19 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- Android Market Gets Usability Updates [TNW Google]
- Jeff Jarvis Updates His Cyberspace Bill of Rights—Are these rights self-evident? [TNW Media]
- New Google Maps gets demoed on the Nexus S [TNW Google]
- Railgun developed by U.S. Navy can hit targets 100 miles away [TNW Gadgets]
- Path Finally Hooks Up with Facebook to Find Friends [TNW Apple]
- The Awesome iPad Stand Created By An 11 Year Old [TNW Gadgets]
- Weekend Beat: the Hangover [TNW Shareables]
- Radio Shack experiencing nationwide iPhone shortage [TNW Apple]
- Man solves MENSA-worthy math problem, wins Chrome notebook from Google [TNW Google]
- Sprint and T-Mobile confirm plans to release 4G tablets in 2011 [TNW Gadgets]
- Exclusive: Roomorama offers TNW Readers 25% off chic hotel alternatives [TNW Apps]
- Will Web Apps Replace Web Sites? [TNW Media]
- Flipboard + Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models = … Innovative [TNW Media]
- “Oscillating Flow Propulsion Device” aka Swimming in the Future [TNW Shareables]
- LG Optimus One Passes 2 Million Units Sold [TNW Mobile]
- The TNW Microsoft Week: Windows Phone 7 sales and Windows 8 keep us guessing [TNW Microsoft]
- Wake up! 7 tips on how to be a human in social media [TNW Social Media]
- Microsoft tries to get into the social news game with Project Emporia [TNW Microsoft]
- WTF? Social Networking is Good for Language? [TNW Social Media]
- Twitter’s retweet counters are broken. Here’s what to do about it. [TNW Twitter]
| Android Market Gets Usability Updates [TNW Google] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 10:21 PM PST
I think it says a lot about the industry over all that only Microsoft doesn’t have an app market out or planned. Apple App Store and soon Mac App Store. Chrome has an App Gallery and the Android Marketplace. Windows Phone 7 has their own ways to find and get apps. RIM, of course, has theirs. I wonder, then, how long it will take before Microsoft comes up with their own solution for Windows itself. One of the biggest challenges with all devices and operating systems is finding out what apps and tools to use with it. Maybe Apple rightly deserves flack for the tight control over the App Store, but there is no doubt that Apple makes it easy to find great great apps for iOS devices. Google’s updates to the Android Marketplace see the same potential. Now, let’s see if Microsoft can step up with a great solution of their own.Android Developers Blog, Mashable, photo credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]     |
| Jeff Jarvis Updates His Cyberspace Bill of Rights—Are these rights self-evident? [TNW Media] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 07:48 PM PST
I’ve been wondering about online rights (and privileges) lately, especially point IV … when do we need to keep things secret? When is it okay for governments to keep things secret? Are these principles that we can all live by? There is a lot of complexity in speaking freely. For example, what about my right to choose which comments I allow and which I don’t on my personal blog? Isn’t that my right? Maybe the larger question is, do we need this or is this discussion just metaphysical arm-waving? I’m not even going to get into who would enforce this set of ideals, because that’s a minefield of its own that I don’t feel like dancing into. Sure, the Internet is still a wild west, and “rules” aren’t generally looked on favorably, but functioning societies need rules. Does Cyberspace? We have some kinds of cultural rules, but they are built on the shifting sands of zeitgeist and opinion. Not to mention the whims of governments. Would these rights go far to help us if a large Western country decided to just turn off the Internet in and out of that country? Are we in an era where considering building a “second Internet” isn’t so far fetched? It’s Friday night, a good night for discussion, however … so what do you think of these 7 principles? Do they cover the bases?Jeff Jarvis, photo credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| New Google Maps gets demoed on the Nexus S [TNW Google] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 06:49 PM PST Google Maps 5.0 looks pretty incredible. It looks even better running on Google’s upcoming flagship device, the Nexus S. Pretty awesome, right? Obviously, the big thing here is the inclusion of 3D buildings but it will also include offline caching which will allow you to view stuff you’ve already seen, new multitouch gestures, and vector images instead of tiles. It should be availability fairly shortly too, considering the Nexus S is due to hit the market next week. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Railgun developed by U.S. Navy can hit targets 100 miles away [TNW Gadgets] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 06:40 PM PST
According to Fox News, the United States Navy has been developing a weapon called the railgun that has cost $211 million since 2005. Unlike traditional guns that use an explosion to fire their arsenal, the railgun uses uses electromagnetism to fire electrical charges that can move several times the speed of sound. It can also hit targets up to 100 miles or more away and the Navy fully expects that it will eventually be able to do damage 200 miles away. To give you an idea about how far that is, traveling 200 miles by car generally takes around 4-5 hours. Of course, that’s small time compared to the railgun. Traveling at Mach 7, its ammo can reach targets this far away in minutes. While this sounds like the stuff videogames are made of, be assured, this is very real and it apparently just shattered a world record during testing today. Back in 2008, the Navy set the world record for a megajoule firing. Their test today, which registered at 33 megajouls, was apparently three times the old mark. That’s powerful stuff but how powerful?
That powerful. Unfortunately, the technology won’t be put to use for a number of years. The U.S. Navy hopes to deploy railguns on its ships starting in 2025 which should be right around the time those robots created by the Germans will start revolting. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Path Finally Hooks Up with Facebook to Find Friends [TNW Apple] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 05:47 PM PST
Since my first review I removed Path from my phone, so I’m going to reload it and see how the Facebook integration looks and check back in a moment…stay tuned for updates. Update: Just like TC and the Path blog said, you have to login into Path on your browser or within the to connect up Facebook and Path. You’ll then be presented which of your friends are using Path and have connected Path with Facebook. For me that was four people. The better test will be in the next couple days when word gets out more about this. Is Path going to be one of my favorite photo apps? Not likely. Still not enough there to keep me using it. Let me know what you think of Path now that it’s been around for almost a month. Will being able to connect with Facebook get you to use it? Update 2: The Path iOS app update just hit the app store that includes Facebook connections are these additional improvements:
Check your iPhones for the updates…well if you’re using Path.TechCrunch, Path blog [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| The Awesome iPad Stand Created By An 11 Year Old [TNW Gadgets] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 05:42 PM PST
Dino Zaharakis is not your typical 11 year old kid. Dino is responsible for a new iPad stand called the dzdock ONE, a device that he created after being challenged by his father to improve upon the impromptu iPad stand the family had been using. Before he got started, Dino had some rules that he wanted to abide by when making the stand. They included:
After several prototypes and and some wheeling and dealing at the local college, Dino was able to accomplish all of his goals. The finished product of course is the anodized stand that you see here. And while it’s not an earth shattering invention, it’s pretty impressive stuff coming from someone that just finished elementary school. The dzdock is avaliable right now for $19.99 (use promo code DZPRNEWS), comes in an assortment of colors and is compatible with just about any device on the market. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Weekend Beat: the Hangover [TNW Shareables] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 03:52 PM PST I imagine it looks something like this, but then again, I really don’t remember.. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Radio Shack experiencing nationwide iPhone shortage [TNW Apple] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 02:08 PM PST
Radio Shack’s deal consists of two parts. The first, $50 off any iPhone device with a two year contract on AT&T. The second portion allows iPhone 3GS owners to trade in their device for a $25 iPhone 4. It has been running for only a couple of days now and you can see why inventories around the United States are already becoming depleted. For instance a store located in North Carolina apparently confirmed that the “entire region” was sold out of the iPhone 4. We made a quick check to a couple of Radio Shack stores in San Francisco and they all had the same response: Their iPhone 4 stock is sold out, the other models are close to being sold out and they hope to have more soon. This spells trouble for those attempting to cash in on this deal because it’s rather tough to buy an on-sale item if it’s well, not for sale. So if you live near a Radio Shack and were thinking about an iPhone 4 for a family member, then you probably want to head to the nearest one immediately. The success of Radio Shack’s offer could also present problems for the company itself. The iPhone 4 is in pretty high demand because of the holiday season and if the company isn’t able to replenish their in-store stock quick enough, they might lose out on some customers. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Man solves MENSA-worthy math problem, wins Chrome notebook from Google [TNW Google] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 01:33 PM PST Oh Google, your hijinks are legendary. As the company is presently running a riddle-turned-scavenger hunt for the Nexus S phones, there was apparently another competition out there as well. One eagle-eyed Google fan, however, found the question that was never asked. First off, if you haven’t watched the promotional videos for the Chrome OS, you should read this and then come back. In a more recent video, one of the Chrome UX designers walks you through what happens when your laptop gets destroyed (25 times) while you’re trying to work on something. The answer? Ideally nothing happens because all of your information is stored in the cloud. However, what Sylvain Zimmer and a group of co-workers found more interesting was a specific part of the video: Google being Google, that isn’t just a bunch of scribbling on the blackboard in the rear of the scene. Oh no, that’s an actual, solvable math problem. So Zimmer and his colleagues at Jamendo went to work. Relying on Wolfram Alpha, some guesswork and a lot of brain power, the team found out that the eventual answer was simply a long string of numbers: X = 90091/191605050401140404051920181525 ~= 4.7*10^-27. But after a bit more digging, using properties from Physics, chemistry and even algebra, the group found out that the real answer they were looking for was shortcode for Google: 900.91 (Goo.gl). After even more time spent and more beer consumed, it became clear that the 900.91 was only part of the equation, and in fact the rest of the equation turned into a URL, when matched with the corresponding numbers from the alphabet. That URL? http://goo.gl/speedanddestroy. While the URL is now pointing only to a form that is no longer taking applications, the message it displayed at the time congratulated Zimmer for his work: Zimmer filled in the form and is now awaiting the arrival of his notebook. The full story, in all of its epic glory, is available on Zimmer’s blog. Do stop by, give a read and let him know we said congratulations. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Sprint and T-Mobile confirm plans to release 4G tablets in 2011 [TNW Gadgets] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 01:13 PM PST
Yesterday, Sprint confirmed its plans to Forbes and also stated that they will be offering tablets with different operating systems. While the company wouldn’t confirm what operating systems they would support, it’s definitely going to be something other than Android as the Samsung Galaxy Tab is currently the only tablet they support. T-Mobile, not wanting to miss out on the action, just confirmed their plans to bring a 4G tablet to the market as well. In a statement, the company says that they are:
They, like Sprint, didn’t reveal what companies were going to be responsible for bringing the 4G compatible tablets to the market but if we had to guess, it’s possible that at least one of the 4G tablets T-Mobile will be an offering from HTC. And that’s a very good thing. Of course, we probably won’t have to wait long to find out with CES, CTIA, and the Mobile World Congress just around the corner. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Exclusive: Roomorama offers TNW Readers 25% off chic hotel alternatives [TNW Apps] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 01:08 PM PST  Need a room for the holidays but don’t feel like paying for a hotel’s holiday prices? Check out Roomorama, a service started by two avid travelers who really wanted to inspire young urbanites to ditch the concrete and get out into the world to travel. Founders Jia En Teo and Federico Folcia met while working at Bloomberg. Federico, a native Italian, traveled Europe extensively, hopping on budget airlines but feeling the pinch when it came to booking hotels. He thought there must be hundreds of people with empty apartments and they should be making money while saving me money. I caught up with Jia midday L.A. time today while she was just finishing dinner in Italy. While she’s fortunate enough to be staying with Federico’s family, they are renting out their place in New York on Roomorama. They are both travelers caught up with lifelong wanderlust. The site launched in January 2009 in New York City and expanded to all of the major U.S. cities throughout the year. They’ve seen excellent growth in 2010 and are now in over 100 different destinations with over 60,000 members on the site.”Going forward we want Roomorama to be a one-stop platform for traveling worldwide,” explains Jia. It’s similar to AirBnB (which I love) but it’s really directed towards young, tech-savvy professionals from urban areas who care about sleek design and appreciate budget travel that doesn’t feel budget. For example, how about this gorgeous apartment in Bali for New Years? Just $50 a night. Or save $5 and go for this one: What really separates Roomorama from the rest of the hotel alternative start-ups is their amazing perks program that includes eco friendly laundry and dry cleaning services, Mint cars, daily Crunch Gym passes and in home wine tastings. “These are things we hope add enough value for people to book on our site,” says Jia. Looking past the holidays, Roomorama is becoming the go-to housing choice for festivals like SXSW and the New York Film Festival. The site has a great option in the works, which will list all the properties available near certain venues or events and will even offer ticket buying through a created festival specific page. Roomorama is running a promotion for holiday travel: $50 dollars off bookings over $450 with the option to pass along the offer to any 3 friends you want until February. In addition, they are offering a very exclusive 25% off discount just for TNW readers. Use the code: “TheNextWeb” at check-out. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Will Web Apps Replace Web Sites? [TNW Media] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 12:45 PM PST
The jovial, yet misguided answer is that all publishers want to provide their readers with content in the best way possible. While that much might be true to an extent, the larger idea is that publishers are trying very hard to find better ways to monetize that content. In order to get you to purchase an “application” displaying the content of a website, only the very best presentation will do. Show Me The MoneyTo first address the question of the topic, we believe that the answer is both no and yes. While Web apps won’t necessarily replace the website today, they are still a viable, unique option for publishers. As our own Courtney Boyd Myers answered, these value-added features of having pristine Web application could very well be another revenue stream for the publisher. Some website owners are already catching on. USA Today, for instance, has developed an app for the Web Store that the company sees as a way to deliver more content than what is available simply through the USAToday.com site. According to VP of Digital Development for USA Today, Steve Kurtz:
Shifting IdeasI had a chance to pick the brain of Kate O’Neill, Founder and CEO of [meta]marketer. The Nashville-based company, which helps websites optimize every aspect of their content, had some interesting insight to the scenario. Her first question brings about a very strong point:
At a time when so much of what we do is going mobile, going cloud-based and becoming accessible regardless of location, there are aspects to the application format that have to be given due attention. As O’Neill states, “It’s a very context-driven experience. While it could be very good, it could also be very onerous for site owners to keep up with. The question is how much value is it providing to the business of the website.” What needs to be understood about this shift, though, is that it opens a lot of doors that we’ve previously been afraid to approach. For instance, the analytics community was up in arms not long ago when Google began measuring RSS reads as page displays. However, it’s likely that Google was ahead of its own time in its measurement, because now that door will open again. While Google did back down from the measurement, what it likely should have done, as O’Neill points out, is develop a new metric for measuring this traffic. The views that will be provided via Chrome (and other platform) apps likely need a measurement that is all their own. Not only would that help the site owners better optimize the content provided, but it also will reach into that section about monetization and enabling a better user experience. UX for You
However, Canter does see it as a long-term, viable option for sites. I asked him if he thought we’d see a lot more sites moving toward this platform in the future:
That embrace, and the shift toward a “platformless” society, should continue to open more doors as well. In speaking with Iain Dodsworth from TweetDeck, we’re offered some insight to the desires that drove the company to build the TweetDeck App for Chrome, affectionately known as ChromeDeck:
Interestingly, we’ve also been told that ChromeDeck is unlike most of the applications that you see in the Chrome Web Store. While the majority of “apps” are simply webpages hosted on other servers, ChromeDeck was built from the ground up to run natively in the browser. There is no reliance on servers from TweetDeck itself, which takes a potential problem out of the chain for the user. Back to the FrontSo the question remains — will Web apps replace Web sites? The answer, it seems, is three-fold. For most sites, the app will be a value-added feature that can be monetized. Additional content can be distributed through the application and made more readily available. For others, the move to an application versus a website will be fitting, especially so if it is well-suited to the mobile lifestyle. Yet the third tier remains, in which sites will likely move from the scenario of additional feature and into application-based. For now, the doors are wide open and it’s a brave, new world to be explored for site owners. We’re hugely excited to see what will come next. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Flipboard + Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models = … Innovative [TNW Media] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 11:45 AM PST Working with Sports Illustrated, Flipboard has created a new partner section that will track the progress of this year’s Swimsuit Edition shoot, by bringing in content from a Twitter List that focuses on the shoot’s progress (that just happens to have lots of links to pictures, surprise, surprise). Of course, there is some text too, but really, the Flipboard app is all about the pictures (as is of course SI’s Swimsuit Edition) and this is obviously why SI and Flipboard are working together. “This [section] is a great example of a feed that’s best viewed in Flipboard… instead of seeing a list of links, you see the models and the places where the photo shoots are taking place just by opening the section in Flipboard,” a Flipboard employee told us. The section is about as NSFW as the print edition is – take that as you will – but yeah, we have a feeling that this is going to make Flipboard an even more popular app. Flipboard recently started working with certain content partners for dedicated sections, and also has a gifts section for holiday shopping. Nice integration from what Apple has already called its iPad App of the Year (which since the iPad has been out only six months, more or less makes Flipboard Apple’s favorite iPad app ever). You can add the custom built section by going into the “Add Section” area and clicking on the SI partner link. And yes, now for the screenshots: [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| “Oscillating Flow Propulsion Device” aka Swimming in the Future [TNW Shareables] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 11:13 AM PST
The “human-powered swimming device” is capable of making swimmers move 150% faster than normal with the same amount of effort. It was designed by DARPA to help Navy SEALs reach their destinations quickly without the use of a submarine or a motor propeller. In the history of mankind it represents the largest increase in human swimming efficiency in terms of propulsion through water. Powerswim looks like something Q would have built for James Bond has he rescued girls and secret documents from a sinking submarine. But Powerswim was actually developed by Jay Lowell, a program manager at the Defense Science Program at DARPA who admits that it looks pretty dorky. Watch the video on it here: [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| LG Optimus One Passes 2 Million Units Sold [TNW Mobile] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 11:13 AM PST
Just 25 days later, the device has hit yet another milestone as the company just announced that the affordable Froyo device has now surpassed 2 million devices sold. A lot of you in the United States are probably scratching your heads right now because you’ve never heard of this device. In reality, the Optimus One’s ascension shouldn’t be all that surprising. It’s a solid, Froyo-running, cheap smartphone that’s avaliable on all four major U.S. carriers. They just haven’t marketed it very well, if at all. It should also be noted that LG just confirmed that the Optimus One line will be getting an upgrade to Gingerbread,which means that these sales numbers probably won’t be slowing down any time soon. After all, it’s going to be hard to find Android 2.3 at the Optimus One’s price. Well done, LG. Well done.Mobile Crunch [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| The TNW Microsoft Week: Windows Phone 7 sales and Windows 8 keep us guessing [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 10:17 AM PST
If you are a regular reader of TNWmicrosoft you already know and love me saying this, but I welcome suggestions (via email: alex@thenextweb.com) as to how to improve these weekly posts. The comments sent in so far have been great, thanks everyone. Now let’s get into it, shall we? Windows 8Windows 8 is going to be a big damn deal, and everyone knows it. Ballmer has even called it their “riskiest product bet,” and so when the news came out that Windows 8 might be a complete break from what we know and love we jumped on it like a fat kid in a doughnut shop. Windows 8, at least according to an Italian blog, will contain a new interface called ‘Wind’ that will pack all sorts of amazing visual tools to help people interact with their computers in wholly new ways. Oh, and you are going to need a dedicated GPU to run it, in case you don’t already have one. What do we say? Fascinating rumor mill material that we hope is true. Read the post, it’s worth your time. Windows Phone 7Windows Phone 7 will not leave us alone, which Microsoft must enjoy. What happened this week? Microsoft moved up the date for developer payouts, and has streamlined their developer tools. Pandora also stated that they have no immediate plans to come to the platform, leaving audiophiles flat, alone, and in the cold. We were sorry to hear the news. We got a big data set from Rowfeeder and took a serious look at the US launch of Windows Phone 7 which was fascinating, but Microsoft refuses to leak or detail WP7 sales numbers. The company did finally admit that they are “feeling pretty good” about sales. Make of that what you will. Oh, and this is how copy and paste will work on your WP7 handset when it comes out. Salesforce Eats Microsoft’s LunchThis week’s comedy comes from the Dreamforce conference where Salesforce turned a Microsoft PR stunt back on them. Microsoft had hired a number of branded Segways to drive around in front of the conference venue and tout Microsoft products. Their ad featured a man. That man turned out to be a friend of Salesforce’s CEO. To beat Microsoft at their own game, Benioff had the model come on stage during his keynote, and then mock-converted him to Salesforce products. Score one for the Salesforce PR team. Why IE9 Tabs Are TerribleThe Intenet Explorer team is on a tear. Their new project, IE9, is the best version of Internet Explorer ever, period. We have all downloaded and played with it, and yet it has a glaring problem: its tabs. In Chrome, tabs have their own full line of pixel space, and are at the very top of the window, so that they have maximum space to stretch, and you can’t ‘miss’ them by clicking above them. Tabs in IE9 are scrunched over to the right, next to the URL area, and are down a full row from the top so that they are smaller, harder to read, and harder to click on. IE9 redesigned their tabs, but did not fix the issue. We protested. That’s all for now, see you all next week! [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Wake up! 7 tips on how to be a human in social media [TNW Social Media] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 09:58 AM PST
There’s no doubt in my mind that using social media in the right way is a powerful tool to advancing your brand and can be a powerful weapon to come out on top of competitors. But if you’re using these tools to connect with your audience, don’t be just a faceless, nameless corporation. I believe one of the most important elements in a successful social media campaign is to keep it human in social media. Here’s how: 1. Create a social media presence that differs from your home website. Don’t rehash information across all of your outlets or else there is no point in having a social media presence. Use your Facebook profile to display more detailed information that loyal customers would appreciate. An easy example of this is a restaurant or bar, such as Brooklyn’s Whiskey Brooklyn. They use their Facebook page to announce special changes to the menu, special events and interact with customers. 2. Give your brand a face. Give consumers someone or something accountable for the brand. Jupiter Hotel in Portland Oregon has chosen “Mannequin Lily,” as their popular mascot. This “on-the-go girl” has 4,000 Facebook friends and promotes hotel events with her own comic strip, model's the hotel's clothing line, and is going to be inducted as one of Portland's Road City Roller girls. A rather unique approach to informing guests about activities at the hotel, Mannequin Lily symbolizes the Jupiter Hotel's spirit of fun, and sets this hotel apart from others. 3. Embrace Intimacy. Brands should use social media to talk with customers in an intimate fashion. Use Facebook and Twitter to create a dialogue. And most importantly, be there for your customers. This morning I stumbled upon VitaCoco’s Facebook page and was touched by an interaction they had with a customer. (I’m literally sipping the deliciously addictive water as I type.) 4. Incentive. Give consumers a reason to visit your social media sites. An easy way to do this is by giving away prizes, freebies or discounts to your products. In fact, some Twitter pages are just about that and nothing more. And who doesn’t like seeing photos of themselves after a night out? WET PAINT, a NYC events photographer uses his Facebook page to encourage event attendees to “Like” the site first before they can tag their friends in photos. 5. Relevancy: Make sure that your content is relevant to your audience and is not just a sales brochure. Ensure you have a strategy in place that it ties back to brand objectives. For example, I’m really confused about what’s going on here. 6. Personalization: Train employees on how to use a human voice in social media. Using sign-offs in social media is really important or else you’re just another faceless corporation using social media. Virgin America is a great example of a brand that always uses sign-offs when reaching out to a customer. Don’t hire an agency to speak for your brand on your social media page. Talk like a friend, not a corporate entity. Speak in simple, casual language. 7. Vulnerability. Open up your wall on Facebook to comments. Expect to fail but learn as you move forward. Give consumers some control and be comfortable with the fact that you can't dictate the message any more. Build trust by being open and honest. Transparency is key. Answer questions, comments and complaints as soon as possible. If you wait too long you risk getting consumers upset. So this was almost a rant, but I hope it was more of a wake up call for social media “gurus” and “ninjas” to cut the crap. What are other ways brands can keep it human in social media? [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Microsoft tries to get into the social news game with Project Emporia [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 09:11 AM PST
Project Emporia, still in alpha, is a social and personalized news idea that focuses on tweet volume around stories to select which stories should make it into its topical sections. The website reports the number of tweets that the story in question has garnered in the previous 24 hours, and will display a recent tweet or two next to that number. And what if you don’t think that Twitter is perfect in finding the exact stories you want to read? That is just fine, Project Emporia lets you vote stories up and down, and will cater future stories that it brings you around your fed information. The app looks like this: How well does it work? In the technology section you are inundated with Mashable stories, something that may or may not be your ‘thing.’ The actual story variety was somewhat weak across the site, far too heavy on mobile and Obama news. You can tell that this is still an ‘alpha’ project as Microsoft claims it to be, but we like the overall direction of the project, if not its current implementation. The idea of quickly curated social news is a powerful one that several other companies are pursuing, and it is sure to remain a hot space. What would we change? First we would get a real designer on the team as the actual application itself has been hit with the ugly stick, and then we would remove the ‘what people are saying section,’ as it does nothing but add noise to the story area. Also, Flipboard quotes more than Project Emporia, why can’t Microsoft get more ‘meat’ in the story section? This is not our favorite Microsoft Research project, but it is still interesting enough that Redmond wants to keep a hand in the social news game, if for nothing more than to stay current. Give it a try, and tell us what you think in the comments. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| WTF? Social Networking is Good for Language? [TNW Social Media] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 08:46 AM PST Anyone who's ever run a digital advertising campaign will know all too well how tricky it is to keep texts trimmed. With LinkedIn ads, users are restricted to 25 character headlines and 75 characters for the main body. Meanwhile Google Ads give users a mere 70 characters to play within the text’s main body. Reformulating an ad to fit within the pre-determined character limits can be frustrating at times, but it's entirely necessary. Information overload People are drowning in a sea of information. There are an estimated ten billion web-pages on the Internet, which makes standing out from the crowd increasingly tricky. People must be encouraged –often forced – to keep their messages short and sweet. Whilst it's false to say that the Internet is infinite in size – there can only be a finite amount of server space – (although this is so mind-bogglingly big that it is infinite in that it's unlikely to ever reach tipping point). So capacity isn't an issue. But information overload is. Anyone wishing to be heard online has to shout louder and louder to be heard over the cacophonous crackle of the white noise web. For the message receivers, there are keyword searches, RSS Feeds, news alerts and hashtags, each helping to break down the deluge of data into relevant, palatable chunks. For message senders, there are SEO and social media. But it can take a lot of effort just to get the “bobble of your beanie” above the parapet. Keeping messages short, whilst still conveying the key information is an art in e-commerce. And the broader issue of how people shorten messages to friends by text, instant messaging, tweets and other social networking platforms raises the question: What impact does social media have on language? And are textual truncations a manifestation of the net generation's much-maligned attention span? A history of message restrictions Looking back at the popular communication platforms of yesteryear, there really is nothing new about text restrictions. Whilst the 140-character tweet limit was influenced by the 160-character SMS limitations, telegraphy was influenced by carriers charging extra for words that exceeded fifteen characters, and for messages that exceeded ten words. This snippet from The Anglo-American Telegraphic Code, published in 1891, helps illustrate some of the common contractions of the day.
The notion of keeping messages short and sweet has been a marketing mantra for years. Punchy slogans have long been preferred over drawn-out paragraphs. But this is even more so now. Attention spans We're already seeing TV commercials shrinking, which is indicative of people's waning attention spans. The 60-second TV product pitch was replaced by 30-seconds, which in turn is being usurped by 15-seconds. In 2009, over five million adverts were 15 seconds in length on US TV screens, a 70% rise since 2005. Attention spans are nose-diving, a decline instigated by the likes of MTV, computer games and the Internet. The form of organic shorthand that's emerging from mobile phones, social media and general digital connectivity is a natural cast-off from this. Tweets and 'text-speak' are feeding the trend, not causing it. The death of literacy? So is this the death knell for language and literacy? Some cynics would say yes. But there's growing evidence to suggest that digital short form may actually have a positive influence on language. The British Journal of Developmental Psychology has previously reported that text-speak actually aids reading development in youngsters. Shortenings, contractions, acronyms, symbols and unconventional spellings all fall under the broader 'language' umbrella. The more exposure children have to the written word, the more literate they become.
People use contractions in the digital world out of necessity. There is so much digital data to digest on a daily basis that people have naturally sought ways to create more space. Anyone who's ever written an essay with a strict word-limit will know that it's usually harder to cut down a text than expand it. A physically restricted writing space forces us to think about how we convey our message. Ramblings often detract from the core message: less is more. So rather than hindering language, texting and social media may actually aid literacy and help train people to write more concisely. Twitter co-creator Dom Sagolla has even written a book on getting the most out of 140 characters. Only time will tell how language evolves as a result of the digital revolution. But all signs so far suggest that literacy won’t suffer too badly…u no wot I mn?USA Today, BBC [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Twitter’s retweet counters are broken. Here’s what to do about it. [TNW Twitter] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 08:28 AM PST
UPDATE: Twitter tells us it is working to fix the problem and indeed it appears the buttons have now returned to life. You could be forgiven for thinking people had stopped sharing links on Twitter for the day. Yes, Twitter’s official counters appear to have taken the day off and stopped counting the number of retweets to pages around the Web several hours ago. Launched in August on the same day that the previous king of retweet counting, Tweetmeme switched focus to Datasift, Twitter described its button as being designed to “Make sharing simple”. Every time someone tweets a link to a page carrying the button, the counter is meant to update. This makes it a great way for web publishers to tell how popular their posts are. Today though, every new piece of content carrying a button appears untweeted and new tweets to older content aren’t being counted. There’s no acknowledgement of the problem in Twitter’s Status Blog as yet but we’ve contacted the company to find out what’s going on. While the buttons are down, it’s worth noting that Tweetmeme‘s service still works fine. Just type in the URL: http://tweetmeme.com/user/yourusername (swapping in your Twitter account’s username) to see how the links you’ve tweeted about are doing. In fact, although it’s occasionally subject to delays itself, we find Tweetmeme tends to catch more tweets than Twitter’s official version so if you like to keep track on how popular the links you tweet are, it’s worth bookmarking. It won’t stop your latest blog post looking really unpopular until the problem’s fixed though. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
Well maybe the Apple App Store won’t be able to claim it’s the coolest store around. According to the Android Developers Blog the Android Market is going to get some nice improvements … well now:
Over the next two weeks the new Android Market Client will be pushed out to all devices running Android 1.6 and higher. Google is smartly starting to make sure their app market place makes it easy for people to find great apps. It’s worked for Apple, I think it’s working for RIM. My personal experience with the BlackBerry App World hasn’t been great or bad, just there.
When 
It seems that lately just about everyone is developing a Web application version of their site. Most recently, with 
I am not a marketer. But I am marketed at every day in more ways than it is humanly possible to realize. But I do rea and write a lot about social media marketing. There are a myriad of elements in the social media movement that get under my skin. In fact, the terms “social media guru” or “social media ninja” make me cringe. And I believe I’m not alone. So many “gurus” and “ninjas” completely turn us off because they’re not only cheesy and superficial sounding but they’re jumping on the bandwagon without knowing where they’re going.
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