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Sunday, March 21st (a few hours from now
on the West Coast) marks Twitter’s 4th birthday — exactly four years
since Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent
his first Tweet and, along with
Evan Williams and Biz Stone, started a phenomenon.
Geoff Livingston co-founded Zoetica to focus on cause-related work, and released an award-winning book on new
media Now is Gone in 2007.
Despite some initial flaws, Google Buzz continues
to show promise as a social marketing platform. It has a significant (though somewhat latent)
user base, with an increasing number of loyalists who swear by it.
When a green field lies before you, so does opportunity. Some non-profits stand to gain from
being part of the early Buzz adopter community. Whether a cause needs to further the dialogue
with a tech-savvy crowd, or is attracted to the functionality of Gmail integration, Buzz does bring some new capabilities to
bear.
Here are four great uses for Buzz in cause-based activity.
1. Manage Public Conversations Better
A useful feature of Google Buzz is its public threaded conversation stream. This format has
significant advantages over Twitter’s disjointed @reply conversations
and hashtag-based threads, as well as Facebook’s often high privacy walls.
“We’ve been looking at using Buzz to have public conversations about Mothers Fighting for Others‘
work with an orphanage in Kenya,” said Jeff Turner, President of Zeek Interactive. “We want to be able to facilitate a consistent thread
of conversation, but we want it to be more public and open than Facebook or [Google] Wave would allow. With Buzz, we feel like we
can maintain a clear stream of thought around a topic, and at the same time, do it in a public
forum where someone we might not be able to envision being interested could join in.”
2. E-mail Integration Means Better Workflow
Non-profits could use Buzz to manage workflow across a group. This can be
useful for an organization with project teams spread across multiple offices or in the field.
With e-mail integration, it saves
the organization from having to set up a separate account with another private conversation tool
like Basecamp.
“An example would be to set up Buzz as a private group for a project team, large or
small,” said Shireen
Mitchell, a Washington D.C.-based digital activist. “Twitter updates, blog posts, and
other related content that has an RSS feed can be connected to individual [Buzz] accounts
tracking topics related to the project. The team can make comments and select “like”
to provide a consensus of interest on each update. This would keep the team updated on news,
topics and content for any existing issue-driven social media campaign of the organization.
[It's] sort of a mini crowdsourcing of the team.”
3. Finally Connect to “Unsocial” Users
Another interesting aspect of Buzz’s workflow and e-mail integration is the use of a system
that blends 2.0 functionality with a 1.0 system. Non-profit managers can use this to
intelligently blend workforce conversations between younger and older, or tech-savvy and
entrenched members of their teams. Crossing
the streams may enable better communications.
“Google Buzz allows users to publish private streams to specific contact groups,”
said John Haydon, a non-profit social media
strategist. “This is a perfect way to include staff members who don’t use social
media in important real-time conversations, especially during news-worthy events like the
earthquake in Haiti.”
4. Geo-Location Adds a New Element
When Google launches a social network, it brings more to bear than your average start-up.
Consider the ability to integrate geo-location with Google Maps into your social network activity. People
can see social activity on the fly.
“Fast forward to a cause marketing campaign like Starbucks’ partnership with Product
RED,” said Joe Waters, author of the Selfish Giving blog. “Buzzing about the latest campaign to a really large
audience with geo-location features [enabled] lets people see in real-time all the people
[talking] about the campaign in their area — especially in densely packed areas in New York
where [Starbucks] are practically right across the street from each other.
“In short, Buzz can potentially broadcast a cause marketing campaign to a much larger
audience than say Twitter. And the geo-location feature, if it takes off, can give a program a
real-time, tangible quality that can’t be replicated on another [social media]
platform.”
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable
regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small
business.
For local small businesses, Yelp isn’t
just an option — it’s a necessity. People in urban centers use it to
choose where to go to dinner, where to buy clothes, and where to be entertained. Users decide
where and how to spend their money using Yelp, so if your business is local, you need to curate
your Yelp page.
If your business has been around long, you probably already have a page; you’re just not
holding the reins yet. You’ll want to step in and take control of it as soon as possible,
because using it correctly can bring you new business and prevent any negative word of mouth from
hindering your growth and success.
Claiming or creating your Yelp business page
is easy; just fill out a couple of online forms and answer a quick, automated phone call. It
takes less than five minutes. Once you’re signed up, you’ll have access to tools that
will help you engage your customers and spread the word about what you’re offering to the
community. Here are a few basic tips for successfully leveraging the tools Yelp offers you for
the benefit of your local business.
1. Fill Out Your Business Info Completely
Customers refer to Yelp business pages to learn about a business before going out to visit in
person. If the information on the Yelp page is incomplete, they’re likely to move on to a
competitor that provides more details simply because they’ll better know what to expect and
are less likely to be surprised, be disappointed or have their time wasted.
The administration page for business owners offers a slew of fields and choices for sharing
information to make it easy for users to know exactly what to expect. If you provide the
information they’re looking for, they’re more likely to become reliable, paying
customers. So fill out as much information as you can, and keep it up to date.
2. Respond Constructively to Customer Reviews
Last Spring, Yelp gave business owners the ability to respond to negative reviews, either to
privately make apologies to reviewers or publicly correct misinformation. Don’t skimp on
using this feature because you’re afraid of making things worse; it can turn a bad
situation around. Dissatisfied customers will often give you a second look if you communicate to
them that you value their input and are making changes to improve your business.
Yelp allows you to share special offers and announcements not just with the people who visit your
page, but with members of the larger community who might not even know about your business. When
you create an offer or announcement on Yelp, it appears in the offers and announcements directory
for your city. People who have never heard of your business will see them there. They’ll
even find you in search results.
The more of these offers and announcements you make, the more likely it will be that Yelp users
will discover your business, so come up with creative ways to draw people in, then share the
news.
4. Display Yelp Badges on Your Website or Blog
Yelp provides badges that you can embed on your business’s website or blog that show that
you’re on Yelp and engaged with your community. They’ll even tell visitors how many
positive reviews you’ve had.
These badges give potential customers the impression that you have existing satisfied customers
vouching for you, so they’ll be more likely to trust you with their business. The badges
also act as links between your Yelp page and your other online outreach efforts. People can click
a badge to read reviews or get more information. If a satisfied customer visits your site or
blog, the badge might lead that person to leave his or her own positive review.
Is Advertising on Yelp Worth it?
You may also choose to advertise on Yelp. It costs between $300 and $1,000 per month
— it’s kind of like a premium account — but
there’s a chance that you’ll increase your exposure if you opt in, because
you’ll appear at the top of the list when users perform a search related to your business.
There are a few other benefits as well. For example, you’ll be able to feature one good
review of your choosing at the top of the list on your business page. You still can’t edit,
move or delete other reviews, though.
It’s difficult to measure exactly how much these premium benefits will help you; it depends
on a number of factors unique to your business and your city.
Attention baseball fans, the date that is no doubt etched
in your brain — the start of the 2010 Major League Baseball Season — is fast
approaching. To get you ready for April 4 (when the Boston Red Sox will take on the reigning
World Series champion New York Yankees at Fenway Park) we’re pitching you five handpicked
iPhone apps that will hit a home run with baseball fans.
If you are partial to America’s national sport — and let’s face it, it’s
almost unpatriotic not to be — then these apps are an absolute must for your iPhone or iPod
touch. However, in case we’ve struck out and missed any of your faves, then do let us know
in the comments below.
Although criticized for its $15 price tag, MLB’s official iPhone app is a great all-rounder
for fans, and an even better option for fans that have a paid-up for MLB.TV because, with
portable access to your MLB.TV account, you can watch live streaming games on the go. As with
last season’s offering, anyone can use the app to listen live to games, as well as get a
virtual idea of what’s happening at the park with MLB’s blow-by-blow Gameday updates.
The app also offers scores and stats, as well as some in-game highlights and a video library
that’s searchable by both player and team. If you really can’t stretch to that $15,
then a free “lite” version (MLB.com At Bat Lite) offers real-time MLB scores,
schedules, news and standings — but no audio or video — that will keep you informed
through to the end of 2010 World Series.
If you’re the type of fan that can rattle off ground ball to fly ball ratios and stolen
base percentages like Rain Man reciting phone numbers, then quite simply you will love this app.
Claiming to offer the most detailed player statistics available on an iPhone app, FanGraphs will
let you look back and analyze every major player in baseball history, as well as look forward
with live win probability graphs based on game data for the 2010 season.
Favorite players can be tracked with full, live box scores that link through to past stats, every
play can be analyzed to see how it impacts the game, and there’s even up-to-date advanced
fielding metrics via FanGraph’s “Ultimate Zone Ratings.”
It could be argued that the stadium is as much a character in baseball as the opposing teams or
the crowd. A celebration of the nation’s ballparks is offered in one neat little app
— Ballpark Envi — spanning baseball’s geography as well as its history from
Shibe Park to the new Yankee Stadium. Browsable by team, or by American and National League,
every current Major League baseball stadium is detailed with stadium pics and slide shows,
seating charts (super useful for booking tickets) as well as the ability to see the park’s
location on a map.
Whether you want to glimpse Dodger Stadium’s wavy roofs on the outfield pavilions or the
orange foul poles of the Mets’ new Citi Field this app will give you an insider glimpse of
America’s amazing ballparks with all their quirks and characteristics.
If you consider a baseball scorebook will set you back $5 at the absolute minimum (and more if
you buy it at the park) then the $10 price tag for this app does not seem quite so steep. There
are a dearth of 99 cent alternatives available in the App Store, but for looks and an intuitive
interface (the app works on an “interview” premise asking you for all the data it
needs to build a complete picture of the game) the iScore Baseball Scorekeeper is the champ.
As well as appealing to those hardcore fans that like to sit and score every game, this is also a
good option for those new to baseball scorekeeping – you don’t have to learn all the
abbreviations and symbols and iScore offers a full set of tutorial
videos to get you using the app like a pro.
If you want to keep your favorite Major League Baseball team in your pocket then FanMisery.com
offers an Index App for each and every MLB team. Working on the basis that being a fan is in fact
misery (the agony of defeat and all that jazz) the apps make sure you are kept as absolutely
up-to-date as possible with a comprehensive set of stats, opinions and news drawn from national
and local papers, broadcast media and blogs.
One nice touch is that if a blog or news source you follow isn’t currently included in the
indexing, the developer (Discover Motion) will add it in for you on request — just the kind
of helpful option that warms the cockles of an iPhone owner’s heart.
The iPhone 4G (next generation iPhone) is yet
to be released, but Sprint is cleverly advertising “4G speeds” on your iPhone thanks
to its Sierra Wireless Overdrive 4G WiFi hotspot.
The nifty device lets you browse the web “up to 10 times faster” by providing a WiFi
hotspot that uses Sprint’s 4G network. The downside: it’s another device to carry
with you.
What do you think: is it worth getting yet another device for super-fast speeds?
Justin Bieber remains an immutable force of Twitter trend power, taking the top slot again for
the third week in a row. Tweeters also showed their love (and/or disdain) for a number of other
pop singers, and celebrated a few holidays this past week.
Thanks to our friends at What The Trend, we have yet another interesting stats-eye-view of the Twitterverse.
Because this is a topical list, hashtag memes and games have been omitted from the chart below.
Beyond Justin Bieber, Follow Friday, and Music Monday — the reigning trend champs —
St. Patrick’s Day made an appearance as people tweeted their revelry, and Lady Gaga crept
up on the list with the premiere of her new video on
Vevo and a tour in New Zealand.
The Jonas Brothers hung tight near the middle, while circle enthusiasts everywhere tweeted
vigorously about Pi Day on March 14th, spurred on no doubt by the charming Google doodle that commemorated the occasion.
If you own a TV or computer, you probably know that March Madness is upon us, and
bracket-related tweets have been flying around the web all week, landing the term at number
seven.
Rounding out the chart are two more singers who made some news this week. Demi Lovato, the 17
year old actress/singer, stirred some buzz with her admission that she’s dating a Jonas
Brother, and Chris Brown, the career-stunted R&B singer, reached out to his fans on the web
for some help on making a comeback.
Strangely, tweets about the ongoing South By Southwest
(SXSW) conference — one of the most talked about topics in tech and a favorite of the
Twitter community — did not reach critical mass to make this week’s list. This is
likely due to the lack of big announcements or product launches from the conference this year.
You can check past Twitter trends in our Top
Twitter Topics section as well as read more about this past week’s trends on What The Trend.
Top Twitter Trends This Week 3/13 – 3/19 RankTopicTop Index This
WeekChangeDescription#1Justin Bieber1Justin
Bieber’s new album My World 2.0 comes out on March 23rd & his fans are excited. He also
appeared on Z100.com, QVC, and GMTV in the UK.#2Follow Friday1Follow Friday is a tradition where
people tweet people they believe are fun/interesting to follow (on Fridays).#3St. Patrick’s
Day2NEWPeople are tweeting "Happy St. Patrick’s Day" and showing their Irish spirit.#4Lady
GaGa22Lady GaGa is currently touring in New Zealand.#5Music Monday2Music Monday is a tradition
where users recommend music they appreciate every Monday.#6Jonas Brothers7Mentions of the Jonas
Brothers.#7March Madness1The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division 1
Men’s Basketball tournament started this week.#8Happy Pi Day2NEWMarch 14th is Happy Pi Day!
Pi is, roughly, 3.14. And today is 3/14. And March 14 is also the birthday of Albert Einstein#9Demi
Lovato3March 13 2010, "Jemi" is confirmed. Demi Lovato admitted to dating Joe Jonas in an interview
by Billy Bush. Many people are tweeting their opinions about this new couple. Joe Jonas and Demi
also recently released a new song, "Make a Wave."#10Chris Brown1NEWSinger Chris Brown asked his
fans to help revive his
career. They have been obliging with a variety of trends.
We know you’re busy. Even with every social media, web, and
RSS tool at your disposal, you can occasionally miss out on some of the week’s most
insightful content.
Never fear. We’ve taken a moment to round up the best Mashable resources from this past
week and present them here for your weekend enjoyment.
From in-depth how-tos, to app lists, to valuable business guides, browse below for a veritable
smorgasbord of value you may have passed over.
Music sharing and distribution on the web is nothing new. But some artists, bands, and labels
are going the extra social mile to get their music heard. Here’s how they’re
doing it.
Dick Tracy’s gadgets have nothing on today’s socially-savvy police departments.
Find out how they’re using social networks to catch criminals, prevent crime, and keep
the public informed.
Is you Facebook Fan Page lacking a little engagement “oomph?” Has your fan growth
leveled off? Try these four dead-simple ways to get folks sharing your brand again.
Location-based social media is still relatively young, but the future is bright for users,
marketers, and businesses alike. Here are 5 important lessons to take away from the current
LBS landscape.
For more mobile news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s mobile channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
The B2B potential of social media is often overlooked. If you sell to fellow business owners
and you’re looking for an in on the social media action, don’t miss this post.
Social media is not the beginning or end of a marketing effort. It should be woven into every
aspect of your business plan. Take in these four tips on how to make that happen.
Is your business ready to make the leap into the cloud? Smart integration of Google Apps for
Business can really benefit your team and workflow. See how in this post.
If you’re a gadget-lover fed up of filling your home
with ice white this and brushed aluminum that, then check out this selection of totally
stylin’ items offering a design blast from the past.
Retro, vintage, old school or just classic, whatever your interpretation, we’ve dug out ten
gadgets that boast classic good looks as well as bang-up-to-date functionality.
Olympus’ Pen E-P1 is chock full of digital goodness in a design that harks back to the SLR
glory days and the original Pen’s release back in 1959, which made a big impact on the
camera market with its small dimensions. With a 12-megapixel sensor and capable of capturing
movies at 720p, the modern micro four thirds snapper offers digital SLR-standard pics in a more
compact format with those vintage looks that are good enough to lick.
Science and Sons’
Phonofone II is a wickedly old-fashioned iPod speaker, or in the words of its creator
“audio console.” Using no power, the gramophone-styled device utilizes passive
amplification and cunning acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to around 55
decibels. With an entirely ceramic construction, it’s as much sculpture as it is
speaker.
So far only released in Korea, LG thrilled fans of retro style when it revealed a classic CRT
television, complete with bunny ears aerial and channel-changing knobs. The 14-inch set stands on
chrome legs and if you’re doing the back-in-time trip all the way, can display in black and
white or sepia. Despite its vintage appearance it offers a digital tuner and does come with a
remote control for when you get bored of fiddling with the knobs.
A professional USB mic, the Snowball from Blue Microphones claims to offer plug’n'play ease
of use with both Macs and PCs but the power to capture anything from the softest vocals to the
loudest garage band. Angled as ideal for podcasting, the vintage appearance of this modern
peripheral may serve to remind users of the rich heritage of broadcasting and inspire them to
podcast about more than the hilarious antics of their cat. That, and it will look wicked-cool on
your desk.
Available in black, white, red and an outrageously retro avocado green, say goodbye to fiddly
modern earbuds with these totally cool cans from Panasonic. The Panasonic Old School Monitor
Stereo Headphones, to give them their full title, offer leather-cushioned listening comfort you
can only dream of if you’re used to in-ear audio efforts and look so darn cool you’ll
be tempted to wear them out — even when you’re not listening to music.
Sure, headsets are all well and good but there’s no romance in looking like a call center
phone operator. The P*PHONE from Hulger will give you the satisfying feel of a proper chunky
handset in your hot little paw and turn a VoIP call into a conversation. Available in white,
black, red and green, the P*PHONE is offered on its own for $50 and with a cool desktop base for
$99. As well as working with certain mobiles (and certain others with adaptors) the P*PHONE
offers easy USB hook-up to a PC.
Back in the olden days folks would create real-life music “tapes” with
playlists recorded on to them to either share with a friend or loved one or enjoy themselves
(“Best Driving Songs Ever”, “My Breaking Up With Dave Tape”, etc). Help
make sure the art of the mixtape is not lost with this USB effort that takes on the form of an
old analog blank audio cassette tape (complete with sleeve that you can scrawl the track list on)
but with a brand spanking new USB flash drive nestled in the middle.
Mathletes with a penchant for the past will enjoy this retro calculator’s baby blue looks
and oversize dimensions. Whether you’re totting up the cost of your new flared jeans, or
calculating how much cheese you’ll need to melt to make the perfect fondue, your numerical
queries will be solved in Seventies style.
You’d be forgiven for mistaking this for a vintage deck, but in fact it offers more modern
tech than many music systems. Sure, there’s the option to take your vinyl for a spin, but
there’s also playback from SD memory cards and USB storage devices as well as from iPods
and other MP3 players. In addition to normal playback this turntable can record your records to
your computer, which means you won’t have to re-purchase all your vinyl to get it
digitized, and it has an FM radio.
While the wider world gets hyped up about Sony’s Move and Microsoft’s Project Natal,
sit back, relax and enjoy some 8-bit gaming with the Retro NES USB Controller from ThinkGeek,
described as perfect for creating old school gaming nostalgia on your laptop. With a USB
connection, it’s perfect for MAME and other emulators and is sooo much cooler than trying
to save the princess using your keyboard.
Earlier today, Steve Jobs talked publicly about his life saving liver transplant for
the first time at a press conference where California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced
new legislation to encourage and make easier organ donation.
Jobs, whose health was a subject of great speculation before he eventually took a leave of absence from
Apple in January 2009, spoke of the gap between the amount of livers needed and the amount
available in California. The Apple CEO ultimately received his transplant in Tennessee.
You can see Jobs’ remarks at around the 13:00 mark in the video below. Meanwhile, for
details of what California is doing to improve the organ donation process, check out Governor
Schwarzenegger’s site.
When it
comes to accessing Wikipedia on your iPhone, there’s no shortage of options. This
week, a new app entered the arena dubbed Articles, and for users who value a solid interface and pleasant viewing
experience, it’s an excellent choice.
The app, which is $2.99
in the App Store, features some innovative features, like viewing articles based on your
location, a really great photo viewer (complete with the ability to either copy photos or save
them to your camera roll), and a multi-page interface that works the same way as Mobile Safari.
The app also features a pull-down menu, a la Tweetie 2, that can set the device’s
orientation — perfect for those that want to view Wikipedia articles while in bed or on
their side.
You can search both article titles and content, bookmark your favorite articles in folders of
your choice, and even view an article at random by shaking the device.
The presentation of the app really takes things to another level: text is clear, readable and
beautifully arranged. By double-tapping and dragging on the device, you can easily scroll between
sections. Furthermore, clicking on an info box quickly enlarges that section.
We do have a few niggles with the app, however. First, as nice as the double-tap and drag feature
is for moving between sections, it’s not a replacement for a table of contents that apps
like Wikipanion feature. Second, while reference information appears when you do
searches, references aren’t listed in article pages. For normal reading, that’s fine,
and it makes the app clean; however, if you want to know about the source of a certain fact, you
can’t view it inside the app itself.
Those deficits pale, though, when compared to the overall presentation of the app. One of my
favorite features is that you can tap and hold on an intra-wiki link and open up the link in a
new page — just like in Safari. I also like how text can be magnified or made smaller by
using pinch zoom.
If you’re looking for a way to access Wikipedia and you want the best looking experience
possible, give Articles a shot. It has been localized in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese
and Spanish — so it’s a good option for multi-lingual iPhone users too.
What is your favorite way to access Wikipedia on the iPhone? Let us know!
It’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament time — otherwise known as March Madness — and the
online streaming initiative from CBS Sports and the NCAA is already netting massive numbers: 3.4
million hours of video/audio were streamed online by three million unique visitors on day one.
Those staggering numbers mean that online viewership is already up 20% over last year’s
figures, and apparently a large majority of you have no problem watching from work. In fact, the
always clever “Boss Button” — a one-click option to hide your guilty pleasure
— has already received 1.7 million clicks.
So far the most-watched game via March Madness On
Demand was Florida vs. BYU. The game — which BYU won in double-overtime — was
streamed for a total of 521,000 hours across all online viewers. That’s up 50% over last
year’s top-streamed game on day one.
The impressive numbers point to a growing interest in consuming live events online. As with the
Grammys and Twilight red carpet events, the new trend is an online Field of Dreams; if you stream
it, they will come.
For all y’all out there who
think that the iPad leaves much to be desired, we’ve got the video for you. This parody,
made as an assignment for a Comm 340
class (I hope they got an A), highlights all that’s lacking in the mythical device.
It doesn’t have a camera,
you can’t use it to make a phone call, and the name itself has spawned countless parodies
— not to mention throwbacks to ‘90s television — that’s basically
this video’s beef with Steve Jobs’s newest shiny, shiny baby.
Check out the video below and let us know in the comments: What changes would you like to see in
the iPad 2.0? Personally, I’m still waiting on Spice 2.0.
Kevin Nakao is VP of Mobile & Business Search for
WhitePages, a Top 40 Web and Mobile
Publisher. You can find him on Twitter,
and on the Whitepages
Blog where he writes about mobile, local, and social media.
While last year’s SXSW seemed to serve as the
“coming out” party for location-based services (LBS), maybe this year’s
conference signifies the migration of these platforms into mainstream culture. And perhaps the
only real “new” concept to emerge this year is the idea that there is finally a real
opportunity to make money via “location.”
Here are five things that companies should consider as they look to utilize location-based
services (LBS) as part their mobile strategy.
1. Location Shouldn’t be the Only Goal
From finding the nearest ski slope on REI’s Ski and Snow Report to a nearby movie on Flixter, there are
plenty of Top iPhone applications that have incorporated a “lead with the offer, not the
capability” philosophy into their mobile product offering to provide a better service.
Build the best service first, then add the bells and whistles.
With all the hoopla surrounding location, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that
location’s real appeal to advertisers is the fact that with this functionality, you can
reach the on-the-go user, who is ready to buy and consume. Just because Twitter and Facebook offer location doesn’t make
that valuable or new to advertisers. Location-targeting via IP address has been around a while.
For the same reason radio is a great advertising channel for retailers, LBS advertising is also
valuable: because it can reach the consumer near the point of sale.
However, if you apply any city’s share of the total U.S. population, the results show some
pretty low estimates of Foursquare users in individual localities. What emerges is a very
“long tail” — a steep, narrow graph — of local user adoption. This shows
why it is important to achieve scale if you hope to see return on investment in the location
marketing space.
For example, using these rough estimates of a city’s proportional share of the U.S. population, if a
local pet supply store wanted to target people in San Francisco, the estimated reach would be
1,310 Foursquare users. Even if you double this audience estimate, the number is fairly small for
even a local marketer. We had to hit around 4 million downloads of the Whitepages iPhone app to
achieve the minimum scale needed for advertiser geo-targeting. Today, 80% of our campaigns from
major brands are geo-targeted.
Editor’s Note: It’s important to remember that these are just rough estimates.
Because Foursquare was initially only available in a handful of major metro areas, the geographic
distribution of users may not precisely follow the geographic distribution of the
population.
3. Mobile Battery Life is Key
Battery life is the single biggest threat to location. With GPS on, the phone is asking the
network where it is, and this chatter can drain battery life — anyone with an iPhone knows what I am referring to. Thus, phone
manufacturers will play a critical role in the future of LBS. RIM, the manufacturer of BlackBerry devices, faced this problem early on with
the energy-tax of e-mail polling, and as a result, their devices now have some of the best
battery life.
Foursquare has helped us move forward here as well. “Check-ins” help to address the
issue as they offer efficient geo-triggers without having to keep battery-draining GPS features
on at all times.
4. Location Will Be the Battleground of the Mobile OS
Looking forward, I predict the mobile platform wars will be fought with location and maps. This
is an important feature that a platform can use as a point of differentiation for consumers and
developers.
In anticipation of that battle, Apple purchased mapping company Placebase, and Google is starting to provide unique
mapping features like turn-by-turn navigation on
its Android devices. The only hope I see for
Windows Mobile is if they do something
completely revolutionary on the mobile location front. A development like this was alluded to at
the recent TED conference with its augmented reality
layering of geo-tagged Flickr photos and real-time
video integration.
5. Location Pays
At WhitePages, we monetize our mobile services through a mix of premium, national display, and
sponsored links for local business. Our effective CPM (revenue per thousand ad impressions) for
sponsored local links is $30-$50 — double the effective CPM (eCPM) rate we see for premium
display ad campaigns from national brands. The eCPM multiple of local targeted ads over ad
network rates is a staggering 10x.
Location-based inventory will also become scarce as Apple recently
announced that iPhone apps will not be permitted to access GPS capabilities for advertising
alone. There now needs to be some consumer benefit and functionality in order to access a
user’s location. Geo-targeted inventory on mobile will continue to be at a high premium
with no excess supply or ad networks to drive it down.
Conclusion
It is my hope that by this time next year, SXSW –- the festival of
“emerging” music and technology –- will have finally moved on from
location. It’s clearly happening now, and if integrated wisely, location will be making
companies too much money to be called the “cool kid on the block” any longer
In order to have access to iPad testing units, developers and testers had to agree to keep the
device tethered to a fixed object in an isolated room with blacked-out windows, according to a
report by BusinessWeek.
That’s pretty hardcore. It’s unclear from BusinessWeek’s report if that was a
condition enforced before the iPad was unveiled to the
public or if it’s something that will be kept up until the April 3 launch date.
Apple is a notoriously secretive company, especially when it comes to new products. Outside of
partnerships with content publishers like The New York Times, Wired and The Wall Street
Journal who have either confirmed interest or already shown demonstrations of their applications,
the few developers that do have access to the iPad are keeping their mouths shut.
It also appears that in order to be on the list for the iPad, developers or companies had to be
pretty high on the totem poll. Not even Trip Hawkins, who founded Electronic Arts and once worked
at Apple, could get a testing unit for his new company, Digital Chocolate.
Now, not having physical access to the device doesn’t preclude developers from creating
apps for the iPad — Apple actually started accepting apps for review today
— but it does make refining the app much more difficult.
As was the case with the iPhone, we expect the
best iPad apps to be those that can take advantage of multi-touch in ways that just feel
better. Gestures and interactions on a bigger screen are probably features that will need to be
refined over time — just as they were with the original iPhone.
The degree of Apple’s iPad-related secrecy might sound well, paranoid, but the
fact is, at least for now, the company can get away with it. The mobile ecosystem is so hot
— especially for the iPhone — that getting on the iPad and getting on early is worth
the hoop-jumping for many developers. Some would even to settle for using an emulator until the
product is officially launched.
What do you think of Apple’s corporate culture of secrecy? Let us know!
Researching topics such as health, diet, and
(especially) the effectiveness of dietary supplements can be hard and time-consuming. Obscured by
thousands of marketing tricks, finding the truth takes days, if not weeks of research.
So, when someone puts in the time to do the research and create an infographic that makes certain
aspects of these topics easy to understand, it can be a huge time saver. Read on for some of the
best health-related infographics we’ve found online.
As always, consider the figures in these infographics with a grain of salt. No one guarantees
that the numbers are correct, and some of them are definitely open to interpretation.
1. Dietary Supplements
This is, without exaggeration, the most amazing and useful infographic I’ve ever
encountered. It looks fairly simple, but it took many hours of research to create it, and it is,
to my knowledge, the best resource about the actual efficiency of various dietary supplements out
there. From the author:
“This image is a “balloon race”. The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence
for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside
the bubble.”
The graphic shows the effectiveness of health supplements on the Y-axis (higher is better), and
uses the size of the bubbles to illustrate the popularity of that particular supplement among US
adults. Anything below the “worth it line,” doesn’t have enough evidence of
medicinal benefit and is probably not worth your time, according to the graphic’s creators,
who looked at data from over 1500 studies on both PubMed (US National Library Of Medicine) and
Cochrane.org. The infographic effectively
combines data on both popularity and medical benefits to create a resource that points out the
best health supplements, as well as which ones American consumers believe in the most.
Check out the interactive version, which lets you filter the supplements by function, here.
2. Should You Drink Tap Water?
This is a look at five most and least polluted water systems in America (in larger cities),
showing that not all tap water has been created equal.
If you’ve been struggling with the issue of drinking tap or bottled water, this info might
help you make a decision. Of course, the data in this infographic, created by GOOD, covers only 10 cities, but it
highlights an important point – not all chemicals that can appear in tap water are
regulated. The graphic illustrates how many pollutants are found in each water system, how often
they’re found, and what type of bacteria exists.
Obesity is a known problem in the USA, but which states are affected the most? This is the most
recent infographic on the subject we could find, listing obesity rates in all US states, as well
as obese and overweight children rates in the USA.
Besides these numbers, this attractive infographic highlights several important points; such as
overall high rates of obesity among high school students, as well as the direct and indirect
costs of obesity to the US budget.
Right now, one of the most debated topics in the USA is health care reform, and how much the
proposed health bill will cost individuals and business. But how much are people paying for
health care in other countries around the world?
This infographic, created in a collaboration between GOOD and Way Shape Form,
shows the average life expectancy in various countries (indicated by the fullness of the IV
bags), as well as several other health-related stats, such as infant mortality rates, and the
cost of health care.
This visualization was created by David
McCandless, the creator of the Snake Oil infographic mentioned above. It’s a slightly
morbid chart, showing the average fatality rates for known diseases — the size of the
bubble indicates how likely you are to die from a given disease (larger is more fatal).
It comes, however, with an optimistic second chart. The X-axis shows the fatality rate, but the
Y-axis shows how long the cause of the illness can survive outside of the body in ideal
conditions. Lesson: wash your hands!
Know of any other great health-related visualizations or infographics? Let us know in the
comments!
Ever wonder what it would be like to step inside a giant
wire mesh cage, put on a virtual reality headset, walk around like a hamster and shoot crazy
alien opponents? No? Luckily our friends at Engadget did, and went hands, eyes and feet-on with the Virtusphere at
GDC.
Keep in mind that this product isn’t new, but if you haven’t seen it in action before
the video below is well worth the watch.
With a $50,000 price tag, this toy makes spending $170 on some plastic Rock Band instruments seem
like a veritable bargain. This is just between us, but we secretly plan on buying a bunch and
renting them out like inflatable moonbounce houses.
Would you want one of these things in your living room? Would it fit in your living
room? Let us know in the comments.
A non-profit organization
called Reboot has a mighty challenge for you this
Friday night: Power down your cellphone, let your FarmVille crops languish and sign out of Skype
for a full 24 hours. What do you think: Can you hack a single day sans technology?
We’re seen efforts of this nature before — remember when John
Mayer wanted you to make like a Luddite for the first week of 2010?
But this event, which Reboot is calling The National Day of Unplugging, goes the extra mile with
promotions (ironically enough) through Facebook, Twitter and
a website called the Sabbath Manifesto (the day itself is part of a larger movement called the
Sabbath Manifesto, a movement started by a group of Jewish artists, writers, filmmakers and
social media professionals seeking to integrate traditional rituals into their modern lives).
There will also be a series of events in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco (according to
Reboot, they’re private and space is limited). All guests at these events will be asked to
check their phones at the door, where they will sleep the next 24 hours away in a cell phone
sleeping bag [pictured above].
Tanya Schevitz, a Reboot rep, told us that the idea is spreading. “We are hearing from
people all over the county –- and beyond –- that they will
create their own events, gather with friends, family, etc. to embrace the Sabbath Manifesto and
the National Day of Unplugging,” she said.
Participants are also encouraged to sign on to the Sabbath Manifesto website and report back on their technological withdrawal
experiences.
This venture is certainly interesting in light of recent stats that point to our society’s
obsession with technological
communication and increasing fascination with social media.
“There’s clearly a social problem when we’re interacting more with digital
interfaces than our fellow human beings,” said Dan Rollman, Sabbath Manifesto creator and
founder of the Universal World Record Database. “Rich, engaging conversations are harder to
come by than they were a few years ago.”
What do you think? Do you think digital communications are eroding our ability to truly connect
with others? Or do you think Twitter, Facebook and the like serve as channels to bring people
together? Let us know in the comments.
The contest is a
promotion for American Express (disclosure: also a Mashable sponsor), asking users to
follow the credit card company on Twitter and then tweet “Hey @americanexpress I want to be
with Coco in (insert city from list below). Pick me! http://bit.ly/bEUqsh #amexConan.”
The winners – who will get two tickets for Conan shows in either New York,
Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, or Los Angeles — will be selected at random from the tweets
sent out between now and 11:59pm ET on Monday.
American Express is sponsoring the tour, but this new twist on their promotion should give the
company an opportunity to gain thousands of followers in a hurry, assuming the Twittersphere is
still as crazy for Coco as they were when he signed up only a month ago.
If you follow Mashable,
chances are you either visit the website directly, or subscribe to our RSS feed, daily emails or
Twitter and Facebook pages. Given that there are dozens of ways to follow Mashable, we thought
we’d round these up in a useful blog post.
We’re also aware that some people get a little overwhelmed by all the content we create
every day. That’s why we recently created separate feeds, Twitter and Facebook accounts for
all of the topic channels here on Mashable: Social Media, Mobile, Web Video, Entertainment,
Business, Tech, Apple and the Mashable Jobs board.
If you find the full Mashable feed a little too much, please do consider subscribing to these
individual channels instead.
Calling all iPad and would-be iPad developers: Starting today, Apple will be accepting apps for
review. Only applications submitted to review by March 27, 2010, will be considered for the grand
opening of the iPad App Store. After an initial
review, Apple will let developers know about the readiness of their app so that changes can be
made before a final review submission.
Apple details the steps developers need to take in an e-mail, which you can see here:
According to the Nielsen Company, the global average time spent per person on social
networking sites is now nearly five and half hours per month (February 2010 data), with Facebook accounting for the majority of that
time. That’s up more than two hours from last year.
In arriving at that conclusion, Nielsen measured social network usage per person across 10
countries and compared that to data from the same time last year.
When looking at specific countries, Italy tops the charts with social network time per person
just under six and a half hours per month (6:27:53), and Australia is a close second (6:02:34).
The United States — which has the largest unique social networking audience — ranked
third in usage with the average person spending just over six hours (6:02:34) on social networks.
What’s even more interesting is that Facebook — with its 400 million members —
is far and away dominating the rest of the competition.
Facebook is the number-one social network destination worldwide and accounts for nearly
six hours (5:52:00) per person with the average user logging in more than 19 times per
month. What that boils down to is that the time spent on Facebook is almost five hours
longer than the time spent on MySpace
(0:59:33), the second closest social network in terms of time spent on site per person.
Nielsen also found that:
- Globally, the average Twitterer conducts three unique sessions for a total of 36 minutes per
month.
- In the U.S. the active unique social network audience grew roughly 29% from 115 million in
February 2009 to 149 million in February 2010.
- Active unique users of social networks are also up nearly 30% globally, rising from 244.2
million to 314.5 million collectively.
The
Predator franchise of science fiction/horror/action films is coming back into the
zeitgeist, this time without the Aliens. The trailer hit the web today; watch it to find out if the franchise is worth
revisiting.
The new film is called Predators (evoking Aliens, the sequel to Alien) and the
premise seems to be that several of humanity’s most effective killers are stranded on a
jungle planet where they’re hunted for sport by a whole legion of predators. The film stars
Adrien Brody, Lawrence Fishburne and Topher Grace, and it’s directed by Vacancy
and Armored director Nimród Antal. Sin City’s Robert Rodriguez is
one of the three credited screenwriters.
Adrian Brody is a surprise choice for leading man, seeing as how the first Predator film
starred Arnold Schwarzenegger; let’s just say no one would picture Brody playing Conan the
Barbarian. We’ll see if the new vibe works when the movie hits theaters this July.
The e-book war between Amazon.com and Apple
is getting uglier. Dennis Johnson cites a report in
Publishers Marketplace (subscription required) that alleges that Amazon.com is
telling publishers that if they switch to an agency model (ala Macmillan) , they
will lose Amazon as a platform for both e-books and print.
This battle, which in many ways mirrors similar struggles between record labels and online music
stores, underscores some of the challenges that moving into widespread digital distribution for a
formerly non-digital product can bring.
The Agency Model Conundrum
Recently, Macmillian’s CEO John Sargent explained the agency model, as it relates to e-book
sales, in his blog:
“Starting at the end of March, we will move from the ‘retail model’ of selling
e-books (publishers sell to retailers, who then sell to readers at a price that the retailer
determines) to the ‘agency model’ (publishers set the price, and retailers take a
commission on the sale to readers).”
In other words, Macmillan wants to be able to control how much digital books are sold for on a
per-book basis. Much like music publishers fought (and eventually won) the right to sell certain
digital tracks or digital albums for more (or less, in some cases) than the $0.99 per track/$9.99
per album standard, publishers want that same control.
Amazon disagrees. And while it did acquiesce to
Macmillan’s position at the end of January, it apparently has no plans of making those
same concessions for future publishers.
In the Publishers Marketplace report, Michael Cader writes:
“At least one independent publisher of scale was told categorically by Amazon in a recent
phone call initiated by the retailer that Amazon would not negotiate agency selling terms with
any other publishers outside of the five initial Apple partners. This publisher was told that if
they switched to an agency model for e-books, Amazon would stop selling their entire list, in
print and digital form. In conversation, Amazon is said to have reiterated that as matter of
policy they are declining to negotiate an agency model with any publisher outside of the five who
have already announced agreements with Apple’s iBookstore.”
In other words, the agreements that have been made with the five publishers signed to work with
Apple — Macmillan, Harper Collins, Penguin, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster — will
not be passed on to smaller publishers.
It seems even the agreement with the other four publishers outside of Macmillan (known as Agency
Four) isn’t set in stone.
Cader also writes:
“The indications are that if the Agency Four have not finalized new digital sales
agreements with Amazon prior to the launch of Apple’s iPad, they could face delisting from
direct sale at Amazon, as Macmillan did.”
Translation: If those publishers don’t finalize a new digital agreement with Amazon before
the launch of the iPad, they risk being removed from
Amazon.com
Amazon Is Biggest Now, But For How Long?
Because it is both the biggest seller of e-books and print books, Amazon has enormous power in
the publishing industry. However, it’s unclear how long it will be able to play hardball
with publishers, especially as formidable competitors like Apple (with iTunes) and Google emerge.
Apple, interestingly, held a reverse stance with music executives for many years before finally
changing course in January of 2009 with the introduction of variable pricing. However, one reason
Apple was able to exert so much influence over record labels pricing was because until Amazon
launched its service (again, Amazon took the reverse approach with music, letting publishers set
variable pricing for tracks and albums), there was no real competitor in the digital music space.
Amazon isn’t quite as lucky. First, e-books have been around for years and are available in
a variety of formats from a variety of different storefronts. In fact, Amazon sold digital books
long before it introduced the Kindle.
The e-book market has evolved much more quickly than the digital music space, which leaves less
wiggle room for retailers, like Amazon, to exert pressure.
However, make no mistake, for smaller publishers, the risk of losing listings on Amazon.com is
still probably a big enough threat to have an effect.
We’ll keep following this situation as it develops.
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable
regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small
business.
Google Apps for business has a number of
benefits over traditional business IT and desktop software. Using the full suite essentially
places all of your data and entire workflow in the cloud, meaning you can access it all anywhere,
any time, from any Internet connection.
At $50 per year per user, the fully integrated apps system is certainly cost-effective, and even
adding the free versions of Gmail, Calendar, and Google Docs into your workflow can keep your employees
coordinated.
For more casual users, or even those who might not be acquainted with Google Apps, here’s a
guide to how the software can benefit your small business.
The many advanced features of Gmail really make it a
leap forward in the web-based e-mail space, and a lot of these are ideal for business.
If you’re not ready to take the full plunge into the paid Google Apps suite, you can still
configure Gmail to function as your business e-mail client through your existing domain name by
following the steps outlined in my post, “How to Set Up Gmail as Your Business E-mail Client.”
The first big advantage of Gmail, like all the apps discussed here, is that it functions
in the cloud. You don’t have to worry about downloading messages to multiple
locations or syncing various devices. Your inbox will look the same from any web or mobile
connection. And with 25 gigs of e-mail storage per user (with a paid apps account), it’s
unlikely you’ll ever have to clean your inbox or delete old messages.
Gmail works a bit differently than traditional desktop clients and webmail services in that
conversations are “threaded.” This means that e-mails with the same
or related subject lines are grouped together in a thread so you can see all the messages sent
and received on a topic in one place. When a new message is received, the entire thread is bumped
to the top of your inbox, making tracking complex and multi-party conversations easy.
Gmail also has a chat feature built right into the interface that lets you send
a quick update or discuss a project with an employee if you’re not in the same office.
Chats are also stored in Gmail so that you can search and refer to them later.
Google search, the asset that started it all for the company, is of course built
right into Gmail, which makes finding information from e-mail conversations (even very old ones)
extremely efficient.
Additionally, Gmail Labs offers some extra settings for your inbox that can be extremely valuable
for business use:
Signature Tweaks puts your e-mail signature before the quoted text in a reply
the way that Outlook would.
Default ‘Reply to All’ allows you to reply to group e-mails with
one click, instead of from a drop-down menu.
Forgotten Attachment Detector will notify you if you’ve mentioned an
attachment in an e-mail, but forgotten to add one.
Undo Send gives you a few seconds after sending a message to click
“undo” in case you forgot something, or sent it to the wrong party by mistake.
Title Tweaks is a great feature that puts your unread message count first in
the title of the inbox web page. If you have many windows open while you’re working,
you’ll still be able to see when new messages arrive.
Google Docs is a web-based suite for word processing, presentation building (similar to
PowerPoint), spreadsheets, and web forms. All the work is done in a web browser, and all the data
is saved in the cloud.
The software can be a bit quirky at times, which may frustrate users of more stable products like
Microsoft Office, but the payoff in online storage, shareability, and collaboration options may
be worth the adjustment for many small businesses.
Because the data is online, streamlined document sharing and collaboration are
big perks with Google Docs. Any file you’re working on can be shared with individual team
members, or the entire group within the apps system. You can also set permissions for specific
users to view and edit documents. And, multiple users can simultaneously view and edit documents,
which can be useful for real-time collaborative projects or presentations during conference
calls. You can also grant permission for those outside your office network to view and edit
documents, which can be especially useful for sharing information and presentations with clients
or colleagues.
As you create and share documents, your Google Docs dashboard may start to get a little messy. Be
sure to create folders to keep your work organized just as you would on your
desktop. You can also share entire folders if you need to collaborate on multiple documents
related to the same project.
Google Calendar provides an efficient and intuitive way to keep appointments and events synced
across your entire business. With calendar sharing and permissions (similar to
those in Docs), you can add other employees’ calendars to your own, and vice versa, in
order to see and manage the big picture of your team’s time.
For example, if an executive has an assistant, their calendars may be shared so that the
assistant could manage his boss’s appointments remotely from his own account. It’s
also a smart tool for coordinating meetings, calls, and shift staffing for multiple employees to
avoid scheduling conflicts. Sharing multiple calendars with one “master calendar”
creates a color-coded scheduling table for the coordinator that updates automatically when users
make changes or additions.
The Calendar app can also be used to create events through Gmail. By adding your
employees’ e-mail addresses to an event, they will receive an invitation to respond.
Responding ‘yes’ automatically adds a shared event to your calendar that each invitee
can view and add notes to. It’s a smart way to coordinate meetings and keep everyone in the
loop.
Google Sites is a drag-and-drop web development tool that you can use within your
business’s apps to create online information hubs for employees. The
websites you create exist within your Google Apps domain, can be public or private, and
permissions for employees to add, change, and contribute information can be set from the main
account.
Beyond simply being a WYSIWYG web editor, Sites makes it easy to integrate data from
other Google Apps into dynamic pages that team members can use to collaborate on
projects. Integrating spreadsheets or data charts from Docs, a deadline schedule from Calendar,
and team-specific messages from Gmail could essentially create a one-stop project dashboard full
of dynamically updating information.
Sites here can be purely functional or informational, or with the aid of some built-in templates
or a good designer, a full-fledged dynamic public website for your business that
team members have easy access to.
Google Groups have long been public forums where users across the web gather to discuss specific
interests or get technical support. Groups for business brings that same functionality into your
private internal network.
E-mail can sometimes be cumbersome when coordinating a team. When you need a central space to
collect ideas and share documents (but you’re not interested in building a web page in
Sites), Groups offers a solution.
Employees can create discussion groups on their own and subscribe, either by
e-mail or via a Groups dashboard, which lists new posts like a news reader.
Rather than e-mails going out to individual inboxes, a group thread remains visible to all of
your subscribed team members, and users can go back to it for reference, to add more information,
and even share docs and calendars.
Using Groups for business discussions and project management creates a communal and
searchable database of information that employees can go back to whenever needed.
Google’s recently launched Google Apps
Marketplace allows developers of other business web apps to integrate their offerings with
Google and sell software directly to Google Apps users. The marketplace currently has over 50
partners, including Intuit, Zoho, and Aviary. This additional space for third-party software
means that Apps users will have even more options to tailor their suite for specific business
purposes.
Smart Integration Across the Board
While each app has worthwhile features, perhaps one of the best advantages is the way that they
all integrate with one another. Documents and appointments can be easily shared via e-mail, and
your inbox can be used as a portal for productivity via embeddable widgets, chat, and other
notifications.
If your small business is ready for a web-based, collaboration-minded IT solution, Google Apps is
certainly a cost-effective way to go, and you can investigate the free versions simply by signing
up for a Gmail account to determine if the suite is right for your workflow.
The first car
equipped with Google’s Android mobile
operating system will hit the streets this April 23. It’s called the Roewe 350, and it will launch at the Beijing Auto Show.
Roewe vehicles are luxury cars made by Chinese car company SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry
Corporation) using technology purchased from British company MG Rover, which has been owned by
both BMW and Ford in the past.
The 2.1 version of Google Android — the same that Google used in the Nexus One and Motorola Droid —
is installed on the vehicle’s GPS computer. You can use the computer for directions and
traffic reports just as you can with many other GPS devices. But it’s not all vanilla; you
can also surf the web and engage in some form of Internet chatting. There’s no telling yet
which chat service you’ll be using, but hopefully you won’t be doing it while
you’re driving!
We haven’t heard whether or not you’ll be able to install apps from the Android
Market yet. We also don’t know how the device connects to the Internet. The car will cost
between 70,000 and 130,000 yuan, or about $10,250 – $19,000.
Twitter appears set
to tweak search results to return the most popular tweets first — instead of the most
recent — for any given search query.
This according to Twitter Developer Advocate Taylor Singletary, who has just updated the developer Google Group announcing the yet-to-be-released product.
Singletary says, “This is a beta project, but an important first step to surface the most
popular tweets for users searching Twitter.”
The announcement is geared towards developers to prepare them for changes in the search API. The
implication, however, is that the appearance of Twitter Search will also be altered to highlight popular tweets. Ultimately, it
appears that the revamped search experience will be available on both Twitter.com and third-party
applications and clients that move to support it.
While there’s no word on how “popular” is defined by Twitter, we can assume
that the popular tweets will be identified by attributes such as quantity of retweets, or
potentially tweets coming from a user with a high level of followers and engagement.
We think the new feature is an important evolution of the Twitter search experience and one
we’re looking forward to seeing in action.
Following a
disappointing earnings report, a Wall Street analyst has cut his price target on Palm to $0. In
other words, he believes the company’s shares will be worthless within 12 months.
The report comes from Canaccord Adams technology analyst Peter Misek, who wrote this
morning, “We believe Palm’s troubles will only accelerate as carriers and suppliers
increasingly question the company’s solvency and withdraw their support.”
Although Palm’s revenue tripled in its most recent quarter versus the prior year, less than
half of the smartphones it shipped to distributors actually sold. And for the coming quarter,
Palm offered a revenue estimate of less than half of what analysts were expecting.
Initial optimism about the Palm Pre and Pixi — which are now also available on Verizon — had
sent the company’s shares as high as $18/share last fall, but following today’s
report, the company sees its shares back under $5. As of December ’09, the company had an
estimated 6% share of the U.S. smartphone market.
Yesterday, David Chen live-tweeted the process of becoming an American citizen when he, along with 900 other individuals, participated
in the Naturalization Oath Ceremony at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Chen, the managing editor of /Film, is used to
using his Twitter account to live-tweet
film festivals or events like Comic Con, but this was something different.
“I didn’t anticipate being able to live-tweet the ceremony, because I had heard a
rumor that they would confiscate my electronic devices. This ended up not being true, so after I
checked in, I realized I had an opportunity to show people an aspect of citizenship that they
might not usually be privy to. And I took it.”
In addition to sending out tweets about the ceremony, Chen also uploaded
videos to YouTube, photos to Flickr and even took the time to do an audio interview with another new
citizen.
After the ceremony, Chen wrote about the experience on his blog, sharing what it means to be an American to
him. Born in Taiwan, Chen’s family came to America when he was two years old. Now more than
20 years later, he’s officially a U.S. citizen.
We’ve seen examples of people using social media to share love, report on breaking
news and even on the birth of a child. It only makes sense that we now have one of the first
instances of someone live-tweeting the naturalization process.
The mobile nature of something like Twitter — Chen was able to send out updates as he
waited in line for his certificate, prepared to say the oath, etc. — makes it the perfect
medium to capture some of these life events.
Congrats Dave! How do you use social media to share your stories with the world? Let us know!
Leyl Master Black is a Managing Director at Sparkpr, one of the world’s top independent PR agencies. Leyl has more
than 15 years experience driving high-impact communications programs for emerging technology
companies.
While more than three million businesses, brands and celebrities have created Facebook Pages, many are struggling to figure out
how best to use them. Companies are finding that even when they keep their pages updated with
fresh content, they still aren’t seeing steady growth in their fan base.
And yet there are many brands who’ve surpassed the one million fan mark, while their peers
have languished in the thousands. What’s their secret? These companies have figured out how
to move from “broadcast” mode into engagement. They have engaged people so well that
their fans even invite others along for the ride.
Here are four ways that savvy Facebook marketers are using the medium to engage with their fans.
1. Ask Their Opinion
If you post something on your Facebook Page, you might generate a good number of comments. But if
you post your content in the context of a question, you provide an easy call to action. With a
question, you engage people’s egos and provoke viral distribution of your content —
everyone loves to share their opinion!
At the DigiDay: Social conference
this month, social media marketing application developer Fan Appz highlighted an example of how a simple question can boost
engagement. One of their customers — a leading video content provider with over 300,000
Facebook fans — routinely posts videos on their Facebook Page. The company found that when
they paired videos with a question, video plays jumped by a whopping factor of 7 to 10. This
simple yet effective strategy also generated 100 times more Facebook media impressions, as people
posted videos to their walls in the context of their response to the question.
The NBA has also adopted this approach, issuing a steady stream of “Top Five” polls
and other engaging content that has propelled the organization to top the two million
fan mark, an unprecedented number for a sports league on the social networking site. The NBA
routinely invites fans to rank their top five shooters, point guards and more. During the 2009-10
NBA season, their Fan Page generated nearly 500 million status update impressions and more than
six million video views.
2. Test Their Knowledge
Consider testing people’s knowledge with a fun, relevant quiz, and even tying the results
to a giveaway or promotion (more on that later). A clever quiz is not only entertaining, but also
lengthens the time a user spends engaged with your brand.
One company embracing this approach is Molotov, a digital marketing agency whose clients include
comedians such as George Lopez, David Spade and Jamie Kennedy. Molotov worked with George Lopez
to create quizzes such as How Well Do You Know George Lopez? to push his fan base over the one
million mark and drive viewership for his TV show.
In another Molotov program to promote a client’s new TV show, the company ran a series of
quizzes about the celebrity in conjunction with a sweepstakes for signed merchandise. The quizzes
were tests of knowledge about the comedian, his comedy, his routines, even about what happened on
last week’s show. Giving people the opportunity to test their knowledge got them into a
competitive mode and provided an additional incentive to share their results with friends. In the
span of a little over a week, the campaign drove over 12 million brand impressions — and
the premiere of the show was the highest rated show on the cable network for the year.
3. Pair Promotions with Content
While a contest or sweepstakes may get you some e-mail addresses, simply posting these on your
page provides limited incentive to share with friends or even to participate. The way to boost
participation is by tying the offer to content. People taking a brand-related quiz are great
targets for your message. They may already have an affinity for the brand, so this is the best
time to make them an offer.
In the example mentioned above, Molotov gave fans a chance to enter a sweepstakes to win signed
merchandise — but the offer was made within the flow of the quiz. This strategy resulted in
a 50% conversion rate. For every ten fans who tested their knowledge, five signed up to
participate in the promotion, generating over 30,000 sign-ups for the weekly e-mail blast to
promote the show.
The offer doesn’t even have to be big. Before the Super Bowl, the NFL ran a How Well Do You Know the
NFL? quiz, with one lucky participant selected to receive a $50 gift card to NFLshop.com. Over 10,000 people took the quiz. If you
estimate that each participant has 200 friends, that’s a possible two million impressions
in the news feed with a relatively small giveaway.
4. Thank Your Fans
Giving your fans something of value — whether it’s as simple as a coupon, or as
flashy as tickets to the Tonight Show — is a great way to show that you appreciate
their continued support.
But what about picking one fan at random to get something really special?
The NBA again shows that they are on the leading edge. This brilliant strategy taps some of their
biggest stars to record personalized video clips thanking select fans. Here’s a picture of Shaq
thanking fan #385. If you’re an NBA fan, you could be next!
Put These Ideas Into Action
You don’t have to be a major brand like the NBA to turn your Facebook Page into an engaging
destination. Any business can take these ideas and get creative. A restaurant could pair a quiz
about famous restaurant movie scenes with a $100 gift certificate sweepstakes, or a Ford
dealership could run a poll gauging people’s reactions to the Toyota recall news and give
away interest-free financing to one lucky winner. The trick is to think about what your users
would be interested in, what’s trendy or fun, then try it out.
In what ways are you engaging with your Facebook fans?
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Sunday, March 21st (a few hours from now
on the West Coast) marks Twitter’s 4th birthday — exactly four years
since Twitter co-founder 
Non-profits could use Buzz to manage workflow across a group. This can be
useful for an organization with project teams spread across multiple offices or in the field.
With 
Attention baseball fans, the date that is no doubt etched
in your brain — the start of the 2010 Major League Baseball Season — is fast
approaching. To get you ready for April 4 (when the Boston Red Sox will take on the reigning
World Series champion New York Yankees at Fenway Park) we’re pitching you five handpicked
iPhone apps that will hit a home run with baseball fans.
Justin Bieber remains an immutable force of 
We know you’re busy. Even with every social media, web, and
RSS tool at your disposal, you can occasionally miss out on some of the week’s most
insightful content.
If you’re a gadget-lover fed up of filling your home
with ice white this and brushed aluminum that, then check out this selection of totally
stylin’ items offering a design blast from the past.
Earlier today, Steve Jobs talked publicly about his life saving liver transplant for
the first time at a press conference where California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced
new legislation to encourage and make easier organ donation.
When it
comes to accessing 
It’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament time — otherwise known as 
Kevin Nakao is VP of Mobile & Business Search for
Ever wonder what it would be like to step inside a giant
wire mesh cage, put on a virtual reality headset, walk around like a hamster and shoot crazy
alien opponents? No? Luckily our friends 
If you weren’t able to pick up tickets for Conan O’Brien’s “
✩ 
According to the 
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The 
The first car
equipped with Google’s 
Following a
disappointing earnings report, a Wall Street analyst has cut his price target on Palm to $0. In
other words, he believes the company’s shares will be worthless within 12 months.
Yesterday, 
Recommandations
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and reject those that you are not interested in
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