Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “15 Killer Quotes From ‘Sh*t People Say’ Videos” |
- 15 Killer Quotes From ‘Sh*t People Say’ Videos
- Photo Startup Makes It Easy to Create Albums With Friends
- Elaborate ‘It Gets Better’ Video Resembles ‘Glee’
- Meet Beckinfield, a YouTube Show With 4,000 Actors [PICS]
- Breaking Down Apple’s Billions [INFOGRAPHIC]
- 7 Big Privacy Concerns for New Facebook and the Open Graph
- Twitter Users Rally to Boycott Country-by-Country Censorship [VIDEO]
- Sports Blogger Ousted Over False Paterno Tweet
- Happy 2nd Birthday, iPad. What Will This Toddler Be When it Grows up?
- Newly Discovered Asteroid Narrowly Misses Earth
- Facebook IPO: Everything You Need to Know [VIDEO]
- Relax: Twitter’s New Censorship Policy Is Actually Good for Activists
- Angry Birds on Facebook Launching Your Way on Valentine’s Day
- Can Regular Investors Buy a Piece of Facebook?
- Ex-Palm Chief Says Goodbye to HP, WebOS
- Why Facebook Is Really Worth $100 Billion
- Seinfeld’s Kramer Reacts to Hearing Skrillex [VIDEOS]
- What is ACTA? Why Should You Care?
- College Sports League to Stream Its Own Content Online
- 7 Lead Generation Trends For 2012 — What You Need to Do Right Now [SPONSORED]
- NASA Kepler Telescope Finds 26 New Alien Planets in 11 Solar Systems
- Map of 10,000 Tweets Shows New York City at Work
- Facebook to File for IPO Next Week [REPORT]
- Google Music Finally Lets You Download Your Own Tunes [VIDEO]
- Snaps on Maps: Google Wants to Send Photographers Inside Your Business
- Google and Bing Searches Help Us Pirate Music?
- Solar Storm Smacks the Earth — And We’ve Got Video
- 10 Best Arcade Games for Android
- Apple CEO Promises to ‘Dig Deeper’ on iPhone Factory Conditions
- Nintendo Announces Online Gaming Network
| 15 Killer Quotes From ‘Sh*t People Say’ Videos Posted: 27 Jan 2012 08:46 PM PST This meme is certainly making a strong case to be one of the biggest of 2012. Sure, the first episode of “Sh*t Girls Say” was uploaded at the end of last year, but who’s counting really? The results that Google yields when you start typing “Sh*t People Say” are as far-ranging in quality as they are in topic. We’re sure you’ve got your own favorite quotes from the wide array of videos out there. These 15 favorites (and an honorable mention for each) should get the conversation started. 1. Sh*t Girls Say - Episode 1     The original that started a whole sh*t revolution. Many great lines, tough to choose a favorite, but this one stood out. Honorable Mention: "You're the best!" Click here to view this gallery. More About: features, funny, humor, memes, quotes, videos For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Photo Startup Makes It Easy to Create Albums With Friends Posted: 27 Jan 2012 08:02 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: Store and share your photos from multiple services in one place. Genius Idea: Makes it easy to create and share group albums using email. Some of my photos are stored on Instagram. Many more are saved across Facebook, iPhoto, Picasa, Flickr, Dropbox and in a stationary box on top of my dresser. Earlier this week, I used ZangZing, a photo storage and sharing app, to bring them all together. (Well, most of them. The printed ones remain in the stationary box.) The clean, intuitively designed web app lets you quickly import your photos from your computer, iPhoto, Picasa, Facebook (including your friends’ photos), Flickr, Instagram, Shutterfly, Kodak, MobileMe, SmugMug, Photobucket and Dropbox. You can also automatically share out new uploads to Facebook, Twitter and email. While it’s nice to have all my photos in one place, the best part about ZangZing is its group photo-sharing features. When you create a public or private album, you have the option to invite others to contribute. Friends can simply send a reply email to your album’s designated address (i.e., albumname@yourusername.zangzing.com) — no signup required — or they can head over to the album’s URL to import photos from any of the previously mentioned services that ZangZing supports. It’s an easy way to gather shots from a big group event like, say, a baseball game or a birthday party, particularly for those whose familiarity with the web doesn’t extend much beyond email. Once photos are uploaded, viewers can leave comments and download high-resolution versions from the album. ZangZing does have some drawbacks. It’s not easy to sort albums after you’ve uploaded your photos, for one thing, and there’s no option to create sub-folders. The service won’t automatically import any of your new uploads to Instagram, etc.; you’ll have to reimport them yourself. The site also isn’t fully optimized for mobile, although that — as well as an iPhone app — are currently in the works, ZangZing CEO and co-founder Joseph Ansanelli says. The site launched in private beta last April, and launched version 2.0 last month. Unlike just about every other startup we write about, the company isn’t banking on ads or brand partnerships to support itself: Instead, ZangZing is hoping users will purchase prints and other photo products through the site. The startup is also planning to introduce a freemium payment model mid-year that would let users expand their storage space. Users are given 2 gigabytes of storage at signup, and can earn another 8 gigabytes by signing up friends. After that, they can opt to pay $5 per month (or $50 per year) for 25 additional gigs, or $10 per month ($100 per year) for 50 gigs on top of that. 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: bizspark, ZangZing
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| Elaborate ‘It Gets Better’ Video Resembles ‘Glee’ Posted: 27 Jan 2012 07:30 PM PST
An extensively choreographed “It Gets Better” music video — set to Lady Gaga‘s “Hair” — gained steam Friday after the mega pop star gave it her seal of approval on Twitter.
The clip hit YouTube on Thursday, but the making of the video has been well documented on Facebook since August thanks to the project’s mastermind Colton Boettcher, who routinely posted updates on the CeeJbee Productions’ Facebook page. The It Gets Better Project is an online campaign aimed at providing supportive messages for LGBT high school students who are facing discrimination and bullying. Since launching in 2010, It Gets Better has gained support from celebrities, athletes, the tech world and everyday people alike. Boettcher teamed up with the LGBT community in Madison, Wis., and the It Gets Better Project to create the music video that looks like it came directly out of an episode of Glee. “I want to let you know that it does get better,” Boettcher says at the end of the video. “We made this video in response to the number of suicides of gay kids in high school. … I’m gay and number of other people in this music video are also gay and we’re OK. We love our life.” Bonus: Google Chrome’s “It Gets Better” VideoThis “It Gets Better” video from the Google Chrome team aired during an episode of Glee in May 2011. More About: Entertainment, it gets better, LGBT, music video, viral videos, viral-video-of-the-day For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Meet Beckinfield, a YouTube Show With 4,000 Actors [PICS] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 06:59 PM PST   The make-believe town of Beckinfield is the setting for the Mad Libs-style show of the same name, which uses crowd-sourced amateur actors from all over the world who create the show’s story by posting videos. Writers outline the plot and email a “town happenings” newsletter to actors each week. Each actor tells a small piece of the story in their video, adding their own flair. Related segments are linked together to create a kind of webisode that will be unique to every viewer depending on which videos they watch. Beckinfield is a production of online network Theatrics.com. Friday, at Macworld, director Jonathan Frakes (Ryker of Star Trek fame) presented the winner of Theatrics’ “Ultimate Online Audition Contest,” with $10,000 and a vacation to Hollywood, Calif. Entrants selected one of six characters and showcased their acting chops in videos posted to the site. Billed as “mass participation television,” Beckinfield is like a soap opera where anyone can be an actor. Three minute recaps are posted once-per-week on theatrics.com and pick-up where the previous week’s plot line left-off. Here’s the confusing part: There is no one weekly episode. Actors submit their videos to the site, ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. In theory, this lets every viewer creates their own experience. A short summary video is posted the following week. It makes more sense when you consider that Beckinfield was originally created as a tool for actors’ character development. Co-creators Bob Gebert and Tracy Evans launched the site at South by Southwest in 2011 — then soon found out how many non-actors wanted to be part of Beckinfield, Evan said. There are around 4,000 actors involved with Beckinfield, although most do not get chosen to be in webisode wrap-ups. You can sign up to be a performer anytime. At the moment, the number of viewers is roughly the same as the number of actors. The question is whether there is a larger audience for do-it-yourself compilations of YouTube videos of varying quality. The movie Life in a Day managed to stitch together a story arc from YouTube videos, drawn from people around the world aiming to document one day on Earth. Life in a Day, however, was a curated experience. Beckinfield is scattered and difficult to follow. Without a clear plot line and no direct character interaction, it seems unlikely the show will garner a mass audience. But it does point to a possible future trend — crowdsourced entertainment. Cable networks have already tuned-in to consumers’ eagerness to integrate social media and their favorite TV programs, sometimes known as transmedia. With the integration of social media and television, Evans says it’s possible this will become a niche interest for super-fans who want to act out their favorite characters and create a community who wants to watch the result. What do you think about crowdsourcing talent for a show? Tell us in the comments. Beckinfield "Crowd Sourced TV"Beckinfield is a crowd-sourced show on theatrics.com. Anyone can audition to be an actor and post a web-cam created video. The videos are linked together to form a story. Click here to view this gallery. More About: Social Media, television, trending, YouTube For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Breaking Down Apple’s Billions [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 05:48 PM PST It’s no secret Apple, one of the most valuable public companies in the world, is making major cash off today’s tech gadgets — but how much? This week, the company reported a record net profit of more than $13.6 billion for its quarterly report lasting 14 weeks and ending Dec. 31, 2011. A rumored summer release of the iPhone 5 will help keep the money flowing in this year for the more than $400 billion company. "We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs," Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said in a statement. "Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline." Cook alone raked in $378 million last year, naming him the highest-paid CEO. In the past three months, Apple brought in four times more profit than Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. It seems unimaginable to see how far $400 billion could be used. The infographic below puts into perspective Apple’s monetary power and influence around the world. First off, $400 billion could cover 42% of the United States if dollar bills were laid flat across the South. Apple could pay off the public debt of eight European Union countries. Apple could also write $6,622,516 checks to each of its employees before exhausting its fortune. More than $97.7 billion of Apple’s money is in cash reserves, and two-thirds of the money is stored offshore. How could Apple’s money be better spent? Should Apple spend more money on its China suppliers to improve working conditions for workers?   Infographic created by MBA Online; Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, wdstock More About: apple, infographic, ipad, iphone, ipod, tim cook, trending For more Tech coverage:
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| 7 Big Privacy Concerns for New Facebook and the Open Graph Posted: 27 Jan 2012 05:25 PM PST   It’s not always clear how Facebook apps interact with the data you share on the social network. Are they allowed to broadcast it? Sell it? Compile it in a way that you never intended? "When you turn all Platform applications off, your User ID is no longer given to applications, even when your friends use those applications," says a portion of Facebook's privacy policy. "But you will no longer be able to use any games, applications or websites through Facebook. Simply, should you choose not to share with apps at all, they are taken away from you. If you want to use some, but limit their functionality, you have to carefully customize your privacy settings in order to ensure your information is used appropriately. With the Open Graph, which can push any information to your Facebook page without explicit permission each time, it becomes more of an imperative. Here are seven things you may not realize that Facebook knows, and is using to interact with your friends or advertisers. Concerned about what you share on the social network? Be sure to check the Apps You Use in the Privacy Tab to ensure that you have full control of your privacy in a way that makes you feel comfortable. 1. Where You've BeenYou've always kept your location up to date on Facebook, ensuring everyone knows when you change cities — but you're not interested in geotagging. Watch out, because your exact location can still be picked up by Facebook and broadcasted. One of the more prominent design features in Facebook's new Timeline is the "Maps" feature, which gathers the meta data from a user’s location and prominently displays check-ins, life events, photos, and the like on the map. The issue is, for those who aren't necessarily keen on sharing discrete location details, this feature is virtually unavoidable. According to Facebook's privacy policy: "We receive data from the computer, mobile phone or other device you use to access Facebook. This may include your IP address, location, the type of browser you use, or the pages you visit." This data is collected every time, even when a friend of yours has GPS turned on and tags you in a picture she's uploading from her mobile phone. Even if you're stringent about your whereabouts not making it to a highly visible plane, Facebook has already gathered data from you retroactively, ensuring that every time you've changed your city location — or listed your home town– it will show up on the map as well. 2. What You're Listening To You just downloaded Spotify and you're really excited to get started. You signed up and were asked to link to Facebook before launching the app, so you clicked the boxes and everything seems ready. But don't click play on that MC Hammer track just yet… Since September, Spotify has required that new users sign in through Facebook, thanks to a partnership forged after the music giant hit the U.S. Essentially, anytime a regular Spotify user turns on the app and clicks play, whether via desktop or through mobile, the app can beam information right into Facebook and broadcast it to friends without prior notice. In response to major backlash, Spotify now includes a "Private Listening" mode, which blocks sharing immediately to Facebook. However, it will turn off after a restart or an extended period of time. The only way to circumvent the compulsory posting is to turn it off permanently in both places. Spotify's desktop app does have a "turn off publishing to Facebook" within its settings, but the only way to ensure posting does not occur is to revoke Spotify's publishing abilities within Facebook apps. 3. When You're CreepingThat girl you met at the event you went to last week. Your ex from college. Your worst enemy from middle school. Odds are, they're all on Facebook, and you can't resist the urge to creep. Just remember that Facebook is watching, too. Naturally, anything you do on Facebook is seen and gathered by Facebook, and creeping on people is no exception. Facebook specifically tracks all clicks done within its platform in order to better tailor an experience for the user. Do you ever wonder why certain people show up in your feed, while others are hardly ever reported on? That's your creeping doing its work. Visit your frenemy's page enough times, and he or she will end up gracing your feed more often than you may like. Don't worry, Facebook does not specifically share this data with other users, though it will assume that this person is important in your life. Marking someone as a VIP can lead to their appearances more often in your advertisements or apps in addition to the extra face time on the feed. 4. Where You RunSocial running is all the rage these days, and you're ready to load up your iPhone with RunKeeper, connect it to Facebook and get to stepping. But there's more, and it has to do with that sneaky little GPS… Runkeeper is one of the poster children for Facebook's new "frictionless" user experience. A social network for avid (and aspiring) runners, Runkeeper packs sophisticated technology usually reserved for GPS watches and other athletic gear into a handy iPhone application and has the option of linking material to Facebook. Except, with the Open Graph, linking gives companies an opportunity to simply push all of the info that they collect into a user’s Timeline. And in this case, that means valuable GPS data. Say that you go on a run with Runkeeper around the park. The GPS data routes the run you made and then pushes it to Facebook so your friends can see where you've been and for how long. This may not be much of a problem for you, but what if one day you forget to turn off Runkeeper and go to work? Anywhere you go from that point on is at risk of becoming common knowledge among your social circle, which can be unnerving at best and dangerous at worst. Runkeeper does a great service for those motivated for fitness, but in participating in the Open Graph, the information is fair game. 5. Your Saturday Night PlansYour local bar is having a comedy night, and you have to RSVP on Facebook to get on the guest list. But when you click "Attending," your plans can be broadcast to your social network — whether you realize it or not. One of the trickier features of Facebook is the "sponsored stories" section, which is a particular form of advertising. Companies can sponsor particular Facebook actions, called "stories," that double as advertising for a brand. However, this also means that your information could be used as an advertisement for another brand. "Sponsored Stories" are a possibility every time you like a brand or location or respond positively to a public event. When you do this, companies can tap into your friends and let them know that you like or are attending an event — with the hopes of getting them involved, too. Liking a brand or attending its event automatically makes your information available for brand ambassadorship, and you can become an advocate for the event or the brand without implicitly signing up. 6. When You've Slacked on Your Diet You have a Fitbit and you're ready to get your connected fitness in gear. You allow your account to connect with Facebook so you can broadcast your successes to friends and family, but the Open Graph does change things. Fitbit is not currently on Facebook's list of fully-adopted Open Graph apps, but its potential (and partnership with Runkeeper) can create quite an issue for users who are concerned about privacy. The nuances of Facebook's Open Graph mean that everything is done for the user as soon as permission is granted, rather than approving every singular action within an app. Combine that with an app that already makes those decisions for you, and the possibility of sharing information you actually don't want to share is high. The key issue with Fitbit is that it already uploads very personal information automatically whenever the portable device is near its connected docking station. Combined with Open Graph, data could be broadcasted to friends without even logging into Facebook. 7. What News Articles You Just ReadA friend read an article that catches your eye through the Washington Post Social Reader. You click on the title and realize that the app requires permission before linking to the article. You may think little of it and click through to the article, but Facebook watches as you keep reading. The main news app that has adopted Facebook's Open Graph structure is the Washington Post Social Reader. You may have already seen the app in your News Feed, highlighting some articles read by friends that could be of interest to you. However, if you're interested in one of the articles, you're going to have to allow the app to access your personal information. That can be an inconvenience for some, but the real issue lies after you read that first article. Because of the app's structure, you aren't prompted whether you want to share a particular article with your peers. So, once you begin clicking around the Post's website, all of your articles become fair game for posting onto someone else's mini-feed. The result is, from that point forward, even without accessing the app directly through Facebook, your connection to your reading habits is already cemented and anyone can access it. More About: apps, Facebook, facebook open graph, features, mashable, Open Graph, privacy, trending
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| Twitter Users Rally to Boycott Country-by-Country Censorship [VIDEO] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 04:35 PM PST Twitter‘s new approach to censoring tweets has users rallying around the hashtag #TwitterBlackout — a call to boycott the microblogging service Saturday. The change lets Twitter withhold content on a country-by-country basis, when a government deems the tweets inappropriate. Rather than wholly removing the content from the site, it will now only be blocked locally. "When we receive a request from an authorized entity, we will act in accordance with appropriate laws and our terms of service," a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable Thursday. Many users have expressed dissatisfaction with the change. Tweets have been streaming in, in various languages, Friday with the #TwitterBlackout hashtag. Anonymous has also supported the blackout. One of its tweets read: “SPREAD THE WORD #TwitterBlackout I will not tweet for the whole of January 28th due to the new twitter censor rule #Twitter #J28″ On the other hand, as Mashable‘s Josh Catone argues in this column, this change could be good — not bad — for activists. Instead of blocking tweets globally, they’ll only be blocked within specific countries. Check out the video above to learn more about the boycott. And tell us in the comments: will you be participating in the blackout? Do you think Twitter’s new method of blocking tweets makes sense? Image courtesy of iStockphoto, SimmiSimons More About: censorship, mashable video, Twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Sports Blogger Ousted Over False Paterno Tweet Posted: 27 Jan 2012 04:14 PM PST   CBS has shown the door to the blogger who tweeted an erroneous report of legendary Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno’s death last weekend. Blogger Adam Jacobi wrote on Friday, “I had an awesome 17 months with CBSSports.com. I’m sorry to everyone, most importantly the Paterno family, for how it ended.” He followed it with this message:
The fiasco began last Saturday when Onward State, an online publication run by Penn State students, tweeted that Paterno had passed away. The 85-year-old coach was previously reported — and confirmed — by many news outlets to be gravely ill with lung cancer and in the hospital. The @OnwardState Twitter account posted this: “Our sources can now confirm: Joseph Vincent Paterno has passed away tonight at the age of 85.” The story quickly spread online as an attributed rumor, while many news outlets held off on reporting it as fact. But CBSSports.com tweeted that “Joe Paterno has died at the age of 85.” The message was ostensibly sent by Jacobi, and did not name a source. The false reports were soon debunked by the Paterno family. Joe Paterno died the next day. Onward State‘s managing editor resigned from his position shortly after Paterno’s family denied the premature reports. Jacobi’s dismissal announced Friday is not the first time CBS has cut ties with a blogger over erroneously tweeted reports. In September, blogger Shira Lazar was let go after tweeting that Steve Jobs had died. Jobs died the following month. Media commentator Alan Mutter, who writes the blog Reflections of a Newsosaur and is a former newspaper editor and Silicon Valley CEO, said that the recent propensity of false reports like the one that cost Adam Jacobi his job are symptomatic of today’s perpetually in-motion news cycle. “It’s been a great tradition in the news business to always want to be the first with the most, but the problem is that the traditional latency between news gathering and news production — the different editing layers and time it took to actually go to the press and things like that — is gone today, ” he told Mashable. “The good news with tools like Twitter is that we have many more people contributing to the conversation,” Mutter said. “But if they’re wrong, or especially trying to mislead or missing the facts, then that’s the price we pay for instantaneous communication.” What’s more important to you — the speed or accuracy of news delivery? Do you think people such as Adam Jacobi deserve to be fired, or do large publications like CBS deserve equal blame? Let us know in the comments. More About: Media, sports, Twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Happy 2nd Birthday, iPad. What Will This Toddler Be When it Grows up? Posted: 27 Jan 2012 03:47 PM PST    Two years ago Friday — Jan. 27, 2010 — Apple unveiled the iPad to the world. At the time, critics and analysts were quick to mock the name, criticize the devices shortcomings and predict that while the Apple name would sell the product, it wouldn’t create a new market. Boy, were they wrong. The device was an immediate success, quickly becoming the fastest-selling gadget of all time. Even those of us who were bullish on the iPad have had our expectations blown out of the water. As a company, Apple just had its most successful financial quarter ever and sold 15.4 million iPads. Apple CEO Tim Cook says he can envision a time when the tablet market will be larger than the PC market, at least in numbers of units sold. Looking at the trends in computing — especially with the rise of Ultrabooks — the merging of the tablet and the computer into one device certainly seems possible. Some Windows laptop makers are already attempting such a hybrid, with mixed success. Two years after its introduction, the iPad has not only created the modern tablet market, it has had a transformative effect on publishing, education and entertainment. The rate at which the iPad has become a widely-adopted piece of technology — from the car service in my neighborhood to hospitals to airlines — is staggering. Why the iPad MattersThe iPad is the first device that has shown what can happen when you meld the TV and the computer I was discussing with a friend the changing nature of entertainment, and the role that the iPad has had in convincing networks and content producers to embrace the future. I remarked that the iPad is the first device that has shown what can happen when you meld the TV and the computer. The size, touchscreen and supported applications has turned the iPad from a simple consumption device to something much more robust. Two years ago, I watched Steve Jobs unveil the iPad. My reaction: This is the future. Two years later, I’m even more convinced. This is why the iPad matters. No other device in memory has had the ability to integrate into so many different worlds so quickly and will so little resistance. All Hail the KingOver the last two years, plenty of so-called “iPad Killers” have entered the market. Very few found success. The Kindle Fire, the first product to significantly undercut the iPad on price while matching its content ecosystem, has garnered a decent amount of interest — especially at Best Buy. But as Apple’s first-quarter figures showed this week, it’s not eroding iPad sales. Android is the leading platform on mobile. But on the tablet, the number of optimized apps are still extremely low. I’d be surprised if there were as many tablet-specific apps for Android now as there were for the iPad at its launch. This isn’t to say that competition is impossible. With Windows 8 and the Metro UI, Microsoft has shown that it has some chops. Still, as Marco Arment is fond of pointing out, “we still don’t know if there is a tablet market. We know there is an iPad market.” The iPad represents the cornerstone of the next era of computing, both for Apple and for the industry. Here’s to many more years of disruptions. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PinkTag More About: apple, ipad, Opinion, steve jobs, tablets, trending
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| Newly Discovered Asteroid Narrowly Misses Earth Posted: 27 Jan 2012 03:25 PM PST   It isn’t just the sun’s radiation storm getting all up in Earth’s face this week. An asteroid the size of a school bus, discovered mere days ago, came about five times closer to us than the moon Friday. The good news is an asteroid that size would have burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. The bad news is there are still plenty of larger near-Earth rocks we haven’t discovered yet — and we may not discover them until they come flying at us. Asteroid 2012 BX34, after all, had plenty of company. It was the 873rd space rock detected by NASA in the last two weeks. Only in the last couple of days did we discover that its orbit would bring it within one-fifth of the distance between here and the moon — which is just what happened at 10 a.m. EST Friday. In cosmic terms, that’s a hair’s breadth. (Check it out in the video below.) Had 2012 BX 34 been larger — the size of a mountain, say — gravity may well have put it on a collision course with our planet. At that scale, given mere days to prepare, we may have been looking at a Deep Impact-style scenario. We can only hope that the next civilization-ending rock we detect isn’t quite so keen to meet us. Suddenly, President Obama’s priority for NASA in the next 10 years — to land astronauts on an asteroid — makes a lot more sense. Not only are there trillions of dollars in mineral wealth in those rocks, but the more we get to know them, the better we can detect and deflect their orbits. [via Space.com] Bonus: 23 Must-Follow Twitter Accounts for Astronomy Lovers1. @NASA A convenient feed for all things NASA, including launch news, astronaut updates, space discoveries and interactive media. Click here to view this gallery. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, loops7 For more Tech coverage:
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| Facebook IPO: Everything You Need to Know [VIDEO] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 03:09 PM PST By now you’ve probably heard the news: Facebook could be filing its papers for IPO as early as next week. A Wall Street Journal report, siting some anonymous sources, spilled the news that many of us may have been suspecting following a week of big Facebook events. On Tuesday, Facebook announced that all users would have the “new profile,” a.k.a. Timeline, within the next few weeks. While some may see this as a “product push,” stronger predictors to an IPO unraveled later in the week. The next day, Facebook halted secondary market trading with no explanation, leading many to suspect an IPO was on the way. The WSJ report suggests investment bank Morgan Stanley will manage the IPO, rather than Goldman Sachs, the bank many assumed would fill that role. Facebook is currently valued between $75 billion and $100 billion — making it the largest in tech IPO in history. Check out the video above to see how that compares to other Internet companies. If you’re an averaged investor looking to buy a piece of Facebook, you have two options: investing in a mutual fund that invests in IPOs or buying on the aftermarket. What else do you want to know about the Facebook IPO? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ilbusca More About: Facebook, facebook ipo, ipo, mashable video, trending
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| Relax: Twitter’s New Censorship Policy Is Actually Good for Activists Posted: 27 Jan 2012 02:20 PM PST   A lot of digital ink has been spilled about Twitter’s announcement that it can now censor tweets on a country-by-country basis. The move has prompted a growing number of users to organize under the hashtag #TwitterBlackout and pledge to boycott the service on January 28 by refusing to tweet. But these users are misguided — Twitter’s new policy is actually good for activists. For a number of reasons, Twitter’s new policy is a win for freedom of speech advocates. The first thing to keep in mind is that Twitter’s guidelines have long said that, “International users agree to comply with all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content.” According to last year’s official blog post on censorship, Twitter did already sometimes take down tweets that were deemed “illegal.” Most or all of those removed tweets so far have, it seems, been related copyright violation takedown requests under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the U.S. The takeaway here, though, is that Twitter’s rules have always allowed them to remove illegal content at the request of governments, and they never said they wouldn’t. So what has changed? Technology and transparency. The new censorship technology announced by Twitter allows the company to block tweets or users on a country-by-country basis. Previously, blocking tweets had to be done globally, meaning if an oppressive regime asked Twitter to remove a tweet or block a user, it had to be done for everyone in the world. Now, Twitter can remove that tweet in that country, but allow the world to see it. But wouldn’t it be better for activists if Twitter just refused to comply with requests from oppressive regimes? Actually, no. If a government asks Twitter to remove an offending tweet, the company essentially has two options: Comply and block that single tweet or user in that country (while still allowing the rest of the world to see), or refuse and risk the government itself blocking Twitter for everyone in that country. So which seems better for activists? I’ll pick the former any day — it still allows activists to speak to the world at large and draw attention to their treatment. That’s something Reuters’ Anthony DeRosa posits could be more powerful. Further, because Twitter has promised to increase their transparency about takedown requests, it should become easier for activists to monitor which countries are censoring their citizens. As NPR’s Andy Carvin noted on Twitter, every social media platform faces these same sorts of requests. Twitter is just being more transparent about how they deal with them. But what about Twitter as an organizing tool? Surely this will make it impossible for protesters to use online tools like Twitter to organize, as they did during so many uprisings and political movements in 2011. There are two reasons to be hopeful that Twitter’s censorship policy will not have an appreciable impact on the ability of people to organize locally using Twitter. First, Twitter’s technology appears to be easy to circumvent. And further, Twitter appears to clearly be telling users how to get around its censors. Second, activists are smart. They always have been. Last year in Libya, for example, opposition leaders reportedly used coded messages on dating sites to avoid detection by secret police. A Twitter spokesperson has indicated that the company will only block tweets or users “in the face of a valid and applicable legal order.” In other words: Twitter won’t just block a user any time a government asks, so activists should still be able to communicate on the network, assuming their tweets don’t run afoul of local laws. At face value, when a company announces plans to censor its users at the behest of governments, it is alarming. But when you dig down into what Twitter announced, it is actually a win for freedom of speech and a long-term benefit for anyone who fights for openness and democracy. More About: censorship, features, law, Opinion, Social Media, Twitter
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| Angry Birds on Facebook Launching Your Way on Valentine’s Day Posted: 27 Jan 2012 01:45 PM PST What could be more romantic than playing Angry Birds on Facebook with your sweetheart or with a social network of relative strangers? The highly anticipated Facebook version of Angry Birds will officially be landing in a browser near you on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day. Rovio, the studio behind the game, has put out a trailer (above) and dropped lots of little hints that the Angry Birds on Facebook won’t be exactly like its mobile counterparts. Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said the game will have completely new aspects and a more collaborative feel. It’ll also focus more heavily on the hapless pigs. From the trailer above it looks like the same gameplay that made Angry Birds a viral (and financial) sensation are still the focus: Flinging birds across a screen to knock out pigs and build high scores. This being Facebook, expect social posts and friend challenges to play a role, though Rovio so far has stayed mum on what those “collaborative” features will be. It may seem like a bad idea to launch a game on Valentine’s Day, but given Angry Birds‘ success, Rovio can pretty much do what it wants. The game — and its spin-offs — have been downloaded more than 500 million times, prompting Rovio CMO Peter Vesterbacka to say the company was worth more than $1.2 billion. Angry Birds games have been developed for nearly every major mobile platform or device but this is the first time the game will be coming to a browser on the social network. It’s a move designed to get the game into more hands and more news feeds, but at some point will we just be Angry Bird-ed out? Is the Facebook launch a cause for celebration or just more of the same? Let us know in the comments below. More About: angry birds, Gaming, social gaming, trending, video games For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Can Regular Investors Buy a Piece of Facebook? Posted: 27 Jan 2012 01:23 PM PST   Now that it looks like Facebook is (finally!) going to file for an IPO, plenty of potential investors want to know how they can get in on the action. Mashable is not a financial publication, and we’re not in the business of giving stock market tips. But we can break down the IPO process — and gauge the likelihood of a regular investor getting in on the ground floor. Don’t Get Your Hopes UpWe’ll cut to the chase — unless you’re a close personal friend or relative of a Facebook executive, or you manage an enormous amount of capital, you have almost no chance of getting IPO pricing on a stock like Facebook. Why? Well, as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) points out, “the underwriters and the company that issues the shares control the IPO process.” The SEC doesn’t regulate how these primary shares are allocated. In Facebook’s case, the Wall Street Journal reports that Morgan Stanley will likely be the lead underwriter for the IPO, with Goldman Sachs also expected to play a large role. These investment banks are going to target large customers and institutional investors. The goal is to move shares by the millions, not the hundreds or thousands. Even if you have an account with Morgan Stanley or Goldman, you’re probably not going to get to make any purchases as an individual — not unless you are a big-time celebrity or business mogul. (Ashton Kutcher, it’s your lucky day.) In most cases, the underwriter will call you and let you know if you can get in on the action. What Can Average Investors Do?Aside from buying pre-IPO shares on something like SecondMarket — which, again, has some basic financial requirements that will exclude most individual investors — investors interested in a Facebook IPO have a few options:
Check out the video below to learn more about the IPO. Image courtesy of Flickr, GOIABA (Goiabarea) More About: Facebook, facebook ipo, investing, ipo, trending For more Business coverage:
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| Ex-Palm Chief Says Goodbye to HP, WebOS Posted: 27 Jan 2012 01:09 PM PST   Jon Rubinstein, the former CEO of Palm and co-developer of the Apple iPod, has left Hewlett-Packard, the company confirmed to Mashable. Rubinstein came to HP after the company acquired Palm in 2012. The departure, which had been planned for some time, is symbolic of the trajectory of webOS, the mobile OS created by Palm. Rubinstein oversaw Palm’s development of webOS after his appointment as CEO in 2007. He spent more than four years trying to push the platform forward. WebOS launched in 2009 with much promise and many positive reviews but devices (such as the Palm Pre) struggled to compete in the marketplace against the iPhone and Android devices. HP, looking to craft a mobile strategy, bought Palm in 2010 and Rubinstein began revamping the platform for the new company. Rubinstein now says he planned to leave the company after the first HP webOS products came to market. Speaking to The Verge, Rubinstein says he had planned to leave HP “sometime after” the TouchPad tablet was launched, The Verge reported. He’s now vacationing in Mexico but says he plans to return to the industry after he figures out his next move. After acquiring Palm, HP launched its first new webOS devices, the HP TouchPad and Veer smartphone in mid 2011. The company discontinued the platform and products in August, shortly after the TouchPad’s launch. It later said it would make webOS an open-source project. HP released its timetable for doing that earlier this week. Rubinstein also played a key role in the initial development of the iPod, recognizing early the utility of a small hard drive for portable music storage. He is said to have put together and managed the team of engineers that created the project, including Tony Fadell, the developer of the Nest thermostat. Rubinstein left Apple in 2006 and joined up with Palm the following year. Images courtesy of Flickr, Financial Times Photos More About: Hewlett-Packard, HP, hp touchpad, Nest, palm, Palm Pre, Veer, webOS For more Mobile coverage:
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| Why Facebook Is Really Worth $100 Billion Posted: 27 Jan 2012 12:53 PM PST   You know what hurts? Being wrong, that's what hurts. Not just a little wrong, but $85 billion wrong. Five years ago I laughed — dare I say chortled — over the idea that Facebook was worth $15 billion. Now it's queuing up for the biggest Initial Public Offering in tech history, at $100 billion valuation. Man, do I feel silly. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal Friday, this long-anticipated stock moment is happening next week. Looking at Facebook's recent moves, I can believe that: They stopped secondary trading, then went from gradually rolling out Timeline across the globe to saying "it's coming now to everyone! You have a week!" Just prior to that, it unveiled a new collection of Timeline Apps just to show it's serious about this whole Facebook Platform thing. This Facebook, the one I and nearly a billion others now use, is almost unrecognizable compared to the 2007 version — a three-year-old social network that accepted a $240 million investment from Microsoft in 2007. Back then, it was really just a place to connect with old friends. We early users shared random updates, but there was nothing about Facebook that made it a must-visit destination. Random ideas, such as giving people $1 virtual gifts, bordered on silly. The big social interactive moment revolved around actions like Poke — a far cry from the Facebook gestures unveiled last year. Back then, I had already seen lots of social platforms come and go. Remember Second Life? It was incredibly hot. Remember MySpace? Hotter than hot. Both services still exist — in deflated, post-hype forms. The Facebook rise, though, has been different. I wasn't just wrong about Facebook, I deeply underestimated its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook users may often complain about Facebook changes; I call it the "Who moved my furniture?" effect. But like a shark that must move to survive, Facebook's' steady stream of updates and innovations have not only kept it alive, but growing effortlessly. It is a global social shark, gobbling up new users wherever it swims. Five years ago, I could never have anticipated Facebook's growth or its transformation into platform for doing things by yourself and with friends. Facebook wants your activity (reading, watching movies, listening to music, tracking a State of the Union speech) on the network, live, when you do it, so others can engage in real time. Users may grouse about the privacy implications of frictionless sharing, but there is a reason Zuckerberg made it this way: if it's easy, it will be done. Saying "yes" once instead of a thousand times is the difference between walking through an open door and pushing your way through a rosebush. One is easy, painless and repeatable, the other is death by a thousand cuts. Facebook faces hurdles, to be sure. Increased competition from Google+ and Twitter is likely forcing the IPO moment. Plus, the government and vocal minority will not stop pressing Facebook on privacy issues, and I do believe that growth in its home market has slowed a bit. On the other hand, $10 billion — the amount Facebook will see from this IPO — is a lot of scratch. Yes, some people will get very rich, Zuckerberg in particular. But the chief Facebook Geek has said he's not interested in the wealth, and I believe him. For Zuckerberg, winning has always been more important than money. I expect a lot of that money to get poured back into Facebook. We'll see new innovations and an acceleration of the Facebook-as-platform program. Acquisitions should increase, and Facebook may even expand into full-blown content creation. I can see it now: The Facebook TV network! Over the years, I've watched many companies transform when they went public. Microsoft's IPO in the mid 1980's not only helped create a bunch of young millionaires, it also helped turned Windows from a disappointing also-ran into the world's dominant operating system. In other words, all things are possible when you have money, and Facebook is going to have lots of it. And I'm willing to admit that it's worth it. Do you believe the social network — or any tech company — is worth $100 billion? And what should Facebook do with the money when it gets it? Ponder with us in the comments. 1. General Motors Headquartered in Detroit, MI, GM owns Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC. Proceeds: $23.1 billion Year: 2010 Image courtesy of Flickr, Crouchy69Click here to view this gallery. More About: Facebook, ipo, Opinion, Top Stories, trending
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| Seinfeld’s Kramer Reacts to Hearing Skrillex [VIDEOS] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 12:36 PM PST A familiar Seinfeld clip of “hipster doofus” Cosmo Kramer has been set to dubstep beats from electronic music producer Skrillex — continuing the [Person] Reacts to Dubstep meme bumping loud (see other videos below). The altered footage shows Kramer driving and then entertainingly reacting to hearing dubstep. People have already watched the video more than 36,000 times on Funny or Die. Seinfeld has fallen prey to the dubstep treatment on multiple occasions. For example, a quick YouTube search yields a dubstep-infused montage of Kramer’s entrances as well as another one of an individual walk-in. Skrillex reactions on YouTube started popping up last year following the commercial success of his Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites and More Monsters and Sprites EPs, which helped him snag five Grammy nominations in November. His popularity spilled onto Facebook, too: Skrillex’s “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” song was the number six most-listened-to song on the world’s largest social network in 2011. "2011 was also the rise of music producer Skrillex," Facebook said in its 2011 Memology report. "Although Skrillex has been around for years, his 2011 tour, a collaboration with Korn, and record label launch prompted a 76-fold increase in the number of people mentioning him in their status updates on Facebook." On that note, here are Skrillex reactions from non-Kramer dudes such as babies, animals and grandparents. Baby Reacts to Skrillex SpoofThis is a spoof of this clip. Click here to view this gallery. More About: celebrities, dubstep, Entertainment, memes, Music, Seinfeld, TV For more Entertainment coverage:
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| What is ACTA? Why Should You Care? Posted: 27 Jan 2012 12:25 PM PST   The technology community came out in force against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) before those two bills were shelved last week. With them gone, we can expect tech experts and Internet users to step away from politics. The battle has been won, right? Wrong. There’s another fight heating up, and this time it’s global. Meet the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. ACTA is an international treaty designed to protect intellectual property rights. The agreement was first created by the U.S. and Japan in 2006, and Australia, Canada, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea signed on last year. Whereas SOPA and PIPA were proposed bills in the U.S. House and Senate respectively, ACTA is a plurilateral treaty between the countries that sign on to the agreement. One of ACTA’s primary goals is the prevention of copyright theft on the Internet. The treaty operates outside already existing international bodies, such as the United Nations (UN) or World Trade Organization (WTO). By signing on to the agreement, countries are agreeing to work with one another on issues of counterfeiting and copyright theft. While SOPA and PIPA have been relegated to the dustbins of the U.S. Congress, ACTA is gaining life. Thursday, the European Union (and 22 of its member states) signed on to ACTA. More EU states are expected to sign ACTA once such the treaty clears those countries’ own internal political systems. In the U.S. ACTA is being considered an “executive agreement,” not a “treaty.” When signing a treaty, the president must get at least two-thirds of the Senate’s approval. With executive agreements, the president is allowed to bypass the Senate completely. Some, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), have raised questions about that decision’s constitutionality. “It may be possible for the U.S. to implement ACTA or any other trade agreement, once validly entered, without legislation if the agreement requires no change in U.S. law,” wrote Wyden in October of last year. “But regardless of whether the agreement requires changes in U.S. law, the executive branch lacks constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress’ authority, absent congressional approval.” And once again, the tech community has been coalescing around its opposition to what it views as a threat to a free and open Internet. Controversy began even before the treaty started gaining signatories. The treaty only gained public notoriety after Wikileaks published a leaked discussion paper. After repeated failed attempts by numerous groups to request the text of the treaty, the countries negotiating ACTA released a working draft in 2010. Many accused the ACTA negotiation process of being too shady and closed-off to the public. After Poland announced last week that it would be signing ACTA, a handful of official Polish government websites were disrupted by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. And as happened last week in the U.S. with regards to SOPA, Polish citizens unhappy with ACTA took to the streets to protest the treaty. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to protect free speech online, “ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers' privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce and for developing countries' ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development.” What are those “several features,” exactly? First, ACTA would call for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide copyright holders with information about users accused of illegally hosting protected content. Second, the treaty would set up an international body that could make amendments to the treaty. Neither the public nor domestic court systems can review that body, although representatives from relevant industries can make “consolatory inputs.” Beyond that, the treaty’s language gets more vague. For example:
What does “adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies” mean? That’s up to the countries that sign the treaty to decide. Some are calling ACTA a way for copyright holders to get around the legislative process after failing to pass SOPA and PIPA: “ACTA should not be a back door to the legislative process to enact the same requirements US citizens just overwhelmingly opposed,” says Harvey Anderson, general counsel for software company Mozilla. “We expect that the principles outlined by the White House related to combatting online piracy by foreign websites extend to any future efforts to ratify ACTA. We call on the Administration and Congress to release the full details of ACTA to ensure it won’t censor lawful activity, inhibit innovation, create new cybersecurity risks nor disrupt the underlying architecture of the Internet.” The treaty does, however, include language designed to protect legitimate online commerce and free speech:
If you’d like to dig into ACTA yourself, you can find the full text of the treaty here. Do you think ACTA is a fair approach to protecting intellectual property, or are you worried about its impact on free speech and innovation on the Internet? Sound off in the comments below. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PashaIgnatov More About: ACTA, internet, PIPA, SOPA
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| College Sports League to Stream Its Own Content Online Posted: 27 Jan 2012 12:09 PM PST   With television broadcast deals that reach into the billions of dollars, the delivery of college sports as entertainment has long been huge business. Now the Pacific-12 Conference is aiming to create what would likely be college sports’ largest and most futuristic mode of digital distribution yet — a wholly league-owned and operated platform for streaming content to tablets, smartphones, computers and smart TVs around the world. The league believes the platform will be a key component to its future success and growth. “We all know that TV today — from a dollars standpoint in terms of advertisers — there’s a lot of dollars there,” David Aufhauser, the conference’s new vice president and general manager of digital media, said in an interview. “But fast-forward five to 10 years down the line, and digital is going to be what holds the cards.” The league says that in the near future it will enable consumers to watch thousands of events each year — ranging from football, to basketball, to Olympic sports, to non-athletic content — from any device anywhere on Earth. Many leagues, teams and conferences have, predictably, increased their digital presence in recent years. But the Pac-12 appears to have ambitions beyond anything seen so far. “We want to build something that’s not just innovative for college sports, but for how sports media and media generally is delivered overall,” Aufhauser said. Details of the plan are still hazy, but Aufhauser’s hiring this week represents a significant step forward. He said that the league hopes to have the platform delivering at least some content by this autumn. The digital division will work in concert with the league’s television and advertising divisions, but also function as its own operation of sorts. “We’re essentially building a startup, creating our own digital media and content company from the ground up,” Aufhauser said. “It’s a new property for college sports.” Is the future of sports really digital? Or will consumers still default to broadcast television to watch events? Let us know in the comments. More About: Entertainment, sports For more Business coverage:
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| 7 Lead Generation Trends For 2012 — What You Need to Do Right Now [SPONSORED] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 12:03 PM PST
It's safe to say when Facebook launched in 2004, most marketers didn't realize social networking and social media would forever change how business is done. Don't feel too bad if you were among them — Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg probably had no idea he was unleashing a game-changing, lead-generating marketing tool at the time, either. Lots of marketing tools, tactics and trends began to gain traction with consumers as 2011 came to a close, and they continue to show promise for improved lead generation this year. Here's what we think savvy inbound marketers should keep in mind as they plan, budget, analyze and adapt their lead generation and lead management strategies for 2012 (or should we say 0008?). 1. Mobile/M-commerce: Virtual Grocery Shopping in the Subway Last summer, UK-based grocer Tesco began testing virtual grocery shopping in subways and at bus stops in Seoul, South Korea, by outfitting subway station walls and bus stop kiosks with virtual grocery shelves. Photographs emulate store shelves, and each product is highlighted with a QR code. Commuters who have downloaded Tesco's Homeplus mobile app could point their smartphone cameras at the QR codes, pay using their smartphones, and, if they order before 1 p.m., have the groceries delivered to any address that same day. The message: Between tablets and smartphones, mobile is going to reach a tipping point. Smartphones will continue to cannibalize standalone electronic device sales — analysts predict smartphone sales will hit $200 billion in 2012, a 52% increase over 2011 as consumers tote their smartphones with them everywhere they go. Mobile tactics figure to become substantial sources of lead generation including the aforementioned QR codes, near-field and Bluetooth communications, social check-in promotions, mobile search, mobile Web, text/SMS/MMS, email and mobile advertising. Next Step: If you don't yet have a mobile strategy, start planning one, then implement it. If you have a mobile strategy, hone in on what's working and what's not when it comes to lead generation. Jettison underperforming channels, and add one or two new ones. 2. It's Personal — Very Personal With the recent announcement by search giant Google to merge its public search with its Google+ social network, this trend — which began to gather steam in 2011 — will realize substantial momentum in the coming year. What was once only the purview of monolithic merchants, like Amazon and Netflix, personalization will spread to the masses in 2012, including to HubSpot clients who will be able to take advantage of new functionality that HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan called a "personalization engine for … mere, mortal, regular companies," allowing them to give their users a personalized website experience delivering content users' want and enabling marketers to pick up what may be the most-targeted leads they've ever generated. Personalization technologies that let users decide from whom they will and won't receive marketing messages or which emails receive priority in their inbox and which shall languish in email purgatory took hold in 2011 will continue to evolve requiring marketers in 2012 to be exceptionally focused on segmenting their audiences and delivering the right messages to each consumer in order to grow their leads. Next Step: Examine the tools and techniques available to help you personalize your customers' experiences so your brand is better integrated into their lives. Give them more choices — and more informed choices — to personalize their experience with your brand. Use this personalization to drive lead gen. 3. GeoSoMo We have no idea if GeoSoMo — geosocial mobile — will become part of the marketing lexicon in 2012 (especially since we just made up the term), but geosocial mobile services will undoubtedly see increased uptake for lead generation. GeoSoMo began to spark interest in the 18 to 34 demographic in 2011. Geosocial services, such as Foursquare or Gowalla, which enable consumers to let people in their social networks know their whereabouts in real time — "checking in" — and comment on the venues they're visiting will grow. Marketers who leverage GeoSoMo to generate leads while, for example, consumers are raving about the killer apps — in this case, the appetizers at the hot club du jour — via geosocial services can still gain early adopter advantages. Next Step: Claim your page in the geosocial services that are the most used in your area. Dip a toe into the waters with some clever promotions that get people excited, build buzz, and of course, generate leads in the process. 4. An Appetite for Apps  Mobile applications (apps) followed a common path for technological innovation: Introduction, market mania for any and all apps, and now, as the market matures in 2012 and beyond, a solid tool for consumers and thereby for inbound marketers as well. Today's apps must meet a higher standard before consumers download them and integrate them into their mobile digital routines. A useful tool for lead generation and building brand loyalty, apps in 2012 must provide clear benefit and functionality, must constantly evolve to keep users engaged and interested, and should have a certain cachet in terms of what you might call digital style elements, cool animations or other features that, while small, delight users. Next Step: Not every business needs an app, but if your business can add value to users' lives by offering one, start exploring the process. Remember, an app is a long-term investment that requires lots of care and feeding, so don't jump in until you fully understand what's required. If you already have an app, come up with new ways to keep it fresh and keep the leads coming. 5. Automation Nation A hundred years ago, marketers had just a handful of channels to reach consumers — newspapers, magazines, catalogs and outdoor signage. Today, well, you're a marketer, you know there are dozens of channels, subchannels within those channels, and new ones being conceived almost every week. Marketing automation came of age in 2011 and, in 2012, it will become essential in generating and managing leads throughout the sales funnel. As consumers and the technologies they use become more sophisticated, the lead-nurturing process becomes more critical, necessitating a comprehensive marketing platform to feed offers and content to prospects based on timing or actions they have taken that warrant additional contact. Next Step: Automation for automation's sake is worse than no automation at all. Use a comprehensive marketing automation platform with a solid marketing strategy that considers all your marketing channels for lead generation. Work on improving what happens to those leads after they come in to gain maximum effectiveness from your automation solution. 6. Information Integration As marketers become more adept at lead generation using automation technologies, the amount of information gathered grows exponentially. The need to integrate all that customer data from inquiry to sale will be critical in 2012 and beyond. As segmentation continues to play a bigger role in how customers are approached, the number of channels used increases, the number of messages increases, and the need to give sales and marketing a 360-degree view of all customer interactions, an integrated marketing platform becomes essential. Next Step: There is TMI — too much information — to not have a reliable means of integrating it all. Unless your leads are connected to your nurturing programs and your nurturing programs are connected to sales and service, you are leaking valuable data. Make 2012 the year you integrate your marketing from top to bottom. 7. Social Remains Center-Stage Social media as a lifestyle and as a marketing tool became fully actualized in 2011. Marketers no longer questioned the effectiveness and importance of using social media, such as blogging and social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The lead-generation challenge in 2012 will be how to remain relevant in the conversation with the customers who have accepted you into their networks. The addition of chronology into the social dialogue with features, such as Facebook Timeline, means that marketers need to work harder than ever to keep consumers engaged with timely, relevant and useful content if they want to continue to maintain mindshare and screen space. Next Step: The social media monster is a hungry one — it almost never has enough content. Use your inbound marketing platform combined with a solid social media editorial calendar to continue to use social media to generate leads but now, in a planned, coordinated, integrated manner that maximizes your social media ROI. With lead generation at the heart of all inbound marketing efforts, make 2012 your best year ever by being more social, more mobile, more local, more integrated, automated and personal than ever before. (This post is brought to you by HubSpot, an inbound marketing software company based in Cambridge, MA, that makes a full platform of marketing software, including marketing automation tools. The content was written by Jeanne Hopkins, VP of Marketing at HubSpot, who co-authored Go Mobile with Jamie Turner, founder of 60 Second Marketer. Go Mobile is a step-by-step roadmap on how to get into mobile quickly and easily. For more information on sponsored posts, read here.) Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alengo, Flickr, Jorge Quinteros More About: Sponsored Post For more Business coverage:
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| NASA Kepler Telescope Finds 26 New Alien Planets in 11 Solar Systems Posted: 27 Jan 2012 11:55 AM PST NASA announced on Friday that its Kepler telescope has discovered 11 new planetary systems that include 26 confirmed alien planets. The new planets vary in size from one-and-a-half times the radius of Earth to bigger than Jupiter. Their orbital periods range from six to 143 days, and they all orbit closer to their stars than Venus does to our sun. The discoveries nearly double the number of alien worlds — or “exoplanets” planets — found by Kepler outside our solar system and help astronomers better understand how planets form. However, scientists still have to determine the make-up of the planets, such as whether their surfaces are rocky or gaseous. “Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky,” Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. “Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits.” The Kepler telescope is pointed at a location in the sky that contains 150,000 stars. It looks for potential planets by measuring the change in brightness that happens when a possible planet passes in front of a star. NASA said that each of the new confirmed planetary systems contains two to five closely spaced transiting planets. “In tightly packed planetary systems, the gravitational pull of the planets among themselves causes one planet to accelerate and another planet to decelerate along its orbit,” NASA said. “The acceleration causes the orbital period of each planet to change.” Kepler said it detects this effect by measuring the changes, known as Transit Timing Variations (TTVs). The system with the most planets among these discoveries is Kepler-33, which NASA said is a star that is older and more massive than our sun. Kepler-33 hosts five planets, ranging in size from 1.5 to 5 times that of Earth and all located closer to their star than any planet is to the sun. To see artist renderings of some of Kepler’s latest findings, check out the gallery below. NASA Kepler Telescope   Discovered by NASA's Kepler telescope, this rendering provides an overhead view of orbital positions of the planets in systems with multiple transiting planets. Image courtesy of NASA. Click here to view this gallery.
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| Map of 10,000 Tweets Shows New York City at Work Posted: 27 Jan 2012 11:11 AM PST   What does where we tweet say about how we live and work? That’s one of the questions Oakland-based programmer Eric Fischer hoped to answer with his latest mapping project. Fischer, a mapping fanatic and artist, is used to displaying vast amounts of information in visually compelling ways. In his latest project, he manages to plot out the motion of New Yorkers using public tweets on Twitter with geotags from May 2011 until January. The project lays out around 10,000 geotagged tweets and 30,000 point-to-point trips in cities like New York City to plot the flow of people in terms of favored paths. In his map of NYC, seen above, there is a huge ink blot lining Broadway; as we’ve long suspected, it looks like the busy avenue is the backbone of the city. Using a base map from OpenStreetMap, he drew out transit paths using Tweets. Movements are indicated on the geolocation of a Tweet, with an individual’s start point marked with one geotagged Tweet and ending with the next geotagged Tweet. This is what creates a mass of traffic routes. “If you just draw lines from the beginning to the ending of each trip, you get a big mess, so the challenge is to come up with more plausible routes in between,” Fischer told Mashable. “That is where the 10,000 individual geotags come in, the most plausible routes are ones that pass closely through places that other people have been known to go.” Fischer used Dijkstra’s Algorithm to calculate what exactly to map out. For those of who haven’t thought about math since high school algebra, that’s an equation that maps out the shortest path between two points on a graph. For this project, the equation pointed to the relevant paths to map out a city’s most dense corridors. He has also mapped out the choice transit paths in Chicago, Berkeley-Oakland, East Bay and several other cities. Fischer has been using social media geotags to display patterns about the world’s cities for years. In 2010, Fischer took on a huge project to map out race and ethnicity based on U.S. census data. Fischer meticulously used colored dots to represent residents in a city — a dot representing 25 residents of a certain race or ethnicity. The map colored coded populations of people living in the city and those sprawled out in the outer boroughs. The color code stands as this “Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Yellow is Other.” There are 109 maps total a part of the project published on Flickr. “My interest in social media is as a huge source of volunteered information about where different people spend their time, the language they use in talking about those places, and the other people they communicate with,” Fischer said. For the future, Fischer is looking to map out other patterns of residents in major U.S. and world cities, but will attempt to figure out how to shorten the amount of time it takes to map out 10,000 pieces of tweet-based information. “I need to figure out how to make it faster so that it doesn’t take so long to make each one,” he said, though it’s worth noting his view of a long time is two hours for each city map. Let us know what you think about this artful way of laying out social media-derived data in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, Eric Fischer More About: flickr, geolocation, geotagging, infographics, OpenStreetMap, Social Media, trending, Twitter For more Mobile coverage:
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| Facebook to File for IPO Next Week [REPORT] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 10:43 AM PST The long-awaited tech IPO of the year — perhaps of the decade — is on. Facebook will file its paperwork for an Initial Public Offering on Wednesday, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. If it comes to pass, this will be the largest tech IPO in history, yielding around $10 billion for the social network. The next-largest tech IPO is Infineon, a German company that raised $5.9 billion in 2000. Google’s 2005 IPO, as big a deal as it was, didn’t even reach the $2 billion mark. Details are scarce, Facebook isn’t commenting, and the WSJ’s source is unnamed. But the Journal has a track record on such stories that is hard to dispute. The $10 billion share offering would yield the company a total valuation of $100 billion, the paper says, which is right in line with where we expected it to be. Facebook halted its trading in secondary markets for three days earlier this week — the strongest signal yet that an IPO is coming soon. An upcoming share offering would also explain why Facebook has been so keen to get its product offerings in place. This week the company announced it would be rolling out its new profile template, Timeline, to all users, at a speed that left us scratching our heads. Last week it revealed 60 apps that are tightly integrated into Timeline, and announced a process for developers to create more Timeline apps. If and when Facebook does file its S-1 paperwork, it will be forced to enter a “quiet period” — without product announcements, interviews or any other public statements. The WSJ also reports that Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley will manage the offering, and that Goldman Sachs will be “intimately involved.” That’s a blow for Goldman, which managed a billion-dollar private share offering for Facebook this time last year. Are you excited about Facebook finally going IPO, or will being a public company change it for the worse? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. 1. General Motors  Headquartered in Detroit, MI, GM owns Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC. Proceeds: $23.1 billion Year: 2010 Image courtesy of Flickr, Crouchy69Click here to view this gallery. More About: Facebook, ipo, mark zuckerberg, trending
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| Google Music Finally Lets You Download Your Own Tunes [VIDEO] Posted: 27 Jan 2012 10:22 AM PST Google Music, Google’s cloud music service, has finally introduced a feature that lets users download their music to a computer with just a click of a button. It’s been nearly a year since Google Music made it easy for users to add their music to the cloud services for easy streaming. The service didn’t make it so easy, however, to retrieve music from your online library should you want to re-download it to a desktop. To fix that, Google added a download feature to the Google Music website and the Google Music Manager app Friday. The process is even easier. On the web, select your songs and click "Download selected songs." On the Music Manager app, hover over the download tab and chose either "Download purchased music" or "Export your library." This applies to any purchased music, or any tunes you've uploaded yourself. There is, however, a small difference between the two interfaces. On the Music Manager app you can download as many tracks as you like, even if you’re over the limit for downloading purchased tracks. Online, you can only download purchased tracks to a computer two times. Google announced the news in a blog post, saying:
So now that you can download tracks on Google Music, is it the best cloud music service out there? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Image courtesy of Flickr, photosteve101 More About: cloud, Google, google music, Music, streaming For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Snaps on Maps: Google Wants to Send Photographers Inside Your Business Posted: 27 Jan 2012 09:51 AM PST   Google wants to get all up in your business — but in a good way. The search giant just unveiled an expansion to its Business Photos program, which aims to put indoor images of businesses on Google Maps and Google Places profiles. The program now has a clear way to hook business owners up with local photographers with its “Trusted Photographers” initiative. If you’re interested in getting better photos of your establishment online, all you have to do is head over to the Google Business Photos page, then click on “Get Started” to see a list of photographers in your area who Google know can do the job. That job includes both high-res pics of your location (inside and out) as well as 360-degree panoramic views, like this one. The panoramic views are one of the most challenging parts, says Chris Favis, a Google Trusted Photographer based in Orlando, Florida. “It’s pretty systematic,” he says. “Google loans us the cameras, and within the business you have to follow the rules, like getting the set of panos [panoramic shots] as soon as you walk in. The timing can be complicated — it’s a very specialized thing.” Google says shoots should take about an hour, and the price is between the business and the photographer. Once the shoot’s done, the photographer uploads the images “shortly thereafter” to Google services, including Maps and Places. Google has chosen trusted photographers in 14 U.S. cities, as well as some in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and France. If your area’s not listed, you’ll have to wait, but Google provides a way to tell them where you’d like the program to expand. Are you a business owner? Do you see a lot of value in Google Business Photos? Is this program something you’d use? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, wibs24 More About: Business Photos, Google, Google Maps, Photographers, Trusted Photographers
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| Google and Bing Searches Help Us Pirate Music? Posted: 27 Jan 2012 09:30 AM PST Of course the public is going to pirate music when 80% of our search results for music direct us to illegal sites. That’s the claim made by a coalition of entertainment industry groups in a private document sent to the U.K. government. In the paper, the coalition says that Google and other search engines such as Bing implicitly support pirating and copyright infringement by directing users to illegal sites as opposed to the site of rights-holders. As reported by The Guardian, the document pitches the government to impose stricter guidelines on Google to monitor these links by continuously reviewing key search words and to better screen mobile apps on Android smartphones to stop illegal sharing. The group is also asking the government to create a voluntary body that could remove copyright-infringing websites from search engine results on Google and its peers. The paper was sent to Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries in the U.K. as part of an ongoing conversation about online piracy. The paper was submitted on behalf of major British rights-holder organizations including the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) the Motion Picture Association (MPA) the Premier League, the Publishers Association and the Pact. The search engine accusations come hot on the heels of the SOPA and PIPA controversies and in the middle of a renewed debate over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) rolling through Europe. The coalition of rights-holders see search engines as the gatekeepers to piracy. As The Guardian reports:
The idea is that if Google and other search engines stopped linking to illegal sites, than people would have a harder time pirating music and other digital content. Although Google has made efforts to honor removal requests based on illegal sites and piracy, the rights holders say that “as time goes on, the situation is getting worse rather than better.” Well, yeah. Internet censorship is like launching an offensive on Russia in the winter: Long, drawn out and ultimately ineffective. Internet regulation and censorship will have a hard time catching up with the hacker community and the thousands of websites dedicated to sharing content, legal and otherwise. Should Google try to do more or are the coalition’s requests entirely wrong-headed? Sound off in the comments. Image courtesy of Flickr, Vanessa Pike-Russell More About: ACTA, Google, mashable video, Music, PIPA, piracy, SOPA, uk For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Solar Storm Smacks the Earth — And We’ve Got Video Posted: 27 Jan 2012 09:16 AM PST A massive wave of charged particles exploded from the sun and hit Earth earlier this week in what NASA calls “the most intense solar energetic particle storm since 2005.” The resulting magnificent light show has been making the rounds around the Internet through videos like the one below, taken at Abisko National Park in Sweden by photographer Chad Blakley. On Friday, NASA released a video taken from a different perspective — space. The above video shows the storm from the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory. Here’s how NASA explains the snow-like scene:
More storms like this are expected soon. The sun is expected to reach its solar maximum, the point of highest activity in an 11-year cycle, in 2013. “As we approach 2013, we expect to see more intense solar blasts on the sun, and some of them will no doubt be directed toward Earth,” Antti Pulkkinen, a space weather scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told National Geographic. Image courtesy of Flickr, NASA Goddard Photo and Video More About: NASA, space, Video For more Tech coverage:
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| 10 Best Arcade Games for Android Posted: 27 Jan 2012 08:54 AM PST 1. Hard Lines This retro-style mashup of Tron and Snake puts players in control of a wisecracking yellow line that's trying to collect dots and avoid collisions with other lines. There are six game modes to enjoy -- ones with tons of lines on the loose, as well as a classic Snake mode. Click here to view this gallery. Android gamers looking for lightning-quick action and the thrill of chasing a high score should look no further. These are 10 of the best arcade games on Android, designed to take players to the limits of their skills. Do you have any favorites from the Android market that keep you hooked? Share your picks in the comments below. More About: android, android games, contributor, features, games, Gaming, mobile games, video games For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Apple CEO Promises to ‘Dig Deeper’ on iPhone Factory Conditions Posted: 27 Jan 2012 08:13 AM PST   Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent an email to employees that addresses allegations surrounding work conditions at its supplies factories, noting that the company “never turns a blind eye to problems in our supply chain.” According to a report by 9to5mac.com, Cook sent an email to Apple employees following an article the New York Times published on Wednesday that detailed how factory employees in China work grueling hours, live in unsuitable and crowded living conditions and have even died in facility explosions. “Unfortunately, some people are questioning Apple's values today, and I'd like to address this with you directly,” Cook wrote. “We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us.” Cook also said that the company is involved with overseeing the conditions at its facilities and does regular inspections, 9to5mac.com reported. "Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we've made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people." "We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment,” Cook added. He also promised Apple employees that the company will “dig deeper” and although it will likely find more issues that need to be addressed, it won’t stand still or ignore the problems in the supply chain. “On this you have my word,” said Cook, encouraging employees to follow the progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility. This is not the first time Apple has been under fire for mistreatment allegations at its supply factories. In fact, the factories have been accused of mistreatment for years. Most recently, reports surfaced earlier this month that some Apple workers threatened to throw themselves off of a roof in a protest of unfair treatment at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China. Foxconn — which produces various products for tech companies, including Apple, Dell and HP — later said the dispute was solved peacefully. More About: apple, tim cook, trending
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| Nintendo Announces Online Gaming Network Posted: 27 Jan 2012 07:59 AM PST   Nintendo users will finally soon have an online experience on par with Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. At least that’s the message from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who broke the news in a meeting with investors yesterday shortly after the company released its quarterly earnings. Iwata’s presentation explained that the Nintendo Network would encompass the company’s next generation of products, including the portable 3DS and the Wii U console, to be released later this year. The network won’t just be a place where users can play games against each other online — Iwata said it would also offer full downloads of game titles, some add-ons and access to other digital content. That would be a big upgrade from the limited network connectivity that currently exists on Nintendo’s hardware. “Unlike Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, which has been focused upon specific functionalities and concepts,” Iwata said, “we are aiming to establish a platform where various services available through the network for our consumers shall be connected via Nintendo Network service so that the company can make comprehensive proposals to consumers.” Iwata pointed out the new community functions in Mario Kart 7, which is already available, as the first example of the new network’s capabilities. He also said the next edition of the Final Fantasy franchise, due Feb. 16, would feature user-selectable music that would be available for paid download. Selling games through the network is a little further out, though Iwata said the functionality is already built into the 3DS and would be part of the Wii U platform. Iwata was careful to hedge on when full games would actually be available, saying retail and distribution partners needed to be considered. When the Wii U arrives, Iwata said it would feature a personal account system that’s tied to the Nintendo Network. That way it could have tailored settings and different content specifically for the user who logs in, something Iwata said has been a “challenge” with the Wii. Besides the network, Iwata had another surprise about the Wii U: Near-field communication (NFC). The wireless tech, usually associated with mobile-payment systems like Google Wallet, will be built into the tablet controller for the console. Iwata said that with NFC “it will become possible to create cards and figurines that can electronically read and write data … to expand the new play format in the video game world.” He also mentioned micropayments as another potential function. What do you think of the news about the Nintendo Network? Will it take the company’s gaming platform to a new level, or is it too little, too late? Sound off in the comments. BONUS: Hands On With the Nintendo Wii UWii U Controller This is the Wii U controller. It's 1.8-inches tall, 6.8-inches wide and 10.5-inches long. The screen is crisp and the controller is easier to hold than you might expect. Click here to view this gallery. More About: Gaming, Nintendo, nintendo 3ds, Nintendo Network, video games, Wii U For more Entertainment coverage:
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