An executive at a Palo Alto software giant was charged Monday with four felony counts of burglary, after authorities said he allegedly made his own bar code stickers, switched the tags, and then bought boxes of LEGOs at Target stores for huge discounts.

Thomas Langenbach, 47, who lists himself as the vice president at Palo Alto’s SAP Labs Integration and Certification Center on his LinkedIn profile, is expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Santa Clara County Court.

See on www.nbcbayarea.com

An executive at a Palo Alto software giant was charged Monday with four felony counts of burglary, after authorities said he allegedly made his own bar code stickers, switched the tags, and then bought boxes of LEGOs at Target stores for huge discounts.

Thomas Langenbach, 47, who lists himself as the vice president at Palo Alto’s SAP Labs Integration and Certification Center on his LinkedIn profile, is expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Santa Clara County Court.

See on www.nbcbayarea.com

There’s no doubt the new social network, Pinterest has hit the Internet with a bang. But why has this social media darling come in with such a big splash? How could anything rival the popularity of Twitter and Facebook? Pinterest is powerful and its formula for success is one that anyone can learn from.

Wondering what Pinterest has up its sleeve and how it has soared in popularity in recent months? There are several reasons and they are something other businesses should take note of so they can learn how to stand out from the crowd, too.

Pinterest is Pretty

Everything about Pinterest is about visual appeal. There is great attention to detail. This is key in any successful venture whether it be online or in a brick and mortar business. People notice when you put the extra effort in to make things look nice and they come back because they feel welcome. They have enjoyed their experience while they are there and want to experience it again. That’s exactly what the creators of Pinterest have done. They have not just created a website, they’ve created an experience for the user. It’s much more than just going to a website, you’re going to experience something. People know when they go, they will leave feeling happy and refreshed.

While Pinterest is a social networking site, you can use it for much more than that. You can use it as a way to keep organized or plan ahead. In that way, it’s a very useful tool to have. Why has Pinterest caught on so quick? It may be that “usefulness” component that people like. People who use it may feel like when they are on it, they are not just socializing, but also being productive. There is less guilt than hanging out on Facebook or Twitter where nothing productive happens. Pinterest users can flip through recipes and plan dinner or they can even plan the family vacation, a party, or a wedding. This and much more are all commonly planned on Pinterest.

Pinterest is Simple

In a society where things are very complicated, people like simplicity. Simplicity is good. People crave it in our culture. Pinning, the term used for sharing things on Pinterest, takes a single click. How could it be any simpler? No technical knowledge needed. Other businesses can take note of Pinterest’s simple approach. They should make it as easy for the consumer as they possibly can. It’s a smooth way of doing business that puts the customer’s needs first. It looks at the experience as the top goal to fulfill, rather than the end product.

Be sure to download our FREE guide to Pinterest from ColderICE

The term “Social API” doesn’t carry the same meaning as the technical term “API”, but it is close. “API” is a technical acronym for “Application Program Interface”, a base code that is included in software that allows software components to communicate with each other. For example, we’re all familiar with the myriad Twitter apps that run using data that comes from Twitter. That data is communicated from Twitter using the Twitter API. The API allows app developers to use Twitter data in new and sometimes surprising and innovative ways.

The Social API is somewhat similar – it can allow us to use our existing data to drive sales in surprising and innovative ways. When we use the Social API to speak to the human “base code”, it will catalyse reaction to spark human intuition and make conversion rates soar in social marketing copy. The Social API as I have coined it stands for a new acronym: “Authority, Persuasion and Influence.”

The critical point is that greater Authority can be obtained through Persuasion and Influence. As simply vendors and marketers, we do not have the direct authority to make others buy, click, sign up, or inquire about our services and products. But we do have the ability with our marketing and branding to influence and persuade the prospect by following good use of social API techniques. Here are 5 way to use it when creating content for your audience.

See on blog.conversionconference.com

Hinted at for months, Google formally launched its “Knowledge Graph” today. The new technology is being used to provide popular facts about people, places and things alongside Google’s traditional results. It also allows Google to move toward a new way of searching not for pages that match query terms but for “entities” or concepts that the words describe.

Knowledge Graph? “Graph” is a technical term used to describe how a set of objects are connected. Google has used a “link graph” to model how pages link to each other, in order to help determine which are popular and relevant for particular searches. Facebook has used a “social graph” understand how people are connected. “

Knowledge Graph” is Google’s term for how it is building relationships between different people, places and things and report facts about these entities.

See on searchengineland.com

Hinted at for months, Google formally launched its “Knowledge Graph” today. The new technology is being used to provide popular facts about people, places and things alongside Google’s traditional results. It also allows Google to move toward a new way of searching not for pages that match query terms but for “entities” or concepts that the words describe.

Knowledge Graph? “Graph” is a technical term used to describe how a set of objects are connected. Google has used a “link graph” to model how pages link to each other, in order to help determine which are popular and relevant for particular searches. Facebook has used a “social graph” understand how people are connected. “

Knowledge Graph” is Google’s term for how it is building relationships between different people, places and things and report facts about these entities.

See on searchengineland.com

It’s finally official: Facebook is a publicly traded company, and investors in its newly listed stock now own some 421 million shares in the company that has come to define social networking in the online world.

Or, in Facebook jargon, the company has been “friended” by Wall Street.

Shares in the initial public offering (IPO) had an offering price of $38 per share. After trading at times above $42, the price closed at $38.23 Friday — a closing level buoyed by purchases coming from the IPO’s own Wall Street underwriters, according to news reports.

So this wasn’t the strong showing many analysts had expected, which raises the obvious question for investors: Where is this stock headed?

Skeptics argue the company’s staying power and profit potential have been overhyped, while fans see it as the world’s must-own social media stock. It may take a while to know which side is right.

On the “buy” side of this debate, Facebook has unrivaled clout in its market, with roughly 1 in 8 people on the planet using the site to swap photos and information. More keep signing up every day. That’s a platform of activity that the company can monetize through advertising revenue and add-on services.

The negative view is that all that may be true, but it may not justify the company’s current market value on Friday of close to $100 billion. After an extraordinary growth surge since its founding in 2004, Facebook is now gaining customers and revenue at a decelerating pace. If future growth doesn’t come in strong, the share price could easily go down rather than up.

The tug-and-pull between those views seemed evident Friday. There was enthusiasm enough to push the stock above its offering price, but skepticism was strong enough to keep it from soaring.

See on www.wnem.com

Facebook goes public Friday. It could be worth well over $100 billion dollars. Want to get a piece of that? It’s going to be very tricky for mere mortals to get Facebook stock in the IPO. If you want shares, here’s what you have to do.

Step 1… “First, get a ton of money. Like tons. I am talking gazillions.”

So says Peter Kupferberg, a principal at Chicago investment counseling firm Gofen and Glossberg. Most of the large online brokerage firms will at least take requests for Facebook shares, but they have rules. Some require existing balances of $500,000. Some will only consider people who already trade 30 times a day. Some even decide whether you’re worthy on a case-by-case basis.

Step 2… “Then open a brokerage account at Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, but only open the account if they promise you Facebook stock.”

Kupferberg says the deal stock goes first to the preferred customers of the banks underwriting the deal. Then it goes to the people with brokerage accounts who pass all the tests in Step 1. The scarce remainder goes to small investors to whom we wish the best of luck. If you make it that far, don’t expect the current estimated share price of $40 to last long. Add scarcity of shares and stratospheric hype, stir, and you’ll get what Kupferberg expects to be “a frenzy like we haven’t seen in a while that will drive the price up to ridiculous levels.”

See on www.readwriteweb.com