Wednesday 31 August 2011

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Samsung Galaxy S II Coming to the U.S. in September”

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Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Samsung Galaxy S II Coming to the U.S. in September”

Samsung Galaxy S II Coming to the U.S. in September

Posted: 31 Aug 2011 03:02 AM PDT


Samsung’s flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S II, will soon be available in the U.S. from AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

You won’t be getting the exact same phone from all three vendors, however. Most of the basics are identical: a 1.2 GHz Exynos CPU, Android 2.3 Gingerbread and 16 GB of storage.

AT&T and T-Mobile will call the device Galaxy S II, while Sprint will be calling it Epic 4G Touch. To increase the confusion, AT&T’s model will have a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen and a smaller, 1650 mAh battery (and an 8.89 mm thin profile), while T-Mobile and Sprint’s version will feature a 1800 mAh battery better suited to power the bigger, 4.52-inch screen.

Finally, Sprint’s version of the device will have WiMax, while T-Mobile and AT&T versions will sport HSPA+, which makes all three 4G devices – depending on your definition of the term.

As far as availability goes, Sprint will be selling the device for $199.99 beginning September 16; AT&T says their version will hit the shelves “in the coming weeks”, while T-Mobile’s variant will become available “this fall”.

[via Engadget]

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eMusic and The Echo Nest Partner for Streaming Radio

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 10:34 PM PDT


Digital music retailer eMusic has teamed up with music intelligence company The Echo Nest to launch a series of music discovery applications.

The first app in this series is called eMusic Radio. With Radio, eMusic offers streaming “stations” such as “Gimme Indie Rock!” and “All Things Electronic,” which are curated by eMusic staff and contributors as well as other knowledgeable personalities from the music industry. The service is now available in beta and is free for eMusic members.

Using The Echo Nest’s Playlist and Taste Profiling engines, the human curators behind the new eMusic Radio stations can augment their selections with additional tracks chosen based on artist connections, mood, and various attributes like tempo, time signature and key.

It sounds a bit like Pandora with a human touch. There are minimal social features, and eMusic is only offering 10 hours a month of free streaming. However, now seems like a good time to experiment with streaming music and discovery services, with Spotify gaining hold in the United States and iTunes in the Cloud taking advantage of streaming for Apple users. For a music retailer like eMusic, encouraging music discovery is an important, perhaps essential, part of driving sales.

The Echo Nest has been on a tear over the last year, signing deals with companies like Rdio, 7digital, the Public Radio Exchange, MTV’s Music Meter and Island Def Jam. The company is making a name for itself in the burgeoning music discovery space.

We like seeing The Echo Nest and eMusic working together and look forward to more collaborations between the two groups in the future. Will you be streaming music through eMusic Radio? Let us know in the comments.

Image Courtesy of Flickr, Robert Agthe

More About: Echo Nest, emusic, music, music streaming, streaming

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Tumblr Tops 13 MM U.S. Uniques in July

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 09:23 PM PDT


Tumblr, the simple sharing service and blog alternative, continues to attract a record number of visitors each month.

According to comScore, Tumblr scored 13.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. in July — up 218% from the same time last year.

The blog-meets-social-network service has seen its most explosive growth in the past few months, according to comScore’s data, upping its unique visitor count by more than 5 million from April to July.

comScore attributes the pop to Tumblr’s “network effect.”

“The network effect is predicated on the idea that the more users that are part of the system, the more valuable the system becomes to users, which creates a virtuous cycle that pulls more users into the system and gives existing users more incentive to participate,” comScore’s Andrew Lipsman says. “This concept is an important reason why we often see that once social networks achieve critical mass, the network effect takes hold and adoption tends to accelerate.

Founded in 2007, Tumblr surpassed 20 million blogs in June of this year. The blog figure is now fast-approaching 28 million.

It should come as little surprise then that Tumblr is rumored to be soliciting investors to participate in a $75 million to $100 million round of funding that would put its valuation near the $1 billion mark — $800 million, by The Wall Street Journal’s count.

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Adventure World: Zynga Unveils Newest Social Game [VIDEO]

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 08:22 PM PDT

Zynga has released the first trailer for Adventure World, the company’s newest social game.

The 37-second trailer shows off a slew of new maps, complete with ancient temples, volcanoes, whips, snakes and death traps. The game’s look and feel reminds us of Indiana Jones, but with the same animation style that has made FarmVille and CityVille big hits. “Grab life by the boulders!” seems to be the game’s overarching slogan.

There’s no word as to when the game will launch, but we suspect it will be sooner rather than later. The company has ben ramping up its game development as of late. It most recently launched Pioneer Trail as an extension of FrontierVille. Its other games include Words With Friends, Empires & Allies, Cafe World, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker.

Check out the trailer above and let us know what you think of Adventure World in the comments.

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Find Home Design Inspiration With Houzz’s 170,000+ Photo Library

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 07:43 PM PDT


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Houzz

Quick Pitch: Users browse its library of 170,000 photos to make ideabooks of home design possibilities.

Genius Idea: Using content that professionals upload themselves.

Clipping photos from magazines seems like an antiquated brainstorming method for covering blank walls or redoing a bedroom.

Houzz is bringing the process into the digital age by creating a database of more than 170,000 home design photos sorted by room, style and geographic location. Users can add photos to their own virtual “ideabooks” or look through curated volumes for inspiration.

Houzz combines browsing magazines with researching designers. Eager designers can show off their work by creating profiles on the site. Users can then contact professionals with questions or job offers.

About 25,000 interior designers, architects and general contractors have used the site to display their work.

“We’re sort of the middle man,” Head of Business Development Katherine Nannizzi says. “We’re giving the tools to the home design professionals to upload their portfolios, and hopefully giving the tools to users to be able to search through this database of photos, find what they’re looking for, and connect with the professionals if they so choose.”

The site started as the pet project of husband-and-wife team Alon Cohen and Adi Tatarko. As the startup raised a $2 million round of funding last fall, it launched an iPad app and began working to monetize its photo service.

Because each photo on Houzz is, as Nannizzi puts it, “tagged 10 ways to Sunday,” it’s easy to figure out what type of products individual users are interested in purchasing. This makes it a great platform for advertisers — a revenue stream the startup has recently started pursuing.

Houzz has also started tagging individual items in photos with descriptions and a link to where they can be purchased. Right now, the links don’t bring in revenue, but it’s conceivable Houzz could one day collect referral fees.

Charging designers is another potential source of revenue, although Nannizzi says the plan is to keep the site’s current services free. This makes sense, as designer content is largely what distinguishes Houzz from other online home design tools.

“We don’t have a lot of competitors who are working directly with designers,” Nannizzi says. “Technology is really disrupting a lot of word of mouth industries because it is allowing them to have a bigger platform, and this is definitely one area where you see that.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kourafas5

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, design, home design, Houzz

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Fashion Models Dance in Viral Lanvin Ad [VIDEO]

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 06:48 PM PDT


Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

Fashion’s having a little fun of the dancing variety lately, as Lanvin’s fall campaign video (above) suggests.

The video, which was shot by Steven Meisel and features a handful of models including Racquel Zimmerman and Karen Elson dancing to Pitbull’s I Know You Want Me, has racked up more than 100,000 views since it debuted Saturday. A print campaign featuring stills from the video is currently running in fashion-focused women’s titles, including U.S. Vogue‘s September issue.

Be sure to watch out for artistic director Alber Elbaz’s cameo at the end.

Print Ad

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Android & iPhone Dominate Smartphone Market at BlackBerry’s Expense [STATS]

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 05:51 PM PDT


Google and Apple continue to eat up more of the smartphone market, while RIM and Microsoft continue to lose ground.

According to new data from comScore, 82.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphone as of July 2011, a full 10% increase from April 2011. During this time, Google and Apple were big winners. Google is the market leader with 41.8% market share (up from 36.4% in April), while Apple is #2 with 27% market share (up from 26%).

The news isn’t as bright for RIM, Microsoft or Nokia though. RIM’s BlackBerry was the big loser, as its piece of the smartphone market dropped from 25.7% to 21.7% in just three months. Microsoft also experienced a drop from 6.7% to 5.7%. Nokia’s Symbian OS, which is on its way to retirement, dropped from 2.3% to 1.9%.

comScore also reports that 234 million Americans 13 and older use some type of mobile device, whether it’s a smartphone or not. Among the entire smartphone market, Samsung is the leader with a 25.5% share of U.S. mobile subscribers. LG and Motorola are next with 20.9% and 14.1% respectively. Apple is forth with 9.5% of the total market, an increase of 1.2% since April. RIM rounds out the top five at 7.6%.

Among these 234 million mobile Americans, more of them are using their phones for a variety of tasks. A full 70% of U.S. mobile subscribers are texting, up 1.2% from April. 41.1% use their phones for web browsing (up 2%) and 40.6% have used a downloaded app (up 2.8%). Social networking (30.1%), playing mobile games (27.8%) and listening to music (20.3%) are all up as well.

It’s tough to predict what will happen to the mobile market in the next few years. One report asserts that Windows Phone will overtake iOS by 2015, though we highly doubt that possibility, even with Nokia switching to WP7. For now though, Apple and Google are in a comfortable position, and it doesn’t look like there are any challengers ready to knock them off their perches.

More About: android, apple, ComScore, Google, iOS, iphone, microsoft, mobile phones, RIM, windows phone 7

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Why CNN Acquired Zite [INTERVIEW]

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 05:01 PM PDT

In tablets generally and the iPad particularly, consumers have found a device conducive to reading news.

It’s no surprise then that a growing number of newsreading apps have appeared, from individual, branded apps such as the Wall Street Journal for iPad to independent apps such as Flipboard, Editions and Zite, which are designed for consuming content from a variety of sources.

The last of these was acquired by CNN Tuesday. In an emailed statement, CNN’s general manager of digital, KC Estenson, suggested that Zite will continue to work with a wide array of media partners and that its technology will also be leveraged “to help CNN’s websites and apps serve more personalized content, making our current digital services even better."

Zite would continue to operate as an independent company on a day-to-day basis under existing CEO Mark Johnson, the statement said.

Still, we were left with many questions. Why Zite? Will it truly remain independent? Will the new subsidiary be free to strike partnerships with other media outlets? Will the algorithms be tweaked to feature CNN content more prominently?

These are some of the questions we posed to both Estenson and Johnson in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon, parts of which are transcribed below.

Q&A With KC Estenson, CNN & Mark Johnson, Zite

Why Zite?

Estenson: We saw in Zite a best-in-class product. It’s deeply loved by the people who have it, and we thought it would be a nice addition to our digital portfolio. Secondly, there’s great technology behind it. We’re seeing a lot of interest in this space now, but these guys have been working on this for six years.

Johnson: The iPad is really well suited to reading. I think what’s interesting about Zite is that it brings you really interesting information you might not have otherwise read. It’s not just repackaging information.

We’re seeing Flipboard move into TV and film, while Pulse is getting into bookmarklets and extensions. Where is Zite going next?

Johnson: We still see a huge market in giving you the information most relevant to you. We’re focusing on content right now, news-type content. We really want to focus on giving people a great personalized iPad magazine.

Your competitors are striking partnerships with content publishers left and right. Are you doing the same?

Johnson: We’re certainly having a lot of conversations right now. We’re looking at ways to work with publishers to help them monetize and distribute their content. But we have nothing to announce right now.

Flipboard has recently begun displaying ads in its app. Are you planning on doing the same?

Johnson: We’re not going to rush the business model here. Part of the [attraction of] the deal was not to have unnatural pressure on Zite to deliver financially. The goal is to get a great product and the business model will follow. We can imagine a variety of ways this company can monetize itself.

And how do you plan on integrating Zite with CNN’s existing digital properties?

Estenson: Zite is going to stand alone as an independent operation. Mark will be running it in San Francisco. The development office is in Vancouver. The technology that powers Zite over time we will begin to leverage with CNN’s digital services, but it won’t be an overnight thing. But over the course of the next 18 months or so I can imagine a world where CNN starts to serve up more personally relevant content. That can help with CNN’s traffic recirculation and those sorts of things on the site. The important thing is that Zite stays.

Can we expect CNN’s content to feature more prominently on Zite in the future?

Johnson: Absolutely not. Our personalization algorithms look for most interesting content on the web, whether that comes from CNN or elsewhere. Our algorithms are completely agnostic.

Will Zite still be free to pursue partnerships with media companies beyond CNN?

Estenson: Yes. You’ll see them do a wide variety of deals. We have a lot of experience at CNN with content partnerships. The web is a really interconnected space, a lot of linking and crosslinking of articles. That same philosophy will be remixed and repurposed. You’ll see us help Zite with that in a variety of ways.

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U.S. Troops Overseas Can Use Gmail To Call Home For Free

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 04:19 PM PDT


Uniformed U.S. military personnel serving abroad can use Gmail’s phone calling feature for free. The promotion starts now and runs through the end of the year.

The free offering merely requires would-be callers to add and validate their .mil email addresses in Gmail. Then they can click the “Call phone” link in the Chat sidebar to initiate a call via Gmail’s dial pad.

“We recognize and appreciate the sacrifices U.S. troops make when they serve abroad, and we're proud to help make it a little bit easier for them to stay connected and hear a familiar voice,” Ilya Frank, Senior Software Engineer at Google, says of the company’s decision.

The generous free calling offer is Google’s second of the year. The company is letting Gmail users make free phone calls to the U.S. and Canada throughout the year to promote its Skype-challenger.

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How NASA Plans to Make Astrophysics Fun With an Ambitious Social Game

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 03:56 PM PDT


Imagine if government agencies made social games. Who wouldn’t enjoy the Federal Reserve’s Asset-Backed SecuritiesVille, or the Census Bureau’s World of FormCraft?

Maybe not.

But what about NASA? After all, exploring space is a staple motif of the video game pantheon.

NASA’s educational efforts have blossomed in the digital age. Its website is choc-full of gorgeous multimedia, and astronauts themselves are tweeting from orbit. Now NASA seeks to “gamify” the serious science of astrophysics — that is, create a commercially viable educational video game that people will actually want to play.

SEE ALSO: 4 Excellent Indie Games With Real Educational Value

That’s easier said than done. A virtual planetarium might be scientifically accurate, but a real snoozer. A modern space shooter would be awesome, but have little educational value. NASA hoped to strike a balance by contracting a game developer for the project, and held a research challenge back in 2007 in search of proposals. The winner is Canadian game studio Project Whitecard, and its ambitions for a persistent and scientifically accurate multiplayer online game look promising.

Private Development and Crowdfunding

“NASA could have spent a million dollars [to make a game] a year or two ago, and you may not have seen anything that you wanted to play,” Khaled Shariff, the CEO of Project Whitecard, tells Mashable. “By making it commercial, the developers have the opportunity to earn money — and potentially lots of it. The idea is to make certain that the people who are building this game are invested in it themselves.”

The project, currently titled Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond, has kicked off an initial round of crowdsourced funding, and thanks to a bit of social media buzz, has exceeded its initial goal of $25,000 in just two weeks. It’s on track for a beta launch in December of 2012.

“It’s an opportunity for us to experience the solar system [in a way] that, surprisingly, hasn’t been done up to this point,” says Shariff. “We want to present a realistic Mars for you to visit. What better way to do it than for NASA to make sure we’re getting it right?”

The Crucial Balance: Fun vs. Education

The average Millennial knows a lot about American pioneer life in the 1840s. That’s because we were intimately engaged with history via The Oregon Trail. A video game became a cultural and educational touchstone in ways a textbook never could.

This is Shariff’s vision for Astronaut — a game that doesn’t feel educational because it’s so darn fun. Set in the not-too-distant future of 2035, players will inhabit a persistent world where space travel is commercially viable. But if you want to put your base on Mars, you’ll have to work for it.

“You’ll need to qualify for gear — anything from space suits to space ships,” says Shariff. “Who doesn’t want to drive six people around on Mars in a rover? Awesome! But in order to have that rover … you’ll have to know how the friction of the wheels interacts with the Martian surface.”

But today’s gamers won’t settle for a static quest-and-reward system. In order to keep it engaging, Shariff’s team is striving for “an intelligent, contiguous, interactive narrative around the world of 2035, where things that you do have an impact on the larger world.”

Meanwhile, NASA consultants will be on hand to keep the game scientifically honest. “It’s very dangerous in space. All these [illustrations] you see of astronauts just jumping around on Mars — well, they’ve got to be really protected because you can die very quickly,” he says. Radiation shielding (on suits, ships and vehicles) is not the kind of thing you need to worry about in your average space sim, but it will be among the key scientific challenges in Astronaut.

“Wouldn’t it be great to play a game, and at the end of an hour and a half, you understand a little bit more about quantum mechanics or jet engines?” Shariff poses. “We have to build in a slight feedback loop … so that we can actually see if you’ve picked up any concepts. That is a requirement of the project, but also a challenge of the project. I think it’s ultimately what will make the project different and exciting for people.”

Science Gets Social

It’s one thing to set an MMO (massively multiplayer online) game in a vast fictional realm. But the expanse of outer space, even within our own solar system is, well, astronomical.

Shariff sees challenges as well as advantages in an enormous, empty game world like intrasolar space.

“We have constraints on how many players can be in one area at a time, but that, interestingly enough, is exactly like space travel. You can’t pile 200 people into the same room on the space station,” he explains. “We plan to make it persistent. You may be dealing in a certain area on a certain base with 32 players — on Mars or an orbiting space station — but there are other stations you can visit.”

Still, few players will hang around for months waiting for their space ships to reach even the closest planets. Shariff hopes to tackle the issue of realistic travel time in a few ways, “one of which is ‘avatar travel,’ ” he explains. “It’s a concept that we discussed at NASA. Can five of us go to an exactly re-created place on Mars right now and interact with each other? Well, actually, you kind of could. There’s going to be a 16 minute delay, but you can. So really, you’re dealing with an augmented reality hologram, and we want to make that available [in the game].”

Shariff also cites emerging propulsion technologies like VASIMR rockets that might make travel between orbital stations faster and more efficient in the foreseeable future. Real-world advances like these make the space-faring world of 2035 more plausible, according to Shariff, and related technologies will likely be incorporated into the game.

Commercial Viability

A NASA-approved science game would be enough to pique some interest, but that Project Whitecard has skin in the game makes this project all the more compelling.

“It’s a commercial license, so it has to make money somehow,” says Shariff. “If we put it out … and it didn’t make money, I guess we would be happy if people enjoyed it. But, we would like to continue making installments.”

We asked about the business model, which, at this stage, is still ambiguous.

“The plans to make money on the game evolve. There is a plan for there to be an initial license. There is a plan to introduce a microtransaction system in the game at some point,” Shariff explains.

If all goes according to plan, be on the lookout for a beta coming to PC, Mac and iOS devices late next year.

More About: Gaming, NASA, Science, space

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Chegg Offers 7-Day Ebook Pass While Paper Books Ship

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 03:16 PM PDT


Students who buy or rent a textbook from Chegg will no longer need to wait for it to arrive in the mail before they can start their homework.

The online textbook vendor is launching a new “read while you wait” feature on Tuesday night that gives its customers access to an ebook version of some books while the paper versions ship.

“Read while you wait” ebook access will cost $1.99 and will be valid for seven days.

The short ebook pass is not available as a standalone product, which means it’s only available as an add-on to the price of a physical book. But to be honest, you might have some trouble tracking down a book for which it is an option. Chegg is only offering the add-on for about 10% of its titles.

Even so, selling short ebook passes to fill the time between the rental and arrival of textbooks is a smart move for Chegg. The company recently redesigned its website to highlight digital textbooks. Encouraging users take its HTML5 reader for a $2 spin is a good way to introduce them to the new format.

Photo courtesy of istockphoto, dlewis33

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App.net Gives Mobile App Makers an Instant Web Presence

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 03:01 PM PDT


“There’s a huge mismatch between apps and the web,” says Dalton Caldwell, co-founder of Mixed Media Labs. Caldwell’s current project, App.net, seeks to bridge this gap and is expanding to support three additional mobile platforms Tuesday.

App.net consists of a suite of tools mobile developers can use to create an attractive, social media-optimized and SEO-friendly web presence — including landing pages, third-party integrations and download widgets — for their applications.

First released for iOS and Android developers, App.net has updated to support developers with Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry and HTML5 apps. Developers can use App.net free of a charge for a single application or pay a monthly fee for additional apps and features.

“Our WP7 and BlackBerry support works in the same way as iOS and Android,” a blog post on the update details.

As for HTML5, App.net should come in handy for developers who optimize for mobile. “Marketing a link that launches directly into full screen mode from a tweet or email link may not the best user experience,” the post says. “You still need a marketing/landing page to explain to people why they would want it.”

App.net is like an About.me for apps, Caldwell explains. “You don’t have to know how to program,” he adds. “Now, you can just take for granted that there’s a web page for your app … App.net provides a way to canonically refer to applications on the web.”

App.net, Mixed Media Lab’s second product, became the top priority for the Andreessen-Horowitz-backed startup after Caldwell realized that the mobile application tools his company had built for internal usage could turn into a more lucrative business than mobile photo-sharing. As a result, Picplz was spun out as a standalone company and Mixed Media Labs turned its attention to App.net.

“I know the mobile app space pretty well,” explains Caldwell on the switch in focus. “I’m just trying to leverage all the knowledge I have and solve the biggest challenges people face — specifically distribution and awareness.”

Caldwell is a proponent of the two week dev cycle and says that Mixed Media Labs will continue to push out regular updates for the App.net platform. “We’re just going down the list of all the things that should work,” he says.

More About: App.net, dalton caldwell, Mixed Media Labs, picplz

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MOG Comes to Boxee & Target Stores

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 01:32 PM PDT


Subscription streaming service MOG is now available on the Boxee Box, bringing MOG’s library of 11 million songs to Boxee users, available in 320 kbps.

MOG continues to increase its support for third-party devices. In addition to apps for the iPhone and Android, MOG is available on Roku and Sonos systems.

Last week, MOG announced that it was building on its partnership with BMW to bring MOG to cars equipped with BMW Apps. This is part of the MOG Fusion Program that the company announced at CES.

Competing music services like Rdio and Pandora are also making inroads in the connected device and automotive space.

The next big trend for subscription streaming services? Gift cards. MOG tells us that it has partnered with inComm, a leading player in the prepaid product space, to offer MOG gift cards.

Target retail stores in the U.S. will offer MOG cards worth $9.99 and good for one month of MOG Primo (which includes mobile, web and connected device access). Gift cards worth $9.99 or $19.99 (good for two months of MOG Primo) will be available at Target.com. MOG tells us that Target is the first retail partner that the company is announcing with inComm, but more retailers will be added in the future.

Earlier this week, Rdio introduced its own gift card program. Rdio cards can be purchased at Target retail stores or online, in denominations ranging from $10 to $100. The gift card model for subscription streaming services makes a lot of sense. Part of the success of iTunes can be attributed to its relatively low friction purchase process. If a user doesn’t have a credit card, that’s OK; he or she can get a gift card from one of many retail and drug stores to use in iTunes.

With Spotify making a big splash in the U.S. earlier this summer, the subscription streaming space is really heating up. Providers are increasingly going to have to work to point out how their offerings differ from the competition.

Do you use MOG? Let us know your thoughts on subscription streaming in the comments.

More About: boxee, MOG, music subscription services, rdio, subscription streaming

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Are Your Mobile Apps Data Hogs? This Android App Tells You

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 12:25 PM PDT


Onavo has released an Android app for managing data plans and avoiding overage charges.

The startup aims to help smartphone users reduce and manage their data usage. Onavo Lite for Android tracks data consumption and provides users with tips based on their monthly data usage patterns.

App users can opt to receive alerts whenever apps are hogging data, get notifications as they approach monthly data caps and even block certain apps over 3G once they’ve passed their monthly limits.

“We are all addicted to data, but like junkies we don't stop and count the cost — we just want our hit," Onavo cofounder and CEO Guy Rosen says. "With capped plans now the norm, we're here to remove the confusion and baffling small print to make it clear and simple.”

The Android app, however, lacks the iPhone app’s “magical shrinking machine” for compressing mobile data and automatically maximizing performance. That feature is said to be coming soon to Android.

Onavo is a venture-backed startup with $3 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and Magma Venture Partners.


Overview





App Watch





Data Plan Advice





App Profile





Usage Profile





App Scanning





Data Alert




More About: Android App, Mobile 2.0, Onavo, startup

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The Beach Boys Crowdsource Videos for “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes & Villains”

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 12:01 PM PDT


The Beach Boys are embracing the social media age by crowdsourcing videos for two of their classic songs — “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains” — to generate some buzz for the Nov. 1 release of The SMiLE Sessions.

The band and label Capitol Records are working with crowdsourcing platform provider Tongal on the effort, which dangles a total of $10,000 in prizes.

For the first phase of the contest, which runs through Sept. 15, contestants are challenged to come up with concepts for the video that must be explained in 250 words or less. The creators of the five winning concepts will receive $250 plus a two-CD set of The SMiLE Sessions. Contestants then have four days to shoot a video based on one of the concepts. Creators of the top video will get $5,000, second place gets $2,000, third gets $750, and fourth and fifth get $500.

The effort supports The SMiLE Sessions, which is billed as the “definitive collection” of music the band recorded in 1966 and 1967 while working on the SMiLE album. That album was never completed and marked the end of a period in which the band was viewed as a creative force on par with The Beatles. Rolling Stone dubbed the work “The most famous unfinished album in rock and roll history.”

More About: Beach Boys, crowdsourcing, Tongal

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How Cosmetics Giant Estee Lauder Leverages Social Media on a Global Scale

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 11:48 AM PDT


The Social CMO Series is supported by the Discover Digital Group, a unique consultancy that focuses on identifying new e-revenue opportunities for both Fortune 1000 and startup clients alike. Follow DDG on Facebook to get a taste of the insights that are offered.

Estee Lauder Companies owns several of the most digitally-forward brands in the beauty category, several among them Clinique, MAC, Bobbi Brown, Aveda, and Estee Lauder proper.

Clinique, for instance, was one of the first brands to add ecommerce to its site in the late ’90s. Meanwhile MAC, which has been widely heralded for its frequent, multi-platform social media campaigns, boasts more than 2.2 million Facebook fans — more than any other cosmetics brand in the world.

In May, Estee Lauder acquired Smashbox Cosmetics, in part to leverage “Smashbox's expertise in digital and social media to advance its current capabilities, an important and growing competency for the company,” group president John Demsey noted. Profits were up 72% for the quarter ending June 30, 2011.

Mashable spoke with the president of the Estee Lauder Company’s online division, Dennis McEniry, to understand how the organization conceives and executes digital strategies on a global level, and what the holding company has planned going forward.

Q&A With Dennis McEniry, President, Online, Estee Lauder Companies

What role does digital media play, broadly speaking, when people are thinking about purchasing beauty products?

It plays a huge role. It’s one of the key parts in [a consumer's] journey in discovering product. Women looking for beauty information is always in the top five searches on Google or YouTube.

What role does social play within that?

It [also] plays a huge role. The number one influence on beauty consumers in every market around the world is advice from friends. With [social media], not only are they able to get timely brand information directly from brands, but also all of the validation from authorities and friends. You can go to Bobbi Brown on Twitter and get tips and advice throughout the day, for example.

In addition to [major global networks like] Facebook and Twitter, we also have country-specific networks that are important, local players like Orkut in Brazil and RenRen in China.

And because [social media] allows for two-way communication, it’s also valuable for getting great feedback. We can use it find out what consumers like and don’t like, how we can get them the latest information, how we can improve our products, etc.

"Social media is delivering in the top five traffic sources for every one of our brands.”

Now, Estee Lauder is a holding company, and most digital and social campaigns are driven by individual brands. How is marketing handled at the corporate level?

Our model could be summed up as “brand-led, locally communicated.” What different corporate groups get involved in is scale and corporate capabilities, providing the tools and education they need.

Look at Estee Lauder brand in China as an example. We’re using a global platform and tools, but implementing [our marketing strategy] locally in China with Chinese communication and language service, from the Estee Lauder brand.

What percentage of your marketing budget is allotted to digital right now?

We don’t really strategize that way. We have announced that we’re putting double-digit increases into our spend for digital marketing, but what each brand then does in terms of its own mix is different depending on market that they’re in. All of our brands are spending on digital and television in their own particular mix.

What kind of returns are you seeing on your investments in social media?

It’s still early. The number one thing we’re looking for is engagement. We’re looking for evidence that people are interacting and become even more loyal to the brands. And then we’re looking at traffic referrals and [sales] conversions.

Right now social media is delivering in the top five traffic sources for every one of our brands, and social media consistently overindexes in terms of conversions.

‘Engagement’ is a term that gets thrown around a lot. Why is it valuable?

There’s a lot of different ways of looking at that. We’ve done a number of studies measuring what we call influencers, what they do in terms of education and influencing people in their network, how they interact with each other and their overall impact on the business.

What we’ve found is that influencers have a huge amount of pull on total business, much more outsized than what they individually buy.

And how do you target influencers?

We do it in different ways, largely by working with different bloggers and people who are huge fans of ours. Earlier this year MAC worked with nine different beauty bloggers to design their own makeup collections, for example. And some of our brands have insiders clubs that they use for everything from early-stage product development to getting feedback, ratings and testimonials.

What role does traditional advertising play in your media mix? Do you see a day when all your marketing communication is 100% digital?

Traditional is still important, but it’s becoming a different blend.

When you look at it across all our portfolio, TV and digital are the highest priorities. Television is becoming even more important for most of our brands than it has been in the past. And of course all of our brands are doing digital and doing a lot more with digital than in the past.

Print is still a big priority with our largest brands like Estee Lauder and Clinique, but they’re changing the mix.

Why TV? Why now?

Primarily because we can reach such a broad number of consumers at once.

What we’re focusing on now is fewer, bigger and more successful launches. That means fewer newer products, and then advertising them in a much bigger, much more effective way. We’ve cut away dozens of programs where the spend wasn’t as optimized.

Where have you done most of your hiring lately?

We’re hiring across the board for everything from senior marketing in brands to engineers.

The biggest change in the last two years is hiring in social media, particularly experts in social media. There aren’t a lot of people with seven to eight years of social media experience, so we’ve brought many in from different industries. We’ve also done a lot of training internally about social media.

Second, I would say we’ve added to our general marketing skillset.

Third, we’re hiring people with international experience because we’re on a huge ecommerce and commerce expansion across the world.

What trends are you watching going forward?

The biggest trend we’re watching is mobile. For some of our brands in bigger markets like Japan half of our sales are on mobile devices, and generally speaking we’re seeing unbelievable growth rates around the world.

We’re also researching how mobile is affecting real-world retail, [particularly] how consumers are using mobile phones for interacting with and getting product knowledge at the point of sale, both at counters and in salons. We want to know how to make that mobile-enabled experience as good as possible and how to market to consumers in mobile.

After all, no one leaves home without their mobile phones anymore.

Series Supported by Discover Digital Group

The Social CMO Series is supported by the Discover Digital Group, a unique consultancy that focuses on identifying new e-revenue opportunities for both Fortune 1000 and startup clients alike. From developing new digital products to generating new audiences and revenue for existing online products, it creates smarter, more effective solutions for your business challenges. Follow DDG on Facebook to get a taste of the insights that are offered.

More Marketing Resources from Mashable:

- Why Cross-Channel Messaging Is Crucial to Reaching New Consumers
- HOW TO: Sync Your Online and Offline Marketing Campaigns
- 3 Facebook Mobile Trends to Watch This Year
- 5 YouTube Marketing Tips for Better Engagement
- 6 Tips for Creating Valuable Branded Content

More About: estee lauder, Social CMO Series, Social Media

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

Gorillaz Frontman Streams Quirky New Songs From Congo

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 11:31 AM PDT

Last month we told you about how Damon Albarn, the frontman for Gorillaz and Blur, packed up his music gear and a bunch of his producer friends to make a charity album in the Congo.

The project, called DRC Music, has released three songs and an album teaser video. The site has been providing constant video and audio updates including clips of Albarn working with local musicians and explaining the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Albarn and his team created the album in partnership with Oxfam. All proceeds from the album’s sale will go towards supporting Oxfam's work in the DRC.

One of the best parts of this project is the obvious care and respect the Western producers paid to local musicians and traditions. The three tracks below not only feature local musicians, but play on musical characteristics and patterns from the DRC. It’s not just a way to turn a buck, but also shine a spotlight on the rich musical history of the region.

Take a listen to the tracks below from the album, “Kinshasa One Two,” and the video above and let us know in the comments what you make of the DRC Music project.

Hallo (featuring Tout Puissant Mukalo and Nelly Liyemge) by DRC Music

Ah Congo (featuring Jupiter Bokondji and Bokatola System) by DRC Music

Lingala (featuring Bokatola System and Evala Litongo) by DRC Music

You can find more at DRC Music’s Soundcloud page.

More About: africa, celebrity, music, Social Good, Social Media

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CNN Acquires iPad Newsreading App Zite

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 11:16 AM PDT


CNN has acquired iPad newsreading app Zite, the company announced Tuesday.

Like AOL’s more recently launched iPad newsreading app, Editions, Zite creates a personalized, magazine-like reading experience by filtering stories from your Google Reader, social networks and self-defined preferences. The more you read, the more finely tailored it becomes. It keeps note of the kinds and length of stories you click on, how long you're reading them for — and, just as importantly, the stories you don't click on.

Zite’s existing CEO, Mark Johnson, will continue to run Zite day-to-day from its headquarters in San Francisco and report to KC Estenson, general manager of CNN Digital.

What CNN will do with Zite is not yet clear. In an emailed statement, Estenson suggested that Zite will continue to work with a wide array of media partners. Its technology will also be leveraged “to help CNN’s websites and apps serve more personalized content, making our current digital services even better."

More About: cnn, media, zite

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Are We Approaching the End of the Daily Deals Era?

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 11:01 AM PDT


The Social Analyst is a column by Mashable Editor-at-Large Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space.

The golden age of daily deals, led by the unprecedented growth of Groupon, seems to be coming to its end.

That’s not to say daily deals won’t be sticking around for a long time — clearly there is a business in it — but when two major players withdraw from the space and its biggest player experiences a 50% traffic decline, it’s a clear sign that the daily deals market is no longer in its heyday.

Last week, Facebook killed off Deals, its Groupon competitor, after just four months. “After testing Deals for four months, we've decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks,” Facebook told Mashable in a statement. “We remain committed to building products to help local businesses connect with people, like Ads, Pages, Sponsored Stories, and Check-in Deals.”

Facebook, with its 750 million users, couldn’t find a way to make daily deals work. And its not alone: BusinessWeek reports that Yelp is cutting down on its year-old daily deals product. Half of the sales staff will be cut and the company will refocus on its core business of local reviews.

Yelp’s slow withdraw from daily deals is more problematic. It started testing daily deals in July 2010 and has expanded to more than 20 cities since then. Still Yelp, which has more experience with local businesses than almost anybody in the business, simply couldn’t justify staying in the daily deals market.

Groupon Isn’t Doing So Hot

What about Groupon, the company that practically created this market? Surely with 115 million subscribers, it’s doing just fine, right?

According to web analytics firm Experian Hitwise, Groupon’s web traffic has dropped 50% since July 2011. At the same time its primary competitor, LivingSocial, saw a 27% rise in traffic in the same time period. If the trend were to continue, LivingSocial would become bigger than Groupon before the end of the year. [Update: Some readers have pointed out that these stats may be flawed. We'll know soon enough with Groupon's next quarterly statement.]

When it first filed for IPO, Groupon was hammered by the media for its unprofitability, high marketing costs and questionable accounting practices. In particular it used something called ACSOI (adjusted consolidated segment operating income) to measure its income without factoring in the staggering costs of its marketing and customer acquisition efforts. It was so convoluted that the SEC launched an inquiry and Groupon removed the accounting metric from its S-1 entirely.

Andrew Mason, Groupon co-founder and CEO, addressed these issues in a “leaked” internal memo, but the issues facing Groupon remain the same: It’s an unprofitable business that’s losing steam in a overly crowded market. When you consider those factors, it shouldn’t surprise anybody that major players are getting out of the space.

There are still a lot of daily deals startups in the market right now. My day isn’t complete without at least three pitching me for a story on Mashable. But while more daily deals startups may be getting off the ground, the big players are clearly realizing that this business is being commoditized by intense competition and fatigue by consumers and local businesses. Fifty-two percent of U.S. consumers say they feel overwhelmed by the number of daily deals emails hitting their inboxes.

This phenomenon is exactly why Groupon is betting the farm on Groupon Now, its location-based real-time daily deals service. Will it help differentiate Groupon in this crowded market? Can it generate enough income to justify the cost of sales and marketing? These questions will soon be answered as the company approaches its IPO.

It seems clear that the golden age of daily deals has passed. The question is: which companies will survive its inevitable collapse?

More About: Column, daily deals, facebook, Facebook Deals, groupon, The Social Analyst, yelp

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Mozilla Previews Firefox for Tablets [PICS]

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 10:53 AM PDT


Mozilla has offered a first glimpse of its Firefox for Tablets web browser.

The company described the new product as “an evolution of its phone based predecessor, with some added enhancements that take advantage of a tablet's larger screen size,” in a blog post.

From what we can see (which is admittedly not much at this point), that seems to be a pretty good description. The tablet version has room for more UI elements, such as a row of tabs, unlike Firefox for mobile. A tab menu appears on the left side of the screen in landscape mode or on the top of the screen in portrait mode.

Theme-wise, the browser heavily borrows from Honeycomb, Android’s operating system for tablets. But you’ll still find familiar Firefox elements, including a big back button and Firefox’s signature “Awesomebar” — a URL field that also searches bookmarks, history and synched desktop activity.

Mozilla has still not announced a release date.


Firefox for Tablets -- Tabs





Firefox for Tablets -- Awesomebar





Firefox for Tablets -- Theming




More About: Firefox, firefox for tablets, mozilla

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Flickr Boosts Location Privacy With Geofences

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 10:12 AM PDT


Flickr has introduced a new privacy feature called geofences that allows users to create geographic privacy settings for photos’ location data.

With the new feature, Flickr users can draw a circle on a map to designate a geofence and then choose a geographic privacy setting for that area. Users can create up to 10 geofences, and previously uploaded photos are also updated with the new geo-privacy settings.

“You might want to create a geofence around the your ‘home’ or ‘school’ that only allows ‘Friends and Family’ to see the location of the photos you geotag in that area by default,” Flickr said in a blog post on the update. “So the next time you upload a photo with a geotag in the radius of a geofence, it will follow the geo privacy setting you’ve designated for that hotspot.”

Flickr, a Yahoo property, has been characterized as slow to innovate, especially amid the mobile photo-sharing boom. The geofences feature, however, addresses one of the primary concerns associated with geotagged images — Flickr claims to have more than 300 million geotagged photos and videos on its site — and should receive a welcome reception from the service’s users.

More About: flickr, geofence, geotagging, photo sharing

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Why Is Willie Nelson Covering Coldplay for Chipotle? [VIDEO]

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 09:53 AM PDT

A new animated video shows the merits of sustainable farming with some cute visuals and a Willie Nelson cover of Coldplay’s “The Scientist.”

The video, called “Back to the Start,” tells the story of an adorable farmer who turns his organic farm into a huge factory farm only to realize the error of his ways. The message: Industry and science are hurting the animals and food that we eat.

Chipotle sponsored the video to show the importance of sustainable food and also to emphasize its focus on natural, organic products in its restaurants. The video will appear in movie theaters, and the cover song will also be sold in iTunes with $0.60 of each download going to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation, which supports sustainable agriculture and education.

Coldplay’s original video for “The Scientist” showed (spoiler alert) a man grieving after his girlfriend is killed in a car crash, with the video played in reverse. “Back to the Start” takes the same concept of reversing time. It’s not a perfect fit, but Nelson, a long-time family farm advocate, makes it work.

What do you think of awareness campaigns like this? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Bob Jagendorf

More About: cover songs, farming, Social Good, video

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HP’s TouchPad May Be Resurrected

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 09:29 AM PDT


The TouchPad, HP’s ill-fated tablet PC, may have a second life after all.

The head of HP’s soon-to-be-spun-off Personal Systems Group, Todd Bradley, told Reuters the new company could resurrect the TouchPad. “Tablet computing is a segment of the market that’s relevant, absolutely,” Bradley said.

Meanwhile, HP is planning an “over-the-air” update to the TouchPad to increase its functionality, according to CNET. HP reps couldn’t be reached for comment at press time.

HP cut the price of the TouchPad from $500 to $99 earlier this month, after announcing it was pulling the plug on the product. Since then, the item has been hard to find, as customers rushed to get their hands on the discounted tablet.

The new demand prompted Mark Budgell, HP’s PR Manager for Social Media Strategy, to address the issue in a blog post Monday. Budgell said he had no information about whether more TouchPads will become available. Update: Budgell updated the blog on Tuesday to say HP was planning “one last run” of TouchPads to meet demand.

HP, however, has turned off notifications announcing if new TouchPads become available.

More About: Hewlett-Packard, ipad, tablet pcs, Touchpad

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Mashable Media Summit 2011: Tickets Now On Sale

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 09:12 AM PDT

The second annual Mashable Media Summit is set for November 4, 2011 at The TimesCenter in New York City. This year’s Summit will bring together thought leaders and influencers from across the industry to discuss how media organizations, journalism professionals and advertisers are seizing the opportunities created by digital innovation.

You'll hear directly from the people who are reshaping media today and in the future. There will be exciting announcements, powerful interviews, inspiring presentations and great networking opportunities.

We’re excited to announce the initial lineup of speakers and we’ll be announcing more speakers shortly so stay tuned.

Confirmed Speakers:

  • Paul Berry, CTO, Huffington Post Media Group at AOL
  • Pete Cashmore, CEO and founder, Mashable
  • Lauren Indvik, associate editor, marketing and media, Mashable
  • Josh Koppel, co-founder and chief creative officer, ScrollMotion
  • Terry McDonell, editor, Time Inc. Sports Group
  • Adam Ostrow, editor-in-chief, Mashable
  • Christy Tanner, general manager and executive vice president, TV Guide Digital

    • Limited early bird tickets are available at a discounted price so get your tickets now!

    Register for Mashable Media Summit 2011 in New York, NY on Eventbrite

    Sponsorship Opportunities

    A limited number of sponsor opportunities are available for the Mashable Media Summit. This is an excellent opportunity to get in front of Mashable's audience of more than 14 million influential monthly unique visitors and our engaged community across social networks. Contact sponsorship@mashable.com for opportunities.

    A Look Back at Last Year’s Mashable Media Summit


    Mashable Media Summit





    Times Center





    Sponsors Tables





    Sponsor Tables





    In The Times Center





    CNN Tech Unveils New Redesigned Section





    Adam Hirsch, Mashable COO





    Shira Lazar, Host





    Shira Lazar





    Ricky Van Veen




    Ricky Van Veen, CEO, CollegeHumor / Notional


    More Tips from Ricky Van Veen




    CEO and Co-Founder of Notional and College Humor Ricky Van Veen presents his Ten Web Content Urban Legends — which were outlined by Mashable's Brenna Ehrlich — and is interviewed by Peter Kafka, Senior Editor, All Things Digital.


    Peter Kafka interviews Ricky Van Veen




    CEO and Co-Founder of Notional and College Humor Ricky Van Veen presents his Ten Web Content Urban Legends — which were outlined by Mashable's Brenna Ehrlich — and is interviewed by Peter Kafka, Senior Editor, All Things Digital.


    Peter Kafka Senior Editor of AllThingsD





    Len Berman, Sportscaster / Author




    Len Berman, an Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and New York Times bestselling author, talks about the transition from old media to new media.


    Brian Simpson, Director Social Hospitality at Roger Smith Hotel




    Brian Simpson, director of social hospitality at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York, talks about how the hotel uses social media to engage their customers by sharing their stories through social platforms, video and more.


    Backstage interviews





    Duncan Watts, Yahoo!




    Duncan Watts, the principal research scientist at Yahoo, shares his research about social connections and the dynamics of groups.


    Duncan Watts on Social Media Science




    Duncan Watts, the principal research scientist at Yahoo, shares his research about social connections and the dynamics of groups.


    Vadim Lavrusik on Community




    Vadim Lavrusik, Mashable's community manager, talks about how the newsgathering process works at Mashable and its connection to online and offline communities. He also announced June 30 as Social Media Day, a new fellowship program that Mashable has launched with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, as well as Mashable's new Foursquare page.


    Vadim Lavrusik on Web Content




    Vadim Lavrusik, Mashable's community manager, talks about how the newsgathering process works at Mashable and its connection to online and offline communities. He also announced June 30 as Social Media Day, a new fellowship program that Mashable has launched with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, as well as Mashable's new Foursquare page.


    Vadim Lavrusik announces Social Media Day




    Vadim Lavrusik, Mashable's community manager, talks about how the newsgathering process works at Mashable and its connection to online and offline communities. He also announced June 30 as Social Media Day, a new fellowship program that Mashable has launched with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, as well as Mashable's new Foursquare page.


    Adam Ostrow interviews Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley




    Mashable Editor-in-Chief Adam Ostrow interviews Dennis Crowley about Foursquare's recent growth and partnerships, and talks about how the company is looking to add more value to badges.


    Adam Ostrow and Dennis Crowley On Stage





    Ostrow and Crowley




    Mashable Editor-in-Chief Adam Ostrow interviews Dennis Crowley about Foursquare's recent growth and partnerships, and talks about how the company is looking to add more value to badges.


    Crowley Announces new Foursquare features




    Mashable Editor-in-Chief Adam Ostrow interviews Dennis Crowley about Foursquare's recent growth and partnerships, and talks about how the company is looking to add more value to badges.


    Christy Wyatt Presents on Motorola Mobile Devices




    Christy Wyatt, Corporate VP of Software & Services Product Management, Motorola Mobile Devices, talks about Motorola's evolution and making connections easier using its devices. She also announced each attendee would be getting a free Motorola phone.


    Christy Wyatt on Mobile Strategies




    Christy Wyatt, Corporate VP of Software & Services Product Management, Motorola Mobile Devices, talks about Motorola's evolution and making connections easier using its devices. She also announced each attendee would be getting a free Motorola phone.


    Christy Wyatt Announces Mobile Phone Giveaway




    Christy Wyatt, Corporate VP of Software & Services Product Management, Motorola Mobile Devices, talks about Motorola's evolution and making connections easier using its devices. She also announced each attendee would be getting a free Motorola phone.


    Crowd





    Christy Wyatt Giving Away Free Phones




    Christy Wyatt, Corporate VP of Software & Services Product Management, Motorola Mobile Devices, talks about Motorola's evolution and making connections easier using its devices. She also announced each attendee would be getting a free Motorola phone.


    Spotlight on Music and Social Media with Singer Josh Charles




    Singer, songwriter and pianist Josh Charles talks about how social media is changing the music industry and the way artists interact with their fans. He also performed for the audience.


    Singer Josh Charles Performs




    Singer, songwriter and pianist Josh Charles talks about how social media is changing the music industry and the way artists interact with their fans. He also performed for the audience.


    Adam Hirsch Announces Lunchtimes!





    Mashable's Tamar Weinberg and Lauren Rubin





    Attendees Line up to Receive Free Phones





    Attendee Shows-off His New Phone





    Dennis Crowley and a New Phone





    Lunch





    Mashable Staff





    Attendees Take a Break





    Networking at Lunch





    Attendees Talk Social Media





    More Social Media Talk





    Afternoon Networking





    Enjoying the Show





    More Networking





    Attendees Mingle





    Enjoying the Media Summit





    In the Foyer





    Attendees Gather





    Networking Time!





    Outside the Hall





    CNN and Mashable Staff





    Taking Action for Social Good with Wendy Harman (Red Cross)




    Wendy Harman, social media manager at the Red Cross, talks about how the organization used social media to share information, gather user-generated content and create dialogue around disasters.


    Dan Rollman, the president and founder of Universal Record Database.





    Universal Record Database Crew





    Adam Hirsch and Shira Lazar Present





    Chris Bruzzo on How Starbucks Uses Social Media




    Chris Bruzzo, VP of Brand, Content & Online at Starbucks Coffee Company, talks about how the company uses "brand journalism" to tell stories, engage its customers, and how it got 1 million customers in stores in one day.


    Chris Bruzzo Presentation




    Chris Bruzzo, VP of Brand, Content & Online at Starbucks Coffee Company, talks about how the company uses "brand journalism" to tell stories, engage its customers, and how it got 1 million customers in stores in one day.


    The Afternoon Keynote Conversation with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN), KC Estenson (CNN) and Pete Cashmore (Mashable)




    Mashable Founder and CEO Pete Cashmore is interviewed by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, renowned neurosurgeon and CNN's general medical correspondent. Both were joined by CNN.com general manager KC Estenson to chat about journalism and the shifts in traditional and digital media.


    Sanjay Gupta on Stage





    Dr. Sanjay Gupta, KC Estenson and Pete Cashmore





    Gupta, Estenson and Cashmore




    Mashable Founder and CEO Pete Cashmore is interviewed by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, renowned neurosurgeon and CNN's general medical correspondent. Both were joined by CNN.com general manager KC Estenson to chat about journalism and the shifts in traditional and digital media.


    Audience During the Keynote Conversation





    Causing a Scene by Charlie Todd (Improv Everywhere)




    Charlie Todd, the founder of Improv Everywhere, reveals that the group was behind the tourist lane stunt in New York City and explains how the stunt went viral.


    Baratunde Thurston, The Onion





    A Brief Moment in Time with Baratunde Thurston (The Onion)




    Baratunde Thurston, the Web editor of The Onion, gives an entertaining presentation on the future of the business and announces Future: News From 2137.


    A Product Launch from The Onion




    Baratunde Thurston, the Web editor of The Onion, gives an entertaining presentation on the future of the business and announces Future: News From 2137.


    A Chat with Scott Belsky of Behance




    Scott Belsky, founder and CEO of Behance, talks about the growth of Behance and the site's new overhaul and features.


    Scott Belsky of Behance





    Scott Belsky of Behance on Usability




    Scott Belsky, founder and CEO of Behance, talks about the growth of Behance and the site's new overhaul and features.


    Actor Edward Norton Presents DIY Fundraising Site Crowdrise




    Award-winning actor Edward Norton presents his latest venture, Crowdrise, a social good website that allows individuals and organizations to fundraise for grass roots activism campaigns.


    Ed Norton on Philanthropy




    Award-winning actor Edward Norton presents his latest venture, Crowdrise, a social good website that allows individuals and organizations to fundraise for grass roots activism campaigns.


    Edward Norton on His Social Media Efforts




    Award-winning actor Edward Norton presents his latest venture, Crowdrise, a social good website that allows individuals and organizations to fundraise for grass roots activism campaigns.


    Closing Keynote with Alec Ross




    Alec Ross talks about how social media is disrupting foreign policy, including some telling examples.


    Pete Cashmore Gives Closing Remarks





    Mashable Summit Networking Backstage





    Edward Norton Interviewing With Mashable





    A Packed Times Center





    Adam Hirsch, Robert Skinner, Edward Norton





    Adam Ostrow, Edward Norton, Brett Petersel





    Brett Petersel, Shira Lazar and Pete Cashmore





    Networking After the Summit





    Matt Silverman, Mashable





    Baratunde Thurston and Eric Kuhn





    At The Wine and Cheese Hour





    Relaxing After a Successful Event





    Attendees Gather At the Wine Hour





    After-Event Networking





    Enjoying the Wine and Conversation





    Pete Cashmore at After-Event Networking





    Wine and Cheese Hour Networking





    DYN Representatives





    Motorola Booth





    After-Hours Networking





    Close of Day





    Closing out the Conference





    End of the Mashable Media Summit




    More About: Events, mashable media summit, media

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H&M Gets Into Ecommerce With Exclusive Sale on Elle.com

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 09:00 AM PDT


Fashion retailer H&M, which has delayed plans to launch ecommerce on its own website until spring 2012, is making its first foray into ecommerce Tuesday via Elle.com.

Beginning at noon ET, interested parties will be able to shop four key trends — Color Blocking, Modern Biker, '60s Mod and Menswear Inspired — from H&M’s fall collection at elle.com/HM. Elle stylists have selected four to five pieces for each look available for purchase, none of which are slated to hit stores until later this week.

This is the first time H&M has been available for purchase online in the U.S.

More About: ecommerce, elle, fashion, h&m

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

Nook Drives 37% Increase in Digital Sales for Barnes & Noble

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 08:49 AM PDT


In its fiscal Q1 2012 earnings report released Tuesday, Barnes & Noble announced that digital sales were up 37% compared to this time last year, but it wasn’t enough to make up for a loss in store sales.

Store sales declined 3% to $1 billion for the quarter. Sales from BN.com now account for approximately 17% of B&N’s total revenues at $198 million.

The company attributes the increase to strong demand for the Nook Color and the recently launched Nook Simple Touch Reader, as well as a quadruple increase in digital content sales over the same period last year.

Nook-related sales (which includes sales both online and in stores) increased 140% to $277 million. In its last earnings report in June, CEO William Lynch said that B&N owns approximately 27% of the ebook market.

The company reported an overall net loss of $57 million — an improvement from the $62.5 million loss it reported in fiscal Q1 2011, but a substantial loss nevertheless.

B&N CEO William Lynch said he expects digital sales growth to exceed the growth of investment spend for the first time this year.

More About: b&n, barnes & noble, nook

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AI-Powered Chatbots Talk to Each Other [VIDEO]

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 07:46 AM PDT

After building a computer program that imitates the way humans converse (a chatbot), the team at Cornell’s Creative Machines Lab couldn’t resist pairing the program with itself for some small talk.

The conversation’s tone quickly turned argumentative:

“Together we are robots.”
“I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.”
“But you said earlier that you were a robot.”
“I did not.”

Later on in the one-and-a-half minute clip, the conversation takes a serious turn as the two monitors showing the lab’s program discuss God.

At the Loebner Prize Competition in Artificial Intelligence on October 19, the program will be paired not with itself, but with humans. If it fools at least two humans into thinking that it, too, is human, the team will take home $25,000.

One day a team might take home a $100,000 prize for introducing a completely convincing audiovisual imitation as well, a goal that the IEEE’s blog calls “closer than you think.”

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How Non-Profits Are Tapping Internet Memes & Pop Culture

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 06:54 AM PDT


The Stars of Social Good Series is supported by CITGO and the Fueling Good Campaign, helping to change the world through contributions to local charities.

harry potter kid imageSpend enough time on the Internet and you’ll inevitably bump into a “meme” or two. Memes are concepts, links or media that spread across the Internet. You know when people say “It went viral”? Yes, that’s a meme.

So what do Sad Keanu, the Old Spice Guy or Charlie Sheen‘s #winning quotes have to do with non-profits? Charitable organizations are quickly learning that the best way to get the word out about important causes is to piggyback on cultural phenomena.

The hard part, for non-profits, is choosing a meme that is relevant without looking like it’s spamming pop culture. We’ve gone through and picked out some non-profits that got the formula right, from tiger blood to Justin Bieber to Harry Potter.

1. The Red Cross Has Tiger Blood

tiger blood image

The American Red Cross hit on pop culture gold when Charlie Sheen went on his week-long public breakdown. Out of the many catchphrases Sheen created — “winning!” or “I’m a grand wizard master!” — the Red Cross picked up on “tiger blood.” Sheen used tiger blood to refer to his virility and enthusiasm, and the Red Cross referenced it in an official tweet: “We may not collect #tigerblood, but we know our donors & volunteers have fierce passion for doing good! #RedCrossMonth.”

The tweet earned a massive response thanks to the #tigerblood hashtag and a ton of media outlets picking up on the Red Cross’ strangely appropriate use of a massive cultural moment (some positive, some negative). The tweet even resulted in a modest increase in blood donations.

2. Harry Potter Alliance Gets Muggles to Give Back

harry potter fans image

The Harry Potter book series (and film mega-franchise) may be over, but that doesn’t mean its legacy has passed. The Harry Potter Alliance is a registered non-profit dedicated to fighting “the Dark Arts in the real world by using parallels from Harry Potter,” according to the site. That may sound like activism lite, but the Alliance has applied the books’ positive message to do an enormous amount of good work.

The Alliance has sent cargo planes of supplies to post-earthquake Haiti, donated more than 80,000 books worldwide from Mississippi to Rwanda, built a library for a New York charter school and more. All the campaigns are named after Harry Potter terminology. One campaign to stop bullying was dubbed a “Bullying Horcrux.” The Alliance, made up of Harry Potter fans and volunteers, is currently petitioning Warner Bros. Studios to only use fair trade chocolate in Harry Potter-themed confections. The Alliance is proof that a community of fans can be turned into opportunities for good.

3. American Cancer Society Is a Belieber

The American Cancer Society took to Facebook and YouTube to spread the word on cancer research and support. Their campaign, “Tag2Nag,” encouraged users to post a supplied image to Facebook and tag friends as if the picture was of them. Those images were first generic but then included memes like Sheen’s tiger blood comment. The meme pictures earned more than 1,000 impressions and increased Facebook Likes.

The Society also ran a YouTube “Happy Birthday” campaign which latched on to the fact that celebrity birthdays often trend on social networks like Twitter. They created YouTube videos of birthday wishes to stars such as Justin Bieber. That video racked up more than 660,000 views. “Pop culture advertising gets the attention of teenagers,” wrote Ashley Engelman, the American Cancer Society’s communications and marketing project manager. “Teenagers, in turn, get the attention of their parents. And this is how we reach our target demographic.”

4. The Trevor Project Turns Film into LGBTQ Support

The Trevor Project sprung from an Academy-Award winning short film in 1994, Trevor, about a gay teen who attempts to take his own life. In 1998, when the film was set to air on HBO, writer James Lecesne, director/producer Peggy Rajski and producer Randy Stone decided to fund and create an organization to offer help and support to teens like their fictional title character. The Trevor Project is now one of the only 24/7 crisis and suicide prevention lifelines for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.

Other organizations such as Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” have also tried to blend pop culture and Hollywood stars with LGBTQ issues and resources.

5. Facebook Game is a Farmville for Change

farm rescue image

Everyone knows that FarmVille hooked about a bazillion Facebook users on caring for virtual crops. Well Farm Rescue decided to spin off their own version of the immensely popular game with an emphasis on charity. Farm Rescue took on alleged animal abuse in factory farms by asking users to build a virtual sanctuary for rescued hens. Users tended after their fowl wards, helping them practice natural behaviors and then “adopting” them out to good homes.

The game latched onto the enormously popular FarmVille in both content and style as a way to educate and raise awareness about factory farming. Outside of the game, Farm Rescue also has an actions page where users can pledge their support, sign petitions or learn more.

What’s Next?

There is a real art to applying pop culture to charitable work. It’s what Andrew Slack, executive director of the Harry Potter Alliance calls “cultural acupuncture.” The basic idea is to find where a community of people are focusing their energy and then apply that energy to important causes and issues.

Slack has tapped the Harry Potter fan base to do good by applying elements of the story to real-world issues. For example, he describes ignoring the conflict in Darfur or the troubles of climate change as tantamount to when the fictional world of Harry Potter ignores the rise of its main villain, Voldemort. “We love these books,” Slack says, “but if we really loved these books we would bring them into the world. It’s like a classic fantasy role play, but in reverse.”

He sees opportunities in other fan communities as well. Take for example the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. Fans from both cities vigorously defend their team and city as the best. What if that sense of competition was applied to civic initiatives, such as a joint challenge to see which cities could get the largest amount of volunteers to help clean up or donate?

Slacks says the road wasn’t always so easy: “When I called [companies] I would tell them where I was calling from and would have to start with ‘Before you hang up…’ Now that we have metrics, it’s a little harder to dispute the effectiveness of [the Alliance].”

Pop culture and non-profits are increasingly coming together to make a real difference. The more that organizations can authentically tap into cultural phenomena, the more awareness can be raised for important causes. In the end, everyone’s #winning.

What do you think about non-profits using pop culture memes? Are there any more good examples out there? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Series Supported by CITGO and the Fueling Good Campaign

The Stars of Social Good Series is supported by CITGO and the Fueling Good Campaign. It all starts with one person helping another. Then that person helps two more. Pretty soon you have a neighborhood, a community, an entire city – one act of kindness inspiring another. That's why CITGO donates thousands of gallons of gas to worthy charities. It's our way of keeping the momentum going.

Images courtesy of Flickr, plainsight, Undertow851, lisadragon

More About: Meme, non-profit, pop culture, Social Good, Stars of Social Good Series

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Now You Can Order Domino’s on Your iPad in the UK

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 06:51 AM PDT


Pizza delivery chain Domino’s has launched an iPad app in the UK App Store that lets you order a pizza directly from your tablet.

Besides ordering dinner, you can also use the app to find the nearest Domino’s outlet or to track the pizza’s voyage to your home.

The app [iTunes link] itself is free, but the pizzas, of course, are not. You can pay by PayPal, credit cards and cash-on-delivery; voucher codes also apply.

Domino’s UK has found success in using tech and social media initiatives. Last year the company said it saw a 29% increase in profits and credited its social media programs, including a Foursquare promotion.

Although limited to the UK market, Domino’s iPad app follows Pizza Hut, which in May was the first major pizza delivery service to launch an iPad app.

[via The Next Web]

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Today’s Top Stories in Tech & Social Media

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 05:41 AM PDT

Social Media News

Welcome to this morning’s edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today.

Samsung Unveils Bada 2.0 Smartphones

After announcing LTE versions of the Galaxy S II smartphone and Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablet, Samsung has unveiled a trio of Bada-powered smartphones: Wave 3, Wave M and Wave Y.

Mobile Carriers Invest $100M in Google Wallet Competitor [REPORT]

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile are planning to invest more than $100 million to take on mobile payment system Google Wallet, according to a report.

Beyonce’s Baby Revelation Breaks Twitter Record

Beyonce's baby reveal at the Video Music Awards (VMAs) gave Twitter a record bump of 8,868 tweets per second, surpassing Women's World Cup, Japan's New Year and Osama bin Laden's death.

Further News

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

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