As far as top-level domains (TLDs) are concerned, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has full control over whether or not we see new TLDs make it to the web. Most of us are pretty content with the ones we have, like .com, .edu, .net, .org, but Dot Eco is trying to muster up support and momentum for a new TLD: .eco.
The organization has partnered with former Vice President Al Gore, the Sierra Club, and a number of other notably green personalities and organizations to create awareness for their .eco environmental initiative. The domain’s differentiating factor is that 50% of profits generated by domain registrations will be donated to non-profits and environmental causes.
Dot Eco plans to apply for the .eco top level domain in the hopes of giving non-profits free web addresses, and allowing for-profits to highlight their green efforts with their domain while supporting environmental initiatives with domain fees. To help them make headway with ICANN, Dot Eco is asking you to lend your support for their domain campaign.
Arguments can be weighed for and against new top level domains. There’s certainly an active group of people who believe that new extensions, like .eco, will only complicate the web. But, ICANN is actively pursuing opening their generic top-level domains program (gTLDs), which could see a number of new extensions get released in the wild. And while we’re not positive the .eco domain will solve the world’s environmental issues, we certainly see it as a potentially positive way to raise funds and support well-intentioned charities and non-profits.
Late last year, we covered the UK-based INQ phone launch. While we don’t cover too many mobile phone launches, we became interested because its primary function, beyond phone calls, was social networking and Facebook. While an iPhone or Android device has the same capabilities, the focus on social media was somewhat unique.
That was only step one for INQ, though. Today, the company is following up their “Facebook Phone” with the release of two 3G Twitter phones. Yes, their main feature is built-in Twitter functionality, although its in-the-box integration with Facebook, Skype, and iTunes syncing aren’t shabby additions either.
The two phones, the INQ Chat and the INQ Mini, both feature INQ’s social media application suite – specifically Skype, Twitter, Facebook, IM, and email. It’s also an upgrade from the INQ1, the original Facebook Phone, which didn’t come with a full keyboard or Twitter integration.
Once again, these social media phones are UK-only (but us Americans still have the iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm Pre, G1, and others to choose from). Still, they’re indicative of a big trend: mobile social media. More and more users are demanding these applications, and companies like INQ are delivering, even if pre-packaging these apps in phones isn’t all that revolutionary.
We wonder about the iTunes syncing feature, though. Do they have permission from Apple? Or will the iTunes maker end up cutting off INQ phones like they did to the Palm Pre?
Anyway, if you’re a phone junkie, we’re including the specs below:
INQ Chat: - 114.5mm x 61.0mm x 12.8mm - Widgets automatically push Twitter and Facebook updates to the home screen •- Active address book is presence-enabled showing live status from all your contacts, letting you chose how to contact them •- Built-in plug and play HSDPA modem to give your PC wireless broadband access •- 2.4" QVGA TFT landscape display - 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera - Built-in GPS - 120MB memory, (expandable to 8GB) •- Brew 4.0 and Java MIDP 2.0 for application development multitasking supported by dedicated Switcher hard key
INQ Mini: - 102.9mm x 45.8mm x 12.8mm - Active address book is presence-enabled showing live status from all your contacts, letting you chose how to contact them - Built-in plug and play HSDPA modem to give your PC wireless broadband access •- 2.2" QVGA TFT landscape display •- 2.0 megapixel camera •- 100Mb user memory (expandable to 8GB) - Brew 4.0 and Java MIDP 2.0 for application development multitasking supported by dedicated Switcher hard key
Editor’s Note:This post was originally embargoed until midnight ET/9pm PT, but since it has already been published elsewhere, we’ve decided to run with it now.
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
LinkedIn, through its networking, question and answer, and application features (which I recently wrote about on OPEN) is already a powerful tool for maintaining and establishing relationships in the business world. But it can also be an enormously valuable way to attract top talent to your company, especially if you use all of the options available to you.
While posting a job to LinkedIn is similar to any other job website – adding details about the position, skills, and requirements – where the site separates itself is with company profiles, allowing you to provide potential candidates with a lot more information about your company and the people that work there. Here's how they work and how to set one up:
1. To get started, go to the "Companies" menu on LinkedIn. From there, select "Add Company".
2. Enter basic information about your company, like its description, number of employees, and industry it operates in.
3. Follow LinkedIn's wizard for creating your company profile – you'll be able to add a logo, locations, and a feed for your company blog.
Once you've completed LinkedIn's steps for getting setup, your company profile will be available. Now is where it gets interesting though. In addition to showing off the basic information you provided, LinkedIn will pull in data about your company from around the site.
So, for example, all of your job listings will automatically show up on your profile, along with links to the profiles of all current employees, former employees, new hires, and recent promotions. LinkedIn also does analysis of your company and the connections that your employees have on the network. For example, it will automatically calculate your company's median age, top schools, and other companies that they are well-connected to.
As you can imagine, all of this aggregate data about your company gives potential candidates (as well as anyone else interested in your company) a lot of information to dive into and help determine if it might be a good fit for them. And for you, once it's setup, it all happens automatically as you and your employees use LinkedIn, though you can always make edits to your company's basic profile information.
LinkedIn recently also added a premium product – Custom Company Profiles – that lets you add more features, like videos about your company and positions, interactive polls, and several customization options for recruiting. These are worth considering for larger companies (they come at a price), but for small businesses, a basic LinkedIn company profile should be enough to add lots of efficiency to the recruiting process – both for candidates and for you.
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.
Is your event not on this list? Contact us and let's establish a media partnership.
Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.
August 3-6, 2009, Chicago, IL: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute's 26th forum on Internal Branding: How To Use Strategic Communications To Drive Employee Engagement, Build Your Brand, & Impact Your Organization’s Bottom Line, to learn how to create brand champions and advance your organizational goals. Hear how to build bigger and better brands and drive bottom-line results through practical solutions from top branding experts at: Hyatt Corporation; AAA Northern CA, NV & UT; American Express Canada; Benetton USA; Pitney Bowes; Group Health Cooperative; DLA Piper; Illinois Tool Works (ITW) – Redhead; U.S. Department of the Interior; Booz Allen Hamilton, and many others. Mention mashable for a $200 discount.
August 4, 2009, Chicago, IL: Join Mashable’s Josh Catone, Adam Hirsch, and Brett Petersel for the second stop of Mashable’s #Hyatt4Good Tweetup tour. The Hyatt4Good tour is part of our Summer of Social Good charity campaign equally benefiting The Humane Society, LiveSTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF, and will be at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. You’re in for an excellent night of meeting and greeting, so sign up today!
August 4, 2009, Mountain View, CA: New Metrics for New Media: Social media is growing in importance but the tools and concepts needed to measure and track it are lagging. This talk will introduce useful traditions from the social sciences that provide a language and methods for studying the collective creation of value in social media. Presenter: Marc Smith is a sociologist and Chief Social Scientist at Telligent Systems. Smith’s research focuses on computer-mediated collective action: the ways group dynamics change when they take place in and through social cyberspaces.
August 6, 2009, Denver, CO: The #Hyatt4Good Tweetup tour, part of Mashable’s Summer of Social Good, goes to Denver, its third city. The goal of the #Hyatt4Good Tweetup is a great night of networking, where all proceeds benefit the Summer of Social Good charities: The Humane Society, LiveSTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF. Your ticket to the event at the Grand Hyatt Denver gives you an opportunity to mingle with Mashable’s Adam Hirsch and Brett Petersel, and you’re bound to have a great time!
August 7, 2009, Los Angeles, CA: The #Hyatt4Good Tweetup tour continues in Los Angeles with Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove, Adam Hirsch, and Brett Petersel. All event proceeds will be evenly distributed among four great charities: The Humane Society, LiveSTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF as a part of Mashable’s Summer of Social Good. Buy your ticket and then head on over that evening to the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza for a great night of fun. (Note: This is a change from our originally scheduled event in San Diego.)
August 8, 2009, San Diego, CA: Cool As Ever Tech is bringing together all of Southern California for an exciting day at the Del Mar Racetrack. Featuring cutting edge consumer technology, a huge real-time tweet stream, and a live event photo stream courtesy of TweetPhoto, the gathering will connect tech enthusiasts from Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. Attendees can mingle with recognizable names in the industry, chat up the personalities behind Mashable, and tweet away, all while taking in the action trackside. Tickets are free with RSVP thanks to sponsorship from Del Mar and Intuit.
August 8th, 2009, London, UK: Tomorrow’s Web is a unique and exciting one day conference, showcasing and engaging with teenagers in technology. The conference is comprised of speakers all in the technology space, and all under 21, which should make for an interesting and completely original perspective on the technology industry. The aim is to not only deliver fascinating and refreshing talks, but to also encourage the future entrepreneurs and innovators attending to go out there and help shape Tomorrows Web. The event is free, and everyone, not only teenagers are encouraged to attend!
August 10-14, San Jose, CA: Explore the strategies and tactics behind SEM (SEO & PPC) at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose Conference & Expo, August 10-14. From local search to universal search to social media, learn the SEM techniques that will improve your website and boost conversions. Designed for both beginners and veterans to search, SES San Jose offers the educational environment, hands on experience, and individual feedback on improving brand exposure as well as website usability. SAVE $200 now through July 24. SAVE an additional 15% when you enter SJ15MA.
August 11, 2009, San Jose, CA: This forum, brought to you by the teams at ClickZ, YouTube & Google, will explore the successes and failures companies, celebrities, and politicians have had in the social sphere online and will deliver actionable tactics and strategies so that you can prosper from them. This one-day event is taking place in conjunction with the Search Engine Strategies San Jose Conference & Expo.
August 11-16, 2009, New York City: The iPhone Boot Camp is offering Master Workshops in iPhone Development with Jeff LaMarche, co-author of the bestseller “Beginning iPhone Development. Exploring the SDK” and Steven Kochan, author of “Programming in Objective C 2.0″ The workshops are hands on and limited to fifteen developers. You will be learning from the best trainers around. A 10% discount off the already discounted early-bird rate for Mashable readers is available using discount code mashable at iphonemasterclasses.eventbrite.com/
August 12, 2009, New York City: What does the future hold for Appvertising? Find out at digiday:APPS, which will bring together the leading executives from top agencies, blue-chip brands, app developers, mobile/social advertising networks, and content owners to discuss the explosive Mobile and Social “Appvertising” market. Attendees will learn and gain key insights on the innovative brands, the killer apps, dynamic integrated content and offers, video, storytelling, and the rich functionality of online and offline apps. Use code DAMH08 to get a discount, and be sure to hit “Apply” to ensure the lower rate!
August 13, 2009, Minneapolis, MN: Walmart, McDonald’s, CME Group, H&R Block, Mayo Clinic, Progressive, Ford and General Mills share case studies in corporate social media. At BlogWell, you’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — in one afternoon, for just $250. Get practical, how-to advice on creating great content, getting management buy-in, educating employees, keeping lawyers and regulators happy, simple and ethical disclosure, and engaging fans. You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and get answers from people who have been there, done that — all in four hours. Presented by GasPedal and the Social Media Business Council. Mashable readers get 10% with the code thanksmashable.
August 13, 2009, Washington DC: The #Hyatt4Good Tweetup tour visits our nation’s capital — Washington DC, with Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, Adam Hirsch, and Brett Petersel. All proceeds from the event will be evenly distributed among four great charities: The Humane Society, LiveSTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF as a part of Mashable’s Summer of Social Good. We have plenty of tickets for the event, and all you need to do is show up at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill for a great time!
August 13-16, 2009, San Francisco, CA: The 2009 Second Life Community Convention (SLCC09), is an opportunity for people of all interests to learn about the many activities within the metaverse — to present and share ideas, learn about new and interesting technologies, and to explore what others are accomplishing within Second Life. The Second Life Community Convention is the largest virtual world convention combining art, business, community events, education, music, non-profit and the technical aspects of Second Life, other virtual worlds, and related technologies in one location. Register Now & save an additional 15% using discount code Mashable_519856.
August 14, 2009, New York City: PigSpigot is a user-generated greeting card website for hip and edgy gen-yers. The Pig is hosting an official Launch Party with DJ Angola and a special performance by Derek James. It’s going to be an evening of dancing, drinking, card making, fro-yo eating (thanks to Eskimix) and fun. The event is free, and we look forward to seeing everyone there!
August 15, 2009, Santa Cruz, CA: Freelance Camp is a one-day unconference dedicated to making independent contractors become better business owners and empowering a new community of independent workers towards economic self-determination. This year’s Freelance Camp will focus on providing attendees with answers to common business questions as well networking and community building opportunities. Get a 15 % discount when registering with promo code mash.
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. Buy 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.
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 for 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!
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 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 15–16, 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 17th, 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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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
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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.
Quick Pitch: SocialSafe is an effective, fun new application enabling Facebook users to manage their Facebook data offline on their home computer.
Genius Idea: Who owns your Facebook data? It’s a question that seems to make its way around the blogosphere every time Facebook changes their Terms of Service or someone’s account is deleted (with or without cause).
Regardless of who owns it (Facebook says you do), from a user experience, it’s almost impossible to get everything you put in to Facebook back out. SocialSafe, however, is a utility that helps you back up your Facebook account on your computer, keeping your data in your hands at all times.
After you pay the $2.99 fee via PayPal (I paid for it to test it out), SocialSafe will send you a license key and info on how to download and install the Adobe AIR desktop application. Once installed, you’ll be prompted to use Facebook Connect to access your account, after which you can opt to download your profile, friends, photo albums, and photos you’re tagged in. Once you’ve adjusted your settings, click to download and SocialSafe will grab your Facebook data in about five minutes or less (it took 2:06 for me).
After the download, you can use SocialSafe to get a desktop view of everything you selected to download. Content is organized by photos in their appropriate albums, friends in an address book of sorts, and your profile information as it appears online. The only thing that seems to be missing is your Facebook activity, and we hope to see SocialSafe find a way to give us the ability to download our status updates, comments, and the like.
The really nice thing about SocialSafe is that it works as a really cheap way to backup your Facebook account. Should you ever want to leave Facebook (if you can get past the guilt trap), or your account is deleted without warning, you have access to your friends, your photos, and the meat of your Facebook profile on your computer. It’s a small price to pay for relationships and photos that you’ve spent years building and acquiring through Facebook.
For a demo of how SocialSafe works, watch this video:
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.
How did they do it? What’s the Zappos secret? Tony Hsieh will be joining me in The Mashable Lounge at 7PM Eastern Time/4PM Pacific Time to discuss the growth of Zappos and its social media strategy.
While we won’t be focusing on the Amazon acquisition due to SEC regulations (blame the government), here are some of the topics we’ll be discussing:
- The growth and logic of the Zappos Twitter strategy
- Experiences with the high-growth of Tony’s Twitter account
- The pros and cons of the Zappos customer service strategy
- How Tony expects to expand Zappos’s social media presence
If you have a question that you would like me to ask Tony, please leave them in the comments below! Otherwise, we’ll see you at 4:00 PM PT in the #MashChat.
Yesterday, we brought to light that the Associated Press had begun charging for the republishing of its articles, starting at $2.50 per word. The news was heavily shared and came to as a shock to many, if the 80+ comments in our last article is any indication.
Today, the Associated Press reached out to us to clarify their position on iCopyright (the product they’re using to charge for content) and on licensing its content. They explained that the form has never been aimed at bloggers quoting content and that it’s unrelated to the controversy surrounding the content registry system, which aims to find what it considers illegitimate use of its content on the web.
Here is the full statement from the AP:
AP Statement on iCopyright’s Automated Form to License AP Content
The iCopyright form that enables users to license AP content online is drawing new attention this week.
It is an automated form, thus explaining how one blogger got it to charge him for the words of a former president.
As the AP stated more than a year ago, the form is not aimed at bloggers. It is intended to make it easy for people who want to license AP content to do so.
AP partners with iCopyright to automate fulfillment of routine requests for rights to republish AP material, either from AP-hosted sites or member and customer sites carrying AP content. The licensing options vary greatly, from an array of uses – such as e-mail, print and save – through paid options up to and including large-scale corporate reprints of excerpts, full articles or photos.
As we stated before, we have respect for the AP and understand their desire to protect their content from cases of unfair use. However, an issue we do have with the statement is its vagueness: while they claim they aren’t going after bloggers, it still does not make clear if quoting 5 words from an AP story constitutes fair use or is republishing AP content (and thus requires a payment). We asked for clarification and were referred to AP SVP Jane Seagrave’s comments in the Columbia Journalism Review:
"We want to stop wholesale misappropriation of our content which does occur right now—people who are copying and pasting or taking by RSS feeds dozens or hundreds of our stories." Seagrave tells me. "Are we going to worry about individuals using our stories here and there? That isn't our intent. That's being fueled by people who want to make us look silly. But we're not silly."
While we think they won’t be going after bloggers, even these statements still leave the door open to the possibility. Their responsiveness to the outcry is an indication that they’re listening though, and hopefully they’ll find a clear solution that benefits all sides while taking into account the independent and open nature of the web.
“TransFS is a comparison shopping site for small business financial services founded by small business owners. The site is currently focused on helping small and medium sized businesses compare and obtain merchant accounts (i.e. credit card processing accounts), which is just too hard to do with traditional methods. TransFS verifies all service providers that provide quotes on the site and compares rates "apples to apples" for the business owners.”
“TSS-Radio has been selling the widest selection of satellite radio gear since 2004. With a passion for satellite radio products and programming, we have provided helpful service, fast shipping and a range of parts to over 200,00 happy customers. Last year we received the BizRate Platinum award for excellent customer service and we have a 9.9 rating on ResellerRating.com”
"Marcia Hansen (@marciahansen) is a Marketing Manager in the Direct Marketing group at Allstate responsible for social media marketing. In addition to acting as editor for VehicleVibes.com, she is the voice behind the Allstate Twitter channel (@allstate) and manages the company's Facebook Fan page, as well as other Allstate social media initiatives, including FrienderBenders.com, a user-generated content site about bad driving habits and Allstate Updates where visitors can get all the info about Allstate they want to blog, tweet and share."
“Visible Measures is the independent third-party measurement firm for Internet video publishers, advertisers, and viral marketers. The company provides its customers and partners with unprecedented visibility into their online video audiences and how they engage with both content assets and advertising placements.”
A Special Thanks to Hyatt
“Hyatt Hotels Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, is a leading global hospitality company with a proud heritage of making guests feel more than welcome. Thousands of members of the Hyatt family in 45 countries strive to make a difference in the lives of the guests they encounter every day by providing authentic hospitality. The company's subsidiaries own, manage or franchise more than 380 hotels and resorts under the Hyatt®, Park Hyatt®, Andaz™, Grand Hyatt®, Hyatt Regency®, Hyatt Place® and Hyatt Summerfield Suites™ brand names and have additional locations under development on five continents. For more information, please visit www.hyatt.com.”
A Special Thanks to the Ford Fiesta Movement
Each location will have local Fiesta Movement Agents at the event and will offer rides/transportation. First come, first served.
“The Ford Fiesta Movement is driven by 100 digital storytellers from across the web. During the month of August, all 100 drivers are donating their time and some money to non-profits and charities in their area. In addition, The Fiesta Movement has partnered with Mashable to support their Summer of Social Good – our drivers will even be in attendance at local events to offer transportation. Follow the Fiesta Movement at FiestaMovement.com.”
Thanks to Skype for the Giveaways
“Skype is software that enables the world's conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles. Skype will be raffling off a FREETALK wireless stereo headset and a 3 month Unlimited World subscription at each event.” Reviews: Mashable, Skype
Lots of big brands are embracing social media, but which platform is most popular? At least as far as Fortune 100 companies go, Twitter easily takes the top spot, according to a recent study from PR firm Burson-Marsteller.
According to their findings, 54 percent of the Fortune 100 have a Twitter presence, 32 percent have a blog, and 29 percent have an active Facebook Page. Moreover, at companies using only one of these tools, at 76 percent of them, the tool of choice is Twitter.
More interesting than these raw numbers, however, are some further insight into how Fortune 100 companies are using social media. Other key findings:
Only 17 percent use all three mediums: Twitter, Facebook, and a blog.
Of the Fortune 100 companies on Twitter, 94 percent use it for news/announcements, 67 percent for customers service, and 57 percent for deals and promotions.
The average Fortune 100 Twitter account has 5,234 followers. The median is 674 followers.
Twitter, it should be noted, had a fairly big head start on Facebook Pages, which only became a part of user's news feed (i.e. – Twitter-like) earlier this year. Since then, many brands have experienced explosive growth on the social network – Starbucks, for example, now has better than 3.7 million fans. However, as far as blogs are concerned, Burson-Marsteller concludes that many companies are simply avoiding them and going directly to Twitter instead.
The complete results of the study can be found in the presentation embedded below:
Now, analytics and research firm StatCounter has released their July numbers for search, and they’re telling the same story: Bing is gaining traction. According to the report, Bing has gained 1.24% market share, up to 9.41%.
But this time, those new searches didn’t come at the expense of Yahoo, whose search engine Microsoft will soon take over, but from Google itself, which lost nearly 1% of the search market during the month.
According to StatCounter, Yahoo and Bing combined now control more than 20% of the search market, up from 19.27%. comScore indicates that their combined market share in June was 29%, so there is some disagreement as to the actual numbers. However, we’re more interested in the growth trends, which clearly are favoring Microsoft. Here’s the graph:
Should Google be scared? Perhaps not yet, but at the very least, it indicates that the Google vs. Microsoft rivalry is heating up, with the Yahoo search deal only intensifying the competition.
We heard rumblings that IZEA’s Sponsored Tweets was about to debut back in June. Today, IZEA’s platform launched, and it is what we all expected: a pay per tweet service.
Sponsored Tweets, now live, is like a seasoned Twitter advertising platform, taking the pitfalls of competitors that have launched before them, and trying to create a robust solution that attempts to bring transparency, ethics, influence, and even celebrity to paid Twitter conversations.
The Sponsored Tweets platform works by giving advertisers the ability to create campaigns and select, invite, and approve Twitterers of their choosing to participate in their sponsored campaigns. On the flip side, Twitterers can set their pay rate and find opportunities to tweet on behalf of advertisers and get paid per tweet and/or click.
Sponsored Tweets Basics
There are a lot of checks, balances, and filters built into the Sponsored Tweets system. As a Twitterer, you can define almost everything about your Twittering ways and the offers you’re interested in. You can set your charge per tweet, charge per click (conversion), set your content rating (are your tweets for everyone or more for adult audiences?), define your ad unit preferences, add keywords, and set up notification settings.
Sponsored Tweets combines the information you provide, with Twitter-related metrics, to present advertisers with a profile of your Twitter behavior that takes into account your reach, Twitter Grade, and past Sponsored Tweets behaviors.
As an advertiser, you also have a lot of control and extra insight into members and campaigns, so you can see and select who tweets your offers, set a minimum follower count and ratio (ie. the person has to have a following:follower ratio of 1 or less), define the maximum cost, opt to include premium Twitterers, and invite specific individuals by Twitter names.
Your campaigns will also have specific disclosure guidelines, and you can write the ad copy yourself (without opinion inserted), or allow Twitterers to pen the tweets with your approval. Once your campaign is in full swing, you can track overall performance and see specific results by Twitterer.
Sponsored Celebrity Endorsers: Will They Pay Off?
At launch, IZEA’s already trying to reach premium advertisers with premium Twitterers. They’ve structured their platform to make identity a huge part of the process, with mainstream celebrities Kim Kardashian, Holly Madison, and Kendra Wilkinson along with web geeks like Sarah Austin (Pop17) and Chris Pirillo ready and willing to be compensated for the appropriate Twitter advertising campaign.
Those names are recognizable enough, but are the rest of us willing to participate and engage with Sponsored Tweet offers?
Are Disclosures Enough?
Sponsored anything — tweets, blog posts, etc — is a constant topic for debate. Anytime you lend your voice to a paid ad campaign, you risk jeopardizing your credibility and reputation in exchange for a check. Plus, when you throw Twitter in the mix, there’s always the potential that your followers won’t understand that your sponsored tweet has been commissioned, even with the obligatory hashtag. Our own Adam Ostrow originally wrote, “Personally, I think any review – on a blog or on Twitter – is immediately de-valued if the author is being paid to write it, because the objectivity is lost.”
Of course, IZEA’s attempting to cover the disclosure and ethics and portion with their Disclosure Engine software that automatically detects whether or not the appropriate hashtag or text is included. According to IZEA’s CEO, Ted Murphy, “disclosure is systematically enforced” and adheres to FTC and WOMMA guidelines.
Though IZEA’s offering certainly isn’t unique — there’s already a few services making sponsored tweets a Twitter trend — we do think that their size, reach through celebrities, and approach could distinguish them from competitors, with the end result being more and more sponsored tweets infiltrating our Twitter streams. We have mixed feelings about the service, and we’d love for you to share your thoughts on the new platform, the celebrity endorsers, and sponsored conversations in the comments.
At E3, both Microsoft and Nintendo announced plans to utilize Facebook Connect on their console gaming platforms. Starting later today, the first such integration goes live, as Nintendo DSi owners will get the ability to upload photos from their device to Facebook.
This is essentially exactly how Facebook's applications for iPhone, BlackBerry, and other mobile devices work, integrating with the device's camera to allow one-click photo uploads. In the case of the DSi, the upload will have to be done over WiFi.
Although this integration isn't nearly as sexy as some of the other possibilities – for example, being able to compete in games with your Facebook friends – it does highlight the beginning of what looks to be a major trend, which is having social networking identities extend far beyond the Web.
Xbox Live, which plans to integrate both Facebook Connect and Sign-in With Twitter, plans a more robust feature set including in-game screenshot and achievement uploading as well as syncing your Facebook Xbox Live friend lists. Meanwhile, Verizon FiOS customers already have Facebook and Twitter apps they can use to compliment their TV viewing with social features.
Put simply, between social networks, portable identities, mobile, and Internet connected devices, expect a lot more to come in the way of intersection between gadgets and social media. As for DSi owners eager to get the Facebook photo uploading feature, Nintendo says that it “will be available after 5 p.m. Pacific with a free downloadable system update.”
Proving once again that internet memes don’t always rank high on the IQ scale (although they’re invariably entertaining), the most searched-for video on Google today is the “Tiger Woods Fart” clip, which purports to show Tiger Woods breaking wind at the Buick Open 2009. (Others argue that the sound comes from off the green.)
It would also be among YouTube’s most viewed videos…if the PGA hadn’t chosen to remove the most popular version of the clip on grounds of copyright infringement. Perhaps not wishing to tarnish the prestige of the tournament, the PGA has also neglected to upload the video to its own YouTube channel or the official PGA site, thus missing out on the attention garnered by the most viral moment of the entire event.
It’s a funny, sharable moment that’s bound to be passed around: shouldn’t the copyright holders reap those benefits? All in all, it smells like a missed opportunity.
Leah Betancourt is the digital community manager at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minn. She is @l3ahb3tan on Twitter.
Celebrities like Martha Stewart and Bill Gates might find Facebook high maintenance, but the world’s largest social networking site can be invaluable to journalists. Facebook gives reporters a means to connect with communities involved with stories, find sources, and generate leads. For media companies, Facebook is a way to build community and reach a larger audience.
Journalists and the institutions they write for are finding Facebook to be an important resource in conducting the reporting that they do. Reporters and media companies are using Facebook to engage with their audience, connect with sources and build their brands.
Finding Leads on Facebook
In April 2008, Ivan Oransky, who at the time was the managing editor, online, of Scientific American, joined Facebook. Shortly after setting up his new Facebook account, he accepted a friend invite from bioethicist Glenn McGee, the founder of the Alden March Bioethics Institute, who had once worked with Oransky at “The Scientist” magazine as a columnist.
“Then I noticed a bunch of things about his profile page: A curious status line about having the worst month ever. A job that seemed to end abruptly. Lots of references to lawyers,” wrote Oransky later in a blog post on ScientificAmerican.com.
Oransky assigned a couple of Scientific American reporters to chase down McGee and see what was up. The publication eventually ran three stories about McGee's departure from the Alden March institute that he founded and led. For Oransky and his team at Scientific American, Facebook was useful in this case as a lead generation tool.
Finding Sources on Facebook
Facebook also gives reporters a means to connect to communities to which they might not otherwise have access.
"Journalists should be using Facebook as a tool to unearth timely conversations around their topic or local community," said J.D. Lasica, founder and editorial director of Socialmedia.biz and a former editor at the Sacramento Bee, in an email interview.
He said many reporters have begun using their Facebook friends to help hone questions for interview subjects, to discover sources for articles who they didn't know existed, or to learn about issues or events that turn into full-blown stories.
In fact, Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter Out (HARO) service that connects journalists to sources and is one of the most useful source finding tools in a reporter’s arsenal, was actually launched as a Facebook group in November 2007. The group allowed him to secure an initial base of members to whom he could push out queries. Reporters would email him with what they needed, and he would send messages to the group, Shankman said in an email interview.
Because Facebook group emails were capped at 1,200 at the time, Shankman was forced to launch HelpAReporter.com, in order to grow the service. HARO sources now top more than 100,000.
Shankman still uses a HARO Facebook fan page to post completed articles from those who used his service. "It's a good addition to helping the overall growth of the brand," he said.
Timely topics can also bring together Facebook members on a fan page or group.
Paul Bradshaw, course director of the MA Online Journalism at Birmingham City University's (UK) School of Media, said in an email interview that his best experience in using Facebook for gathering sources was when Twitter stopped offering text message service in the UK.
"I started a Facebook group around the issue and through discussions on the group wall and forums, discovered very useful information about the companies setting up replacement services," he said. "It also meant I could quickly find people who had used those services."
Reaching Audiences on Facebook
During the 2009 presidential inauguration CNN.com ran a live streaming video player next to real-time status Facebook updates. The event attracted millions of viewers to CNN and Facebook and at peak, 8,500 status updates were being posted every minute. In June, Facebook opened that technology to anyone via their new Live Stream Box service. Users sign in with Facebook Connect and status updates appear in the Live Stream Box, their profiles and on their friends' activity streams.
Facebook fan pages are also being used by enterprising media companies to grow awareness of their brands and connect with readers. On November 5th, 2008, the day after Barack Obama became President-Elect of the United States, The New York Times ran an ad campaign on Facebook asking fans what Obama should do first as president. The newspaper's fan page led with a call-to-action image asking fans to join the discussion. It also offered a free virtual gift of its newspaper with the headline "Obama Wins."
The goals of the campaign were to grow the newspaper’s number of Facebook fans, raise awareness of the NYTimes.com as an interactive news center, and to engage the Facebook community in a conversation about the election outcome, according to an internal New York Times memo from President Scott Heeken-Canedy that was posted by the Nieman Journalism Lab.
It worked; the campaign's brand message reached 68.3 million people, the number of fans on the newspaper’s fan page more than tripled in 24 hours, more than 34,000 comments were shared, and more than 400,000 virtual gifts were given, the memo said.
Community is a Two-Way Street
Building a community among social networks doesn't happen overnight. Bradshaw said he sees parachute social networking, in which journalists descend on a group related to a particular event (such as the Virginia Tech shootings), but to which the journalist had no previous relation. He recommends combining activity on Facebook with activity elsewhere online, such as people's blogs.
"Don't' be a parasite," he said. "Do see this as a long-term investment in your community — contribute."
Working a beat takes time. It's no different as a user on a social networking site.
"It's all about karma. The community won't share with you unless you've shared (your experiences, your thoughts, your passions) with them. Don't just be a journalist. Be human," Lasica said.
Dealing with Ethics Issues
Recently, news organizations have been creating or expanding their ethics policies to include use of social networking tools.
"It’s best for everyone in an organization to be on the same page," said Jane E. Kirtley, Professor of Media Ethics and Law and director of the Silha Center at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, in an email interview.
As a lawyer and media ethicist, she said she supports the concept of policies, if only because a good policy will help to make clear what the rules actually are to everyone involved. Kirtley pointed out that the biggest issues newsrooms should consider when making a social media ethics policy or having their journalists on Facebook are whether to use a single Facebook page for both professional and personal purposes, who to friend, and what kind of material to put in one's profile.
She said that whether news organizations should have social media usage policies for their journalists is a very controversial issue. And so are the policies themselves.
Lasica, for example, believes that the Wall Street Journal's policy on online activities is misguided when it states: "Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones."
"This backward-looking embrace of the notion that reporters are blank slates is part of the reason newspapers are losing readership and relevance in the digital age," he said.
Oransky, on the other hand, warned that joining a Facebook group can be seen as advocacy. He said he would not join a Facebook group with a particular science or medical agenda. "I think that's dangerous," he said.
He'd like to see a Facebook app for media credentials. So if journalists join a Facebook group or fan page, they can be designated as a member of the media. It would be similar to a reporter attending a news conference with a press badge
The Journal also counsels its reporters not to “discuss articles that haven't been published, meetings you've attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you've conducted,” which Lasica thinks is misguided.
"Facebook and Twitter are wonderful tools for creating transparency around the black art of newsgathering," he said. One of the things that newsroom managers don't understand is that the public doesn't see journalists as human beings, according to Lasica. "Social networks help reconnect reporters and editors with people in their communities by letting the public know that, yes, we do have personal lives, likes, dislikes, opinions, weekend adventures and so on.”
Kirtley thinks transparency is certainly desirable, in theory, but urged caution about revealing too much about the newsgathering process.
"Think carefully before expressing opinions about news subjects or sources. ('I knew the guy was lying through his teeth.') And make sure that you are keeping any promises of confidentiality that you have made, regardless of what platform you are using," she said.
The Importance of Getting the Facts
In an online social sphere, where it can be unclear whether the profile online is truly that person, identity is key. This goes both ways — journalists should be upfront that they are members of the media and they must make sure the sources they use from social media sites are who they say they are.
Kirtley said ethicists urge journalists to be crystal clear about who they are — their real name, and real affiliation — and the fact that they are gathering news for publication. "They shouldn’t assume that the people they are dealing with recognize this, especially if the source is a young person or someone not accustomed to dealing with the media," she added.
Identity isn't the only thing that should be confirmed. Fact-checking information from social networking sites is critical.
"Verify, verify, verify. Facebook is a great source for story ideas, but no news story should be solely-sourced through social media," Kirtley said. "Seek corroboration. And if at all possible, interview the person either by phone or face-to-face. It is so easy to lie on the Internet, and to misrepresent oneself. No journalist wants to spread falsehoods or be taken in by a hoax."
According to Kirtley, “Most news organizations realize how valuable social networking can be, both as a newsgathering tool and as a way to promote the news organization’s 'brand.' The trick is to accommodate the competing interests without stifling the exchange of ideas. It’s not an easy task."
Ethics Tips from Jane E. Kirtley
1. Verify facts, identification of sources, etc. Be as certain as possible that the information you are providing is truthful and accurate, or, if that can’t be determined, making very clear what the source of it is.
2. Remember that nothing on Facebook or social media is really private.
3. Once it's posted there's no way to take it back or restrict what other people might do with it once they get access to it.
4. Reporters should disclose in their stories that they utilized Facebook as one of their reporting tools.
5. Be cautious about friending controversial individuals.
6. Be aware that others may draw inaccurate conclusions from your decision to friend someone.
7. Friending an unnamed source is the same as revealing the source's identity. If you've promised confidentiality, you shouldn't do it, even if the friend is using a pseudonym.
8. Journalists are regarded as "journalists" virtually 24/7, especially nowadays with people with all kinds of agendas who are constantly looking for evidence of journalists' bias.
9. Use images and content from sites such as Facebook with care. How do you know it's accurate? Don't spread lies.
Tips on Using Facebook from J.D. Lasica
1. Be human. You're not a detached observer, but a participant who need to share and give back instead of just taking.
2. If you're using Facebook just to publicize stories you've written, you're using it wrong.
3. Remember that Facebook is about sharing, not about broadcasting.
4. It's all about karma. The community won't share with you unless you've shared (your experiences, your thoughts, your passions) with them.
Last month, ABC shows like Lost and Grey's Anatomy started appearing on Hulu, thanks to Disney's deal earlier this year to take a stake in the online video site. Now, ABC shows are heading to Netflix, where they'll be available to subscribers via live streaming.
However, there will be a few distinctions between watching these shows on Netflix versus Hulu. For one, whereas Hulu is free and ad supported, the Netflix service is only available to paying customers and without commercial interruption. Overall, it also seems like Netflix's episode selection will be a bit larger than that currently offered by Hulu.
In all, here's what shows Netflix customers can expect to have access to within the next few months:
The first five seasons of Lost
Seasons four and five of Desperate Housewives
Season five of Grey's Anatomy
Seasons one and two of Legend of the Seeker
ABC joins NBC and CBS in providing shows to Netflix's streaming service, which also offers thousands of movies that can be watched with a variety of Internet connected devices including Xbox 360 and TiVo. Ultimately, these are important deals for Netflix, as it sees competition in the form of free services like Hulu, as well as new entrants like Epix and TV Everywhere that are starting to offer more on-demand TV and movie options to broadband customers.
Submit your geek inspired video to the Global Geek Week YouTube Group for the chance to win two roundtrip main cabin tickets to anywhere Virgin America flies, with Gogo passes so you can use WiFi to blog about the experience. Our Judges, including Guy Kawasaki, Shira Lazar, Hank Green of Vlogbrothers, Marina Orlova of TooHotForWords, puzzle champion Wei-Hwa Huang and Lisa Donovan aka LisaNova, will pick and announce the winners on Friday.
In addition, all week long we’re encouraging you to tweet and share how geeks can change the world (include the hashtag “#Geeks4Good”). Donate and keep up-to-date with video submissions, check out the twittervision global #geeks4good map and more at globalgeekweek.com. “Embrace your inner geek and give back!”
Details
Submit your geek inspired video to the Youtube Global Geek Week group by midnight Thursday PT. Videos should be two minutes long or less.
Videos will be judged and the winner will be announced on Friday at noon PT.
The Global Geek Week winner gets two roundtrip main cabin tickets to anywhere Virgin America flies, with Gogo passes so they can use WiFi to blog about the experience.
Bonus: Some ideas
- How do you geek out? - What makes you a geek? - How are geeks going to make the world a better place?
Thanks to Virgina America for the Grand Prize
Launched in August 2007, the San Francisco-based Virgin America offers guests attractive fares and a host of innovative features aimed at reinventing air travel. In just a little over a year flying, the airline has won a list of travel industry best-in-class awards including, “Best Domestic Airline” in Conde Nast Traveler’s 2008 Readers’ Choice Awards and in Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards. Virgin America flies to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Seattle, Las Vegas, San Diego, Boston and Orange County.
Thanks to Summer of Social Good Sponsors
Thanks to Zappos and MailChimp for sponsoring the Summer of Social Good. Their generous sponsorship covers the campaign and event costs, so that 100% of your donations and ticket sales go to the fund.
“Visit Zappos.com and outfit your life with a new head-to-toe wardrobe for men, women, and kids! Step into all the clothes, bags, shoes and more from all your favorite brand names! Plus, enjoy our 365-day return policy, fast & free shipping, free return shipping & 24-hour customer service!”
“MailChimp is a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.
We make it easy to send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t ‘dumb things down.’ We take extremely powerful tools that sophisticated marketers use (like segmentation, a/b testing, and ROI tracking), and we make them accessible to anyone.”
A major downside of Twitter’s lightning-fast communications platform: malicious links can spread more quickly than ever before. With numerous incidents having taken place already, Twitter is cracking down by filtering URLs to known malicious sites. Try posting a link to such a site, and you’ll receive the warning: “Your Tweet contained a URL to a known malware site!”
The change, spotted by the F-Secure blog today, is a good first step in securing the social network against attack. However, a greater vulnerability is the presence of short URLs on Twitter: these can hide the source URL and obscure the malicious sites behind them.
While Twitter does not appear to check these URLs for malware, market leader Bit.ly checks links against the the spam-filtering services SURBL and Google Safe Browsing, and additionally inserts a warning page if a URL is flagged as spam. We’ve found Bit.ly to be extremely responsive to these issues, clamping down on a rogue URL within minutes of our report. Combined, Twitter and Bit.ly are making it harder – but by no means impossible – to launch effective malware attacks on the service.
Facebook, too, is becoming proficient at stamping out malicious links. In the spring, we reported on a malware scare in Facebook mail on an almost weekly basis: we’ve received no such reports in recent months.
In recent weeks, the Apple tablet has transitioned from “longtime rumor” to “practical inevitability”. In particular, a story in the Financial Times last week said the device may be announced as early as next month. Today Barron’s has ramped up the excitement by quoting an analyst who claims to have seen the device “first hand”.
The “veteran analyst”, whom Barron’s does not name, claims to have seen a prototype of the tablet. Commenting on the device’s playback of hi-def video, the analyst is quoted as saying: “It’s better than the average movie experience, when you hold this thing in your hands”. The analyst adds that other device manufacturers are holding off on similar products until they see the Apple machine: “It’s close enough now to a final design that in Asia, there’s no other product in the waiting room or in the bullpen”. Frustratingly, he gives no details on the device’s spec.
Barron’s also gives a passing mention of launch dates, saying the tablet “could be announced in September for release in November”. The price, the article speculates, is around $699 to $799. A second source told Barron’s the tablet “is all over the supply chain in Asia”.
At this point, the tech industry will be surprised if Apple does not announce a tablet in September. As is typical of Apple, however, details of the device are extremely hard to come by.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down today from Apple’s Board of Directors, a role that many said created conflicts of interest as Apple and Google rival each other in multiple market sectors.
In particular, Google Android is a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone ecosystem, while the upcoming Chrome OS will create some conflict in the operating system market. And just last week the FCC began looking into Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice app from the App Store. Schmidt was under increasing pressure to deal with the conflict, and it seems he’s made his move today.
The news of Schmidt’s stepping down was announced via a press release on Apple’s website. It reads:
Dr. Eric Schmidt Resigns from Apple's Board of Directors
CUPERTINO, California—August 3, 2009—Apple® today announced that Dr. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, is resigning from Apple's Board of Directors, a position he has held since August 2006.
"Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple's core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric's effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple's Board."
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.
How happy are you right now? A new iPhone-based research project aims to find out…and in doing so, help find out what makes you and others happy.
Track Your Happiness, a program started by Harvard University doctoral candidate Matt Killingsworth, is a psychological study that aims to find the factors influencing happiness. But rather than asking participants to complete surveys in a lab, Killingsworth wanted to gather data from the real world, throughout the day. Hence, he chose the iPhone.
The idea is simple: you sign up on the Track Your Happiness site, answer a few questions about yourself and say how often you’d like to receive happiness surveys during your day (between 3 and 5 times). These simple surveys, optimized for the iPhone’s screen, are sent via text message. Questions include how happy you are, where you are, whether you’re with others or alone, and whether you enjoy the task you’re currently engaged in.
While the data you submit is used in Killingsworth’s research, you also receive personal “happiness reports” like these from blogger Buster Benson (below). It goes without saying that the information could be used to improve your overall happiness – not to mention the glow you’ll get from helping researchers understand the factors influencing human happiness.
New service Social Cord has devised a way to charge your Twitter followers to access premium content: just sign up on the site, authenticate your Twitter account and promote your subscription service to your followers.
Whenever you want to send out subscription content, you can log in at Social Cord or send a direct message to the @tipcup Twitter account. Aside from just charging for texts, you might want to charge for access to music or written works, the site suggests. Content is sent to subcribers via text or DM.
Pay Via Text: No Credit Card Required
While micropayments are often given a hard time, Social Cord does have the benefit of extreme simplicity: thanks to partnerships with the four major US carriers, the service lets your subscribers pay by entering their telephone number; they then receive a PIN number via a text message which provides access to the content. There’s no credit card required: it simply gets added to your cellphone bill each month. Content providers get around 55% of the cash, while the carriers take 45%.
While there doesn’t seem to be a huge market for paid content over Twitter at this point, we can’t help feeling there’s something to this payment system: adding charges to your bill rather than entering credit card details seems like the obvious way to go for mobile payments, provided the content provided is desirable enough.
More than 7 years after the launch of the Apple Switch ads, Microsoft once again finds itself the target of an ad campaign that attempts to chip away at its dominant market share.
This week Google is launching the “Going Google” campaign, reports CNet, placing billboards in New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco that encourage IT managers to switch from Microsoft products to Google Apps.
The billboards, which run for a month, will be changed every day to progressively explain the advantages of the Google Apps suite. They’ll appear on the Mass Pike in Boston, San Francisco’s 101, New York’s West Side Highway and The Ike in Chicago, reports eWeek. The ads will push IT managers to the Apps at Work site, which explains:
“Thousands of companies are going Google by switching to Google Apps — a web-based suite of messaging and collaboration applications. It’s all hosted by Google, and designed with security and reliability in mind, saving your company the frustrations and hassles of managing traditional IT solutions yourself. Find out how others have switched from Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes to Google Apps.”
The encouragement to “switch” away from Microsoft is reminiscent of Apple’s consumer ad campaigns, which pitted Apple as a real alternative (below). Google is surely hoping to make a similar splash with IT managers on their commutes to and from work.
Over the last few days, Venezuela has been closing down radio and media stations that are denouncing the government and its actions. This is not going down quietly, though, as protesters are fighting back against what critics consider the infringement of free speech.
However, with stations being “recovered” by the government, citizens and protesters alike have turned to a new communication platform to concentrate their efforts: Twitter. Venezuelans are coordinating their tweets of opposition with the hashtag #FreeMediaVe, which started to pick up steam late Friday.
President Hugo Chavez, the controversial socialist leader, ordered that about 240 radio stations be closed down earlier this July, but now the media lockdown is being implemented in full force. This is where Twitter has come into play – as radio stations have fallen, opponents of the socialist leader have taken to Twitter, dominating nearly 1% of tweets at times.
In fact, there has been so much activity on Twitter that it has prompted a government response, where they said the social network was being used just by extremists.
Twitter’s power to challenge repressive governments and galvanize worldwide support was seen in full action during the dramatic events of the #IranElection crisis. It proved to be a major means of communications for Iranians as the government closed down other channels (Twitter’s role was even big enough to concern the U.S. government).
We may very well be seeing the “Twitter effect” in action again. How big it gets, how long it lasts, and how effective Twitter will be in fighting back remains to be seen. We will be watching the #FreeMediaVe movement closely.
As far as top-level domains (TLDs) are concerned, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (
Late last year, we covered the 
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 
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 
Quick Pitch: SocialSafe is an effective, fun new application enabling Facebook users to manage their Facebook data offline on their home computer.
If you have a question that you would like me to ask Tony, please leave them in the comments below! Otherwise, we’ll see you at 4:00 PM PT in the 
Yesterday, we brought to light that the 
This week we continue our 
Local Sponsor: A big thanks to 
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Each location will have local Fiesta Movement Agents at the event and will offer rides/transportation. First come, first served. 
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Lots of big brands are embracing social media, but which platform is most popular? At least as far as Fortune 100 companies go, Twitter easily takes the top spot, according to a recent study from PR firm Burson-Marsteller. 
We already knew that Microsoft’s 
We 
At E3, both Microsoft and Nintendo announced plans to utilize Facebook Connect on their console gaming platforms. Starting later today, the first such integration 
Proving once again that internet memes don’t always rank high on the IQ scale (although they’re invariably entertaining), the most searched-for video on Google today is the “Tiger Woods Fart” clip, which purports to show Tiger Woods breaking wind at the Buick Open 2009. (Others argue that the sound comes from off the green.) 
Leah Betancourt is the digital community manager at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minn. She is 
Recently, news organizations have been creating or expanding their ethics policies to include use of social networking tools.
In an online social sphere, where it can be unclear whether the profile online is truly that person, identity is key. This goes both ways — journalists should be upfront that they are members of the media and they must make sure the sources they use from social media sites are who they say they are.
Last month, 
The 
A major downside of Twitter’s lightning-fast communications platform: malicious links can spread more quickly than ever before. With numerous incidents having taken place already, Twitter is cracking down by filtering URLs to known malicious sites. Try posting a link to such a site, and you’ll receive the warning: “Your Tweet contained a URL to a known malware site!”
In recent weeks, the 
Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down today from Apple’s Board of Directors, a role that many said created conflicts of interest as Apple and Google rival each other in multiple market sectors. 
How happy are you right now? A new iPhone-based research project aims to find out…and in doing so, help find out what makes you and others happy. 
New service 
More than 7 years after the launch of the Apple Switch ads, Microsoft once again finds itself the target of an ad campaign that attempts to chip away at its dominant market share. 
Over the last few days, Venezuela has been 
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