Verizon Holiday Ads Mock AT&T and the iPhone [VIDEOS]
If the iPhone is indeed coming to Verizon in 2010, as rumors suggest, is it odd that the network’s latest attack ads on AT&T put the iPhone front and center?
The new holiday ads from the company tackle AT&T’s (lack of) 3G coverage yet again, in a theme similar to the “there’s a map for that” campaign. It’s possible, however, that Verizon is attacking AT&T rather than the phone itself, essentially saying: nice phone, shame about the coverage.
Nonetheless, the ads are a slap in the face to AT&T, which just filed a lawsuit over the “there’s a map” campaign.
What do you think: are the new Verizon ads effective? (after the break)
Thanks to EricTric for the tip.
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Facebook Goes Offline
February 3, 2010 - 19:22
Tags: facebook, offline, social networking, Things we think
Posted in 1 | No comments
People are using ‘Facebook terminology’ more and more in general conversation so it’s not that surprising that a ‘Facebook verb’ was named as The New Oxford American Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’ last year.
Brands are always keen to talk to consumers in ‘their language’ so many of them are starting to harness this trend and [...]
Conan Puts The Tonight Show for Sale on Craigslist
January 15, 2010 - 07:10
Tags: conan o'brien, craigslist, media, NBC, Social, social networking, television, trending, tv
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At least there’s some more humor coming out of the NBC late night debacle. On this evening’s Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien joked that he’s putting the program for sale on Craigslist — while he still can.
However, it appears that the listing itself is no joke, and can be found under the for sale/wanted > collectibles category in Los Angeles. Titled “4 SALE: BARELY-USED LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW,” Conan’s looking for your best offer, but also “willing to trade for Coldplay tickets.”
Here’s the full listing, which includes some additional parting shots at NBC’s expense:
Here’s video of the segment:
Tags: conan o’brien, craigslist, media, nbc, trending, tv
Google Suggest Gets Location-Aware, Too
January 15, 2010 - 04:05
Tags: android, google, google suggest, iphone, lbs, local, location, Mobile 2.0, News, search, Social, social networking
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Just last week , Google added location-aware results to mobile searches on both the iPhone and Android platforms. Now that geographical awareness comes to Google Suggest, the feature that tries to anticipate your search query based on its relative popularity with other users (which can often lead to some humorous results).
Ostensibly to save you time typing in your search query on mobile devices, the search suggestions are now based on your phone’s current or last known location. Ideally this will improve the relevancy of those suggested results by optimizing them based on where you are.
In order to take advantage of the new feature, you’ll have to turn on “Save recent locations” and “Allow use of device location” under the Settings link on the google.com home page. You may also have to refresh the google.com page on your phone’s browser in order to see the location-optimized suggestions.
It’s another step in Google’s march into local territory. Anyone have predictions on what will be next?
Reviews: Google
Tags: -local, android, Google, google suggest, iphone, lbs, location, Search
First-Person Tetris Gives the Classic Game a New Twist
January 15, 2010 - 01:26
Tags: browser games, Games, News, online games, Social, social networking, Tetris, Video Games, Web Apps
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One of the most venerable classic games just got a clever remake with an interesting twist. In First-Person Tetris, the simple act of rotating a block actually rotates the entire screen, shifting your perspective 90 degrees and adding a whole new dimension of challenge to the 1984 puzzler by Russian engineer Alexey Pajitnov.
The game is free to play and all you need is a web browser to take up the new challenge. The simplicity of the concept and style fit very well with the minimalist aesthetic of the original game, yet cleverly extends it to present a whole new take on the classic.
And if your mind isn’t scrambled enough by the regular First-Person version, check out the even tougher “Night Mode” and let us know how long you can keep playing. Because in Soviet Russia, Tetris rotates you!
[via BuzzFeed]
Tags: browser games, games, online games, Tetris, video games
Twitter Grows Internationally, But Very Few Use Location [STATS]
January 15, 2010 - 01:17
Tags: Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, News, Social, social media, social networking, stats, traffic, twitter, united states
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New data from social media analytics firm Sysomos shows that despite the U.S. traffic flatline, Twitter is still growing in popularity internationally.
Whereas in June of last year the U.S. accounted for 62 percent of all active Twitter users, that number has fallen to 50 percent. Significant growth in countries like Germany, Brazil and Indonesia has contributed to Twitter’s burgeoning international user share over the past six months.
Brazil’s growth from 2 percent to 8.8 percent puts it in second place behind the United States for active Twitter users. The UK is close behind at 7.2 percent. Drilling down into users by city, London, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, New York City and Chicago make up the top five in terms of unique users, but New York contributes the most total tweets at 2.37 percent. The data above was compiled from a study of more than 13 million unique Twitter accounts active between October 16 and December 16, 2009.
Another interesting reveal from the study is how startlingly few Twitter users have enabled the location feature that allows geographic information to be attached to their tweets. Only a paltry 0.23 percent of 10 million tweets Sysomos looked at this week were tagged with their locations.
The geolocation feature has only been live to all since November, though, so it may just take some time for the concept to reach people — and for third parties to build features that really take advantage of the location information. For now, it seems that not many people feel there’s a compelling reason to enable the location service just yet.
Surely Twitter’s push to launch its various language versions, including German, Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese, has contributed to its international growth spurt. Do you think international growth is the key to solving Twitter’s growth problem?
[via ReadWriteWeb]
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: Brazil, germany, Indonesia, social media, stats, traffic, twitter, united states
MobileMe Gallery For iPhone Appears in the App Store
January 15, 2010 - 01:08
Tags: app store, Apple, iphone, mashable, Mobile 2.0, News, Social, social networking
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You have a MobileMe subscription and an iPhone, do you? Then you can now download a free, Apple-made app called MobileMe Gallery [iTunes link] that will let you easily browse your MobileMe photos and upload more from anywhere.
You can flip through your existing photos in typical iPhone finger-gesture fashion or take new ones with your phone and upload them to the MobileMe cloud. There’s an option to send photos both new and old to friends and colleagues via e-mail, and the app views videos, too.
You can also use MobileMe Gallery to browse friends’ photos; any friend you’re following will have a blue dot next to his or her name when he or she has uploaded new photos. Chances are you’re sharing your photos on Facebook, Flickr or TwitPic directly because not all your friends have Macs or iPhones, but the Gallery app could be helpful for keeping up with friends if you do hang with a bunch of other Mac enthusiasts.
As is the case with many other Apple products, design is prominent; there’s a sliding ticker of recent photos at the top of the app to give it some extra style. If you want to see how it works firsthand before downloading it, there’s a quick tour video over at Apple’s MobileMe product page. We can’t embed the video, sadly.
Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, MobileMe, Twitpic
Tags: app store, apple, iphone, Mobile 2.0
Google Lures Local Businesses With Place Pages Bait
January 15, 2010 - 00:56
Tags: business, google, hyperlocal, News, place pages, Social, social media, social networking
Posted in Social | No comments
Google’s on a mission to make its Place Pages valuable hubs of location information. Today the company added verification for local businesses who claim their pages and a post to your Place Page feature.
It’s a yet another maneuver in Google’s continuing strategy to dethrone Yelp as the de facto resource for local venue information and customer review data.
Both new features are pretty noteworthy additions to the offering, and they’re designed to entice more local businesses to claim and update their Place Pages, which by association should attract more customer attention as well.
The Local Advantage
Post to your Place Page is nothing more than a Twitter-like status update box with a 160-character limit that updates your business listing with whatever current information you want to expose to the Google audience. You can access it from your Local Business Center dashboard when you’re logged in. Posts expire in 30 days, but it seems likely you’ll be able to delete outdated entries as well.
To further stimulate Place Page adoption, Google is adding a verification badge to pages that are claimed. Think of this as similar to Twitter’s verified accounts, with the main purpose being to assure page viewers that they’re viewing something actively maintained by the business in question.
Place Page Prominence
In case you haven’t been keeping track, Google Place Pages were introduced in late September 2009. From the get-go it was clear these were meant to rival Yelp business pages in function and utility, but appeal to the mainstream searchers using Google for local queries.
We got to witness that strategy in full earlier this month when Google revealed their location-aware mobile homepage Near Me Now. If you need even more proof of a local attack, look no further than the QR code window decals that Google sent to businesses with top Place Pages or the rumored acquisition of Yelp.
For only having been in existence for four months, Place Pages seem to be getting Google’s full attention, and we certainly expect many future updates in the coming months.
Reviews: Google, Twitter, Yelp
Tags: Google, hyperlocal, place pages, social media
TwitPic Worth More Than $10 Million?
January 15, 2010 - 00:16
Tags: Money, Social, social networking, twitPic, twitter
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We’ve seen a host of deals recently in the Twitter app space, but here’s one that we now know didn’t happen: TwitPic selling out for north of $10 million.
Although he doesn’t say who the prospective buyer was, TwitPic creator Noah Everett has revealed in an interview with Andrew Warner of Mixergy that he turned down an offer of “much higher than $10 million” at some point last year.
Beyond that, Everett says that Twitter’s most popular photo sharing site brought in $1.5 million of revenue during 2009, 70 percent of which went to the bottom line. Not bad for what started as one man’s side project without outside funding.
Check out the full interview below for some more details about one of Twitter’s biggest success stories to-date:
White House Throws Its Support Behind Google in China Standoff
January 14, 2010 - 23:58
Tags: barack obama, business, Censorship, Channels, China, google, News, obama, Political, politics, Social, social networking, Top Stories, White House
Posted in Social | No comments
The White House has just made it clear that it supports Google’s decision to not censor search results in China, even if it means no longer doing business in the world’s largest country.
White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs said today that President Obama is supportive of Google’s recent actions. Here’s some of what Gibbs stated to reporters earlier this Thursday:
“We support [Google's] action … in a decision to no longer censor searches that happen using the [Google] platform.” … “Our concern is with actions that threaten the universal rights of a free Internet.”
Today’s statements are an extension of the “serious concerns and questions” that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton alluded to in a statement on January 12. However, the statements goes further to outline the President’s position on the matter. It does not mean the White House will take any specific action, although we may hear more of that during a speech Secretary Clinton will give next week on Internet freedom.
As we specifically outlined and predicted not long after the news broke, the world is beginning to react and the global censorship debate has been reignited. China is showing no signs of backing off on its censorship of the web, either.
This thing is far from over.
[via MarketWatch]
Reviews: Google
Tags: barack obama, censorship, china, Google, obama, Political, White House
Announcing Mashable’s NextUp NYC: The Future Journalist [Social Media Week]
January 14, 2010 - 23:56
Tags: Events, future journalist, nextup-nyc, Social, social media week, social networking
Posted in Social | No comments
I am pleased to announce Mashable’s Social Media Week event, NextUp NYC – The Future Journalist, will be held on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 92YTribeca (Tickets on sale here). The fourth Mashable NextUp NYC will focus on the changing skills and traits of journalists in a changing media landscape.
As the news industry looks to reconstruct its suffering business model, the journalists of today must reconstruct their skill sets for the growing world of online media. The night will consist of networking and a conversation and Q&A with Sree Sreenivasan (Professor and Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor of DNAinfo.com) and Vadim Lavrusik (new media journalist and digital media graduate student at Columbia University Journalism School).
Details
Tickets: There are only 300 public tickets available per event. Tickets on sale through 92YTribeca, a non-profit organization. No further tickets will be released.
Location: 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013
Pricing: $20 in advance, $25 at door. Tickets on Sale Now.
Food and drink: Full cash bar and food menu available
Schedule
6:00 – 7:15 = Open Networking
7:15 – 8:45 = Conversation and Q&A with Sree Sreenivasan and Vadim Lavrusik
8:45 – Bar Close = Open Networking
A Conversation and Q&A with:
Sree Sreenivasan – Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism School Dean of Student Affairs and contributing editor, DNAinfo.com.
Sree Sreenivasan is a tech evangelist and skeptic specializing in explaining technology to non-techies. He is a professor and dean of students affairs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches in the digital media program. Sreenivasan is contributing editor at DNAinfo.com, a Manhattan-news startup he helped launch in 2009 with Joe Ricketts, the founder of Ameritrade and whose family just bought the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field. He also has been a fixture on NYC-area television. For more than eight years, he served as technology reporter for WABC-TV and WNBC-TV and now occasionally appears on various TV shows (on CNN, NBC’s Today Show, CNBC and elsewhere) to talk tech. He has written articles for The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Rolling Stone, National Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes and Popular Science. You can find him on Twitter at twitter.com/sreenet and on the Web at sree.net.
Vadim Lavrusik – Online journalist and M.S. candidate in Digital Media at Columbia Journalism School
Vadim Lavrusik is a new media journalist and social media consultant studying digital media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where he is launching NYC 3.0, a tech start-up news site as part of his Master’s project. He is also currently working as a social media consultant at the New York Times. He’s reported for publications like the Star Tribune, The Minnesota Daily, the Mpls./St. Paul Business Journal and most recently was a guest feature writer for Mashable.com, where he covered trends in news media, and contributed to Poynter Online’s E-Media Tidbits. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/lavrusik and the Web lavrusik.com.
Call for Sponsors
As all of our NextUp NYC events funds go directly to 92YTribeca’s non-profit programming, we are looking for Sponsors to come aboard and support the event. Please contact adamh @ mashable for more information.
Thanks to our Partner
“SMAC – the Social Media Advertising Consortium fosters collaboration throughout the entire social media ecosystem, diving deep into critical issues and staying ahead of this constantly evolving industry. By bringing together buy side, sell side, and research professionals to develop relevant standards, comprehensive research and definitive measurement tools, our goal is to grow revenues and increase engagement. SMAC members are groundbreakers. Entrepreneurs. Thought leaders. Together, we form a community that feeds off each other’s creativity, creating an environment for learning and discovery.”
Tags: Events, future journalist, nextup-nyc, social media week
