XYDO.COM: top articles for Twitter http://www.xydo.com The top 10 Twitter pics from this week were a perfect representation of Twitter hashtags. From #TBT (throwback Thursday) to the ever-present #RT (retweet), photos and hashtags spread across Twitter as they always do. You probably encounter the phrase "Retweet this if..." quite often. Tweeter's did exactly that this week with textgrams and other text-based images. Also, as EURO 2012 came to a close, photos of the matches were immensely popular with Twitter users around the world. SEE ALSO: More Top 10 Twitter Pics Each week we take a look at the most popular photos across Twitter. Our partners at Skylines keep track of hashtags and photos during the week to determine t… Continue reading... More About: sports, Top 10 Twitter Pics, Twitter http://mashable.com/2012/07/10/top-10-twitter-pics-24/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/10/top-10-twitter-pics-24/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 Twitter announced upgraded versions of its iPhone and Android apps Tuesday -- adding many of the features that Twitter.com users have been enjoying for some time. Now you can click on a tweet with a video link on your smartphone, for example, and have the video play directly in the tweet -- just as you can on the website. Expanded tweets will also include images and the summaries of articles, should the link point to one of Twitter's media partners (such as Mashable). "This new experience will roll out gradually to iPhone and Android users," writes Twitter mobile product manager Sung Hu Kim in a company blog post. SEE ALSO: Twitter Search Gets Smarter, Adds Autocomplete T… Continue reading... More About: android, iphone, Twitter http://mashable.com/2012/07/10/twitter-iphone-android-upgrade/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable%2FSocialMedia+%28Mashable+%C2%BB+Social+Media+Feed%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/10/twitter-iphone-android-upgrade/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable%2FSocialMedia+%28Mashable+%C2%BB+Social+Media+Feed%29 Old world online marketers must build, buy, or die, and Oracle has made its choice. Oracle has just agreed to acquire Involver, just a month after the giant bought its competing social marketing platform Vitrue. Involver will be rolled into Oracle Cloud marketing suite, and the deal is expected to close over the summer. Along with the Vitrue buy which today’s PR frames as an analytics purchase, Involver will give Oracle a powerful toolset for helping brands create custom applications as they adjust to sea change in marketing brought on by social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. While we’re working on the Involver price, its investors are likely to walk away with a handsome payday, considering the $600 million price tag on Vitrue and the $689 million Salesforce recently paid for leading enterprise social marketer Buddy Media. Involver had raised $11 million through its Series C from angels as well as Bessemer Venture Partners, Western Technology Investment, and Cervin Ventures. One of Involver’s unique products is the Social Markup Language, a proprietary development platform for creating apps that hook deeply into today’s social networks. It lets big brands design engaging custom experiences for potential customers such as games, contests, sweepstakes, and content generators designed to imprint a company on their consciousness. Involver-made apps will give Oracle client brands the “owned” part of the paid-earned-owned marketing trifecta. Getting all three to work in combination is crucial to taking advantage of integrated marketing campaigns and social advertising options like Facebook Sponsored Stories — where a friend’s interaction with a brand is used as an implicit recommendation in a marketing message. For example, Oracle client brands will be able to buy “paid” Facebook ads to drive traffic to their “owned” Facebook Page hosting a custom-skinned Involver app. There users might upload a photo of themselves into a branded vacation background, and be urged to share their collaged creation with friends. The brand could then pay to have this shared content appear more frequently in the news feeds of friends through Facebook Sponsored Stories. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/10/oracle-involver/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/10/oracle-involver/ Teens aren't giving up on Facebook, but they're treating it the same way the gainfully employed treat LinkedIn. http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/teens-prefer-twitter-facebook/235934/ http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/teens-prefer-twitter-facebook/235934/ Is your Twitter activity feeling stale?The good news is that you can easily revitalize your Twitter experience!Here are 16 ways to bring new life and renewed business purpose to your Twitter efforts.#1: Organize whom you follow with listsThere are many people you need to follow on Twitter for business reasons such as customers, suppliers, neighboring businesses, peers and competitors. As the number of people you follow grows, so does the noise. It gets harder to hear the important messages among all of the others.So how can you make sure you don’t miss anything important? Use Twitter lists.Twitter lists are its most powerful and least-used feature. Lists allow you to group the important people you follow so they don’t get lost in the noise of everyone else.You can create separate lists for:CustomersPeople in your industrySocial media teachersPeople in professional organizationsYou can create Twitter lists to organize the people you follow so you can focus on the most important people and conversations.By creating and using Twitter lists, you can focus on tweets from groups of people and decide when you want to see them, so tweets from important people don’t get lost.You can create up to 20 different Twitter lists with up to 500 accounts in each list. You can monitor each list separately using Twitter.com or Twitter tools like HootSuite.Tip: You don’t have to put everyone into a list.#2: Create a conversation listWhom you follow determines your daily experience of Twitter. If you follow people who inspire you, people who say intelligent things and challenge you to think differently, Twitter becomes a joy.One smart way to focus on the people who inspire you (without ignoring everyone else) is to create a private conversation list.Include in this list:People who inspire you in businessPeople who inspire you personallyPeople who are fun to talk withA conversation list helps you save time by pulling together the most important people and conversations into a single list.Jump into the list when you are looking for inspiration or encouragement during your workday.You can make your conversation list public or private. By creating a private list, you are the only person who knows who is on your list and when you make changes to the list. However, everything you say to people on this list is still public, so watch your words.#3: Update your profile pictureYour Twitter profile picture appears next to every tweet you send. It’s an opportunity to associate an image with your business in the minds of everyone who follows you.The challenge is that your Twitter profile picture is very small and square. For most businesses, your logo or personal headshot isn’t the right size or shape to represent you well.At full size, this company may have a beautiful logo. However, it’s too small to be effective on Twitter.If your profile picture is your logo:Make sure your logo fits into the square size. Cropped-off logos look unprofessional and give the impression that your business doesn’t care about the details.Make sure your logo is readable. If your logo contains words that cannot be read, you are wasting the space. Create an image without the words that captures the essence of your logo.Consider switching to a headshot. People connect with faces, not logos. If you are the driving force of your business, why not use your face to make your business seem more human and approachable?This is an example of what not to do with your Twitter profile picture because you cannot easily see the person’s face.If your profile picture is a photograph:Focus on your face. People don’t want to see you standing on the beach and they don’t care what clothes you are wearing.No animals or kids. Even if your business is directly related to pets or children, you should be the focus of your photograph. You want to make a human connection with potential customers.While a professional photograph is ideal, you can have a friend use a camera to take a great shot of your face. Make sure you are photographed against a plain background, and don’t forget to smile. Take 20 or more shots so you can choose one that really captures you.If you don’t have the skills to change your logo or crop your photo to the right shape, ask a friend or hire a graphic designer for an hour. The small investment will pay huge dividends in having a professional presence on Twitter.#4: Change your visual brandingTwitter allows you to customize the look and colors of your Twitter profile page. This gives you an opportunity to provide additional information about your business to everyone who checks out your profile.You can create a custom graphic and use it for your Twitter background.Here are some great examples of Twitter backgrounds and instructions for how to create your own.Here is an example of a custom Twitter background that highlights important company information and provides additional details.After you create the image file, you upload it to your profile. While you are there, you can adjust the background and link colors so they coordinate with your new background image. You will need the hex codes for the colors in your image if you want the background and links to match.#5: Rewrite your Twitter bioYour Twitter profile bio tells your business story in the length of a text message. That’s a lot of information crammed into just a few words.The best Twitter profiles include these components:Tell people what you doExplain how you help peopleShow a little personalityA good Twitter bio explains what you do and shows your personality at the same time.Look at your business Twitter profile with fresh eyes. Then rewrite it so it tells potential customers how you can help them and what benefit they can get from connecting with you. And don’t forget to share a little of your passion!Mark your calendar to review and update your Twitter bio again in 6 months, because even the best bio gets stale over time.#6: Create a Twitter landing pageAre you frustrated by only having 160 characters for your Twitter bio? Then consider creating a special Twitter landing page.Most people use their Twitter profile web link to drop people off at their website front door or their blog. But you can create a special Twitter landing page and use that page as your Twitter profile web address.A Twitter landing page gives you more space to talk about your business and about your Twitter use.A Twitter landing page is a special page on your website designed to introduce people from Twitter to your business. It’s like having a greeter there to help people get the scoop on your business and how you use Twitter.Your Twitter landing page could include:A personal message from youDetails about your business products and servicesHow to become a customerWhat you tweet aboutThe people behind your Twitter accountEven though you have more space, keep your Twitter landing page short and to-the-point to make a great impression on your visitors.#7: Rethink your follow strategyMany Twitter accounts are not run by real people. They are automated programs called bots. And some of them are spammers.There are bots that provide useful information. However, most bots are spewing out tweets from other people and other sources that are not on target for your Twitter business goals. They clog up your Twitter stream and don’t provide any business value.You may not have known you were following a bot. Bots gain an audience by following many people and taking advantage of people who automatically follow back.In general, it’s better not to follow automatically everyone who follows you if you want to avoid having your Twitter stream fill up with garbage.Bots usually have low numbers they follow with high numbers following them back like this account.So how can you spot a bot or spammer or someone whom you should not follow back?Here are a few suggestions:Don’t follow people with an egg picture. If they haven’t bothered to upload a real profile picture, chances are they are not going to say anything worth hearing.Check their numbers. An account that follows many people but has only a few followers is probably a spammer.Review their tweets. Are they all retweets or quotes? Did they send the exact tweet to many users over a very short time? It’s probably a bot.They say it’s a bot in their bio. Yes, some bots will tell you they are bots in their bio.No favorite tweets or lists. A bot or spammer doesn’t mark tweets as favorites or create lists.#8: Listen carefully and followSocial media is all about conversations, and conversations mean that you talk and listen.On Twitter, you can listen by:Reading tweets. This is the best way to find out what is on the minds of your Twitter community.Look for replies and mentions. Every time you check Twitter throughout the day, you should first check for direct messages and mentions. Mentions are public messages that include your Twitter handle and direct messages are private messages sent directly to you.Search for your business name. Sometimes, people talk about your business without using your Twitter username. You should regularly check Twitter for people who mention your business name by creating a search and saving it.When you see the search results page, click the gear icon to save the search.You should follow everyone who talks to you on Twitter. So as you find people talking about your business or talking directly to you, follow them.#9: Publicize your Twitter accountMake it easy for people to find your business on Twitter by adding your Twitter username to all of your business materials.Make it easy for people to follow your business on Twitter by posting a Twitter Follow button on your website or blog.For example, you should give your Twitter username in these locations:Your website (with a link)Your email signature (with a link)Your email newsletter (with a link)Your business cardsSigns posted in your businessPaperwork you give customers (receipts, invoices, statements, etc.)Menus and product information sheets#10: Make sure you are following your customersTwitter is a great place to talk with your customers. However, this means that you have to connect with them.It’s impossible for you to know which of your customers are on Twitter. For that reason, it’s important for you to advertise your Twitter account to your customers. This way, your customers can find you.How can you tell who is your customer on Twitter? Here are a few tips:They talk to you. Some customers may start a conversation with you using your Twitter handle. You should follow everyone who talks to your business.They mention your business. You should set up a saved search on Twitter so you can find people talking about your business. Always reply to people who mention your business and follow them.You can also search for your customers using their email address from your address book.#11: Stop following people who don’t tweetIn general, don’t worry about trying to control who follows you. But it’s a good idea to prune out the followers who have stopped using Twitter.A great free tool for finding people who haven’t tweeted for a while is unTweeps. After you authorize the app, it allows you to create a list of your followers based on how long since their last tweet. You can use the free account three times each month.The unTweeps screen allows you to create a list of people you follow based on the number of days since their last tweet.Start with people who haven’t tweeted for 6 months (or even 9 months) and review the list. You can mark individual accounts to unfollow.Tip: If you have a large number of people who are no longer tweeting, don’t unfollow them all at the same time. This action can signal Twitter to suspend your account for aggressive and spammer-like behavior.#12: Put Twitter to work solving your business challengesSometimes, the best way to improve your experience with a tool is to ask more from it. If you’ve been casually using Twitter and allowing the results to unfold, maybe it’s time to give Twitter a real job.It takes some time using Twitter before you’ll be ready to put it to work on your business goals. But after you understand Twitter and have built a community, it’s time to take your Twitter use to the next level.Twitter can help you meet your business goals. Think about a challenge you face in your business today. How could Twitter help you solve that problem?For example:Offer a Twitter-only special. If your restaurant or store is a ghost town on Tuesday nights, why not promote a Tuesday night event on Twitter? Offer a special deal (free dessert or a special discount) for everyone who knows the secret code you tweet out Tuesday at 5 pm.Reward people who retweet you. Is your blog a little lonely? Twitter is a great tool to drive traffic to your blog. Set up a contest or a reward for people who retweet your messages about your blog posts. You might give away an ebook, a seat at an upcoming webinar, a free 30-minute consultation or a product discount. Explain the terms of the offer in a blog post or on a special website page and link to that page in your tweet so people understand your offer.Organize a tweetup at your business. Have you been chatting with local people whom you have not met in real life? Or has it been a long time since they have visited your business? Why not organize an informal tweetup? Set a date and time, offer refreshments and give people something fun to do or learn and they will come.NASA has started using tweetups to reward key followers in its social media community.The best way to make Twitter work for your business is to try something new. Learn from what happens and try it again with improvements.#13: Add photos to your tweetsPeople love pictures. And this year, social media has really expanded to give people more of what they want.Statistics show that people are more likely to read your stuff online if you include pictures. This means that just by adding photos to your tweets, you can greatly increase the amount of attention they get.Adding a photo to your tweet increases the number of people who will interact with your message.The best part is that your photos don’t have to be professional-quality to be effective on Twitter. You can use your smartphone camera to snap a picture, and then use the Twitter mobile app for your phone to tweet and upload your picture.Every mobile Twitter app makes it easy to attach a photograph to a tweet from your smartphone.#14: Bookmark tweets you want to keepDid you know that every tweet has its own web address?You can save important tweets using the Favorites feature. However, many businesses use the Favorites as part of their Twitter strategy, and so they need another way to save tweets.To get to the web address of any tweet:Display the tweet on your screen.The Expand command displays more tweet options.Click Expand. Twitter provides more tweet options.The Details command displays the tweet in its own web page.Click Details. Twitter displays the tweet on its own page using its unique web address.An example of a tweet displayed on its own page using its unique web address.Bookmark the tweet using your browser or bookmarking tool.You can bookmark important tweets using your browser’s bookmarking tool or a web-based bookmarking service like Delicious. Now you have a way to keep track of important tweets so you can use them in the future.#15: Review (and renew) your tweet topicsWhen most businesses start using Twitter, they experiment for a while. As a result, they often tweet about random topics, or don’t tweet very often because they don’t know what to say.After mastering the basics of Twitter’s message types and building out your online community, it’s time to get serious about your conversation topics. Or to use marketing terms, it’s time to develop a content strategy.Every business has a core group of topics around its products and services. These are things that you know because of your business, and things that your customers and online community want to learn from you. Often, you educate your customers about these topics.Many businesses struggle to find these topics because they take their knowledge for granted. With a little effort, you can start to see your business knowledge through the eyes of your customers and figure out the topics that really spark interest in your community.These are the topics you should focus on with Twitter and social media in general. In fact, if you have a blog, these should be your blog categories.Brainstorm a list of 5 to 7 conversation topics, and then create a list of 10 or more specific things within each category. These will help you organize your Twitter conversation and will spark ideas when you can’t think of anything to say.Pay special attention to tweets that are retweeted, get replies or are marked as favorites. Those tweets hit a nerve, and you should talk more about those topics.Note: The best Twitter topics for your business are things that provide practical solutions to problems your potential customers face every day.#16: Expand the Twitter conversation to your blogWhen you have a great conversation going on Twitter, or you find a topic that people respond to on Twitter, why not expand the conversation to the people who read your blog?Twitter now makes it easy for you to embed a tweet into a blog post so it looks like a tweet and has the same interactive features it has on Twitter. In other words, you can write a blog post around a tweet and your blog visitors can interact with you on Twitter through your blog.An example of a tweet conversation-starter posted in a blog.Your TurnWhat do you think? How have you made Twitter more relevant and more vital to your daily business operations? What strategies and tactics have you used? Share your insights and experiences in the comments box below. Tweet http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/twitter-for-business/ http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/twitter-for-business/ The argument used to be look no further than the U.S. for the best examples of digital Public Relations. And while innovation and ideas continue to proliferate within the fifty states, two years spent abroad taught me one simple fact: this is no longer the case. http://socialmediatoday.com/jpan/593561/cultural-differences-why-america-no-longer-owns-digital-strategy http://socialmediatoday.com/jpan/593561/cultural-differences-why-america-no-longer-owns-digital-strategy http://www.marketingdirecto.com/actualidad/social-media-marketing/las-redes-sociales-socavan-la-autoestima-y-provocan-ansiedad/ http://www.marketingdirecto.com/actualidad/social-media-marketing/las-redes-sociales-socavan-la-autoestima-y-provocan-ansiedad/ Social media is the news source of choice for Britain's under 25-year-olds residents. According to the first Reuters Institute Digital Report, 43% of people between 16 and 24 get their news from social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, rather than search engines, such as Google, the Telegraph reports. Over 45-year-olds' use of social media for getting news pales in comparison to the younger demographic -- just 11% say they get news from the social web. For 33% of British people over 45, search engines are the online method of choice. Between different social networks, Facebook is the most popular place to share news. More than half (55%) of people share news on Facebook… Continue reading... More About: connected generation, Media, News, Social Media http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/social-media-news-source/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/social-media-news-source/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 White-hot payments startup Stripe has closed a $20 million Series B round of financing, led by General Catalyst with existing A-list investors Sequoia, Peter Thiel (personally) and angels Chris Dixon, Aaron Levie and Elad Gil also following on. Redpoint will be coming on as a new investor. Stripe’s valuation during this Series B was in the hundreds of millions, up to a half-billion dollars, according to a source (It’s unclear whether that valuation is pre- or post-money). The relatively under-the-radar company has already raised $20 million in prior funding from the aforementioned investors as well as PayPal co-founders Max Levchin and Elon Musk, with the under-reported $20 million Series A happening 12 months before this round closed. While the startup has declined to share specific metrics, Stripe is “growing like Square” according to one well-informed source. In the same space as Braintree, Stripe wants to corner the online transaction market by streamlining the heinous process of building out a payments system. Despite investment from three out of five PayPal co-founders, Stripe actually competes directly with PayPal in that it allows developers to avoid setting up merchant accounts and dealings with banks, while still ensuring transaction safety. Developers are psyched about its super easy API, namely because every other option to facilitate online payments seems like a colossal pain in the ass. Co-founder Patrick Collison tells me that there are presently 100k developers on the platform, and from what I’m hearing there are also some “major” e-commerce players in the pipeline to use it. “For us the real advantage of Stripe is that it makes payments so easy to implement it changes the types of products we can build,” says Xamarin founder Nat Friedman on why he chose the product over competitors, “We’re able to experiment with introducing paid features, marketplaces, and other ideas that we otherwise wouldn’t even try.” “Processing credit card payments ourselves would mean PCI compliance and supporting a host of different credit card types, and dealing directly with the banks that do the clearing,” says Foursquare’s Jason Liszka, who also uses Stripe to process payments on Foursquare, “Stripe’s API abstracts away all these complications and lets us focus on our core business.” “I see Stripe as the Twilio for payments,” Liszka continues, “Twilio identified that the telephone system was a complicated mess and built a clean, dead-simple API on top of it that made it easy for anyone to use. We integrated with Twilio about 2 years ago and basically forgot about it. I hope the same happens with Stripe.” Exec’s Justin Khan had a similar hassle-free Stripe experience, which he outlined for me in an email: Stripe made it super, stupid easy to set up live payments on Exec. It took me like 30 minutes when we were first launching our beta for Exec in January, and I’m not even a good programmer. Here’s the chain of events: 1pm: I think “hmm, we’re going to need to add payments to Exec. Good thing I know the Collisons, so I’ll be able to get a live account faster.” 1:01pm: I realize I can just sign up for an account and immediately start processing payments from the stripe.com site, no questions. 1:05pm: I start reading the documentation, add their js file to our beta site. 1:25pm: I have test payments working. They show up in real time. “The unlocking of payments by companies with good, sane customer service like Stripe and Dwolla makes it much, much easier for new companies to get started,” Khan says, echoing Collison’s vision, “This is really good for the startup ecosystem.” “Stripe isn’t another mobile games company,” the 23-year-old Collison tells me, “The problem we’re tackling is really hard. We’re building the economic infrastructure for the Internet.” Collison also tells me that the startup’s efforts to stay relatively stealth have been thwarted by its success, “People have been hearing about the importance of Stripe directly from the people building things. And we’ve been growing very fast.” At the moment the startup charges a base 2.9% fee + $0.30 for every successful transaction, with no other surcharges or monthly fees, “All the other systems try to make their costs hard to model: they charge you for things like failed payments and card storage. This makes no sense, and so our pricing is just that: 2.9% + $0.30 on the money you actually get. We only make money if you do.” Having just picked up rockstars Alex MacCaw, Ben De Cock and Ben Rahn to flesh out the 28-person team, Collison plans on using the funding to further hire, in order to handle the startup’s new-found scale. He’s focused on expanding Stripe outside the US; The company’s Canadian beta just started today and Western Europe is next. Collison, who paid much of his way through M.I.T. by selling the “Offline Wikipedia app,” also hints that big product announcements are on the horizon. Hopefully you’ll hear about them here first … Online payments, the final frontier. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/sexy-payments-startup-stripe-swipes-20m-from-general-catalyst-sequoia-thiel-and-more/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/sexy-payments-startup-stripe-swipes-20m-from-general-catalyst-sequoia-thiel-and-more/ For many fans, Major League Baseball's annual mid-summer home run derby and all-star game are enough excitement on their own. This year, however, MLB is trying to increase the fun by making them what it says are "the most social events in baseball history." How? A combination of in-game player tweets, curated content and social rewards for fans. During Monday night's home run contest, players will tweet and post to Facebook from special social media stations as well as share video and photos shot from their own smartphones. Fans who check in to the home run derby and contest using the MLB at the Ballpark mobile app will be entered for prize drawings, and MLB will feature fan tweets u… Continue reading... More About: Facebook, sports, Twitter http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/mlb-all-social-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/mlb-all-social-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 Twitter users are countering negative remarks against artist Frank Ocean with kindness after his recent love letter received much attention online. The letter, which Ocean posted on Tumblr, was about his first love at age 19. The person happened to be a man. "By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love, it changed my life," Ocean reveals in the letter. Many Twitter users have responded negatively to Ocean. Jacob Åström and his friends have created hatetweetstofrankocean.com, intending to fight back with a positive message. Visitors to the site can scroll th… Continue reading... More About: Entertainment, Music, Social Good, spam, Twitter, watercooler http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/frank-ocean-homophobic-tweets/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/frank-ocean-homophobic-tweets/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 Getting around a social media site is not always easy. For some users, it's a matter of getting used to social media. For others, the issue is keeping up with constant updates and changes to features, privacy settings, and account specifications. This, of course, is why social media cheat sheets exist. Cheat sheets are basically infographics that can give a user a simple rundown of various features and how to use them. Here's a roundup of great cheat sheets for the most popular social networking sites. Google+1. Google+ Cheat Sheet by Simon Laustsen This is a nice little cheat sheet that covers what most users are probably going to need. For example, you'll know how to crea… Continue reading... More About: contributor, features, Marketing, online marketing, Social Media http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/social-media-cheatsheets/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mashable%2Fbusiness+%28Mashable+%C2%BB+Business+and+Marketing%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/social-media-cheatsheets/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mashable%2Fbusiness+%28Mashable+%C2%BB+Business+and+Marketing%29 SessionM CEO and co-founder Lars Albright says the company has been recruiting aggressively since it raised a $20 million Series B a few months ago. Today, he’s announcing three big hires from Apple and Google: Gerald Hewes, who led the analytics, optimization, and insights team for Apple’s iAd program, and who’s now SessionM’s vice president of engineering. Amy Jerusalmi, who joined Apple through its acquisition of Quattro Wireless and led the iAd account management team. She is joining SessionM as vice president of client services. Deborah Powsner, who led product marketing for Google+, and is joining as SessionM’s senior director of marketing. Albright came from iAd himself — he co-founded Quattro, which became the basis for iAd when it was bought by Apple. However, he emphasizes that both Hewes and Jerusalmi had already decided to leave Apple because they wanted to stay in Boston. (In other words, he’s not poaching his former team members from Apple.) The company helps app developers try to improve engagement and retention by rewarding users within the app, while also opening up new advertising opportunities. SessionM is also announcing expansion beyond Boston, with offices in New York City (where Jerusalmi will be based), Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Albright says that SessionM is hiring across the country in sales, product, and engineering. During our conversation, he focused particularly on sales: “One of the big learning for me at Quattro was to invest heavily in great people on the sales side.” The company now has more than 40 employees. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/sessionm-hires/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/sessionm-hires/ We hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July and an awesome weekend. You may have noticed that we didn’t have a Disrupt SF ticket giveaway last Friday. That is because we wanted to wait since we have something extra special to give away this week. We noticed last Friday that we had a brand new iPad in the office (yes, the new one, the “new iPad”) and we were feeling celebratory, so we decided to give it away. This week’s giveaway winner will not only receive a ticket to one of our biggest technology conferences of the year, Disrupt SF, but also will receive this brand new iPad. The new iPad is a 32GB WiFi + Cellular Black iPad for Verizon. It’s valued at around $729. Disrupt SF is this September 8th – 12th and it is going to be a show you do not want to miss. We just announced our first batch of speakers this morning: Marc Benioff, Ben Horowitz, and Joel Klein. We have many more surprises to announce as well so be on the lookout. If you’re feeling lucky, all you have to do to enter is follow the steps below. 1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page: 2) Then do one of the following: - Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag) - Or leave us a comment below telling us what you did for the 4th of July. The contest will start now and end next Monday, July 16th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the giveaway is over. Anyone in the world is eligible. Please note the ticket prize is for one ticket only and does not include airfare or hotel. Now is the time to get the best deal for Disrupt Tickets, so grab them while you can. You can purchase tickets here. If you would like to join us as a sponsor, opportunities can be found here. Good luck! http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/techcrunch-giveaway-a-new-ipad-and-free-ticket-to-disrupt-sf-tcdisrupt/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/techcrunch-giveaway-a-new-ipad-and-free-ticket-to-disrupt-sf-tcdisrupt/ Once upon a time, all singles needed to worry about was waiting long enough in between dates to place the next phone call. Now, daters must think about the "right" time to send a Facebook request or start Twitter following the person you're dating -- in addition to refraining from Internet stalking a new crush. Besides the obvious -- like, not friending your new boyfriend or girlfriend's pals before meeting them -- we've spoken to leading relationship experts for the nitty-gritty. Below are some modern social media guidelines that will propel new, and long-term, romantic relationships. When Done Right, Social Media Is Like Glue Self-described Internet geek, wife and mother A… Continue reading... More About: couples, Facebook, Google, relationships, Social Media, Twitter http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/new-social-media-love-rules/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/new-social-media-love-rules/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 It’s been a long time in coming, but today Kayak, the hotel and flight search provider, announced that it has priced its shares and will begin trading at a range of $22 to $25 on NASDAQ Exchange under the ticker symbol KYAK. In updated filings with the SEC, Kayak said it will offer 4 million million shares and seek to raise a maximum of $100.6 million or about twice as much as in its initial filings when it sought to raise $50 million. The deal will be led by Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank Securities, with Piper Jaffray, Stifel Nicolaus, and Pacific Crest participating as additional underwriters. In the filing, Kayak also disclosed new financials for its most recent quarter. In the quarter ending March 31 it made a $4.15 million profit on sales of $73.3 million. That would translate into per-share earnings of 17 cents or 11 cents on a diluted basis. That compares to a $6.9 million loss on $52.6 million in sales in the same quarter in 2011. For the quarter ahead, Kayak said it expects to report sales of $74.5 million to $76 million which would amount to growth of 31 to 34 percent. It said it expects to earn between $13 million and $14 million on an operating basis which would amount to growth of between 133 percent and 151 percent. The company posted a video and new prospectus on the site Retail Roadshow. Today’s offering caps a process that first began nearly 21 months ago when Kayak, based in Norwalk, CT. filed its first S1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in November of 2010. Last September it put its plans on hold at a time when the market seemed too volatile. It also found itself in an increasingly competitive market, particularly following Google’s $700 million acquisition of travel software giant ITA. Then came Facebook’s bungled IPO, and another delay. http://allthingsd.com/20120709/kayak-prices-long-delayed-100-million-ipo-at-25-a-share/ http://allthingsd.com/20120709/kayak-prices-long-delayed-100-million-ipo-at-25-a-share/ Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica’s O2 are all pushing ahead on their own mobile payment services, but in a bid to outpace companies like Apple and Google that may disintermediate them completely, these carriers are also working together. Now, a carrier JV in the UK, code-named Project Oscar, which would create a common mobile payments platform for all of them, is apparently nearing the final stages of regulatory approval. The FT, citing two separate sources, notes that the okay could come this summer from antitrust regulators, with “few or no remedies” required for the approval. This is a turn of events, considering that the project has already been delayed by regulators a couple of times, scuppering plans to have the service ready by the Olympics in London this summer. Subsequently, carriers are beginning to prepare for a launch of the platform that would enable retailers, banks and others to link into the service to give it the kind of scale that many believe mobile payments will need if they are to succeed as a consumer service. We have contacted the carriers for a comment on the story and the joint response has been a universal no comment: “Everything Everywhere [itself a JV for T-Mobile and Orange in the UK], Telefonica UK and Vodafone UK cannot comment on rumour or speculation regarding discussions with the EC concerning their proposed m-commerce joint venture,” a spokesperson told me.. Up to now, the party standing most in the way of Project Oscar, first announced over a year ago, has been Hutchison Whampoa-owned Three, the smallest of the mobile carriers in the UK. Three says that it has been shut out of the process of creating the platform, and all further developments since it has been announced. On the side of the bigger carriers, they have never ruled out offering the platform to other mobile service providers — but haven’t spelled out how that would work, either. The significance of Project Oscar is that it does not appear to preclude the development of any operator-specific mobile payment services. Those individual developments have covered not just point of sale services, but also those for payments within apps. Among them, Vodafone is working with Visa, Deutsche Telekom has signed an agreement with MasterCard; France Telecom is driving hard on NFC on SIMs; and Telefonica, which has a strategic investment in Boku, just last week announced it it would be enabling carrier billing for content from Facebook, Google, Microsoft and RIM’s app store. The idea with Oscar, however, is that by creating a platform where individual services can interoperate, the prospect for merchants and payment providers of investing in making their products mobile-purchase-friendly will become significantly more attractive — and subsequently consumers will be more likely to use them, too. Or so the thinking goes. Since announcing the JV in June 2011, the project has been in limbo while getting investigated by the European Commission’s antitrust authority. The report in the FT seems to be based on initial positive feedback. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/report-project-oscar-uks-multi-carrrier-mobile-payment-jv-could-get-regulator-nod-this-summer/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/report-project-oscar-uks-multi-carrrier-mobile-payment-jv-could-get-regulator-nod-this-summer/ Twitter is preparing a major new version of its iPhone app, which will include an interactive tweet view, enhanced notifications and more, 9to5Mac reports. The info comes through leaked release notes which bring a detailed list of all the new features in the next Twitter for iPhone version, 4.3. These include a more interactive tweet view experience, letting you see content previews, videos and images within tweets containing links to "partner websites," as well as the ability to choose whether you want to receive push notifications when certain people tweet. Other improvements include highlighted tweets about selected events, autocomplete in the Connect tab, and the ability to t… Continue reading... More About: iphone, Twitter http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/twitter-iphone-update/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/twitter-iphone-update/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 Small companies have unique benefits that help them in social media. They can be more personal, more intimate, move faster, and be more flexible. Big businesses have problems due to their size, organization and bureaucracies. But they also shine in some areas that small companies fall short. Here are 5 social media lessons that small businesses can learn from big businesses. http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/591266/5-social-media-lessons-small-business-can-learn-big-business?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/591266/5-social-media-lessons-small-business-can-learn-big-business?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 Editor’s note: Hong Quan is a recruiter at Quantum Startups, which connects people with startups in Silicon Valley. He is also the founder of Prong Motors and designed a unique three-wheeled vehicle. He is also a Mentor-in-Residence at 500 Startups and for the Thiel Foundation’s 20 Under 20 Fellowship. Recruiters suck! On this we can all agree. You don’t need to set up a honeypot to know the majority are just lurking LinkedIn and spamming software engineers for their next lottery ticket. Most people think recruiting is about “hiring talent”, but founders should be actually building a cult. Now that you’ve raised some money – Congrats! – the first thing your new bosses will ask is that you “grow the team”. We’ve got the future to build! And it’s gonna require a lot of bodies. And that’s why you’ll fail. Recruiting isn’t about filing seats. By the time most founders think about recruiting – approximately 3-6 months after funding and not being able to hire anyone – it’s too late. You need to create a solid recruiting process that reflects your unique personality and company culture, and one that’s scalable and repeatable. Oh, you’ve already been using external recruiters? Or you’ve got someone doing recruiting but not delivering results. Now you have to call in a specialist to fix everything wrong with your recruiting process, do what I call ‘catch-up-recruiting’ and that’s a really rough road. I’ve done it. And it’ll cost you more (time and money) for me to clean up someone else’s mess. So how should you think about recruiting? Well let’s go back in time… Stages of Growth 1) 0 to 2 – You’ve got an idea and you’ve got a partner (or two). Most startups end up in divorce. Marry well. The core/founding team is your foundation and every subsequent hire will reflect this. This is why VCs like to fund Founders from Stanford, Harvard or MIT. 2) 2 to 20 – Building the base, hire all your friends! Search your natural network until it’s tapped out. Then go outside your comfort zone. 3) 20 to 100+ – Create the recruiting machine, keep it running, feed the beast. Don’t let HR take over. No, it’s not the same thing as recruiting. You got Recruiting Problems And I feel bad for you son. I got 99 engineers and you all want one. “Just get us one.” That’s what the emails all say. We just need one Google Engineer, one Facebook Hacker, one ex-YC Founder who almost made it and is now dead broke. If you think about recruiting one hire at a time, you’ll never build a proper team. There are some common pitfalls that Founders fall into, and they are: 1) Hiring too slow. Talent > Capital. VCs breathing down your neck. I’ve never met a startup that’s hiring “on plan”. Even the most popular startups with awesome teams and unlimited press mentions have trouble recruiting quickly while maintaining the highest quality that made them the hot startup in the first place. 2) Hiring too fast. Scaling before you’re ready. More engineers != more code shipped. Founders who brag about the size of their team are doing it wrong. More people means more burn, which requires more money, which usually means fundraising, which puts you on the hook for more hiring. Having 5 engineers in the earliest stage pre-funding doesn’t actually mean you’ll code 5x as fast, or ship product that’s 5x better. Don’t grow before you’re ready, but be ready to grow at all times. 3) Hiring poorly. This will be the death of your startup, guaranteed. Save us from ourselves. So what do we do now? No one’s doing recruiting right. If you’re not a big company, why are you using big company recruiting? Pipeline, filters, resumes, reviews, phone screens, code challenges and interviews. Volume doesn’t naturally bring quality. Once HR is involved your startup is now a “company” for better or for worse. “But Google hires the best engineers!”, you’ll protest. Okay, but does your startup do *anything else* exactly like Google? 1) Always Be Recruiting. It’s Job #1 for Founders. People join your startup because of you, not because of salary, funding, equity or perks. 2) Recruiting is too important to be left to Recruiters. How many recruiters do you need? Well how many employees do you have? It’s everyone’s job to grow the company. Give them the tools and responsibility to do so. 3) Build strong teams. Strong teams get stronger over time, weak teams get weaker. Retention is half the battle in this current “war for talent”. Even your friends and Co-Founders will leave you. Make sure you’re okay with that. Better yet, plan for it. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/recruiting-rules-everything-around-you/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/recruiting-rules-everything-around-you/ Social media may do more harm than good when it comes to personal well-being, a small study from the University of Salford in the UK indicates. About half of the survey's 298 participants, all of whom identified themselves as social media users, say that their use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter makes their lives worse. In particular, participants noted that their self-esteem suffers when they compare their own accomplishments to those of their online friends. In addition to confidence issues, two-thirds claim they find it difficult to fully relax or sleep after spending time on social networks. A quarter cited work or relationship d… Continue reading... More About: anxiety, Facebook, Social Media, stress, uk http://mashable.com/2012/07/08/social-media-anxiety-study/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/08/social-media-anxiety-study/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 It’s a good time to be Kickstarter. The crowdfunding platform has had a blockbuster year, breaking into mainstream consciousness with campaigns that raised millions of dollars, like the Pebble e-paper watch above. The platform has seen almost $275 million pledged to some 63,000 projects to date, with $231 million going towards successful fundings. As Devin wrote at the time, before February, no Kickstarter project had ever raised over $1 million, but since then, seven projects have surpassed $1 million, including the current #1, Pebble, which raised an astonishing $10 million. And this growth applies to multiple categories, not just sexy wrist watches. Prior to February only one gaming project had reached $100K in funding. Since then? 37. Even something as niche as webcomics saw its number of pledges double in February. A lot of people came to Kickstarter for the first time as part of the buzz around those seven projects that surpassed $1 million, and to the startup’s delight, a lot of them have gone on to fund other projects, resulting in a positive net effect both for the platform itself and for project founders. The long-term question/caveat to this, of course, is whether new users coming to Kickstarter tend to just end up amplifying the projects that are already blowing up, or whether they’re actually spreading the love and helping other projects reach their goals that might not have otherwise. After all, when you launch a Kickstarter project, the odds are against you; 56 percent of Kickstarter projects fail to find funding — with some 32K projects in total having failed, compared to the 25K projects that succeeded. The company hides the failures as a gesture to creators, and to help users focus on the projects with traction. To further boost its transparency, Kickstarter also launched a stats page in June, which provides daily updates on metrics like dollars pledged, success rates, etc., broken down by category. Check it out here. A 44 percent success rate ain’t bad. Considering there have been seven $1 million-plus projects since February and that today 82 percent of projects that raise more than 20 percent of their goal go on to become successfully funded, the overall trend is positive. However, keep in mind that 62,711 projects have launched in three years, and only seven have hit $1M. That means your chances of reaching $1M are a fraction of one percent. What’s more, few of the Kickstarter projects that are successfully funded go on to become real, revenue-generating businesses. Many of those projects naturally go on to create eCommerce stores to sell their wares. As a number of those projects have used Shopify to open their storefronts (including the $10M baby, Pebble) the startup has taken an interest in this growing trend. Shopify’s marketing and PR guru, Mark Hayes, even decided to profile the creators of some of Kickstarter’s most successful projects to ask what they’d learned and to get them to share some of the secrets of their success. (You can check the post out here.) As Kickstarter grows, and more and more companies opt to use it as a launchpad and a means to validate their product and measure market demand, learning from those who’ve found success provides an awesome guide future founders. So, piggy-backing on Hayes’ work, herein we’d like to offer a glimpse into what the most successful projects have done right — and what they did wrong. For starters, it’s good to know what areas (or categories) you should be focused on based on past Kickstarter data. It turns out that “Theater” and “Dance” projects have the highest success rates at 64 and 69 percent, respectively — good to know for all you theater and dance geeks out there. Yes, there are people who will fund your avant garde, dance-heavy rendition of “A Confederacy of Dunces.” (Best to do it now in the event Zach Galifianakis beats you to it.) Of course, only 3,256 Theater-related projects have been launched, which is on the lower end, when you compare it to the 18,263 Film & Video projects and the 14,906 Music-related projects that have launched on Kickstarter. These two categories are by far the most popular, having raised over $100 million “successful dollars” between them. While there is far more competition for dollars among these categories (and in Publishing), of the more popular categories, Music projects have the highest success rate at just over 54 percent. Meanwhile, I’m sorry to say, readers, but Technology ranks near the bottom with only 1,236 projects launched and the second lowest success rate at 29.25 percent. Now that you’re aware of what categories are most popular on Kickstarter, let’s dive into some examples. Ministry of Supply Ministry of Supply is a good place to start. (You can read our recent coverage here.) Borrowing technology from NASA (with a dollop of Under Armour), the startup has designed a next-gen line of dress shirts, called “Apollo,” that adapt to your body to control perspiration, reduce odor, stay wrinkle free and looking a badass. Plus, everything from the fabric to the packaging is made right here in the U.S. of A. Ministry of Supply set out to raise $30K and has raised $288K to date, sneaking up on the $291K raised by Flint & Tinder for their men’s underwear — currently the most-funded fashion project on Kickstarter. So, why has Ministry of Supply been so successful? Well, there’s less competition in Fashion and it also happens that the top three most-funded projects in the category tackle menswear and offer either a next-gen, wrinkle-free, durable product or focus on bringing manufacturing jobs to the U.S. For Ministry of Supply, it also helps that working stiffs like you and me who need dress shirts, and futuristic dress shirts that solve all the problems of what’s currently out there (wrinkles, pit stains, etc.) are certainly appealing. Especially when they advertise the fact that they’ve borrowed from the same technology that NASA uses in its space suits. All that makes for a sexy product that solves a real problem, plus there’s a movement to help get the U.S. back on track by keeping manufacturing jobs here. “We used to make things,” you might’ve heard an American lament. There’s also the fact that the founders used to work at companies with recognizable names, like SpaceX, Lululemon, IDEO, and Apple. The founders also attribute their success to focusing on an iterative process, developing a product, releasing it to a small group of testers, taking the feedback to make it better. They made dozens of test runs on Apollo before launching their Kickstarter project. And, for those who are lucky to exceed their goals, the founders tell us that it’s important to keep people engaged with the project page by offering updates. Ministry of Supply has posted videos and updated the text of their Kickstarter page numerous times since reaching their initial goal, as a way to thank their supporters and talk about their plans going forward. They also said it’s important to add further goals. For example, if they become the most-funded fashion Kickstarter project, they’re going to launch their backers’ names into space on a “ridiculous weather balloon.” This keeps people coming back, checking in on their progress, and sharing the concept with friends. Coffee Joulies Dave Jackson and Dave Petrillo, two mechanical engineers from New Jersey, were tired of the foibles inherent to coffee drinking. Baristas seemingly love to use lava to heat coffee, which makes for burned tongues and hands. Plus, there’s the fact that coffee tends to stay at a pleasant, warm, drinkable temperature for less than 30 seconds. So, the engineers developed a stainless steel coffee bean that you can put in your cup. The bean absorbs excess heat, bringing your coffee down to a drinkable temperature — and not only that, but when it starts to get cold, the bean releases heat to keep your coffee warm. Sweet. (Read our coverage here.) The team set out to raise $9,500 but brought in over $300K and is one of the top 15 Design projects on Kickstarter to date. As to their tips for success? The engineers told Mark Hayes of Shopify that the smartest thing they did was to allow potential customers to opt-in to their email list as their project came to a close. Kickstarter brought a ton of referrals to their site, but because they were busy filling orders, they weren’t able to pre-sell their Joulies for several months. For successful Kickstarter campaigns this can be a huge problem. Teams are small and they inevitably have to go into overdrive and rush to fill orders. If they’re not prepared, they can lose a ton of customers as a result. “Instead, we had a compelling opt-in email box that would notify customers when Joulies were ready to order, so that when the time came to sell again, sending emails to the list was easy — and of enormous value,” they said. In describing what went wrong with their project, we find a good lesson both for project creators and for Kickstarter itself. Founders need to be ready for traffic, and Kickstarter needs to get better at providing its companies with more guidance and transparency into traffic and metrics. Here’s Petrillo’s explanation: We didn’t know what our real traffic numbers were like on Kickstarter, and we also didn’t really have a clue what levels of hosting were required to host and protect against traffic spikes since it was all behind the scenes during Kickstarter. When we did get spikes, like when a story about us got syndicated on Yahoo! homepage for 12 hours, our ‘unlimited’ shared hosting crashed within minutes and we lost hundreds of thousands of unique viewers. Bummer. Ramos Alarm Clock The Ramos Alarm Clock was developed by a team of engineers in NYC. It’s an old-school, neat-looking clock that displays time in a funky way and includes a wireless alarm deactivation panel that forces you to get out of bed to turn off the alarm. The team set out to raise $75K, but made double that and was even teased on Saturday Night Live. The Keys to success? The founders said that it’s all about creating a product that solves a real problem, finding an idea that people can relate to and want to use every day. That should sound familiar to entrepreneurs. They also found Kickstarter to me a much better launch platform than just going it alone or trying to reach out to press themselves. “Kickstarter served us well in being a reputable, visible platform to start from … I don’t know if we could have generated that much buzz launching ourselves, or elsewhere,” said co-founder Paul Sammut. He also recommended that companies be ready with their own storefront as soon as their projects expire on Kickstarter. What didn’t work? Easier said than done when the future of your idea is uncertain, but Sammut said that founders should be realistic about what they can achieve in a short period of time. In other words, be careful of over-promising and under-delivering. “We offered things to customers at the onset of the project that seemed easy to do, but ended up adding a great deal of complexity to the manufacturing process,” the co-founder told Hayes. “I would recommend a serious analysis on how to simplify your product and keep variations to a minimum when starting out,” especially if you’re attempting to launch something that will need to be mass-produced. If you’re a small team, even handling communication and customer support for a couple hundred people can be a bear. ZPM Espresso Kickstarter also apparently loves coffee. ZPM Espresso, the makers of a high-tech espresso machine called the Nocturn, set out to raise $20K, but made nearly $370K on Kickstarter. The machine offers PID controls, programmable presets, adjustable temperature and pressure settings, and open-source software to boot — to the delight of coffee geeks everywhere. What worked? ZPM Espresso co-founder Janet Tambasco said that the key to their campaign was focusing on being extremely responsible to questions and feedback. What’s more, when asking for money on a crowdfunding platform (i.e. you’re hitting up strangers for money), she said that the key is being both passionate and transparent. Be honest about your product and what you expect to accomplish. Tambasco said that the team made sure to respond to the thousands of emails they received during their campaign, talked to people who work in the coffee industry about planning next steps, and posted frequent updates on their blog and on their Kickstarter page. As to what didn’t go right? Even if you’re worried about being able to meet your manufacturing (or production goals) at scale, don’t try to slow things down. Roll with it, and don’t be afraid to try to amplify the publicity for your product yourselves — through press and otherwise. Plan for scale in advance in the event you’re lucky to find it. “In retrospect, more funds always helps,” she says, “so we should’ve tried to gather as much momentum as possible, rather than trying to slow things down while we tried to figure out logistics.” Pebble Pebble is the most-funded Kickstarter project to date. The project set a goal of $100K and raised over $10 million. Whoah. (Read our coverage here.) Pebble is an infinitely-customizable smartwatch that is water and scratch resistant and comes with a neat ePaper display (i.e. Kindle-like). Its battery lasts for seven days and can be charged by USB. Users can connect the watch to their smartphones to sync calendars, alerts, emails, and even calls. Essentially, it’s the watch of the future. It makes my Casio calculator watch of yore look like an abacus attached to a sundial that can be worn around the wrist. What worked? Pebble Founder Eric Migicovsky says that (besides all the kickass technology — my words, not his) the key to its Kickstarter campaign was finding effective, demonstrative ways to describe its use cases, which they laid out on their page. “We knew that no one really wakes up in the morning with a desperate urge to buy a smartwatch,” he told Hayes, “so it was our job to figure out exactly how to explain to future users how they will be able to use Pebble.” To do this, he recommends testing out your pitch on people who aren’t going to be your core user base or audience. In fact, he turned to, among others, his mom. Find the best way to pitch every day people and then expand on that to describe your product — advice that has broad/general application, too. And to that point, his other piece of advice echoed that from many others: Above all, one should listen to their users, take care to hear their problems and react accordingly. Be responsive, quick to react, and transparent, and do whatever you can to resolve those pain points as you iterate and go through your product cycle. Amanda Palmer Amanda Palmer has the most-funded Music project on Kickstarter to date. She set a $100K goal and made over $1.1 million. Amanda’s goal was pretty simple: It was to raise money to release her new album. Kickstarter wrote a lengthy description of Amanda’s milestone (becoming the first musician to reach $1M), so we won’t re-hash the whole thing here. But, in case you missed it, there’s plenty that applies to this discussion — and echoes what’s been said by other project founders. Amanda wasn’t famous or particularly well-known before her Kickstarter campaign blew up, which should be encouraging to other fledgling musicians out there. But what we can take from her success is that, for starters is that, when strangers offer up their cash to help you meet your goals, they love being rewarded with experiences just as much — if not more than — items or things. This may not apply to every category, but a significant portion of the money pledged to Palmer’s campaign was for experiential rewards. She offered backer-only performances, or for $5K, she offered to play a show at her funders’ houses, or the chance to have dinner with her in which she would paint you your very own portrait. Backers ate these rewards up, something that’s reminiscent of Ministry of Supply’s offer to send their backers’ names into space on a weather balloon if they become the most-funded Fashion project. As a result, they’re almost there. As Kickstarter says in its post, “traditional marketplaces restrict fans to being customers, but Amanda’s project invited people to participate.” With the evolution of the web to a discovery and entertainment-driven medium, this kind of interactivity is huge. Transparency also came up again in the discussion of the musician’s success, and, for what it’s worth, Kickstarter likes to think that backers reward artists and campaigns that “step out from behind their industries’ protective walls.” If we can agree that the creative economy is in shambles, then it is likely true that fans are eager to support people who are willing to challenge the status quo and take risks. Even if that means you have to paint your investors’ portraits. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/how-pebble-and-other-product-phenomenons-killed-it-on-kickstarter/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/how-pebble-and-other-product-phenomenons-killed-it-on-kickstarter/ Cisco did some apologizing this past week. The networking giant apologized for all the confusion about Cisco Connect Cloud and the suspect terms of service that many people viewed as a way for the company to monitor behavior and potentially cut off their router if they infringed. Cisco Connect Cloud is a service that updates a router automatically for customers. It’s part of Cisco’s effort to connect all the “things,” in your home, be it your PC, tablet, appliances and anything else you can think of. It limits the owner’s capability to control the router itself. The advantage, Cisco claims, is it gives you the ability to manage your router no matter where you are. Issues surfaced last week when customers upgraded the firmware on their routers and were directed to a page that asked them to update to the Cisco Connect Cloud service. Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin experienced the issue himself after buying a Cisco Linksys EA3500 dual-band wireless router. Soon after installing it, he was notified of a firmware update. A sign up page appeared for Cisco Connect Cloud when he tried to access the browser’s internal administrative Web interface. After signing up for Cisco Connect Cloud he had limited ability to manually administer the device. Brodkin: In exchange for the convenience of Connect Cloud, you have to agree to some pretty onerous terms. In short, Cisco would really hate it if you use the Web to view porn or download copyrighted files without paying for them. The story soon spread. Cisco has since backed off and has changed the terms of service. I did a search for “pornography,” and did not find any references. This may not seem like a big deal to many people. It ties into the belief that companies can be trusted with our data or that nothing will ever happen to them even if they do have it. Also, companies generally have pretty restrictive terms of service. Legal departments demand it. But Cisco is a bit different. Here’s why. Cisco is in the business of surveillance. It provides Internet and video surveillance technology to law enforcement organizations, national governments and any number of government agencies. ISPs and service providers throughout the world use Cisco’s “Lawful Intercept,” technology to conduct electronic surveillance. Cisco’s surveillance technology is used throughout the world. But it’s the work Cisco does in China that raises the most questions about its ethical practices. The Human Rights Law Foundation filed suit last year in federal court, arguing Cisco helped customize its networking equipment to monitor members of the Falun Gong group. They argue that with the help of the Cisco technology, the Chinese kidnapped, detained, imprisoned, tortured and subjected group members to forced labor. There are reports that the Chinese harvested organs from Falun Gong members they took into custody. From the Weekly Standard: The financial excitement of a wired China quickly led to a proliferation of eight major Internet service providers (ISPs) and four pipelines to the outside world. To force compliance with government objectives — to ensure that all pipes lead back to Rome — they needed the networking superpower, Cisco, to standardize the Chinese Internet and equip it with firewalls on a national scale. According to the Chinese engineer [that the publication spoke with], Cisco came through, developing a router device, integrator, and firewall box specially designed for the government’s telecom monopoly. At approximately $20,000 a box, China Telecom “bought many thousands” and IBM arranged for the “high-end” financing. Michael confirms: “Cisco made a killing. They are everywhere.” Cisco vehemently denies the charges. I am sure many of you will say that the people complaining are overwrought with conspiracy theories. I have no special knowledge of Cisco’s intentions, but I do believe Cisco’s policies about monitoring an individual’s use of their home routers is relevant to its focus on surveillance and interests in China. There may not be a connection at all between this and the iffy TOS, but the TOS is certainly is a reminder of how Cisco helped China use its technology as a tool for repression. In similar fashion, is Cisco now using a questionable firmware update to lock users into terms that could be used to restrict customer freedoms? Here’s a closer to look at the terms of service I mentioned earlier. Until last week, Cisco’s terms of service for Cisco Connect Cloud meant access to your apps, browser history and more. Here’s an excerpt that has been quoted widely by Brodkin and others: When you use the Service, we may keep track of certain information related to your use of the Service, including but not limited to the status and health of your network and networked products; which apps relating to the Service you are using; which features you are using within the Service infrastructure; network traffic (e.g., megabytes per hour); internet history; how frequently you encounter errors on the Service system and other related information (“Other Information”). What would Cisco do with that information? That’s the big question. Cisco being willing to help the Chinese government snoop calls into question its own practices with its own customers. Now, let’s take it a step further. What if you are active in the conservation movement or involved in a political campaign ? I don’t care if you are as left-wing as Marx or out in the parking lot with John Wayne. It’s this excerpt from the terms of service that makes you pause: You agree not to use or permit the use of the Service: (i) to invade another’s privacy; (ii) for obscene, pornographic, or offensive purposes; (iii) to infringe another’s rights, including but not limited to any intellectual property rights; (iv) to upload, email or otherwise transmit or make available any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, spam, junk mail or any other form of solicitation; (v) to transmit or otherwise make available any code or virus, or perform any activity, that could harm or interfere with any device, software, network or service (including this Service); or (vi) to violate, or encourage any conduct that would violate any applicable law or regulation or give rise to civil or criminal liability. That’s a pretty broad terms of service. It’s curious for a few reasons. It’s a questionable restriction on free speech. It puts Cisco in control of your own hardware. It gives Cisco the ability to share your data with third parties. And it sets the stage for more hooks and potential packet sniffing. Now compare it to what we know about the Golden Shield Project, China’s master database and firewall that it uses to censor Chinese society. Like Golden Shield, Cisco’s terms of service made it clear that they were monitoring what you do. They did not say they were censoring you. They just made it abundantly aware that they could take action if need be. Brett Wingo, vice president and general manager for Cisco Home Networking said in a blog post that the service has never monitored customers’ Internet usage, nor was it designed to do so. How we ultimately judge Cisco depends on how it wields its power. Cisco has issued an apology. It says it will not use your data against you. It maintains it will not arbitrarily disconnect customers from the Internet. But can it be trusted? http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/track-record-in-china-sets-ciscos-tos-scandal-in-a-more-sinister-light/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/track-record-in-china-sets-ciscos-tos-scandal-in-a-more-sinister-light/ Editor’s note: Jack Krawczyk is Senior Product Marketing Manager at StumbleUpon, the discovery platform. Jack was a founding member of Google+ and tweets about stuff @JackK. No buzzwords are more prominent in today’s Silicon Valley lexicon than social and mobile. They’re so big that they have their own love-child buzzword, SoLoMo (social-local-mobile, the nerd equivalent of Brangelina). Sadly for buzzwordians: mobile is not really social, in the consumption context anyway. Building for mobile requires us to dig deeper into the role it fills in our life. When we gather around a movie, TV or even use a desktop, we are carving out time and personally allocating our focus. Mobile does not get the same luxury. Mobile fills the gap of 2 minutes when your date leaves the dinner table; it fills the gap when we have brief moments of downtime. As we have personalized our media, we have decreased the number of people viewing it together. The fewer people who consume media together spend less time with it. This turns mobile into a less physically social experience, and more into a quick transaction optimized for better connection with others. Build for Bursts – The New Mobile Way The unique nature of mobile requires us to develop for bursts in usage, rather than sustained usage as we have built for in other media. Because mobile users have a 1-to-1 relationship with their device, it primarily serves as a gap filler. Developing your mobile application should be rooted in that concept. In the past two years, mobile has grown from zero to nearly 25% of all usage of StumbleUpon. As we’ve built the product we’ve learned some key lessons on how to get the best out of the most personal of devices: 1) Build only 1-2 core use cases; build them really really well Mobile products have to be designed for the quick hit. The average mobile app session is about one minute long. The attention span of your user is already inherently limited, so why bog down their usage time with making a decision for which use case to execute? Secondary use cases should be treated as power user features. Take a look at Facebook, for example. There are only two things you can do when you log into your mobile FB app: read your friends’ posts or make your own update. Think of all the other prominent navigation you see on desktop: messages, events, (gasp) groups, all in the main home screen. On mobile: they’re not a main quick hit, so they’re made secondary. 2) Personal benefit is the key to social connection If you provide the right personal consumption experience, your users will reward you with social connectivity (i.e., sharing with their friends). We use services like Path, Foursquare, and Twitter as a means for expressing our thoughts and locations, but they are valuable because people read them. Consuming the content becomes the ultimate use case with a personal flair. Providing personalization goes beyond just highlighting and recommending personally relevant content, it also includes presenting it in a quickly digestible format. At StumbleUpon, there are two core factors that dictate our user retention: quality of content recommendations and latency for providing those recommendations. One major disadvantage mobile experiences against desktop is that 3G/4G connections are relatively slow as molasses. This manifests itself often in retention efforts when building for iOS and Android audiences. Instead of making the core focus of StumbleUpon’s mobile development to be in content recommendations, building latency improvements takes top billing on mobile for its retention impact. Latency improvements make that quick hit even quicker for our users, which drives to more usage. More usage means more connection with personally relevant content. Those content connections drive 65% of our users to share out to social platforms. 3) Ads are a waste of time, build native monetization The largest rumor floating around the SoLoMo space has been that there is a monstrous untapped opportunity for mobile advertising. Don’t waste your time in your development efforts by figuring out how to install mobile ad networks: they’re antithetical to your user experience. When someone is using an app for an average of 71 seconds, the last thing on their mind is going to be whether they want to buy the latest detergent that’s hit the market. Many developers have realized that and placed a price on downloading their app. This strategy often best serves non-media based apps, though if you are going to be building a media-based app with a “free” price tag, go down the native route. Native monetization consists of connecting advertisers (or distributors) with your users through the main use case of your product. Social apps have built this into their DNA. On Facebook you consume posts, and from that yield sponsored stories. On Twitter you consume tweets, and from that yield promoted tweets. On StumbleUpon you consume web pages, and from that yield sponsored stumbles. While it becomes difficult to scale your media business until you reach a sizable audience, native monetization units are critical to maintaining the integrity of your user experience while balancing true value for advertisers and distributors. For this reason, if you’re building media-based apps, building your userbase first is critical before natively monetizing; slapping in ads is a short term solution that stunts your organic user growth. Testing the Limits We are all still very early on this frontier of mobile development. Prior to mobile phones fitting in your pocket, we never had a device that stayed with us at all times of the day (and by our bedside at night). The opportunity to uncover new companies is motivating. The entire development community will continue to learn from new developments, but one thing is for sure: we’ll consume them for ourselves, most likely on the go. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/your-mobile-device-is-the-least-social-device-you-own/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/your-mobile-device-is-the-least-social-device-you-own/ Summer heat is on in full-force and if there's one place we want to be hanging out (other than the Internet, of course) it's at the beach. But just because we're off getting some much-needed R&R on secluded beaches, that doesn't mean we can't tweet about it. The clever folks over at The Joy of Tech put together this comic that sums up why you should tell Twitter where you're vacationing (to induce FOMO in your followers) and why you shouldn't (security concerns, anyone?). SEE ALSO: Previous Sunday Comics Do you tweet your summer happenings? Are you worried about disclosing your whereabouts to strangers? Let us know in the comments. Comic illustration provided by The Joy… Continue reading... More About: Sunday Comics, Twitter http://mashable.com/2012/07/08/twitter-sunday-comic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/08/twitter-sunday-comic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 Editor’s note: Brad Spirrison is the Managing Editor of mobile app discovery services Appolicious, AndroidApps.com (which includes the Appolicious Android App) and AppVee. This is his third year of writing a semi-annual TechCrunch post on top mobile apps. Halfway into 2012, there are now more than 1.2 million mobile applications available to download to iOS and Android devices. With so many options literally at our fingertips – including dozens of worthy titles introduced to us each day – the task of compiling a mid-year “best of” list of new apps is more challenging (and enjoyable) than ever. Out of the hundreds (if not thousands) of titles worthy of inclusion, our favorite 20 iOS and Android apps released so far in 2012 can do everything from appraise the value of a home merely by taking its picture, to supplying users with loyalty schwag merely for checking-in to their favorite TV shows. We also salute a highly anticipated game sequel that somehow catapulted beyond its otherworldly hype. A quick primer on our methodology before we get going. All apps picked were either released or significantly updated between January 1 and June 30 of this year. Titles that debuted on iOS or Android in 2012 that were previously available on another platform are eligible for inclusion. All of our selections were sourced, ranked and finalized by Appolicious Advisors and members of our community. In all, about a dozen members of the Appolicious editorial team offered their favorites. We also surveyed the most active and influential users of Appolicious sites and applications. We did not account for the number of app downloads or overall popularity. Our qualitative assessment is based primarily on the production value, utility and creativity of baked into each cited application. Let’s get going. Best iOS appsCamera Awesome (iPhone, iPod Touch: free) While Instagram’s sale to Facebook dominated the headlines earlier this year, the best new app of 2012 so far is another photo-sharing service that actually helps you take better pictures. Created by 10-year-old photo-sharing site SmugMug, Camera Awesome is a revelation in iPhoneography and yet another reason why many of us can ditch our digital cameras. Beyond Camera Awesome’s stunning interface, there are several ways this app can “awesomize” your pictures, including automatic levelization and color adjustment. All presets and filters can be purchased in-app for $9.99 (or a la carte at 99 cents a pop). The ability to capture videos up to five seconds before you press record is also a great option. Finally, Camera Awesome makes it dead simple to share photos across your favorite social networks (Instagram included). Pocket (Formerly Read It Later) (Universal: free, also available for Android) Independent “read later” apps may become an endangered species this fall when Apple incorporates its Offline Reading List into Safari as part of iOS 6. Until then (and perhaps thereafter), the best bookmarking app for your buck (actually free) is Pocket. Formerly known as Read It Later, the app’s April rebrand involved more than just a name-change and price reduction. Pocket’s new features, which include the ability to seamlessly view videos and images as well as grid-based article lists, do not undermine the app’s simple and elegant interface. Khan Academy (iPad: free) The best thing about this app is how it doesn’t clutter or distract from the expert video tutorials that are produced by next-generation educator Salman Khan. The more than 3,200 educational videos that touch on everything from “Getting a seed round from a VC”, to “Earth Formation” to “The Bay of Pigs Invasion” are categorized within a simple taxonomy. The YouTube-hosted videos that contain subtitles are extensively logged, allowing users to quickly and easily locate a phrase or passage that may have gone over their heads. TouchTV (iPad: free) From customized news provider SkyGrid comes TouchTV, which beautifully showcases video clips from broadcast and cable networks onto the iPad. TouchTV runs video clips (typically up to five minutes in length) from 16 official providers including ESPN, Bloomberg Television and Jimmy Kimmel Live. While downloading TouchTV alone is not enough to “cut the cord” from your satellite or cable provider, the app offers a glimpse of what an app-enabled television universe can look like. TouchTV joins video discovery services like Showyou and Squrl (which each received significant updates this year) as among the best iOS apps to currently watch on Apple TV. Any.Do (iPhone, iPod Touch: free) Our favorite Android app of 2011 in June finally made its way to iOS devices. And it was worth the wait. Any.Do, which is backed by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, is an uber-productivity app that lets you easily create and complete tasks with the swipe of a finger. The app’s voice-dictation technology reliably records tasks without a user needing to type anything. You can also share your to-do lists with friends in the hopes they might help out with whatever needs to get done. Highlight (iPhone, iPod Touch: free) Coming out of the South By Southwest bracket of the 2012 mid-year app tournament is this social mobile local app. Highlight alerts you when a Facebook friend or individual with similar interests is nearby, and lets you learn more about other Highlight users when they are in your vicinity. Like similar services including Sonar, Banjo and Kismet, Highlight is only effective if there is a critical mass of other users in your area. While each service has its strong points, Highlight looks to have the greatest chance of any to crossover to the mainstream. Viggle (iPhone, iPod touch: free, also available for Android) Receiving discount cards from the likes of Amazon, Starbucks and the Gap just for watching TV for many could be considered the American dream. Viggle makes it a reality by letting users check-in and earn loyalty points for watching their favorite programs. The app performs reliably, while offering additional features including trivia questions, polls and curated tweets as gravy. LinkedIn Update (Universal iOS: free) The best thing about LinkedIn’s April iOS update is that the app is now finally compatible and optimized for the iPad. Presumably inspired by Flipboard (where it has a key presence), LinkedIn functions best as a social magazine on the iPad. The magic of LinkedIn on the iPad is how it integrates content shared by your connections with the ability to map common relationships with the sender in ways not possible via any other app or site. Clear (iPhone, iPod Touch: free) Clear is the to-do list for those who just want to get their stuff done and move on. While it lacks many of the features of heavy-hitter task-managers like Omnifocus and newer contemporaries like Any.Do, Clear excels in letting users quickly create categories and list the things they need to do that fall under those categories. The app’s beautifully designed interface also lets users sort these listed items by priority and quickly swipe to erase them when they’ve been completed. HomeSnap (iPhone, iPod Touch: free) While HomeSnap can’t do much to bring the nation’s housing market back to pre-crash levels, the app – with an assist from augmented reality – can help users determine the value of a home merely by taking its picture. In addition to financials, you can also see school information, historical data and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in a given home. HomeSnap is not 100 percent reliable, but neither is information provided by a seller or broker. Best iOS and Android games It’s no accident that most of the top games to come out so far in 2012 are available on both iOS and Android devices. While there are constraints involved in making sure games are compatible across myriad Android form factors and operating systems, developers realize they need to embrace the platform in order to achieve a critical mass of users. Draw Something by OMGPOP (Universal: $2.99, also available for Android) While the momentum for this touchscreen-based and unofficial variation of Pictionary slowed down after it was acquired by Zynga in March, there are reasons why Draw Something generated tens of millions of downloads in only its first few weeks (faster than Angry Birds, Instagram, and any other app in history). It’s really fun to play! The premise of the game is simple enough for a five-year-old to pick up. Further, Draw Something’s social integration via Facebook and email makes it easy to play the game with a friend or stranger regardless of what kind of iOS and Android device they own. Don’t own a device on either platform? No worries, you’ll soon be able to watch the upcoming Draw Something primetime game show. JAZZ: Trump’s journey (Universal: $2.99, also available for Android) Loosely based on the life of Louis Armstrong, JAZZ: Trump’s journey plays well as a “greatest hits” for platform games. With beautiful graphics that capture 1920’s era New Orleans, great controls, and of course a killer soundtrack, Trump’s journey has enough features and depth to appeal to established gamers while also serving as a spirited and soulful introduction to newbie players. Angry Birds Space (iPhone and iPod Touch: $0.99, iPad: $2.99, Android smartphones: $0.99, Android tablets: $2.99) With a launch promotion that was literally out of this world, there was a concern that Angry Birds Space wouldn’t live up to its hype, or just be a slight variation of previous versions of the game. That fear was flung into the stratosphere once we actually began playing it. With new gravity-based mechanics, awesome new birds, a darker color palate and bizarrely amusing space aesthetics, Angry Birds Space is arguably the most refreshing and enjoyable title in the franchise. N.O.V.A 3 (Universal: $6.99, also for Android) If you are a fan of first-person shooters, than this is the game for you. Developed by Gameloft, N.O.V.A. 3 more than any other title available on mobile devices moves and feels like a console game. N.O.V.A. 3 has you blasting aliens and enemies through a number of planets (including a war-torn Earth). The multiplayer aspect of the game will have you sharing your battle with as many as 11 other players. Each beautifully animated level takes about 30 minutes to complete, offering a lot of bang for your seven bucks. Spellsword (Universal: $0.99) With furious and addicting gameplay, unique mechanics, and retro graphics and music, Spellsword is a fresh new platform game contained within a sword and sorcery kind of environment. Use your single sword to strike down enemies, and launch fireballs along the way. As you proceed through the missions and maps, new spell cards will be introduced along with new enemies. The best thing about Spellsword, at least for more competitive gamers, is that it contains no in-app purchases, and all of the achievements must be earned by the player. Best Android apps Many of the best new releases on Android – including three of our five favorites – were originally created for iOS devices. When the best titles are finally available on multiple platforms, we all win. Flipboard (free) Our favorite iPhone app of 2011 finally and officially arrived to Android in June. The socially curated magazine – which beautifully presents news, photos and status updates shared by your social graph – included YouTube integration as part of its Android launch (Google+ integration arrived a few days earlier). Flipboard is also the best way to read content from third-party publishers on mobile devices, including the New York Times which on June 28 debuted its NYT Everywhere service to subscribers within the app. Instagram (free) Instagram’s arrival to Android was a positive development to say the least for the photo-sharing pioneer. Within one week, Instagram attracted more than 5 million downloads. A few days later, the company was acquired by Facebook for what was at the time a 10-figure valuation. The company’s immediate triumph illustrates how apps need to be available for both iOS and Android devices to emerge as a true pop-culture sensations. Google Drive (free with subscription, also available on iOS) In our two months of using the service, we are finding that Google Drive is a superior and more cost-effective solution for storing and sharing documents than Dropbox. For individuals and organizations that already rely on Google Docs, migrating to Google Drive is a no brainer. The app works seamlessly across all of our Android devices. Now that the service as of June 28 is available to download to iOS devices, there is not much else standing in the way of market domination. Airbnb (free) Airbnb’s arrival to Android in January, after previously being available online and via iOS devices, was more than just a copy and paste job from one platform to another. The service, a vacation-rental marketplace, for the first time made it possible for property owners and travelers to quickly instant message each other for questions or go over any issues that arise during a stay. There are more than Airbnb 200,000 listings across the world, as well as curated travel recommendations from the likes of Ashton Kutcher and Jack Dorsey. Chrome (free on Ice Cream Sandwich devices only, also available on iOS) If you use the Chrome desktop browser and own an Android smartphone or tablet powered by Ice Cream Sandwich, owning this app is a no-brainer. The Chrome mobile and desktop apps interact seamlessly with one another, meaning you can access your bookmarks and browsing history on the app. The app also lets you swipe between tabs without ever having to go to the tabs menu. The Chrome app also supports voice search, bookmarking and private browsing. Like Google Drive, Chrome launched on iOS devices on June 28 during Google I/O 2012. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/the-20-best-ios-and-android-apps-of-2012-so-far/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/the-20-best-ios-and-android-apps-of-2012-so-far/ Seems like the majority of the American marketing world was away on vacation this week. Whether that means you were reclining in a hammock on the beach or partaking in a BBQ or two with your family and friends for the 4th of July, we hope you enjoyed your getaway from everyday life. (And if you were still stuck in the office, cheers to you, committed marketer!) Now, instead of scrambling through the 1,000+ unread articles in your Google Reader, let us catch you up on some of the more interesting marketing stories of the week. The History of the Internet, In One Pretty Infographic, From Mashable On Thursday, Mashable published an awesome, interactive infographic on the history of the internet. While not explicitly dedicated to marketing (don't worry -- we've got that one covered here!), the infographic details the rise and evolution of the platform upon which inbound marketing was built. So we definitely recommend spending some time brushing up on your digital history. Take a gander at the infographic here. Deciphering Earned, Owned, and Paid Views in Video Marketing, From ReelSEO This one comes to us from ReelSEO. It's an interesting piece about one aspect of video marketing that many marketers fail to consider -- the differences between owned, earned, and paid views in video marketing. While the distinction will make sense to marketers familiar with the different kinds of traffic you can attract from search engines, this article offers a simple explanation for an often overlooked aspect of video marketing. Given how often the buzzwords 'viral video' are used in marketing, it's important to familiarize with these concepts so you can effectively measure the impact of your video marketing efforts. Check out the full story here. Understanding the Why of SEO, From SearchEngineLand Shari Thurow of SearchEngineLand goes beyond the execution of successful SEO to discuss the 'why?' of keyword classification in this interesting article. Her focus is on common search query classification mistakes, and how important it is for marketers to consider keyword classifications before proceeding with their SEO strategies. Like the video marketing piece we mentioned above, this too is a well-researched look at a specific aspect of SEO that many marketers probably overlook. Read the complete article here. Twitter & LinkedIn Break Up, From HubSpot Last weekend, we covered the public breakup of LinkedIn and Twitter on our blog. Twitter and LinkedIn announced that their partnership, which was forged in 2009 and enabled users to automatically share tweets on LinkedIn, was no more. Speculation about the break-up not being mutual (we've heard rumors that Twitter did the dumping) has flown about the digital world since the break-up was confirmed. Twitter has hinted at more important announcements coming out in the near future, so stay tuned to see how the network asserts its newly-single self! Read the full story here. Has Social Media Crossed the Chasm? From Business2Community This last story comes to us from Business2Community, which investigates whether social media has become easier to use over time. To answer this, they took a look at three published surveys of social media practices, relaying the data in crisp infographics. There are some surprising stats included in the results that marketers should all be interested in, so this research write-up is definitely worth a look. Check it out here. What other interesting inbound marketing stories did you stumble upon this week? Image credit: orangelimey (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=94aa0d10-96ec-4491-9a42-aad4634c3229"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-94aa0d10-96ec-4491-9a42-aad4634c3229").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-94aa0d10-96ec-4491-9a42-aad4634c3229").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=2891588d-22d3-4b0b-8db4-27a7a57f6c45"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-2891588d-22d3-4b0b-8db4-27a7a57f6c45").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-2891588d-22d3-4b0b-8db4-27a7a57f6c45").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33365/The-History-of-the-Internet-And-Other-Marketing-Stories-of-the-Week.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29 http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33365/The-History-of-the-Internet-And-Other-Marketing-Stories-of-the-Week.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29 WASHINGTON — Internet users scanning their Twitter feeds or Facebook accounts Sunday might want to add one more quick click to check their computer for malware. Thousands of people around the country whose computers were infected with malicious software more than a year ago faced the possibility of not being able to get online after midnight EDT. At 12:01 a.m. EDT, the FBI planned to shut down the Internet servers set up as a temporary safety net to keep infected computers online for the past eight months. The court order the agency obtained to keep the servers running expired, and it was not renewed. The problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of more than 570,000 infected computers around the world. When the FBI went in to take down the hackers late last year, agents realized that if they turned off the malicious servers being used to control the computers, all the victims would lose their Internet service. In a highly unusual move, the FBI set up the safety net. The bureau brought in a private company to install two clean Internet servers to take over for the malicious servers so that people would not suddenly lose their Internet. From the onset, most victims didn't even know their computers were infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems. Many computer users don't understand the complex machines they use every day to send email, shop, and cruise for information. The cyberworld of viruses, malware, bank fraud and Internet scams is often distant and confusing, and warning messages may go unseen or unheeded. Also, some people simply don't trust the government, and believe that federal authorities are only trying to spy on them or take over the Internet. Blogs and other Internet forums are riddled with postings warning of the government using the malware as a ploy to breach American citizens' computers. That's a charge the FBI and other cybersecurity experts familiar with the malware quickly denounce as ridiculous. Still, the Internet is flooded with conspiracy theories: "I think the FBI just wants everyone to go to that website to check our computers so they can check our computers as well. Just a way to steal data for their own research," one computer user said in a posting on the Internet. Another observed: "Yet another ploy to get everyone freaked out ... remember Y2K." There also is an underlying sense that this will be much ado about nothing, such as the approach of 2000. The transition to that year presented technical problems and fears that some computers would stop working because they were not set up for the date change. In the end there were very few problems. Considering there are millions of Internet users across the country, several thousand isn't a big deal, unless you're one of them. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and co-founder of Congress' cybersecurity caucus, said computer uses have a responsibility to practice good sense and make sure their computers are not infected or being hijacked by criminals. "These types of issues are only going to increase as our society relies more and more on the Internet, so it is a reminder that everyone can do their part," he said. FBI officials have been tracking the number of computers they believe still may be infected by the malware. As of Wednesday, there were about 45,600 in the U.S. – nearly 20,000 less than a week ago. Worldwide, the total is roughly 250,000 infected. The numbers have declined steadily, and recent efforts by Internet service providers may limit the problems on Monday. Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent, said many Internet providers have plans to try to help their customers. Some may put technical solutions in place that will correct the server problem. It they do, the Internet will work, but the malware will remain on victims' computers and could pose future problems. Other Internet providers are simply braced for the calls to their help lines. By Monday, if you can't read this online, those customer support lines will be your only solution. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120708/us-internet-woes/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120708/us-internet-woes/ Tmura, an Israeli non-profit, is closing on its 10-year anniversary. In a decade’s worth of work it has contributed a whopping $6.3M+ to educational programs. The extraordinary amount isn’t the result of efficient fundraising, rather, of having been allotted small amounts of options by early-stage startups. Tmura then exercises these options when the startups see a liquidation event. Out of a portfolio of 240 companies, 40 saw exits, the most recent of which XtremIO’s acquisition by EMC netted Tmura $450,000. Baruch Lipner, Executive Director at Tmura, attributes the good fortune these companies have seen to a combination of karma and an improved corporate culture in participating startups. Why argue with success, right? Over 100 educational organizations have received contributions from Tmura in its 10 years of activity. These include: College4All: An enrichment program focusing on students with potential to excel. Krembo Wings: A national youth movement for children with special needs. Machshava Tova: Computer centers in peripheral areas aimed at ‘narrowing the digital gap’. Shiur Acher: Volunteers from the hitech industry delivering lectures in schools. Participating companies can decide themselves to which project(s) funds from their exits are allocated, or allow Tmura to do the choosing itself. Are there similar organizations in your area that make use of startup exits for good in the community? Share with us in the comments below. Disclosure: I’m on the Advisory Board of Tmura. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/tmura/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/tmura/ Editor’s note: Mitchell Weisman is CEO at global marketing and digital advertising company LifeStreet Media. Have a mobile app? Wondering if advertising can help you make money from that app? Here are eight must-know tips to help you turn mobile app inventory into dollars. 1. It takes customers to make money While this is a piece about monetizing apps, the amount of money you can generate from an app is highly dependent upon the number of users you have. Once apps achieve popularity, their success spirals. In order to reach critical user adoption levels, engage in user acquisition best practices, from cross-promotion to viral distribution, and from PR to paid in-app advertising. Try multiple channels to see what works for you, and stick to vendors who allow you to pay based on the performance metrics that are relevant for your unique business needs. For example, don’t pay for clicks if what you really care about is installs. 2. Know your customers – and their value Not all customers are created equal. Know the lifetime value of your customers by the channels in which they were acquired. For example, let’s say you can acquire a “high value” customer – say someone worth $6 in lifetime value — for an acquisition cost of $3, and let’s say you can acquire a “low value” user worth $2 in lifetime value for an acquisition cost of $1. Don’t think that pursuing one customer or the other is an either/or decision. You make $3 in profit from the “high value” customer and $1 in profit from the “low value customer.” Both sets of customers are profitable, so pursue additional acquisition of BOTH types. 3. Averages lie Whatever you do, do not fall into the trap of averaging your customer acquisition costs — nor your user values. In the above scenario, if you average the value of your customers, you might attempt to pay $2 for customers worth “an average of $4.” At that price you probably couldn’t get the $6 high value customer because your bid would be too low to be competitive and you’d be spending $2 to acquire a customer worth exactly that – with no margin leftover for you. Needless to say, this is not a profitable path for user growth. 4. Free is often best – but not always What you charge for an app should be based largely on how users engage with it. For example, if people use your apps just a few times, an ad-supported model probably doesn’t make sense, as you’ll earn just pennies per user. It makes more sense to charge 99 cents, $3.99 or another small fee up-front. Even though sales at the paid price will be a fraction of the free, ad-supported version, the total revenues are likely to be higher. However, if you have an app that is likely to be used many times – and this is the majority of apps – then free is probably the best option for you. And of course, free trials and freemium options are also great avenues for getting users hooked on your services. After that happens, there is a much higher chance that they’ll actually spend money on your app. A recent piece by Infoworld does a good job of discussing this user engagement model. 5. Don’t play favorites with money Too many app developers get caught up in the decision of whether to use advertising or virtual currency to monetize their free apps. Stop fretting about which is better. When it comes to money, all money is good. Try both options – many of the top app developers use both of these channels and more. Fortunately, implementing advertising in your app can be self-serve and almost instantaneous. The risk is incredibly low to try it out and see if it works for you. 6. Don’t play favorites with partners, either Ease of setup is not a license to skip due diligence in monetization partners. You should do your research, select a number of potential monetization partners — and try out all of them. Consider this app monetization speed dating. Test out several partners until you find the one or ones that monetize best for you. 7. It takes two to tango Don’t expect your monetization partner to do all of the work. You know your app better than anyone. Think critically about logical places and transition times for advertising. If you develop a game, consider placing ads at natural transition points between levels and/or at the end of a game. Think about when your users may be most willing to engage with ads, and place advertising accordingly. The result will be both a better experience for your users AND increased revenue for you. 8. Analytics reign supreme It’s absolutely worthwhile to spend the time and resources required to invest in solid analytics. Invest in internal analytics in order to truly understand user values, customer attribution models, and monetization payouts, and use the myriad of external tools available, from App Annie to Distimo, to help you make smart decisions about markets to pursue, platforms to prioritize, and other critical strategic decisions to make. Given the explosion of smartphone adoption rates and app usage trends, it’s an exciting time to be a mobile app developer. Make the most of it! http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/8-ways-mobile-developers-can-make-the-most-money-on-their-apps/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/08/8-ways-mobile-developers-can-make-the-most-money-on-their-apps/ Google Adwords are a great replacement for traditional marketing venues, such as newspapers and radio advertising, if used correctly. Too often I come across business owners seduced by Google Adwords‘ offer of $100 in free credits to try the service. Too often the account is set up with little or no understanding of exactly how the program works. Setting up your account incorrectly will not only result in poor results, but also could result in a very expensive lesson on your credit card. Over and over I see the same five mistakes when http://socialmediatoday.com/colinparker/589146/5-ways-avoid-wasting-money-your-google-adwords?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 http://socialmediatoday.com/colinparker/589146/5-ways-avoid-wasting-money-your-google-adwords?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 Love Focus - Weekly Update: You might think that people who can't get what they want, would learn to want what they can get. That would be the logical strategy in all ... Read more http://www.news.com.au/ http://www.news.com.au/ Editor’s note: GD (Ram) Ramkumar is a serial entrepreneur and computer scientist. He was founder and CTO of SnapTell (acquired by Amazon in 2009) and is now the Founder and CEO of Concept.io, a new mobile startup. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford. I started as a mobile entrepreneur in the pre-iPhone era in 2006 as the founder of SnapTell, the first successful mobile app in the image recognition space. SnapTell was acquired by Amazon’s subsidiary A9 in 2009. In 2011, I left Amazon to join Charles River Ventures to start a new company, Concept.io, which launches later this year. I reflected on lessons learned before embarking on the new venture and wanted to share them with the community. This article shares lessons I learned and discusses mobile trends that have emerged since. The Key Lesson: Choose a problem and frame it well Our first product at SnapTell was a service that allowed consumers to send in a photo of a shelf tag in a store for comparison shopping. The service read text from the label using OCR, determined product and price, and returned product and price information to the user. The solution was slow and cumbersome. It only worked with high resolution images on high-end auto-focus camera phones. Only a few such camera phones existed in the market in those days, sold by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and HTC. We learned quickly that this was not the right problem framing. We found that it is better and more intuitive to recognize a product cover instead of a shelf tag. Technology called ‘image matching’ was shown to work in research labs to compare a camera phone image to a set of thousands of images. We set out to create a scaled version that works for millions of images. This time the problem was well framed. Over the next year, our team worked hard to create a solution that emerged soon after the iPhone App Store launched in 2008. The resulting product was the first iPhone app that allowed users to search for media items visually using pictures. After SnapTell’s acquisition, the technology was deployed in Amazon’s mobile applications. We set out to create a scaled version that works for millions of images. This time the problem was well framed. Over the next year, our team worked hard to create a solution that emerged soon after the iPhone App Store launched in 2008. The resulting product was the first iPhone app that allowed users to search for media items visually using pictures. After SnapTell’s acquisition, the technology was deployed in Amazon’s mobile applications. I learned some lessons out of the experience. For a mobile app or product to turn into a sustainable business, it must support a daily use case that turns into a habit. Comparison shopping didn’t provide a frequent use-case for most consumers. Successful apps must create a “wow” experience and bond users emotionally. Having a great UX designer on board early is essential to a successful startup product. It is important to identify a problem and focus on creating a solution for the consumer, rather than build technology and look for applications. Emerging Mobile App Opportunities The mobile ecosystem today is dominated by the app marketplaces of iOS and Android. Many new opportunities exist on these platforms, particularly to build “always-on services.” Such services leverage strong API support in iOS and Android for sensors and wake-up mechanisms to serve the user contextually. Background location streams offer powerful semantic data. Background voice-over-IP and audio APIs support new use cases. Consumers that use such a service do not need to remember to launch the app. The service knows when it is useful and chimes in automatically. The user goes about their daily life as they normally do. Mobile service apps of the future wake up and serve the user in context. For example, such services may (1) Let you know the dry cleaner is open and clothes are ready and available as you drive home; or (2) Tell you about traffic where you are headed for your commute; or (3) At a convenient time, let you know that a friend you wanted to speak to is available right now for a call. Early examples of always on services are the newly announced Google Now product, the iOS Reminders app and Highlight.. It’s still early days with many services to come in the future! Advances in Mobile OS New features and APIs on the mobile platforms often make room for innovative services. iOS 6 announced the ability for Siri to launch apps (with the promise of more to come), tighter integration of Facebook, more efficient access to Bluetooth, and support for Passbook, a ticket and payments organizer. As an example, apps will emerge that integrate with Passbook to facilitate smoother travel. Conclusion Despite our collective focus on technology and design, social science and human behavior remain critically important. Understanding consumer behavior and applying technology to serve users in context will be a theme for many mobile services to come. Creating a “wow experience” and a positive emotional response in the user is very important. Siri has been popular in part because it goes to great lengths to answer fun questions such as “what is the meaning of life?” Technology exists to serve humans, not vice versa, and this will play out in interesting ways as the mobile ecosystem continues to evolve. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/bringing-technologies-to-mobile-applications/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/bringing-technologies-to-mobile-applications/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 The current game consoles are getting a bit long in the tooth, but signs point to late 2013 as the earliest that a replacement for either the PlayStation or Xbox consoles to come online. But then interesting something happened this past week, which could change the way that console makers think about their hardware and software service: Sony bought cloud gaming company GaiKai for $380 million. Sure, rumors abound about what hardware, chips, and specs these devices will have when or if they’re eventually released. All indications point to about the same type of hardware development we’ve seen in past consoles — including high-performance, next-gen CPUs and GPUs to power even more robust gameplay and graphics capabilities. But if I were Microsoft or Sony right now, I’m not sure I’d be betting on an ever-more powerful box to power its new game platforms. In fact, I’d take a contrarian approach and make as lean of a box as possible, and put all the processing power up in the cloud. Sony’s purchase of GaiKai could be a harbinger of things to come. For those unfamiliar, GaiKai provides a cloud-based service for accessing more than 40 popular video games online, without the need for any sort of fancy hardware. Early reports pointed to the possibility of extending PlayStation games to other platforms where games could be made available — including mobile devices, tablets, and kiosks — creating a sort of “PlayStation Anywhere” type of service. But I think the impact that the acquisition could have on Sony’s next game console even more dramatic. Console makers historically have relied on the razor/razor blades approach to selling game systems: Put out the hardware at a loss and make money back over the longer term through the sale of games and licenses. In the old paradigm, where they invested heavily in the type of bleeding-edge hardware necessary to power gaming experiences their customer demanded, that meant putting a lot of investment upfront in powerful CPUs and GPUs and seeing the cost of devices go down over time as the manufacturing process hits scale and component costs decrease over time. Roughly speaking, that’s been the general trend over time. But what if those companies didn’t need to have all the processing rendered in hardware and could instead move the real heavy lifting to the cloud? To be honest, moving gaming to the cloud isn’t necessarily that revolutionary, because there are companies doing it already. There’s GaiKai, of course, but there’s also OnLive, which offers up its own service for playing cloud-based games on your PC, mobile devices, and a $99 streaming box. Also, the company plans to add support for its service natively on some connected TVs and other devices. It’s that $99 gaming box which appeals to me, though, and it could be a good model for Microsoft and Sony to think about, as they ponder their own new game consoles. That said, there are a few arguments against selling a dumb appliance with processing done in the network. The big one is that doing so would dramatically reduce hardware sales in the short term — but that ignores the fact that for the most part those boxes are sold at a loss. No one makes money off new hardware in the first several years it’s released, if ever. Providing a box with just-good-enough connectivity and graphics rendering capabilities, and making it available cheaply, would be a more profitable step and would drive a lot more volume than building some sort of high-powered God Box and selling it for $299. The bigger problem with cloud-based gaming is that the infrastructure just might not be there yet to support it. Let’s face it, a lot of gamers — even those who subscribe to Xbox Live’s subscription service — are still stuck on DSL connections, which might not support the type of HD-quality graphics game providers would like to build. More importantly, though, no one has shown that cloud-based gaming can be done at true scale. OnLive has several million subscribers, but its true reach pales in comparison to the number of Xbox Live gamers who sign in daily. Providing the type of computing power necessary to serve tens of millions of gamers all playing at once is a big problem. Despite the GaiKai acquisition, Microsoft might be better equipped to deal with it than Sony, as it the software giant has already built a giant virtual computing platform in the cloud with Microsoft Azure. For Sony it would mean a huge investment just to get the infrastructure to support cloud gaming ready. Finally, there’s the potential cost to consumers, as ISPs begin to roll out tiered broadband plans, which charge consumers more for excessive bandwidth usage. Since games would be streamed in HD, that means a huge amount of bandwidth per month for even somewhat casual gamers. And no one — not Sony or Microsoft — wants to roll out a service which is going to create huge cable bills for their best customers. At the same time, the potential for a low-cost game console that put processing in the cloud could open up the market for new customers, particularly at a sub-$100 price point. And rolling out with that strategy would allow Microsoft and Sony to create gaming services that wouldn’t necessarily be tied to a certain device, and instead could be accessed even without a piece of proprietary hardware. Making gaming a streaming service rather than based on the physical purchase of games also opens up new potential business models. Xbox Live already has a membership fee attached, and subscription games — where you get the software for free but then pay a monthly fee to access the game online — are nothing new, particularly in the MMORPG world. But without the need for physical downloads or actual distribution of discs to consumers, subscriptions could become even more popular for cloud-powered games. I’m just going out on a limb here, and I’m sure Microsoft and Sony already probably have their plans mostly hashed out for the next generation of hardware. I’m just saying, it doesn’t necessarily have to be high-powered or expensive, especially if they want to reach a broader audience at less cost, and sooner rather than later. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/cloud-gaming-xbox-720-ps4-game-console/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/cloud-gaming-xbox-720-ps4-game-console/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed The current game consoles are getting a bit long in the tooth, but signs point to late 2013 as the earliest that a replacement for either the PlayStation or Xbox consoles to come online. But then interesting something happened this past week, which could change the way that console makers think about their hardware and software service: Sony bought cloud gaming company GaiKai for $380 million. Sure, rumors abound about what hardware, chips, and specs these devices will have when or if they’re eventually released. All indications point to about the same type of hardware development we’ve seen in past consoles — including high-performance, next-gen CPUs and GPUs to power even more robust gameplay and graphics capabilities. But if I were Microsoft or Sony right now, I’m not sure I’d be betting on an ever-more powerful box to power its new game platforms. In fact, I’d take a contrarian approach and make as lean of a box as possible, and put all the processing power up in the cloud. Sony’s purchase of GaiKai could be a harbinger of things to come. For those unfamiliar, GaiKai provides a cloud-based service for accessing more than 40 popular video games online, without the need for any sort of fancy hardware. Early reports pointed to the possibility of extending PlayStation games to other platforms where games could be made available — including mobile devices, tablets, and kiosks — creating a sort of “PlayStation Anywhere” type of service. But I think the impact that the acquisition could have on Sony’s next game console even more dramatic. Console makers historically have relied on the razor/razor blades approach to selling game systems: Put out the hardware at a loss and make money back over the longer term through the sale of games and licenses. In the old paradigm, where they invested heavily in the type of bleeding-edge hardware necessary to power gaming experiences their customer demanded, that meant putting a lot of investment upfront in powerful CPUs and GPUs and seeing the cost of devices go down over time as the manufacturing process hits scale and component costs decrease over time. Roughly speaking, that’s been the general trend over time. But what if those companies didn’t need to have all the processing rendered in hardware and could instead move the real heavy lifting to the cloud? To be honest, moving gaming to the cloud isn’t necessarily that revolutionary, because there are companies doing it already. There’s GaiKai, of course, but there’s also OnLive, which offers up its own service for playing cloud-based games on your PC, mobile devices, and a $99 streaming box. Also, the company plans to add support for its service natively on some connected TVs and other devices. It’s that $99 gaming box which appeals to me, though, and it could be a good model for Microsoft and Sony to think about, as they ponder their own new game consoles. That said, there are a few arguments against selling a dumb appliance with processing done in the network. The big one is that doing so would dramatically reduce hardware sales in the short term — but that ignores the fact that for the most part those boxes are sold at a loss. No one makes money off new hardware in the first several years it’s released, if ever. Providing a box with just-good-enough connectivity and graphics rendering capabilities, and making it available cheaply, would be a more profitable step and would drive a lot more volume than building some sort of high-powered God Box and selling it for $299. The bigger problem with cloud-based gaming is that the infrastructure just might not be there yet to support it. Let’s face it, a lot of gamers — even those who subscribe to Xbox Live’s subscription service — are still stuck on DSL connections, which might not support the type of HD-quality graphics game providers would like to build. More importantly, though, no one has shown that cloud-based gaming can be done at true scale. OnLive has several million subscribers, but its true reach pales in comparison to the number of Xbox Live gamers who sign in daily. Providing the type of computing power necessary to serve tens of millions of gamers all playing at once is a big problem. Despite the GaiKai acquisition, Microsoft might be better equipped to deal with it than Sony, as it the software giant has already built a giant virtual computing platform in the cloud with Microsoft Azure. For Sony it would mean a huge investment just to get the infrastructure to support cloud gaming ready. Finally, there’s the potential cost to consumers, as ISPs begin to roll out tiered broadband plans, which charge consumers more for excessive bandwidth usage. Since games would be streamed in HD, that means a huge amount of bandwidth per month for even somewhat casual gamers. And no one — not Sony or Microsoft — wants to roll out a service which is going to create huge cable bills for their best customers. At the same time, the potential for a low-cost game console that put processing in the cloud could open up the market for new customers, particularly at a sub-$100 price point. And rolling out with that strategy would allow Microsoft and Sony to create gaming services that wouldn’t necessarily be tied to a certain device, and instead could be accessed even without a piece of proprietary hardware. Making gaming a streaming service rather than based on the physical purchase of games also opens up new potential business models. Xbox Live already has a membership fee attached, and subscription games — where you get the software for free but then pay a monthly fee to access the game online — are nothing new, particularly in the MMORPG world. But without the need for physical downloads or actual distribution of discs to consumers, subscriptions could become even more popular for cloud-powered games. I’m just going out on a limb here, and I’m sure Microsoft and Sony already probably have their plans mostly hashed out for the next generation of hardware. I’m just saying, it doesn’t necessarily have to be high-powered or expensive, especially if they want to reach a broader audience at less cost, and sooner rather than later. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/cloud-gaming-xbox-720-ps4-game-console/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/cloud-gaming-xbox-720-ps4-game-console/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed I said in my review that the Samsung Galaxy S III is the phone you’ve been waiting for, and the same holds true in this latest episode of Fly Or Die. John and I took a look at the various specs, namely the NFC-style features and S-Voice, and we both walked away with a warm, fuzzy feeling. To put it quite bluntly, the Galaxy S III is far and away the best Android phone you can buy today. Sure, the plastic back panel is a bit “chintzy,” as John would say, but that’s irrelevant when you look at the value in this phone. NFC capabilities, including tap-to-share, TecTiles, etc. work very well, and are incredibly easy — so much so that I believe my mom would be able to use them (and that says a lot). The display is gorgeous, the camera is excellent, battery life can hang, and it’s running the latest version of Android on an LTE connection. There isn’t much more you can ask for. Two flies. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/fly-or-die-samsung-galaxy-s-iii/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/fly-or-die-samsung-galaxy-s-iii/ With Windows Phone 8′s launch fast approaching, it not exactly a surprise to hear that Nokia is slaving away on some new hardware. The Nokia Lumia 910 — which some suspect is a Lumia 900 meant for T-Mobile USA — wasrecently spottedthanks to Nokia’s Remote Device Access service, but that’s not all the Finnish company seems to have in the works. A new device called the Nokia Lumia 1001 was also detected by one of Nokia’s remotely-accessible phones, and its significant model number jump could mean it’s the company’s first Windows Phone 8 device. If you’ve never had the chance to play with Remote Device Access it allows users to connect to a whole host of Nokia hardware from within a browser window. It’s ostensibly meant for developers to test their applications and code on real (if distant) hardware, but it also provides an occasionally neat glimpse into what Nokia is working on. Take the Lumia 900 for instance — then referred to as the “Nokia 900 Windows Phone,” its existence was detected by a device being controlled remotely late last year. It’s worth noting though that devices like the Lumia 910 and 1001 aren’t directly accessible to users — instead, they’re spotted when a user commands one of Nokia’s devices to search for other Bluetooth-enabled devices nearby. I was initially able to spot the Lumia 1001 (see above) while I was poking around with a Nokia 500. Just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, I jumped into a different device (the Nokia N9, if you were curious) to see if the device in question was still hanging around. At this point, there’s no way to discern any of the device’s particulars or even if it’s a real handset. Considering the sort of attention that the RDA service has been getting lately, it’s entirely possible that someone at Nokia has a sense of humor and changed one of the device’s names to “Nokia Lumia 1001″ just to mess with all of us. That being said, there’s little question that Nokia is working on some Windows Phone 8 hardware behind closed doors, in preparation for the platform’s launch later this year. Longtime readers may also remember that Nokia switched to a “larger-is-better” numerical naming scheme last year, with their most premium handsets getting high model numbers. So far, Nokia’s Lumia 900 sits at the top of the heap, but with Windows Phone 8 barreling down the pipeline, it wouldn’t be surprise to see Nokia bump up their model numbers for their newest breed of Windows Phones. After all, the existing version of Windows Phone is being left behind in favor of a more powerful, unified platform — one would imagine they would use a much loftier model number to signify that transition. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/is-the-lumia-1001-nokias-first-windows-phone-8-device/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/is-the-lumia-1001-nokias-first-windows-phone-8-device/ It must be something in the air. A few weeks ago, ClickTale released a version of its visitor recording and activity heatmap product for the mobile web. On Thursday, we wrote about Delight.io’s service for recording user sessions in mobile apps. And now a startup called UserVOD is announcing the public beta of, yes, a product for recording user sessions in mobile apps. Co-founders Zahi Boussiba and Yoni Douek were previously working together on a mobile social shopping app called ShopTalk. One of the challenges they discovered was the fact that all the feedback was written or verbal, which could sometimes be hard to understand, and didn’t really convey the full user experience. “If we really wanted to understand what they are doing with our app, the best thing to do would be to stand next to them and watch them,” Boussiba says. That’s where the idea from UserVOD came from. The pair wants to help developers “see” their users “without being next to them” (which is both impractical and creepy). So when a developer installs the UserVOD SDK, they start getting videos recording each user session — showing where users tapped on each screen, where they got confused, and so on. For privacy, UserVOD automatically hides camera windows and passwords from its recordings, and developers can specify other types of information that they don’t want to record. As for how it stands out against competing products, Boussiba says one of the company’s big accomplishments is the fact that enables recordings without noticeably affecting an app’s performance. (Also, as noted above, ClickTale is currently focused on mobile websites, not native apps.) Future plans include an app marketplace where developers can find app testers, as well as a widget that enables those developers to collect video feedback — in other words, if you’re using an app and you encounter a problem, you can just record a video of your session, rather than trying to explain everything in writing. Boussiba says the company is also working on features that aggregate the patterns from all your videos, so that you don’t necessarily have to watch hundreds or thousands of them to get meaningful lessons. If you want to see UserVOD in action, you can download its Draw Fast demo app, where you can play a Draw Something-style game, then watch a video of your session on the UserVOD site. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/uservod-public-beta/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/uservod-public-beta/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 Watch out for iPad mini rumors! They’re dropping left and right, and odds are, at least a few of them are going to be on target. The latest state that the so-called iPad mini will be thinner than the Kindle Fire the overall thickness that of the iPod touch 4G. That would put the smaller iPad at 7.2mm, nearly 25% thinner than the new iPad. The device’s screen reportedly measures 7.85-inches although there doesn’t seem to be a consensus among reports concerning the device’s form factor and design. It might look a large iPod nano rather than a small iPad. According to a report published by Japanese Mac site Macotakara, the prototype for the rumored iPad mini looks like a 3rd generation large iPod nano. This means the device likely still uses employs tapered sizes although perhaps in a different fashion. The report also states that a 3G model is planned, too, although it doesn’t state if 3G is included or optional like in the current iPad lineup. This different design and capabilities would likely help Apple sell the iPad mini without cannibalizing the full size iPad’s sales. It’s within reason that the iPad mini will not use a retina screen and use smaller storage options — maybe just 8GB. That said, expect Apple to use the dual-core A5X SoC to give the iPad mini as much computing horsepower as possible. Reportedly the Foxconn will start making the device in Brazil this September with the announcement and release coming prior to the holidays. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/ipad-mini-said-to-look-like-a-large-3g-ipod-nano-be-as-thin-as-a-4g-ipod-touch/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/ipad-mini-said-to-look-like-a-large-3g-ipod-nano-be-as-thin-as-a-4g-ipod-touch/ One week ago, thousands of people celebrated Social Media Day with hundreds of meetups held around the globe. Mashable started Social Media Day to recognize the importance of social media and its role in empowering individuals and strengthening connections. Now in its third year, it has grown into a worldwide celebration. This year, 17 cities and three states proclaimed June 30 a day of recognizing the power of social media. Many more held meetups around the world. Some of the most popular events occurred in places such as Morocco, Brazil, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the United States. Our Storify offers a glimpse into what people were doing around the world. Whether it was through… Continue reading... More About: social media day, Storify http://mashable.com/2012/07/07/social-media-day-2012-storify/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/07/social-media-day-2012-storify/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 It looked like the X Games, but it was the most significant product launch of the decade so far. For the first time, Google did what Apple has done thrice, with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Granted, Apple announces products that ship immediately, while Google merely allowed a few thousand I/O attendees to pre-order a beta version that wouldn’t ship until next year–but don’t let the mechanics distract you from the heart of the matter. Google Glass isn’t just a new product, it’s a whole new product category, and it has every chance of being every bit as revolutionary as Apple’s Big Three. Of course, like every revolution, it brought the nattering nabobs of negativity out in force. “We struggle to imagine Google Glasses reconciled with normal life,” carps Gizmodo. That line’s going to sound as embarrassingly tone-deaf in five years as these hilarious quotes from iPhone naysayers do today. Wearable computing, in one form or another, is the future. How extraordinary is it going to be? Some people suggest it could actually save Research In Motion. Now that’s amazing. But a company that took most of a year to build an email app for the PlayBook isn’t going to lead the way. This category is so new that Google’s fail-fast, permanent-beta, make-it-up-as-you-go ethos is really the only viable direction. And we’re only in its infancy; has anyone else noticed that those big thick glasses look a lot like Neurosky’s brainwave sensors? Thought-controlled heads-up displays, anyone? Do I sound excited? Well, sure, yeah, I am–but I’m also kind of terrified. You see, at first the skeptics almost seem to have a point. Google Glass is in no way a replacement for a phone. At least not yet. Of course, neither was the iPad, and that did pretty well, but who’s going to be the big initial market for Google Glass, beyond the die-hard early-adopter? Well, there are a lot of possible applications. Travel, for instance; a heads-up display is a lot more convenient than a phone when you’re wandering a strange city, and being able to tether to your phone and actually share what you’re seeing with friends and family in real time would be terrific. Industrial uses. The elderly. Augmented-reality games. But you know who I think the first big market for Google Glass will be? Law enforcement. Imagine a heads-up display that automatically parses every license plate and recognizes every face in sight, and tells the wearer about any outstanding warrants. Charles Stross has been predicting this for years: “Police in the UK are already experimenting with real time video recording of interactions with the public – I suspect that before long we’re going to see cops required to run lifelogging apps constantly when on duty, with the output locked down as evidence.” In places where the integrity of the police is questionable–which is to say, most of the world–this could help stamp out corruption, too. Of course, this will lead to an enormous spike in the amount of video data in the world that needs to be tagged, categorized, sifted, and mined. If only there was a company out there that was really, really good at search… Well, hey! Win-win-win, right? More efficient law enforcement, less corruption, lots of business for Google. So why am I scared? Because Google Glass is–probably both inadvertently and inescapably–a giant step towards the panopticon society I’ve been worrying about for some time. The future is here, and it’s awesome…and soon it will be watching you. Be concerned. Be very concerned. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/heads-up-this-was-googles-apple-moment/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/heads-up-this-was-googles-apple-moment/ Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Andy Liu, CEO of BuddyTV Guide, a channel guide app available on iOS, Android and Google TV. There is no debating that consumer adoption of Google TV is extremely disappointing. Logitech has dropped out of the business, several online publications including this one have declared the platform dead. While some new OEMs like Vizio, Sony, and LG have launched new devices with Google TV, it’s not clear that any meaningful customer adoption will come as a result of these deals. I believe there is one big reason it hasn’t taken off. It’s that Google TV is straddling a dual-strategic approach when it needs to pick one strategy and double down on it. Google TV needs to be building a platform that embraces a strong developer ecosystem or it needs to close it down and focus on a closed ecosystem like Apple TV and iterate until it has the right consumer product not both. The problem with Google TV is that it claims that it is a developer friendly platform and embraces the developer community. It does not. Time and time again, Google TV has chosen the route of straddling between building their own apps and trying to engage the developer community to build a killer app for its platform. For example, there are over 90 second screen startups building apps that could be an extremely compelling use case for Google TV users. Instead of pushing 3rd parties to succeed, Google TV has taken the approach of building its own second screen app without being very transparent with its partners about its intention of building its own. There is an inherent disadvantage for a 3rd party to build a second screen app, when there will be one that exists native and developed by Google. This is an extremely dangerous position to take with the development community as it takes real investment by companies to build for this nascent platform. Companies will quickly realize that anything successful will be copied by Google TV and relegated to second class status as Google TV promotes its own apps ahead of those by 3rd parties. Instead of having potentially 90 companies innovating and building compelling second screen apps on the Google TV platform to find a killer use case, Google TV has taken a poor short-term approach of competing against its own developer community. Google TV in their v2 OTA update last year launched an app called TV & Movies, it’s native to the platform and pre-installed with every install of the update. This update was in direct competition with first screen apps like BuddyTV Guide which Google TV had early versions of internally. While disappointing, it would have been nice to know that Google TV was developing TV & Movies in advance, so we could have built another app focusing on areas that would be complementary to TV & Movies. Instead, we invested a ton of resources to build on a nascent platform only to see a very similar app on Google TV. Most recently, TV & Movies have updated the app to include favorite channels, one of the most popular features on BuddyTV Guide. As a third party developer on the platform, we have significantly reduced our investment in the first screen app primarily due to the lack of support from Google TV to promote third party apps and the lack of transparency regarding its roadmap that may be competitive to third parties. Strategically, Google TV needs to pick a strategy and focus on it exclusively. If it is to build a developer ecosystem which allows thousands of developers the ability to innovate and to find that killer app or two, then Google TV needs to re-think its product roadmap to enable developers to be successful. Focus on building great developer tools and listen to the developer community. If Google TV must compete against a 3rd party developer since it is a “core” feature, then be transparent and work with the 3rd party to cover other white space that might be compelling. Google TV’s platform could focus on in-app purchases, subscription services, developer tools, developer outreach, OEM relationship building, and design resources for 3rd parties would be a great start. Work with developers to develop marketing strategies to get app adoption. Build momentum with the developer community such that more developers come on board. Be transparent about what’s working and what’s not. Help developers avoid pitfalls and use cases that work and don’t work. Identify customer holes for 3rd parties to tackle before they become impediments to adoption. Focus on becoming a real partner for developers. Or, conversely, shut down the developer ecosystem to get the product right. It’s ok to focus on getting the product right and iterate until there is critical mass before going back to the developer community. Build great apps and find the killer app internally. This, in itself, is a great strategy as well since the developer ecosystem won’t be wasting time potentially competing against Google TV and can wait until there is real market traction to go after. We want Google TV to succeed. I’ve been a long-term user of Google TV and it’s a good product with a good vision. However, I bought a Google TV for my parents a while ago and it’s still gathering dust –- the product is just not ready for mass consumer adoption. Google TV needs a killer use case and either they need to enable developers to find it or they should focus all their energy on finding it themselves. The success of Google TV is good for consumers and developers; it’s disruptive and will force the TV ecosystem to evolve quicker. I know we’ll be watching closely with anxious anticipation that Google TV will eventually get it right. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/google-tv-needs-to-decide-platform-or-closed-ecosystem/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/google-tv-needs-to-decide-platform-or-closed-ecosystem/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Andy Liu, CEO of BuddyTV Guide, a channel guide app available on iOS, Android and Google TV. There is no debating that consumer adoption of Google TV is extremely disappointing. Logitech has dropped out of the business, several online publications including this one have declared the platform dead. While some new OEMs like Vizio, Sony, and LG have launched new devices with Google TV, it’s not clear that any meaningful customer adoption will come as a result of these deals. I believe there is one big reason it hasn’t taken off. It’s that Google TV is straddling a dual-strategic approach when it needs to pick one strategy and double down on it. Google TV needs to be building a platform that embraces a strong developer ecosystem or it needs to close it down and focus on a closed ecosystem like Apple TV and iterate until it has the right consumer product not both. The problem with Google TV is that it claims that it is a developer friendly platform and embraces the developer community. It does not. Time and time again, Google TV has chosen the route of straddling between building their own apps and trying to engage the developer community to build a killer app for its platform. For example, there are over 90 second screen startups building apps that could be an extremely compelling use case for Google TV users. Instead of pushing 3rd parties to succeed, Google TV has taken the approach of building its own second screen app without being very transparent with its partners about its intention of building its own. There is an inherent disadvantage for a 3rd party to build a second screen app, when there will be one that exists native and developed by Google. This is an extremely dangerous position to take with the development community as it takes real investment by companies to build for this nascent platform. Companies will quickly realize that anything successful will be copied by Google TV and relegated to second class status as Google TV promotes its own apps ahead of those by 3rd parties. Instead of having potentially 90 companies innovating and building compelling second screen apps on the Google TV platform to find a killer use case, Google TV has taken a poor short-term approach of competing against its own developer community. Google TV in their v2 OTA update last year launched an app called TV & Movies, it’s native to the platform and pre-installed with every install of the update. This update was in direct competition with first screen apps like BuddyTV Guide which Google TV had early versions of internally. While disappointing, it would have been nice to know that Google TV was developing TV & Movies in advance, so we could have built another app focusing on areas that would be complementary to TV & Movies. Instead, we invested a ton of resources to build on a nascent platform only to see a very similar app on Google TV. Most recently, TV & Movies have updated the app to include favorite channels, one of the most popular features on BuddyTV Guide. As a third party developer on the platform, we have significantly reduced our investment in the first screen app primarily due to the lack of support from Google TV to promote third party apps and the lack of transparency regarding its roadmap that may be competitive to third parties. Strategically, Google TV needs to pick a strategy and focus on it exclusively. If it is to build a developer ecosystem which allows thousands of developers the ability to innovate and to find that killer app or two, then Google TV needs to re-think its product roadmap to enable developers to be successful. Focus on building great developer tools and listen to the developer community. If Google TV must compete against a 3rd party developer since it is a “core” feature, then be transparent and work with the 3rd party to cover other white space that might be compelling. Google TV’s platform could focus on in-app purchases, subscription services, developer tools, developer outreach, OEM relationship building, and design resources for 3rd parties would be a great start. Work with developers to develop marketing strategies to get app adoption. Build momentum with the developer community such that more developers come on board. Be transparent about what’s working and what’s not. Help developers avoid pitfalls and use cases that work and don’t work. Identify customer holes for 3rd parties to tackle before they become impediments to adoption. Focus on becoming a real partner for developers. Or, conversely, shut down the developer ecosystem to get the product right. It’s ok to focus on getting the product right and iterate until there is critical mass before going back to the developer community. Build great apps and find the killer app internally. This, in itself, is a great strategy as well since the developer ecosystem won’t be wasting time potentially competing against Google TV and can wait until there is real market traction to go after. We want Google TV to succeed. I’ve been a long-term user of Google TV and it’s a good product with a good vision. However, I bought a Google TV for my parents a while ago and it’s still gathering dust –- the product is just not ready for mass consumer adoption. Google TV needs a killer use case and either they need to enable developers to find it or they should focus all their energy on finding it themselves. The success of Google TV is good for consumers and developers; it’s disruptive and will force the TV ecosystem to evolve quicker. I know we’ll be watching closely with anxious anticipation that Google TV will eventually get it right. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/google-tv-needs-to-decide-platform-or-closed-ecosystem/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/07/google-tv-needs-to-decide-platform-or-closed-ecosystem/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 Yahoo and Facebook signed a contract today that says they cannot sue each other over patents. Yet Yahoo may be trying to convince investors that Facebook would still pay to buy or license some Yahoo intellectual property. But according to a source familiar with the exact wording of the Yahoo-Facebook contract, the two companies have rights to each other’s entire patent portfolios, so Yahoo would have no leverage to extort money or value from Facebook. I smell something fishy. Let’s investigate. Facebook’s press release states the agreement does “include a patent portfolio cross-license”, and my source says the word ‘portfolio’ means each company’s entire patent repertoire. Kara Swisher had a scoop that the agreement was signed. Yet in a follow-up interview about details, “the pair” of Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg apparently told Swisher that “The deal encompasses licensing of a little more than half of Yahoo’s rich portfolio of digital patents and an agreement not to sue on the remaining ones, which Facebook can license or even buy in the future.” Swisher tells me this information is attributed to “both companies”. So the question is, is this case shut tight and Yahoo can’t make money off of Facebook via patents? Or is there still potential for Yahoo to salvage some direct compensation beyond the value of a deepened partnership? The contract’s details are confidential, so we may never get a definitive answer on this. But here’s what I believe based on my sources and the press release: What Swisher was told and published would cause people to believe Yahoo might still make money directly from its patent assault on Facebook. The same assault that Swisher said former CEO Scott Thompson promised Yahoo’s directors would earn it a huge settlement pay-out from Facebook. The same assault that deeply hurt Yahoo’s reputation by making it look like a troll fighting against innovation. Seems like Yahoo has a lot to gain by painting this agreement as leaving space for it to still recoup some of its losses from fighting the case. But that gain comes by misleading investors into thinking patent-based monetary gains for Yahoo from Facebook are still on the horizon. And while Facebook is trying to claw its way back to its IPO price, now it has investors worrying there could be more Yahoo patent woes. Unfortunately for Yahoo, I don’t think that’s true and I see nothing on the patent horizon but the open sea its sinking in. Even as Facebook threw it a life preserver of an ad sales partnership, Yahoo is still trying to act macho. This was a chance for Yahoo to start over, but now I’m thinking old habits die hard, and the deceitful ghost of Scott Thompson lingers. [Image Credit: Zazzle] http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/yahoo-facebook-patent/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/yahoo-facebook-patent/ Yahoo and Facebook signed a contract today that says they cannot sue each other over patents. Yet Yahoo may be trying to convince investors that Facebook would still pay to buy or license some Yahoo intellectual property. But according to a source familiar with the exact wording of the Yahoo-Facebook contract, the two companies have rights to each other’s entire patent portfolios, so Yahoo would have no leverage to extort money or value from Facebook. I smell something fishy. Let’s investigate. Facebook’s press release states the agreement does “include a patent portfolio cross-license”, and my source says the word ‘portfolio’ means each company’s entire patent repertoire. Kara Swisher had a scoop that the agreement was signed. Yet in a follow-up interview about details, “the pair” of Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg apparently told Swisher that “The deal encompasses licensing of a little more than half of Yahoo’s rich portfolio of digital patents and an agreement not to sue on the remaining ones, which Facebook can license or even buy in the future.” Swisher tells me this information is attributed to “both companies”. So the question is, is this case shut tight and Yahoo can’t make money off of Facebook via patents? Or is there still potential for Yahoo to salvage some direct compensation beyond the value of a deepened partnership? The contract’s details are confidential, so we may never get a definitive answer on this. But here’s what I believe based on my sources and the press release: What Swisher was told and published would cause people to believe Yahoo might still make money directly from its patent assault on Facebook. The same assault that Swisher said former CEO Scott Thompson promised Yahoo’s directors would earn it a huge settlement pay-out from Facebook. The same assault that deeply hurt Yahoo’s reputation by making it look like a troll fighting against innovation. Seems like Yahoo has a lot to gain by painting this agreement as leaving space for it to still recoup some of its losses from fighting the case. But that gain comes by misleading investors into thinking patent-based monetary gains for Yahoo from Facebook are still on the horizon. And while Facebook is trying to claw its way back to its IPO price, now it has investors worrying there could be more Yahoo patent woes. Unfortunately for Yahoo, I don’t think that’s true and I see nothing on the patent horizon but the open sea its sinking in. Even as Facebook threw it a life preserver of an ad sales partnership, Yahoo is still trying to act macho. This was a chance for Yahoo to start over, but now I’m thinking old habits die hard, and the deceitful ghost of Scott Thompson lingers. [Image Credit: Zazzle] http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/yahoo-facebook-patent/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/yahoo-facebook-patent/ Dell has a skunks works project underway to offer a Linux-based laptop made for developers. Now it is offering a beta program that will allow a small group of the to get one of the laptops and join what it calls the Sputnik Beta Cosmonaut program. Project Sputnik signals Dell’s changing focus to offer open-source technology that it can integrate into its servers, storage and networking offerings and solutions. Part of this effort means attracting developers to a laptop that they can configure in the way they wish. Here’s what Klint Finley wrote a few months ago upon the launch of the project: Hardware enablement is table stakes but where Sputnik starts to get interesting is when we talk about profiles. No two developers are alike so instead of stuffing the system with every possible tool or app a developer could possibly want, we are trying a different approach. As mentioned above, the actual “stuff” on the install image is pretty basic, instead we are working with a few developers to put together a tool that can go out to a github repository and pull down various developer profiles. The first profiles we are targeting are Android, Ruby and JavaScript. [...] In a blog post this week, Dell’s Barton George writes that the laptop is now available on Dell.com. The page points you to where you can buy the XPS 13 and an image to load on it. But if you want to get one of the discounted versions then you have to agree to be a volunteer: If you are interested in getting your hands on a project Sputnik beta unit we are now recruiting volunteers for the Sputnik Beta Cosmonaut program (and yes we know the original Sputnik was unmanned, we’re taking artistic license here). A limited number of applicants will be selected to receive a discounted, beta version solution. If selected, all we ask is that you use the system regularly and give us your honest feedback on the project Sputnik forum. I’ve talked often with George and his colleague Michael Cote about the laptop and the hopes for what it will provide. Mostly, though, for me, it shows how Dell is putting attention into open-source efforts such as Crowbar, a tool Dell developed and open-sourced. Finley writes ”the tool is an open source deployment tool that can provision OpenStack from bare metal up to higher level Chef configuration. It can be expanded using plugins called “barclamps,” which add support for tools like Cloud Foundry and Zenoss. Dell can then leverage this platform for building solutions on top of it, such as its Apache Hadoop solution.” Dell is active in OpenStack, the open-source cloud effort that is providing the framework for anyone to build open cloud environments. Project Sputnik an exciting project that shows how a big hardware company is changing course. George and Cote represent a new generation of leaders who recognize that the future of the enterprise is an open one. Hardware and software will continue to integrate at the device level clear through to the infrastructure. In this automated world, we need the flexibility and the ability to leverage services far more than on-premise software. Efforts such as Project Sputnik represent how this change will occur. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/how-to-get-one-of-dells-linux-based-developer-laptops-and-become-a-sputnik-beta-cosmonaut/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/how-to-get-one-of-dells-linux-based-developer-laptops-and-become-a-sputnik-beta-cosmonaut/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed Dell has a skunks works project underway to offer a Linux-based laptop made for developers. Now it is offering a beta program that will allow a small group of the to get one of the laptops and join what it calls the Sputnik Beta Cosmonaut program. Project Sputnik signals Dell’s changing focus to offer open-source technology that it can integrate into its servers, storage and networking offerings and solutions. Part of this effort means attracting developers to a laptop that they can configure in the way they wish. Here’s what Klint Finley wrote a few months ago upon the launch of the project: Hardware enablement is table stakes but where Sputnik starts to get interesting is when we talk about profiles. No two developers are alike so instead of stuffing the system with every possible tool or app a developer could possibly want, we are trying a different approach. As mentioned above, the actual “stuff” on the install image is pretty basic, instead we are working with a few developers to put together a tool that can go out to a github repository and pull down various developer profiles. The first profiles we are targeting are Android, Ruby and JavaScript. [...] In a blog post this week, Dell’s Barton George writes that the laptop is now available on Dell.com. The page points you to where you can buy the XPS 13 and an image to load on it. But if you want to get one of the discounted versions then you have to agree to be a volunteer: If you are interested in getting your hands on a project Sputnik beta unit we are now recruiting volunteers for the Sputnik Beta Cosmonaut program (and yes we know the original Sputnik was unmanned, we’re taking artistic license here). A limited number of applicants will be selected to receive a discounted, beta version solution. If selected, all we ask is that you use the system regularly and give us your honest feedback on the project Sputnik forum. I’ve talked often with George and his colleague Michael Cote about the laptop and the hopes for what it will provide. Mostly, though, for me, it shows how Dell is putting attention into open-source efforts such as Crowbar, a tool Dell developed and open-sourced. Finley writes ”the tool is an open source deployment tool that can provision OpenStack from bare metal up to higher level Chef configuration. It can be expanded using plugins called “barclamps,” which add support for tools like Cloud Foundry and Zenoss. Dell can then leverage this platform for building solutions on top of it, such as its Apache Hadoop solution.” Dell is active in OpenStack, the open-source cloud effort that is providing the framework for anyone to build open cloud environments. Project Sputnik an exciting project that shows how a big hardware company is changing course. George and Cote represent a new generation of leaders who recognize that the future of the enterprise is an open one. Hardware and software will continue to integrate at the device level clear through to the infrastructure. In this automated world, we need the flexibility and the ability to leverage services far more than on-premise software. Efforts such as Project Sputnik represent how this change will occur. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/how-to-get-one-of-dells-linux-based-developer-laptops-and-become-a-sputnik-beta-cosmonaut/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/how-to-get-one-of-dells-linux-based-developer-laptops-and-become-a-sputnik-beta-cosmonaut/?utm_source=jpc-twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=jpc-twitterfeed In the age of Google Instant, where we expect search results to complete themselves before we’re done typing, Twitter’s search feature has long seemed a little slow and dumb. Can’t it guess at what search term or person you’re looking for? Can’t it autocorrect your spelling? Can’t it just search among the tweets of people you follow? Well, now you can do all of that, in theory. The microblogging service took the wraps off a new smarter search product Friday, after teasing us late Thursday with a brief announcement that search and discovery on Twitter was about to change “forever.” The changes, which are rolling out to all users on mobile Twitter and Twitter.com, fall into three categories. First, there’s the Google Instant-like guessing. “Search autocomplete shows you the most likely terms for your query as you enter it — especially useful if you’re trying to follow the hashtag for an event or you’re looking for a certain Twitter account,” writes engineer Frost Li on the Twitter blog. “You can select your query from the drop-down menu even before you finish typing it.” Search autocomplete will also correct your spelling if there’s a common search term with slightly different letters — a feature Google has boasted for years. Secondly, Twitter says, search is about to get a lot smarter when it comes to related terms, hashtags and accounts. “If you search for a topic for which people use multiple terms,” says Li, “we will provide relevant suggestions for terms where the majority of that conversation is happening on Twitter.” And finally, once your search is complete, you have a new option to narrow it down: click on tweets from people you follow. This will appear next to the regular search filter options, “top” and “all.” In other words, if you want to forget the rest of Twitter exists outside your circle of follows, the company just made it a lot easier. Is smarter Twitter search working for you yet? Let us know in the comments. http://mashable.com/2012/07/06/twitter-search-autocomplete/ http://mashable.com/2012/07/06/twitter-search-autocomplete/ In the age of Google Instant, where we expect search results to complete themselves before we’re done typing, Twitter’s search feature has long seemed a little slow and dumb. Can’t it guess at what search term or person you’re looking for? Can’t it autocorrect your spelling? Can’t it just search among the tweets of people you follow? Well, now you can do all of that, in theory. The microblogging service took the wraps off a new smarter search product Friday, after teasing us late Thursday with a brief announcement that search and discovery on Twitter was about to change “forever.” The changes, which are rolling out to all users on mobile Twitter and Twitter.com, fall into three categories. First, there’s the Google Instant-like guessing. “Search autocomplete shows you the most likely terms for your query as you enter it — especially useful if you’re trying to follow the hashtag for an event or you’re looking for a certain Twitter account,” writes engineer Frost Li on the Twitter blog. “You can select your query from the drop-down menu even before you finish typing it.” Search autocomplete will also correct your spelling if there’s a common search term with slightly different letters — a feature Google has boasted for years. Secondly, Twitter says, search is about to get a lot smarter when it comes to related terms, hashtags and accounts. “If you search for a topic for which people use multiple terms,” says Li, “we will provide relevant suggestions for terms where the majority of that conversation is happening on Twitter.” And finally, once your search is complete, you have a new option to narrow it down: click on tweets from people you follow. This will appear next to the regular search filter options, “top” and “all.” In other words, if you want to forget the rest of Twitter exists outside your circle of follows, the company just made it a lot easier. Is smarter Twitter search working for you yet? Let us know in the comments. http://mashable.com/2012/07/06/twitter-search-autocomplete/ http://mashable.com/2012/07/06/twitter-search-autocomplete/ Facebook and Yahoo are calling off their heated patent lawsuit battle, and in fact have just signed a deal to cross-license their entire patent portfolios to each other without money changing hands, sources directly familiar with the deal tell me. The deal will likely be formally announced later today. Sources also confirmed that the two web giants are entering into an ad sales partnership, as first reported by Kara Swisher of AllThingsD this morning. However, Swisher noted the companies would only cross-license “some key patents”, and Facebook might have to pay to license others from Yahoo. The patent deal is actually much larger. It encompasses their entire intellectual property stockpile such that they won’t have to pay be able to use each other’s patents, and won’t be able to sue each other over them either. Investors in both companies should rest easy. A Mutually Beneficial End To The Patent War Yahoo sprung the lawsuit on Facebook in the months leading up to it’s IPO in a move Swisher says was spearheaded by disgraced former CEO Scott Thompson. It sought to extort a massive settlement from Facebook before the IPO so it could avoid potential investors holding back in worry of the case’s outcome. But rather than settle Facebook bought huge stores of patents from AOL / Microsoft and IBM and countersued with 10 patents, the same number it was sued by Yahoo with. I judged many of Facebook’s patents to be more concrete than Yahoo’s, setting up a formidable defense. That defense seems to have worked. Swisher reports that interim CEO Ross Levinsohn reached out to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg after Thompson was deposed in hopes of coming to an agreement. Today that agreement is to be announced, with Facebook emerging without having to pay any direct settlement, though it did spend billions of dollars on the patent caches to defend itself. The ongoing patent battle was costly, both in dollars spent and attention fractured. Today’s agreement will help the two avoid big legal fees and let them concentrate on innovating, rather than who owns the rights to vague concepts around social networking and advertising. It seems Wall Street New Ad Sales Partnership Details on the advertising sales partnership are still scarce but sources said it will likely center around the two companies working together to secure big ad buys and spread placements across their properties. This way, if say Ford was having a massive launch for a new car, Facebook and Yahoo could help the auto-maker distribute ads across Facebook.com, Facebook’s mobile site, and all of Yahoo’s news sites, portals, and utilities for maximum impact. Facebook and Yahoo worked together on ads in during the social network’s early days, but haven’t had a sales partnership in place for years. Sources confirmed that a long-standing contact sharing partnership between Yahoo and Facebook will continue. It allows users that sign up for Facebook to automatically import that Yahoo Mail address book to make it easy to find and become friends with those they email with. We’ll have more details shortly. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/facebook-yahoo-cross-license/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/facebook-yahoo-cross-license/