Even if you're the ultimate hybrid project manager/content creator and community-engager, reality is, you'll probably develop Community Manager Multi-Personality Disorder (CMMPD)* at least once in your career.

*We totally made this up.

In my years managing communities for companies ranging from teeny startups to global soda and makeup brands, I learned one thing very quickly: Establishing systems and using the right tools early on can save your sanity (and your laptop’s RAM).

Here are six tips and tricks in my medicine cabinet for achieving social media vitality. Read more...

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Fresh wind in your hair, the gritty dirt of new roads under your feet, beautiful scenery — nothing is quite as invigorating as exploring new locations, even if just for the weekend. But regardless whether you’re just hopping a couple hours away or flying halfway across the world, the people you meet abroad are the most memorable parts of travelling.

However, striking up a conversation with that cute guy in the café in Lima or approaching some locals at a pub in Dublin can be downright intimidating. Below are some social network sites to help you meet people, embrace your host country's culture and make some incredible memories. Read more...

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Embraer has taken its analog ads to a whole new level with its campaign for the new Lineage 1000, by designing a campaign catalog that flies — or, rather, floats.

The catalog, whose cover has a 3D design of the Lineage 1000, floats using magnets in its base that help keep it suspended. Readers can browse the catalog without having to set it down

What are the most innovative ad campaigns you've seen lately? Let us know below

Image courtesy of Embraer Read more...

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Building your own website is a headache — especially if you're unfamiliar with coding. Platforms like Tumblr make it easy to create your own website, for personal or professional uses, but a handful of other sites are also out there to help you lock down, personalize and publish your work

Keep in mind that these aren't necessarily "template sites." The options below are end-to-end website-building platforms, similar to WordPress, and the templates they provide are specifically designed for their respective engines — so it's slightly different from other sites, like Theme-Forest, which only sell themes Read more...

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Tesla Motors has designed its Model S to be capable of fast battery swapping, which can ultimately prove to be a better solution than charging the car battery

According to Tesla, swapping a battery in the Model S takes about 90 seconds, and the driver never has to get out of the car. The process is as simple as driving the car onto a designated spot, where a platform rises up from the ground, removes the depleted battery and installs a new one

Now, Tesla has demonstrated the battery-swapping capabilities of the Model S on video. The clip shows a comparison between filling up a regular gas guzzler and exchanging the battery on the model S, which happens in about 90 seconds. In fact, Tesla manages to exchange the battery on another Model S in the time it takes to fill up a regular, gasoline-powered car Read more...

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Disney Channel Original Movies have left a lasting impression on almost anyone who grew up in the late '90s and early 2000s

Three is an entire generation of twenty-somethings who don't remember anything from Spanish class but know how inspiring it can be to yell "si se puede." People who don't remember the preamble put remember all the lyrics to "Supernova Girl."

Unfortunately not all of the lessons from the original movies were particularly helpful

1. Technology will evolve until it wants to kill you.

Image courtesy of Tumblr, stevenlathrop

Smart House was everything a kid could dream of, in terms of technological advances. A house that not only offered spontaneous cupcakes, but came complete with a floor that magically absorbed the mess from your secret forbidden party Read more...

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It was hardly the first time in history a celebrity couple have given their child an unusual name. (Brooklyn Beckham, anyone? How about Blue Ivy Carter?)

But when it emerged Thursday night that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have named the bouncing baby girl that arrived Saturday — and her name is North West, according to both TMZ and US magazine — wags around the world just couldn't resist taking to Twitter

Within an hour of the announcement, "North West" became a global trending topic on the service. Reactions ran the gamut from confusion:

They have named their female child after a University? After a defunt airline carrier? After the pole? #IHateCelebrities #NorthWest

— Michael Buckley (@buckhollywood) June 21, 2013 Read more...

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Posters you put on your wall don't have to be silent any more — not if Netherlands-based design studio Trapped in Suburbia has its way. The company has created an interactive poster that plays music when you touch it, called simply Sound Poster.

The poster is made with paint by Bare Conductive, a company which focuses on the development and manufacture of electrically conductive materials. When the user touches two points on the poster, it creates a current that produces sound, which you can hear in the video above.

The poster is not commercially available yet. But Trapped in Suburbia has plans for further innovations that combine art and technology Read more...

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When you're stressed out, a relaxing yoga session or curling up with a good book can help take your mind off whatever it is that's weighing you down. But as nice as it can be to engage in a hobby or exercise as a means of relief, you can't truly destress until you acknowledge the cause of your discomfort and restructure the way you think about that stimulus.

How do you do that? One way is through biofeedback, or the use of medical monitoring devices to increase bodily awareness. For example, a doctor applies an EEG to a patient suffering from migraines and displays the test results live, explaining what the squiggly lines mean and how they might relate to her symptoms Read more...

More about Monitoring, Feedback, Stress, Kickstarter, and Sensors

Animal puns: nature's greatest achievement since narwhals.

Puns bring a sprinkle of eye-rolling hilarity to everyday life. Sure, they don't exactly qualify as high-brow humor, but any joke that's good enough for old dad should make you at least chuckle a little.

Prepare to make your friends giggle with unbearable puns, courtesy of Mashable's Waterkoala

1.

Image via iStockphoto, Jan Zoetekouw

2.

Image courtesy of Flickr, George Lu

3.

Image courtesy of imgur

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Image courtesy of Imgur, marvelsarah

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Image courtesy of Flickr, birdseyenews Read more...

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Wednesday night's Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final featured 11 total goals. It went into overtime. It ended with a thrilling game-winning goal from the Chicago Blackhawks to even their series against the Boston Bruins at two games apiece

It was a classic night of sports TV — unless, that is, you were watching on KXAN in Austin, Tex

The station inexplicably cut away from the game for several seconds to promote their morning news team just as Brent Seabrook scored the 'Hawks game-winner. Fans watching at home saw Chicago with the puck in Boston territory then, abruptly and without warning, the morning news promo. When the station cut back, Seabrook and his teammates were celebrating the score Read more...

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DietBet, a New York-based startup launched in June 2012, offers a platform where users can create and join bets to lose 4% of their body weight in a four-week period

The appeal of DietBet lies not only in the financial incentive — winners split the collected money among themselves — but also in the fact that it provides a social and motivational platform that aims to combat the dreariness and often unsustainable nature of conventional dieting. "For most people, going to the gym just isn't that fun," Matt Daniel, DietBet's VP of Business Development, said. "We wanted weight loss to be a fun and social experience. That way, more people will stick with it." Read more...

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Forget Kanye. Forget Jay-Z. It's young Caleb C who's the rap world's next big thing. But Caleb isn't obsessed with money or Cristal. No, he's all about that golf life, as his appropriately titled "I Love Golf" video above lets all the haters know

He's got a Beastie Boys-like delivery and even a little dance to go with the song. "Play golf! Ya gotta have balls," young Caleb raps. "And I got a bucketful I can share with all y'alls."

Caleb's certainly got plenty of balls, but all those grown-ups yelling "Yayyy" at the end do hurt his street cred. Nevertheless, he's only five, so the boy's still got a shot Read more...

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Meet Quinoa. She is an immaculately dressed toddler with equally fabulous BFFs named Chevron and Fendi. She likes to twirl at dusk and take photos in front of vintage cars.

If Quinoa sounds unbelievably precocious, that's because she's 100% made up. Quinoa is the fictional creation of Tiffany Beveridge, who has turned outlandish Pinterest photos of real-life toddlers into a hilarious parody, "My Imaginary Well-Dressed Toddler Daughter."

Maybe you've seen them before — young children who look infinitely cooler than you, invading your Pinterest or Tumblr feeds with outrageously styled hair and clothes. Beveridge saw them, too. So about a year ago, she started pinning those photos with captions depicting an imaginary toddler, Quinoa Read more...

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FIFA, world soccer's governing body, is using goal-line technology for the first time in international competition during the Confederations Cup tournament currently taking place through end of the month in Brazil

The move, allowing officials to review did-he-or-didn't-he shots on goal, comes to the relief of many soccer fans after a growing number of media and critics called for its implementation at the international level. Goal line technology will be used again at next summer's World Cup, also in Brazil

But just because it's finally here doesn't mean most futbol aficionados understand how goal line technology actually works Read more...

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Ford is working on remote brake lights that wirelessly warn drivers, who see a dashboard light illuminate when there's danger ahead.

It's easy to see the brake lights of a panic-stopping car right in front of you, but what if that car ahead is around a corner, over a hill or driving through a dense fog or rainstorm? Ford is testing technology that can warn you of such danger, part of its Safe Intelligent Mobility (SIM) research project that involves 20 futuristic systems that could make cars safer.

The remote brake-light system would be particularly adept at avoiding chain reaction collisions, where a car far ahead of you comes to a sudden stop and multiple cars can't stop in time to avoid a multi-car collision. With this brake light on your dashboard, you'll be warned of panic stops before you become directly involved in their aftermath. Read more...

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The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is for anyone who wants better photos from their phone, but doesn't want to add too much bulk. Handling it at a product demo in New York City today, I was surprised about how small the device is, and it did a decent job of capturing images of distant objects with a minimum of blur due to camera shake.

While the S4 Zoom is small and light for a 16-megapixel point-and-shoot camera, it's definitely bulkier than your typical smartphone. The lens in back adds about a half-inch to the thickness when retracted, and the bottom of the phone has some extra chunk to provide a grip when using it as a camera. Size-wise, it's somewhere between the GS4 Mini (both have a 4.3-inch screen) and the Galaxy Camera. Read more...

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Now that Facebook has unveiled video on Instagram, creating videos is an easy process. It makes good on Instagram's intention: bring simplicity to the video experience.

It's hard not to see Instagram video as a response to Vine, Twitter's uber-successful video sharing tool. And although Instagram's video feature improves upon Vine, it's also lacking a core part of the Vine experience

Namely, the ability to embed your videos elsewhere.

This isn't a huge surprise. Instagram never made it particularly easy to embed or syndicate photos. The app supports the oEmbed standard, which means that services such as Embedly and web apps such as WordPress can display Instagram photos inline or in other apps. But there is no easy "embed" button for end-users. Read more...

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You've got to love the wide, weird world of sports Twitter, that magical place where the actor who played Steve Urkel can find beef with a national NFL writer about the fantasy football prospects of a little-used tight end

Our cast of characters here is former Family Matters star Jaleel White, New England Patriots tight end Jake Ballard and USA Today writer Mike Garafolo

Ballard's teammate Aaron Hernandez is currently at the center of a murder investigation, with his prospects of playing next season up in the air. If he's not able to play, Ballard will likely see a lot more playing time and some improved stats. That's a fact that has apparently not been lost on White, who seems to be quite the fantasy football player and posted this to Twitter Wednesday: Read more...

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Instagram's new video feature brought many users head-to-head with Vine users in what might become the greatest divide since Myspace versus Facebook.

Although various forms of the #RIPVine hashtag have been trending online since Thursday's announcement, the Vine community is far from dead. Many of Vine's core users who have garnered a large following expressed their loyalties in just six seconds. (Less is more, right?)

SEE ALSO: What Do You Think of Video for Instagram?

Here's how #TeamVine is responding to the news

Homepage image via iStockphoto, itakephotos4u Read more...

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Instagram with video? That's old news. How about taking a picture of yourself in orbit, with the entire Earth as your backdrop?

That will be possible in the next few years, now that the Arkyd Space Telescope has met the $1 million goal on Kickstarter that it announced last month. The Arkyd is the brainchild of Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining company launched last year with backing from a handful of Google and Microsoft billionaires.

The Arkyd is set to be launched around 2015, on a mission of hunting for viable asteroids to mine for trillions of dollars in minerals; it already had funding for the launch part Read more...

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Samsung has upgraded the Android camera experience from the original Samsung Galaxy Camera. That product was already a game-changing device, but the Galaxy NX takes it to a new level, adding the power of an interchangeable-lens to its mirrorless camera as well as improving various aspects of the camera's function.

At least, that's what I could discern from trying out the Galaxy NX for a few minutes this afternoon at a demo in New York City shortly after Samsung unveiled it (here's a full run-down). I focused mainly on the camera features — not the general Android functions — and came away really liking many of the choices Samsung made. Read more...

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At last week's E3, Microsoft announced gamers would be able to stream live gameplay from its Xbox One consoles with just one simple command, thanks to a partnership with Twitch.

This the culmination of a year of hard work for Twitch. The video platform, which launched two years ago, now attracts 36 million monthly unique visitors to watch live streaming game play. Hundreds of thousands of users broadcast their video games, from competitive titles that fall under the e-sports umbrella to smaller indie titles and classic games.

But streaming from consoles currently costs a $150 investment, and still requires work to participate, explained Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. Read more...

More about Gaming, Live Streaming, Twitchtv, Entertainment, and Xbox One

Vine has 13 million users. Instagram has 130 million. Facebook, Instagram's parent company has over a billion users worldwide. Twitter has roughly half a billion users. Keep those numbers in mind, because they play a crucial role in the future success of Instagram's latest endeavor: Instagram Video.

As virtually everyone suspected he would, Instagram's Kevin Systrom, with the briefest of intros by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, introduced Instagram video capabilities. They arrive in Instagram 4.0 for iPhones and Android, are available today and are already being used by people just like me.

Read more...

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Video arrived on Instagram today. It's a move that will probably not surprise anyone, given the rise of Vine over the last several months and the competitive natures of Facebook and Twitter.

However, it also represents a fairly big shift from the Instagram that we've come to know. During his talk at Facebook's press event today, co-founder Kevin Systrom made sure to explain that video was always part of Instagram's plans

Systrom talked about a time back in 2010 when he and co-founder Mike Krieger conceived of Instagram from the location-sharing app Burbn Read more...

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In the weeks following the revelations of secret National Security Agency's surveillance programs, the NSA brass have claimed the agency tries to minimize the amount of data it collects from American citizens. Classified documents published Thursday reveal the exact minimization procedures it uses when such data is incidentally collected.

The documents, posted by The Guardian, were signed by Attorney General Eric Holder in 2009. They corroborate much of what NSA Chief Gen. Keith Alexander and other top intelligence community officials have been saying in congressional testimony, while providing more information about the exact methods the NSA uses to minimize data and the opportunities it provides itself to avoid minimization Read more...

More about Privacy, Prism, Us World, Politics, and Us

On Thursday, Instagram added video to its iPhone and Android apps for the first time. While many users flooded the service with hastily shot clips, typically from their offices, some brands uploaded videos that show how beautiful and fun the feature can be.

Instagram's video feature functions much like Twitter's video app, Vine. But the biggest difference is that Instagram allows up to 15 seconds of video, while Vine limits videos to six seconds. The process is relatively simple: Users can record multiple clips in succession, apply one of 13 filters, choose a cover frame (i.e., thumbnail), run it through a stabilizer (if they wish) and hit publish Read more...

More about Charity Water, General Electric, Burberry, Instagram, and Kate Spade

Kevin Systrom had barely finished showing off Instagram's new video features when several brands started posting their own clipsLululemon was one of the first out of the gate with a video showing a woman doing yoga in different locationsBurberry and Charity: water posted videos as well

Systrom, the co-founder of Instagram, pitched the option to record videos as a way for casual users to capture "moments" of their lives in a new way. But as with most product announcements these days from Facebook — Instagram's parent company — Systrom seemed to be speaking directly to marketers. He repeatedly emphasized that the feature would be available to Instagram's 130 million users "on day one,"a testament to its reach compared to other video-sharing services. He also revealed that Instagram videos could be up to 15-seconds long. Read more...

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More than six months after Aaron Swartz's death, legislators in Washington have finally introduced 'Aaron's Law,' a bill to reform the much-maligned anti-hacking Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)

Named in honor of the late activist and hacker, who was being prosecuted under the CFAA at the time of his suicide on January 12, the bill (PDF) was introduced on Thursday by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

Lofgren initially proposed Aaron's Law just a few days after Swartz's death, posting its initial draft and its revision on Reddit to crowdsource suggestions and improve it. At the time, in an exclusive interview with Mashable, Lofgren said that Aaron's Law was only the beginning of a wider overhaul of the CFAA Read more...

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Even before Instagram released its video feature Thursday, nervous 'grammers and Viners chewed their fingernails in anticipation. What features would Instagram video introduce that Vine refused? And would the differences mean stiffer competition between the two platforms?

Since Instagram released its app update immediately following the announcement, we hopped on the opportunity to test it out. But we couldn't get one thing out of our minds: How will these changes reflect against new kid on the block, Vine?

These six features are noticeably absent from Vine, but Instagram was quick to plug the missing pieces. Do you think they're improvements, or do you prefer Vine's more straightforward approach? Will Vine follow in Instagram's filtered footsteps? Share with us in the comments below. Read more...

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