When you are well known and have some cash in the bank, you’re probably going to get sued at least once in your life. When you are Facebook and you have 250+ million users, increase the amount of lawsuits by a factor of 10 or so. Yes, Facebook has been sued once again, this time for allegedly misleading members on the use of their personal information and for violating California privacy laws.
The Orange County lawsuit was filed on behalf of five Facebook users, according to the AP – a photographer, an actress, two children under 13 (despite needing to be 13 or older to legally use Facebook) and a “user of the original Facebook.” It seeks monetary damages, attorney’s fees, and a trial by jury.
Look: Facebook faces these types of suits all the time, and most of the time they are either dismissed or settled. Yes, Facebook’s had some thorny affairs with privacy, but recently they’ve been moving in the right direction with Facebook Democracy. Allowing users to vote on their own Terms of Service and letting them vote on changes is more than most sites offer. Besides, this lawsuit complains about common practices being illegal, such as changing the Terms of Service. It essentially rails against Facebook for 40 pages on practically every one of its featurse.
From the parts that we’ve read, we suspect that this California lawsuit doesn’t worry Facebook very much at all.
Google keeps on adding and testing new features for its Chrome browser. Things like extensions and Chrome for Mac are still missing, although available if you are adventurous and install Chromium, the open-source project for Google Chrome. Chromium has beta and development features that Google is testing before adding to the Chrome browswer.
Chromium got a new feature, as it occassionally does, but this one definitely caught our eye. The Chromium team announced the addition of bookmark syncing in the developer’s build of Chromium. The new feature will let you keep the same set of bookmarks on multiple machines as well as store them in your Google Docs. This is not unlike the very popular Firefox extension Xmarks.
Here’s how Google explained the new addition, as well as how to implement it:
As of today’s dev channel build, we’re adding a brand new feature to Google Chrome: bookmark sync. Many users have several machines, one at home and one at work for example. This new feature makes it easy to keep the same set of bookmarks on all your machines, and stores them alongside your Google Docs for easy web access.
To activate this feature, launch Google Chrome with the –enable-sync command-line flag. Once you set up sync from the Tools menu, Chrome will then upload and store your bookmarks in your Google Account. Anytime you add or change a bookmark, your changes will be sent to the cloud and immediately broadcast to all other computers for which you’ve activated bookmark sync (using the same XMPP technology as Google Talk).
A note: the Chromium Dev version is the least stable of the Chromium browsers. Windows can crash, new features can need tweaks, and we may never see bookmark syncing ever reach Google Chrome itself. However, this new feature still tickles our fancy, so if you’re brave, subscribe to the dev channel and get the update.
For the longest time, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi has been the most widely used camera on Flickr. With a 10.1 MP Lens, an image sensor vibration cleaning system, 9-point auto focus, and a mid-range price point, it’s easy to see why the Canon camera has been so popular with the photography enthusiasts on Yahoo’s photo-sharing website.
But while Canon has dominated, there’s another camera that’s been zipping up the Flickr charts. Actually, camera phone would be more precise, because we’re talking about the iPhone.
That smartphone, with its weak 2 MP camera and its lack of zoom, is now set to overtake Canon Rebel XTi as the #1 camera on Flickr. This is according to Flickr’s Camera Finder graphs. Actually, as the LA Times has already caught, the iPhone has already passed the Rebel XTi on a few occasions as the two duke it out for the top spot.
So what does this development mean? First, it’s a reflection of the intense popularity of mobile smartphones and specifically the rise of the iPhone. You always have a camera in your pocket (and with the 3GS, a camcorder too). Just as important is that it’s easy to upload your pictures directly from your mobile phone to your Flickr account. That’s something most digital cameras can’t do, since they aren’t connected to 3G or Wifi connections.
This doesn’t mean people prefer lower quality images over the higher resolution photos that can be captured with cameras of the Rbel XTi’s quality. Instead, it’s a sign that the world is becoming a more mobile place. Being able to get your photos to all of your friends while on-the-go is part of that mobile revolution.
For higher education students who spend an average of $702 per year on course materials, mostly textbooks, the prospect of going digital is an appealing one. Among the theoretical benefits of digital textbooks is the possibility of significant cost savings due to lower overhead costs — bits are cheaper than printed pages, after all. Unfortunately, students shouldn’t chuck their backpacks any time soon; there still exist some major hurdles that digital textbooks must overcome before they widely replace traditional, printed textbooks on college (and high school) campuses.
The benefits of digital textbooks are numerous: they’re potentially cheaper, they’re better for the environment (at least so long as you don’t continually need to upgrade your electronic book reader), they weigh less, they can be updated more easily, and they’re more easily searched. But for all that, a number of hurdles still exist.
1. Cost Savings Must be Greater
In theory, digital textbooks should cost a lot less than their printed counterparts. Textbook publishers will always have overhead costs (they must still compensate authors, editors, typesetters/designers, proofreaders, indexers, etc.), but the costs associated with physically printing, binding, warehousing, and shipping the book are eliminated when going digital. Further, many textbook publishers already publish electronic editions of their books. McGraw-Hill, for example, which is one of the largest textbook publishers in the United States, publishes nearly 95% of its books electronically.
In practice, though, the cost savings for electronic textbooks are miniscule. “Human Biology,” a textbook published by Pearson imprint Benjamin Cummings, for example, costs about $50 used, and about $80 new in its printed/hard copy form (according to BigWords.com). Via electronic textbook publisher CourseSmart, the digital version costs just over $70, a savings of about 12.5% over the printed version. However, the printed version can be kept forever or sold back at the end of the semester to mitigate costs, while the electronic version is automatically deleted after 180 days, and requires additional equipment, such as an ebook reader or a laptop computer. As a student, which of these options makes more sense?
“At the moment, there's not a lot of [cost savings],” Tom Rosenthal, the senior manager of electronic product sales at textbook publisher Academic Press, told the Wall Street Journal. Those cost savings will have to become more significant for students to start opting for electronic texts over printed ones.
2. A Standard Format is Needed
When Amazon announced the larger format Kindle DX in May, and along with it a pilot digital textbook program at several major US universities to be launched this fall — including Princeton, UVA, Case Western, Arizona State, and Reed College — we called it “a game changer.” But it also raises a very important question about formats and ebook compatibility issues.
There are many different competing ebook formats and a huge number of textbook publishers that don’t all use the same format. If I buy a book on the Kindle, it may not necessarily be available on my Sony reader (and I certainly won’t be able to transfer that specific purchase from one reader to the other), and if I buy a book through CourseSmart, I need to use their proprietary software to download it. What that means for students in a practical sense is that vendor lock-in might prohibit them from going print-free even if they wanted to, because not all of their required course materials may be available for the reader or software they invested in. Because buying an ebook reader is a significant initial cost outlay, it’s hard to expect students to make that investment without assurances that all, or at least nearly all, of their required books will be available in that format.
With ebook readers expected in the next year from Plastic Logic, Hearst, and News Corp., and the much-rumored “Apple Tablet” on the horizon, things may only get more muddled.
3. Questions of Ownership
One of the most important stumbling points for the adoption of digital texts is the question of who actually owns the books. CourseSmart’s books, for example, generally only last for 180 days before being automatically deleted, which means that students are essentially renting them for a set period of time. That’s not a consideration students need to make when purchasing a hard copy book from a bookstore, where the answer to question of ownership is very clear.
Further, the recent Orwellian (literally) case of Amazon remotely deleting books from Kindle readers, has rightly raised a number of eyebrows. One high school student even filed a lawsuit against the ecommerce giant when, as he claims, the notes he had made on the book for school were “rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book,” as a result of the remote deletion.
“Amazon.com had no more right to hack into people’s Kindles than its customers have the right to hack into Amazon’s bank account to recover a mistaken overpayment,” said Jay Edelson, the lawyer who filed the case.
If students feel that they don’t actually own the textbooks they purchase, or that their books might be taken away before they are done with them (or that their notes might be damaged), they’re unlikely to embrace electronic textbooks.
Conclusion
Digital textbooks are indeed a potential game changer, and they are likely going to be a major part of the future of academia. A year from now, the National Associated of College Stores estimates that digital textbooks could account for 15% of all textbook sales. However, for that to happen, textbook publishers, ebook reader manufacturers, and schools must first address some of the major hurdles that are making students wary of electronic books.
Further, in addition to the problems that exist with the digital books themselves, electronic textbook publishers also need to overcome deeply ingrained student behavior. For many students, the idea of reading words on a screen is not as appealing as on a printed page. That may change as more so-called digital natives progress into higher education and as ebook reader technology gets better, but for now, 60% of students would rather pay for a low-cost printed book than use a free digital version.
“We may have actually made enough progress for this to be a landmark device, but the caveat that humans have proven is that they are resistant to change,” said Andrew Dillon, Dean of the University of Texas School of Information about the Kindle DX device. “Fighting 700 years of human familiarity with paper is a huge challenge."
Would you use electronic textbooks if available? Let us know in the comments.
Identity theft isn’t a regular topic we cover on Mashable, but when three people allegedly stole 130 million credit cards, it’s hard not to be bewildered.
Earlier today, a Grand Jury indicted a U.S. man and his two co-conspirators for stealing 130 million bank card numbers in 2007. Albert Gonzales of Miami is charged with hacking and compromising major credit card hubs, including 7-Eleven, Heartland Payment Systems, and Hannaford Brothers.
According to the indictment, the men sold some of the numbers, which were used to make illegal withdrawals from multiple banks. They apparently got around the security of these systems with database injections that helped them intercept credit card transactions in real time.
Gonzales has already been indicted for similar crimes, according to The New York Times. Last year, he was indicted for the theft of 40 million credit cards from companies including Barnes & Noble, OfficeMax, Forever 21, and Boston Market. And even more interesting, in 2003 he was working with federal agents to identify his associates after he was arrested for hacking.
This is yet another reminder of how important it is to secure and monitor your credit cards, financial data, and passwords for any anomalies. This type of thing can happen to anybody. Always rotate your passwords and cancel your credit card if any unknown charges start appearing in your bank statement.
Felicia is fading, but Bill is building. Forming early Monday, Hurricane Bill sustained winds of 90 mph which are expected to climb to 110 mph — putting it in the running to become a major hurricane in the next couple of days.
The first official hurricane in the Atlantic this season, Bill is some 1000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles and is expected to track west-northwest as it builds. Residents of Bermuda should monitor its progress closely, and East Coast residents might be in for some choppy surf as a result as well.
Luckily there are umpteen ways to follow the progress of the storm as it develops. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite hurricane-chasing resources here, broken into sections for web-based resources, Twitter-specific sources and mobile hurricane tracking.
Web
1. MyFoxHurricane
MyFoxHurricane has been a staple of our hurricane tracking resources for its tracking maps, video footage, satellite photos, and live chat with other site visitors. You can also get updates coming right to you from their Facebook page and Facebook app, as well as follow them on Twitter.
2. Hurricane Central at Weather.com
It’s another old standby but we’d be remiss for not including Weather.com. You can get the latest news on specific storms, track them live and even upload video footage if you’re near an affected area and have something interesting to share.
3. StormAdvisory
StormAdvisory is a nice and simple Google Maps mashup where you can pick a current storm to overlay and see its trajectory. The link provided is to the Atlantic map tracker for Hurricane Bill, but the site provides eastern and western Pacific maps as well.
4. Ibiseye
Another Google Maps based web app, Ibiseye lets you plot multiple storms, see various views of the data and get a display of relevant statistics including distance from the nearest cities for each path point.
5. Intellicast
Intellicast offers current tracking and forecasts as well as visible and infrared satellite imagery, news, bulletins and alerts. They also have an iGoogle gadget available for start pages.
6. Weather Underground’s Tropical Center
The tropical weather/hurricane section of Weather Underground offers tracking maps, satellite images, public advisories, computer models and interactive Flash maps. As we noted for Hurricane Fay trackers, one of the nicest infoviz options here is the Wundermap Google Maps mashup.
7. AccuWeather
AccuWeather is worth mentioning again as well for being one of the few that actually make their own forecasts, whereas many other resources pull in government forecast data. Videos and weather analysis are offered as well.
8. Stormpulse
Stormpulse is notable for its eye-catching interactive maps with full-screen functionality. They also have an API for embedding maps onto your own site.
Twitter
9. @MyFoxHurricane — Twitter feed from the web-based resource we mentioned above.
10. @hurricanes — regular updates about hurricanes in the tropics, with a focus on the Atlantic region.
11. @hurricanealerts — hurricane alerts and tropical storm updates and advisories for the coastal U.S.
12. @breakingweather — AccuWeather.com’s Twitter feed offers updates on tropical storms and other severe weather conditions.
13. @wunderground — get hurricane and other severe weather warnings and updates from Weather Underground’s Twitter feed.
14. @stormpulse — the Twitter feed of the Stormpulse site offers frequent updates on tropical weather worth tracking.
15. @hurricanetrack — for hardcore hurricane geeks, get stats and occasional live video streams from the folks behind hurricane news site HurricaneTrack.com.
The Hurricane iPhone app (warning: iTunes link) is rated 4.5 stars and was an iPhone Apps Excellence Award Winner in 2008. It provides Atlantic and Pacific interactive tracking maps with data points including wind speed, position, speed, direction, pressure, date and time. Also included are satellite imagery, bulletins, alerts, and historical data on past hurricanes for $3.99.
19. MyFoxHurricane (iPhone app)
This $3.99 iPhone app from one of our web picks above (warning: iTunes link) offers mobile tracking maps, radar and satellite imagery, video briefings and eye-witness vids. You can also rewind a bit through hurricane history and see past storm tracks and information by date and location.
20. Tracking the Eye (iPhone app)
This iPhone app from HurricaneSoftware.com comes in both a free (warning: iTunes links) and paid version, with the former offering current active storm data, distance from your location to the storms, satellite and radar information and historical data on past storms. For $2.99 you get essentially the same featureset but without any advertising.
21. Hurricane Central iPhone/iPod touch web app
If a full-on mobile app isn’t your style or you just don’t want to shell out for Yet Another App, you can check out this web app formatted for iPhone and iPod touch. It has its fair share of ads to wade through, but is updated frequently.
It’s a brand new week, which means it’s time for Mashable's guide to upcoming social media and web events, parties, and conferences. For more upcoming event listings, check out Mashable’s Events section.
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August 18, 2009, Santa Monica, CA: Join Sprout for an exclusive half-day social media summit. We’ll bring together social media thought leaders from agencies, brands and social networks to discuss the latest trends in social media. Hear from brands who successfully reached their audiences across the social graph. Get the latest platform news directly from the networks. See case studies from Schematic and Weber Shandwick and learn some best practices to impress your colleagues in your next meeting. The event is free to attend. Please request an invitation.
August 20-22, Seattle, WA: Join tech enthusiasts, influencers and entrepreneurs from across the country for the leading tech conference in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Gnomedex. The event is hosted by Seattle-based blogger, Chris Pirillo. Gnomedex features prominent tech and social media minds, including this year's keynote speaker, Chris Brogan as well as plenty of technology additions including the Microsoft Surface. The event is geared toward anyone with an interest in technology, social media, and openness for sharing ideas and learning from others.
Mashable readers get 10% off by using code MASHABLE or clicking here. Twitter @Gnomedex. Web: www.Gnomedex.com.
August 21, 2009, Boston, MA: The #Hyatt4Good Tweetup tour, part of Mashable’s Summer of Social Good, will conclude in Boston, where you can meet Mashable’s Josh Catone, Sharon Feder, Adam Hirsch, and Brett Petersel. Get your tickets today and show up to the Hyatt Regency Boston — all proceeds equally benefit Mashable’s Summer of Social Good Charities: WWF, The Humane Society, LiveSTRONG, and Oxfam America.
August 21-22, 2009 Birmingham, AL: For two days in August some of the brightest minds in the social media and social networking industry will converge in the Deep South for Social South, Deep Fried Social Media. The first of its kind in the region, this social media conference is bringing together the experts that can answer the question: What should my business be doing in social media to excel in today's economic climate? Nationally recognized social media professionals will be presenting on a variety of topics in three concurrent tracks for business owners, marketing directors, web developers and PR professionals.
August 22, 2009, Palo Alto, CA: Chicks who Click is a one-day Social Media Conference for Women incorporating networking, education and empowerment with like-minded women, achieving great heights in the area of Social Media. Speakers to include; Brittany Bohnet of Google, Megan Marks of Facebook, Adriana Gasciogne of Girls in Tech, Beth Blecherman of Silicon Valley Mom's Blog, Mindy Roberts of TheMommyBlog.net, Stacy Debroff of Momcentral.com to name a few. At every Chicks Who Click event, we are striving to build a community of women that are growing and flourishing through conversation, education and networking. Register with code MASH to get 15% off!
August 23, 2009, San Carlos, CA: tBASH, the Twitterville book launch party will be held from 4-8 pm, Sunday, Aug. 23 at the Hiller Aviation Museum, San Carlos CA. The first 300 copies of Twitterville will be on sale, ten days before it becomes available at most places that sell books. Please join Shel Israel in celebrating the birth of his new book, Twitterville, how businesses can thrive in the new Global Neighborhoods. Register now.
August 24, 2009, Charlotte, NC: Social Fresh is a 1 day Social Media Conference in the Southeast. Speakers range the spectrum of Fortune 500, e-commerce, advertising/marketing, major media and more. Social Fresh content is focused on two things, the future of social media technology and tangible social media examples of how businesses are using the social web successfully. Get 15% off by using code Mashable.
August 28, 2009, New York City: We’ve been using our Summer of Social Good initiative to raise money for The Humane Society, Oxfam America, WWF, and LiveSTRONG all summer long, and our charity initiative ends with the Summer of Social Good Conference. Speakers include Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook, Drew Olanoff of #BlameDrewsCancer, Jonathan Greenblatt of Our Good Works, and nonprofit social media expert Beth Kanter. The closing keynote will be given by our very own Pete Cashmore. This all day event aims to empower those interested in the topic of using social media for true social change. We hope to see you there!
August 29, 2009, Washington DC: TechAdventure DC is loading up a charter bus and taking the DC Social Media/Tech community out of the bubble and into the lush Shenandoah Valley, home of family-run Rappahannock Cellars. Best of all, you will be taking the best DC has to offer — which is you, your friends and colleagues — and leaving the Beltway for an adventure. The Rappahanock Cellers will offer 10% off all wine purchases, and 15% off for a dozen (case) for anyone that mentions the “Mashable deal”.
August 31, 2009, Cambridge, MA: Gravity Summit at the Harvard Faculty Center covers Twitter and Social Media and the Impact on Culture and Business. This full day event is designed to help bridge the gap between the new social media marketing tools and the business community. Keynote is MC Hammer and Gary Vaynerchuk. Learn how brands like Southwest Air, American Red Cross, EMC, Dunkin’ Donuts, Domino’s, SHIFT Communications, Arnold Worldwide and Visible Technologies use twitter and other social web tools to increase brand awareness and improve the bottom line. Networking, lunch, learning. Limited seating. Click here for a Mashable-exclusive discount! Also, there’s a free after party after Gravity Summit for everyone. Just sign up!
September 8, 2009, Washington DC: Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase is the one-day event previewing the larger Gov 2.0 Expo scheduled for May 2010. The practical, cutting-edge efforts it highlights, married with a profound shift in thinking across the government, underscore the growing power of "government as a platform." Be there as 24 innovators show how this is really happening, concretely, right now, inside (and outside) government in an exciting format of 5-minute, rapid-fire presentations. Register today and save 15% using code gxp09bd8.
September 12, 2009, Los Angeles, CA: WordCamp is a conference type of event that focuses squarely on everything WordPress. Everyone from casual end users all the way up to core developers show up. This event is highlighted by speeches and keynotes by various people in the WordPress community. For more info visit http://wordcamp.la.
September 13-14, 2009, Toronto, Canada: FITC Mobile brings together the leaders in mobile design and development for two full days of presentations and an optional workshop day. Sessions cover a variety of topics related to mobile platforms (Android, Flash Lite, OpenGL, Windows CE), applications (SMS, QR codes, video) and devices (BlackBerry, Palm, iPhone). Prices are very low at $209 (CDN) and $89 (CDN) for students. Mashable readers get an extra 10% discount. Use code: MASHABLE when purchasing at http://fitcmobile.eventbrite.com/.
September 14-17, 2009, Chicago, IL: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute's 11th Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results to learn how to capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started. Hear from leading experts at Transportation Security Administration; Salt Lake Valley Health Department; U.S. Department of State; Los Angeles County Department of Public Health; Court Services & Offender Supervision Agency; University of Wisconsin – Madison; Houston Public Library; San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and more, on how to engage your employees and citizens by using social media. Mention Mashable when registering to save $200.
September 15, 2009, Austin, TX: PlaySpan hosts Monetization 2.0 Forum. Senior-level executives will present on a wide range of topics including success stories about monetization within casual games, virtual worlds, and social networks, and what pitfalls to avoid. The forum will also address several key issues such as the move from subscriptions to a free-to-play business model and how to protect customers from fraud. Attendees will take away critical insights needed to make games into money makers. Registration is free for GDC registered attendees.
September 15–16, Atlanta, GA: At LIFT: The B2B Social Commerce Summit business-to-business (B2B) marketing and advertising professionals will share real-world examples of social commerce strategies and tactics that have driven sales lift, increased customer loyalty, and produced actionable metrics and measurable ROI. The LIFT Summit will address the very specific online marketing and communications needs of B2B companies and deliver the tools necessary to launch, manage and evaluate a B2B social marketing campaign.
Mashable readers save $200 with discount code MASH ($499 with discount before August 15, and $599 thereafter).
September 17, 2009, New York City: Swagapalooza is an experiment in viral media. On September 17th, the world's most-followed bloggers, twitters, and digital influencers will gather to judge five-minute auditions from the creators of the latest, greatest, and most unexpected new products. Are you one of the world's top bloggers or twitters? If so you deserve to be begged for your attention and your following. Your taste and discernment make you the perfect judge of these marketers who will come to cajole, beg, and bribe you with more free stuff than you can imagine… Tickets are free for those who qualify.
September 17, 2009, Appleton, WI: Bring your laptops to SOHO naked biz growth Social Media Workshop-Appleton, Wisconsin, and leave with an understanding of how implementing a social media strategy can enhance your brand, sales and service. Develop a 16 page, 90-day “The Draft,” A Social Media Strategy for your business, or to share with your marketing, PR, or social media consultant. Use discount code Mashable to receive 20% off the ticket price as well as 1/2 off a Sohobiztube.com professional account at the door.
September 18, 2009, Virginia Beach, VA: New Media Conventions is an exciting day that brings together professionals from many industries to discuss and learn about social media networking and new media tactics. Come learn the right way to achieve success with your business from many of the experts that live in social media today at this how-to event. Agenda: Social Media Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow by Keith Parnell, CEO, JASE Group Marketing & Advertising; Role of Public Relations in Social Media by Michelle Rogerson, Owner, Reina Communications; Successfully Monetizing Your Blog by Julie Maloney, Owner, Momspective; How to Benefit from the Power of Google by Kurt Noer, Owner, Customer Magnetism; Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign, 140 Characters at a Time by Renee Alexander Hamilton, Social Media Strategist, Operation Smile.
September 19, 2009, Atlanta, GA: Atlanta Linux Fest is a grassroots conference for the open source community to gather and share information about fun and exciting open source software. The most popular Linux distributions will be showing off upcoming releases. Businesses based on open source software will discuss their experiences. Cutting edge applications will be demoed. Speakers with in-depth knowledge about issues like licensing and promoting will be presenting. Ubuntu community members will also be running a mini Ubuntu conference within Atlanta Linux Fest, to come together and share knowledge and excitement for forwarding the Ubuntu project. Registration is free.
September 21, 2009, New York City: This comprehensive, dynamic event will explore the inherent challenges of social media and will arm you with the specific tools necessary to protect your company, your intellectual property and your reputation in today's virtual world. Challenges from Social Media are only one inappropriate "tweet" away. Register for this timely program today and ensure you understand the inherent perils of the market and construct the proper policies to protect your company and ensure future growth. Mention code MASH and save $100!
September 21-23, 2009, Portland, OR: LinuxCon is a technical conference providing an unmatched collaboration and education space covering all matters Linux. The best and brightest in the community will come together for top notch speaking talent, innovative content, and an array of networking opportunities. Speakers include: Linux creator, Linus Torvalds, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth, Bob Sutor of IBM, Joe Brockmeier of OpenSuse and many more industry experts and top technical talent. Get 20% off if you register with code LCOR20.
September 21-23, 2009, San Diego: Come to DEMOfall 09 and view the most comprehensive portfolio of credible emerging technologies, vetted by VentureBeat Founder Matt Marshall, a longtime member of the VC community, and by Chris Shipley, a leading technology analyst who has brought more than 1,250 new products to market since 1996. DEMO is the launchpad for emerging technology and a true market performer for visionary investors, entrepreneurs and industry influencers. Mashable visitors, register now at www.demo.com/df9partner for $1996 and save $500 off the standard registration fee (rate increases after 8/15).
September 22-23, 2009, Singapore: The Social Networking World Forum Asia is a two day conference dedicated to social networking and social media, featuring key speakers from social networking publishers, advertising agencies, industry analysts, software developers and equipment manufacturers, pay-TV and network service providers, mobile operators, plus many more. There will be a joint exhibition combining social networking and mobile social networking formats and an evening networking reception. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.
September 23-24, 2009, San Jose, CA: Engage! Expo is the leading event for companies seeking to understand and leverage the power of user engagement. Engage! Expo features three distinct conference areas: Digital Law Conference, Virtual Goods Conference and 3D-Training, Learning and Collaboration. The conference features industry leaders discussing proven methods to extend marketing reach, strengthen customer relationships, improve monetization strategies, protect your company online and enjoy significant cost savings. Use the discount code mashvip to save 15% when you register.
September 23-25, 2009, Amsterdam, Netherlands: PICNIC (www.picnicnetwork.org) is a cross-discipline platform for creative conversation and collaboration. It’s a unique festival featuring a strategic conference, complimented by hands-on workshops and matchmaking sessions.
Join us at PICNIC '09 to discuss how to embrace the enormous changes impacting our economy, businesses and daily lives. Learn how to create new value in media, entertainment and design to reach a sustainable society. Breathe, Listen and See the possibilities at PICNIC '09. Use promo-code NMashable001 for 15% discount (applies also on top of Early Bird offer valid until September 1st).
September 24, 2009, online: With customers and professionals around the world rushing into online communities and social networks, companies are trying to follow their customers and join the conversation. This summit will feature social media marketing experts who will present live and interactive webcasts throughout the day to debate the value of social media in the marketing mix. They will discuss the best methods for companies to create a social media presence and uncover the paths to leverage social media for a strong ROI. Mashable readers can view the full program and sign up for free at: brighttalk.com/summit/socialmediamarketing2
September 26, 2009, Seattle, WA: StartupDay 2009 is the conference for pre-entrepreneurs, those who have yet to join or found a tech startup. If you have an idea but are unsure of the steps it takes to succeed, this is the conference for you. StartupDay will include a full-day of talks from successful and respected entrepreneurs from Seattle talking about how to validate your idea, find a co-founder, build and market your product, and how to make money. Beyond the speakers, the conference will offer the Advisory Room, a place where attendees can book one-on-one 15-minutes meetings with professionals, entrepreneurs and investors. Early-bird price ends on August 21st. Use the code Mashable to get 5% discount.
September 28-29, 2009, London: At the Social TV Forum, learn from broadcasters, content providers, social networks, brands, advertisers and analysts. Understand the key trends driving social TV, the challenges being faced and what the future outlook is for social television. Take advantage of the Evening Networking Reception and Network immediately with our first-class pre-show online meeting planner. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.
September 29-October 2, 2009: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute's 12th Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results. Hear from leading government agencies and organizations on how you can capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started.
October 1-2, 2009, New York City: The Bootstrapper Summit is the only Venture Capital conference in NYC sponsored by the City of New York and connects the most promising companies with the top investors. We connect the top companies with the top investors and have some great speakers lined up including Robin Kent, former CEO of Universal McCann, a $16BN Media Agency, and Nate Brochin, who has built $4BN worth of companies in the last decade. Past speakers include Jim Robinson III, former CEO of American Express and Kevin Ryan, CEO of AlleyCorp. We are still accepting submissions of companies looking to present to our investors and still have a few investor tickets available as well. Mashable readers get a discount.
October 5-8, 2009, Ottawa, Canada: For 16 years, GTEC is recognized as Canada’s most significant forum on the use of technology to improve government services and operations. The event features an annual Distinction Awards program and gala, a comprehensive Professional Development Forum, and the GTEC Exhibition. The conference program and trade show are attended annually by an estimated 7,000 professionals. $100 off for Mashable readers can be had using discount code MASHUP09.
October 7-8, 2009, Boston, MA: The Inbound Marketing Summit is where the online marketing community gathers to solve today’s marketing and business communications challenges. This fast-paced and information-packed event is your check-up on your existing business communications strategies, and your prescription for the coming months. The Inbound Marketing Summit is organized by thought-leaders Chris Brogan and Justin Levy of New Marketing Labs. This event brings together experts in the field of new media marketing to share the latest strategies, tools, and best practices to utilize new marketing methods to grow your business. Speakers include: Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Brian Solis, Tim Street and many more. Use the code MASH200 to get $200 off!
October 9-11, 2009, Atlanta, GA: In its inaugural year, BLOGALICIOUS 2009 will provide women bloggers of color an amazing opportunity to come together to celebrate their diversity and their love for blogging. If you're interested in meeting, learning about, and interacting with women bloggers of color, this conference is for you. In addition to igniting a sense of unity within our community, BLOGALICIOUS 2009 will educate marketers on the importance of our demographic in today's marketplace, all while allowing bloggers to network and achieve the ultimate success for their blogs. It's an event not to be missed!
October 13-14, 2009, London, UK: a4uexpo London is Europe’s largest Affiliate Marketing Conference and Exhibition. The two-day event will feature top industry experts from across the UK & international Online Marketing sector, as well as a range of specific Workshop sessions, which together provide delegates with a professional environment in which to hear about & debate the key issues currently facing the £3bn channel. The accompanying Exhibition will feature a specially-selected group of UK & European exhibitors, whilst there will also be Networking Parties after each day’s formal program. Mashable users can save 10% by using code Mash09.
October 13-14, 2009, Johannesburg, South Africa: Mobile Web Africa is an event designed to significantly contribute to the next stage of development of the Africa mobile ecosystem. Topics include operator strategies, monetizing mobile web and apps, creating the next generation of entrepreneurs as well as the mobile web and applications for development. Contact All Amber (comms@allamber.co.uk) for information on the SUBSIDISED TICKETS available for Developers and Start-Ups or to receive your ZAR1000 DISCOUNT (please mention MASHABLE in the title of your email!).
October 15-16, 2009, New York City: The Social Media Seminars will explore innovative strategies of Fortune 500 companies and other early adopters and provide practical guidance on tools and technologies to help you develop, implement, refine and measure outcomes of social media strategies. Day one will be in a roundtable format where you'll hear from market leaders including: American Express OPEN Forum, IBM Corporation and Symantec. Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era (Prentice Hall 2009) will share insights from her book which is used as a text at The Harvard Business School. Day two will provide a hands on working session, where experiential learning will help you figure out the best social media strategies and tactics for your own business. Use Code CL1 for $300 off.
October 15-17, 2009, Las Vegas, NV: Blog World Expo is the first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference, and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of new media including: Blogging, Podcasting, Social Media, Online Video, Music, TV, Radio, Gaming, Entertainment and Communities. In addition to the only industry-wide new media industry exhibition, BlogWorld & New Media Expo features the largest new media conference in the world including more than 50 seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from iconic personalities on the leading-edge of online technology and internet-savvy business. Get 20% off by using code MASH20.
October 20-21, 2009, New York City: Following the success of mediabistro’s UGCX in San Jose last February, the fall 2009 conference will uncover the best places to target and maximize content, optimize customer data, and generate revenue as the big shift in media continues to take shape. Learn the best ways to incorporate the customer into your business plan to positively affect bottom line revenue. Discover how to aggregate, analyze, and organize data to provide a better brand experience to customers and partners. And learn how businesses and individuals can harness and take advantage of the powerful voice of the customer. Register with promo code UGCMASH and save 20%!
October 20-22, 2009, London, England: For the fourth year running, Mobile Web and Apps, incorporating an exclusive focus day on Mobile Social Networking, will provide you with all that you need to understand, improve and profit from this seismic shift in our industry. Featuring senior representatives with a combined user base of over half a billion and a combined turnover running into $billions, our speakers really are those that profit from and drive forward the mobile web industry. For your exclusive 10% discount off the registration fee, please quote VIP code I087N/MASH.
October 21, 2009, Madrid: Social Media in Healthcare & Wellness will address how online conversations are changing the way those in the healthcare markets communicate. Brands positioned in this sector need to be open and willing to listen to stakeholders (healthcare professionals, patients, caregivers), and join in the discussion. Those stakeholders are no longer passive; they want to share and express their opinions about brands and have been empowered by social media tools, such as blogs, social networks, video & audio sharing, and microblogging. Attendees will also discuss how to tap into the "wisdom of crowds" to solve problems. The conference is exclusively targeted to senior marketing professionals in the healthcare sector: pharmaceutical , nutraceutical, health appliances, etc., and registration is free.
October 21, 2009, Trenton, NJ: Have you been playing around with social media tools to promote your business without much success? Are you responsible for building a comprehensive, customized social media action plan for your business, but can’t hire your own PR firm to tackle the task? You need a PLAN! Attend this fast-paced, hands-on training seminar targeted to the specific needs of small businesses to kick start your social media strategy. Our seminars are designed and taught by talented professionals with over 12 years experience in all aspects of new media and strategy management. Use event codemashable to save on early and standard registration pricing.
October 22, 2009, Washington DC: Attend the only event entirely focused on Twitter for business. Meet leading social media experts, marketers, customer service and technology executives using micro-blogging to build communities, provide customer service, change brand perceptions and increase revenue. Discover best practices and lessons learned during case studies, panel discussions and keynotes from the companies, government agencies and non-profits using Twitter as a business tool. For speaker and registration details, go to twtrcon.com. Follow @TWTRCON for the latest updates. Register by August 31 to save $200.
October 26-27, Philadelphia, PA: Join hundreds of fellow healthcare marketing and communication professionals at e-Patient Connections 2009. It's the one conference you need to attend to make sense of the radical changes taking place in health marketing, including social media marketing, web conversations, and mobile health. For the first time in history, more people are searching the Internet for health information than asking doctors. Discover new ways to connect, educate, and engage these digital health consumers. Use the code MASH10 to receive 10% off conference registration.
October 27, 2009, San Francisco: SNAP Summit introduces their 4th installment, the first event to focus on failure: FailCon! Why would you want to hear this? They’re bringing together the biggest players in the Web 2.0 industry to talk about the failures they’ve had, what went wrong, how they got over it, and what they learned. These are mistakes we all will make as entrepreneurs, missteps we’ll all see. And this is the best way to be prepared. This conference is also the cheapest of the October season, and looks to be informative and fun. Pick up 15% off tickets at http://snapsummit4.eventbrite.com/?discount=Mashable15
October 28-30, 2009, Amsterdam: The Emerging Communications (eComm) Conference & Awards was created to promote and accelerate communications innovation across Telecom, Mobile & Internet Communications. Telecom is in the process of being re-written. You either stand on the side to be written into the past or instead join with the growing community to write the future. Opportunities to profit from the radical restructuring and in accelerating the development of how humanity connects, communicates and collaborates have never been so great. Use the code Mashable when registering to save 20% (can only be applied for new registrations).
November 4-5, 2009, Raleigh, NC: Internet Summit 09 will feature over 75 speakers including major internet brands such as Twitter, Pandora, Google, Salesforce.com, Digg, Technorati, CBS Interactive, Huffington Post, Blogger, Meebo and more. Join over 1200 entrepreneurs, senior marketers and executives in the conversation about the future of the industry and how to capitalize on the shifting dynamics of the internet and tap into its unlimited business potential. Use registration code MASH for 20% off.
November 5-6, 2009, Berlin, Germany: The European Venture Market is a platform for investors, service providers and entrepreneurs to meet, network and further develop business ideas and projects, in a relaxed yet professional atmosphere. During the event the participating entrepreneurs will be able to pitch their business projects for around 5 minutes to a crowd of interested investors and service providers. The two conference days will also feature keynote speeches, specific industry presentations, coffee and lunch breaks, a large dinner reception on the Thursday night and, finally, a themed club party on the Friday night. Get 10% off by using code evm_mashable
November 7, 2009, Douala, Cameroon: BarCamp Cameroon brings together technologists and experts for the Cameroon first Barcamp. The theme for this edition is digital dreams, with some big names on the guest list and an open agenda that any attendee can contribute to, the organizers aim for tough talking and innovative thinking . Attendance is free; all you need to bring is a willingness to share your ideas and opinions.
November 10-13, 2009, Las Vegas, NV: PubCon is a multi-track educational conference hosted by SearchEngineWorld & WebmasterWorld. PubCon events are for thought leaders and professionals in search engine and Internet marketing and advertising to gather and to share best practices in the design, development, promotion and marketing of their Internet businesses and brands. Mashable readers can take off a 15% discount with code ma-77815.
November 14-15, Tempe, AZ: Explore the world of new and relevant media at PodCamp AZ, the southwest’s premier destination for bloggers, podcasters, social media butterflies, photographers, video pros and more! It’s a chance to enhance your skills while learning from those in the trenches every day. This is the third year of the event and promises to bring in over 1,000 people hungry to learn — and to share! It’s an unconference, so everyone is encouraged to lead a session. The event is always free, and you can’t beat the weather in Phoenix in November. So get registered, and we’ll see you then!
November 12, 2009, Phoenix, AZ: If you think there isn’t a vibrant entrepreneurial community in Phoenix, guess again. We bring Silicon Valley to Phoenix to share best practices. The theme for this year’s conference is “Bright Spots in the Recession: four entrepreneurial growth segments you need to know about” and showcases Digital Media Entrepreneurship, Health 2.0, Cloud Computing, and Sustainability.
November 23-25, 2009, Berlin, Germany: IIR’s Mobile 2.0 – Content & Services Conference provides a dynamic networking and information-sharing business environment, bringing together key stakeholders within the mobile web 2.0 value chain to discuss current trends and revenue generation possibilities, successful business strategies and the future opportunities that exist within this space. Receive a 10% discount by quoting I08LFMASH when registering. Significant price cuts also available to Operators, online communities, and content providers
December 6-9, 2009, Dubai, UAE: Are you harnessing the power of social media marketing? Do you know what it is and how to use it effectively to market your product and increase ROI? Join international social gurus and hear from regional corporations, who are already using social media marketing successfully in December at this two day event. Through practical examples and case studies detailing successful campaigns and their results you'll leave with the tools you need to use social media marketing to grow your business. Mashable users can save 10% by using code Mash09.
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Now, there’s yet another new twist, as Tr.im has announced that it is going open source and that its parent company, Nambu Network, is completely renouncing all ownership of Tr.im. It will be “community-owned” by September 15th. Oh, and the company took every chance it could to bash Bit.ly and Twitter.
Tr.im’s Announcement
Before Nambu got into its detailed plan to turn Tr.im into an open-source software, it went right into harsh criticism of Bit.ly and Twitter. Specifically, they revealed that Bit.ly made a $10,000 offer for Tr.im, which they rejected. They also called the 301works initiative a “Bit.ly public relations stunt.”
“We would like to set the record straight. Last Monday, August 10, 2009, bit.ly offered $10,000 for the tr.im domain name and everything associated with it. They used this "offer" to inject themselves into the conversation, and generate attention for their shallow initiative to address link-rot. It was transparent, and so I rejected it.
That initiative, 301works.org, is little more than a bit.ly public relations stunt, which is why we have not joined it. It has little substance, claiming to address link-rot while it does nothing of the kind. If a URL shortener decides to close, only the donation of the domain name and the data can address the existing links. For any high-volume URL shortener, like tr.im, it is unlikely a commercial entity would do that given the offers we have seen come in this past week to immediately hijack all tr.im URLs.”
Nambu then went into detail over what would be happening to Tr.im in the next few weeks. Here are the key points:
1. Nambu will renounce its ownership of the Tr.im domain.
2. The source code will be released to everyone, under the MIT open-source license
3. The link-map data of Tr.im URLs will be available to anyone in real-time, including click data and the number of URLs created for any specific URL. It’s also going to publish statistics related to usage.
4. Nambu’s Eric Woodward will personally guarantee any shortfall in Tr.im’s operation budget.
5. Tr.im will now accept donations
There’s more, but the point is that Tr.im has decided not to sell, but to give its entire code structure to the masses. That is a positive step for innovation – that code could build some really powerful URL shorteners in the near future – but Nambu’s motivation for opening up is less than thrilling. Woodward’s entire argument is that Bit.ly and Twitter have monopolized the market and are the ones creating the URL shortening crisis. It’s a very negative motivation, and that can lead to bad decisions.
Will the new Tr.im work as intended? Can it survive in a community-owned structure? And are Bit.ly and Twitter really destroying innovation in the URL shortener market? We leave those questions for you to ponder in the comments.
One of the knocks against the iPhone has long been its lack of push email, a feature that is essential to many corporate users who live in their inboxes. It’s one of the major advantages that the BlackBerry has over the iPhone, especially for enterprise users, and even though the iPhone 3.0 software update added support for push notifications, Apple didn’t update the phone’s built-in email application with push.
Edit: As some commenters point out, push email has been available on the iPhone for other email providers, just not for Gmail.
A new 99-cent application from Tiverias Apps called GPush (iTunes link) aims to change that. Calling GPush simple would be an understatement – this app literally has a one-track mind. The only thing it does is provide push notifications for new emails in Gmail. It doesn’t open emails, or send emails, it just lets you know when new ones arrive, as soon as they arrive, and no matter what you’re doing.
Easy Set Up, But a Bit Flaky
GPush is extremely simple to set up: you just enter your Gmail username and password and that’s literally all there is to it (though you can also control sounds and alert permissions from the iPhone’s settings menu). GPush would definitely make Ron Popeil proud – you really can just set it and forget it. Unfortunately, in my testing today, I ran into some issues, and apparently I wasn’t the only one.
The app had two undesirable bugs in my testing. First, it would occasionally pop up alerts for old but unread emails. Second, it would sometimes miss new emails entirely. Resubmitting my account credentials would usually fix it for a bit, but missing emails is a rather egregious offense for an app that’s sole function is to push notifications of new messages.
Still, if they work the bugs out, GPush is certainly worth the 99 cents for anyone who needs to be kept in the loop on a more instant basis than the iPhone’s current fetch functionality offers. According to Tiverias, a premium version is coming that will support push for multiple Gmail accounts. We hope it also emulates some other BlackBerry features, such as notification profiles, so we could control when we get pushed alerts for email on specific accounts (or better yet, for specific filters).
Overwhelmed by boring tweets? In CollegeHumor’s latest original, notorious bio-exorcist Beetlejuice gets a modern revival as Tweetlejuice to help you out.
Invoke his #tweetlejuice hashtag three times in a tweet to @SomeoneBoring and he’ll help you kill those nasty Twitter critters with their pointless babble. After all, you don’t want to just unfollow them, because “you’ll feel guilty.”
Check out the video below and let us know what you think. Does it do Tim Burton’s comedy horror masterpiece justice?
Mashable is proud to unveil The Sociable Ad Creator, a simple platform for creating and publishing a 300×250px ad unit on Mashable that includes links to all your brand’s social media profiles, plus the latest Tweet from your brand’s Twitter account.
In four simple steps, any brand can create an advertisement that displays tweets, videos and links to its various social networking profiles such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and more, in a 300px by 250px ad unit. We run these ad units in our sidebar.
A simple solution for brands
Brands are focusing more and more on promoting their social networking profiles and social media content: this ad creator allows those organizations to quickly and easily take social ads to market. Many large brands, such as Turbo Tax and PGE have already run social campaigns. Now any brand, regardless of design and development resources, can do the same.
Having seen Sprout's engagement platform work for brands looking to engage with audiences across the social graph, Mashable contacted Sprout to develop the ad creator for our network. Template driven, the ad creator allows brands to quickly and easily create a great looking interactive ad.
Feel free to explore and create your own ads with our Sociable Ad Creator tool. After the ad is created, when published, it will be submitted to Mashable’s backend system in Sprout. You will not be able to save any of your work, but “published” ads will be in our backend system.
During this one month exclusive engagement, Mashable will be offering a $6,000 package for a $5 CPM rate to the first 3 brands looking to participate. Please contact sociableads@mashable.com for more information. In September, the ad creator will be opened to any brand or organization that is interested in running sociable ads.
For brands that love the idea but want to create their own specs and run ads outside of the Mashable network, all of the functionality built into the Sociable Ad Creator is currently available in Sprout's self-serve rich media content creator, Sprout Builder. Brands with design resources can create their own ad, to any spec, at the site.
Sociable ads in action
To kick off the initial month, Mashable is donating 100,000 impressions of the Sociable Ads to each of the four Summer of Social Good charities: LiveSTRONG, The Humane Society, Oxfam America and WWF:
Spoofing pop music vids, cyber dating, gamer culture and themselves as usual, Date My Avatar was directed and composed by Jed Whedon of Dr. Horrible fame, with lyrics by Day and performances by The Guild cast. Currently, it’s one of the most discussed topics on Twitter, with the hashtag #datemyavatar trending most of the morning.
You can watch the video below and/or support The Guild by picking up the video on iTunes for $1.49 or downloading the MP3 from Amazon for $0.99. Season 3 of The Guild kicks off August 25 on Xbox Live and MSN Video.
One of America's most iconic names in print media is set to file for bankruptcy. According to The Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest has "reached an agreement with its lenders on a restructuring plan that it will likely complete under a prepackaged bankruptcy filing in order to reduce its debt."
While the magazine still has one of the largest circulations in the US, it would appear that the same issues that have recently sunk other print publications – like Vibe and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer – are in play here, with ongoing attempts to improve revenue and cut costs ultimately not going far enough to save the company from bankruptcy.
That said, for now, it appears that Reader's Digest will survive, as the company says in a statement that it will "continue to operate normally throughout the restructuring process." With an incredibly well-known brand, it's unlikely the publication will disappear completely anytime soon, though, like other troubled print media, it may have to take on a much different, more digitally focused approach to survive in the long run.
Sudha Jamthe consults as Social Platform Strategist for PayPal X Platform and advises companies on innovation and building engaging communities. She blogs at coolastory.com and tweets as @sujamthe.
Twitter is a great listening post for companies to monitor conversations related to their brand and engage with customers; and there are a variety of tools available to help groups and corporations tweet, collaborate, and generally manage their Twitter workflows. From tweeting and responding to customers to tracking the conversation and measuring the effectiveness of Twitter campaigns, there is a bevy of great tools out there for corporate tweeters. Finding the right Twitter applications is a challenge for social media managers, though, because new apps seem to spring up each day and they often have overlapping feature sets.
This is a list of the top Twitter tools to manage your social media engagement with your customers. While it isn’t a comprehensive list of every available tool, it does cover the market leaders in each category. Let us know in the comments which other tools you use to manage your professional Twitter workflow.
Preparing to Use Social Media
Before you start pouring resources into Twitter, the first thing you should do is make sure that’s where your customers actually are. Marketers can use the Forrester Profile Calculator to generate technographic profiles of their customers and how they are likely to use social media. This profile shows how many of your targeted customers are likely to be active in social media and further categorizes customers based on whether they are likely to create original content like blog posts and tweets or if they are just likely to read blogs, forums, or watch videos, etc. Companies can use this information as a way to develop an optimal social media plan and allocate resources to respond to comments.
Radian6 and Techrigy’s SM2 offer tools to help businesses find out where their customers are really talking. It’s important to figure out which social media tools your customers are using before you begin planning a social media campaign. Listen first before you engage.
Both tools have comparable functionality and are widely used, though SM2 has a simpler pricing model and excellent data manipulation and graphing capability, while Radian6 offers the unique capability to track impressions for each conversation on Twitter or blogs. This is useful for measuring the social media impact of that conversation across the social graph of a specific tweeter or blogger.
You can use these tools to identify who specifically are the social media influencers that talk about your brand, your industry, and your competition and you can plan to engage them on a more personal level. This is immensely useful for building evangelism programs by identifying your top customers active on social media.
Managing Your Twitter Presence
Hootsuite is a web-based corporate Twitter client used by companies like BET TV, the Discovery Channel, Dell, Disney, and FOX.
It offers support for multiple users to tweet from one account, multi-profile support for one user to tweet from multiple Twitter accounts, and supports groups, and in-depth reporting on each tweeted link.
Christine Jean Chambers, Interactive Producer and Online Media Planner for BET, uses Hootsuite to track which content is resonating with their audience. “For example, during the BET Awards '09 in June, we took over the entire top 10 trending topics on Twitter, which is pretty extraordinary,” she said. “We monitored this flux of activity using Hootsuite and were able to gauge the success of the delivery of our content on Twitter precisely because of trackable links Hootsuite provides.”
Grace Suriel of the Discovery Channel’s Marketing Communications team, meanwhile, uses Hootsuite to manage both the @AnimalPlanet Twitter account and her personal account. She uses Hootsuite to track all Animal Planet mentions as well as mentions of any of their key series. "It’s great seeing how many people click on the links I tweet,” she said, “When something is a hit, it’s very exciting. When a link doesn’t perform as well, I see it as a challenge from @AnimalPlanet’s followers to point them to content that is more interesting, engaging and current."
CoTweet is another web-based Twitter client built for the enterprise. It offers multi-user and multi-profile support, and integrated Bit.ly reporting. CoTweet is used by Jet Blue, Sun Microsystems, Starbucks, Whole Foods, and even Twitter itself.
Sumaya Kazi, Senior Social Media Manager at Sun Microsystems, who manages the @sunmicrosystems account, says "We love the fact that CoTweet integrates with Bit.ly because it offers seamless reporting of each tweet posted via CoTweet in our Bit.ly account.”
Jodi Brown, the Marketing & Interactive Director for Metro Canada, uses CoTweet because of its unique "Followup" feature. CoTweet has workflow built into it so you can tweet together as a team and assign a particular tweet to a particular team member for followup.
On the desktop, the two most popular clients among enterprise users are probably TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop. Both clients have multi-profile support, so enterprise tweeters can use them to manage both personal and company Twitter accounts. They don’t have multi-user support like CoTweet and HootSuite, but they are each ideal choices for single community managers that need a robust desktop client.
Morgan Stanley of @JetBlue uses Seesmic Desktop because of its unique audible cues that are not present in other Twitter clients. This allows tweeters to set up different sounds when their brand is mentioned by a customer in an @reply vs. when it shows up in search. This can help users to prioritize when to interrupt other work to respond to a customer.
On the iPhone, both Twittelator and Tweetie are worthwhile choices for enterprise tweeters because they both support multiple profiles. Each has similar feature sets, so are favorites among serious Twitter users. Essentially, it will come down to your comfort level with the UI that will be the deciding factor for which one you decide to use.
Tracking the Conversation
Which tools you choose to track the Twitter conversation around your brand will depend on your goals and internal workflow. For example, if you use Twitter mainly to broadcast information about your brand you will have less of a need to respond to each tweet than if you plan to actively listen and provide support to your customers. Also internally, if your task is to collect daily statistics to share with multiple stakeholders you will want a tool that is very strong in reporting.
For many companies, the built-in Twitter Search is robust enough for tracking brand mentions. Just enter your brand keywords or hashtags and watch tweets stream by in near real-time. The best part of Twitter search is that you can subscribe to an RSS feed of the search query results and respond to the tweets at different intervals of the day.
Twitter Grader is very useful for tracking and measuring the influence of a specific Twitter user. This can come in handy when figuring out who are the top influential social media tweeters to update on a new product launch. This can also help in deciding whether to react to a negative brand conversation by checking the influence of those who tweeted it.
Twazzup and Twitturly InView can both be used to track tweets using particular hashtags. This can be useful for tracking a hashtag campaign, and because both allow you to track how many tweets were made with each hashtag within a particular period of time, they’re useful for A/B testing your messaging or campaigns for different audience segments in different timezones to see what works more effectively.
Let us know in the comments your experience with these Twitter tools and any others that you use.
Today, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is expected to release a final version of its new media policy. For the sake of sports fans everywhere, let's hope it has some significant changes from the current version, because at the moment, it can best be described as a ban on all social media usage at SEC games.
Earlier this month, the conference informed its schools of the new policy, which reads: "Ticketed fans can’t “produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event."
Translated, that means no Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TwitPic, or any other service that could in any way compete with authorized media coverage of the event. In the case of the SEC, authorized media coverage rights belong to CBS, who has a $3 billion deal with the conference over the next 15 years according to The St Petersburg Times.
While it's understandable that the SEC wants to protect the value of the CBS contract, banning all social media seems not only unenforceable, but also counter-productive. I can't count the number of times I've turned on a sporting event after seeing friends update their status or upload a picture. By barring social media, much of that would be lost (though couch-side commentators would still be tweeting of course).
The SEC's move is not unprecedented in the world of sports, however. One could debate what's implied about social media when Major League Baseball says during telecasts that "any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of this game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited," though so far it seems that tweeting and photo uploads remain permissible. Meanwhile, at this year's US Open, I was rather surprised to learn that both phones and cameras weren't allowed on premises, making any form of social media inaccessible.
For the moment, these policies seem a lot more grounded in fear than reality. Sure, these days someone could theoretically live stream a game from their camera phone. But a shaky, low resolution video from the upper deck of Yankee Stadium isn't exactly the same as watching FOX's telecast on your big screen TV. Social media should be viewed a fantastic compliment to sports that is good for both fans and the TV networks, but at the moment, it seems that's anything but how it's being perceived.
There's no shortage of marketers promoting ways to artificially inflate your Twitter follower count. At least one such system, however, claims to have drawn the ire of the popular microblogging service, who has moved to get the operation shutdown.
According to a statement sent to us by uSocial, who markets products like a "$1,000 Twitter followers for $87" package, "Twitter has recently moved to [shut us down], by claiming [we're] "spamming." uSocial takes issue with this claim, saying, "the definition of spam is using electronic messaging to send unsolicited communication and as we don't use Twitter for this, the claims are false."
The company probably put itself on Twitter's radar last week, when they issued news that they had sold Michael Jackson thousands of Twitter followers before his death. However, uSocial has been operating in the pay-for-play social media realm for sometime – last year, Digg sent them a cease and desist after discovering they were selling votes to those looking to catapult their stories to the social news site's homepage.
No official word from Twitter yet on why they are going after uSocial, though uSocial says the spam accusations came from a "brand management organization." In other words, it could be that Twitter simply doesn't want its brand to be associated with shady marketing schemes – a smart move considering that all signs point to at least part of Twitter's business model being built around providing its own premium services to brands hoping to reach the Twitter audience.
Radiohead has proven itself to be one of the world’s most forward-looking bands, having released the album In Rainbows online for whatever price fans wanted to pay…even if that price was nothing.
Today they’re continuing that innovative streak, releasing their new song These Are My Twisted Words for free at waste.uk.com.
If you’ve been following the Facebook for iPhone Facebook page, you know that Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone is coming very soon. The application has been submitted to Apple for approval, and – though this process doesn’t always go smoothly – we can expect it in the app store in a day or two.
Of course, the new version brings many improvements – check here for a list – but one of them, added somewhat unexpectedly, towers above the rest: video uploading.
Now, while Facebook is immensely popular when it comes to uploading photos, when it comes to videos, it seems that the majority of users still prefer YouTube. But the new iPhone 3GS can finally record videos, and if the new Facebook app for iPhone makes it dead simple to upload them to Facebook (which it hopefully will), I can imagine that iPhone owners might simply start uploading their videos directly to Facebook.
As you may remember, Facebook’s support for video uploading has been a shoddy affair for a long time, and even Facebook itself didn’t put much emphasis on it, making it a tiny link that most users never even noticed. But then, late last year, Facebook added support for HD videos, and (even more importantly) embedding videos on other sites.
It’s still far from perfect, as Facebook’s privacy settings can make it hard for a video to go viral, but the set of video features Facebook is offering is – taking into account the needs of most casual users – actually not that much worse than those at YouTube. With the addition of iPhone video uploading, perhaps Facebook will finally become a place where you go to see videos of your friends, not only photos.
We’d like to know what you think and what do you expect from the app. Have you been uploading videos for Facebook, or have you used sites dedicated to video, such as YouTube? If you’re an iPhone 3GS owner, do you plan to upload more videos to Facebook when the new version of the Facebook iPhone application becomes available? Let us know in the comments.
Talk about adding insult to injury: a burglar who stole a laptop and other properties from a woman’s house later logged into the victim’s Facebook account and bragged about the deed, complaining that the TV in the victim’s house wasn’t good enough to steal.
The property was stolen from Victoria Richardson, 42, who lives in Hove, UK. The burglar stole an iPhone, a Nintendo DS, a handbag, some cash and credit cards and a black Toshiba laptop. As if that wasn’t enough, Victoria later logged into her Facebook account, discovering that the thief had left several messages on her account. They read:
“on my new laptop”
“Listening to music on my new phone feels so good.”
“I have the laptop , phones ok but a bit scratched itll do, tv was rubbish so I left it, ds was a bonus, now to the porn shop, thankyou toshiba is my favourite make”.
“regards your night time burglar”.
This incident proves that an invasion of your online space can be just as traumatic as the invasion of your physical space. As Ms Richardson put it: “I felt very spooked. I have never felt like that before. It felt like they were rubbing my nose in it.” However, these despicable Facebook messages also prove that the thief is quite stupid. Leaving traces of his/her activity on a social networking site can only help the police trace them and bring them to justice.
Online newspaper The Huffington Post has added a feature called “Social News”, allowing users to interact more with stories on the site.
Powered by Facebook Connect, Social News shares stories you’re reading with friends, produces stats on your habits and lets you track the content others are interacting with. It is somewhat aggressive, however: leave the default settings on, and every click is tracked and sent to Facebook, reports All Things D. A stealth mode option lets you turn off this auto-posting to Facebook. In a press release announcing the change, founder Arianna Huffington explains:
This new platform lets our community of engaged users easily share stories and post comments for friends to see–it's HuffPost's version of a digital water cooler, enriching and deepening conversations around the day's news. Social media has fundamentally changed our relationship to news. It's no longer something we passively take in. We now engage with news, share news, react to news–news has become something around which we gather, connect, and converse. HuffPost Social News makes this more dynamic than ever.
It’s another victory for Facebook Connect and social media in general: having already been integrated with NBC, it seems that newspapers are now getting on board with social integration.
After our report yesterday that in-car GPS system TomTom had released an iPhone app in New Zealand, it appears the app is now available for purchase elsewhere, including the US and UK. Mapping data is available for New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, US & Canada and Western Europe [iTunes link].
Obviously you’ll need an iPhone 3G or 3GS to make it work. What’s more, it’s not cheap: in the region of $100. However, in most cases that’s much cheaper than a standalone GPS unit.
UK site Recombu downloaded the app and took it for a test drive (video below). While it comes highly recommended, the app does of course pause when you receive an inbound phone call.
There’s a cool torrent available on The Pirate Bay, one of the last cool torrents you’ll encounter on the site (as it’s due to close in a couple of days). It’s a copy of the (almost) entire Pirate Bay, containing over 800,000 torrent files and a mockup copy of the actual website.
As you may know, The Pirate Bay actually tracks many more torrents than 800,000. Here’s the explanation for the missing files from the torrent description:
“The index has 873671 torrents, ranging from id 3211594 to 5051940 (2009-08-13). I only got 873671 torrents, but according to the website the tracker tracks over 2 million torrents. The discrepancy is most likely due to many torrent files including the TPB tracker but has not been uploaded to the web site.“
I doubt many users will want to download the 21.3 GB heavy file, but this torrent is important because it proves, once again, that the demise of The Pirate Bay is not the demise of BitTorrent technology and the community that uses it. Simply put, new Pirate Bays will sprout up somewhere, and the cycle will begin anew.
While beautiful, the data is being painted with broad strokes: those with 100 followers should overlap with the “loud mouths”, while having more than 100 followers in a population of 100 is technically not possible: it is, of course, a compromise to make the data more accessible via visualization. The original data is also the subject of some debate. Enjoy with a discerning eye.
Bet you don’t get this at your local Apple Store: a group of Hula dancers staged a “Hit and Run Hula” at the San Francisco Apple Store this weekend.
The “Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu Dancers” had been touring various venues in SF, and once at the Apple Store, they spread out across the entrance and the glass staircase. Moments later, they were gone again, leaving the crowd to return to their perusal of expensive shiny objects.
Beate Marie Eriksen (born 19 October 1960) is a Norwegian actress and film director. She acts in Hotel Cæsar, a popular Norwegian soap opera. The article about her on Wikipedia is the three millionth article there; another important milestone in the history of the people’s encyclopedia.
This latest milestone was announced on the front page of the English Wikipedia, but searching Wikipedia for itself reveals other interesting stats (for even more stats, read about the history of Wikipedia). It has about 10 million registered users and over 17 million pages. For comparison, the oldest English language encyclopedia, Britannica, has 40 million words on half a million topics. And yes, I also found that on Wikipedia.
Although the growth of Wikipedia has slowed down somewhat in recent years, it is, without question, one of the most important sources of knowledge today. The number of articles will never grow as explosively as it did in the early days, for obvious reasons: so many topics have already been covered.
It is important to note that Wikipedia actually has 13 million articles, if you count the versions in other languages, which still have tremendous room to grow. Therefore, I’m sure that the largest online encyclopedia hasn’t will reach many more milestones in the future.
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When you are well known and have some cash in the bank, you’re probably going to get sued at least once in your life. When you are Facebook and you have 250+ million users, increase the amount of lawsuits by a factor of 10 or so. Yes, Facebook has been sued once again, this time for allegedly misleading members on the use of their personal information and for violating California privacy laws.
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Identity theft isn’t a regular topic we cover on Mashable, but when three people allegedly stole 130 million credit cards, it’s hard not to be bewildered.
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Bet you don’t get this at your local Apple Store: a group of Hula dancers staged a “Hit and Run Hula” at the San Francisco Apple Store this weekend.
Beate Marie Eriksen (born 19 October 1960) is a Norwegian actress and film director. She acts in Hotel Cæsar, a popular Norwegian soap opera. The article 
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