7/24 Mashable!

Twitter Launches a Twitter 101 Guide for Business July 23, 2009 at 9:32 pm We know that Twitter's rising rapidly in popularity. We also know that a huge number of Twitter users don't stick around. So what's a company with a user retention problem to do? Launch a guide to using its own product, of course. Just minutes ago, Twitter released Twitter 101 for Business, a guide for getting started with using the Twitter service. It covers the basics of Twitter, how to get started, the lingo, and includes case studies. Here's how Twitter describes. Here's how Twitter describes its value to businesses on its new Twitter 101 website: Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter. Will this get more business on Twitter, and more importantly, will it fix Twitter's user retention problem? It probably can't hurt. In fact, we launched to help people understand and learn more about Twitter as well. Reviews: Twitter Tags: twitter Google Android Will Soon Control Your Home July 23, 2009 at 9:08 pm When Google announced its Chrome OS, there was one question we kept asking in the back of our heads: what's going to happen to Android? Android, Google's mobile operating system, is coming to netbooks next month. But Chrome OS is also starting with netbooks, so where does that leave Google's other operating system? Apparently, Android has found a new market for assimilation: home appliances. According to a report on Forbes, a wave of touch-screen devices are about to be unleashed on the market later this year. They will be capable of everything from controlling your lights to managing your stereo remotely. Oh, and all of these devices are going to run on the open-source Android platform. Android's "Touch Revolution" Touch Revolution, a company that builds the touch screens and provides the Android features for these types of devices, makes the assertion that well-known companies are coming out with home management tools this year that will run on the Android OS. In fact, the company divides them into three categories: 1. Home control devices: These will be touchscreen platforms that can activate and manage security, control the house lights, or switch off the A/C 2. Media control devices: More adept remote control over things like DVRs and stereos 3. Home Phones: What Touch Revolution calls "smart phones for the home" A new purpose for Android While we see the utility in these types of devices, you may be wondering why they would pick Google Android for this sort of thing. The Forbes article touches on that too: "Why use Android at all? Brown says its partners liked the operating system's ease of use, openness and touch-centric features. They also regarded it as a bargain since Google is distributing it for free." Android was originally built for touch-screen phones, and thus a modified Android OS for touch screen tablets and devices seems only logical. Google Chrome OS, on the other hand, will focus on web applications and load speeds. So it looks like Androids will soon be running our toasters and Chromes will eventually be powering our netboooks. That's both really cool and a little scary at the same time. Reviews: Android, Google Tags: android, Google, Google Android Palm and Apple Play Cat and Mouse Over iTunes Sync July 23, 2009 at 8:18 pm When the Palm Pre launched early last month, one of its biggest selling points was that its mobile phone synced with iTunes, something that few phone makers could or would guarantee. The Pre accomplished this by essentially pretending to be an iPod. Apple wasn't happy though, so its iTunes 8.2.1 software update broke iTunes sync with the Pre. Well, it looks like Palm isn't standing down on the iTunes syncing issue. We're seeing user reports that the new Palm Pre webOS 1.1 update has re-enabled iTunes 8.2.1 sync. In fact, the Palm Pre support update page specifically mentions the fix: System: … "Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (8.2.1)." You know what's going to happen next, right? Apple's probably going to fire back with another update that breaks this update, and the cycle will go back and forth until one of the two companies gets tired of playing this iTunes syncing game. Palm stands more to lose though, as without iTunes syncing, it loses its edge as a mobile media and music playing device. Who do you think is going to blink first: Apple or Palm? My gut says Apple. Give us your thoughts in the comments. Tags: apple, itunes, palm, Palm Pre Google Latitude Comes to iPhone July 23, 2009 at 6:40 pm Earlier this year, Google made major noise by releasing Latitude, a location-aware service that lets you see where your friends are on a map, on your phone. However, although it worked on a variety of handsets, including BlackBerry, there was one huge omission that has perhaps limited adoption and hype for the service: iPhone. Today, that changes. Google has announced that there's now a version of Latitude for iPhone and iPod Touch, although, it's not a downloadable application like it is on other mobile platforms. Rather, iPhone users can simply navigate to google.com/latitude in Safari to sign in, see where there friends are, and automatically update their location and status. Why no downloadable app in iTunes? Google explains on their blog: "We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles." Google also notes that unlike the other mobile platforms that Latitude currently works on – Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Window Mobile – your location will only be updated each time you use the app, since iPhone can't run applications in the background. This could make the app a lot less interesting – on BlackBerry, the locations of the few friends I currently have on Latitude are changing all the time as it updates with their movements as opposed to when they directly access the app. Nonetheless, bringing Latitude to 40 million iPhones and iPod Touch devices is nothing to scoff at, despite the current limitations. Latitude is one of Google's more important and ambitious social products, and now, it has a more legitimate opportunity to succeed, though we'll have to wait and see how users respond to a mobile browser-based version as opposed to a native app. Reviews: Android, Google, Safari Tags: Google, google latitude AT&T: iPhone Exclusivity Won't Last July 23, 2009 at 6:10 pm The consensus is growing: iPhone users don't like AT&T (actually, "don't like" might not be strong enough). From angry Twititions over 3GS prices to possible Justice Department investigations, sentiment is just not with AT&T. Yet, they still remain the only U.S. carrier with the iPhone, and are hoping to renew their contract with Apple, which ends next year. That's what makes AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson's admission at the Fortune Brainstorm: Tech Conference so stark. According to CNET, he stated that, "There will be a day when you are not exclusive with the iPhone." While it's true that nothing lasts forever, it's not a positive message coming from AT&T's perspective (though it is one for iPhone owners). AT&T's CEO acknowledged not only that it wouldn't have the iPhone forever, but that the Apple relationship is one of its most important strategic partnerships. That's probably an understatement, considering that 2/3 of the AT&T's newest subscribers signed up for an iPhone last quarter. Still, we think that a different quote from the AT&T CEO was just as enlightening. From the Brainstorm Tech blog: When asked if he was completely satisfied with AT&T's relationship with Apple, Stephenson said, "I don't think I could get my wife to say that about me so I don't think I could say that about a business partner." Here's what we think: if AT&T ever hopes to keep its partnership with Apple, it needs to satisfy its relationship with customers first. The customers are the ones placing pressure on Apple to break the exclusivity. Fix the network and give consumers what they want, and the calls for AT&T's head will die down. Tags: apple, att, iphone Digsby Passes 1 Million Users; 3 Million IM and Social Media Accounts July 23, 2009 at 6:08 pm The social IM client Digsby can not only connect you to your AIM and your Gtalk accounts, but log you onto Gmail, Facebook and Twitter, too. A recent release fixed its RAM-eating problem , and now it seems that all of that hard work (and RAM-fixing) is paying off. The company announced this afternoon that it reached a major milestone: 1,000,000 users. Considering that Digsby only launched 18 months ago, that's an average growth rate of over 50,000 users per month – not too shabby for an IM startup. Digsby also revealed that while there are just over a million users, there are actually over 3 million IM, email, and social media accounts in the system – meaning an average of 3 accounts per user. While that number still doesn't compare to Facebook's 1 billion chat messages per day or Fbchat's preinstalled 250 million users, it's still an impressive count. Then again, they support Facebook Chat, so FbChat's growth is probably only a good thing for Digsby. Reviews: Digsby, Facebook, Gmail, Gtalk, Twitter Tags: digsby, im, instant messaging PayPal X: Prepare for the New PayPal July 23, 2009 at 5:29 pm For years, PayPal had no rival in the online payments industry. Then, in 2007, Amazon launched its Amazon Payments, which not only gave PayPal a rival with real muscle, but was considered friendlier and more open to third party developers, thus why many apps utilized Amazon Payments instead of PayPal. And let's not forget about Google Checkout, which also competes in the space. However, Paypal is taking a swing back at the competition today, revealing PayPal X and Adaptive Payments, a new initiative that allow third party developers to utilize PayPal in completely new ways. Prepare yourself for split payments, payment aggregation, and PayPal on other websites. The Basics of Paypal X PayPal is essentially opening up its platform to developers so that they can build new products off of PayPal. This is called PayPal X. The first part of this new initiative is PayPal Adaptive Payments, which refers to the new APIs (application programming interfaces) that will help developers do new things with PayPal. All of the developer-related information will be placed on PayPal's one-character domain, X.com. Here are some of the things that are now possible: - Send Money: Peer-to-peer payments can and will happen on multiple platforms, not just on PayPal.com - Split Payments: You can now split payments among many recipients via the Platform. For example, if you need to pay multiple people a commission on the sale, you can send just one payment instead of four or five. - Payment Preapproval: Once you log into a system and confirm prepayments, the API will automatically transfer funds based on pre-set specifications. - Payment Aggregation: To reduce the costs of payment transactions, users can soon aggregate multiple payments into one lump transaction. Amazon Payments already offers this. This could be good news for a lot of smaller firms and third-party developers. Let's take TwitPay as an example. TwitPay allows users to send and receive micropayments via Twitter. It is run on PayPal, and in fact is one of the first apps utilizing the Adaptive Payment platform (and probably the reason they switched from Amazon Payments). The new API lets you do things like send payments right on Twitpay.me (and hopefully soon split payments). PayPal Adaptive Payments doesn't come out to all developers and users until November, but expect to see more websites utilizing the new PayPal X very, very soon. Reviews: Twitter Tags: ebay, paypal 10 Ways Universities Are Engaging Alumni Using Social Media July 23, 2009 at 5:06 pm Vadim Lavrusik is a new media student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is @lavrusik on Twitter and blogs at Lavrusik.com. In the current economy, job security has become somewhat of an oxymoron. Which is one reason why maintaining connections with your old university classmates, especially when you find yourself looking for a new job, can be crucial. Now universities across the country are beginning to use social media tools to engage alumni and build a network of graduates with a shared affinity for the institution. Of course, helping former students stay connected is just one reason universities are turning to social media; fundraising is another, and there are many more. Below is a look at 10 ways higher education is harnessing the power of social media to engage alumni. Let us know of any other ways you have used social media to connect with graduates or your former classmates in the comments below. 1. Helping Alumni Find Jobs Though a lot of schools offer their own database of jobs online, many universities are finding LinkedIn to be an effective tool to provide alumni with career resources. And in fact, using LinkedIn means the process is often very hands-off for the schools. In many cases universities create the group and allow the networking magic to take place, with alumni sharing job opportunities by posting information to the group and creating subgroups that are focused to specific career or regional alumni chapters. Keidra Chaney, an emerging media specialist at DePaul University (@depaulalumni), said LinkedIn is by far the school's biggest success with 5,500 members currently in their alumni network on the site, and about 100 new members joining weekly. Chaney said the community has active job postings for alumni on the hunt for work, and that most jobs are posted by other alumni. The most recent issue of the school's alumni magazine actually focused on how alumni are using social media. Michigan State University uses both LinkedIn and Twitter to share job leads with alumni, said Dave Isbell, alumni career services coordinator at the school. Isbell said recruiters often contact him with quick advice or job information that he shares with his followers. The school's Career Resources Network also uses YouTube to give students and recently graduated alumni advice on their job search. Schools like Emory University (@EmoryAlumni), meanwhile, host what they call a "Coach Chat," where alumni can phone in and share ideas, tools and career resources. Alumni can also e-mail in questions and those that miss out on a chat can download it as a podcast. 2. Collaboration and Connecting With Students Universities are using social media to smooth the transition from being a student to becoming an alumni by helping the two groups connect and collaborate with each other. Stanford University law school created its own Facebook-like social network for alumni and students that includes legal wikis that they can collaborate on for specific practices, said Lisa Farris, associate director of web communications and identity at the Stanford law school. The wikis include overviews of different practices, key skill sets and more information that students and alums can share together. Though there is a lot of alumni-to-alumni conversation that takes place on the network, the collaboration between students and alumni is key in positioning the students for their careers, Farris said. M.I.T. (@MIT_alumni) has had similar results with its LinkedIn alumni group, which it allows students to join before they graduate so that they can network with alumni, said Christine Tempesta, director of strategic initiatives at M.I.T. Caltech (@caltechalumni) offers its students similar access to its LinkedIn group. Andrew Shaindlin, who is executive director at the Caltech Alumni Association and also writes a blog on trends in alumni relations, said allowing students and alumni to connect blurs the transition from student to alumni, which makes the transition more fluid. Furthermore, using social media tools to engage students can create a lasting relationship between student and school into their alumni years, said Dave Baker, web communications director at Oregon State University (@poweredbyorange), which built an entire site that is interconnected with social media called "Powered By Orange." 3. Fundraising: From E-mails to Tweets Though most universities are using social media to connect alumni, getting a tweet from your alma mater's alumni association asking for a gift to the school may not be far off. "It's a hot topic right now," said Shaindlin. "If we are using social media to get our messages out, we have to figure out how to incorporate a need for fundraising and support and build that into the stream of information." Instead of sending out generic mass e-mails, the challenge is moving to personal, one-to-one forms of communication to make it more effective. Shaindlin thinks that social media can achieve that, but alumni who are the recipients of the message have to be ready to accept it through such a new medium. Some schools are experimenting in this area. Brown University used a Facebook Page to engage its alumni as part of its annual fund drive. The school posted to the wall of the Page encouraging alumni to make a gift to the Brown Annual Fund, announcing dollar-for-dollar matches and the end results of the drive. Emory University started the Blue Pig campaign to encourage its undergraduate students to give to the school by using a Facebook profile, a Twitter account (@thebluepig) and other media. The hope is that when the students graduate, the practice of giving back to the school will continue, said Cassie Young, program coordinator for alumni programs. The campaign seems to have been very successful too, resulting in a 157% growth in number of gifts from undergrads, according to Michael Stoner, who owns the mStoner communications firm, which specializes in web development for higher education institutions. Stoner said the campaign is a good example of how to integrate various technologies and demonstrates the increasing importance of social media in fundraising. Stoner also noted, however, that there is not much focused work among universities using social media to fundraise. "A lot of people [are] saying this could be big for us, but not knowing how to take advantage of it," he said. Some universities are still taking steps toward integrating social media into their fundraising practices. Colgate University (@colgatealumni) in New York, for example, integrated Facebook Connect into its donation process, allowing donors to post that they made a gift to the school in their Facebook status. Because of the virality of Facebook and the visibility of status updates, the idea is that friends of the donor, who may be alumni of the school as well, would see news of the donation in their news feed and be encouraged or reminded to donate as well, explains Charlie Melichar, vice president for public relations and communications at the school. 4. Training Alumni To Use Social Media Of course, for many alumni social media is still brand new. To help its alumni learn how to use social media tools, MSU's Alumni Career Services office gives tutorials and presentations about how to use social media for a plethora of purposes. Isbell from MSU said the office has done some 25 presentations, engaging 25,000 people – usually piggybacking at events for alumni groups. 5. Meeting Alumni Where They're At Some universities are playing a balancing act between using mainstream social sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and building their own private networks. Should the resources be focused on creating a private social network for alumni or using big networks already available? And which is more effective? The results are mixed, but it all depends on the goal at hand. For example, Texas A&M University has its own Facebook-like social site, MyAggieNetwork, but usage of the network has been on the decline – only 344 logins last month, in comparison to the 4,000 in September 2008. "It has not done what we wanted it to do," said Kathryn Greenwade, Texas A&M vice president of communications. Despite having a lot of similar features to other social networking sites, Greenwade said she thinks it didn't catch on because it is another account for alumni to have to remember. She said they are going to continue to let people use the site, but have turned their focus to their presence on established social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, which has grown without a lot of promotion. "We decided to go where the people are rather than creating our own network," Greenwade said. As mainstream social sites continue to grow, niche sites created by universities may become irrelevant and burdensome for alumni to use. Plus, building the sites take resources from the universities that could be applied more effectively elsewhere. Stanford law school's own private network for its students and alumni has done well, said Farris from the school. She said this is largely because the content on the network is valuable and exclusive to those that register to use it, such as students sharing class notes. Furthermore, the school hopes to integrate other features, like a curriculum guide that could be synced with the wikis. 6. Providing Tools To Spread Information The University of California at Irvine (@UCIFuture) was looking for a way to share information with its alumni and at the same time give themselves more visibility. The result they came up with is a publically available widget that pulls content from the school's website and is part of a broader campaign to raise $1 billion. Mark Aydelotte, assistant vice chancellor of marketing, said there have been more than 1,000 installs of the widget since March, and that it gives the school much more exposure by spreading to other places on the web. Aydelotte said he has seen donors embed the widget to their sites and Facebook profiles because it features a story about their large donation to the school. 7. Alumni-Generated Content Another way schools are engaging alumni is by allowing them to produce their own content, which includes things like the wikis at Stanford and photo sharing with the alumni network at other schools. The University of Texas at Austin built its own photo sharing site that allows alumni to share photos of themselves showing the school's well-known "hook 'em, horns" hand gesture, along with a brief bio. "It's sort of a Flickr for alumni, but hosted on our website," said Nyleva Corley, web and social media manager at the school. The idea, she said, is to allow people to get reconnected to the school and their fellow classmates by sharing where they are now and what they are doing. Oregon State University uses Flickr and encourages alumni to post photos of a cutout of Benny, the school's mascot, taken in various locales. Colgate University uploads photos to its Flickr account and lets people interact with them, including this set from an alumni reunion. Melichar from Colgate said the content is what is important, not the container. "If we post our photos to Flickr, they have their own social life," he said. "People can interact with them and one another." 8. Promoting Alumni Networks Though a lot of the networks are viral and many universities do very little to promote their networks, some do look at social media itself as a promotional tool. Some schools have multiple alumni groups on the same social site because in addition to officially sanctioned channels, there are others that were started by alumni themselves. So alumni associations try to promote their official network (Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn group) as the central hub for alumni to connect. Andrew Gossen, senior associate director for class affairs and social media at Princeton University's Alumni Association, said that if schools don't take advantage and aren't quick to provide tools for alums to connect to one another, they will do it themselves. "And if that happens, we become irrelevant and the tools replace a lot of the functions of our (alumni) offices," Gossen said. There are about 45 alumni Princeton groups on LinkedIn, according to Gossen, and the aim is going to be to consolidate them into one group, working with those who started the others. Most sites promote the social media groups on their alumni websites – because often that is the landing point for many alumni. M.I.T. and other schools have experimented with using targeted Facebook ads to try to attract alumni to their social networks. Christina Tempesta, director of strategic initiatives, said the experiment wasn't too successful – at least not in the amount of click-throughs the ads got. 9. Mobile Reunions As a way to save on printing costs and be environmentally friendly, Princeton University built a mobile website for its alumni reunion in late May to supplement the printed program. At the height of the reunion, the school had about 21,000 people on campus, said Gossen, who works with the school's alumni association. The mobile site included the same information offered in the printed version and in many cases the mobile application was much more usable, Gossen said. For example, instead of just having the shuttle schedule times printed out, the mobile application allowed users to type in their destination and get much more specific information about which shuttle to take and when and where it was arriving. The goal is to continue to expand the mobile app and eventually replace the printed program, which is about 52 pages in length. The application got 1,000 unique visits and 1,600 total visits. 10. Connecting The Dots: Google Maps Class reunions are all about reconnecting to old classmates and the school. To achieve that goal, Nazareth College created a website for its 2009 reunion that used some neat social media tools. The college sent "Golden Flyer" mascots to alumni who were in the reunion class and encouraged them to forward the birds to other alumni attending the reunion. Alumni who received a flyer could check it in on a Google map on the website. They could also take a photo of it and post it onto the Google map and track which alumni had the bird and look at the locations of where it had traveled. Oregon State University uses Google Maps on its Powered By Orange site, as well. The site includes a map at the center of the page and lets alums post their current location and career along with their graduation year and degree. Baker from OSU said that the site hasn't been promoted and isn't set for its official launch until the end of September and already has been getting good traffic. The map already has a good number of orange dots on it. More social media resources from Mashable: - 10 Ways to Use Social Media to Pick a College - 10 Ways Universities Share Information Using Social Media - 10 Must-Try Social Media Sites for College Students - The Top 10 Social Networks for Gen-Y Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LawrenceSawyer Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Google, Google Maps, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto Tags: alumni, college, facebook, higher education, linkedin, social media, twitter, universities, university A Map of Every PayPal Payment Made in the World [Image] July 23, 2009 at 4:39 pm We're here at the Paypal Platform preview at eBay headquarters in San Jose, California. While we were waiting for Scott Thompson, Paypal's President, to come up and tell us about the "future of payments," an interesting map on the giant screens around us piqued our interest. This digital, constantly moving map indicates with a white blip every payment occurring on the PayPal platform in real-time. The color and size of the blips indicate the size of the transactions. You can quickly tell that the U.S. and the UK are the hot spots. I snapped a quick image with my iPhone before it vanished, so pardon the photo quality: We're pretty certain the map's going to come up again, and we'll post more pictures when it does. But if you want to see it in video form, you can watch this live stream of the Platform announcement, courtesy of Ustream: Live streaming video by Ustream Reviews: ustream Tags: ebay, paypal Pandora's New Era: So Far, So Good July 23, 2009 at 4:14 pm Earlier this month, a deal between Internet radio providers and the record labels at long last provided some clarity around the long-term prospects for the medium. Big players like Pandora now pay a per-song fee or percent of revenue on each song streamed – whichever is higher – while smaller services need only pay a revenue share. To ensure this model would be viable, Pandora instituted a new fee structure, whereby listeners exceeding 40 hours of streaming during a given month would be asked to pay 99 cents. Today I had an opportunity to chat with Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, to find out how business is going in light of the change. The bottom line seems to be: so far, so good. Subscriptions Are Up Although it's only been a few weeks, heavy users, like those who listen to Pandora all day (estimated by the company at 10 percent), are starting to run into the 40 hour cap. The responses, according to Westergren, have ranged from empathy from those who "didn't even know [we] paid royalties" to annoyance and even "a few death threats" though fortunately of the not-so-serious Internet variety. Regardless of opinions, Westergren says that subscriptions are up 6-7x than before the change (versus Pandora's more expensive and more feature rich Pandora One program), though it's still too early to tell what the long-term implications will be on the bottom line. That said, the company is still trending towards $40 million in revenue this year. More Challenges Ahead Despite the rosy revenue prognosis, Westergren says about half of that money will go to royalties. That's why he's in DC right now, continuing to push for the Performance Rights Act, a bill that would make all radio providers, regardless of medium (Internet, satellite, or terrestrial radio) pay the same royalties. At present, satellite pays significantly lower rates that Internet (around 15 percent says Westergren) and AM/FM stations pay nothing. While there will be a hearing in the Senate on August 4th to discuss the bill with hopes of eventual passage, the outlook overseas, where Pandora is still not operating, is less rosy. Westergren says there is still no feasible royalty structure abroad, and the company isn't seriously considering any type of subscription program to offset it. Pandora is Here to Stay Overall, at least for users in the US, it sounds like Pandora is here to stay. In addition to the new royalties deal, the company just raised $35 million in fresh venture capital funding. Reviews: Pandora Tags: internet radio, pandora HOW TO: Make Your Online Profile More Alluring [Video] July 23, 2009 at 2:48 pm There's a fair chance you've received a "Worst-Case Scenario" handbook as a stocking stuffer at some point over the last decade. They offer offbeat, funny, and sadly often true advice on various subjects. For example, the "Worst Case-Scenario Survival Handbook: Work" that my mom got me several years ago advises to avoid a co-worker who tends to share too much information, especially on Mondays, because "the weekend will provide him with an abundance of ammunition for inappropriate personal tales." In any event, the company that produces these – Chronicle Books – is getting hip to social media with its own blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, and videos. Their latest video tutorial features the brand's typical irreverent advice on the subject of "how to make your online profile more alluring." Check it out below: As usual, the tips are semi-humorous, but actually seem to match up surprisingly well with the profiles of many of those of the people I followed on various social networks – sadly, especially the part about my unemployed friends "enjoying a sweat-free lifestyle while they search for new challenges." See Also: Personal Branding 101: How to Discover and Create Your Brand Tags: social networking Gmail Makes it Easy to Unsubscribe From Spammy Mailing Lists July 23, 2009 at 1:24 pm I've recently been on a personal crusade to unsubscribe from all the not-quite-spam but still junky mail that fills my mailbox every morning. Usually though, I just click the "Report Spam" button and hope that eventually Gmail will get the hint rather than actually following the process to unsubscribe from the mailing. Apparently, a lot of people do the same thing, so Gmail has rolled out a feature to try and streamline the process. Now, when you click the "Report Spam" button on an email, you'll get an "Unsubscribe and report spam" option that will actually remove you from the mailing list as opposed to simply moving the email to your spam folder. Gmail notes that this doesn't yet work for everything, and when I tried it on a couple of newsletters in my mailbox, I didn't see the option. They are trying to get more senders to support the feature, however, writing on their blog: "We're actively encouraging senders to support auto-unsubscribe — we think 100% should. We won't provide the unsubscribe option on messages from spammers: we can't trust that they'll actually unsubscribe you, and they might even send you more spam. So you'll only see the unsubscribe option for senders that we're pretty sure are not spammers and will actually honor your unsubscribe request. We're being pretty conservative about which senders to trust in the beginning; over time, we hope to offer the ability to unsubscribe from more email." It's definitely a nice feature from Gmail, but the bigger problem seems to be with the email senders, who automatically opt you into mailing lists and make it intentionally difficult to remove yourself. Unfortunately, that's not something that's likely to change anytime soon, even with Google actively pursuing the issue. Reviews: Gmail, Google Tags: gmail, Google, spam Not Happy With Your Facebook Username? You Can Now Change It July 23, 2009 at 11:36 am When Facebook first rolled out custom usernames, we cautioned that much like a bad tattoo, you wouldn't be able to undo them. That didn't stop some people from registering ridiculous names or clearly trademarked terms that might be funny today but not good long-term choices. However, it now appears that Facebook has updated their policy, perhaps after being inundated with requests to change poor name choices, or maybe just because registrations have slowed to a more manageable pace and they intended to add the option all along. In any event, users are now able to change their usernames by going to "Account Settings" and looking under "Username." As ReadWriteWeb notes, Facebook is still imposing some limitations, alerting you that "You can only change your username once" when you click the "check availability" link on the new setting. Realistically, Facebook is probably just trying to scare you into taking a name that's a little less absurd than "rickroll" or "jackbauercouldwhoopchucknorris". Nonetheless, the name choices available to those who now wish to change them will be a bit less fruitful than before. Millions of usernames were registered within the first few days of their availability, and now that smaller brands can also get custom URLs for their Facebook Pages, the selection is even smaller. Will you be attempting to change your Facebook username? Let us know in the comments. Reviews: Facebook Tags: facebook Get Traffic, Wikipedia, and More on Google Maps for Mobile July 23, 2009 at 11:35 am Is your mobile phone screen not cluttered enough? That'll soon change with a new feature in Google Maps for mobile: support for multiple layers. That's right, you can now load all those pretty layers, such as Wikipedia or search results, and view them on your map at the same time. To save you from disappointment (which I felt when I realized that this doesn't work on my Sony Ericsson P1i), let's start with the supported platforms: Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile. Support for other platforms, says Google, is coming soon. On to the good news; you can add layers such as public transit, traffic (incidents included), local search results, Latitude friend locations and Wikipedia to Google Maps on your mobile phone. If you've created your own maps through My Maps, you can load them too; and the best part is, you can combine several layers at once. Layers make it easier and more useful to find and interact with geographic content, like public transit, traffic (with incidents!), local search results, Latitude friend locations, Wikipedia and more. You can also see your own My Maps content as a layer on Google Maps for mobile, and you can combine all of the above at the same time. To start working with layers, hit "2″ or select "Layers" from the menu. Hopefully, Apple will soon make that iPhone-style netbook/tablet thing everyone's talking about, so we can have more screen estate for features such as this one, because – however nice this feature sounds – several layers of information on a tiny mobile screen spells "confusion". Reviews: Google, Google Maps, Symbian S60, Wikipedia Tags: Google Maps, layers, Mobile 2.0, wikipedia 10 Fantastic iPhone Apps That Use Facebook Connect July 23, 2009 at 10:28 am When Facebook Connect first launched for the iPhone in March, we said that it would "[open] up many new avenues for developers (and users)." Indeed, Facebook Connect means that iPhone developers have access to rich social graph and profile data from Facebook, and can build applications that leverage status updates, profile data, and friend information. Toward the end of March we brought you a list of some of the great iPhone apps taking advantage of Facebook Connect. Since then, many more developers have jumped on board and added support for the technology. This list brings you 10 more fantastic apps that allow you to connect with Facebook from your iPhone to do things like share information, sync data, challenge friends to games, and access media. This is hardly an exhaustive list of all the iPhone applications taking advantage of Facebook Connect, so please share your favorites in the comments. 1. PhoneBook (Free) You've got Facebook friends, and you've got iPhone contacts, and there's likely overlap, so PhoneBook brings the two together. The free app from Somo Enterprises lets you sync your Facebook account with your iPhone, and create a visual phonebook of your Facebook friends using your friends' photos. Whenever you want to call or text message one of your friends, you can just load up the application and click on your friend's picture. The application can also tell you how many minutes or text messages you have left in the current month on your calling plan, but unfortunately, it currently only works for AT&T customers in the US. 2. iFightU ($0.99) iFightU is a really innovative iPhone game, not because of the gameplay — that's just classic side-scroller fighting game fare (think Street Fighter), and not all that impressive — but because it puts your friends in the game. Using Facebook Connect, iFightU lets you grab photos of your friends and attach their faces to the characters that fight in the game, which makes everything a lot more fun. 3. Scramble (Free) Scramble is a great word game from Zynga. It plays a lot like the classic board game Boggle, in which you search for words in a grid of letters, but takes advantage of the iPhone's touch screen beautifully letting you swipe over letters to form words. Scramble also lets users connect to their Facebook accounts to challenge their friends over the social network. 4. Top Friends (Free) Slide's Top Friends app, which essentially allows users on Facebook to designate a handful of users as their best friends (yes, like you can on MySpace), was one of the first big applications on Facebook and remains extremely popular with over 12 million monthly active users. The free iPhone edition lets you connect with Facebook to view your Top Friends on the go on an interactive map, SuperPoke them, and email, SMS, or call them. 5. Scrabble ($4.99) Scrabble maker Hasbro made waves last year when it asked Facebook to remove fan favorite Scrabulous — a very well made Scrabble clone game that had become hugely popular on the social network. Since Scrabulous shut down, Hasbro has been trying to make amends with fans by releasing not only a slick Facebook game, but also a great iPhone version that connects to Facebook so you can challenge your friends wherever they play. 6. LuckyCal (Free) LuckyCal helps you find your Facebook friends and fun stuff to do while you're on the road. Simply login to Facebook via the app's Facebook Connect integration, then let LuckyCal access your social graph and find friends who are nearby. The app will also suggest events happening in the area that match your interests. Because the app uses the iPhone 3.0 GPS, you never need to tell it where you are. 7. Find My Friend ($0.99) It can be difficult to find someone at a place you've never been or in a large crowd. We've all heard something like this before, "I'm sitting next to the woman in the blue tank top and to the left of the second big tree." Say what? Find My Friend is a new application that attempts to solve this problem using both Facebook Connect and the new iPhone 3.0 Maps and GPS features. Once you connect to Facebook, you can invite your friends to link up with you. If they accept, the app goes to work using the iPhone's GPS and Google Maps functions to guide you to your friend. Of course, this app will only be as accurate as the iPhone's built in global positioning system, but still, it's a neat idea and a cool use of Facebook Connect. 8. Trapster (Free) Trapster uses the power of crowdsourcing to alert drivers to speed traps, police cameras, and check points. While the ethics of using an app to help you drive faster than the law allows is up for debate, the application is undeniably popular with over 600,000 users on the iPhone alone. And now the app has Facebook Connect integration, so you can publish traps you see to your Facebook mini-feed to alert your friends. You can also publish trips you take to Facebook, so your friends can see what you're up to and where you're traveling. 9. iNapkin ($2.99) Everyone has heard stories about famous discoveries, songs, policies, and ideas for companies scribbled on the backs of cocktail napkins. It's hard to say how many of those stories are true — maybe none of them, but the back of a napkin idea has a certain cultural cachet nonetheless. iNapkin is a neat note-taking application for the iPhone that brings cocktail napkin scribbles into the digital age. The application uses Facebook Connect to let you share your notes, doodles, and brilliant ideas with your Facebook friends. 10. ThisMoment (Free) ThisMoment is a unique application that lets users author "moments," which are mashups of text, photos, and videos drawn from Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and elsewhere. The site utilizes Facebook Connect for sign up, and the ThisMoment iPhone application allows you to create moments using local iPhone assets and then share them back out to your friends using Facebook Connect. More iPhone resources from Mashable: - 14 iPhone Apps With Push Notification for Productivity - 29 Twitter Apps for the iPhone Compared - 7 iPhone Apps That Can Save Lives - 15 iPhone Apps to Tame the Kids - Data Visualizations: 5 Amazing iPhone Visualization Videos Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps, MySpace, Top Friends, YouTube, thisMoment Tags: facebook connect, find my friend, ifightu, inapkin, iphone, Lists, luckycal, phonebook, scrabble, scrable, thisMoment, Top Friends, trapster International Market Share of iPhone and iPod Touch on the Rise July 23, 2009 at 9:54 am Apple was, until recent years, a very US-centric company. Macs were virtually unknown in Europe, at least outside of the realm of pro graphic designers and several other relatively narrow user groups. When the iPhone was first announced, it was a huge deal in the US, but for most Europeans, the name "Apple" didn't resonate nearly as strong, while "Nokia," for example, was practically synonymous with "mobile phone." It was an uphill struggle for Apple, who first had to prove it was capable of creating a good mobile phone in the US, and then move on into the international market, but according to the latest data from AdMob, they've done it. Yes, 54% of all iPhones and iPod Touch devices have been used in North America, but this number has declined from 61% in the last six months, and it's definitely not due to bad iPhone sales. Apple is doing better than ever, the iPhones are selling well (5.2 million sold in Apple's last fiscal quarter), but international sales of the iPhone and iPod Touch combined seem to be growing even faster than sales in the US. AdMob's June 2009 Mobile Metrics report, which you can download here [PDF link] also has a breakdown of iPhone share by country. The United States, of course, is the leader with 50.2%, followed by Germany (7.3%), France (6.8%), United Kingdom (6.4%), and Canada (3.1%). The iPod Touch is a slightly different affair: it's popular in the US, Canada and the UK, but in Western and (even moreso) Eastern Europe the iPhone is far more popular than the iPod Touch. It's not hard to understand why: while iPhones are offered by major mobile network operators with good distribution networks, iPod Touch sales rely on smaller distributors who simply cannot reach a very large audience. Since this is the first time we're seeing iPhone and iPod Touch distribution by country, it's hard to draw any finite conclusions; but due to the rise of overall international market share of these two devices, it seems that Apple has definitely succeeded – through arguably its best product ever, the iPhone – in truly becoming a big player in international waters. Tags: apple, iphone, iPod Touch YouTube Insight: Share Detailed Stats for Your Videos July 23, 2009 at 5:13 am When you upload a video to YouTube, you get access to YouTube Insight, a powerful analytics tool that shows you a bunch of interesting metrics about your video: who's watching it, where, its ratings, total number of views and the like. This info, however, was – until now – hidden from the rest of the general population, but not any more. By switching it on in the the privacy settings for your videos (located under "My Account") you can now share this data with everyone. It'll become visible in the "Statistics & Data" section, located under the video. So, what can the viewers see? Besides the number of total views, comments, ratings and average ratings, one can also find out a list of top ten referrals, gender/age audience distribution, and popularity of the video in various parts of the world. Not bad for a free tool, especially for journalists and analysts who will now be able to gather some more data about a particular video (if the option is switched on, of course). See an introductory video for YouTube Insight below; and see how it works in practice on this same video on YouTube. Reviews: YouTube Tags: statistics, youtube insight Tweetmondo Finds Local Twitter Users in Realtime July 23, 2009 at 12:49 am This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Tweetmondo Quick Pitch: Tweetmondo finds local Twitter users and shows you where they are on a map. Warning: Tweetmondo sends out an auto-tweet after registration. Genius Idea: It's becoming clear that location-based services are in high demand. The rise of GPS-enabled phones, LBS adoption, and social networking has created a need for location-based social networks and tools. Twitter's no exception – in fact, we highlighted 9 different ways to find local Twitter users last month. Tweetmondo, however, seeks to drive location-based Twitter applications to another level with filtering and realtime features. The Twitter application makes a simple promise: give it a location (the more specific, the better) and it will tell you which Twitter users are nearby. For example, I was just at the Googleplex (for a tweetup), so I typed in "Googleplex" and, in a few seconds, I was provided with a Google Map containing Twitter profile pictures and a list of people who were likely to be nearby. That alone is nice, but Tweetmondo's additional features help you really hone your results. They key is the precision gauge; this will tell you how accurate Tweetmondo believes it is as to the location of specific Twitter users. From there, you can filter results (i.e. only show me users with a 50% precision level or better) and even exclude anyone without a certain number of followers. It also has a "keep me updated" feature – if you activate this, Tweetmondo will DM you whenever a new person is found at that location – a nice touch. The last kicker is that Tweetmondo works in realtime; just like Twitter Search, it will show you if new people are in the area and will ask you to refresh to see their information. It will also show you how many minutes or hours ago someone was located by the app. While Tweetmondo's features are detailed and well thought out, they don't matter if it doesn't accurately find nearby Twitter users. In that regard, Tweetmondo is only above average – it's useful for finding people who actually live nearby, but not as adept at finding people right now. Of course, it's tough to know where someone exactly is unless they announce it or they update their location with an app like Foursquare. Still, Tweetmondo's feature set, especially its "keep me updated" feature, make it a useful Twitter location-based service. Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is 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. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the "new CloudApp()" contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines)." Reviews: PHP, Twitter Tags: Google Maps, Tweetmondo, twitter