Nexus One Sales Are Lackluster: Here’s Why
Category: Technology>Mashable

Ten weeks after the launch of Google’s Nexus One smartphone, sales continue to remain slow. Mobile analytics firm Flurry, who also projected first week and first month sales for the snazzy device, has just released its latest sales estimates, deducing that in 74 days, 135,000 devices have been sold.

This is in sharp contrast to the Motorola DROID and the original Apple iPhone, which both sold a million units in the same period of time.

Flurry actually used 74 days as a barometer, because that was how long it took for the original iPhone to sell one million units back in 2007. Motorola’s DROID sold 1.05 million units by day 74, and that’s to say nothing of future iPhone releases, which all crossed the one-million-sold mark even more quickly.

Flurry lays out some good arguments for why Nexus One sales have lagged behind DROID sales (and we really do think that DROID is the more accurate barometer, rather than using the 2007 iPhone benchmarks), but we think it’s really all about one thing: Carrier.

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Problem 1: T-Mobile

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Although the Nexus One is available unlocked (for a higher price), it is still largely tied to a single carrier in the United States (and in Canada). That carrier, T-Mobile, has the smallest 3G coverage area of the major wireless telecos. That’s a big problem when you are talking about a phone that really needs to be connected to 3G or Wi-Fi to show off its best features.

Conversely, Verizon has a huge subscription base, the most consistent 3G network and is running a very aggressive ad campaign promoting the DROID.

AT&T may be the bane of many iPhone users’ existence (although it is slowly improving), but the coverage options still trump T-Mobile, even with 3G out of the equation. Fortunately, Google has just made unlocked Nexus One phones available for AT&T and Rogers 3G networks. Unfortunately, this is still a separate version from the T-Mobile Nexus One, which means that if you wanted to switch carriers in the United States or Canada and keep 3G, you’re still SOL.

Once the Nexus One hits Verizon, we expect sales to really start to increase.

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Problem 2: Buying/Getting Support

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When Google officially released the Nexus One, I commented that it wasn’t really about the phone, it was about Google’s new phone marketplace.

Seventy-four days later, this phone marketplace has a lot of problems that still haven’t been completely resolved. First, customers complained about an additional (and excessive) early termination fee that Google charged for users who terminated their contract in the first 120 days of ownership. This fee was in addition to T-Mobile’s fee and as expected, consumers went ballistic. Google has since lowered the ETF to $150, but that still means you’re paying two early termination fees if you cancel in the first four months of use.

Then, there’s the ongoing issue of getting support for the Nexus One. Google has since improved support options, but you still need to potentially deal with three different people: the manufacturer, the wireless company and then Google. That’s problematic and it is something that doesn’t happen for other phones, even on the same carrier. When I had problems with my BlackBerry, I called and was served by a T-Mobile person — sometimes I had to jump through hoops to talk to a RIM specialist, but I didn’t have to call RIM directly.

Plus, I do think that perhaps Google underestimated how many people like to, I don’t know, physically touch a phone before buying it. Now, I’m not one of those people (Hey, I pre-ordered the iPad sight-unseen), but many users are — and not having any store presence is problematic, if only because it decreases visibility.

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Bottom Line

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The Nexus One is clearly not the big hit that many expected it to be — and even on Verizon, it might never be a hit.

However, the fact that DROID numbers are so strong shows that this isn’t a platform problem, it’s an execution problem. It will be interesting to see Google’s next attempt.

What do you think of Nexus One sales? Are you surprised that they are as low as they are? Let us know!

Tags: droid, flurry, nexus one, phone sales

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

PayPal Transfers Made Simple: Just Bump iPhones
Category: Technology>Mashable

The newly released 2.0 version of PayPal’s iPhone app [iTunes link] can transfer money to another iPhone when you bump the two handsets together. Don’t worry, though; you probably won’t do it by accident.

PayPal licensed the tech developed by Bump Technologies, which also powers that iPhone app that friends people on Facebook when you shake your phone.

With this app, you can either enter the e-mail address of your friend’s account or bump your phones together to download the necessary info. Then you enter the amount and send. Your friend can also request money by bumping his or her phone against yours.

Other new features in PayPal’s updated app include a tip calculator, the ability to transfer money from your PayPal account to your bank account and the option to request money from contacts bill or invoice-style. The app is available now, and it’s free.

Tags: App, apple app store, iphone, iPod Touch, paypal

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

4 Ways the Entertainment Industry is Getting More Social
Category: Technology>Mashable

David A. Yovanno is the CEO of Gigya, Inc., a leading social optimization platform for online business. He can be found on Twitter at @daveyovanno or e-mail dave(at)gigya(dot)com.

Now that most social networks are supporting functionality on third party sites — via Facebook Connect, Sign in with Twitter, Yahoo! Open Strategy, MySpaceID, and other similar technologies — entertainment companies are experimenting with a variety of approaches.

While movie promotions on Facebook, top sports moments on YouTube, and MySpace music pages remain key fixtures, many entertainment companies are also now actively focused on how to apply social strategies to their own sites to deepen relationships with fans and become more relevant. Here are four ways on-site social features are benefiting both fans and the entertainment industry today.

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1. Making TV Participatory

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TV has historically been a “lean back” form of entertainment -– just sit back on your couch and let your eyes and ears take it in. Reality TV shows like American Idol broke new ground by making TV participatory -– fans can take action and influence the outcomes — and social technologies are now helping to make TV a “lean forward” experience.

In the most recent season of Dancing with the Stars, ABC made the voting process social. Fans could sign-in to abc.com with a Facebook or Twitter account to cast a vote for their favorite couple, and then donate their status to help support that pair. For example: “Vote to keep Louie Vito and Chelsea Hightower dancing on ABC!”

In the realm of real-time engagement, another example comes from MTV, which enabled live chat for previously aired episodes of the popular show 16 and Pregnant on MTV.com, where viewers could discuss the often controversial content with other fans.

Benefit for fans: Viewers are empowered to not only vote, but get out the vote among friends. Voting with a Facebook or Twitter identity makes voting a personal, rather than anonymous, experience. For 16 and Pregnant, teens have a live forum for sharing thoughts and experiences.

Benefit for TV networks: Fans are highly engaged with the show online, and the shows gain significant exposure on social networks from donated status updates. Traffic is generated back to the show online and off. Offering users a choice of networks for participation appears to boost engagement. For example, data from Gigya shows that for a single episode of 16 and Pregnant, tens of thousands of messages were sent by chat users to their social networks with the following distribution: 40% to Yahoo, 29% MySpace, 24% Facebook, and 7% Twitter.

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2. Bringing Live Sporting Events to Life Online

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In the real world, sports fans experience events together, whether live at the stadium, with buddies at a sports bar, or with family in front of a new 50” LCD TV. Recognizing this, sports media are trying to make online viewership a bit more like the real world.

A slew of sports media added live social chat to their event webcasts this year, enabling fans to participate online alongside the event using their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or Yahoo identity. TNT used it for the NBA Eastern Conference finals and NASCAR Race Buddy series, CBS for its College Football series, NBA.com for ongoing games, and the PGA for the summer tour events including the PGA Championship. Fan messages about the game were syndicated to the social networks as news items in the feed. Even Roddy White of the Atlanta Falcons has gotten into the act on his own website.

Benefit for fans: Live social media integration provides an opportunity to chat about stats, players, and highlights, and to virtually high-five other fans or friends –- almost as if they were watching together in person.

Benefit for sports media: Fans participating with real identities adds authenticity to the socializing. Interactivity means fans are highly engaged, generating more page views, and messages shared to the social networks drive more traffic back to the online event, creating a virtuous cycle.

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3. Giving Music Lovers an Outlet for Self-Expression

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MySpace proved years ago the power of grass roots social efforts to take an artist from obscurity to household name, with Sara Bareilles one of the poster children for resisting the traditional label model. Now music companies large and small are putting social channels to work, and taking a number of new approaches in the last year.

MuchMusic, a music channel on Canadian cable TV, incorporated celebrity tweets and live chat into their MuchMusic awards, bringing fans “backstage” to a behind the scenes interview room. Similarly, MTV incorporated live social chat into its webcast of the “Hope for Haiti” telethon with the aim of further engaging viewers for a special cause.

Reverbnation, a music marketing platform that helps individual artists manage promotion, fan relationships, and other aspects of the business, built a feature enabling fans to register on the site using their social network identity, then build and share their favorite playlists into the feed on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Rather than help the artists build a presence on the social networks and send fans away, Reverbnation has integrated their own site directly with those key platforms to make themselves a one stop shop for the social music ecosystem.

Benefit for fans: Social integration creates an outlet for communicating with other fans, and sharing passion for artists and music –- whether in the form of a comment or their own playlist creation.

Benefit for music sites and artists: Integration provides greater exposure for artists and tracks as well as increased page views for the site.

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4. Driving Word-of-Mouth for Movies

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Word of mouth is everything in the movie industry. Buzz puts fans in seats, and is the benchmark by which the industry gauges traction for marketing efforts. It’s no surprise that studios are experimenting more with social media far beyond basic trailer promotion.

The movie Paranormal Activity broke new ground by using grass roots efforts and word-of-mouth to build buzz and gain a wider distribution for the film. They also took advantage of social media promotion, enabling fans to invite their friends from social networks to join them at the same time that they purchased movie tickets.

Twentieth-Century Fox, together with MTV, got fans directly involved to promote Avatar. They put on a first-ever live interview with James Cameron and the Avatar cast, answering questions from fans, who in turn shared their reactions in a real-time chat via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Yahoo.

Benefit for fans: Movie goers receive greater access to their favorite films and celebrities.

Benefit for movie studios: The campaigns generate new and widespread buzz before and during the theatrical release.

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Conclusion

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When fans connect to a company using a social network identity, they are establishing the basis for a longer-term relationship. The data shared by these connections will allow companies to better segment and serve their fans.

For example, in addition to awareness-generating efforts for individual films, a movie studio could gain greater insight into the specific demographics of those that are responding early to a release and adjust efforts accordingly. They could also more easily continue the dialog by remarketing to users around sequels or films in the same genre.

Whichever path entertainment companies choose, integrating social technologies on their own sites to deepen relationships with fans is a blockbuster opportunity.

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More social media resources from Mashable:

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- How Musicians Are Using Social Media to Connect with Fans
– How The Roxy Became the #1 Venue on Twitter [INTERVIEW]
– The Science of Building Trust With Social Media
– How Companies Are Using Your Social Media Data
– How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, MarsBars

Tags: business, facebook, facebook connect, MARKETING, myspace, myspaceid, social media marketing, twitter, Yahoo

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Classmates.com Agrees to $9.5 Million False Advertising Settlement
Category: Technology>Mashable

Classmates.com — the website that promises to reunite people with their mullet-haired friends of youth — has agreed to pay out a $9.5 million settlement for a lawsuit dating back to 2008 accusing the company of “false advertising” through “deceptive” marketing emails.

The problems for Classmate.com began back in late 2007, when San Diego resident Anthony Michaels received an email from the social networking company informing him that his old classmates were trying to contact him.

In order to see who and why, Michaels had to upgrade to a “Gold Membership.” However, upon forking out to do so, he discovered that nobody was trying to get in touch; it was just a dubious marketing ploy from Classmates.com.

Michaels initiated a false advertising lawsuit against Classmates.com, which became a class action suit that anyone who suffered the same fate as the plaintiff could sign up for.

Fast forward to today: although Classmates.com has admitted no wrongdoing as part of the proposed settlement now waiting for U.S. District Court approval, it has agreed to pay out $3 for every Classmates.com member who upgraded to a “Gold Membership” on the site after receiving an email like Michael’s — estimated to be just over 3 million people.

Whether or not you sympathize with those that fell for Classmate.com’s oh-so-obvious tactics, it’s an interesting case in terms of wider web marketing. Dating sites are known to carry out similar practices, and this settlement may make offenders sit up and take note.

While this particular case may be settled, it’s not the end of Classmates.com’s legal troubles. The site is facing another lawsuit filed just this month, this time a class action privacy lawsuit that accuses Classmates.com of ignoring federal and state privacy laws by making user profiles public via a controversial opt-out scheme.

Tags: classmates.com, lawsuits, social networking

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Why User Competency Matters in Social Design
Category: Technology>Mashable

Adrian Chan is a Sr Fellow with SNCR.org and is a social interaction design consultant and strategist. You can follow him on Twitter @gravity7 and at his blog: gravity7.com/blog/media.

In designing for social participation, we can consider user goals and needs — even interests, features, functionality, adoption and scaling issues. Best practices and popular ways of using social media guide us in our decisions. But there’s a basic concern we seem to often overlook: “What is the user good at?”

We each differ in what we’re good at socially, so asking this question raises other interesting questions that can be useful in mapping the social design objectives for tools, services, social brand campaigns and more. In the answers lie a rich set of possibilities.

If we really take the user experience to heart, we ought to think about user competencies. Users have different competencies in social media applications, just as they have different social skills in the real world. How users socialize, and what they are good at — these are their competencies. In the case of social media, this is as much social and interpersonal as it is technical.

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Using Human Insight

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When we think about user competencies we might first recognize that we need to know more about the user’s experience with social media, but we have little research upon which to draw solid distinctions.

Researching this is hard, and methods are imperfect. Qualitative approaches are difficult to scale, and users do not always describe what they do online with the honest insight we want. Quantitative studies can scale better, but they rely on limited interpretations of user behavior.

Let’s instead do a series of thought experiments using assumptions about some basic and essential insights and principles.

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What We Can Presume About People and Social Media

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If we start with the assumption that people on social media are good at social media, then the following are also true to varying degrees:

• People are good at using social media.
• People are good at interacting with others on social media.
• People are good at making themselves look good on social media.
• People are good at making others feel and look good on social media.
• People are good at making things happen on social media.
• People are good at these things over time, not just once.

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From there, we can continue with the notion that people are good at using social media, which means we can presume that people also enjoy using it, because people generally enjoy things they are good at. So:

• People enjoy using social media.
• People enjoy interacting with others on social media.
• People enjoy making themselves look good on social media.
• …and so on for everything people are good at.

It follows that if people enjoy what they are good at on social media, their enjoyment is a reason for using social media. Their enjoyment would vary according to their own habits and practices, which would include their competencies with social interaction, their presence and self-image online, their relationships and their activities.

• People have a reason to be on social media.
• People are motivated to interact with others on social media.
• People are interested in how they appear on social media.
• People are motivated to help or make others look good on social media.
• People are interested in making things happen on social media.
• People sustain their interest for some period of time.

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Fleshing Out User Motives

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If the above statements ring true and resonate, we can see how easily the user experience on social media might be fleshed out. We can address personal motives, interests, and reasons relating to the user’s sense of self, and reasons related to his or her social status, positions, relationships and activities in social media.

We can easily see that a user’s competencies with social interaction might involve varying degrees of self-reference, attention to and interest in others, sustained engagement through interaction, relationship maintenance, social awareness of activities and practices, and much more.

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Designing the Social

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Much of social media is designed within the context of its own use. Once they’re established and populated, we redesign applications incrementally. We do this in part to avoid upsetting conventions and practices that have taken hold, and also because wholesale redesigns of social tools can be impractical or even counter-productive. Application design and architecture become limiting factors and shape many design considerations.

But if we approach social design from the perspective of what users are good at, we might be better able to think outside our own box.

Goals and rewards – Consider the kinds of goals you might set within your social application and the rewards that may be earned by users who reach them. These might be personal goals and rewards, like game levels, tasks, challenges, or points. Or social goals and rewards, resulting in status, ranking, visibility, lists, features and spotlighting members.

Moods and feelings – Give expressive users ways in which to communicate their moods and feelings. For example, emoticons and gifts, or icons to be used and exchanged with friends or attached to messages and content. These small gestures, while small, can be curiously compelling.

Knowledge and learning – For users interested in research, information, bookmarking, and more search and browse-related activities, provide ways to share discoveries. Capture those learned moments and make them visible — perhaps surface and validate experts and top contributors.

Giving and receiving – For users who enjoy social transactions provide gifts and a means of passing them around privately and publicly. Gifting is a highly social form of communication, and besides being kind, engages a sense of reciprocity in most of us. So it’s naturally contagious.

Helping and assisting – Some users are just naturally good at paying attention to others, and enjoy helping and assisting those with needs or questions. Design ways to surface these needs and create channels by which helpers can pitch in.

Reviewing, recommending, and rating – Users equipped with opinions and a sense of taste can make valuable reviewers and recommenders. Design ways to capture their contributions as social content. This can be designed then into lists, favorite, trends, news and more.

Asking and answering – In a world of search, there are still many occasions when users want to ask questions and get personal answers. And in a world of search results, there are those who enjoy sharing their knowledge, expertise, and help. But questions disappear if they are not captured and paid attention to.

Announcing and sharing – There are users so on top of news that furnishing them with means to announce their discoveries makes for an easy and effective way to keep social content fresh and interaction active. Topical organization, along with trends, help users sort and filter what’s relevant to them.

These suggestions may seem obvious and familiar, but in the context of a particular social service the manner in which they will scale socially will be unique. Unique to the site’s population, and unique to its existing activities and social practices.

So, for example, Foursquare may have many users whose competency is an inclination to recommend little-known discoveries or best-kept secrets associated with places they frequently check in to. Foursquare could capture and reward their interest in recommendations (i.e., what they’re good at) with a different set of badges. Or, instead of points, these users might be featured in a Q/A forum tied to locations or even regions. These users might then become local area experts, and their weekly checkins could be published along with recommended discoveries and social votes provided by users who tried out the recommendations.

Foursquare would then benefit not only by expanding the social incentives and rewards it uses to engage users, but would be doing so for a different type of user. Social practices then become more diverse, new kinds of communication and connection open up, and the experience becomes richer for all when you pay more attention to the things at which your users excel.

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Conclusion

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So I offer this as a supplementary consideration: take an interest in what your users are good at. Take an interest in how they are good at being social with and through your service or application. Learn how to observe what users are doing and how their social habits vary. Think outside yourself and from the perspectives of other people.

Their behaviors may not give them away entirely, but if you develop a palette of personal and social skills that you can use to relate to people different from you, your design insights will be that much smarter.

[img credit: kooklanekookla, flawedartist]

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Reviews: Foursquare

Tags: social design, social media, user experience, user experience design, UX, web design

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Pi Day: Google Doodle Celebrates Math Nerds Everywhere
Category: Technology>Mashable

For most of the world, today is March 14th, or 3/14. To most, that date doesn’t have any special meaning. But to us math nerds, it means only one thing: today is Pi Day! Thankfully, it looks like Google has no shortage of number nerds, because the search giant is marking the occasion with a spiffy new logo filled with some of choice geometry formulas.

π (Pi) is the mathematical constant that has helped school children and mathematics professors determine the circumference of a circle based on its diameter for centuries. The constant starts with 3.14 and continues forever (as it is an irrational number). Many math geeks celebrate the famous math constant (and mathematics in general) on every 14th of March because that date represents the first three digits of Pi.

Google’s new logo, which you can see on the top right, contains not only the famous πr₂ formula, but five other uses of π: measuring the volume of a sphere (V = 4⁄3 πr₃), computing the circumference of a circle (C = 2πr), measuring the volume of a cylinder (V = πr₂h), Archimedes’ calculation of Pi (223/71 < π < 22/7), and even the measuring of a wave.

As a former physics major and long-time math nerd, I love Pi Day, and I am very happy that Google not only celebrated the occasion but created such an intricate logo to mark this day. Almost everyone worldwide will see this logo: it’s Mothers Day in the UK (the fourth Sunday of Lent), and thus they have their own logo to celebrate it, which we have included below.

How will you celebrate Pi Day? Please let us know in the comments!

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Reviews: Google

Tags: Google, google doodle, google logo, Pi Day

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

4 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media as a Catalyst
Category: Technology>Mashable

Chris Allison is a social media strategist at NeboWeb, where he helps clients make the most of the social web. You can follow him on Twitter as the voice behind @Neboweb.

As social media marketing becomes more widely practiced, the questions of the day are less frequently focused on the benefits of social media and more often focused on its implementation. Justifying social media to superiors is no longer the marketer’s biggest challenge.

Instead, marketers are being challenged not on the potential benefits, of which there is ample evidence, but rather on how to get those benefits. Where to start?

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Social Media as a Catalyst

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With this challenge in mind, it’s vital to understand that social media is neither the end nor the beginning of any marketing effort. Rather, social media is a catalyst that works most effectively when it is finely woven into the fabric of a brand’s other activity.

When putting together a puzzle, it helps to take a look at the big picture on the front of the box. Likewise, when putting together a social media strategy it’s necessary to zoom out a little and examine how social media will fit into the context of your other business activities. Below are four pieces of the puzzle that brands can mesh with social media to maximize results.

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1. Cause Marketing

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The socialization of the web has made it evident that brands that want to succeed online must feel and act like humans, not like desperate, distant corporations. Accordingly, some social media marketers have taken on the role of teaching brands how to be human: don’t say stupid things, don’t feed the trolls, and don’t dominate the conversation – pretty fundamental stuff that somehow got lost during the incorporation process.

However, guidelines for not screwing up aren’t enough for brands to really benefit from social media. Until you bring something interesting to the table — something that inspires passion, laughter, or curiosity — nobody will care if you have a Twitter account.

One of the most effective, simple ways to get people to care about what you’re doing is to do something worth caring about: get behind a cause. Brands have been benefiting from cause marketing for a long time, but the catalytic nature of social media has brought three additional benefits to the cause marketing table:

1. Access to increased publicity
2. The ability to be a vocal activist instead of a silent philanthropist by joining conversations
3. The ability to bring customers into the support process

Pepsi is one of the best examples of a brand that has recently seized the opportunity to leverage a mix of social media and cause marketing. Their Refresh Everything project incorporates votes from users to decide where Pepsi will donate their funds as well as a variety of other simple social media features: single sign-on, a Facebook Fan Page, and a blog.

By involving users with a voting process, Pepsi has effectively done three things. First, instead of just doing good themselves, they’ve helped their customers do good, which helps establish a very positive brand association. They have also created a situation that will compel users to share with their friends (in order to accrue votes for the cause of their choice). Finally, they have built a feedback mechanism that will ensure the causes they support are also the most popular among their customers (which is great PR).

Brands can benefit greatly from integrating social media with cause marketing, and they can learn a lot about how to get started from the tactics that Pepsi has used.

Disclosure: Pepsi sponsored Mashable’s NextUp NYC: The Future Journalist event.

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2. The Offline World

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Isolating the impact of social media to the web is an easy mistake to make. It seems natural enough to meet online goals with online activity, but the tangible world of physical objects, locations, and events can often provide a compelling medium to drive fans to engage with you online, or vice versa, you can use your social media efforts to drive activity to guerrilla marketing events like Red Bull’s stash, or simply to brick and mortar stores.

Integrating your social media efforts with real products, store locations, or activities is an important way to acknowledge that you care about the complete customer experience, and that you’re not just in the social media space because it’s popular.

Some of the most successful campaigns, such as Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice, have been focused on driving the purchase of offline products. Similarly, customer support profiles like Comcast Cares would be much less successful if they didn’t have the power to influence real offline change by working with customer support representatives that can help customers on location.

On the surface, social media may look like a simple set of social networks that people use to communicate, but when marketers look deeper they find that it presents a whole new venue for empowering all of their existing services, online as well as off.

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3. Media Coverage

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Though citizen journalism and user generated content have proven to be extremely powerful (Iran’s election crisis, Barack Obama’s massive online get out the vote efforts, etc.), it is important to remember that brands can still benefit enormously from traditional media coverage.

When it comes to social media, or any marketing for that matter, brands must find ways to leverage all of their assets in the same direction. Just like the offline world can easily be used for online gain, so too can traditional media be leveraged in the new media space.

Amit Gupta, founder of several wonderful startups like Photojojo and Jelly, sheds some light on how his businesses have benefited from traditional coverage:

Mainstream press is harder to get, but still drives significant awareness, especially among ‘everyday’ people who aren’t spending all day on the internet. And the names of old media carry
significant cache, enough to drive double-digit increases in conversion rates simple because of the credibility their names lend.

I exchanged e-mails with Amit and he was kind of enough to lend some extended insight on what to expect from traditional media. TV, web, and radio are all able to generate fast, measurable results. With these mediums, people are either interested, or they aren’t. There are comparatively few lagging responses. Newspapers and magazines on the other hand, while carrying significant credibility, produce results that are harder to measure because their content is often read over days, weeks, or even months.

The ultimate success of a social media strategy depends on your ability to recognize problems and seize opportunities to solve them. When considering the needs of your campaign, whether it’s brand equity or an immediate spike in interest, consider traditional media as another tool in your toolbox that could meet those needs. However, remember that part of your strategy should involve doing, saying, or making something interesting and worth talking about. If you don’t do that, no amount of good press can save you.

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4. Technology

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Lastly, your social media strategy is inherently paired with technology. Without technology, social media cannot exist. However, technology’s role in creating a social media strategy often goes understated.

At SoCon10, a social media conference in Atlanta, Carol Kruse (head of interactive marketing at Coke) described the pain her team went through creating a Facebook application, only to find two months later that changes in Facebook’s design would require Coke to restructure the application – a maintenance cost that hadn’t been anticipated. Having a plan in place for making technological changes on the fly is an important ingredient in the fast-paced social media world.

But technology is more than just a potential cost that bloats social media campaigns; it’s also the life that fuels them. Applications like the recently launched MySpace Fan Video are powered by collaboration between experienced creatives and programmers, not just one or the other. Thus, perhaps the most important synergy to be formed by any company delving into social media is one between their technology team, internal or external, and their marketing team driving the strategy.

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Conclusion

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Synergy is the name of the social media game. Whether you’re coming from a small company or a well-known brand, starting as far back as possible, zooming out and staring at the big picture, is crucial to creating a strategy that makes sense.

These are four of the most important pieces to the social media puzzle. If you can think of more or have something to add to these listed, please leave a note in the comments.

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More business resources from Mashable:

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– 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online
– 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
– HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, TommL

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Reviews: Facebook, Iran , Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: cause marketing, List, Lists, mainstream media, MARKETING, PUBLIC RELATIONS, social media, technology

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Google Buzz E-mail Notification Changes Are Coming
Category: Technology>Mashable

Google’s new social network, Google Buzz, is getting some additional refinement, based on user feedback. Today’s news: The search giant is testing new features that will give you control over the flood of Buzz e-mail notifications.

Google Buzz has the benefit of being integrated directly into Gmail. Not only does it have a prominent tab in millions of inboxes, but it also sends e-mail notifications of recent buzz activity to your inbox. If you’re like us, the e-mail flood can get pretty overwhelming pretty quickly. Plus, anytime someone comments on a buzz thread, the e-mail pops right back up.

Google’s heard you loud and clear. In a buzz post, the Buzz team revealed that it is testing two changes to e-mail notifications to help you better manage your inbox. While these changes are not live yet, they should be up in the next few days.

The first change is something we’ve been seeking for some time: The ability to choose which items get sent to your inbox. If you just want an e-mail when someone comments on your post, it will soon be possible. If you want just posts where you are @replied, that’s possible as well. The second feature is a “Mute” link on individual buzz posts, which will stop a buzz post from reappearing in your inbox every time someone comments.

Both changes are necessary if Buzz is to be usable as a product. Still, Google hasn’t addressed our number-one request: collapsible comment threads.

[via CNET]

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Reviews: Gmail, Google, Google Buzz

Tags: email, gmail, Google, google buzz, social media

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Google Wave Keeps Rolling with New Extensions Gallery
Category: Technology>Mashable

Google has just rolled out the first version of the Google Wave extensions gallery, making it easier for users to take advantage of some of the cool add-ons developers are building into the service.

After making a big slash at Google I/O last year, Google Wave (the real-time communication platform that is still in preview) has re-gained some momentum, thanks to an improved API and the addition of e-mail notifications. The addition of an extensions gallery speaks to even more growth on the service’s part.

If you have a Google Wave account, you’ll see an “Extensions” item in your navigation panel. Click on it and you can see what extensions are available to install and then use.

Here’s a rundown of some of the extensions you can install and use now:

Wave Sudoku – Play Sudoku with a friend in real-time using Wave

Developers Extension Installer — Developers can use this to create an embeddable installer for extensions they create

Yellow Highlighter — Adds a yellow highlighter tool to your toolbar

Trippy — Useful for planning trips with friends

Video Chat Experience — Video chat in Wave

Pollo Gadget — Conduct polls and surveys across Wave

AccuWeather — See the weather of people in the Wave or from places you are planning on visiting

Once you install an extension, in most cases it is added to your toolbar and can then be accessed within a wave.

There are more extensions in the gallery and developers can submit their own to be included by going to this submission page for Google to review.

What Google Wave extensions are you using? Let us know!

Disclosure: Mashable has teamed with Google for the Google Wave API Challenge.

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Reviews: Google, Google Wave, Mashable, video

Tags: Google Wave, google wave extensions

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

5 Free Android Apps for Web Developers
Category: Technology>Mashable

This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here.

If you’re a web developer on the go, you may sometimes find the need to test some code, fix an error, or manage remote files when you’re away from your desktop. If you have an Android device, you’re in luck, as the Market has a smattering of handy free apps that are perfect for the on-site programmer or dabbling hobbyist.

If you’re already using these essential extensions for Google Chrome, and these tried and true add-ons for Firefox to make your developer tasks easier, then these five Android apps should complete your developer set.

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1. HTMLeditor

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It doesn’t get any more fundamental than this. HTMLeditor is a simple, lightweight little app that will let you code and test HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. It’s a simple text editor that saves your work to your SD card and previews it in a stripped-down mobile browser. It doesn’t highlight errors, or even render images in the preview, but it still makes for a handy mobile solution.

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2. AndFTP

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If you need mobile access to the content on your web servers, check out AndFTP, an extremely robust free utility. Add login information for multiple domains, choose the one you want to access, and the app quickly (over 3G) pulls up your file tree in an easy-to-navigate interface. Using your handset as though it’s a web-connected USB drive, you can upload and download files from your server, manipulate existing files (move, rename, delete), and browse your own device. The app supports FTP, SFTP, and FTPS connections.

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3. View Web Source

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If you’re surfing the mobile web with Android and come across something that needs a closer “developer’s eye view,” check out the View Web Source app, which will download the full source code of any web page into a text editor, where you can make changes or notes, and copy/paste it out to an e-mail for later review.

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4. Magic Color Picker

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Mulling over some web design ideas while you’re out and about? The Magic Color Picker app lets you browse the wonderful wheel of web-safe colors in your quest for the perfect menu shade or logo hue.

The app gives you color values in multiple formats, including hexadecimal, RGB, HSV, YUV, and HSL, and offers a few choices for ways to visualize your web palette.

The one drawback is that there is no way to bookmark or export the color codes once you find one, so grab the old pen and paper if you need them for later use.

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5. HTML Test

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Studying for the next web dev pop quiz at school? Looking to flex your coding knowledge muscles? The HTML Test app will hit you with 20 timed multiple choice questions about our favorite Internet syntax. Answer them all to the best of your ability, then go back through to see how well you did.

If you take the quiz a few times, you may start to see some questions repeat. But it’s great for a quick study break or the impromptu “Code-Off.”

No cheating!

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Series supported by Rackspace

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Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.

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More web development resources from Mashable:

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- 10 Popular Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers
– 10 Essential Chrome Extensions for Web Developers
– 11 Outstanding Online Resources for Web Developers
– 7 Superb Social Plugins for WordPress

Tags: android, Android apps, apps, code, html, Mobile 2.0, web design, web developer, Web Development, web development series

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Corey Haim Dies: Fans Pay Tribute on Social Media Sites
Category: Technology>Mashable

Corey Haim, best known as one half of “the two Coreys,” was found dead in his home this morning at the age of 38, apparently from an accidental drug overdose.

The actor was a teen icon and heartthrob in the late 1980s, known for his roles in films like Lucas, The Lost Boys, License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream. While his more recent work has been more limited, that hasn’t stopped fans from flooding Twitter and Facebook with responses to this news.

Haim is most prominently known for his work in the The Lost Boys — a coming-of-age story about teenage vampires. The film, which was his first collaboraton with Corey Feldman, has become something of a cult classic, spawning a straight-to-video sequel in 2008, with another follow-up planned. Today, however, it’s a trending topic on Twitter.

Because Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were frequently associated with one another, it’s not surprising that for a brief period of time, “The Goonies” became a trending topic on Twitter as well. However, it was Feldman, not Haim, that starred in that classic.

Facebook groups like “R.I.P. Corey Haim (The Lost Boys)” are also sprouting up.

Haim, who suffered from drug addiction throughout the 1990s and 2000s, gained Internet attention in 2001 when he attempted to sell his hair and teeth on eBay (these auctions were eventually pulled down because they violated eBay’s TOS, which states you can’t sell body parts). He also starred in a reality show called The Two Coreys alongside Corey Feldman for two seasons on A&E.

What was your favorite Corey Haim movie? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: #ripcoreyhaim, corey haim, death

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YouTube Deploys Ads on Mobile Site
Category: Technology>Mashable

YouTube will now display banner ads on the mobile version of its website. Google made the announcement in a blog post today, enticing would-be advertisers to sign up by saying that users of its mobile video website are tech-savvy early adopters with cash to spend — the ideal ad demographic.

Google’s all about the mobile ads nowadays; it acquired mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million last November, and AdWords (those contextual sponsored links in search results and the like) went live on iPhone and Android a year ago.

YouTube has experimented with mobile ads in the past, running exclusive campaigns with select advertisers and deploying ads to some users in the United States and Japan. Sony advertised the DVD release of recent Oscar-nominee District 9 on YouTube mobile, for example.

The company’s leaders and engineers are wise to try and stay on top of this. The search giant is a prominent force in desktop ads, but as more people adopt smartphones it’s not hard to imagine that mobile will eventually be an even more powerful influence in the advertising sphere.

Tags: ads, advertising, business, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, youtube

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

5 Ways to Use Google Wave for Business
Category: Technology>Mashable

Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com.

Remember Google Wave? Clearly, Google Buzz has recently overshadowed Google’s other hotly anticipated social communication platform, but before you ditch your Wave account, give it a second try. There are many useful business applications for Wave, especially in situations that call for collaboration with a group or managing a project. Wave can easily allow users to dispense with the formalities (and expenses) of meetings, phone calls, travel, etc. and instead make it easy to collaborate across time and space.

Here are five examples of common workplace activities that Google Wave can support.

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1. Conferences and Professional Development

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This one probably seems obvious. Departments can set up Google Waves to discuss what’s happening at a particular event. A company with limited funds could send one person to a conference and use Google Wave as a reporting mechanism. Or if several people attend, they can divide/conquer the event and post their ideas and comments in one place.

For example Chris Hoyt, author of the blog The Recruiter Guy, set up a Wave for the human resources and recruiting community during last year’s Social Recruiting Summit. Both attendees and those of us who were interested but couldn’t make it in person were able to join the Wave. It was an opportunity to gain exposure to the content and learn more about the event so people could budget to attend the following year.

One thing I could see emerging from conference Waves are “back channel” discussions. Conference organizers in particular will want to pay particular attention to this and not necessarily view it as a bad thing. If managed properly, it could bring some opportunities for improvement to light during the event.

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2. Decision Making and Problem Solving

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Using Google Wave to discuss a company challenge could be very beneficial — especially when all of the players aren’t located in the same place. That’s exactly why Troy Peterson, CEO of Nibi Software, used Wave to get the company’s development plan finalized.  He brought everyone together in a Wave and let the conversation flow. “The real-time document functionality allowed us to have ‘arguments’ and solve problems together that might otherwise have resulted in ‘back and forth’ threads that went on forever.”

Peterson did mention that adoption was an initial challenge. “Although several of my contacts immediately had Wave accounts, they weren’t necessarily the people I was collaborating with on projects.  It required some arm wrestling to get people on board.” But the results were worth it. “In the end, we have a succinct document that we have all agreed on and that we can compare short-term objectives against.”

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3. Project Management

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The same decision making philosophy applies when you have a project and need to collaborate not only with internal stakeholders, but an external supplier. Google Wave provides an opportunity for collaboration. Hopefully, consultants and/or contractors are able to tap into that dialogue by sharing their Wave account info with client companies.

Rachel Levy, Founder/CEO of the startup website WebinarListings, is using Google Wave with her developer. “We have the list of open items in the Wave, so we can discuss each one. I add an open item, and he can ask me a question about it, or mark it as done.” The main advantage to using this application was being able to track conversations.

This could also be a valuable way to manage the dreaded “scope creep.” You can lay out the entire project in a single Wave once the parameters are agreed upon. Then, you can work through each facet with each side tracking progress and those pesky project deviations. And everything gets documented along the way. New project requirements can even be moved to a new Wave for later consideration.

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4. Brainstorming and Idea Cultivation

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Brendan Gill, with the firm Staircase3, said he and his partners use Google Wave as a medium to organize and facilitate conversations and feedback. “We are a team of entrepreneurs who like to have an idea and make it happen quickly. We use Google Wave to brainstorm our ideas for new business projects.  It’s a great tool for collecting a series of conversations, and we use a different Wave for each different idea.”

Gill explained they would have traditionally used group e-mails for this purpose, but found Wave has numerous advantages, including serving as a centralized repository, and the ability to use add-on features for enhanced productivity. This was especially useful since their management team is located around the globe. “The Ribbit conferencing feature is great for staging an ad hoc conference call. Furthermore, the simple voting widget is a useful way to end each of our Waves where we can stage a vote for a given idea — whether or not we want to put the idea in motion, or just cut it loose.”

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5. Virtual Meetings and Reduced Travel

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Let’s face it. Bringing groups of people together can be expensive. Depending on the project, Google Wave could help foster dialogue without a lot of travel, phone calls, etc. Gill mentioned using Wave to make edits and adjustments on business proposals without having people travel to a central location. “Using Wave definitely reduces the need for thousand-dollar transatlantic flights and many tons of carbon emissions. Obviously without Wave, we would still use e-mails and teleconferencing, but using a better communications platform has definitely cut a number of flights out of our schedule,” he said.

Gill added that, “Collaboration can be done in real-time, if required, which is useful if you’re trying to rush out a project that has to happen quickly or not at all. Or for longer-term projects, you can take your time to think about an idea and come back to the plan at any time you like.”

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Conclusion

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If you’re looking for a way to streamline communications on your next project, Peterson suggests that you “Sign up and use the tool. It may not revolutionize your company’s communications, but it is useful and worth the effort involved in figuring out how it works for your organization.”

Remember the success of a Wave is contingent upon the active participation of the individuals involved. Waves need engagement, attention and clarity. You can’t just ask a question and walk away for a couple days. According to Levy, “The bigger the Wave gets, the slower it gets.” Managing activity and open items becomes essential for productivity.

How are you using Google Wave to improve your work life? Share your stories in the comments.

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More Google Wave resources from Mashable:

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– Google Wave: A Complete Guide
– Google Wave’s Massive Potential for Business Users
– 4 Surprising Google Wave Uses
– How Google Wave is Changing the News
– 5 Impressive Real-Life Google Wave Use Cases

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YanC

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Reviews: Google, Google Buzz, Google Wave, iStockphoto

Tags: business, collaboration, Google, Google Wave, List, Lists, small business

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

AT&T Warns Teens: Don’t Text and Drive
Category: Technology>Mashable

The growing popularity of text messaging — especially by young adults — has had a really negative impact on vehicular safety, as more and more people text while behind the wheel.

Earlier this year, it became illegal for bus drivers or truck drivers to text while driving, but the problem only continues to grow among drivers in general. AT&T is joining in the fight to educate people about the dangers of texting while operating a vehicle by launching a new texting and driving campaign with the slogan: “Txting & Driving: It Can Wait.”

The U.S.’s second largest wireless carrier has created a website that has resources and safety guides for all drivers, but it’s clear that the focus is on teens.

In addition to offering a pledge and contract for teens and parents, AT&T has a Facebook page dedicated to the cause, and even a widget you can insert into your own website to show your support.

What do you think about the campaign? How do you think wireless companies, parents and the government should attack this problem? Let us know!

Tags: att, safety, texting, texting while driving

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Pandora Could Hit $100 Million in Revenue for 2010
Category: Technology>Mashable

Online music service Pandora could hit $100 million in revenue this year, which would represent more than twice as much revenue as the company pulled in for 2009 and potentially set the stage for an IPO.

The new estimate comes from a Wall Street analyst quoted in a New York Times profile of Pandora, a company that has narrowly escaped all but certain death several times since its inception in 2000. The Times credits much of Pandora’s rise to its wildly successful iPhone app, which doubled signups for the service overnight.

Much of it also has to do, however, with the new licensing deal that the company was able to achieve last year that brought royalties down to a much more affordable level that Pandora offsets with both ads and subscription revenue.

As for whether these rising tides might lead to Pandora going public, the Times reports that nothing is imminent, but notes that the company recently hired a CFO — the same one that was at the helm of Salesforce.com when it made its Wall Street debut.

On a side note, Pandora’s success is quite the tale in perseverance. For example, the Times talks of founder Tim Westergren not scoring a venture capital investment until his 348th pitch. In a decade when we’ve seen countless music startups falter or sold off for pennies on the dollar, Pandora’s tale is an inspiring one, and the NYT’s profile is worth a read.

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Reviews: Pandora, iPhone

Tags: finance, online music, pandora

Blog contents are provided by Mashable