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

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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

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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

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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

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Foursquare and SPIN Magazine Turn SXSW Into Musical Scavenger Hunt
Category: Technology>Mashable

For complete SXSW coverage, check out Mashable’s SXSW channel.

Popular music magazine SPIN is going geeky for South by Southwest’s music festival, integrating custom Foursquare badges into its event presence and rewarding the most adventurous users of the location-based game with free tickets to their annual music showcase at Stubb’s.

Festival goers who check-in at music venues can earn points and collect the four custom SPIN badges. Each badge — should you attempt to unlock it — offers a unique experience of the festival and turns the SXSW music experience into a complex scavenger hunt.

Don’t expect these badges to come easy. To earn the SPINsider badge, users will need to check out three bands that SPIN editors recommend. For the Trailblazer badge, users are tasked to see three shows outside of downtown Austin. As for the Animal Collector badge, that requires seeing three bands with an animal in their name, while the Bands on the Run challenges the most diehard of fans to see seven bands in one day.

Of course those that make the effort to unlock the badges could be gifted with a handsome reward — two free tickets to SPIN’s annual showcase SPIN@STUBB’s, which features both up-and-coming artists and more recognizable names like Hole. Unlock the badges and be one of the first ten people to present them at the SPIN loft and the tickets are yours.

SPIN’s Foursquare badge challenge is quite remarkable. From our perspective we see this partnership as a sign that Foursquare’s service transcends the techset, appeals to mainstream audiences, and can apply to any vertical.

Tags: foursquare, music, spin magazine, sxsw, sxsw2010, sxswi

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Gowalla Launches for Android
Category: Technology>Mashable

The battle for social geolocation domination has expanded to Google’s Android platform, as Gowalla, the primary competitor to Foursquare, has just made its debut on Google’s Android app store.

The new Gowalla 1.0 app isn’t some secondhand version of its iPhone counterpart — it’s completely packed with an array of features that allow you to check into locations, view friends, access details about specific locations, and check out your progress completion for trips (a Gowalla feature that lets you earn badges by checking into a set of locations).

Essentially, the app is divided into four sections: Activity (a feed of your friend’s activity stream), Spots (where you find nearby locations to check into), Trips (explained above), and Passport (your personal profile and list of achievements). Each section drills deeper, allowing you to add friends, view maps of specific locations (along with the number of check-ins and people there), or complete a trip.

Here’s the gist of it: Gowalla for Android, from first impressions, is well-designed and has many of the features of its iPhone counterpart, though as Android and Me points out, you can’t create a location within the app quite yet.

It needed to be slick and feature-rich to compete with Foursquare’s Android app (which I think in many ways is superior to its iPhone version). Whether it succeeded…well, that’ll take some time to know. Gowalla users, be sure to tell us what you think about the app in the comments.

Now here are a few screenshots, courtesy of Android and Me. You can check out a full gallery there.

Tags: android, App, apps, foursquare, gowalla, trending

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Xbox LIVE Beats PlayStation Network in Reader Vote
Category: Technology>Mashable

We had a very hotly contested matchup this week in our long-running Faceoff series, with Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE going up against Sony’s PlayStation Network for favorite online console gaming service. After an astounding 35,055 votes we’re ready to declare the winner…

… and Xbox LIVE takes the win! They’ll obviously get an achievement rather than a trophy for this victory. Just a day or so ago the polls were holding steadily even so it was definitely in the home stretch here that XBLA pulled ahead. The final tally reads 19,858 for Xbox LIVE (57%) and 14,258 for PSN (41%), with a surprisingly small tie vote of only 939 (3%).

Thanks to everyone who voted this week! Were you disappointed with the results? Sound off in the comments!

Who would win in a fight: Xbox LIVE or PlayStation Network?opinion

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Faceoff Series: Overall Results

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Week 1:
– Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome
– WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes)

Week 2:
– Tumblr vs. Posterous
– WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)

Week 3:
– Pandora vs. Last.fm
– WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)

Week 4:
– Twitter vs. Facebook
– WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)

Week 5:
– WordPress vs. Typepad
– WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)

Week 6:
– Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard
– WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)

Week 7:
– TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop
– WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)

Week 8:
– Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs
– WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

Week 9:
– Apple iPhone vs. Google Android
– WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)

Week 10:
– AT&T vs. Verizon
– WINNER: Verizon, 1161 votes (AT&T: 538 votes, Tie: 118 votes)

Week 11:
– Google vs. Bing
– WINNER: Google, 2180 votes (Bing: 519 votes, Tie: 97 votes)

Week 12:
– iPod Touch/iPhone vs. Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP
– WINNER: iPod Touch/iPhone, 704 votes (Sony PSP: 639 votes, Nintendo DS: 482 votes, Tie: 108 votes)

Week 13:
– Digg vs. Reddit vs. StumbleUpon
– WINNER: Digg, 14,762 votes (Reddit: 11,466 votes, StumbleUpon: 2507 votes, Tie: 1032 votes)

Week 14:
– Old versus new Twitter retweets
– WINNER: Old style retweets, 1625 votes (New style retweets: 699 votes, Tie: 227 votes)

Week 15:
– Gmail vs. Outlook
– WINNER: Gmail, 3684 votes (Outlook: 980 votes, Tie: 590 votes)

Week 16:
– Boxee vs. Hulu
– WINNER: Hulu, 626 votes (Boxee: 591 votes, Tie: 106 votes)

Week 17:
– Nexus One vs. iPhone 3GS
– WINNER: Nexus One, 6743 votes (iPhone 3GS: 2818 votes, Tie: 592 votes)

Week 18:
– Foursquare vs. Yelp vs. Gowalla
– WINNER: Foursquare, 1182 votes, (Yelp: 661 votes, Gowalla: 509 votes, Tie: 143 votes)

Week 19:
– AIM vs. GTalk vs. FbChat
– WINNER: GTalk, 2189 votes, (AIM: 1257 votes, FbChat: 511 votes, Tie: 203 votes)

Week 20:
– Music Ownership vs. Music Subscription
– WINNER: Ownership, 533 votes (Subscription: 299 votes, Tie: 237)

Week 21:
– Match.com vs. PlentyofFish
– WINNER: Plenty of Fish, 430 votes (Match.com: 334 votes, Tie: 187 votes)

Week 21:
– Google Buzz vs. Facebook Vs. Twitter
– WINNER: Facebook, 3353 votes (Twitter: 1828 votes, Google Buzz: 1298 votes, Tie: 651 votes)

Week 22:
– HTML5 vs. Adobe Flash
– WINNER: HTML5, 3892 votes (Adobe Flash: 1779 votes, Tie: 660 votes)

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Reviews: Bing, Boxee, Chrome, Digg, Facebook, Firefox, Foursquare, Gmail, Google, Google Buzz, Google Docs, Gowalla, Gtalk, Hulu, Pandora, Posterous, Seesmic Desktop, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, TweetDeck, Twitter, TypePad, Windows, WordPress, Yelp, aim

Tags: gaming, microsoft, playstation, playstation network, polls, PSN, sony, video games, web faceoff, xbla, xbox, XBox live

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Pepsi Refresh Wants to Give You $50,000 for Your Digital Pro-Social Idea
Category: Technology>Mashable

Last month, Pepsi made the bold move of forgoing Super Bowl ads in favor of a $20 million social media campaign centered around the Pepsi Refresh Project.

Today we’re excited to announce that we have an opportunity to get of our reader’s ideas funded to the tune of $50,000, and it will all happen within the next couple weeks in conjunction with SXSW. We’ll also be keeping you updated about the project and letting you know how you can help here on Mashable.

Here’s how it works:

We’re asking our readers to submit their best pro-social digital ideas to us by Sunday, March 7th, at 11:59pm ET. For an idea of what we mean by “pro-social,” check out some of the submissions already on the Refresh Project site.

We’ll select our favorite, and work with the winning team to formalize an application to Pepsi. Because this is Mashable, our criteria will focus both on the idea and its proposed social media strategy.

We’ll be competing against other “digital influencers” to win the $50,000 in funding. I’ll personally be presenting our choice at SXSW along with the winning team (meaning you’ll have to be at SXSW to present) when the voting portion kicks off on March 13th. We’ll also be using Mashable’s online reach to promote our idea make sure we bring home the funding for it!

Voting will take place publicly via Twitter with a unique hashtag for our chosen team and the #PepsiRefresh hashtag. Voting will end at 11:59pm CT on March 15th.

Interested? Be sure to read Pepsi’s guidelines and eligibility requirements (a key one being this is US-only) and then submit your idea to Mashable by going here. We’ll be in touch with the winning team early on March 9th to discuss next steps. We look forward to your ideas and working with our selected team!

Disclosure: Pepsi is a previous sponsor of Mashable events.

Tags: Pepsi, pepsi refresh, social media, sxsw

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

Microsoft’s “Project Pink” Mobile Project is Real and Coming Soon
Category: Technology>Mashable

When Microsoft unveiled its plans for Windows Phone 7 Series last month, one part of Microsoft’s long-rumored mobile strategy was revealed. However, the second part, Project Pink — a rumored Windows Mobile/Zune mash-up with a heavy emphasis on social networking — wasn’t mentioned at all.

Today Gizmodo is reporting that they have confirmation that Project Pink not only exists, but that it is coming to Verizon.

Gizmodo received some third-party marketing materials that discuss the roll-out plans for Project Pink and while the site didn’t publish those materials (to keep the anonymity of its source), it has confirmed that the photos are the same renderings as the Project Pink leaks it published back in September.

So that basically means that this new phone will look feature a few different shapes and feature the same sliding-keyboard design that the Palm Pre, Motorola Droid and T-Mobile Sidekick sport.

Details concerning specific specifications, price and release date information wasn’t included, but Gizmodo says that the materials indicate that a release appears to be taking place soon.

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How Does This Relate to Windows Phone 7?

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From what Gizmodo can tell (and certainly from what the timing indicates), these new Microsoft phones will not be running Windows Phone 7 Series, as the interfaces are very different. And given the statement from Microsoft that even newly released Windows Mobile 6.5 phones won’t be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 7, it sounds like this phone will operate on an entirely different platform.

Because of the big focus on social networking in the marketing materials, it seems like the phone probably has some sort of platform — whether the apps will be compatible with other Windows Phone Classic apps or if it is an entirely different platform — we just don’t know.

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A Stopgap Release or Something New?

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By announcing Windows Phone 7 Series last month and by confirming that only future devices will work with the software, Microsoft has put itself in a difficult position. On the one hand, they need to announce the new platform so that people know what is coming and so developers can be courted to start working on software. On the other hand, knowing about the future products (and that current Windows Mobile 6.5 devices won’t be upgradeable) really makes it hard to attract new customers in the next six months or so.

This is what is known as the Osborne effect and it can be very difficult for a company to overcome. When Apple famously announced its transition to Intel processors at WWDC 2005, the announcement caught many off-guard, in part because of the fear of an Osborne effect. That ended up not happening and sales of PowerPC Macs remained consistent until the Intel Macs introduction in January 2006, but more often than not, this strategy inevitably means a slow in demand for the current product.

Project Pink might just be a stopgap release — something to sell until Windows Phone 7 launches — but it could also be indicative of a completely different platform.

It appears that these new phones are not fully-fledged smartphones in the Android/iPhone/Palm/Windows Mobile motif — but instead it’s more of a “feature” phone like what Samsung, LG and Nokia offer. That is, you can get a certain selection of apps and go online and message on Twitter and Facebook, but the phone itself lacks the more sophisticated mobile OS.

If that is indeed the case, this might be an opportunity for Microsoft to attack the lower-end of the mobile market (a market that has in many ways been obliterated by smartphones), while also selling something “new” until the flagship product launches this September.

Whether or not this strategy will work will depend on pricing, phone features and how this device is targeted.

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What Do You Think?

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What do you think of Microsoft’s apparent dual-phone platforms strategy? Do you have any interest in a lower-cost social network-centric mobile phone?

Let us know!

(Photo from Gizmodo)

Tags: microsoft, Project Pink, windows mobile, windows phone, windows phone 7, windows phone classic

Blog contents are provided by Mashable

How Much Are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Worth? [REPORT]
Category: Technology>Mashable

For the moment, the valuations we have for private companies like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are based mostly on what we know from venture capital investments.

SharesPost, however, is a company that lets owners of shares in private companies sell them to prospective buyers, and they’ve just released an index detailing valuations of some of the most prominent companies in the social media space.

Here’s what they report:

Facebook: $11.5 billion

Zynga: $2.6 billion

Twitter: $1.4 billion

LinkedIn: $1.3 billion

Linden Labs (Second Life): $383 million

How close are these valuations to reality? Facebook’s most recent investment from DST valued the company at north of $10 billion, while Twitter was valued at roughly $1 billion when it took $100 million in funding back in September. In other words — likely not too far off.

SharePost also says that they’ve been involved “in the negotiations of more than $229MM worth of transactions,” so there is enough activity in their marketplace for them to make rough estimates of valuation. Their estimates also take into account venture capital investments and research reports from equity analysts.

What do you think of the valuations? Let us know in the comments!

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tforgo

Tags: facebook, finance, linden labs, linkedin, Second Life, sharespost, twitter, Zynga

Blog contents are provided by Mashable