challenge has named a winner — but the real champion is the public, who yet again proved that crowdsourcing and grass roots campaigns are an effective way to raise money for charity. The Challenge, hosted on the Crowdrise fundraising platform, pitted 12 celebrities in a race to see who could raise the most money for a charitable cause. Users could donate directly to the charities or sign on as co-fundraisers through Crowdrise. Sophia Bush won the challenge, which ran for a month, in support of F- Cancer, raising $117,405. Seth Rogen and Hilarity for Charity came in a close second, raising a total of $114,465. These numbers, however, are all the more impressive for how they were reached. Bush’s campaign attracted 63 independent fundraisers who, through their own steam, decided to help F- Cancer win the contest. More over, 83% of the Challenge’s total donations were less than $100, said a Mozilla spokesperson. That means that instead of several wealthy donors running the contest, the results were truly a result of everyday people giving what they could to help a cause. Not all the charities broke the $100,000 mark — most landed somewhere between $50,000 and $20,000. That’s not too shabby, considering the Challenge raised a total of close to a quarter million dollars, all through small donations and good will. To help, Mozilla will be giving Bush and F- Cancer an additional $25,000. Because of the contest, F- Cancer has been fully funded through 2012. Should charities look to the crowd for financial support or should they still rely on big donors and big money? Share your thought in the comments below. More About: celebrities, charity, crowdsourcing, fundraising, non-profit, Social Good For more Social Good coverage:
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| Deep-Sea Diving Robot Can Do Dangerous Work Posted: 18 Jan 2012 08:18 PM PST   In some instances, it’s a good thing when a robot can replace you at work. A team of professors and student researchers are exploring ways robots can be used instead of humans for dangerous missions, like deep-sea diving in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of an oil spill. Mathematician and Associate Professor at Louisiana State University Michael Malisoff and the team is his working with are creating robots that can act somewhat autonomously, working in the place of humans in harmful places — oil spills, natural disasters and mosquito-infested lagoons. Instead of a human doing the dangerous work, the bots could “detect dangerous substances in dangerous places” and relay the information back to a human worker on shore. “These robots are operating in potential hazardous situations,” Malisoff says. “It keeps the human in the loop but out of harm’s way.” The team of students is directed by Fumin Zheng, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech. Malisoff is collaborating with Zheng for the project. After the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, Malisoff, who specializes in mathematics dealing with control processes that apply to robotics, tapped the National Science Foundation and asked if self-directing robots might be useful to explore the damage. They answered in the affirmative and awarded the team a one-year grant to work on the bots and find out how the machines could be used in the future. The robots could be used to monitor the biological impact of such a spill. “The main novelty of the research is that we we’re able to use a technique called ‘automatic control,’” Malisoff says. “The robot is able to sense where it is.” There are four robots total; three can go underwater. ROV Beta is the name of one of the underwater robots. It can reach a depth of 100 meters and has a battery life of 10-12 hours, running on a battery bank on shore. A feedback sensor on the robot allows it to determine its current location and the desired route to get to its destination. Unlike a remote-controlled car, this robot can figure out its current location using built-in commands and decide its next course of action using tracking control features. Underwater robots like these still require human intervention and the team doesn’t expect to make them completely autonomous, but with some fine-tuning the robots can spare people from doing dangerous work. “Typically with marine surveys, the water is too vast, so it has to do some routing,” he explained. “Feedback control helps it put itself back on course if tides take it off course.” The team had a test run with the bots in the Gulf of Mexico. The underwater robot was attached to a leash on the shore and would navigate into the water. Right now, the robots don’t communicate as quickly as the team would like them to. Murky waters and the density of the ocean cause the robots to occasionally be unresponsive to feedback — like when you’re in your car and the GPS stops working when you go through a tunnel, Malisoff explained. “Overall, we had promising results, but there’s always room for improvement,” he says. “It’s very much a work in progress.” The four robots are built by students who are overseen by the team of professors. Right now, the robots are disassembled while the team works to meliorate the problems. But students are busy, Malisoff said. Between other classes and projects, the bots are not being attended to as if it is someone’s full time job. Fortunately, the new grant runs through 2014 and provides funding for theoretical work that makes the robots perform better. “This is one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever worked on,” Malisoff says. “I can see this has potential to help people in the Gulf Coast area in case of an oil spill or natural disaster.” Photo courtesy of Georgia Tech More About: Autonomous, research, robotics, robots For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| Wrapp Lets You Post Free Gift Certificates On Friends’ Walls Posted: 18 Jan 2012 08:00 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: Wrapp provides free gift certificates that can be posted on friends’ Facebook walls. Genius Idea: A social delivery for online advertising. Instead of adding another “happy birthday!” comment to your friends’ Facebook walls, Wrapp wants to let you post a gift certificate that might not even cost you anything. The company, which announced on Thursday that LinkedIn Co-Foudner Reid Hoffman would join its board, partners with brands looking for a better way to gain exposure online. These brands already spend money on special offers and discounts. Letting friends deliver those discounts as gift certificates makes the package more effective. Since November, the service has been available in Sweden only. Wrapp co-founder Hjalmar Winbladh says a launch in the U.S. and U.K. is planned for the end of the first quarter. Before you get too excited, there are a couple of catches. The first is that certain free gift certificates are only available for certain friends — depending on how favorable their demographics and location are to the advertiser. The second is that free coupons are usually about the value of a discount. We’re not talking substantial free gifts here; if you want one of those, you’ll have to shell out extra money. Wrapp collects a flat fee from the merchants for every person who redeems a gift certificate in one of their stores. It also collects a commission for paid gift certificates and group upgrades.  The redemption process is pretty easy. As soon as the gift hits a Facebook wall, it becomes a group gift to which anybody can add. The recipient can use Wrapp’s Android or iPhone app to show a barcode that redeems the gift at the store. Since launching there, Winbladh says the startup’s users have distributed 250,000 giftcards — on average about three per week. “Even though only 2% of Facebook users in Sweeden are users, we can reach 90% of Facebook users in Sweden through them,” Winbladh says. Brands are itching to get onto Facebook walls in a social context. That’s what Sponsored Stories are about. But this is a much more natural way for consumers to include them. And it could also be a very profitable one. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kutaytanir 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. For more Business coverage:
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| Some Senate Websites Overwhelmed by SOPA Response Posted: 18 Jan 2012 07:46 PM PST Some U.S. Senate websites appear to be lagging Wednesday due to a blackout of their own — personal contact pages for several senators are not loading. This is most likely due to the large number of people being redirected to this list of congress member’s contact information. With websites like Wikipedia and a huge list of others going dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), people are signing petitions and contacting their law makers to say “no” to these bills, causing the online traffic jam described in the video above. Online petitions are being passed extensively around on Facebook and Twitter. According the The Verge , which first reported the problem, the technical difficulties do not seem like an intentional response to the SOPA blackout. Are you having trouble accessing your Senator’s websites? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, USDAgov More About: blackout, PIPA, SOPA, websites
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| Wikipedia Traffic Increases During SOPA Protest Blackout Posted: 18 Jan 2012 07:35 PM PST   Wikipedia experienced increased traffic Wednesday, despite blacking out its English language content to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Zscaler compared Wikipedia’s traffic midday Wednesday with its traffic the previous Tuesday. While the blackout day only saw slightly more total transactions, the number of unique visitors was noticeably increased. The below charts compare Wikipedia’s unique visitors Jan. 17 (in red) and Jan. 18 (in green). More people flocked to the Internet database Wednesday, probably due to the hype of the blackout.  Wednesday’s overall transactions per hour only slightly edged ahead of Tuesday’s.  Transactions per visitor were significantly reduced Wednesday, compared to Tuesday.  I personally don’t frequent Wikipedia on a daily basis, but was eager to try out the tricks this morning — such as pressing escape to view pages and reverting to foreign language content — thanks to the old forbidden fruit appeal of a blacked out site. Did you spend more or less time than average on Wikipedia during the blackout? If more, what were you doing on the restricted database? More About: PIPA, SOPA, web traffic, wikipedia
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| Pinterest Fans Rejoice: Facebook Adds Pinterest Plus 59 New Apps Posted: 18 Jan 2012 07:22 PM PST   Your Facebook news feed is about to become a bit more crowded. Facebook’s big announcement on Wednesday evening was the unveiling of 60 new apps that will function with Facebook and let users share more of their lives on the social networking mega-site. Facebook partnered with 60 apps that will allow its 800 million active users to share their tastes in fashion, food, favorite Internet memes and more. Starting now, apps such as Foursquare and Spotify will sync to Facebook. Watch a good movie? Buy tickets for an awesome concert? Buy a sweet jacket? Now you can share all that information on Facebook. But not everyone is into that sort of lifecasting. Facebook offers an opt-out option on its site — a smart move considering that some people were annoyed with the ticker. This is great news for developers who are now welcome to submit their app to Facebook for approval. Mashable’s liveblog coverage of the event prompted commenters to cheer about the integration of Pinterest on Facebook. About half of the apps are already big-time, with millions of users: eBay, Pinterest, TripAdvisor. Without a doubt, tapping into the power and fans of Facebook was a smart business move for the companies. There are some lesser-known apps, too, but it appears every app on the list is pretty highly rated. Here’s how a couple of these apps work with Facebook: Fab.com lets the fashion-obsessed “social shop” and earn money. There are two ways to earn: receive $5 per month for enabling the app through Facebook and receive another $5 in credits for letting other Fab.com users see your username when you buy something on Fab. Rockmelt is a social media browser that lets you keep tabs on you Facebook profile while browsing the web and automatically sharing what you read with friends. A number of people in the Twitterverse said they’re suspicious of how well Facebook would control their privacy with this new feature. Facebook updated their privacy settings last year, giving users greater control of what others could see and read about on their profiles. Will you be incorporating apps into your timeline? Which ones? Tell us in the comments. More About: Facebook, Social Media, timeline
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| How iPhone 4S is Helping Apple Close in on Android Posted: 18 Jan 2012 07:04 PM PST   Android may still be leading the mobile operating system race, but thanks to a strong fourth quarter for Apple after the launch of the iPhone 4S, the gap is getting smaller. According to new research from Nielsen, the October release of the iPhone 4S had a huge impact on consumer purchasing decisions. Among those who bought a new device within the past three months, 44.5% in December said they chose an iPhone, up from 25.1% in October. In addition, 57% of new iPhone owners surveyed in December said they got an iPhone 4S. The study was conducted among 75,000 consumers over the age of 18. Even with Apple’s good quarter, Android still occupies a big piece of the pie. About 46% of all smartphone owners surveyed in the fourth quarter of 2011 used Android-based mobile phones. Overall, 46% of all mobile consumers own smartphones, according to the study, and those numbers are on the rise. In the last three months, 60% of new device owners opted for a smartphone over a feature phone. Do you think it’s only a matter of time before Apple surpasses Android? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. More About: android, apple, iPhone 4S, Mobile, smartphones, trending For more Mobile coverage:
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| 5 Fun Ways to Find New Videos on YouTube Posted: 18 Jan 2012 06:40 PM PST 1. See Trends A look at trending content will ensure you're up-to-speed with the latest viral videos, as well as newsworthy footage and clips from popular culture. YouTube's "Trends Dashboard" gives you an at-a-glance look at what's hot across various regions, gender and age ranges. Click here to view this gallery. With nearly eight years’ worth of content uploaded every single day, it can be hard to cut through the crud to find great content on YouTube. That’s why we’ve found five native tools that will help you discover great new clips — from topical videos to popular clips, and even recommendations from your own social circles. Take a look through our gallery, which highlights fun methods for finding fresh content on YouTube. Let us know in the comments about any other content discovery tricks you use. More About: features, gallery, How-To, Video, YouTube
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| Facebook Announces Tight Integration of 60 Apps to Timeline, More on the Way Posted: 18 Jan 2012 06:05 PM PST   In a press event in San Francisco, Facebook Director of Platform Products Carl Sjogreen announced further extension of the Open Graph, which will now allow developers to build a variety of apps that let users add anything they want directly to their timelines. Sjogreen announced that more than 60 apps are immediately going live, including such favorites as Pinterest, eBay, Foodspotting, Airbnb and Foursquare. He said that when people add an app to their Facebook timelines, they can control whether activities they do on that app appear on their timelines. They can also determine who gets to see these updates. This is just the beginning for Facebook and its relationship with apps, where Sjogreen said the company’s vision is, “whatever you’re using, you can add it to your timeline.” Here’s the list of apps Facebook released Wednesday night, with more on the way: TRAVEL FOOD SHOPPING / FASHION FITNESS ENTERTAINMENT GIVING MORE Add apps to your timeline here. More About: apps, Facebook, timeline, trending
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| Rob Lowe Tweets QB Manning Will Retire, Ignites Hysteria Posted: 18 Jan 2012 05:39 PM PST   Actor Rob Lowe apparently failed in an unexpected bid to break major sports news on Wednesday when he tweeted that legendary NFL quarterback Peyton Manning plans to retire. But Lowe’s tip from, in his words, “my people” did set off a minor bout of hysteria in the Twittersphere, and showed just how incredible the 24/7 digital sports-news cycle can get. The Washington Post reported that the “tweet sent reporters scurrying” and Fox Sports reported it “instantly vaulting” the actor and quarterback to the fifth and seventh spots, respectively, among Twitter’s United States trending topics this afternoon. The frenzy began early Wednesday afternoon when Lowe, who became famous in Wayne’s World, The West Wing and other movies and TV shows, posted this tweet:
He followed that up by trying to compare notes with respected — and real — NFL reporter Rich Eisen with this tweet:
Lowe couldn’t leave it alone, posting again on the topic for the third time in 10 minutes:
Then the story took another Twitter turn when ESPN’s senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen tweeted that he spoke with Peyton Manning’s father, Archie, who shot down Lowe’s “report,” for lack of a better term. “Noooo…he aint’ retiring,” Mortensen tweeted that Archie told him. “I think he would’ve told me.” Much of the panic among NFL fans was fueled by the fact that Lowe is known to be a friend of Colts owner and frequent tweeter Jim Irsay. In fact, Lowe was the first person that Irsay followed when he joined the network. At time of writing, Lowe hadn’t posted again since his final rumor tease. Radio silence from Irsay’s account further stoked the flames, but three hours after Lowe’s flurry of tweets, the Colts owner posted this message attempting to make light of the situation:
All in a day’s work in the sports media world. But Lowe actually wasn’t the only leading man to put foot in mouth Wednesday. News — again, for lack of a better term — also broke that Mark Wahlberg said in an interview with Men’s Journal that he would have prevented one of the hijacked planes from crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The comment quickly put the Boogie Nights star on trending lists as well. Perhaps Grantland.com columnist Bill Simmons summed it all up best with this tweet:
More About: Media, sports, trending, Twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Why SOPA and PIPA Won’t Stop Real Piracy Posted: 18 Jan 2012 05:08 PM PST    Supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA (and its Senate-sister the Protect Intellectual Property Act, PIPA) legislation — like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — argue that legislation is needed because online piracy puts jobs and industries at risk. While I agree that content piracy is a real problem, the language and implications of SOPA has the potential to hurt the very industries and content creators the bills purport to protect. Artists and content creators are understandably bothered by how easy it is to obtain content without payment. My musician friends cringe when their albums are available for download even before the CD is pressed. My filmmaker friends distress over seeing the blood, sweat and tears put into a project more easily accessible from MegaVideo or other filesharing sites than from Amazon or Netflix. It’s only natural to want to put a stop to these types of infringing sites and situations. The backers of SOPA and PIPA believe that forcing ISPs, search engines, web hosts and users to take responsibility for infringing behavior will put a stop to the infringement. This is short-sighted and misguided. Let’s be clear — there is a large underground business that profits off of copyright infringement and digital piracy. For the most part, however, that business is not online. In parts of Asia, such as China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, it’s a chore to find content for sale that is not pirated. Perfect digital copies of movies, television shows, music and software are for sale in packaging that looks and feels as if it were authentic. First-run movies hit the streets in China before the films play at the Cineplex. This is not a new phenomenon; it’s been happening for decades. That industry will not disappear because of SOPA. The groups that source and distribute content will not be affected because they are technically savvy enough to get around restrictions. Finding a web host in another country and using a VPN service to tunnel to a different server is a trivial task. Moreover, the countries where the bulk of the actual profit from piracy takes place will have little incentive to enforce a U.S. law. Just look at the situation involving the now-defunct AllofMP3.com — a site that sold DRM-free music to users in the U.S. and other parts of the world for $0.10 a track under a Russian copyright loophole. The site was eventually shut down, thanks to pressure from the Bush administration and payment companies. But Russian courts ruled the site was not guilty of infringement in that country. SOPA and PIPA have the potential to stop less tech-savvy individuals from downloading the latest episode of 30 Rock. For the most avid infringers, however, years of USENET, “warez” forums and private invite-only BitTorrent communities have already taught them how to get around those ISP-infringement letters. Spend Money on Solutions, Not LegislationThe issue of piracy and copyright infringement needs to be addressed. But this legislation does not do anything to adequately solve the problem. I have never hidden the fact that I have downloaded content without paying for it. Call me a pirate, call me a freeloader, call me a thief. The truth is, I’ve downloaded hundreds of music albums, television shows and pieces of software since 1998. To be totally fair, I’ve also spent at least $25,000 on DVD and Blu-ray discs alone, easily another $10,000 on music and books, and at least that much on software. Most people pirate or purchase pirated content because legal access is unavailable or too difficult to decipher. For years, I frequently purchased an album on iTunes and then downloaded a higher quality version from a BitTorrent tracker to get the best fidelity, as well as portability. Likewise, I frequently downloaded episodes of TV shows immediately after airing but then later bought the show on DVD to get the extra features. The reason that services like iTunes, Spotify, Hulu and Steam have found success is because they make it easy for users to pay for content they want to access. Instead of investing in legislation that attempts to turn back the digital clock, these lobbying groups should be focusing on initiatives that modernize the way content is delivered. Stop looking at infringers as pirates or criminals and instead look at them as potential customers. Find a way to make content worth obtaining legally so that artists, distributors and producers can all get paid. SOPA and PIPA do neither of these tasks. Instead, they focus on an untenable goal of stopping piracy. The real pirates and infringers will be untouched by U.S. legislation. But online freedom will be at risk. Image courtesy of Flickr, ToobyDoo More About: op-ed, Opinion, PIPA, piracy, SOPA, stop online piracy act, trending For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Facebook’s Big Announcement [LIVEBLOG] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 04:22 PM PST   The time has come for another Facebook launch event, and we’re here to cover it live. Rumor has it that the social network will be launching more apps based on the Open Graph and Gestures — that is, apps that let you “verb” any “noun” (read a book, hike a trail, ride a bike and so on.) The event starts at 5pm Pacific Time, 8pm Eastern — and we’ll be here to chat and answer questions a half-hour beforehand. Stay tuned! More About: Facebook, Open Graph, trending
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| SOPA and PIPA Protest Takes It to the Streets in NYC [VIDEO] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 03:57 PM PST On the same day that major websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit went dark, the NY tech community gathered on a cold January afternoon to protest SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). The two bills aim to curb online piracy and copyright infringement and are supported by many media outlets and other organizations. But detractors of the legislation, including many tech experts, Internet-based companies (such as Google and Facebook) and Internet users argue that the bills pose a risk to digital security and innovation. SOPA is currently stuck in the House Judiciary Committee, while the Senate is scheduled to vote on PIPA Jan. 24. Around 1,500 people showed up outside the offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand for the rally Wednesday. Both Senators support SOPA and PIPA. Protesters began arriving in significant numbers by 12:15 p.m. ET. People spoke with one another about the two bills, while some attendees handed out signs. The speeches began at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET, with speakers including Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit; Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup; and Sara Chipps, of Girl Develop It, a website that teaches women how to code; organizers from NY Tech Meetup and other technology and policy experts. The overall theme of the protest was an acknowledgment that Internet-based piracy is a problem, but speakers insisted that SOPA and PIPA are not viable solutions. The speakers and those in attendance warned that SOPA and PIPA could have disastrous consequences for Internet speed, security and innovation if passed. “I think an anti-piracy law is a great idea, I just don’t think this is it,” said a protester named Kate who declined to give her last name. “It’s so broad and so vague that it’s going to restrict everyone’s freedom to use the Internet. Not knowing how the Internet works is no longer an excuse.” Many of the speakers urged attendees to call (or tweet) their elected officials to speak with them about SOPA and PIPA. And why do the attendees think SOPA and PIPA have come about? One protester, Ted Cooper, thinks they’re a sign of media companies’ resistance to new technologies. “I think [the bills] are an indication of the fact that the way media has conventionally been sold and monetized is becoming less relevant,” said Cooper. At least one person with a “Support the Protect IP Act” sign was spotted. The protest formally ended at 2:45 p.m. ET to chants of “P – I – P – A! Make these bills go away!” Some of the attendees, equipped with a bullhorn and the “people’s mic,” a method of spreading a message person-to-person popularized at Occupy Wall Street, continued to march on to Times Square. Images courtesy of Flickr, Anonymous9000 More About: PIPA, SOPA, stop online piracy act, trending
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| Is There a SOPA Alternative Both Sides Can Live With? Posted: 18 Jan 2012 03:26 PM PST   The Internet giants have weighed in and the message is clear: SOPA is bad. Yet so is Internet piracy. Is there a SOPA alternative that could reconcile the two? There are a variety of ways, including new or updated laws and technological solutions to address the issue. None may be perfect, but with the future of SOPA and Senate counterpart PIPA in doubt, both sides may have to soon abandon their heated opposition and work out some sort of solution. After all, a symbiotic relationship exists between companies such as Google and the entertainment industry — these days, neither can grow without the other. The first step is dialogue between the two sides. In the days leading up to Wednesday’s protest, both sides have ratcheted up the rhetoric. “Why is it that when Republicans and Democrats need to solve the budget and the deficit, there’s deadlock, but when Hollywood lobbyists pay them $94 million to write legislation, people from both sides of the aisle line up to co-sponsor it?” Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian asked on CNBC on Tuesday. (See video below.) Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page took Reddit and others to task for their “cyber tantrum” and asked why they hadn’t taken similar dramatic measures to protest, say, Chinese oppression. Hopefully, when the war of words dies down, the entertainment industry and Reddit and co. will be able to reach a consensus on some sort of solution. Some ideas:  Alternative LegislationGoogle has already proposed OPEN as an alternative to SOPA/PIPA, and Erik Martin, general manager of Reddit, says OPEN is a “good start.” The OPEN House and Senate bills would use the International Trade Commission, rather than the Justice Dept. and the courts to go after foreign-based Internet pirates. While techies are OK with OPEN, the entertainment industry is not, since making a case before the ITC could be prohibitively expensive. However, some creative legal solutions might also address the issue. Daliah Saper, principal attorney at Saper Law Offices in Chicago, for instance, proposes a law that would require proprietors of a website to display contact information on their site. “Make it easy for an individual content owner to contact that site,” Saper says. If that’s not possible, “That should be grounds for shutting a site down.”  A Governing International BodyAnother idea is to create an international organization that has jurisdiction over copyright protection, the way ICANN oversees issues related to Internet domain names. The analogy is imperfect since you have to go through ICANN to get a domain name while there’s no governing body that has to approve (or disapprove) of your planned piracy activities. However, Alex Floum, an attorney with The Williams Firm, says countries can work together to create “Intellectual Property Treaties” that would require each of the participants to go after copyright violators in their own countries. “Foreign countries would agree to prosecute copyright infringement,” he says. Of course, the problem is, even if such a body were created there would still be outlier countries that didn’t participate. Aaron Kelly, an attorney with The Kelly Law Firm in Tempe, Ariz., says that an ICANN-like copyright group would do little to thwart piracy from Somalia, Senegal or Malta, for instance. Better TechnologyNot surprisingly, this is the tech industry’s favorite solution to the problem. Reddit’s Martin, for instance, charges that SOPA is a flawed solution because techies had no input on the bill. “It’s been drafted by people who barely have a working knowledge of tech and are even proud of it.” Martin says that he doesn’t have a specific technical solution to the problem in mind, but, if the lawmakers worked with the tech industry, the two could likely find something. Alex Fowler, global privacy and public policy lead at Mozilla, offers the following suggestion: “As an organization dedicated to making things to better the web, there may be consumer safety tools facilitated by browsers, apps and open web software that could help alert people to potential harms associated with accessing sites known to be selling pirated goods and content,” he says. “Mozilla believes that instead of alienating Internet companies and startups on this issue, the entertainment industry should be partnering with us to explore new and innovative technology solutions that work with the open Web.” In Martin’s view, the entertainment’s piracy issues are based on its own resistance to technology. Since the industry had no financial interest in creating new digital distribution platforms, such technical solutions came from outsiders like Netflix and Apple. “We’re the ones who can help the content producers to make this transition,” Martin says. Kelly agrees and cites iTunes’s success in convincing the average user to pay for music rather than pirating it. “Make the opportunity cost of trying to pirate greater than buying the damn thing,” Kelly says. “It’s the fault of the media companies that we have such a crappy selection on Netflix.” Images courtesy of iStockphoto, AnthiaCumming, cristianl and loops7, respectively More About: law, mozilla, reddit, SOPA
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| How Microsoft Is Creating Minority Report Storefronts for Real [VIDEO] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 03:05 PM PST Remember that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise walks into a store and a cheery face on a video screen turns to him and asks how those assorted tank tops worked out for him? The tech isn’t just fantasy anymore — it’s here and now, thanks to Microsoft. Hooking up the just-announced Kinect for Windows sensor with a software package from Razorfish, Microsoft has created an interactive storefront, which the company unveiled at a retail trade show in New York City. The setup lets passers-by interact with the store display and even use their smartphones to access store catalogs and shop. It goes like this: The store window has a TV behind it hooked up to a Kinect. The moment someone walks by the display and into the Kinect’s field of view, the display reacts to grab their attention. Once in front of the screen, they can gesture to call up items they’re interested in, swipe through inventory, or interact with the models, depending on the precise software setup. When you get your smartphone involved, it’s even more interesting. The screen displays a QR code in the top corner, which will hook the phone up with an HTML5 app built for the store. Then the user can walk away and shop whenever he or she wants, and even use it with Microsoft Surface tables inside, if the store has them. Microsoft’s obviously catering to retailers here, but how do you feel as a customer? Do you think an interactive ad is fun and exciting? Or is it just creepy? Give us your take in the comments. BONUS: Highlights from Microsoft at CESMicrosoft's Final Keynote at CES 2012  
Click here to view this gallery. More About: kinect, microsoft, minority report, motion control
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| TED Takes on SOPA: Why it Would Create a ‘Consumption-Only Internet’ [VIDEO] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 02:27 PM PST TED has posted an “emergency” TED Talk called “Defend Our Freedom To Share (Or Why SOPA is a Bad Idea)” by Internet writer and NYU professor Clay Shirky. Shirky gave his address yesterday at the New York offices of TED, the company that produces a popular series of conferences and lectures about “ideas worth spreading.” Shirky begins the 14-minute video with a story about a bakery that printed children’s drawings on sugar plates for their birthday cakes. This became a problem because kids like to draw cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse. “It turns out to be illegal to print a child’s drawing of Mickey Mouse onto a plate of sugar,” he says. Shirky then summarizes the evolution of online content law leading up to the Stop Online Piracy Act and its sister bill, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). He tells how the two controversial bills were preceded by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 and Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. The video not only explains what SOPA and PIPA want to do, but also serves as a call to action for opponents of the legislation to preserve their ability to share, remix, and discuss. “Because the biggest producers of content on the Internet are not Google and Yahoo — they’re us –we’re the ones getting policed,” he tells the audience. “The real threat to the enactment of PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another.” In a column written for the Guardian, Shirky argues that the bills would create a “consumption-only” Internet. Many websites are protesting SOPA and PIPA today by going dark, while SOPA’s author, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), has scheduled a debate for February and called out Wikipedia for participating in the blackout. What do you think about Shirky’s TED Talk? Let us know in the comments. More About: PIPA, SOPA, TED, Video
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| Huffington Post to Launch 24-Hour Online News Network Posted: 18 Jan 2012 02:17 PM PST   Shortly after Reuters announced its web TV programming iniative with YouTube, news emerged that AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group is developing an even more robust online video offering for its own website. According to Forbes — and our own source confirms this — the Huffington Post is planning to launch a 24-hour live programming channel called the Huffington Post Streaming Network, or HPSN. Think of it as the Huffington Post‘s cable news network, minus the cable subscription. Whether the content will be up to cable news quality remains to be seen. The Huffington Post‘s existing editorial staff of 300+ will offer live commentary throughout the day, and the footage will later be cut into clips to be embedded throughout the site. Presumably we can expect to access the stream through the Huffington Post‘s apps as well. Viewers will also be privy to editorial meetings to see the newsgathering process at play, Forbes says. At present, both the Wall Street Journal and Fox News offer live online programming in the style of cable news, but only during the workday. Bloomberg also makes its live broadcast available for free on the iPad 24 hours per day, but most cable news operations only share short clips of their TV programming on the web. Mario Ruiz, VP of communications at AOL, did not confirm any details about the video channel but said that further information would be announced at a press event in New York City on Feb. 2. More About: aol, cable, Huffington Post, Media, TV For more Business coverage:
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| How Celebrity Appearances at CES Backfired [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 02:06 PM PST By now, you can easily name the celebrities who attended the Consumer Electronics Show last week. But don’t be surprised if you’re struggling to remember which brands they represented. An overwhelming 85% of social media mentions about those celebrities did not reference the gadgets or companies they were promoting at CES, according to research from marketing agency Oxford Communications and social analytics company NM Incite. “Having Justin Bieber at your booth may get you some extra press coverage, but there are very few teen girls walking around CES,” Christopher Stemborowski, associate communication strategist at Oxford, told Mashable. “So what is a brand like TOSY getting for what was likely a significant investment?” Just 10% of the buzz about Bieber on social networks mentioned robotic toys company TOSY, which reportedly spent six figures to have the YouTube star-turned-mega-celebrity endorse a robot. “I think brands that develop deeper partnerships reap bigger benefits,” Stemborowski adds. “Polaroid and IBM in years past have tapped Lady Gaga and Will.i.am to bolster CES efforts, but these appearances have come on the back of bigger collaborations.” Aside from dishing details on celebrities, the infographic below — cleverly titled “What Happens at CES?” — offers a visual wrap-up of the tech-heavy Las Vegas trade show, including a deep dive into which brands and gadgets people were discussing the most online (Samsung, Google, Microsoft, tablets, smartphones and TVs) and which tech enthusiasts were most influential when sharing CES content (Mashable editor in chief Lance Ulanoff). Do you think celebrity endorsements are worth the steep investment? If you were managing the marketing budget for a big brand, would you consider roping in a celebrity to help create buzz for your product or service? Sound off in the comments.   More About: branding, celebrities, CES, Entertainment, Marketing, Tech For more Business coverage:
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| YouTube Launches Action Sports Channels, Starring Tony Hawk Posted: 18 Jan 2012 01:54 PM PST   YouTube just got more gnarly, bro. Fans of skateboarding, surfing and BMX biking have a variety of new ways to feed their addictions to the extreme after the video sharing site introduced a set of action sports channels on Wednesday. According to the official YouTube Blog, the added channels won’t just show the coolest kick-flips, grinds and ollies, though. Many will take viewers behind the scenes with some of the genre’s biggest stars, offering how-to demonstrations, special glimpses of the professional competition circuit and other lifestyle features. One channel sponsored by action sports icon Tony Hawk even turns the spotlight back on fans with a series called “One in a Million,” in which amateur skateboarders will compete with one another for sponsorships from major brands. Hawk’s RIDE channel will also feature daily tips on pulling off successful tricks, as well as tutorials on photography and videography techniques. In another series, called “Dissent,” Hawk will leverage his celebrity for interviews with a variety of musicians, artists and actors. Meanwhile, Red Bull: The Red Bull Channel will add more than a dozen shows looking at the the day-to-day lives and competitions of some of the world’s most popular athletes from a variety of sports. Motocross legend Travis Pastrana, skateboarder Ryan Sheckler and trial bike star Danny MacAskill will be among those followed. Alli Sports and Network A round out YouTube’s group of new channels that focus on the extreme. Alli Sports will bring a variety of tips, profiles and analysis. Network A plans to focus on the personalities behind the tricks. Sports videos — from highlights of world-class pros to grainy shots of future phenoms — have long been among YouTube’s most popular content. Now action sports will add to the fun. Which new channels are you excited about? What are your favorite sports-centered YouTube channels already? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of RIDE For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Hey Zuckerberg, Take Facebook Down for a Day Posted: 18 Jan 2012 01:41 PM PST   So now we know how Mark Zuckerberg feels about SOPA. The Facebook founder made his opposition to the “poorly thought out law” clear — a little belatedly, perhaps, but plainly — in a post on the social network Wednesday. The post is blowing up: it has 250,000 Likes at time of writing, and 100,000 of those were gained in the past hour. But as many of the commenters on that post have pointed out, talk is cheap. If Facebook really wanted to oppose SOPA, they say, it would do what Wikipedia and dozens of other popular sites across the Internet have done Wednesday. It would go dark for a day in protest, and direct users to contact their representatives. So why hasn’t it? Doubtless the main argument against such a move is financial. Facebook made about $4.25 billion last year; by that reckoning, a single day of outage would cost the site nearly $12 million in revenue. Advertisers would be furious; space they bought in good faith would either be blacked out or appear next to blacked-out text. The day of protest also comes at an inconvenient moment in Facebook’s calendar. At a press event Wednesday night in San Francisco, the social network is set to introduce a set of apps based on its new Open Graph and Gestures platforms. Zuckerberg could hardly showcase those apps on a blacked-out social network, could he? Well, yes, actually, he could. I can’t speak for all journalists, but I can say that most of us would be delighted if a by-the-book product launch (starring features we’ve known about for months) was replaced by an impromptu political rant against one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in recent years. Zuckerberg versus Congress? Sign me up for front row seats. Alternatively, just delay the launch by a day or two. You’re Facebook; it’s not like we’re not going to show up. That argument goes double for advertisers. Facebook is in an enviable position right now. It’s one of the hottest properties on the planet. A Nielsen study has shown that users notice and interact with Facebook ads more than the alternative online forms (such as Google advertising). Who wouldn’t want a piece of that, even at the cost of losing one day’s worth of advertising? The sales staff will tear their hair out, but you can make it up to them later. Or you could give your major sponsors a shout-out on the blackout page. Given that traffic to Wikipedia has actually increased during its day of darkness Wednesday, who’s to say they won’t actually get more click-throughs than they otherwise would have? Especially if there’s nothing else to check out on the page. Besides, some things are just worth taking a stand for. Facebook has 800 million users; it’s on course to hit a billion this year. No one else has that kind of reach, and many of those millions don’t know about SOPA yet. Not all of them are going to check Wikipedia or visit Reddit; those sites will mostly be preaching to the choir, in any case. But we all check Facebook. The social network is where you’ll find the mainstream, middle-America voters that Congress is truly terrified of upsetting. Granted, Facebook has a history of keeping its head down when it comes to politics and unrest. Its official response to 2011′s Egyptian uprising — the one that bears its name — was beyond cautious, although the site reportedly worked to protect activists behind the scenes. By that standard, the fact that Zuckerberg made any kind of statement at all is fairly radical. But if he were only prepared to go the extra mile for his beliefs, and motivate his millions of users to do the same, we’d have this dangerous and destructive bill licked in an instant. In a flash, Zuckerberg would go from having the occasional dinner with the president to being a true Washington power player. Congress would have been put on warning: However much your major contributors want you to pass legislation, you don’t do it if it would anger Facebook. The lobbyists’ grip on the levers of power would be that much weaker. What could Facebook achieve if it banded together and became a force for good? We’re still waiting to find out. More About: Facebook, mark zuckerberg, Opinion, SOPA, Top Stories, trending
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| How Crazy Is Ron Paul Right Now? GQ Will Tell You Posted: 18 Jan 2012 01:29 PM PST   Just how crazy is Ron Paul? You can get your answer on a scale of “Kinda makes sense” to “Yeah, that’s nuts,” according to GQ.com’s newest political feature. The digital barometer is part of GQ’s ongoing coverage of the 2012 Presidential race, called “Death Race 2012.” The Crazy-o-Meter analyzes some of Paul’s most polarizing quotes and assigns it somewhere on the barometer. At first blush, “How Crazy is Ron Paul Right Now” doesn’t sound especially flattering toward Paul, an often controversial Republican (and libertarian) candidate seeking the GOP presidential nomination. GQ, however, shows some begrudging respect even when Paul’s at his craziest:
The first volume of the Crazy-o-Meter is taken from the Jan. 16 Republican debate, where Paul argued for a “Golden Rule” in foreign policy: “We endlessly bomb [other] countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us?” Paul said. The blog is run by a coalition of GQ writers, with Paul’s barometer just another step in their mildly mocking coverage of the 2012 election while the race is just heating up. “Even though it feels as though the primary season is winding down, we don’t think Ron Paul’s going anywhere, so expect lots more to come,” says Devin Gordon, GQ’s Senior Editor. At very least, “How Crazy is Ron Paul Right Now” is giving the oft-overlooked candidate some media attention. Let’s just hope he stays far away from GQ’s “Yeah, that’s nuts” rating.  Image courtesy of Flickr, Gage Skidmore More About: 2012 election, Politics, presidential race, ron paul, Social Media For more Media coverage:
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| Will Apple Stick to the Steve Jobs Plan for Textbooks? Posted: 18 Jan 2012 01:17 PM PST   Apple is set to make an announcement regarding education on Thursday, and it will likely involve e-textbooks. The latest rumor claims the company is set to unveil a “GarageBand” for books that would put tools for creating interactive digital textbooks into the hands of anyone with an Apple device. But Steve Jobs had something bigger in mind. In his biography of Jobs, Walter Isaacson asked Apple’s former CEO for for his thoughts on the textbook market:
Whether or not the company chooses to follow the vision of its leader — and whether those meetings with potential publishing partners panned out — is something that we’ll likely find out on Thursday. If the answer to either question turns out to be yes, Apple could make a huge impact on a distribution system that has remained relatively unchanged for decades. More About: apple, education, etextbooks, steve jobs For more Tech coverage:
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| Artists: SOPA Would Hurt More Than Help Posted: 18 Jan 2012 01:06 PM PST   A group of artists including Hollywood actors, Saturday Night Live comedians, comic-book authors, musicians and others signed an open letter opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sister bill in the Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Actor Aziz Ansari from Parks & Recreation, fantasy author Neil Gaiman, and the Lonely Island comedy troupe — including comedian Andy Samberg from SNL — all signed the letter, posted on the site Stop the Wall (read the full text below). The letter expresses “serious concerns” about the two bills, calling on Congress to exercise “extreme caution” before regulating the Internet. The letter is carefully worded. It doesn’t come out definitively against SOPA or PIPA, but it does say the powers provided under them could be “easily abused.” And while the artists admit that piracy is a problem, they also say that it should not be addressed by censoring creativity and stifling innovation — stopping short of saying that SOPA and PIPA explicitly do that. The artists say that their livelihoods in large part depend on copyright law, and that piracy is “deeply unfair.” At the same time, they point out that many of them have found new fans and connect with their audiences with services like YouTube and Twitter. They fear the new bills, if they were made law, could harm those sites and others, causing “collateral damage” to legitimate users — them. “As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level,” the letter reads. “We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.” “These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process…. Artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.” What do you think of the artists’ letter, reprinted in full below? Let us know in the comments.
January 17, 2012 An open letter to Washington from Artists and CreatorsWe, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users. We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works. We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services — artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result. We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods. We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process. Respectfully,
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. Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, david_shankbone More About: artists, PIPA, protests, SOPA, stop online piracy act, trending
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| How to Grow Your Business With Mobile Paid Search Posted: 18 Jan 2012 12:58 PM PST   Jamie Turner's most recent book is Go Mobile, co-authored with Jeanne Hopkins, VP of marketing at HubSpot. He is also the founder of the 60 Second Marketer and a popular mobile marketing speaker at events and corporations around the globe. Many business owners are trying to figure out how to use mobile marketing to grow sales and revenues. You may already have a mobile website, and may have even explored creating a mobile app for your business. But after that, things may have come to a standstill. So, what's the next easiest thing you can do to acquire new customers via mobile? The low-hanging fruit in the mobile world just happens to be mobile search, which differs from regular search in that it appeals to prospects who are on-the-go and actively searching for a product or service. Mobile Marketer reported a study from Google, which revealed 70% of all mobile searches result in action within an hour. For desktop searches, that figure drops to 30%. Here are some tips and techniques you can use to grow your sales and revenue using mobile paid search. Start With Your Keyword ListWhen you're creating a keyword list for your mobile campaign, it's a good idea to consider what people are doing when they're searching from a mobile device. People who conduct searches from their smartphones want information quickly that can be acted upon right away. They're not looking for in-depth company bios or details about your corporate philosophy; they want short, quick answers about your street address, phone number or customer service department. Google has a keyword tool that lets you research keywords used on mobile devices vs. desktops. That's important because when people are doing a mobile search they're often looking for something immediate. As you develop your keyword list, be sure to add a mobile spin to it. For example, if you own a chain of restaurants, you'll not only want to buy "Tony's Italian Pizza," you'll also want to search "Tony's Italian Pizza Locations" and "Tony's Italian Pizza on Peachtree Street." Also, don't forget to buy zip codes (“Florists in 30342") and urgency terms ("Plumbing Emergency Repair”). How to Buy Mobile Keywords
1. List All Relevant Keywords For a Campaign. 2. Split Keywords into Themed Ad Groups 3. Refine Your List Writing Your AdsHere are some tips to get a head start on what works and what doesn't work in mobile paid search. 1. Focus on Your Product, Not Your Company 2. Provide Benefits in the Body Copy 3. Include a Call-to-Action 4. Develop a Mobile Landing Page, Not Your Homepage 5. Use Keywords in Your Ad Measuring the Success of Your CampaignOne of the great things about mobile marketing is that it's digital, and therefore, can be easily tracked. One of the very first things you should do when setting-up a mobile paid search campaign is to figure out how you're going to track the results of your ads. Here are some things you should be measuring in your paid search campaign. 1. Click Through Rate (CTR) 2. Average Position 3. Conversion Tracking Mobile websites and mobile apps are gaining a lot of attention, but I'd encourage you to zig while other people zag by diving into mobile paid search today. There's plenty of low-hanging fruit, which translates into increased revenues. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke More About: Business, contributor, features, Mobile, paid search
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| Supreme Court Won’t Hear Digital Free Speech Cases [VIDEO] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 12:47 PM PST Should schools be allowed to censor students who create fake social media profiles that defame other classmates or authority figures? It’s a tricky legal question, and one that still awaits final clarification after the United States Supreme Court declined to hear a series of cases addressing the issue. In lower courts, prosecutors in the cases said that the students’ pages were harmful and disruptive, thus meriting suspensions from school officials. Defendants argued that since the students created the sites outside of school, the suspensions violated their free speech rights. As students increasingly interact, socialize and expressive themselves online, how or how not to police digital behavior has become more and more complicated for schools. Principles and teachers have struggled in recent years to deal with cyberbullying and other problems unique to the digital era. But lawyers on both sides of the issue expressed disappointment this week in the decision by the United States’ highest court not to set a more comprehensive set of guidelines. “We’ve missed an opportunity to really clarify for school districts what their responsibility and authority is,” Francisco Negron, general counsel for the National School Boards Association, told the Associated Press. “This is one of those cases where the law is simply lagging behind the times.” It will now be at least a year before the Supreme Court will address the issue, if it ever does. In the West Virginia case that the Supreme Court declined to hear, a high school girl created a web page in which she said another student had herpes and was a “slut.” A state appeals court later upheld the girl’s five-day suspension. In each of the Pennsylvania cases, however, students used home computers to create fake social profiles of principles in which they depicted the administrators as pedophiles or drug users. The students were suspended in both instances, but won suits against the principals and school districts for violating their First Amendment rights. What do you think? Should schools be able to punish students for creating malicious social media profiles from home? Let us know in the comments. More About: cyberbullying, First Amendment, free speech, Social Media
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| Want to Avoid Getting Banned on Social Media? Learn the Rules Posted: 18 Jan 2012 12:36 PM PST   Ann Smarty is a search marketer and full-time web entrepreneur. Ann blogs on search and social media tools. Her newest project, My Blog Guest, is a free platform for guest bloggers and blog owners. Follow Ann on Twitter @seosmarty. For as long as I have been actively participating in social media, I have determined that no one is ever immune from getting banned. You can put a lot of time and effort into your favorite social media community, and consider yourself a “power” user, but your account is still at risk of suspension. There are a lot of examples of this, both old and recent. Digg made a series of bans in 2008, “allegedly due to script use;” Reddit engaged in “ghost” banning in 2009; and more recently, Google+ suspended accounts that used pseudonyms. In most of the cases of mass banning, social networks have responded to users who have broken the terms of service (TOS). However, when you take a look at the TOS on various social networks, you’ll see that many have different opinions as to what is considered acceptable behavior versus what is prohibited. Official TOS of Popular Social NetworksGoogle+: Google+, the youngest social network of the five discussed here, has very complex and sometimes contradicting pages describing its terms of service.
Facebook: Facebook has only one TOS page: Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. There are also Promotions Guidelines as well as the Privacy Policy to consider. Twitter: Twitter has a few quite detailed policy pages worth checking out.
LinkedIn: The LinkedIn User Agreement is very detailed, clear and, for the most part, very straightforward. It’s possibly the easiest out of these networks to follow. Quora: Quora has quite a lot to say about its rules of conduct. There’s the lengthy Wiki with Frequently Used Questions, which lists various guidelines and policies, as well as the basic rules of using the site, various spam definitions and a general TOS. What’s Clearly NOT Allowed?Of course, each network states that the following activities are never allowed.
How about less obvious areas? Let’s see.
What’s Considered Spam?
So, Now That You Know the TOS, Are You Secure?No, unfortunately. That’s not to say that knowing the TOS is absolutely useless. At least with the information, you know what is clearly considered to be bad manners, unethical or even unacceptable behavior. But are you secured from being banned? No. Here’s why.
So should you worry about getting banned? As soon as you are actively sharing content and adding friends, there’s always a chance people may report you as a spammer. That’s the problem of any social network: What some users consider perfectly normal, others deem intrusive and self-promoting. On the other hand, don’t become obsessed with the rules. If you have researched the TOS and believe you aren’t doing anything profoundly wrong or illegal, ask the appropriate network to reconsider your account suspension, should it occur. Most social networks will get back to you sooner or later with an explanation and sometimes even the opportunity to fix the errors and become reinstated. Playing the fair game helps in most cases. The trick is to clearly understand what is considered bad practice in the first place. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RapidEye More About: Facebook, features, Google, linkedin, Social Media, terms of service, Twitter
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| It’s Not Over: SOPA’s Chief Sponsor Isn’t Backing Down Posted: 18 Jan 2012 12:26 PM PST   Even though co-sponsors of SOPA and PIPA pulled their support for the bills on Wednesday, SOPA’s lead backer says he’s not backing down and “expects to move forward” with the bill next month. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the House Judiciary Committee chairman, told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the bill has already accommodated objections by the opposition. “It’s easy to engage in fear-mongering and it’s easy to raise straw men and red herrings, but if they read the bill they will be reassured,” Smith told the WSJ. Smith also dismissed charges that the bill amounts to censorship. “Obviously there’s no censorship in the bill and no one can indicate any censorship whatsoever. It’s not censorship to want to stop illegal activity,” Smith told the publication. “That’s all we do. We’re trying to impede illegal activity by foreign websites.” Smith was apparently unmoved by a widespread Internet blackout on Wednesday protesting SOPA. Meanwhile, PIPA remains scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Jan. 24. May 12: PIPA introducedThe 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: lamar smith, SOPA, trending
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| The Best, Worst and Craziest Ultrabooks From CES 2012 [PICS] Posted: 18 Jan 2012 12:20 PM PST   If there was a star product from CES 2012, it was the Ultrabook. Not excited? It’s hard to blame you — the whole move toward slim, lightweight laptops that actually perform well is essentially an outgrowth of Apple’s MacBook Air line of laptops, introduced four years ago this week. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a healthy amount of innovation going on in Ultrabooks, and some manufacturers really wowed us with great designs. On the other hand, some fell flat. Part of the reason is that Intel — who created and owns the Ultrabook trademark — has been pretty loose with its definition of what an Ultrabook is. Although the chip maker outlined the key qualities that all Ultrabooks should share, some manufacturers are skirting the edges of those specifications, and arguably stretching them. To qualify as an Ultrabook, Intel says the laptop in question should:
In addition, it’s become the norm for Ultrabooks to incorporate an solid-state drive (SSD) instead of a traditional hard disk. A few recent designs have skipped the SSD, though, to achieve a key feature or reach a low price point. And in a market that was expected to get crowded very quickly, some manufacturers have turned to novel or proprietary technologies to differentiate themselves. There’s also some variation in form factor, though consumers have yet to indicate whether they’re ready for a laptop that “transforms” into a tablet. More than a half-dozen Ultrabooks were unveiled at CES this year, with even more concept designs were present. We’re giving each one a closer look, sizing up what it brings to the table so you can better decide if it’s worth your attention, or if you should simply wait for something better. After all, Intel’s next-generation Ivy Bridge processors on the horizon, and you can bet we’ll be seeing even more innovative designs in the months and years to come. Browse the gallery below for how the latest Ultrabooks break down, and let us know your thoughts on them in the comments. Acer Aspire S5 The skinny: Interesting feature: Potential roadblock: Bottom line: Click here to view this gallery. More About: Acer, CES, CES 2012, dell, HP, intel, lenovo, LG, samsung, Top Stories, trending, Ultrabooks
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