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“First iPad Magazine For Kids” Makes Its Debut [VIDEO]

Posted: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:47:02 +0000
An Italian publisher has introduced what it’s calling the first iPad magazine for kids: Timbuktu.
As this video shows, the publisher believes that kids want to read the news, especially when it’s presented as entertainment. A glance at the first issue, available now free via iTunes [iTunes link], shows that the magazine combines bold, colorful graphics (see gallery below) with simple language. For instance, a piece on India’s Census notes that “some people live in big beautiful palaces. Once upon a time, the grandmas and grandpas of the people who live there now were kings and queens.” Another article, “Into the Wild: Conversations with Odd Animals Living in Extremely Cold Environments,” also exploits the iPad’s ability to play sound.
The navigation of the magazine is also interesting: Instead of flipping pages from left to right as you would with a print magazine, you navigate down when a new section starts. One qualm: There’s no way to get back to the table of contents easily from any given page. Instead, you have to flip back pages to get there.
Of course, Timbuktu isn’t the first app aimed at kids. Several children’s books have been adapted for the format, including a few Dr. Seuss titles.

Timbuktu "Into the Wild"

Timbuktu "Emperor Penguin"

Timbuktu "Toys"

Timbuktu "India"

More About: apple, ipad, magazines, publishing
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d.fund: The Startup Seed Fund For Designers

Posted: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:01:35 +0000
Dave McClure’s 500 Startups has unveiled d.fund, a seed fund dedicated to mentoring and funding designers who want to start their own companies.
The new fund, which will start accepting applications for its first class in May, will give seed funding to design-minded founders of different startups. The d.fund was announced during the closing remarks of the 500 Startups Demo Day in Mountain View.
Enrique Allen of 500 Startups says while some of the world’s most successful startups were founded by designers, most people in the profession are still “mercenaries for hire, helping other people get rich.” He cited YouTube, Tumblr, Airbnb, Android, Flickr, Foodspotting, Slideshare and others as examples of the companies designers have built. His argument: Designers can become great entrepreneurs because of their deep understanding of people, their expertise at figuring out what people want and their potential to become visionary communicators.
Allen says designers have the desire to create great companies, but they don’t have the mentorship and education opportunities currently available to technical or business founders. The d.fund hopes to fix that by giving designer entrepreneurs access to mentorship by some of world’s most successful designer entrepreneurs. It’s essentially a startup bootcamp.
To get the d.fund off the ground, Allen and 500 Startups is challenging the world’s top designers to invest $50,000 to the fund by the end of the month. Then, 500 Startups and its partners will match those investments, creating a multi-million dollar investment vehicle for designer founders. In May, d.fund will open up applications for its first round of investments. To find them, d.fund will advertise its existence at design schools and guilds around the world.
More About: 500 startupsd, d.fund, design, designers
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Tired of Waiting On Hold? This Startup Will Do It For You

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:18:42 +0000
Automated operators, bad music and long wait times have never really screamed “excellent customer service,” but few companies have offered alternatives. Now a startup is offering one for them.
FastCustomer is a browser and iPhone app that allows customers to skip both the phone tree and the hold time when contacting customer service departments. Users simply choose who they would like to contact from a list of companies and tell FastCustomer where to reach them when a human is ready to chat.
The startup differs from its closest competitor, LucyPhone, in that it deals with phone tree options on its own. LucyPhone asks customers to select the appropriate options before freeing them from the phone while the service waits on hold in their places. With FastCustomer, the first time the customer picks up the phone it is to speak with a human.
To accomplish this, FastCustomer co-founder Aaron Dragushan personally spent days on hold with about 1,000 different companies. He learned the optimal path to a human operator on each customer service line, and programed FastCustomer to choose those options.
The downside to this strategy is that if a company changes its system, Dragushan needs to change his system. The upside is that FastCustomer can often navigate more quickly than a customer.
“We may get to an operator faster than if you press the buttons yourself, or try to figure it out, or try to wait on hold, Dragushan says. “Because we optimize how fast we can get to an operator.”
When the operator does pick up, the computer asks the operator to dial 1 to be connected to the customer. At that point, the FastCustomer’s phone rings. The company’s computers have waited on hold for 44,447 minutes since it launched about a month ago.
Dragushan is currently routing customer service calls for free, aside from a one-time $.99 cost for the iPhone app. Eventually, he hopes to be compensated by advertisers looking to target ads at people on hold with specific companies or by companies who purchase white-label versions of the service.
“People spend a lot of time on hold every year. Hours and hours,” he says. “If we can give them that time back, it could be worth a lot to them.”
More About: fastcustomer, hold, lucyphone
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New App Translates Food Photos Into Calorie Counts

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:03:14 +0000
Calorie conscious eaters can put away their calculators and pull up their smartphone cameras. Meal Snap, a new app iPhone app by DailyBurn, tells users how many calories are in the food items they photograph using the app.
Sound impossible? We thought so, too. But on a test run, the app [iTunes link] accurately identified everything from a bag of chips to barbecue ribs. For each photo, it returns a ballpark calorie range for one serving of the item pictured.
Hardcore counters, beware: The app’s calorie counts don’t account for serving size and seem to be averages for the food category rather than a calculation of the specific food item (i.e. “turkey sandwich” rather than “turkey sandwich with one slice of cheese and mayonnaise”). They are, however, generally similar to the range that might be included in a calorie counting reference book.
DailyBurn CEO Andy Smith is mum on how the app actually works, referring to it the same way that the Meal Snap website does: “Magic.” He does say that there are both humans and algorithms in the secret sauce and that DailyBurn’s experience building more old-fashioned calorie counting apps helped provide information that makes the photo app possible. The company seems to have paired a photo identification system (powered at least in part by Mechanical Turk) with its existing nutrition information database.
The app doesn’t always identify food correctly, and sometimes calorie counts are too broad to be useful. But users can rate accuracy of each food identification and calorie count, ostensibly helping to improve the optical recognition component. Manually labeling food photos also makes the results more accurate.
But accuracy isn’t the point, Smith says. Intentionally keeping a record of the foods that one eats is the biggest advantage of calorie counting. With the Meal Snap app, users automatically collect a visual food diary as they count calories — even if those counts are aiming for a ballpark rather than a bull’s-eye.
Do you think this tool will come in handy for you? Let us know in the comments below.
More About: calorie counter, dailyburn, Meal Snap, mobile app, weight loss
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YouTube To Get Curated With Channels [REPORT]

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:50:30 +0000
In recent months, we’ve been hearing growing rumors about YouTube adding more curation and original content, and now sources are saying that the video site plans to add “channels” to make itself more viable for Internet-connected TVs.
The Wall Street Journal cites “people familiar with the matter” as saying that parent company Google is planning on altering YouTube’s homepage to focus on subjects such as arts and sports. It plans to add 20 premium channels that would have five to 10 hours of professional programming per week. Other channels would feature current YouTube content (here’s hoping for the “cats running into mirrors” channel).
The whole deal will cost $100 million, according to the WSJ.
This news isn’t particularly novel when you consider YouTube’s recent moves — as well as rumors about its recent moves. In March, Google acquired web video production company Next New Networks with the aim of helping content partners create better videos. At that time, it announced that it was creating a program called YouTube Next to provide grants and training to partners (YouTube Partner Grants program also launched in July to fund talented users).
There were also rumors buzzing around in February that YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar will be building out the site’s recently instated talent program by offering big-name stars their own YouTube channels. Those stars would then fill the channels with original content, while also keeping complete control of those three-minute videos. YouTube, in turn, would rake in the ad revenue.
And let’s not forget sports — YouTube is also apparently in talks with some major sporting leagues to bring even more live games to the site (it has already featured livestreaming Indian Premier League cricket matches).
Adding more curation to the site via channels only makes sense given the direction in which YouTube is apparently headed — and the revenue the site could generate via ad-supported channels.
We’ve reached out to YouTube for comment.
Photo courtesy of Flickr, Evelyn Proimos
More About: Google, video, youtube
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How the Real Estate Industry Is Using Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:36:26 +0000
The real estate industry has seen a number of social media innovations over the past few years. Real estate pros are using social media to provide online property tours, schedule showings and showcase local expertise.
Alexis Lamster, VP of customers at Postling and creator of the infographic below, told us that the company analyzed more than 500 Postling accounts specific to real estate and more than 7,000 small business accounts to extract information on how the real estate industry is using social media.
Does your business operate in the real estate industry? If so, how does your company stack up compared to the data below? Let us know in the comments.

More About: real estate, social media
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MessageParty Reboots, Switches To Place-Based Media

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:27:54 +0000
Just seven months after launching, Y Combinator-backed startup MessageParty is hitting the reset button. MessageParty, previously focused on creating chat parties around locations, has kicked chat out of the party and now wants users to share content around places.
The startup, which is out with a new iPhone application and website Wednesday, refers to the new iteration as “geo-blogging.” The main idea is to get people sharing notes, stories, photos and links related to the places they visit. The ideal end result are rich place pages that encapsulate the personality of a locale.
“People were leaving these interesting messages at specific places, and we realized that maybe a synchronous chat product wasn’t quite right for what people wanted to use it for,” MessageParty co-founder Amanda Peyton explains. “So we decided to kill it and rebuild the entire thing from scratch based on what we learned from the first version.”
The thinking is that a MessageParty users will want to break out the iPhone application at their favorite places and share their own tips or hints, or choose to open it to happen upon what other users are saying about nearby places.
New Yorkers will have a better time seeing nearby messages than those located elsewhere, at least for now. Anyone can start using the service, but the place content is currently New York-centric since MessageParty beta tested the new concept in the Big Apple.
MessageParty’s new approach to linking content to places is far from original, but Peyton believes that mobile users are now ready to embrace place-based media.
“Place-based media is seeing the post ‘The Chelsea Hotel, Chubb Rock, and you can never go home again’ when you’re in Chelsea, watching Lazy Sunday as you stand outside the Magnolia Bakery and reading ‘Missing the A Train, and Taking the Not-the-Quickest Way’ when you’re right by the A train station at 59th st,” she says.
“I am not arguing that place-based media is a new thing, but rather that new technology will allow for a change in the way this sort of media is produced, organized, curated, and discovered.”
This romanticized view of the connection between content, places and the always geo-aware mobile phone-toting city dweller is idyllic. And the idea has merit, but the onus is now on MessageParty to create a compelling enough experience to attract a big crowd.
More About: geolocation, MessageParty, place-based media, y combinator
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5 Tips for Training Remote Employees

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:49:59 +0000
Donna Wells is the CEO of Mindflash.com, software that provides the best online training for small businesses. It makes employee training easier, faster and more cost-effective than ever before.
Every year, I find myself working with more colleagues who work remotely — from home, from outside the office and even outside the country. At my company, more than half of our full-time employees work in places other than our headquarters in Palo Alto, California. It’s not just a trend among software companies; it’s where most businesses are moving. Nearly 75% of the American workforce –- and 35 % of the global workforce — will be mobile by 2013, according to market research firm IDC.
Getting all of these remote folks performing well and in sync is a critical discipline to master. It’s not so simple. There are risks in hiring remote teams such as feelings of isolation and the problems managers face in keeping remote workers motivated, informed and engaged. In my experience, there are some important rules of the road to help get your far-flung employees up to speed and at peak performance.
1. Hire Smart: Recruit Top Talent with Remote Experience
Accept that you’re hiring for two skill sets in any remote worker: The job skills relevant to his or her role plus a demonstrated ability to collaborate and contribute while away from colleagues and manager. You may think you’ve discovered an ideal new product manager out of state with a perfectly aligned C.V. and skill set. But if it’s his or her first gig outside a conventional workplace, that’s a riskier hire than someone with comparable skills but also the experience and confidence in of long-distance employment. Who fits that profile? Typically it’s strong communicators and classic self-starters who are team-oriented. Screen carefully.
2. Give Them the Tools They Need to Succeed
Remote workers have high standards when it comes to fast and reliable access to the information they need to do their jobs. They can be far less forgiving than your HQ office employees. Those tools include obvious basics (i.e. email, Internet and phones), but it also extends to include private networks, shared docs, wikis and logins to the large and increasing number of SaaS applications you probably use to run your business. Our outstanding, remote product manager built an online course to give new employees everything they need to be up-and-running on their first day. I strongly recommend that you have your remote employees’ systems ready when they arrive, or they may not be sticking around for long.
3. Kick Things Off in Person
Plan to have new remote teammates spend their first days or weeks at HQ. As good as collaboration tools are, they are not effective in building the personal relationships and communication shortcuts that come very quickly face-to-face. For the employee, it’s a chance to feel a strong sense of belonging and to establish a positive bond with the boss and whole team. For managers, it’s an opportunity to convey the company culture, to set expectations and start building the trust you’ll need later on to hit mutual goals.
After that initial visit to HQ, settle on the right frequency of follow-up face-to-face meetings. We’ve typically flown the whole U.S.-based team to HQ for the start of each Sprint. Now that the team knows each other very well, we’re experimenting with doing some Sprint kick-offs remotely this year. We bring 1 to 2 of our Latvian colleagues to California once a year, which is a highlight for the HQ team, not just for our Riga-based colleagues.
4. Focus on How You Use the Tools
There are dozens of high-quality and inexpensive tools available to small businesses for training and communicating with remote teams. But which you choose matters less than how you use them. I’ve had to learn to check in frequently during team conference calls to see if remote folks have questions or comments. Use the features that allow simultaneous chat during an online presentation. Both tactics make it easier for remote folks to get a word in edgewise. We use Skype as our primary tool for informal training sessions and group conference calls; Dropbox and Box.net for doc sharing and storage; Rally for agile development team management. We’re all on Yammer all day, every day. Yammer handles the continuous stream of banter, trash talk and rapidfire Q&A that makes up the bulk of our company’s daily communication. In our case, that stream of consciousness covers 10 time zones simultaneously.
5. Let Them Learn at Their Own Pace
Remember that training and then running a remote team requires flexibility that isn’t natural or instinctual to a lot of managers. Devise training and learning processes and programs that play to the employee’s routine and schedule (and time zone), not yours. Let them review new materials at their own pace and on their own. Give them time go back to clarify issues they’re still fuzzy on and to customize their on-boarding experience.
Take any of these issues lightly and you invite unwanted risk. Remember, remote employees will soon make up the majority of your team, if they don’t already.
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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LajosRepasi
More About: business, business productivity, small business, task management, training, WFH, work from home, working from home, Working on the road
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Sarah Silverman Makes Out With Unicorn for Juicy Fruit [VIDEO]

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:37:33 +0000
Is it me or is marketing getting weirder? In the past few weeks, we’ve had videos for Mentos featuring an accident-prone holy man, a strange man in a catsuit for Skittles and now … Sarah Silverman making out with a unicorn on behalf of Juicy Fruit.
The video, which is up to almost 50,000 views since it went up on April 4, is actually the latest in the brand’s “Serenading Unicorn” series. Previous videos have featured the unicorn (OK, a guy in a unicorn suit) performing Devo’s “Whip It” with lip-syncing YouTube sensation Keenan Cahill and miming Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.”
Juicy Fruit, a Wrigley brand (like Skittles), has never been known for wacky marketing, but the web has recently forced it and other formerly staid brands such as Ford and HP to explore their wild side as well.
Does it work? Yes, if Denny’s is any guide. Since that brand rolled out Always Open, another web series, younger consumers have more of an affinity for the brand, according to researcher YouGov’s BrandIndex. (Though Dave Koechner and Silverman are featured in both efforts, they were created by different production companies.) YouGov’s research shows that 18- to 34-year-olds have formed a more positive impression of the brand since the series launched in early March. YouGov’s research is based on a daily online survey of 5,000 consumers. The numbers are based on an average of positive impressions (+100) and negative (-100).
What do you think? Will the unicorn work similar magic for Juicy Fruit? Let us known in the comments below.

More About: Denny's, Juicy Fruit, Sarah Silverman, Skittles, viral videos
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YouTube Video of the Day: Jared Leto Releases Kurt Cobain Cover To Honor the Singer’s Life

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:22:02 +0000
In what is apparently a hotly contested move, actor and musician Jared Leto (he has a band called 30 Seconds to Mars) released a short video in which he covered and dressed up as Kurt Cobain. The video was made awhile ago, it seems, but Leto released it Tuesday to honor the 17th anniversary of the singer’s death.
Whatever the intentions of the video (a lot of outlets and commenters think it’s a shill), in it, Leto executes an impression that might convince less-stable fans that the artist did not actually leave this mortal coil. (It also made us recall fondly that episode of My So-Called Life in which Leto’s character, Jordan Catalano, sings a song called “Red” and then Angela thinks it’s about her, but it’s really about his car.)
He posted the following below the vid on YouTube:
“I heard today (April 5) was the day Kurt passed away 17 years ago. Can’t believe it’s been that long. So grateful for his contribution and inspiration. Not sure I’d be doing this if it weren’t for him. He gave us all permission to create no matter what our skill set and reminded me that dreams are possible. Thanks for that. This made me recall a short piece of film I shot when I heard they were making a film celebrating his life. I made it to explore the character and explore creative possibilities. I never sent it to the studio or to anyone but thought I’d share it now … “
More About: jared-leto, kurt-cobain, music, video, viral-video-of-day, youtube
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Foursquare Checkins Get Encrypted

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:03:06 +0000
Checking into Foursquare just got more secure. The location-based social network is now using HTTPS across its website, mobile site and smartphone clients.
HTTPS encrypts content as it’s transferred over a network, providing protection against attempts to access that data. Even if the network connection is insecure (like a public Wi-Fi hotspot), the traffic over the HTTPS connection is still encrypted and secure.
Foursquare announced the change over Twitter. Foursquare told us that it is moving to HTTPS to “proactively increase the security of all foursquare accounts.”
Foursquare’s move to HTTPS follows similar moves by Facebook and Twitter. Unlike those two services, however, Foursquare’s HTTPS support is turned on by default. The log-in data associated with Foursquare might not be as important as say, Facebook, but the location information associated with the service is a different story.
Foursquare users can now feel more secure that their locations are only pushed out to people they want to share them with, even if they check in via a public hotspot.
More About: foursquare, HTTPS, security
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Rapportive Connects Gmail Inbox & Address Book

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:44:38 +0000
Gmail and Google Contacts users no longer need to exit an email message to look up the sender’s contact information. Gmail add-on and social intelligence startup Rapportive has an update that connects a user’s Gmail inbox to his or her Google address book.
Rapportive, the Y Combinator startup that uses the right-hand side of email messages to display the sender’s social profiles, Facebook updates, LinkedIn info and the like, can now grab relevant contact details from Google Contacts and display them alongside each email message.
“Any photos, phone numbers and occupations in your Google Contacts will be seamlessly integrated into your Rapportive sidebar,” Rapportive CEO Rahul Vohra writes of the integration.
To use the new features, users can select the “Connect my networks” option from the Rapportive drop-down at the top of their inbox and then click “Sign in with Google” to make the connection between Google Contacts and Rapportive.
The integration is quite sophisticated and can identify the same contact from multiple email addresses.
“Suppose you know two email addresses for one of your contacts: john.smith@gmail.com and john@acme.com. Through the gmail.com address, we find John’s Facebook account; through the acme.com address, we find John’s LinkedIn account,” Vohra explains. “When John next emails you from either address, Rapportive will show you a complete profile with information from Facebook and LinkedIn.”
Rapportive has raised upward of $1 million in angel funding and competes with startups such as Xobni, which just released a Gmail plug-in of its own.
More About: email, gmail, rapportive, startup
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How Baby Boomers Are Embracing Digital Media

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:24:54 +0000
Jamie Carracher is a digital health strategist with Edelman Digital in Washington, D.C. You can connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn or read his blog, Aging Online.
This year, some of the nearly 80 million Baby Boomers in the United States have turned 65 and are now “officially” senior citizens. Need context? Vint Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist and one of the fathers of the Internet, turns 68 in June. The web, often viewed as a realm for just the young, is getting older.
The Boomer generation isn’t just big — it’s made up of people who think and act differently than previous generations. As Boomers confront “old age,” they will certainly defy what we think it means to “get old.” It will challenge us to rethink how we use the web and how we engage older people with newer technologies.
Connecting With Friends and Loved Ones Through Social Media
It’s no secret that senior citizens have typically been slow to use new technologies, including social media. But recent trends show older people are among the fastest-growing demographics online. Social network use among Internet users 50 years old and older has nearly doubled to 42% over the past year. In fact, in the U.S. alone there are nearly 16 million people 55 and older using Facebook.
One of the main drivers is the ability to connect with friends and family, as well as share experiences with strangers and new friends. Hesitation to go online is often not because of lack of interest but because many technologies and social networks are not developed with older people in mind.
With numerous social media profiles on Facebook and Twitter, the AARP provides an excellent example of how one large organization is reaching out to older people who are savvy with digital. To create conversation online, the AARP focuses on sharing relevant news, conversation starters and inspirational stories that are of interest to people in their membership. One recent post on people who have given up landlines for mobile phones sparked 138 comments.
Embracing the Smartphone Boom
Smartphones are finally breaking into the older adult market. Numbers vary, but as many as 15% of people aged 55 and older are using smartphones, according to data from Nielsen.
Tablets like the iPad are an excellent example of mobile devices that are enabling older people to access and explore the web in new ways. While actual usage numbers are hard to pin down, each week news media across the country report on ways older adults, senior centers and retirement homes are using these devices. It may not be a quantitative trend, but it certainly is a cultural one.
While overall usage of mobile devices is still small among older people, it’s important to note that mobile usage is growing, and in surprising ways. Older people are gaming on their phones. Around 13% of 55- to 64-year-olds and 5% of people 65 and older play games using a smartphone or standard cellphone, according to a recent study.
Elie Gindi, founder of the senior-focused tech blog ElderGadget, recently told me that the people who follow him and his writers are interested and excited by gadgets and new technologies.
“If it’s good technology, seniors embrace it the same as everyone else,” he said. “The key here is if it is truly ‘good’ and they see a real use for it, whether for entertainment or business or lifestyle. They are smart shoppers who aren’t so much interested in [the] useless ‘bells and whistles’ many products contain.”
A Thirst for Search
Last year, the U.S. web search market grew by 12%, with Bing alone growing 29%. Search sites are often the first stop for any Internet user, and an increase in older users will have huge ramifications for web and content developers. As one commenter wrote on AARP’s Facebook page: “Google search has answers to all questions.”
Not surprisingly, older people in general are more inexperienced at using search. A 2010 paper from Yahoo! Research found some of the oldest users are 29% more likely than younger users to type the full URL of a website into the “Search” box.
While generations may search for things differently, what they are searching for is surprisingly similar. Health information is the third-most common search activity for adults of all ages, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Boomers aren’t researching health information just for themselves. Many are caregivers, which means they are investigating ways that they can help other people (their parents, for instance) get information on questions ranging from Medicare to coping with Alzheimer’s. In fact, 16% of people aged 50 to 64 have searched online for information on long-term care for an elderly or disabled person.
Redefining What It Means to “Get Old”
In the movie Gran Torino, there is a powerful scene where Clint Eastwood’s character, Walt, receives a telephone “for old people” from his son and daughter-in-law with giant buttons and numbers on it. He angrily kicks them out of the house. The generation that sang along to The Who’s “My Generation” and popularized innovations like the personal computer are becoming senior citizens — but they don’t want to be called “old.”
Organizations ranging from retailers to consumer electronics makers are being forced to rethink how they market and make products for older people. As we all look to the future, we must all start to realize that things are going to be different and we need to pay attention and listen.
Key Takeaways
- A growing number of older adults are taking advantage of the web right now. Don’t ignore them.
- As our society and the web mature, we need to make sure we are building it to empower everyone, not just the young and tech-savvy.
- New technologies and web services will need to be intuitive and easy to use but not insulting.
- Accessibility has to be built into the planning processes for new projects from the beginning, including consideration of design, text size and physical usability.
- Once new products and services are ready for public consumption, education is key to make sure seniors don’t fall behind and become victims of a “digital divide.”
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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, nycshooter
More About: baby boomer, digital media, media, old age, senior citizen, social media
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Google Removes Grooveshark App From the Android Market

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:06:57 +0000
Grooveshark fans, we’ve got some bad news: The music subscription service has been removed from the Android Market due to record label complaints.
CNET is reporting Wednesday that the popular music app is absent from the Android Market, with Google telling the publication: “We remove apps from Android Market that violate our terms of service.” We’ve reached out to Grooveshark for comment. As of now, there’s no word as to whether the app will be remotely removed from users’ smartphones.
Back in August, the app was also removed from the Apple App Store amid record label complaints. Unlike services like Rdio, MOG, Spotify and Rhapsody, music is added to the service by its users, which means that copyright violations are much more likely.
We can’t help but think, at this juncture, of Google’s own proposed music service, which has been all over the web lately. This service would act as a locker for users’ music, allowing them to listen to jams across devices, among other functions.
Seeing how Google has allegedly yet to get all the licenses it needs from the music labels, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched that the company would pull an app that raises the labels’ ire at this point in time.
Image courtesy of Flickr, thecrazyfilmgirl
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Launch Your Career in Community Management, Business Development or Engineering

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:37:11 +0000
If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable‘s Job Lists section gathers together all of our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.
But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable‘s job boards are a place for socially savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space and beyond. Have a look at what’s good and new on our job boards:
Mashable Job Postings
Executive Assistant at Mashable in New York, New York.
Marketing Intern at Mashable in New York, New York.
Community Intern at Mashable in New York, New York.
Ruby on Rails Developer at Mashable in San Francisco, California.
VP Product (NYC or SF) at Mashable in New York, New York.
Editorial Intern at Mashable in New York, New York.
Events Sponsorships Manager at Mashable in New York, New York.
Mashable Job Board Listings
Regional Sales Director at Mashable in New York, New York.
NBC Philadelphia Social Media Editor/Lead at NBC10/WCAU TV in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
Senior Level Social Media Strategist at Fleishman-Hillard in St. Louis, Missouri.
Social Media Position at Evins Communications in New York, New York.
SEO Specialist at cj Advertising in Nashville, Tennessee.
Java/Web Developers at UncommonGoods in New York, New York.
Software Development Engineers & Testers at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington.
Associate Director, Project Management at Digitas Health in New York, New York.
General Manager, Brand Partnerships, LA at Rue La La in Los Angeles, California.
General Manager, Brand Partnerships, San Francisco at Rue La La in San Francisco, California.
Brand Partner Manager, San Francisco at Rue La La in San Francisco, California.
Brand Partner Manager, LA at Rue La La in Los Angeles, California.
Brand Partner Manager at Rue La La in Atlanta, Georgia.
Brand Partner Manager, Miami at Rue La La in Miami, Florida.
General Manager, Brand Partnerships, Atlanta at Rue La La in Atlanta, Georgia.
General Manager, Brand Partnerships, Miami at Rue La La in Miami, Florida.
Community Manager at Gameloft in San Francisco, California.
Sr. Social Media Strategist at Fanscape in New York, New York.
Web Developer/Designer at mark./Avon Products in New York, New York.
Senior Art Director – Interactive at VivaKi in New York, New York.
Digital Senior Account Supervisor, PR at Edelman in District of Columbia.
Director of Social Media Strategy at Likeable Media in New York, New York.
Marketing Assistant at Eyefly in New York, New York.
Associate Director of Social Media at Path Interactive in New York, New York.
Social Media Assistant at Black Spectacles in Chicago, Illinois.
Public Relations Manager at Millennium Entertainment in Los Angeles, California.
Ad Platform Management at Demand Media in New York, New York.
Business Operations Manager at Demand Media in Santa Monica, California.
Director/Sr. Director, Cross-brand SEO and SMO Lead at MTV Networks in New York, New York.
Nossi College of Art at Nossi College of Art in Madison, Tennessee.
.Net/Front End Developer at Vail Resorts in Broomfield, Colorado.
IT Business Analyst – EpicMix at Vail Resorts in Broomfield, Colorado.
Email Marketing Manager at Acquinity Interactive in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Account Manager at M80 in New York, New York.
Community Manager at Digitas in Chicago, IL.
Social Media Strategist at One to One Global in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Manager, Guest Services at AMC Entertainment in Kansas City, Missouri.
SVP/Marketing at Digitas Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Interface Engineer at Forum One Communications in Alexandria, Virginia.
Web Developer at Forum One Communications in Seattle, Washington.
Web Developer at Forum One Communications in Alexandria, Virginia.
Social Media Manager at CreativeFeed in New Yrok, New York.
Web Application Developer (Python/PHP) at AWeber Communications in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania.
Integration Services Consultant at Vital Images in Hopkins, Minnesota.
Associate Technical Director, Digital Editions at Meredith Corporation in New York, New York.
Email Marketing Director at A confidential corporation in Provo, Utah.
President at OnGreen in Los Angeles, California.
Email Marketing Coordinator at Warner Music Group in Burbank, California.
Social Media Director at iCrossing in New York, New York.
Talent Coordinator at McCann Erickson in New York, New York.
Customer Service/Social Media at Sullen Clothing Inc. in Huntington Beach, California.
Online Community Officer at Achilles Media in Toronto, Canada.
Social Media Marketing Manager at Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, California.
Senior Director, Global Digital and Social Media at Gap Brand Global Creative Center in New York, New York.
at Proof Integrated Communications in Chicago, Illinois.
Director of Marketing at FLOR, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois.
Information Systems Specialist at Breakthrough in New York, New York.
Project Manager at Synacor in Buffalo, New York.
Project Manager at Breakthrough in New York, New York.
Global Campaign Manager at Breakthrough in New York, New York.
Account Director at Big Fuel in Detroit, Michigan.
GM, Brand Partnerships, LA at Rue La La in Los Angeles, California.
GM, Brand Partnerships, DC at Rue La La in District of Columbia.
Manager, Brand Partnerships, LA at Rue La La in Los Angeles, California.
Manager, Brand Partnerships, DC at Rue La La in District of Columbia.
Mashable‘s Job Board has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out here.
Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($99 for a 30 day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace).
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Top 4 Tips for Creating a Podcast for Your Small Business

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:12:26 +0000
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Podcasts are an interesting challenge for small businesses. They require a little more know-how, energy and time than signing up for Twitter, Facebook or even Foursquare. But they’re not nearly as daunting as you might think, and they offer an excellent opportunity to build a unique audience and generate leads for your business.
The number one tip to starting a podcast is to really enjoy what you’re talking about. It sounds simple. But that passion and enthusiasm for your subject matter is what will capture your audience and launch your podcast above any minor technical shortcomings.
“Technical shortcomings,” you ask? Don’t worry, below we cover some basic tips and tools to get you up to speed. No one is expecting a small business podcast to be flawless out of the gate. They will, however, be looking for your voice, passion and know-how. Read on for four tips to creating a podcast for your own business and don’t forget to share your own experiences in the comments below.
Understanding Podcasts
Podcasts are not extraordinarily difficult to understand. They are simply audio files released through the web on a — more or less — regular basis. While iTunes has become a sort of hub for podcasts, it is not the only way to package and distribute your podcast. Many successful podcasters post their shows on their own sites. This is a good alternative if you want to ramp up your exposure slowly while you get the hang of the format.
Like a YouTube video, podcasts don’t really have a set time limit. They can range from just a couple minutes to upwards of two hours. In the beginning, aim for shorter lengths as you hone your podcast format and presentation chops. You can always make your show longer as your audience asks for more.
But unlike YouTube videos, podcasts rely more heavily on subscriptions, meaning people actually sign up to receive your podcast whenever it comes out (though they can listen without subscribing).
Subscriptions are a blessing and a curse: It is more difficult to attract subscribers, but once you have them signed up, your podcast will have a more reliable fan base week over week.
It’s important to release your podcast on a regular basis. It can be one a day, one a week, one a month, or even longer. Establish a comfortable release schedule and stick to it — your fans will learn to look for your podcast and you’ll help build loyalty. Remember to create a schedule that will give you adequate time for your planned features. For example, if you’re doing an interview-based podcast, make sure you leave enough space between podcasts to find guests and interview them. While you can of course add or remove sections of your podcast, your fans will figure out when this is a planned change and when you simply ran out of time.
Talk About Your Passion
This should be a bit of a no-brainer — talk about something you like to talk about. If that topic is already saturated with top-notch podcasts, try to find a content angle that is unique to you or mix up the format of the show. “People can speak well about the things they care about the most,” says Jesse Thorn, a host of several popular podcasts including The Sound of Young America. That enthusiasm and passion can compensate for inexperience as a presenter or podcast personality.
The most important thing is to give value to the listener, whether that is a laugh or useful information. Thorn acknowledges that it was hard to hit the sweet spot between entertaining your audience and giving them tips. But that balance often depends on more than just your skill in front of a mic. “If you’re in the middle of a tornado, your ‘tornado podcast’ can have the most boring host in the world,” Thorn says. “The more useful and valuable you can make your content, the more a listener will tolerate your relative skill or lack thereof as a presenter.”
Another option is to create two podcasts, one that is business-based and another one where you can be a little sillier and play around with format, says Peter Wells, host of film podcast FulltimeCasual and MacTalk. “For people who have never recorded before, the only way you’re going to get better is to constantly record yourself.” A silly side-project can be a good, stress-free way to hone your craft away from your business podcast.
Still, it all comes down to speaking about your passion. “Just find whatever it is,” Wells says. “If you’re making bottle caps as a business, and you think no one in their right mind is going to think about listening to a show on bottle caps, well, you’re probably right. But there’s probably something about what you do that can be interesting… find that idea and bring it to the table.”
The Right Equipment
The really good news is that you don’t have to break the bank on expensive gear. “The essential skills of podcasting are knowing that you have to have a microphone for everyone that’s talking and knowing the basics of using a microphone,” Thorn says. “Beyond that you can form a solution that could cost $20 to my recording set-up which probably costs, in total, $5,000.” It’s possible to spend five times that on top-notch mics, baffles, and other sound paraphernalia — but ultimately it’s the content that is king.
Wells says he records much of his show through Skype because it allows him and his friends to have better conversations, and it gives him more flexibility to find and record guests that may be further afield. Despite the drop in audio quality, Wells says his numbers have actually gone up since the switch to Skype last year. “Always record with the best quality upfront, but don’t kill yourself over it,” Well says. “If you can get a better guest by recording over the Internet (which you probably will be able to do), I’d say yeah, go for it.”
Wells has a quick tip if you plan to record over the Internet: Have your group of speakers download and use the same recording program and have them all record the podcast and upload it to one source. You’ll get clearer sound and have a couple safety nets in case one Internet connection cuts out during the conversation. Wells recommends using Levelator, free software that helps balance your sound levels.
Perhaps the single best advice is to get up-to-speed with an audio editing program. You won’t have to do anything crazy, but just even basic knowledge like how to cut a track or remove awkward pauses can make a podcast sound infinitely more professional. There are classes and online tutorials for many of the available programs, but often the best way to learn is to download a copy and start playing around. Mac users can use Garageband for a bare-bones option or join PC users and download Audacity for a solid starting block.
Dos and Don’ts
Thorn and Wells offer some golden rules of podcasting — what to do and what to definitely avoid. Thorn says simple is often best. “Many of the most popular and useful podcasts are short, tight and simple. Generally speaking, the simpler the better, and often a part of that is making it shorter. You reduce the chance of trying your audience’s patience.”
Thorn also says to know why you’re making a podcast in the first place. He turns away from podcasts that don’t know who they’re for or are more about the presenter than their prospective audience. “Like any form of web publishing, you’ll be much more profitable talking about and recommending other people than recommending yourself. You don’t have to do a podcast about your business, you can do a podcast about your field of expertise … A PR podcast? No one wants to hear that.”
Well’s comes back to the fun factor — his golden rule is to do something you really want to do and can have fun talking about. He says to avoid direct confrontation during podcasts. “There are ways to argue with someone without attacking them.” The best podcasts are ones that express opinion without making their guests feel like idiots. Finally, if podcasting just isn’t in your blood, Wells suggests finding an existing show that fits into your field and consider sponsoring or pitching them to gain access to their established audience.
Podcasting is not the easiest thing in the world. It is, however, a lot easier than it first seems. It can establish you as an expert in your field and give you access to a whole new audience set. Let us know if you plan to jump into the podcasting deep-end and share your own experiences in the comments below.
Interested in more Business resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.

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More About: business, MARKETING, podcast, small business, tips
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“Gilt for Indie Music” Promotes Bands, Helps You Find New Tunes

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:44:43 +0000
In the same way you can get daily deals on wine tastings and whatnot in your inbox, you can now receive notifications about discounts on indie music from GroopEase.
GroopEase is a newly launched group-buying, members-only site that deals in digital music, offering members discounts on emerging bands’ and artists’ tunes.
In the beginning, the site will offer users two to three discs per week at up to 75% off. Right now, the band on the block is The Filthy Violets. The site features a description of the band and its album, Lackluster Blvd, as well as reviews and one free MP3 for download. If users dig the track, they can buy the album for $5, with 5% of that sale going to The Empower Nepali Girls Foundation.
Each deal will follow a similar formula: 1). The band in question will be up-and-coming, so as to ensure that being featured on GroopEase will serve as ample promotion (which the band might not be able to provide for itself yet), 2). Users can check out and download a song before buying. 3). A portion of the proceeds will go to charity.
The site is invitation-only, but existing users can invite friends to join, an act that scores those users a $1 credit for every friend who signs up.
We have yet to truly see a group-buying or deals site that focuses solely on digital music. Amazon offers daily deals for MP3s, but that offering functions more as a traditional sale than as a community dedicated to music. PopMarket, a deals site from Sony, doesn’t offer sales on digital music, only records and memorabilia.
What do you think of GroopEase? Would you use this service to discover new music?
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More About: amazon, gilt, groopease, group buying, groupon, music, popmarket, sony, startup
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HOW TO: Sustain Momentum After Startup Success

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:17:17 +0000
Wendy Tan-White is the founder and CMO of Moonfruit, a design-focused DIY website-building tool that allows users to set up their business or project. She is also a mentor at 500Startups and the Astia entrepreneurs’ network. You can follow Wendy on Twitter at @WendyTanWhite.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A young company works and works on its first (or next great) product. Blood, sweat and tears are sacrificed. When the product is finally finished, they share it with the world. And, guess what? The world loves it. Mainstream media, blogs, Facebook, Twitter — everyone is talking about this young company. “Buzz” has been created.
And then … everyone moves on. The attention is diverted somewhere else.
In today’s online environment, attention is a commodity. It comes and goes in a flash, and while you may have the eyes and ears of the world one instant, they are sure to be fixated on the next big thing a moment later. If you’re Google or Apple or Facebook this doesn’t matter. They can sneeze and the world will watch. But, for the rest of us, this attention can drive real business value. So, how do you sustain it while ensuring it actually creates real value and not just hot air? Here are a few best practices.
Don’t Let It Go to Your Head
At my company, we see a lot of startups that feel as though the first taste of success is the finish line. In reality, that’s when the hard part begins. A false sense of security can be dangerous. Sustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle.
For example, my company got a major boost from running a Twitter competition to give away 10 Macbook Pros. We began a trending topic and saw our Google page rank dramatically improve. Our traffic permanently increased by 20% and customer adoption began to grow in a meaningful way. However, we were level-headed enough to see this as the start of something great, not the culmination, and we used the noise and resulting customer growth in the U.S. to raise series A funding.
Change From “Push” To “Participate”
When you’re starting a company, it is very easy to fall into the mode where you are constantly pushing your message. That is a critical period where you just want someone to care. So, naturally, you find yourself shouting over and over “Look at me, look at me.” The hardest part of sustaining momentum is being agile enough to turn on a dime, stop shouting so much, and become a part of the discussion. So, how do you do this?
- Your customers must come first: If you can turn these customers into raving fans, they will do your marketing for you. The difficult part is having the commitment to foster these relationships, deliver what your customers need and also have the discipline to measure customer loyalty over time. Don’t underestimate this.
- Focus on expertise, not products: While your products are what you likely care about most as a business owner, your potential customers care about the benefits or experience those products deliver. By engaging in consistent, online discussion (through social networks, forums, blogs, etc.) around your expertise, instead of the products you deliver, the value you offer increases and people are more inclined to listen and not tune you out.
- Don’t spread yourself too thin: You are better off having valuable discussions with potential customers and key influencers in a few places rather than blanketing your message everywhere. Focus on what works and use it to your advantage.
Build Your Business for the Long Haul
This may seem contradictory, but far and away the most important way to sustain momentum following an avalanche of press or social media attention is to not rely on that attention. If your business only succeeds when it’s in the spotlight, you’re doomed to fail from the start.
Ultimately your success depends on having a sound business that delivers results and not just noise. You’ll need a good business model, an operational structure that works and an offering desired by a ripe market. But, once you get a level deeper, there are a few critical steps you can take to ensure that your business is set up to maximize your opportunities:
- Keep visitors on your site: If you receive a spike in interest and everyone comes flocking to your website, only to find a clunky, confusing experience, it won’t matter how much attention you get. Avoid the dreaded high bounce rate by building a web presence that communicates your vision in a compelling and simple way. If you do this, you will make the most out of every visit and marketing efforts will be amplified.
- Know your story: Too many young companies get a taste of the spotlight and feel as if they need to constantly get press coverage that communicates they are the “best,” “leading,” “unrivaled” pioneer in their industry on a daily basis. If that is your only message, you will burn out key media and online audiences in no time. Focus on running your businesses — your real story is what makes you interesting. How you empower your customers is priceless and will ensure long-term quality attention vs. short-term quantitative spikes.
- Focus on being lean, not frivolous: This goes without saying, but particularly if you’re a startup. The concept of being “lean” (Steve Blank and Eric Ries coined the term “Lean Startup”) is critical and allows you to build an agile, less wasteful company. Media attention can help you propel your company, but being lean means you won’t be reliant on it.
We’ve seen a real resurgence in the amount of ambitious startups and small businesses cropping up in the last few years. Perhaps it was the economic downturn that caused people to re-focus and take on new challenges, but I believe we are at the beginning of a new era. Building an amazing and solid business from the ground up can be washed away by mishandling your moment in the sun. Being smart, calculated and committed can help you capture that moment and harness it.
Interested in more Startup resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.

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7 Million Fans Like Leo Messi’s Facebook Page in 7 Hours

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:59:55 +0000
Seven hours after Argentine soccer player Leo Messi started a Facebook Page, he has almost 7 million Likes as of Wednesday afternoon.
To put that number into perspective, it’s nearly 40% as many Likes as U.S. President Barack Obama has on his Facebook Page and about 30% as many as Justin Bieber fans have contributed to the pop star’s Facebook Page — but Messi’s Likes were gathered in hours, not years.
Messi, who plays for FC Barcelona and is considered by many to be the best soccer player in the world, wrote in a translated welcome message on the page, “Hola! Welcome to everyone. Thank you very much for the great number of messages that I have received. I am so excited! From now on we will be more closely connected … through Facebook.”
Lady Gaga beat Obama to 10 million Likes last summer, but we can’t remember another celebrity nearing the milestone so quickly. We’ve reached out to Facebook about whether Messi has set a Facebook record.
Update: Some commenters have suggested that Messi may have automatically transferred fans from his unofficial pages to his official page. While Facebook allows businesses to merge place pages with fan pages and to turn personal profile pages into fan pages, there’s not a public option to merge multiple fan pages. We’ve reached out to Facebook about whether Messi’s page administrator negotiated a merge with a Facebook representative.
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LivingSocial Raises $400 Million

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:16:18 +0000
As rumored previously, daily deals platform LivingSocial, which landed a $175 million investment from Amazon in December, has completed a $400 million round of funding.
The startup declined to name the sources of the funds, saying only that they came from a mix of “public and private investors,” both “new and existing.” LivingSocial plans to use the cash to “carry on its aggressive domestic and international growth and continued product innovation,” the company said in a statement.
LivingSocial also announced that it now has more than 26 million members and that Neil Ashe, a former president of CBS Interactive, is joining its board of directors.
The funding situates the company’s value north of $2 billion.
LivingSocial previously disclosed that, as of December, its deals were bringing in more than $1 million per day in gross sales and that it expects to generate $500 million in revenue in 2010. The company has raised $632 million to date.
Chief rival Groupon raised $950 million in a Series D round of funding in January, a little more than a month after it rejected a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google. The three-year-old company has raised $1.1 billion thus far.
Both companies offer daily discounts on local businesses, such as salons and restaurants (and, increasingly, national and international businesses), via the web, email and a suite of mobile applications. Lately, companies as diverse as Zagat and The New York Times have launched their own one-offs of the daily discounts model.
More About: groupon, LivingSocial
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DreamWorks Throws Facebook Parade for Kung Fu Panda 2

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:11:34 +0000
In another riff on OfficeMax’s put-yourself-in-the-video Elf Yourself promotion, DreamWorks Animation is launching an app that lets users take part in a Facebook parade.
The effort, on behalf of Kung Fu Panda 2, puts your picture and those of all of your Facebook friends on placards during the animated parade video, which lasts about 100 seconds. Furious Five members — characters from the franchise — also appear in the parade. The Famous Group created the app.
With more than 600 million users, Facebook has been a subject of fascination with movie marketers and other types of marketers as well. For the former, though, a foolproof method of hyping a new release (KFP2 hits theaters on May 26) has yet to emerge. Recently, a number of movie-themed Facebook promotions have involved tie-ins with Zynga, including a link with the game FrontierVille for Paramount’s Johnny Depp-starred animated feature Rango and a Mafia Wars plug in early January for Sony Pictures’s The Green Hornet.
Elf Yourself, introduced in 2005, has prompted more than 400 million downloads and inspired avatar customization efforts from Hotels.com, among others.
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How Companies Can Create a Brand Identity With Text Alone

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:49:43 +0000
The Web Development Series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here.
For the third and final installment in our three-part series on logo design, we’re taking a look at the simplicity of the logotype — a brand identity that contains only text.
Logotypes, like those of Facebook or Etsy, play on two important facets of design — typography and color — to the exclusion of other elements. They can be elegant and even clever, or they can fall flat. We’ll take a look at how a few examples walk that line.
Our panel of experts includes UK logo designer Graham Smith, designer and logo design blogger Jacob Cass and Raj Abhyanker, CEO of Trademarkia, a firm specializing in trademarks and logos.
Read on for their advice, and designers, please share your own experiences and opinions in the comments section.
How to Handle Logotypes
Smith is a fan of “strong and well executed” logotypes.
“We see them all the time in the fashion and retail stores, as well as the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. The latter [are] the bolder and vibrant online variations of type-only logo designs that work to cut above all the visual noise one finds online. The Facebook logo brings a calm yet firm aesthetic.”
Smith pointed out that at the time Facebook’s logo was being designed, the trend was toward the “Web 2.0″ look of funky fonts and lots of transparency layers. But the young company “showed that a type-only logo in just one color needn’t be dull or useless.” He says that several of his clients have looked to the Facebook logo as guide for their own branding.
Cass shares his own “very generic” rule of thumb about logotypes: “If your company has a unique name, then you could get away with a logotype. But if you have a generic name, then you’re going to need something to identify the company by, which can be achieved by using a logo mark.”
He also says he enjoys seeing unique logotypes that incorporate interesting or “hidden” shapes into an otherwise simple logo. “I recently designed a logo for a company by the rather generic name of Redwave Systems. Rather than creating a mark for the business, I created a unique logotype by ‘hiding’ a wave in the logo.” A prominent example of a clever logo is the FedEx logo, which has an arrow between the E and X.
Abhyanker advises, however, that logotypes tend to be “less distinctive, more generic,” and many color and type combinations are common enough that they open the doors to potential trademark litigation.
“Ultimately,” Smith concludes, “it comes down to the brief, and what is needed visually to represent the client. If the brief and subsequent research leads you to a logotype as the best solution to represent the identity of a company, then that’s what you do.”
Chime In
We’d love to get your feedback in the comments. Designers, how would you have answered the questions we posed to the panel this week?
You can also take a look at the first post in the series, which focuses mainly on logo design for startups, and the second logo design post, which is all about spec work, contests, crowdsourcing and the dangerous allure of trendy logos.
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More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:
- Ruby on Rails: Scaling Your App for Rapid Growth
- HOW TO: Transfer Your Blog From WordPress.com to WordPress.org [VIDEO]
- A Beginner’s Guide to Integrated Development Environments
- 10 Chrome Web Apps to Check Out
- 10 Tools for Getting Web Design Feedback
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More About: design, graham smith, jacob cass, logo design, logo design series, startup design, trademarkia, web design, web development series
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Britney Spears’s “‘Till the World Ends” Video Premieres Today on Vevo

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:40:27 +0000
Daniel Pinchbeck, do we have a music video for you. Britney Spears’s 2012, endtime-inspired music video, “‘Till the World Ends” premieres Wednesday on Vevo.
Tons of folks believe that the world will end (or shift considerably, at least) in 2012, a theory that seems to be the focal point of Spears‘s video for a single off of her new album, Femme Fatale. (She’s currently at the top of the Billboard 200 chart for that disc.)
If you’re one of those kids who wore out their Matrix Reloaded DVD at that section of the film, this vid could definitely serve as a replacement.
The video drops today courtesy of Vevo and can be viewed on Vevo.com, Vevo Mobile (iOS and Android), Vevo-connected devices and syndication partners like YouTube.
If the world does in fact end next year, I, for one, hope there’s an awesome DJ on hand. Maybe not so much all the leather, though.
More About: 2012, britney spears, femme-fatale, music, vevo, video
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LinkedIn Launches Revamped Developer Platform

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:00:23 +0000
LinkedIn has announced that it’s opening its developer platform, including its faster JavaScript APIs and customizable plugins, to all developers.
LinkedIn first released its original developer platform in 2009, complete with a set of APIs for letting third-party applications integrate aspects of LinkedIn in their apps. Still, its platform lacked certain features like OAuth 2.0 and advanced Javascript API support, something the company has been testing for the past few months.
The new LinkedIn Developer Platform and website make these APIs available to anyone who wants to use them. LinkedIn also opens its new platform for plug-ins, including the “Sign in with LinkedIn” button and the LinkedIn Share buttons you see on Mashable’s business and marketing stories. There are also plug-ins for member profiles, company profiles and a Recommend button that lets users recommend your products through their LinkedIn network.
The developer platform has also been overhauled with improvements under the hood. It includes a new Javascript framework that “loads significantly faster,” as well as support for SSL and improved support for OAuth. The website has also been simplified to make it easier to get started with LinkedIn’s APIs and plugins.
More About: api, developer, developers, javascript, linkedin, LinkedIn Developer PLatform, LinkedIn Platform, OAuth 2.0
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Mad Men Coming to Netflix Instant

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:45:21 +0000
Netflix has signed a multiyear syndication deal with Lionsgate to bring the first four seasons of Emmy Award-winning series Mad Men to Netflix’s instant streaming service beginning July 27. Additional seasons will be added to the network after they’ve finished airing on the AMC Network.
The first four seasons of Mad Men are already available via instant streaming to Netflix’s customers in Canada under a separate agreement.
Lionsgate and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner announced last week that Mad Men will return to AMC for seasons five and six, with the expectation that a seventh season will air as well.
Mad Men, which debuted in July 2007 to near-immediate acclaim, is a drama series that follows the lives of men and women working in the glamorous — and frequently ruthless — world of Madison Avenue advertising in the 1960s. The show has been awarded the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama three times and the Golden Globe for Best Television Series in the Drama category three times.
In February, Netflix announced a two-year, non-exclusive licensing agreement with CBS to bring hit shows like Frasier, Medium and Cheers to Netflix’s streaming service.
Image courtesy of AMC, Frank Ockenfels
More About: Lionsgate, mad men, netflix
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Facebook Campaign Turns You Into a Hand-Drawn Chipmunk

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:33:37 +0000
Travel and flight search startup Hipmunk has teamed up with one of Reddit‘s most famous artists for a Facebook campaign that transforms your likeness into a hand-drawn version of Hipmunk’s cuddly mascot.
The promotional campaign, dubbed “Hipmunk Me!” is simple: Every person who “likes” Hipmunk’s Facebook Page and posts on its wall between 10 a.m. EST and 10 p.m. EST today, April 6, will be redrawn in the likeness of the company’s scarf-toting mascot. These Facebook Wall posts have to include a favorite travel destination or activity and a request to “Hipmunk me!”
The result is a Hipmunk-inspired drawing that looks like you. (The image below is the “hipmunkified” version of me.)
Another interesting aspect of this story: Hipmunk’s team has commissioned Reddit’s Sure I’ll Draw That to create all the drawings; “SIDT” is a full-time artist who regularly takes art requests on the social news website.
It’s no surprise that Hipmunk would choose a Reddit user to create the drawings. Steve Huffman, previously the founder of Reddit, also co-founded the Y Combinator-backed Hipmunk. He has reunited most of the original Reddit team for his new venture. The team of seven is trying to reinvent travel search with a new type of search interface that makes it simple to assess all of your travel options on one screen.
The startup has been growing, although Hipmunk is playing coy with its actual numbers. “We’ve continued to grow every month this year, even in typically ‘down’ months for travel, in both users (hundreds of thousands per month) and revenues,” Hipmunk’s Alexis Ohanian told Mashable.
Will you be turning yourself into a Hipmunk? Let us know in the comments.
More About: facebook, hipmunk, MARKETING, reddit, y combinator
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YouTube Expands Search Options With Filter & Explore

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:04:04 +0000
YouTube has rearranged and updated its search options with a new feature called Filter & Explore.
When you perform a search in YouTube, instead of getting the usual array of options below the search box, you’ll be greeted with a single Filter & Explore option (or only Filter, if YouTube doesn’t have enough data to offer the additional Explore links). Click on it, and you’ll be offered a number of filters that you can apply to make your search more precise.
For example, when I search for “Bon Jovi,” now I can narrow that query by searching for movies uploaded this week, those that are most popular and those in HD.
Furthermore, the Explore options on the right let me search for other similar bands. I can either search for them by clicking on their names or add them to my current search by clicking on the “+” symbol, which appears on the right as I hover over the band’s name. To do it manually, simply separate search topics with a comma.
Similarly, once I add more topics to the search query, I can remove them by hovering over them and clicking on them in the “Search Results for”: area.
Sorting options are now on the far right of the YouTube window.
The new functionality has so far launched only in YouTube’s U.S.-English interface. Google is working to add it to other areas of the site.
How do you like the new search options in YouTube? Let us know in the comments.
More About: Google, Search, youtube
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How Mobile Payment Systems Are Redefining Commerce

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:57:46 +0000
The Global Innovation Series is supported by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles — it delivers smart mobility services. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.
Thanks to recent tech advances, investments by companies like Apple and Google, and the backing of traditional payment processors (as well as new startups), the mobile payments space is white hot.
Consumers, particularly those in parts of Europe and Asia, have been making purchases using their cellphones for the better part of a decade. Traditional ecommerce solutions aside, however, mobile payments have yet to really go mainstream.
Even if the disruption isn’t happening overnight, mobile payment systems are still poised to help redefine the way business is done all over the world.
Mobile Payment Systems: A Primer
The phrase “mobile payment system” can apply to a number of different technologies and implementations for initiating and accepting transactions using a mobile device.
Forrester Research separates systems into two broad categories:
- Payment systems that utilize a mobile network to initiate or authorize a transaction.
- Contactless systems that use a mobile phone in lieu of a traditional credit card.
In other words, mobile payment systems apply to both how consumers pay for goods, as well as how merchants can process transactions.
Systems that Process Payments
On the processing side, startups like Square want to cut down the barriers associated with accepting credit card transactions.
Last October, Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove discussed three services that allow merchants to accept credit card payments on mobile devices.
Square works by combining a small, square-shaped card reader with a free app for iPhone and Android. Simply plug the reader into the microphone jack of your smartphone and open the app. Now transactions can be processed either by swiping the card or hand-keying the digits.
The promise of something like Square — which charges a 2.75% transaction fee but has no other associated costs — is that it eliminates the need for smaller businesses to set up expensive point-of-sale systems. It’s also portable and can be used with any Android or iOS device.
Square isn’t the only mobile payment processor in town. Intuit GoPayment and VeriFone’s PAYware Mobile are also actively investing in the space.
Systems that Let Consumers Pay by Mobile Phone
When it comes to actually paying for items using your phone instead of with cash or a credit card, the future is all about NFC. Near field communication, or NFC, has been in the works for nearly ten years.
Analysts predict, however, that 2011 is the year that a sizable number of NFC-enabled devices will finally ship to consumers. The premise behind NFC is simple: Rather than swiping a card, just wave your phone at a payment terminal and be on your way.
We’re already seeing pilot NFC implementations from credit card companies and banks, including Visa, Bank of America, American Express and MasterCard.
Last fall, Visa worked with the transit and port authorities in New York to install Visa payWave terminals at select New York City subway stations. The advantages of NFC and contactless payments in areas like the subway are two-fold. First, it’s fast. Second, it helps cut down on the need for paper tickets.
A number of public transit systems are already in the process of transitioning to RFID-enabled transit cards. Using a mobile phone would accomplish the same feat, but with the benefit of also being refillable on the spot.
Going Green and Going Hands-Free
Aside from being able to accept and make payments in more locations, one of the advantages of modern mobile payment systems is environmental. Sure, the ecological impact of a paper credit card receipt is likely small — relatively speaking — but cutting down on excess waste is still good for the environment.
It can also be good for businesses’ bottom lines. Apple, one of the first major retail chains to accept payments using mobile devices (first Windows Mobile powered terminals and later the iPhone), has long emailed customers their receipt by default, only printing it on request.
It’s not clear how much money that decision has saved Apple over the years, but given the high number of transactions that each Apple retail store processes each day, it is likely significant. Moreover, every receipt that is emailed is one less wasted piece of printed paper.
The great thing about mobile devices is that with specialized apps or software, a singular device can represent an array of different types of cards. The same device can act as a credit or debit card, a subway pass and perhaps, even an event ticket. Relying on a mobile device for such transactions eliminates the need for extra cards and saves money and resources.
But How Secure is This Anyway?
Understandably, one of the primary concerns with mobile payments, be it via processing services or via NFC, is security. More than 60 years after the first general purpose credit card hit the market, credit card theft and security continue to be problems for merchants, card issuers and consumers.
Not all mobile payment systems are created equally. Many security experts have questioned whether NFC technology will help or hinder overall financial transaction security. The limited communications range of NFC (the “near field” aspect) makes traditional security obstruction efforts more difficult. However, as a 2006 paper [PDF] by Ernst Haselsteiner and Klemens Breitfuss demonstrated, there are still potential security holes in the system that need to be accounted for.
When it comes to payment processing systems and point of sale systems, data encryption is of utmost importance.
In January, Rick Orr from TabbedOut contributed a guest post for Mashable discussing the security of smartphone payments.
Orr outlined three considerations for users and merchants to consider when making payments via a smartphone. Orr says it is essential to ensure that credit card information is:
- Only sent to the venue’s POS system, rather than passing through third-party services.
- Only stored on your phone, where it’s safest, and not in the cloud.
- Always encrypted when it is sent to the POS system, where the transaction is taking place.
Last month, VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron attacked its competitor, Square, on the basis that the Square card reader and authentication system was insecure. Although VeriFone’s approach and proof of concept were criticized, it highlighted some of the potential pratfalls in this new era of payment processing systems and vendors.
It’s important to remember, however, that current credit card POS terminals and systems are often insecure, yet millions of users use them everyday anyway. At this stage, nothing indicates that there is anything about mobile payments that is anymore inherently insecure than any other system.
Mobile Payments Today and in the Future
Forrester Research opines that the 2012 Olympics in London will be the first major event where mobile payment systems using NFC will be on display in a big, big way. It could be years until more businesses and venues start to adopt mobile payment systems.
In the meantime, we’re seeing mobile payments crop up more and more frequently. Starbucks started accepting mobile payments at stores nationwide in January. Last month, the company announced that more than 3 million people had chosen to pay for their coffee using the company’s app.
As NFC devices start shipping in bulk, we expect to see more vendors test the technology and for rollouts to continue in large cities. Traditional financial services companies, like American Express, are betting on mobile payments to be a big part of the future.
American Express recently announced its new payment system, Serve, that will have a payment to payment and mobile payment component. Visa, Mastercard and Discover are also investing heavily in various mobile payment options and are hoping to outfit more merchants with support for various mobile payment systems.
Who knows, in five years time, paying for a candy bar or sandwich at the deli with a smartphone may be second nature.
What are you thoughts on mobile payment systems and their impact on commerce? Let us know in the comments.
What Innovations Are Improving Your Community?
Do you know of a forward-thinking startup or technology that deserves to be a part of the Global Innovation Series? Let us know about it in the comments below.
Series Supported by BMW i
The Global Innovation Series is supported by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles; it delivers smart mobility services within and beyond the car. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.
More About: android, Global Innovation Series, GoPayment, intuit, iphone, Mobile 2.0, mobile payments, near field communication, nfc, PAYware Mobile, payWave, Square, VeriFone, Visa
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The 4 Biggest Stories in Social Media & Entertainment This Morning

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:21:49 +0000
Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on four particular stories of interest today.
Twitter Unveils New Homepage
Twitter has started rolling out a new version of its homepage, simplifying the interface and refining its pitch to potential new users.
Twitter in Talks To Buy Stealth Startup Bottlenose
Twitter is in talks to buy Bottlenose, a stealth personalization startup that bills itself as “the smartest way to personalize and filter Twitter,” sources close to the matter told Mashable.
Mad Men Coming to Netflix
Netflix has signed a multiyear syndication deal with Lionsgate that will bring the first four seasons of Emmy Award-winning series Mad Men to Netflix’s instant streaming service beginning July 27.
Facebook Reaches Out to Journalists With Page, Workshops
In an attempt to promote the use of Facebook in the newsroom, Facebook has unveiled a new Page and meetup program for journalists.
Further News
- DISH Network is the winning bidder in a bankruptcy court auction for the assets of movie rental company Blockbuster.
- YouTube has revamped its interface for related searches and advanced search options. Now users can select multiple filters in a category, as well as combine related searches.
- Mozilla has published a list of 10 Firefox add-ons that hinder the browser’s performance the most.
- T Magazine has a launched a Tumblr.
Pixable Launches iPhone App With an Eye on Photo Aggregation

Posted: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:01:33 +0000
Pixable, a photo app that launched for iPhone on Wednesday, might have surfaced with one of the only strategies that can still compete in such a crowded space: aggregating photos from other platforms.
You may have noticed there’s a bit of a photo app showdown going on. Social photo apps such as Picplz and Instagram are taking off, and every serious contender in the group messaging space has also entered the group photo-sharing space. Meanwhile, photo app Color has earned a staggering $41 million in funding and a disproportionate number of headlines with its location-based photo-sharing concept.
Pixable first settled on its sorting (rather than sharing) focus when it launched its Photofeed browser app in January. The app connects with Facebook to help users track Facebook photos that are important to them. They can browse categories such as “most popular” and get updates when friends upload new photos. In February, Photofeed launched an iPad app with similar features; together, the apps have been installed more than 300,000 times.
A month before its iPhone launch, Pixable broadened its focus beyond Facebook photos, adding a category for popular photos on Flickr. The startup has since added a category for the most popular Instagram photos and plans to continue expanding to other services indefinitely.

The iPhone version of Photofeed is similar to the desktop and iPad versions. Users can browse different categories of Facebook photos their friends have uploaded (i.e. most popular, new profile pictures), view popular Instagram and Flickr photos, and get push notifications when friends update photos. When viewing Facebook photos, they can still comment on and Like photos as if they were viewing them on Facebook.
Eventually, Pixable co-founder Andres Blank sees the app developing into a personalized photo newsfeed for both friends and events. In his vision, integrations such as Flickr and Instagram will be personalized to show users the most popular photos from their friends on those platforms, and users will also have options to see photos surrounding news events or a specific celebrity without jumping from website to website.
“We’re trying to understand where the important photos from different subjects are coming from, and how do we aggregate them in a smart way,” Blank says.
What do you think of this photo-aggregation tool?
More About: hipstamatic, instagram, mobile apps, photo apps, picplz, Pixable
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