Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Why Has New York Become a Paradise for Tech Startups?”

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• Why Has New York Become a Paradise for Tech Startups?
• Want to Turn Your Brand’s Fans Into Expert Advisors? Try This Startup
• Half of Consumers Use Smartphones While Working Out [INFOGRAPHIC]
• YP App Adds Menu Search, Makes Finding Your Favorite Dish Easier
• Facebook Buys Mobile Discovery Service Glancee
• Why Sound Could Win in the Battle Against Video on the Web
• YouTube Ad for Canadian Paralympics Inspires Us All [VIDEO]
• Fashion Designer Launches Platform for Crowdsourced Design
• How American Express Found Its Social Media Groove
• iPhone Owners: AT&T Chief Wishes You Had Paid for All That Data
• Shanthi the Elephant Plays the Harmonica [VIDEO]
• The Genie Makes it Easier to Create Time-Lapse Videos
• Look at These 35 Star Wars Memes, You Will
• 52% of Consumers Would Consider Buying an iPad Mini
• Lawrence Lessig: Don’t Want Another SOPA? Get Money Out of Politics
• Sexting Judge: ‘No Shame to My Game’ [VIDEO]
• Storify Reimagines Interactive Stories With Element Sharing
• 10 Most-Shared Star Wars-Themed Ads on YouTube
• What Is It Like to Be the Most Popular Woman on YouTube? [VIDEO]
• Facebook’s Stock Price in Context
• Apple ‘iTV’ Isn’t Coming Soon, Analyst Says [VIDEO]
• Yahoo CEO: After Falsified Resume, Should He Be Fired? [POLL]
• How a 13-Year-Old’s Startup Might Be Able to Cure Your Hiccups
• Facebook IPO Pitch: Can It Win Big Investors? [VIDEO]
• Take Your Tunes Anywhere With the Eco Terra Boombox
• Uber Offering On-Demand Mariachi Bands
• 27 Advertisers Leave Village Voice Following Child Sex Ad Scandal
• RIP MCA: Beastie Boys Rapper Dead at 47, Dominates Twitter
• Samsung Galaxy S III: 6 ‘Human’ Features
• Gaming Godfathers Dive Into Max Payne’s Childhood With New Comic

Why Has New York Become a Paradise for Tech Startups? Posted: 04 May 2012 09:00 PM PDT Asking budding entrepreneurs where they’d like to build their next startup often elicits the same three-word response: New York City. Over the past four years, there’s been a 40% spike in startup financing in “Silicon Alley” — a bigger increase than anywhere else in the U.S. Cities around the world are increasingly looking at New York, rather than San Francisco or Silicon Valley, as a model for nurturing startup growth through policymaking and urban planning. What’s New York’s secret to startup success? According to Brad Hargreaves, founding partner of startup co-working space General Assembly, the answer is twofold: it’s half the fault of the financial collapse of 2007/2008, and half the result of intelligent public planning and policymaking. Thousands of the city’s brightest coders, says Hargreaves, were working for the finance industry when the bubble burst. As companies sank, those software engineers were either let go or abandoned ship — leaving some of them free to spark New York’s startup explosion. “. . .Software programmers are uniquely suited to start new companies,” wrote Hargreaves for the #FixYoungAmerica ebook, available this month. “Over the past ten years, the cost — in time and money — of starting a new technology company has dropped significantly. Whether a technology company is developing new products, selling those products in a new way, or helping people live longer and better lives, the first step in a company's development often involves writing some software — the realm of programmers.” New York’s startup scene, as Hargreaves puts it, found a “silver lining” in the economic collapse. However, it’s not exactly advisable for a city looking to copy New York’s success to tank a major industry in favor of another. Instead, says Hargreaves, the replicable nature of the city’s strategy lies in its policymaking. New York has heavily invested in startup culture — literally and metaphorically — and that, says Hargreaves, can be copied elsewhere. Hargreaves recommends that other cities seeking to copy New York City’s success, especially smaller cities, follow four steps. First, startup talent — entrepreneurs, coders and others — must be developed and nurtured. “If you’re looking at this from a city government’s perspective, one of the most effective ways is to train or attract more technically talented people,” Hargreaves told Mashable in an interview. He believes such training promotes a reenforcing cycle. “Having talented people and great companies attract more talented people and more great companies.” Next, cities must work to keep that homegrown talent from flocking to cities such as New York, San Francisco or Boston. Students are an investment, and brain drain can ruin that investment. One suggestion from Hargreaves is to focus on training people in their 30s and 40s to become coders. They, says Hargreaves, are more likely to have laid down geographic roots, and therefore less likely to move away. “When I was in New Haven, I worked with Yale and they were trying to build out a tech ecosystem in New Haven,” Hargreaves told Mashable. “They’d train these college aged kids that would go off and work in New York or Boston. One of the ways around that is by training people a little more locked-in to the geography.” Third, entrepreneurs, coders and others in the local startup community must be included along with universities and economic development organizations in dialogue about the city’s future. Universities can, says Hargreaves, build a “talent pool” from which startups can draw critical new hires — if a city is known for its technology students, it will attract technology startups. Finally, Hargreaves believes that intelligent urban planning is key. One of the reasons that New York has succeeded, Hargreaves told Mashable, is that its density and public transport systems make it easy for entrepreneurs to get from meeting to meeting. “A technology community won't ferment if it is spread evenly over one hundred square miles of metropolitan area, especially if mass transit options are limited,” wrote Hargreaves. Why do you think New York is a hub for technology startups? Sound off in the comments below. BONUS: Download the #FixYoungAmerica Book for Free Hargreaves’s ideas are just some of many brilliant concepts for sparking a new generation of entrepreneurism featured in #FixYoungAmerica, a new ebook released this month. Interested in learning more? The first 1,000 Mashable readers to click right here can download the ebook for free. Klout, the social media influence measurement system, will also be giving away an additional 10,000 books to influencer groups around the country. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Photomorphic More About: fixyoungamerica, Small Business, Startups

Want to Turn Your Brand’s Fans Into Expert Advisors? Try This Startup Posted: 04 May 2012 08:41 PM PDT The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Needle Quick Pitch: Needle offers expert live chat service to online retailers to help customers find the best products and increase sales. Genius Idea: “Fansourcing” — Turning superfans of your brand into part-time advisors for the rest of your customers. It’s hard not to argue that Needle is a cool startup when you see its headquarters — essentially, a top-of-the-line RV with a roofdeck lined in artificial grass. Needle connects online shoppers with product experts who assist them through chat, voice and video communication. Imagine the high-quality customer service of a sales person on the shop floor at Nordstrom, but when you’re shopping online. Needle re-creates a real store experience, but even one better because the experts are top-notch and love the products they recommend. They also don’t work full time, so they don’t get burnt out and are always eager to help. “Needlers,” as they are called, can earn credits for selling items, which they can put toward purchases of their own. They can also create “social coupons” to share with friends on Facebook. Needle's CEO Morgan Lynch gave us the tour of his mobile office and introduced us to several “Needlers” who were working for Skullcandy and Under Armor, two of Needle’s clients. Lynch calls it “fansourcing” commerce. Lynch and his team drove the mobile office from Salt Lake City, Utah (where it’s based) to San Francisco, then headed to southern California and finally Las Vegas to recruit for and promote the company. The inside of the RV is decked out with flat-screen computer monitors, dark wood paneling and a long bench with two sizable tables, where they can give PowerPoint presentations to clients. The mobile office can hold 30 staffers and Needlers, however most Needlers reviewers are based all across the country. We checked out the websites of Coach and Under Armor, sites that supposedly have Needlers. But no chat invite popped-up on our screen. The company explained a Needler wasn’t available at that moment. Neither of those sites queue chats, so if there are not enough Needlers a visitor won’t receive an invite. Otherwise, the Needlers can be found by clicking on buttons such as “Chat with an Expert” or a pop-up that says “Live Chat.” Live chat on online retail shopping websites is growing in popularity and demand. Social sharing also increases the likelihood of purchase. A survey by Social Labs in 2012 showed online shoppers were 57% more likely to make a purchase from a retailer after seeing a friend’s activity on that retailer’s site. What do you think about Needle as a consumer or an online retailer? Tell us in the comments. 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, online shopping For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Business channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Half of Consumers Use Smartphones While Working Out [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 04 May 2012 08:03 PM PDT Working out may be a time to unwind and clear your head, but more consumers are turning to smartphones to stay connected while exercising, according to a new study. A new infographic from market research firm Lab42 found that 51% of consumers are using smartphones during their workouts, whether for checking email (33%) or tracking their pace (43%). Listening to music is the most popular way to incorporate mobile devices into a workout (91%). The study was conducted among 500 social media users who place a high emphasis on health and exercising. About 33% of respondents said they use apps to track fitness and food regimens, while 31% do similar tracking on websites. Using a game console remains a popular way to do workouts, as 14% use a gaming system to exercise. About 51% who do so said they use the Wii Fit. SEE ALSO: Top Health and Fitness Apps to Improve Your Workout and Diet A high majority of consumers are also sharing their fitness progress with others (75%), with Facebook being the most popular platform to do so, followed by phone and email. Overall, the study found that 74% consumers believe technology has made a positive impact in improving their weight loss efforts and even increases motivation (72%) to keep going. How do you incorporate technology into your workout? Let us know in the comments. Thumbnail image via Flickr, florriebassingbourn More About: fitness, Lab42

YP App Adds Menu Search, Makes Finding Your Favorite Dish Easier Posted: 04 May 2012 07:42 PM PDT Looking for your next burrito, slice of pizza or cupcake just got a little easier with an update to AT&T Interactive’s YP app. Now in addition to searching for types of restaurants around you, you can look up specific items on the menu. "We believe local is evolving from ‘search’ to a deeper experience that’s helpful in actually making a decision," says David Williams, VP of Consumer Products at AT&T Interactive. "Adding menu item search is a simple, yet powerful new option for smartphone users. It empowers them to express what they’re looking for and leads them to restaurants offering what they crave." To do those searches by the dish AT&T Interactive is working with Single Platform, which allows restaurants to update their menus instantly on the mobile app, web and even their Facebook page simultaneously. YP has an advantage over other restaurant review apps because it is searching the actual menu for a restaurant rather than reviews written by previous restaurant goers. For instance, if someone writes "I wish I had gotten a burrito" in a review on some other sites, then that restaurant and review may show up when searching for burrito. Since YP has the actual menu data, it’s searching only for menu items that are currently available – so you won’t wind up at a restaurant that no longer serves what you’re interested in, or never served it in the first place. "This is the first mobile app to use our restaurant menu content and empower the user to search at the dish level, getting them one step closer to a merchant’s doorstep," says Wiley Cerilli, CEO at Single Platform. "With the YP team, we’re making finding food extremely simple and giving restaurants another way to connect with customers hungry for what they have to offer." The YP app has a database of more than 13 million menu items located across 300,000 restaurants in the U.S. In addition to finding out what’s on the menu, you can also check out photos of the business, find business hours, and check out ratings and reviews. You can also search for menu items based on price, and select restaurants by ambiance. You can register for a YP account with Facebook Connect to submit reviews and upload photos of restaurants yourself to the app. YP can also be used to find discounted gas prices and find local coupons. The YP app is available now for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. Have any of you tried the YP app? What do you think about the new menu search feature? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. More About: App, att, Food, YP

Facebook Buys Mobile Discovery Service Glancee Posted: 04 May 2012 07:15 PM PDT Facebook has scooped up another startup in its path toward mobile dominance. This time, it’s Glancee, an ambient location-based service that competes with Highlight. From Glancee’s home page: “We started Glancee in 2010 with the goal of bringing together the best of your physical and digital worlds. We wanted to make it easy to discover the hidden connections around you, and to meet interesting people. Since then Glancee has connected thousands of people, empowering serendipity and pioneering social discovery. “We are therefore very excited to announce that Facebook has acquired Glancee and that we have joined the team in Menlo Park to build great products for over 900 million Facebook users. We’ve had such a blast connecting people through Glancee, and we truly thank our users for being a part of the Glancee community.” Less than a month ago, Facebook acquired the mobile-based photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion, and the world’s largest social network has expressed its sights are set on mobile. Glancee fits the bill. It was one of the hot passive location startups at SXSW this year, along with Highlight and Sonar. Facebook’s just weeks away from an initial public offering. The company announced its shares would be priced at $28 to $35, putting the company at a valuation of $85 billion and $95 billion. Facebook did not disclose the terms of the Glancee acquisition. How do you think Glancee’s service might change Facebook on mobile? Push notifications when you’re near friends? Would you like Facebook to be able to do that? Tell us in the comments. What Is an IPO? What exactly is an IPO? What are the risks to a company in going public? What are the legal requirements? If you find the business terms and market lingo confusing, check out our explainer video, which breaks down an IPO in plain language. For more details on how Facebook got to its IPO, check out the slideshow below. 2004: First Offers Turned Down Facebook launches with humble beginnings that most people have seen dramatized in The Social Network by now. It was a small social site backed by only a little money, and limited just to the undergrads at Harvard. Right out of the gate, Facebook turned down offers from an unknown investor and Friendster, each offering $10 million. This was, of course, when the company was still called TheFacebook. Image courtesy of Flickr. Click here to view this gallery. Thumbnail image courtesy iStock Photo, youngvet More About: Facebook, Glancee, Highlight, trending

Why Sound Could Win in the Battle Against Video on the Web Posted: 04 May 2012 07:02 PM PDT Just like you learned to crawl before you walked, you learned to listen to your mother’s heartbeat from within her womb before you saw anything outside of it. On stage at Mashable Connect in Orlando, Soundcloud CEO Alexander Ljung described the early developments of our senses, saying we’re born with imperfect eyesight but enter the world with perfect hearing. He used the infant example to illustrate how our lives began audibly and then transitioned into a visual ecosystem, particularly now that the Internet hosts countless videos screaming for attention. Ljung, however, envisions us shifting back to those early experiences — “back to the heartbeat” — when sound first reigned supreme among our senses. “We’re getting closer to the point where technology will help us not be deaf online — where we can unmute the web,” he said during his presentation, “Sound Will Be Bigger Than Video,” which included background music. But exactly why and how will sound be bigger than video? Ljung cites several reasons. Videos demand full attention but … : “Sound is the only thing out there that you can consume in parallel while doing multiple things,” Ljung asserts. He also says there eventually will be more minutes spent listening to sound than minutes spent watching videos. Sound incites emotions: “The fastest way to make you feel is through these,” Ljung says, pointing to his ears. “More sound on the web means people will feel me.” Advancements in technology make it easier to create sound: Content creators and everyday people love simplicity. Ljung, for example, pit a record button versus the QWERTY keyboard layout. “Even with sound you don’t need 140 buttons; you just need a single button,” he says. “We like to think SoundCloud is 140 times simpler than Twitter.” SEE ALSO: iPhone Case Turns SoundCloud Clips Into 3D Sculpture [VIDEO] Although videos appear to dominate the web right now, with 60 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube, sound creation also is seeing growth. SoundCloud, for one, averages 1 million new users per month, with 10 million registered users in total. At one point during Ljung’s presentation, he halted the music and stopped talking for several awkward seconds. “Without any sound, this presentation would be kind of bleak,” he says, adding that sound is key to our lives. “As humans we’re spending more and more of our time online. “The web is unmuting really fast.” Do you agree with Ljung’s prediction that video will take a backseat to sound in the battle for web users’ attention? Sound off in the comments, or just take a look at Ljung’s amazing shoes he wore on stage. Now those are loud. Swag Bag The contents of each bag given to Mashable Connect attendees. Click here to view this gallery. Mashable Connect Sponsors Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world’s top ten global advertisers, empowering them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers in a connections-based world. The Buddy Media social marketing suite helps brands build powerful connections globally with its scalable, secure architecture and data-driven customer insights from initial point of contact through point of purchase. For more information, visit http://www.buddymedia.com. AT&T is bringing it all together for our customers, from revolutionary smartphones to next-generation TV services and sophisticated solutions for multi-national businesses. For more than a century, we have consistently provided innovative, reliable, high-quality products and services and excellent customer care. For more, visit http://www.att.com. Barnes & Noble College Marketing (BNCM) helps brands thrive on campus. It is a division of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc. that operates more than 640 college bookstores across the country, serving more than 4.7 million students and faculty members. BNCM has the on-campus access and student understanding to deliver superior marketing programs for its brand partners. BNCM's capabilities include: experiential and event marketing; product sampling, sweepstakes and promotions; digital marketing (social, email, web); on-campus advertising and postering; and programs targeting freshmen, graduates, alumni and athletic event fans. Visit www.bncollegemarketing.com. Hiscox specializes in tailored insurance coverage for a range of professional services firms in industries like IT, marketing, consulting and more. Hiscox Insurance Company Inc. has been protecting clients for over 100 years and is rated ‘A’ (Excellent) for financial strength by A.M. Best. We offer professional liability insurance, general liability insurance and other policies direct, either online or over the phone, with customized coverage starting from just $22.50/month. Visit hiscoxusa.com/smallbiz for a fast, free quote now. Webtrends powers digital marketing success. Webtrends is at the forefront of real-time digital marketing relevance and customer experience management through unified customer intelligence. Our industry-leading analytics across mobile, social and web enables marketers to optimize campaigns, maximize customer lifetime value and deliver highly relevant digital brand experiences in real-time. Webtrends dramatically improve digital marketing results for more than 3,500 global brands including, in EMEA and internationally, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, HSBC, ASOS, Orange, T-Mobile, Microsoft, BMW, Toyota, Play.com, AllSaints, The Telegraph, and many more. www.webtrends.com Definition 6 is a Unified Marketing Agency that creates brand experiences that unite brands and people in motion. Through imagination, innovation and insight, we execute ideas that deliver continued value across all brand interactions. For more information, please visit http://www.definition6.com. The Adobe Digital Marketing Suite is an integrated set of applications which allow businesses to gather customer insight and optimize advertising, conversion and retention efforts as well as the creation and distribution of content. For example, using the Suite, marketers can identify the most effective marketing strategies and ad placements as well as create relevant, personalized and consistent customer experiences across digital marketing channels, such as onsite, display, e-mail, social, video and mobile. The Suite enables marketers to automatically adjust to customer interactions and better maximize marketing ROI, which leads to a positive impact the bottom line. http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-marketing.html The leading resource for human resource and business leaders to explore and discuss the latest workforce and workplace trends including social innovation—providing the in-depth research and insights needed to adapt and take advantage of what's next. www.shrm.org Instagram photo courtesy of Lance Ulanoff. More About: Entertainment, mashable connect, Music, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube For more Entertainment coverage: Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Entertainment channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

YouTube Ad for Canadian Paralympics Inspires Us All [VIDEO] Posted: 04 May 2012 06:37 PM PDT Paralympic athletes are some of the most inspiring people on the planet — after suffering horrendous injuries, they recover, train and perform at the highest level of athletic competition. This new YouTube ad for the Canadian Paralympic Committee captures all of the emotion and intensity of the Paralymics in a minute-long spot. Clocking in at just over a minute, the ad features an athlete with a prosthetic leg running on a track littered by elements of his story of recovery — a car crash, a hospital and physical training. It’s an apt metaphor, showcasing the determination and pride of paralympic athletes. And it’s an amazing feat of cinema — the entire ad was shot in a single take. The 2012 Paralympic Games will be held in London from Aug. 29 through Sept. 9. More About: Video, World, YouTube

Fashion Designer Launches Platform for Crowdsourced Design Posted: 04 May 2012 06:16 PM PDT The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Cut On Your Bias Quick Pitch: Vote on a range of design goods mockups, and purchase the ones voted most popular by the community. Genius Idea: Have a role in the item of clothing or piece of furniture you buy next. After 10 years designing for the likes of Calvin Klein, John Varvatos and Tommy Hilfiger, Louis Monoyudis did in late 2010 what many at his stage his career do: Decided to develop his own collection. But Monoyudis, who holds degrees from both Harvard and Parsons, was quickly bewildered. “I had all of these sketches and swatches in boxes in my little room. I was so overwhelmed by choices,” he recalls. So he called his friends, the very people he imagined would be his target customers, and asked them for feedback — what palettes they liked, what kinds of collars they preferred. Then he asked himself, “Why don’t I build an interface to do this virtually?” After conferring with his designer friends, who were eager to have access to such a tool for the development of their own collections, he decided to build Cut On Your Bias. The site launched in February. Cut On Your Bias describes itself as a “crowdsourced social commerce platform” for clothing and home goods that allows consumers “to interact on preproduction decisions with the designer themselves, creating an opportunity for virtual collaboration between consumer and designer.” In reality, Cut On Your Bias isn’t quite so interactive, but it does give you a bigger role in the design process. After signing up for the site, which you can do simply by logging in through Facebook, you can browse the week’s designs up for vote. Some designers allow you to vote among a range of colors; others let you go so far as choosing size, silhouette, material and color, for example with the Graf & Lantz handbags below: The combinations with the most votes are made available for pre-order in limited editions of 25 to 50 the following week. Those who voted on the winning design will receive some form of discount. Designers handle production and shipping on their own. Products are guaranteed to arrive in eight weeks or less for fashion, and 12 weeks or less for home. The model is similar to the one developed by FashionStake. Before it was acquired by Fab.com earlier this year, shoppers could vote on three similar designs — say, three takes on the classic white button-down shirt, or three black dresses — from three different designers on a weekly ballot. Voters who selected the winning design could then purchase the piece at a 30% discount after the polls closed. Monoyudis says there are two big difference between Cut On Your Bias and FashionStake. One is that Cut On Your Bias is focused on creating unique capsule collections with designers. The second is that it’s attacking the production process higher in the supply chain. Designers don’t have to create samples of potential merchandise — they can exhibit drawings or digital renderings instead. Tell us: Do you find Cut On Your Bias’s proposition appealing? Would you like to have more control over the design of the clothes and home goods you buy? If so, how? Thumbnail courtesy of iStockphoto, bykac 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, cut on your bias, fashion, retail For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Business channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

How American Express Found Its Social Media Groove Posted: 04 May 2012 05:52 PM PDT American Express went from virtually zero social media presence in 2009 to being hailed by Advertising Age as the “real winner” at South By Southwest this year. How did AmEx do it? Leslie Berland, SVP of digital partnerships and development at the company, attempted to retrace the brand’s steps during a talk at Mashable Connect, and then dispensed a few social media tips on Friday. Berland highlighted two major inflection points in AmEx’s social media marketing history: its introduction of Small Business Saturday and its promotion of Sync at SXSW. The former started with a “lofty goal,” which was to “start a movement,” Berland said. Launched in 2010, Small Business Saturday was designed as a response of sorts to Black Friday, which comes the day before. The idea is to motivate consumers already in shopping mode to spend their cash at their local mom and pops. Berland says her aha moment with the program was realizing that it was a great fit on Facebook, where the SBS Page drew 1 million fans in three weeks. (It now has 2.8 million fans.) That’s a respectable showing considering the brand only began focusing on social media in 2009, when it set up AmEx’s first Twitter account. Berland recalls that it took three weeks to come up with the account’s first tweet. No wonder she likens getting a large brand on social media to giving birth. Berland’s coup de grace was this year’s SXSW promotion for AmEx Sync‘s Twitter tie-in, which appears to have captured the hearts and minds of much of the event’s attendees. The effort, which introduced a program that offers cardmembers discounts for tweeting advertised hashtags, began before SXSWers even arrived. Berland secured 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi from GoGo to 80% to 90% of the flights to Austin, Texas, that included a plug for Sync. Then, once in Austin, AmEx offered 700 tickets to its Jay-Z concert. The concert became a major draw at the show, an outcome that reflects Jay-Z’s popularity as well as AmEx’s exacting standards as an entertainment partner. As Berland recalls, there was a long list of potential concert draws, but the brand was seeking someone who was both hip with the local crowd and popular nationally. (Justin Bieber was among those who didn’t make the cut.) Though Berland’s talk included some trite advice (“Think like a startup”), she was more candid in her Q&A with the audience. When one attendee challenged her about her statement that “90% of our strategy is defined by the things we don’t do,” Berland said she meant, for instance, that it’s wise to resist the pressure to embrace all formats. “What I’m often challenged with often is a lot of ‘I want this, we want that’” she said, referring to internal pressure. However, “It’s not a ‘build it they will come,’ thing.” Berland also said it doesn’t make sense to back a Facebook campaign with traditional media like print and TV ads. “If you’re running a program on Facebook, buy ads on Facebook.” Swag Bag The contents of each bag given to Mashable Connect attendees. Click here to view this gallery. Mashable Connect Sponsors Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world’s top ten global advertisers, empowering them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers in a connections-based world. The Buddy Media social marketing suite helps brands build powerful connections globally with its scalable, secure architecture and data-driven customer insights from initial point of contact through point of purchase. For more information, visit http://www.buddymedia.com. AT&T is bringing it all together for our customers, from revolutionary smartphones to next-generation TV services and sophisticated solutions for multi-national businesses. For more than a century, we have consistently provided innovative, reliable, high-quality products and services and excellent customer care. For more, visit http://www.att.com. Barnes & Noble College Marketing (BNCM) helps brands thrive on campus. It is a division of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc. that operates more than 640 college bookstores across the country, serving more than 4.7 million students and faculty members. BNCM has the on-campus access and student understanding to deliver superior marketing programs for its brand partners. BNCM's capabilities include: experiential and event marketing; product sampling, sweepstakes and promotions; digital marketing (social, email, web); on-campus advertising and postering; and programs targeting freshmen, graduates, alumni and athletic event fans. Visit www.bncollegemarketing.com. Hiscox specializes in tailored insurance coverage for a range of professional services firms in industries like IT, marketing, consulting and more. Hiscox Insurance Company Inc. has been protecting clients for over 100 years and is rated ‘A’ (Excellent) for financial strength by A.M. Best. We offer professional liability insurance, general liability insurance and other policies direct, either online or over the phone, with customized coverage starting from just $22.50/month. Visit hiscoxusa.com/smallbiz for a fast, free quote now. Webtrends powers digital marketing success. Webtrends is at the forefront of real-time digital marketing relevance and customer experience management through unified customer intelligence. Our industry-leading analytics across mobile, social and web enables marketers to optimize campaigns, maximize customer lifetime value and deliver highly relevant digital brand experiences in real-time. Webtrends dramatically improve digital marketing results for more than 3,500 global brands including, in EMEA and internationally, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, HSBC, ASOS, Orange, T-Mobile, Microsoft, BMW, Toyota, Play.com, AllSaints, The Telegraph, and many more. www.webtrends.com Definition 6 is a Unified Marketing Agency that creates brand experiences that unite brands and people in motion. Through imagination, innovation and insight, we execute ideas that deliver continued value across all brand interactions. For more information, please visit http://www.definition6.com. The Adobe Digital Marketing Suite is an integrated set of applications which allow businesses to gather customer insight and optimize advertising, conversion and retention efforts as well as the creation and distribution of content. For example, using the Suite, marketers can identify the most effective marketing strategies and ad placements as well as create relevant, personalized and consistent customer experiences across digital marketing channels, such as onsite, display, e-mail, social, video and mobile. The Suite enables marketers to automatically adjust to customer interactions and better maximize marketing ROI, which leads to a positive impact the bottom line. http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-marketing.html The leading resource for human resource and business leaders to explore and discuss the latest workforce and workplace trends including social innovation—providing the in-depth research and insights needed to adapt and take advantage of what's next. www.shrm.org More About: american express, Facebook, Marketing, mashable connect For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Business channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

iPhone Owners: AT&T Chief Wishes You Had Paid for All That Data Posted: 04 May 2012 05:05 PM PDT AT&T’s chief executive dropped a bombshell on iPhone users: he regrets making unlimited data plans for the Apple device. Rather, CEO Randall Stephenson told a conference in Los Angeles this week, heavy data users should have paid for what they were using, and light users should have paid less, rather than having the light users subsidize the heavy users. "My only regret was how we introduced pricing in the beginning,” Stephenson said at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference Wednesday. “Because how did we introduce pricing? Thirty dollars and you get all you can eat, and it's a variable cost model. Every additional megabyte you use in this network, I have to invest capital." But the unlimited plan was nixed in 2010, and replaced with a tiered data coverage options. In a New York Times report, Chief Executive of AT&T Mobility Ralph de la Vega said 70 percent of individuals on tiered data plans paid for one of the more expensive options. Despite some regrets, Stephenson said he doesn’t regret supporting the iPhone. He recalled the board was initially nervous about the pairing: “I remember asking the question: Are we investing in a business model, are we investing in a product or are we investing in Steve Jobs? “The answer to the question was, you're investing in Steve Jobs. Let's go after this thing. And we went after it, and the rest is history.” AT&T is doing pretty well ($6.1 billion in mobile data revenue last quarter). But Stephenson admitted free messaging services such as Apple's iMessage that are already tapping into the company’s revenue. He also mentioned Skype as a potential threat to AT&T’s offerings. Did you have an unlimited data plan back in the day? How does it compare to your current plan? Tell us in the comments. ‪Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, ymgerman ‬ More About: att, iphone, trending For more Mobile coverage: Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Mobile channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Shanthi the Elephant Plays the Harmonica [VIDEO] Posted: 04 May 2012 04:42 PM PDT Shanthi, a 36-year-old Asian female elephant at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, has a special talent – she plays the harmonica! While Shanthi can only “play” a couple of notes, elephant keepers claim they have not taught the elephant how to use the instrument. They noticed Shanthi loves to make noise with various objects, and when they left her instruments such as horns and harmonicas, she started blowing into the instruments until they made a sound. “I think what’s really amazing about the little ditties that Shanthi comes up with is, musically, they really do have a beginning, a middle and an end. They have a repetitive part, that might have some beat, which you can actually follow to it, and it has a big crescendo at the end, and we all know when she’s going to hit a crescendo, and we wait, and then we applaud, and then we go back to work,” says Debbie Flinkman, one of Shanthi’s keepers. Well, we’ve been to a couple of indie blues festivals, and we’ve certainly heard worse. What do you think about Shanthi’s musical talent? Check out the video above and share your opinions in the comments! BONUS: Heart-Warming Animal Videos 1. A Tiger and an Alsatian The cartoons would have you believe that cats and dogs are natural born enemies, but that's certainly not the case for this tiger and zookeeper's Alsatian. Look out for a cute bonus when the tiger's cub gets in on the action. Click here to view this gallery. More About: animals, elephant, harmonica, Shanthi For more Video coverage: Follow Mashable Video on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Video channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

The Genie Makes it Easier to Create Time-Lapse Videos Posted: 04 May 2012 04:20 PM PDT Time-lapse videos — that sweep land and cityscapes to capture scenes that look they are moving at a fast rate — are often stunning, but it takes a lot of hard work and patience to put together the finished product. A new Kickstarter project, the Genie, takes the complexities out of the equation, allowing you to create your own time-lapse videos with ease. New Zealand-based company Syrp has already funded its Kickstarter project for a motion-control time-lapse device called the Genie, which automates the process of creating a time-lapse video. The Genie attaches to a camera and can be programed and moved to get the shots you want. SEE ALSO: Kickstarter Spoof Wants Funding for T-Shirts, Beer Previously, photographers had to keep their cameras in the same position for an extended period of time to capture a collection of images. The stills then had to be put together in post-production to create the essence that time is lapsing at a faster rate. Not to mention the complexities that come with panning and tilting along the way. Although the call for funding ends in June, it has already surpassed its goal of $150,000 by $70,000. Those that donated to the project will receive their name on the box as a contributor on the first production run. The device is expected to sell for about $1,000 once it launches later this year. Have you ever contributed to a Kickstarter project? Did you receive acknowledgement for your funding after the product was launched? Let us know in the comments. Bonus: Crazy Kickstarter Projects 1. Portals Funded: $1,934 This project uses a box and an old monitor to simulate virtual reality. It is an incredibly cool project, but its Kickstarter backers shouldn't expect anything in return other than a "big happy thank you." Click here to view this gallery. More About: cameras, kickstarter, photography, startup, time-lapse For more Dev & Design coverage: Follow Mashable Dev & Design on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Dev & Design channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Look at These 35 Star Wars Memes, You Will Posted: 04 May 2012 03:58 PM PDT 1. Luke and Leia Click here to view this gallery. May 4 has been dubbed Star Wars Day, rightly named for its tagline, “May the fourth be with you.” The pun-inspired day was created in appreciation for the Star Wars film series and the massive culture it has inspired. Since the original movie was released in 1977, Star Wars has expanded into video games, television series and seemingly endless amounts of merchandise. Behind all of the movies, spin-offs and reboots, there is a core cast of beloved characters (and some not so beloved, in the case of Jar Jar Binks).  Take a look as the Internet pokes fun at the iconic characters of Star Wars. Have you come across any other Star Wars memes? Share them in the comments below. More About: Entertainment, features, memes, Star Wars, trending For more Entertainment coverage: Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Entertainment channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

52% of Consumers Would Consider Buying an iPad Mini Posted: 04 May 2012 03:40 PM PDT Would you consider buying an iPad mini? More than half (52%) of U.S. consumers say they would be interested in the rumored 7-inch iPad mini, priced between $249 and $300. PriceGrabber polled 2,603 online shoppers about their interest in the device, during the week between April 23 and 30. Of those polled, only 22% currently own tablets. Among owners, versions of the iPad are most popular, owned by 68% of survey respondents. Just 10% own Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs notoriously dubbed smaller, 7-inch tablet computers — sized between iPads and smartphones — tweeners. SEE ALSO: Apple Planning a $249 to $299 'iPad Mini' This Year [RUMOR] It seems that the majority of interest in the iPad mini is for its cheaper price point: it was the main reason expressed by 64% of respondents. About 54% are interested in the smaller, more portable size; 24% think the iPad mini would make a great gift; 20% say they would use the tablet for work; and 20% say they would purchase the iPad mini out of their love for the Apple brand. The features prioritized by potential buyers were low price (84%), 3G connectivity (65%), reduced size (60%), thin body (60%), retina display (43%), Siri (37%), design (31%) and an iOS 6 launch (30%). Would you be interested in buying an iPad mini? What features would you prioritize? BONUS: 5 Unusual Ways to Use Apple’s iPad [VIDEOS] 1. For Magic Apple calls the iPad "magical" and here Japanese magician Shinya Uchida makes good on that claim with some stunning street sorcery. Click here to view this gallery. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, franckreporter More About: apple, ipad, ipad mini, trending For more Dev & Design coverage: Follow Mashable Dev & Design on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Dev & Design channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Lawrence Lessig: Don’t Want Another SOPA? Get Money Out of Politics Posted: 04 May 2012 02:55 PM PDT We’ve seen an explosion in the number and effectiveness of online political movements over the past year: Occupy Wall Street, the efforts against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Arab Spring each had some digital component. Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor and Internet activist, believes this kind of online activism can’t be directed from the top-down, but can — and should — be “nudged, fed and respected” by those involved. In a speech delivered to the audience at Mashable Connect on Friday, Lessig compared online political movements to “starfish, rather than spiders,” a reference to a book by Ori Brafman. The difference? Lessig says spiders have brains which controls their actions, while the movement of starfish is dependent on the ebb and flow of the ocean’s tide and other outside forces. SEE ALSO: SOPA 2.0: Why the Fight for Internet Freedom Is Far From Over SOPA, Lessig believes, was defeated because the anti-SOPA movement sprouted organically, and it had very little top-down organization. Instead, millions of Americans “finally called their Congresspeople,” demanding that they vote against the bill. The stronger forces that became intertwined with the protests — such as Google and Wikipedia — provided more of a nudge rather than direct leadership. When SOPA was cast off into legislative limbo, the Internet community stood guard against the next legal threat — and that may have arrived in the form of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, better known as CISPA. Lessig’s advice for those fighting against CISPA is simple: Take a step back and find the root cause of bad legislation. “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,” said Lessig, quoting philosopher Henry David Thoreau. And what is the root of evil in this scenario? To Lessig, it’s corruption — which he defines as the overt influence of money in American politics. “The corruption I’m talking about isn’t about anybody committing a crime,” said Lessig. “In fact, everything I’m talking about is completely legal. This is a corruption relative to the baseline of how government functions.” The American founding fathers, said Lessig, designed a government wherein Congress and the people form an interdependent, cooperative relationship. However, the system has deteriorated to the point that Congress is now dependent upon the “funders:” lobbyists and corporate interests. He said 0.26% of Americans donated to a candidate in the last Congressional cycle, while 0.01% gave more than $10,000 — a sign that average Americans aren’t getting their voices heard in Washington. “The funders are not the people,” said Lessig, adding that Congress and corporate interests are engaged in an “endless war” to tire American citizens of politics, enabling them to “preserve the status quo.” To Lessig, upending this system is the only way for the people to reclaim American democracy and fight for what they believe in — whether that’s a free and open Internet, a solution to climate change or an end to military conflicts. “Until we change this, it’ll be the same as it ever was,” said Lessig. “No matter what you care about, nothing’s going to get fixed until we fix this.” Highlights From Mashable Connect 2012 Swag Bag The contents of each bag given to Mashable Connect attendees. Click here to view this gallery. 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Webtrends dramatically improve digital marketing results for more than 3,500 global brands including, in EMEA and internationally, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, HSBC, ASOS, Orange, T-Mobile, Microsoft, BMW, Toyota, Play.com, AllSaints, The Telegraph, and many more. www.webtrends.com Definition 6 is a Unified Marketing Agency that creates brand experiences that unite brands and people in motion. Through imagination, innovation and insight, we execute ideas that deliver continued value across all brand interactions. For more information, please visit http://www.definition6.com. The Adobe Digital Marketing Suite is an integrated set of applications which allow businesses to gather customer insight and optimize advertising, conversion and retention efforts as well as the creation and distribution of content. For example, using the Suite, marketers can identify the most effective marketing strategies and ad placements as well as create relevant, personalized and consistent customer experiences across digital marketing channels, such as onsite, display, e-mail, social, video and mobile. The Suite enables marketers to automatically adjust to customer interactions and better maximize marketing ROI, which leads to a positive impact the bottom line. http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-marketing.html The leading resource for human resource and business leaders to explore and discuss the latest workforce and workplace trends including social innovation—providing the in-depth research and insights needed to adapt and take advantage of what's next. www.shrm.org More About: CISPA, mashable connect, Politics, SOPA, US, World

Sexting Judge: ‘No Shame to My Game’ [VIDEO] Posted: 04 May 2012 02:43 PM PDT Behold: Possibly the weirdest local news broadcast in some time. A Detroit woman reportedly received a photo text message of her half naked boss, who happens to be a judge in the Motor City. A Fox 2 News reporter went and asked Detroit 3rd Circuit Judge Wade McCree about the photo. His on-camera response? “There’s no shame to my game…shoot.” The clip was uploaded to YouTube on April 23, where it’s accumulated nearly 20,000 views. Friday it appeared on the Tumblr blog On the Media and began making the rounds on Twitter. View count starts to climb — and quick. The sunglass-ed, hyperactive reporter bringing us this story? Charlie LeDuff, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 at The New York Times before deciding to return to his hometown of Detroit and report there. (He does serious work, too, including this A+ freelance piece for Mother Jones.) The amazing sexting judge episode, however, leaves one lingering question: Can someone please autotune this? More About: sexting, viral, YouTube

Storify Reimagines Interactive Stories With Element Sharing Posted: 04 May 2012 02:30 PM PDT Storify already makes it easy for its users pull tweets, YouTube videos and other social media posts into embeddable timelines. Now it wants to send some of that content back onto social networks. The startup is introducing a feature that allows users to share to their social networks the individual social media posts in stories, Storify co-founder Burt Herman announced at Mashable Connect on Friday. A tweet, for instance, can now be shared to LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook directly from the story it is embedded in. “People who use [Storify] tend to be people who are social media specialists of some kind,” Herman told Mashable in an interview. “But we want to create a new kind of reading experience as well, to let readers play a role in curation — in amplifying the things that matter from this flood of social media.” Previously Storify allowed readers to retweet a tweet, or to “heart” an Instagram photo, but they could not share the Storify story content across platforms. The new sharing button looks like this: In addition to making sharing more specific, the update also adds a comment thread below each individual element included in a story. Herman says the new approach fits with the company’s larger project of re-imagining stories. “We are still publishing and thinking of it like paper,” he says. “It goes to your blog. Then you have some comments at the bottom of your blog. That’s really not that much different than paper.” Many publications have already adotped Storify’s social-media-focused article format. Storify stories embedded across the web, including on the New York Times and Al Jazeera websites, had 14 million pageviews in March alone. With the new update, they will also adopt its new sharing and commenting format. “We have all these amazing social media curators, all of these editors that use Storify every day when something happens,” Herman says, “We are trying to figure out how we can get readers to engage in this [curation process], too.” More About: curation, Storify For more Social Media coverage: Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Social Media channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

10 Most-Shared Star Wars-Themed Ads on YouTube Posted: 04 May 2012 02:11 PM PDT 1. Volkswagen: The Force This pint-sized Darth Vader discovers the Force through the 2012 Passat. Shares: 5,062,058 Click here to view this gallery. In honor of Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you), here are the 10 most-shared Star Wars-themed ads on YouTube. You’ll find advertisements from companies such as Volkswagen, Adidas and ESPN with cameos by your favorite Star Wars characters and celebrities in your favorite Star Wars scenes. Thanks to our friends at Unruly Media for compiling the list. Which of these ads tickled your funny bone the most? Let us know in the comments. More About: Advertising, Business, features, Marketing, Star Wars, trending, YouTube

What Is It Like to Be the Most Popular Woman on YouTube? [VIDEO] Posted: 04 May 2012 01:53 PM PDT Who is the most subscribed woman on YouTube? If you guessed Rihanna, you’d be wrong by about 800,000 followers. With nearly 3 million people following her weekly videos, Jenna Marbles has built a powerful brand around her off-beat, low-tech humor. Those are rather astonishing numbers for webcam-style videos of a woman in her bedroom talking about farts to her two dogs. It’s even more astounding when you consider that she’s been at this just over two years. But the success that Marbles has experienced on YouTube might speak to the future of online media. Watch more videos from What’s Trending on Mashable Watch this episode of What’s Trending to find out how Marbles got her start, her philosophy on what makes a compelling video, and what it’s like to be among the most popular content creators on the web. More About: trending, Video, whatstrending, YouTube For more Entertainment coverage: Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Entertainment channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Facebook’s Stock Price in Context Posted: 04 May 2012 01:39 PM PDT Facebook announced its stock price on Thursday with rates between $28 and $35 per share. With a total of 337,415,352 shares set to hit the marketplace, the social network is on track to become the most valuable U.S. Internet company when it goes public. Where does this pricing fall in the scheme of other Internet and tech companies? How do these shares compare with the capital raised? While Facebook may be the most valuable, its stock price is far from the top of the heap. SEE ALSO: Facebook IPO: The Complete Guide Our friends at Statista have broken down the share prices in context, along with some data that details which investors stand to see a windfall when Facebook hits the market. Check out the charts below. More About: Business, Facebook, facebook ipo, infographics, trending For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Business channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Apple ‘iTV’ Isn’t Coming Soon, Analyst Says [VIDEO] Posted: 04 May 2012 01:25 PM PDT Can’t wait for an iTV, the long-rumored HD set from Apple? Don’t hold your breath, says one analyst from investment bank JP Morgan. Mark Moskowitz told Apple Insider the economic condition is currently inhospitable for an iTV release. (Apple currently sells a connected set-top box, pictured, called Apple TV.) Rumors of an iTV have been spinning since Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography revealed the late CEO was working on the device. Some said it would come at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, while others had their bets on the 2012 holiday season. What does Moskowitz expect to see soon from Apple? A mobile payment system — iPay. What would you like to see next from Apple? Let us know in the comments. More About: apple, Apple TV, TV For more Dev & Design coverage: Follow Mashable Dev & Design on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Dev & Design channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Yahoo CEO: After Falsified Resume, Should He Be Fired? [POLL] Posted: 04 May 2012 12:57 PM PDT The latest reason it sucks to be Yahoo: New CEO Scott Thompson appears to have fudged his resume by claiming to hold a computer science degree he does not actually have. The allegations were first made by activist Yahoo investor Dan Loeb, who questioned Thompson’s credentials in a biting letter to the company’s board. Thompson’s official company biography and Yahoo filings with Securities and Exchange Commission both claimed Thompson held degrees in accounting and computer science. But Loeb said a "rudimentary Google search” showed the computer science degree to be fiction, although Thompson does have a degree in accounting. Yahoo announced late Thursday that it had launched a probe and would report back to shareholders. There are a number of questions that must be answered, among them: Did Thompson himself insert the false claim? If so, when? How did Yahoo’s hiring committee not discover the discrepancy? Did anyone else know Thompson does not in fact hold a computer science degree? Loeb sent another letter to the Yahoo board on Friday, calling the company’s response to the discovery about Thompson’s resume “height of arrogance.” Loeb also made an ominous point in the Friday letter. “Mr. Thompson and the Board should make no mistake: this is a big deal,” Loeb wrote. “CEO's have been terminated for less at other companies.” One argument could be made that Thompson’s decades of corporate success outweigh a false resume claim. But others might see it as raising larger ethical concerns about how fit he is to run a major, publicly traded company. What do you think Yahoo’s board should do about Scott Thompson? Vote in the poll below, and check back often for updates on the Mashable community’s verdict. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons More About: polls, trending, Yahoo For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Business channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

How a 13-Year-Old’s Startup Might Be Able to Cure Your Hiccups Posted: 04 May 2012 12:41 PM PDT Forget holding your breath or drinking water upside down. One startup wants to cure your pesky hiccups with candy suckers. Mallory Kievman, a 13-year-old from Manchester, Conn., invented the lollipop in her kitchen after a bout of annoying hiccups. The pops are made with apple cider vinegar and sugar. The vinegar, she told the New York Times, overstimulates the nerves in your throat responsible for hiccups and “cancels out the message to hiccup.” Kievman told Mashable she did tons of research online to learn everything there is to know about hiccups, and then combined those ideas with her own inventiveness. She read everything from research on cats that showed how to incite hiccups, to clinical trials from the 1970s that tested the use of sugar on the back of the tongue (it actually worked in stopping sporadic hiccups in 18 of 20 patients). As for using apple cider vinegar, “I was reading an article somewhere about uses for vinegar and apple cider vinegar was in that story for getting rid of hiccups,” she recalled. So Kievman put the vinegar into her patent-pending portable pops. Kievman’s been touring a variety of competitions with her startup invention — and the idea has been well-received. At the Connecticut Innovation Competition for kids, Hiccupops was recognized for its “innovation and patentability,” states the Times article. Kievman has also taken Hiccupops to a couple Connecticut economic and innovation summits. This summer, the eighth grader will be getting help from MBA students at the University of Connecticut, who will help her launch the product nationwide. Also helping — her dad. In the Times article, Mallory reportedly said her dad handles “a lot of the business stuff. And he's also helping me handle stuff like using the stove." What do you think of Hiccupops? What qualities does any startup idea need to “make it”? Tell us in the comments. ‪Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, lostinyonkers ‬ More About: health, startup For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Business channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Facebook IPO Pitch: Can It Win Big Investors? [VIDEO] Posted: 04 May 2012 11:55 AM PDT Looking ahead toward its much-anticipated IPO later this month, Facebook has produced a 30-minute video pitch to show big-time investors why sinking money into a publicly traded Facebook will be a good idea. It’s an interesting take on the normal business investment pitch video — instead of a heavy emphasis on dry finance numbers, Facebook plays to the heartstrings. Soft lighting, multiple interview angles and background music fit for sunrise in a nature show combine to make a clear emotional pitch to potential investors. In one of the video’s opening scenes, founder Mark Zuckerberg hews closely to the classic marketing pitch of telling a story. “I grew up with the Internet,” he says, before adding later: “The thing that seemed like it was missing was actually people.” The Facebook IPO will reportedly happen May 18. The company announced Thursday it would price shares between $28 and $35 and offer 337,415,352 shares of Class A common stock. Facebook will become the most valuable U.S. Internet company at the time of its IPO, which should value the company at between $85 and $95 billion. The current record is held by Google, which was valued at $23 billion when it went public in 2004. Zuckerberg will make at least $846 million when the company he founded in a Harvard dorm room goes public. Check out the video above for more of a rundown of Facebook’s big pitch. If you have the inclination and a half-hour to spare, check out Facebook’s full-length video pitch to big investors here. If you want a primer on just what exactly an IPO is and what it means for a company, see the video below. If you were running a major bank or mutual fund, how heavily would you invest in Facebook? Let us know in the comments. What Is an IPO? What exactly is an IPO? What are the risks to a company in going public? What are the legal requirements? If you find the business terms and market lingo confusing, check out our explainer video, which breaks down an IPO in plain language. More About: Facebook, facebook ipo, trending

Take Your Tunes Anywhere With the Eco Terra Boombox Posted: 04 May 2012 11:43 AM PDT The Summer Gadget Series is presented by the Galaxy Nexus from Sprint. Android 4.0, Google Wallet and Google Play make it pure Google. Truly Unlimited data from Sprint makes it unstoppable. Check it out. Product: Eco Terra Rugged and Waterproof Boombox Price: $149.99 What it’s good for: Sharing tunes from your smartphone or MP3 player with others while keeping your device protected against the elements. Limitations: The boombox’s design may be too bulky to carry with you while rafting or kayaking. It’s also pretty heavy, which can make it difficult to tote along for longer journeys. Bottom Line: The Eco Terra Rugged and Waterproof Boombox can be a great option for sharing music with others by the lake, on the beach or anywhere else other music players might be damaged by the great outdoors. But, you should be ready to lug it to wherever you’re headed. While tunes are a natural fit when you’re lounging on the beach or by the pool, they can be a natural disaster when it comes to your smartphone or MP3 player if you happen to get them wet while you’re soaking up rays. The Eco Terra boombox is designed for taking your music with you wherever you go, even if where you’re going is typically not electronics-friendly. Super-Connected The Eco Terra can connect to your iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, or any other MP3 player or smartphone behind the 100% waterproof, clear shell. The connection is made via the headphone jack, so almost any portable device you have that uses headphones can probably work. Once connected, you can play your favorite jams from your device through the Eco Terra’s two 3-inch, full-range forward-firing speakers. A set of C batteries will last a whopping 25 hours in the boombox, so you can keep rocking without having to stop and charge. So how’s it sound? Not bad. Some of us in the Mashable office found it a little too muddy, others felt it was a touch too treble-heavy. But considering the size of the speakers, its volume is impressive — clearly better than that of the Jawbone Jambox. Full Protection One thing that definitely makes the Eco Terra stand out is that it’s not just water resistant –- it’s waterproof. So if your boombox accidentally takes a dip, it will still keep kicking. When it does hit the water, the Eco Terra is designed to float — you won’t have to go fishing for it if you end up dropping it in the pool. In addition to protecting against moisture, the Eco Terra can also guard against dirt, snow and shock, so no matter what you’re doing with your tunes, your boombox and audio player will be ready to roll. The storage compartment in the device can hold not only your music player, but also your keys, cash and other pocket-size items. Air pressure release valves ensures your case is closed and water-tight, yet is easily opened at both high and low altitudes. Goes Anywhere, If You Have Muscle The Eco Terra has multiple carabiner clips, allowing you to connect the boombox to your boat when you take the party to the water. The clips can also be used to suspend your boombox from a tree or other apparatus to bring the tunes to a party from above. Packing four C batteries, the boombox can get pretty heavy. So while you can take it anywhere with you, you might not want to. Rugged and Waterproof The Eco Terra boombox houses and protects any cell phone or MP3 player from four extremes: water, dirt, snow and shock. Click here to view this gallery. Series presented by the Sprint Galaxy Nexus   The Summer Gadget Series is presented by the Galaxy Nexus from Sprint. Android 4.0, Google Wallet and Google Play make it pure Google. Truly Unlimited data from Sprint makes it unstoppable. Check it out. More About: boombox, features, mashable, Music, Summer Gadget Series

Uber Offering On-Demand Mariachi Bands Posted: 04 May 2012 11:35 AM PDT This year, Uber is letting you start your Cinco de Mayo celebrations a little early, offering on-demand fiestas you can order from your mobile phone. Much like ordering a ride, people in the San Francisco area can get their very own fiesta delivered today (Cuatro de Mayo) using Uber’s mobile app. Firing up the app between 12-5 p.m. PST will give you the option of getting a car or a fiesta. Tap the sombrero on the screen and select "Let’s Party" to have the party literally come to you. So what might the fiesta option entail? Uber has three Bay Area-based mariachi bands roaming the streets in SUVs, armed with margarita mix and pinatas. Once ordered, the band will come to you and play a song from its repetiore — or one you request — and leave behind a pinata filled with "mystery and wonder." The band also promises to leave behind a bottle of margarita mix (you have to provide your own tequila) and "beautiful memories." "Our Cuatro de Mayo On-Demand Mariachi promo is similar to our On-Demand BBQ sandwiches at SXSW 2012. They both highlight Uber’s ability to deliver you ‘the coolest things ever’ in only 5 minutes," Ryan Graves VP of Operations at Uber told Mashable. "We’re all about logistics and experience, and I can guarantee this experience is going to be awesome." On-demand fiestas cost $100 per party and are billed directly to your saved credit card within Uber. Where do you think would be a good place to send a fiesta? Let us know your Cuatro de Mayo thoughts in the comments. More About: App, uber

27 Advertisers Leave Village Voice Following Child Sex Ad Scandal Posted: 04 May 2012 11:19 AM PDT Twenty-seven companies have pulled their ads from Village Voice Media, after an online petition called on advertisers to stop working with the publication. Justin Wassel, an Ohio minister, launched a petition “Village Voice Advertisers: Pull Advertisement until Backpage.com Adult Section is Shut Down,” which has amassed more than 3,000 signatures. “I’m thrilled to hear so many companies have dropped their advertisements from Village Voice Media publications,” Wassel says. “Many of them are major national brands who cater to families and children, so it’s only natural they should be concerned about their advertisements supporting child sex trafficking.” H&M, Ikea, Best Buy, AT&T and Barnes and Noble are among the companies that have stopped advertising with Village Voice Media since the petition was launched. A previous Change.org petition, telling Village Voice Media to discontinue the adult section of Backpage.com, picked up a lot of steam during the past month. The petition, “Tell Village Voice Media to Stop Child Sex Trafficking on Backpage.com,” has received more than 235,000 signatures as of Thursday. The initial petition was launched by Groundswell, a multi-faith social action coalition. The complete list of companies who have stopped advertising with Village Voice Media includes American Airlines, AT&T, Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Buddy Stubbs, Carnegie Hall, the Children’s Wish Foundation International, Crown Imports LLC, H&M, Harkins Theatre, Harley Davidson, High Times, Ikea, Live Nation, Macy’s, Miami Dolphins, MillerCoors, New York Public Radio, the NYC Film Forum, Park Avenue Church, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, REI, Relativity Media, Starbucks, T-Mobile and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Is it the responsibility of advertisers to only place spots on brands whose values they support? Let us know what message you think brands send when choosing where to place ads. Image via Flickr, Shrieking Tree More About: Advertising, change.org, Media, online petition, village voice

RIP MCA: Beastie Boys Rapper Dead at 47, Dominates Twitter Posted: 04 May 2012 11:12 AM PDT The world has lost a legend — and Twitter knows it. Adam Yauch, better known as MCA, one third of the Beastie Boys, has died at 47, according to several sources close to the singer. Yauch was diagnosed with cancer in his parotid (salivary) gland in 2009, a fact the Beasties immediately revealed in a YouTube video. Unable to tour, the band made great use of the Internet to stay connected to fans. Just over a year ago, they streamed their last album, the Hot Sauce Committee pt. 2, for free on their website after bootlegged versions became widely available. The Beasties also released a star-studded half-hour video on Hulu and YouTube, Fight for Your Right Revisited. Within minutes of the news hitting Twitter, nine of the top 10 trending topics in the US referenced MCA or an album by the Beasties. It’s an honor Twitter users bestow rarely, if ever. Take a look: In honor of MCA, we’ve put together a Spotify playlist of our favorite Beasties tracks, playable below. What would you add? How else will you remember MCA? Let us know in the comments. And here’s the complete Fight For Your Right Revisited, in which MCA is played by both Jack Black and Danny McBride: More About: beastie boys, trending For more Entertainment coverage: Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Entertainment channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Samsung Galaxy S III: 6 ‘Human’ Features Posted: 04 May 2012 10:31 AM PDT In what might be the most inadvertently silly tagline in smartphone history, Samsung says the Galaxy S III is “designed for humans.” No one’s designing phones for cats, so Samsung is obviously being more figurative here, meaning that the user interface and features on the phone better meet what people really want to do. Until we get a our hands on the thing, we won’t know that for sure, but Samsung detailed many of the features meant to make the Galaxy S III more human-friendly. Several of them have a social component as well, since one of the main things we do with smartphones is make and maintain connections with others. The phone’s high-performing Exynos 4 Quad processor, six separate sensors, and wireless tech such as near-field communication (NFC) all enable its abilities. But “humans” don’t care about any of that. Do the new features on the Samsung Galaxy S III address the needs and desires of today’s smartphone customers? Let’s take look: S Voice: This is Samsung’s Siri clone, letting you control the phone with your voice. It’s unclear what the limits of S Voice are (Siri has been infamously criticized for not working as advertised), but Samsung has chosen to emphasize just a few simple tasks users can peform with voice: unlocking the phone, hitting snooze on an alarm, playing songs, sending texts and scheduling events. Smart Stay: Tapping your screen to stop it from timing out before you’re done reading will never happen on the Galaxy S III, according to Samsung. Smart Stay uses the phone’s front-facing camera to monitor your eyes, so it knows when you’re reading, watching video or doing anything where your attention is on the screen but not actively doing anything with it. Face Recognition With Auto Tagging: If your cellphone camera can recognize faces, why not let it assign names to them and automatically tag your photos? The Galaxy S III does this, letting you quickly share (via email or picture message) to all the people in the photo with just a couple of taps — assuming their faces are already associated with your contacts. It’s not clear how this would translate to tagging on Facebook, but it seems like a no-brainer. S Beam: No need for the cloud if you want to share files on the Galaxy S III. You can transfer files up to 1GB to another person’s phone just by tapping them together. The connection is made via short-range near-field communication (NFC) and the files are delivered over Wi-Fi Direct. The feature is limited, though: Both phones have to be Samsung Galaxy S IIIs. Direct Call: This is a simple change, but probably a welcome one for many. If you’re texting someone and decide you want to call them instead, just hold the phone up to your ear. The phone automatically places a call to the person with whom you were just texting. AllShare Cast: The link between phones and TVs is getting stronger with features like AllShare Cast. With just a few screen swipes, the phone easily lets you mirror what’s on your device (photos, videos and the web) to the bigger screen. It’s a great idea — and where the world is going — but like S Beam, it has a similar limitation of needing Samsung equipment to work — either a TV or a special dongle. The Samsung Galaxy S III has many welcome features, following in some areas (like voice control) and leading in others (social tagging). We can’t wait to see the U.S. model, which Samsung says will be able to connect to LTE networks. While the timing of the launch hasn’t been announced, Samsung says it’ll be available this summer. What do you think of the “human” features of the Samsung Galaxy S III? Is it what you’ve been waiting for in a smartphone, or are you not impressed? Share your thoughts in the comments. BONUS: Samsung Galaxy S III in Pictures Galaxy S III Click here to view this gallery. More About: Exynos 4 Quad, nfc, samsung, Samsung Galaxy S III, siri, trending, voice control For more Mobile coverage: Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Mobile channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

Gaming Godfathers Dive Into Max Payne’s Childhood With New Comic Posted: 04 May 2012 10:17 AM PDT To prepare for the upcoming release of Max Payne 3, Rockstar Games partnered with Marvel to release a comic that would delve deeper into the title character’s troubled past. The three-part comic is being written by Dan Houser, Rockstar’s vice president of creative, and Sam Lake, co-founder and lead writer at Remedy Entertainment. Remedy was behind the development for the first two Max Payne titles, which Lake wrote. Houser has been with Rockstar for years, and along with his brother Sam, is known to be a creative force behind popular titles like the Grand Theft Auto series. Max Payne 3: After the Fall represents the first Rockstar game to enter the comic world. It will expand on the backstory of Max, and include his childhood and what happened in the eight years between Max Payne 2 and the soon-to-be-released Max Payne 3. Mashable had a chance to interview these two to find out more about Max Payne 3: After the Fall and what it was like developing a character like Max Payne, who has such a dark, tormented past. Q&A with Dan Houser and Sam Lake Where did the idea for the comic come from? Houser: We are always looking for interesting ways of supporting a game’s release that go a little beyond conventional marketing and help expose people to the product in an exciting way. With Red Dead Redemption, we had John Hillcoat rework a section of the game into a movie. With Max, we had an enormous amount of backstory to tell — the story from the previous games and the years since Max Payne 2 — and a comic book seemed the best way to do it, given the comic book heritage of the earlier games, and the way comics as a medium deal so elegantly with passages of time. What was it like writing for a comic? How is that different than writing for games? Houser: It's different. We needed a quick primer from Bill Roseman, our editor at Marvel, who was very patient with us, but after that it was, if not easy, then something we could grasp. His main advice was very sensible: Let the pictures do the work and try not to over write. That being said, two of the reasons we wanted to make a comic series were because of two strengths we saw in the genre: It's great at handling both dialogue and interior monologue at the same time, which works very well for Max, and great at handling flashbacks, which is also very much part of Max Payne and vital for this series as we envisioned it. How was it working with Sam on this comic and the game? It’s obviously a world he has created and is invested in, so was it hard to figure out how to weave your own voice in? Houser: Sam is a gentleman and someone whose talent I greatly admire, so from a personal perspective, it was a pleasure. From a creative standpoint, it was remarkably easy. We needed help filling in the exact details on the back story of Max — we wanted to include details that were not covered in Max 1 and 2 and we wanted it to be right. So, I reached out to Sam, and we discussed a lot of stuff; he checked a lot his oldest notes, stuff that he’d not thought about since before beginning work properly on Max 1, and in almost every instance, our visions and understanding of the character were identical. And where I was wrong, he gently corrected me! In terms of my own voice as opposed to Sam’s voice, that I don’t know about. We tried to find a tone for Max that we felt was true to the spirit of the original games, but made sense with the modern games, and subsequently, the comics. I have always loved voiceover, and yet none of our other games have very much of it, so that was very exciting for me, personally. My co-writers, Mike Unsworth and Rupert Humphries, and I read a lot of noir-ish and classic detective novels, especially Chandler, but also some more modern stuff that I felt might fit, such as James Crumley. Watched a lot of Humphrey Bogart movies, along with a plethora of classic and neo-noir, replayed Max 1 and 2 a bunch of times and experimented. We wrote and rewrote lines of dialogue, got a few we liked and that sounded good in-game and built it up from there. Were these ideas you’ve had about Max Payne’s story that couldn’t be included in the original because of budget concerns? Lake: Not really because of budget concerns, no, but for many other reasons. Max's childhood certainly plays a role in what kind of a man he is, but that story had no place in the original game. Also, the years in between the first game and the sequel were also sketched to be there, but for Max Payne 2 it felt better to skip those and jump forward a couple of years. That being said, I always felt that there is a long line of gloomy noir-ish cop cases that take place between Max 1 and 2, tracking down serial killers and such, Max working as a NYPD detective with Winterson as his partner. Alan Wake makes several references to the Max Payne universe? Any chances of the reverse in this comic? Lake: It was fun to do in Alan Wake, and it came quite naturally, but the comic is a different thing with a very different focus, so no. Just keeping all the stories of the three Max Payne games and all the backstory in there was a very ambitious goal. What are the benefits of telling Max’s story in a comic, compared to a game? What do you think it adds to the world? Lake: Given the storytelling methods in the games, a comic is a no-brainer, a perfect way to expand the universe. Max Payne’s game has obvious film influences. Are there any graphic novels that influenced you when writing this story? Any other media? Lake: From my part, mapping out Max's childhood felt like a crucial piece that's been left untold so far. It really goes to the classic hero's journey, told over and over again in many forms. At the beginning of the first game, Max is at peace, a happy man, but if you think about it, there had to have been tragedy in his past already for him to be equipped to deal with horror he must face, otherwise it would crush him. The first issue of the comic will be available for digital download today from Rockstar, and they plan to hand out print copies free at some events. Max Payne 3 will be out May 15 for XBox 360 and PlayStation 3. Do you think a game like Max Payne benefits from a comic addition? Let us know in the comments. More About: comics, Entertainment, features, Gaming, Max Payne, rockstar games For more Entertainment coverage: Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Entertainment channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

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